Children: God's Custom Gift to Us

Children are a totally customized blessing from God to parents. Think about it: throughout their growing years, your children will a do a million things that will touch your heart, but won't mean anything to other people. Thats why people's eyes glaze over when you tell them how your baby girl cocked her head and looked at you in a knowing way and you were totally blown away. They don't quite get it, because that blessing wasn't made for them. Thats something to shout about right there, the fact that your child (children) are gifts from the very heart of God, that He handcrafted to be a delight only to you, in ways only YOU can understand and appreciate.

Epic Fail: The "Spectacular" Bust Out of Kiely Williams

Former Cheetah Girl Kiely Williams is a beautiful young lady who not so long ago was a regular face in the Disney lineup of young starlets.  She was part of a relatively recent history of young black women (Raven Simone, Kiki Palmer) who found success with wholesome shows aimed at young people from media giants like Disney and Nickelodeon.

She also appears to be a recent albeit willing casualty of the music industry's drive to literally and artistically whore out young girls. Kiely recently put out (pun intended) a video for her single "Spectacular", a sordid tale glorifying a drunken one night stand.  I'm not sure I've heard or seen something quite so worthless from someone who could have done so much better. Neither the song nor the trashy video are worthy of the adjective.




I was both saddened and disgusted to see this latest attempt by a young starlet with a prior body of work I was totally comfortable with letting my daughter watch try to run away from it.  This video and song are such a huge mistake in terms of artistic merit and business sense that its almost incomprehensible why anyone who gave a damn about her career didn't stop it.  The song itself is juvenile in its lyrics and its arrangement. It sounds like an x-rated Disney tune designed for teens overheating on their raging hormones.  The video is a train wreck.  It has the look of someone trying to be trashy but doesn't really know how, which I actually hope is the truth about the young lady herself.  She can't dance and they used a guy in the video who isn't particularly attractive.  As an exercise in provocation marketing, the entire video fails "spectacularly"  in its intended purpose, namely reintroducing Kiely Williams as a sexy hot adult starlet.  How the people responsible for directing her career believed this to be the right business move is simply beyond me.  How do you take a built in market of young people that have watched her for years and simply throw them away? What data convinced her management or her that she had some audience out there that was just waiting for this trash from her?

Perhaps its not that huge a mystery.  Artists like Lady Gaga don't appeal to me and the string of forerunners before her didn't either, but they are rump shaking money makers. Predictably, this bid by Kiely Williams to remake herself in a similar mode has been a "spectacular" fail, with pushback and outrage so severe, she felt compelled to defend it on her YouTube video blog:


She is a beautiful girl and its a shame that her business and career sense are clearly not as striking as her looks. She simply doesn't get the problem here.  Its not about shooting the messenger because we don't like the message. Its about shooting down trashy material that has no redeeming value from an artist whom we've seen better from and had every right to expect better from.  There was nothing necessary or laudable in doing this song and video.  They were a craven attempt to shock and to break into the big money world of selling sex and being racy for profit. The problem for Kiely is, you can buy that product elsewhere and done better.

Kiely made a choice to go this route. She didn't have to.  You'd think she would have taken the lesson from Lisa Bonet's career disaster with the movie Angel Heart . Other stars have taken a pass on this dead end approach to showbiz fame, most notably Raven Simone and Kiki Palmer.  Both of these women have built on the platform of their prior work without whoring themselves out. In Kiki's case, she actively rebelled when  Atlantic Records was pushing to bust her out with suggestive lyrics and trashy material. So even though her label was probably gung ho for this trash, she didn't have to consent to be part of it.

The pushback and outrage Kiely has received is well deserved and we can only hope she and her label figure out this this is a dead end.   Whats your reaction to this mess? Did your kids watch Kiely as a Cheetah Girl? Why can't the music industry and artists coming out of the family fare sector manage this transition without it becoming a race to the bottom?

I'm a Hater

When it comes to Jay-Z, I'm pretty much a hater. I dislike him.  My dislike was crystallized by the song "Roc Boys" where he glorified crack dealers.  I thought it was an extremely cynical, purely commercial (in the sense that it was only for the money) song, and from a values standpoint, it was simply terrible. It didn't help that I liked the tune.  Recently he teamed up with Alicia Keyes for "Empire State of Mind".  Jay-Z combined his get the money hip with Alicia's homewrecker skeez to rock out a performance at the AMA's. But listening to the words, one could not miss Jay-Z's anti-Jesus lyrics.

