HustleKnockin'

Tyler Perry has another hit. Again. (Keep hatin.)

So... I checked the Box Office receipts and Tyler Perry's much-maligned Why Did I Get Married, Too? has quietly topped the $60 Million mark. Doesn't sound like much, but you gotta keep a few things in mind:


1) Why Did I Get Married Too has only been out 5 Weeks.

You ask any studio exec if they'll take a $60 mill gross for 5 weeks of play for a non-summer blockbuster flick with no big-name A-list talent and they'll let you defile them on YouTube.

2) Why Did I Get Married Too only cost $20 million to make.

Let's see... 20 mill to gross 60 mill? Them's 3 to 1 returns, folk... Now obviously there's all manner of P&Ls to reconcile, but it's safe to say that TP Studios will live to film another day. (Insert gag reflex here.)

3) It was on a third less screens than Miley Cyrus' flick.

Why Did I Get Married Too, like most of Perry's flicks and most black flicks, have never had the industry standard 3000 screen release. (Will get back to this in a few.)

4) Black films ain't gettin made.

Other than Perry, the ocassional Spike joint when's the last time you saw black movie? And by Black, I mean, a story line rooted in black life or relevant to black audiences?

Denzel does pretty mainstream, crossover fare. Same with Will... Nothing wrong with that, either. You tell the stories you wanna tell, and the stories that sell and hope the twain meet.

But, there's still this sense that if it's a story rooted in black life that doesn't have some crime or music or cartoonishly stereotypical component to the flick, that it won't be profitable and ergo not worthy of a decent budget or marketing push.

Admittedly, I wasn't a big fan of "Why... Too" but alas, Tyler Perry is catering to an audience that continues to remain woefully ignored by Hollywood and TV land. If Blacks with no interest in depressing inner city blues tales and half-baked urban street fare wanna take in a movie, they've gotta wait for Denzel or Spike to drop something. Otherwise it's Morgan Freeman doing another of his patented "asexualized, non-threatening old black man in mainstream flick" role or Sam Jack yelling his eye-sockets out between shootouts with smartass white folk flicks.

That leaves a mountain range of untapped stories to be told that aren't biopics or sanitized historical pieces or cool white person saves the downtrodden black folk fare.

And sure, Tyler Perry keeps mining the same 2 inches of top soil, but at least he's got a shovel and at least he's digging. What's everyone else's excuse. It ain't like he's out there on some HNIC trip.

And again, I think Perry's real genius isn't his filmmaking, but his marketing. Dude was recording his theater plays before anyone on Broadway even thought about doing that. And again his unapologetic want to target 35-plus Black folks and faith-based urban communities... laugh all you want, but every black person don't wanna see hood tales, whether they lived it or not.

But what really cements it for me is TP's simplistic, straight-to-it emails ... they just get you every time. People spend thousands on sites and every new digital trend under the sun, yet Tyler perry takes the "Dear Y'all" approach and wins.

Here's the last one I got:

Sorry it’s taken me a day or so to collect myself but I was out of the country. Friday, after my last promotion for the movie, I flew over to my little piece of heaven. I spent all of Resurrection weekend in prayer and meditation, talking to God, my Mother, and myself. On Monday, I dialed into the States to see how the movie did. I was blown away and so grateful to you! YOU HAVE NO IDEA! THANK YOU, do you hear?! I cannot begin to tell you how much I appreciate you for going to see WHY DID I GET MARRIED TOO. Believe it or not, after opening 9 movies in 5 years, it still never gets old. I am so thankful that you are on my side. God bless you for that. Wasn’t it incredible?! What about Janet’s performance? She blew me away. If you haven’t seen it, this is a good time to see it. It was sold out practically everywhere opening weekend.

I want you know that there is a reason for that…being sold out is a good thing, don’t get me wrong, but from the first movie to this one I have been fighting for more screens. For some reason, I have never been able to get my movies to play in more than 2,150 theaters. I have fought until I’m blue in the face and nobody can give me a clear cut answer. To put this in perspective, when most movies open, take for instance CLASH OF THE TITANS, it was on 3,800 screens, or the Miley Cyrus movie, which was on 3,100. Most movies open on between 3,000 to 5,000 screens.

 Anyway, if I keep fighting, maybe one day I’ll get enough screens so that you won’t have to be packed on top of each other, as well as be turned away time and time again after driving all the way to the theater. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, I just want there to be adequate seating for the demand. That’s all I’m saying. Trust me, I still know that this is a blessing.

So, sorry for the inconvenience, but thank you for sticking with it, and me. Hollywood was blown away by this opening weekend and I was too! Thank you again!

    Can we shift gears for a second? I want to talk about Haiti.

