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Show Notes Moe Factz with Adam Curry for December 2nd 2019, Episode number 17 Shaft Stache Shownotes Robert Townsend (actor) - Wikipedia Mon, 02 Dec 2019 13:13 American actor Robert Townsend (born February 6, 1957) is an American actor, director, comedian, and writer.[1][2] Townsend is best known for directing the films Hollywood Shuffle (1987), Eddie Murphy Raw (1987), The Meteor Man (1993), The Five Heartbeats (1991) and various other films and stand-up specials. He is especially known for his eponymous self-titled character, Robert Peterson as the starring role as on The WB sitcom The Parent 'Hood (1995''1999), a series which he created and of which directed select episodes. Townsend is also known for his role as Donald "Duck" Matthews in his 1991 film The Five Heartbeats.[3] He later wrote, directed and produced Making The Five Heartbeats (2018), a documentary film about the production process and behind the scenes insight into creating the film. Townsend is also known for his production company Townsend Entertainment [4] which has produced films Playin' for Love,[5] In the Hive and more. During the 1980s and early''1990s, Townsend gained national exposure through his stand-up comedy routines and appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Townsend has worked with talent including Halle Berry, Morgan Freeman, Chris Tucker, Beyonc(C), Denzel Washington and many more.[6][7][8] Early life and career [ edit ] Townsend was born in Chicago, Illinois, the second of four children[9] to Shirley (n(C)e Jenkins) and Ed Townsend. His mother ended up raising him and his three siblings as a single parent. Growing up on the city's west side, Townsend attended Austin High School; graduating in 1975.[10] He became interested in acting as a teenager. During a reading of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex in high school, Townsend captured the attention of Chicago's X Bag Theatre, The Experimental Black Actors Guild. Townsend later auditioned for parts at Chicago's Experimental Black Actors' Guild and performed in local plays studying at the famed Second City comedy workshop for improvisation in 1974. Townsend had a brief uncredited role in the 1975 movie Cooley High. After high school, Townsend enrolled at Illinois State University, studied a year and later moved to New York to study at the Negro Ensemble Company. Townsend's mother believed that he should complete his college education, but he felt that college took time away from his passion for acting, and he soon dropped out of school to pursue his acting career full-time. Career [ edit ] Townsend auditioned to be part of Saturday Night Live's 1980''1981 cast, but was rejected in favor of Eddie Murphy. In 1982, Townsend appeared as one of the main characters in the PBS series Another Page, a program produced by Kentucky Educational Television that taught literacy to adults through serialized stories. Townsend later appeared in small parts in films like A Soldier's Story (1984), directed by Norman Jewison, and after its success garnered much more substantial parts in films like The Mighty Quinn (1989) with Denzel Washington.[11][12][13] In 1987, Townsend wrote, directed and produced Hollywood Shuffle, a satire based on the hardships and obstacles that black actors undergo in the film industry. The success of his first project helped him establish himself in the industry.[6][14] Another of his films was The Five Heartbeats based on 1960s R&B male groups and the tribulations of the music industry. Townsend created and produced two television variety shows'--the CableACE award''winning Robert Townsend and His Partners in Crime for HBO, and the Fox Television variety show Townsend Television (1993). He also created and starred in the WB Network's sitcom The Parent 'Hood which originally ran from January 1995 to July 1999. In 2018, Townsend also directed 2 episodes for the B.E.T. Series American Soul which began airing in 2019. The show is about Don Cornelius and Soul Train. Townsend was programming director at the Black Family Channel, but the network folded in 2007. Townsend created The Robert Townsend Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to introduce and help new unsigned filmmakers. Awards and other credits [ edit ] Townsend directed the 2001 TV movie, Livin' for Love: The Natalie Cole Story for which Cole won the NAACP Image Award as Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special. Townsend also directed two television movies in 2001 and 2002 respectively, Carmen: A Hip Hopera and 10,000 Black Men Named George. In 2013 Townsend was nominated for an Ovation Award in the category of "Lead Actor in a Musical" for his role as Dan in the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts production of Next to Normal.[15] Personal life [ edit ] Townsend was married to Cheri Jones[16] from September 15, 1990, to August 9, 2001.[17] Together they have two daughters, Sierra and Skylar (Skye Townsend), both entertainers, and a son, Isiah.