Jay Z recently released a new video for the song "On to the Next One", which like "Empire State of Mind" is an ode to himself. The video has some disturbing imagery in it, with the goat's head antlers and the cross between bullets being the one that makes you think Jay-Z has a problem with God.  Which apparently turns out to be the case.  On further investigation, apparrently Jay-Z has been dropping anti-God lyrics into his music for years and engaging in the hubris of calling himself "Hov", a derivation of Jehovah.

I'm simultaneously repulsed by its values and engaged by the visuals of the On to the Next One video.  Its dark, its grim, its pregnant with the arrogance of success. The song has an inveitable forward movement rythym that I like and that repeating song being sung in the background of the song makes me think of horror flicks like "Seven".  If I read this video as Jay-Z's way of tilting at the windmill of God, its not hard to imagine the birdlike dancing woman or minor rapper Swizz Beats in the video as Jay-Z's daemonic familiars, populating his dark kindgom of flaming basketballs and money.

If the devil can qoute scripture (and he can) then even a man foolish enough to openly mock God can say something insightful, even inspiring. Jay-Z analyzes his own a success a bit with lyrics like

" I move onward, the only direction
cant be scared to fail, Searchin for perfection"

don’t be mad cos it’s all about progression,
loiterers should be arrested

World can’t hold me, too much ambition

The words are instructive, a challenge to me almost. Jay-Z values, as carried by his music, are poisonus, destructive.  Yet he's rocking the planet at the pinnacle of fame, fortune and influence with the trophy Beyonce at his side, while simultaneoulsly mocking God. Jay-Z is comfortable and confident in his arrogance, in the certainty of his money making creative purpose.  I wonder what's he doing right that I'm doing wrong that our positions aren't reversed? I listen to the lyrics again and again trying to divine his secret, stunned at his defiance of God, jealous and resenful of his success despite that. As I bounce my head and mouth the words silently yet again, I think to myself, yeah, I'm a hater.

Levi & Bristol: The Young and Stupid Leaking the Air out of the Palin Ballon

Levi Johnston recently went on the Tyra Banks show to talk about his relationship with Bristol Palin. On the show he admitted that he didn't always practice safe sex with Bristol and that he believed Sarah Palin knew they were having sex.

He was accompanied on the show by his mother and sister. As I recall, Mom Johnston is facing several drug related felony counts. So this is just an interesting family.

Right Wing News really took exception to Levi's interview. They said it was evidence of no class and I'm inclined to agree. Though I would cut the kid some slack in that he is young and stupid and his family does not appear to win any awards for great responsibility or intelligence either.

Bristol issued a statement in response to the interview:

"Bristol did not even know Levi was going on the show. We're disappointed that Levi and his family, in a quest for fame, attention, and fortune, are engaging in flat-out lies, gross exaggeration, and even distortion of their relationship," says the statement from the Palin family rep, Meghan Stapleton. "Bristol's focus will remain on raising Tripp, completing her education, and advocating abstinence,"

Advocating abstinence? Uh uh, I don't think so.

VAN SUSTEREN: I don't want to pry to personally, but I mean, actually, contraception is an issue here. Is that something that you were just lazy about or not interested, or do you have a philosophical or religious opposition to it or...


BRISTOL: No. I don't want to get into detail about that. But I think abstinence is, like -- like, the -- I don't know how to put it -- like, the main -- everyone should be abstinent or whatever, but it's not realistic at all.

I wouldn't suggest that a teenage unwed mother can't be an advocate for abstinence, though frankly, thats not my first choice to deliver such a message. But just like republicans are questioning whether or not Michael Steele's words of apology to Rush are to be believed after he said that his gaffe was "strategic", similar skepticism can be applied to this statement from Bristol given her interview with Van Susteren.

The continuing tabloid like saga of Bristol Palin is proof positive of the tremendous political mistake it was to use Bristol and her pregnancy to highlight Sarah Palin's conservative values. Because fundamentally, the picture it painted of Palin's family increasingly appears to be a falsehood. Levi suggested that Palin actually let the two of them sleep in the same bedroom on at least one occasion. If thats true, that reflects on Palin's judgment in a way that I dont' see how you can clean it up or square it with conservative moral values. Bristol is young and foolish, so the fact that she has a poorly formed commitment to abstinence is no revelation.

On the right, there is always this spirited defense of Sarah Palin based in part on her representation of superior conservative values, but this tabloid tale lets the wind out of that balloon. Conservative social values and mores are indeed superior, but Palin's family dynamics don't make her a superior example of them. She was put forward by the McCain campaign and now by the conservative movement as an icon of superior family values, but if you do that and the reality is really less than the representation, the man in the street will rightly question if any of the billing is on point.