Every day for weeks, the news media sensationalized Haiti. Now you don’t hear a thing about it. I knew that would happen. It was the same with New Orleans after Katrina, and what I learned in that time is to wait until it’s old news and then you will really begin to see the true needs of people. A few weeks ago it was so chaotic you couldn’t understand what was going on but now it’s beginning to become clear so, with that, I think that right now is the time for me to get involved.

I have identified 4 charities that I will be working with and giving them each $250,000.00. The first one will be Yele Haiti, Wyclef Jean’s Organization. After having a long conversation with him, I am truly assured that not only will my monies get to the people at the heart of Haiti, but also the monies that you have given will get there as well. In total about $130,000.00 was raised here online. I will divide that four ways so that it will be added to each of my donations. I will be giving you progress reports and updating you as time goes on. I will also announce the next charity as soon as I understand what their strategy will be in Haiti.

Be Blessed,

Talk soon and God bless.

===========

Dumb simple, ain't it?

Doesn't matter if anything in that email is true or accurate, really. But from all the research I've done, the disparity of theaters, budgets and schedules afforded black filmmakers is 100% fact. The game's still fixed. Such is life.

That aside, TP's bluntness and honesty in his emails keep people coming. These emails circulate 50-100 times per person. And you know this is going out to 250K folks, at least. They go everywhere and back. By the time a movie opens, every black person you know has read this thing and at least heard about what he's up to and you're ready to go.

Be clear. Tyler Perry's website is awful. It's totally underfunded and just... eh, #icant. But so what. He's got a URL that is basically a digital billboard with a comments section. And that's about he needs really, because this email thing he's on? It's 100.

Anyway, I'm out. Talk soon. Duty calls again.

This is, well... shouts to TSS for this one.

 

This might be the smartest and funniest thing ItsTheReal.com has done to date. And depending on your taste in comedy and level of love for hip hop, that's saying a lot. Or a little. But again, it depends on where you're at.

Regardless, this is pretty much true, if nothing else.

In my younger days, there was this little group called Guns & Roses. They got pretty popular at one point... then after a couple albums they decide to drop something called "Chinese Democracy". And what followed was an appetite for self-destruction I never thought I'd see again.

Thanks, Dre.

I'm Gone Fishing...

Okay, so it's too cold to fish. Even out here in SoCal...

But the point is, Black Canseco's gonna take some time off from Blogging.

I've come to the realization that blogging isn't helping me write much these days. I've got all manner of half-started, half-finished books and columns that need tending to. And let's be honest: I'm a writer. (It may not seem like I'm a writer, but trust me, I am. I've got pay stubs and all manner of paper to prove it.)

Point is, writing and blogging ain't the same. And I've gotten addicted to one at the expense of the other. (Which wouldn't be so bad, i guess if blogging paid more.)

Personally I wish I could blog something great every day. (And write something every day.) Hustleknockin.com deserves that. (So does ProdigalPen.) But I just can't anymore. Hopefully, in 2010 I can farm out some of this—the Hustleknockin.com stuff, I mean. (Farming out my books and other stuff would be weird.) But yeah, the goal for 2010 is to bring in some new writers to breathe a little smoke into this HK thing. But that's another post...

Meanwhile, I'm gonna start by taking  a few days off. Eh, maybe a week or two. The goal is to get some serious writing done. (And some fresher blog posts.) And get out a little more. I'm starting to hear clicking keypads in my sleep. (Not good, people.)

Also, I need to clean out my harddrive. You have any idea how much music I've got on this thing? It's nuthin' nice.

On my to-do list is to salvage the KTH follow up—which is about 18 months behind schedule at this point... I think 2010 is doable for the followup. Might even be able to get more than one book out next year. We'll see.

And I do still plan on getting some BlogWorld stuff up much sooner than later. But I still gotta edit the footage yet.

I know it's Socal but, it's getting cold; it's November already; and putting a pen to a pad of paper's always kept me warm.

So duty calls.

Talk to y'all sooner than later.

Again, I'll be on Twitter (@blackcanseco); so pay me a visit there. Meanwhile, I'll be back—hopefully before Christmas. Probably by Thanksgiving to tell you the truth—i wanna hit you with some "year's end"  lists while it's still some year left. Until then...

It's been fun!

More to come.

Missing Boy: Please Help Find Him!

Jessica Mason: Still Missing. Still needs to be Found

Kick It from Big Tyme... (A Heavy D. Throwback)

today's ode to goodness... Heavy D's + The Boyz' Big Tyme.

jesus is a metaphor for...

What ever happened to Skeezers?