[6] Filmography [ edit ] Further reading [ edit ] Alexander, George. Why We Make Movies: Black Filmmakers Talk About the Magic of Cinema. Harlem Moon. 2003.Collier, Aldore. "Robert Townsend: a new kind of Hollywood dreamer. Actor-producer-director plans to make films that uplift and transform Black audiences". Ebony Magazine. 1 June 1991.Rogers, Brent. Robert Townsend Article in Perspectives. Sustaining Digital History, 12 November 2007.References [ edit ] ^ "Robert Townsend". The New York Times. ^ "As Robert Townsend Sees It : He's Fighting Stereotypes With 'Meteor Man' and New TV Show". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 2010-10-10 . ^ The Five Heartbeats , retrieved 2019-09-16 ^ "Townsend Entertainment - IMDbPro". pro.imdb.com . Retrieved 2018-03-06 . ^ "Playin' For Love". Black Cinema Connection. 2014-11-05 . Retrieved 2018-03-06 . ^ a b c "About". Robert Townsend. Archived from the original on 2011-07-14. ^ "Carmen: A Hip Hopera", Wikipedia, 2019-08-09 , retrieved 2019-09-17 ^ B*A*P*S , retrieved 2019-09-17 ^ "Townsend, Robert (1957-)". BlackPast.Org. 2008 . Retrieved September 18, 2017 . ^ "1975 Austin High School Yearbook (Chicago, Illinois)". Classmates.com. 1975 . Retrieved September 18, 2017 . ^ Vincent Canby, "Review/Film; Tropical Murder", The New York Times, February 17, 1989. ^ The Mighty Quinn , retrieved 2019-09-17 ^ A Soldier's Story , retrieved 2019-09-17 ^ Hollywood Shuffle , retrieved 2019-09-17 ^ "2013 Ovation Awards Nominees '-- South by Southeast". thisstage.la. LA STAGE Alliance. September 16, 2013 . Retrieved 2017-04-21 . ^ "The Week's Best Photo". Google Books. JET Magazine. March 25, 1991 . Retrieved September 18, 2017 . ^ Gimenes, Erika (2001). "Robert Townsend to divorce". Hollywood.com . Retrieved September 18, 2017 . ^ "Jackie's Back! (1999)" at IMDb. External links [ edit ] Robert Townsend on IMDbRobert Townsend (Official Website) (9) Charles Woods (The Professor) - Hollywood's Tricknology: Mandingo To Malcolm X - YouTube Mon, 02 Dec 2019 12:59 Tyler Perry Mon, 02 Dec 2019 12:57 Tyler Perry is a world-renowned producer, director, actor, screenwriter, playwright, author, songwriter, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. Tyler Perry's Story Tyler Perry is a world-renowned producer, director, actor, screenwriter, playwright, author, songwriter, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. Read His Story Outreach Since 2006, The Perry Foundation's aim has been to transform tragedy into triumph by empowering the economically disadvantaged to achieve a better quality of life. We focus on health and clean water, education and technology, arts and culture, and globally-sustainable economic development. Get Involved Visit Website You are viewing Tyler Perry Entertainment. If you'd like to view the Tyler Perry Studios, click here. Black writers courageously staring down the white gaze '' this is why we all must read them | Stan Grant | Opinion | The Guardian Mon, 02 Dec 2019 12:46 The white gaze '' it is a phrase that resonates in black American literature. Writers from WEB Du Bois to Ralph Ellison to James Baldwin and Toni Morrison have struggled with it and railed against it. As Morrison '' a Nobel Laureate '' once said: Our lives have no meaning, no depth without the white gaze. And I have spent my entire writing life trying to make sure that the white gaze was not the dominant one in any of my books. The white gaze: it traps black people in white imaginations. It is the eyes of a white schoolteacher who sees a black student and lowers expectations. It is the eyes of a white cop who sees a black person and looks twice '' or worse, feels for a gun. Du Bois explored this more than a century ago in his book The Souls of Black Folk, reflecting on his conversations with white people and the ensuing delicate dance around the ''Negro problem''. Between me and the other world there is an ever unasked question'.... All, nevertheless, flutter around it ... Instead of saying directly, how does it feel to be a problem? They say, I know an excellent coloured man in my town ... To the real question '... I answer seldom a word. Baldwin was as ever more direct and piercing, writing in his book Nobody Knows My Name. I have spent most of my life ... watching white people and outwitting them so that I might survive. The flame has passed to a new generation. In 2015 three more black writers have stared down the white gaze. In their own ways Ta-Nehisi Coates, Claudia Rankine and George Yancy have held up a mirror to white America. These are uncompromising and fearless voices. Coates' searing essay Between The World And Me critiques America against a backdrop of black deaths at the hands of police. He says the country's history is rooted in slavery and the assault against the black body. In the form of a letter to his son, Coates writes: Here is what I would like for you to know: In America it is traditional to destroy the black body '' it is heritage. In Citizen '' An American Lyric, poet Rankine reflects on the black experience from the victims of Hurricane Katrina, or Trayvon Martin, a 17 year-old black youth shot dead by a neighbourhood watch volunteer who was acquitted, or black tennis star Serena Williams. In