If you kinda confused on what a ‘skeezer’ is—it’s just a girl who’s on my jock cuz I’m in showbiz.”
—L.L. COOL J, My Rhyme Ain’t Done

When I was young, the big insult was “skeezer”. Don’t know who came up with it—when or where. But once you heard it, it was like hearing “2+2=4”. It just made sense.

White May Be Might, But It's Not Always Right

White May Be Might, But It's Not Always Right

Du Bois's frustrations led him to leave academia for a life of anti-racist activism. In 1910, the year he became director of research and publicity for the NAACP, he warned that "whiteness" was becoming the new basis of the nation's consciousness. "Are we not coming more and more day by day to making the statement, 'I am white,' the one fundamental tenet of our practical morality?" he asked.

In today's era of hip-hop, Du Bois's warning still goes unheeded. If rap music is so bad, why are white kids its major consumers? And by what value system should we judge the large media companies that publish and distribute hip-hop -- or, really, gangsta rap, its most popular and sinister cousin?

Were "white values" on display two years ago when the federal government failed to adequately respond to one of the greatest natural disasters in American history?

If lower-class "black" values are so distinct from those of the rest of America, particularly the "white values" supposedly now embraced by middle- and upper-class blacks, why, according to the Pew report, do less than a third of white Americans graduate from college? Are legions of whites similarly devaluing higher education? Are they "acting black"?

If lower-class black values are so peculiar, why do whites report the same or higher levels of illegal drug use as blacks, as numerous studies show?

What of underperforming white schoolchildren in rural America, the Great Plains, Appalachia or the Deep South? Are they "acting black" because they can't compete with their upwardly mobile suburban counterparts?

Kid Sister w/Kanye

Chicago's Own Kid Sister. Lil Mama, eat your heart out... Just don't smear the lip gloss along the way.

White Skin: Genetic Mutation

Here's a fun article from The Washington Post. Got almost no play when it first dropped. Wonder why? I smell a hustle....

Scientists Find A DNA Change That Accounts for White Skin
By Rick Weiss

Scientists said yesterday that they have discovered a tiny genetic mutation that largely explains the first appearance of white skin in humans tens of thousands of years ago, a finding that helps solve one of biology's most enduring mysteries and illuminates one of humanity's greatest sources of strife.

The work suggests that the skin-whitening mutation occurred by chance in a single individual after the first human exodus from Africa , when all people were brown-skinned. That person's offspring apparently thrived as humans moved northward into what is now Europe, helping to give rise to the lightest of the world's races.

Good & Bad Hair: 2007

Kiri Davis , a 17-year old high school student, produced one of the more stunning docs in my opinion, at least in recent memory. It's based on the 1950s Baby Doll experiment where little black kids were given a choice between a black/african american toy doll and a white/caucasian one and asked to place value judgements on the doll--which is prettier, smarter, more civilized, etc.

Invariably, over 80% of the black kids picked the white doll as being the smartest, prettiest, etc. and went so far as to note that whites were just better.

Kiri Davis did a similar doc a few weeks back. Here's what she found. It's causing a national stir.

Mutts, Mulattos and Paper Bags

Mutts, Mulattos, and Paper Bags
By: Hadji Williams

Before it went mainstream “dog” was a semi-common reference to Black men, mainly used as a term of endearment, a là DMX. It later became shorthand for unfaithful brothers. In the December 2006 issue of Essence magazine, super-producer Kanye West remixed it into a jab at fair-skinned sisters: “If it wasn’t for race-mixing there’d be no video girls. The Kan-man theorizes. “Me and most of our friends like mutts a lot. Yeah, in the hood they call ‘em ‘mutts’.”

Dogs… Mutts… Mulattos. First Bush hates us, and now depending on how dark you are, we might hate ‘us’, too. (Dear RIAA, please let this child win another Grammy—it might be the only thing that’ll keep West’s foot out of his mouth.)

KTH EXCERPTS!!! N'joy

(You Can’t) Knock The Hustle

A realist is always hated in a society of
sanctimonious hustlers, which is what America is.
—Gore Vidal

My hustle of choice: the advertising and marketing industry. Been in it for 15 years. Now the best way to explain marketing is this: Hold up your hand, either one: Go ’head, get it up—I’ll wait (lol)... Okay, now think of your hand as the marketplace:

Dove Evolution. Are they finally catching on?

Dove's Evolution film has been floating around for a minute;it's part of their Real Beauty campaign. But it's worth another look, if only from another, slightly more critical angle.

Now, as I've said to folks within the ad industry which i'm a vet of, it's a nice execution to be sure; but i'm troubled by one thing.

"Why did it seemingly take White Women being so upset with the absurdity of Mad Ave's unatainable beauty standards for a major brand to even begin to sincerely address this issue?"

Think about that as you watch, then we'll chat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT4dpFpiTgk