each case Rankine sees lives framed by whiteness. She writes: Because white men can't police their imagination, black men are dying. Philosophy Professor George Yancy just last week penned a letter in the New York Times addressed to ''Dear White America''. He asks his countrymen to listen with love, and to look at those things that might cause pain and terror. All white people, he says, benefit from racism and this means each, in their own way, are racist. '...don't run to seek shelter from your own racism'...practice being vulnerable. Being neither a ''good'' white person, nor a liberal white person will get you off the proverbial hook. Their unflinching work is not tempered by the fact a black man is in the White House '' that only makes their voices more urgent. Coates, Rankine, Yancy '' each has been variously praised and awarded, yet each has been pilloried as well. This is inevitable when some people don't like what the mirror reflects. It takes courage for a black person to speak to a white world, a world that can render invisible people of colour, unless they begin to more closely resemble white people themselves '' an education, a house in the suburbs, a good job, lighter skin. In Australia, too, black voices are defying the white gaze. We may not have the popular cut through of a Morrison or a Baldwin or a Coates, but we have a proud tradition '' Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Kevin Gilbert, Ruby Langford or more recently Kim Scott, Alexis Wright, Anita Heiss. I have spent some time recently reading some of the most powerful works of Indigenous writers. Their styles and genres are many and varied but there is a common and powerful theme of defiance and survival. This is a world so instantly recognisable to us '' Indigenous people '' but still so foreign to white Australia. Natalie Harkin's book of poetry, Dirty Words, is a subversive dictionary that turns English words back on their users: A is apology, B is for Boat People '... G is for Genocide ... S for Survival. ''How do you dream,'' she writes, ''When your lucky country does not sleep''. Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu challenges the white stereotype of the ''primitive hunter gatherer''. He says the economy and culture of Indigenous people has been grossly undervalued. He cites journals and diaries of explorers and colonists to reveal the industry and ingenuity of pre-colonial Aboriginal society. He says it is a window into a world of people building dams and wells and houses, irrigating and harvesting seed and creating elaborate cemeteries. Pascoe's work demands to be taught in our schools. Tony Birch is an acclaimed novelist and his latest Ghost River is remarkable. It is the story of two friends navigating the journey into adulthood guided by the men of the river '' men others may see as homeless and hopeless. It is a work infused with a sense of place and belonging. Ellen Van Neerven's Heat and Light is a genre-busting mystical journey into identity: sexual, racial and national. It is provocative and challenging and mind bending, and altogether stunning. You won't find many of these titles in the annual best book lists. Occasionally they pop up, but not as often as they deserve. You probably won't hear much of Samuel Wagan Watson's Love Poems and Death Threats, or Ken Canning's Yimbama, or Lionel Fogarty's Eelahroo (Long Ago) Nyah (Looking) Mobo-Mobo (Future). That these works are not more widely read is a national shame. In our busy lives, try to find time for some of these books in 2016 '' read with the courage of these writers. George Yancy asks white Americans to become ''un-sutured'', to open themselves up and let go of their white innocence. Why is this important? Well, for white people it may simply be a matter of choice '' the fate of black people may not affect them. For us it is survival '' the white gaze means we die young, are locked up and locked out of work and education. We hear a lot about recognition '' acknowledging Indigenous people in the Australian constitution. But there is another recognition '' recognising the pervasive and too often destructive role of race in our lives, and the need to lift our gaze above it. Queen | Definition of Queen by Merriam-Webster Mon, 02 Dec 2019 12:40 To save this word, you'll need to log in. \ ËkwÄ'n \ 1 a : the wife or widow of a king b : the wife or widow of a tribal chief 2 a : a female monarch b : a female chieftain 3 a : a woman eminent in rank, power, or attractions a movie queen b : a goddess or a thing personified as female and having supremacy in a specified realm c : an attractive girl or woman especially : a beauty contest winner 4 : the most privileged piece of each color in a set of chessmen having the power to move in any direction across any number of unoccupied squares 5 : a playing card marked with a stylized figure of a queen 6 : the fertile fully developed female of social bees, ants, and termites whose function is to lay eggs 7 : a mature female cat kept especially for breeding 8 slang , often disparaging : a male homosexual…
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