Author Archives: charitythomas

About charitythomas

I am a highly skilled, innovative and experienced Art Department Coordinator, Associate Producer and Production Supervisor looking to bring my skills in-house. While working with talented and globally recognized musicians, producers, directors and networks such as Viacom, BP, HBO, Buscuit Filmworks, Anonymous Content, RSA, MJZ, Goldcrest Films, ESPN, Target and MAC Cosmetics, Barry Levinson and Spike Lee. I have a collaborative leadership style with a proven track record of producing projects on time and budget without compromising quality. I hold an M.A in Media Studies from The New School University and a Bachelor of Arts in Radio, TV, and Film from Howard University and extensive experience as a freelancer. I am looking for a home to develop and build a long lasting production team. Find me here: http://charitythomas.org

Emails, A Retrospective

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For some reason my email program will randomly pull up all the emails off the server. So when I check it I have like 700 “new” messages from like months ago. As this happened today it gave me a chance to see what kind of crap I really receive. Most of them make me long for the life I had when those services or that information was something useful.

Expedia, Travelocity, American Airlines, Travelzoo and various other travel sites telling what great deals they have right now that I can’t take advantage of. I’d love to go to London for $400 with taxes included. When I went to Europe last year my tix was like $1100.
Oprah- I actually found myself saying to my Wednesday on Oprah’s “Best Life Week: Finding Your Spiritual Path” – Suck it Oprah. Why don’t you help tell people to hire me for stupid commercials on your show, or better yet, make me sit at my computer and write for @ least 2h a day so I can turn these words into the kind of gold bullion you have in your HOUSES. And ya know I loves me some Oprah.
Nordstrom, YOOX, Bluefly, Endless, Gotham City, eBay- shoes and clothes that I used to see on sale or say “oh, that’s cute” click on it and miraculously there would be these wonderful boxes of beautiful things that barely fit or I’d give away to my friends.
Target, Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn, Overstock- okay, I do have a lamp in my Target queue, but it’s replacing the Pottery Barn one that I’ve broken.

These are the ones that hurt. They hurt when I’ve put $1200 worth of clothes in my Nordstrom bag. Now, I totally did this before, but then I could get a little sumthin’ sumthin’. It hurts when Eco-Tulum, my favorite cheap Mexican getaway is giving away rooms for like $25 a person for our 4 person palatial cabana right on the beach (and tix to Cancun are $87 each way and everybody wants to go but nobody has any money or time).

But there are the ones I do use and relish more now than I did before:

Jewel Diamond Taylor’s Success Gems Thought for the Day- for obvious reasons. I actually print them out and stick them all over my house so I don’t feel so alone.
LiveStrong- any man who can win the Tour de France with one ball gets my attention.
eDiets- new ways to make my beer belly go away because real spirits are out of my budget right now unless I buy a bottle of Jameson’s and drink it all alone in one day, which is bad. And painful. And not as cute when you’re almost 35 and unemployed and have apparently no transferrable skills and can’t even understand half of the job postings online.
Astrology.com- they never ask me for money and since I’m a Leo, rarely give me bad news.
Joanne Jimenez telling me when Francois K, Joe Claussell or Danny Krivit are spinning.
Huffington Post, NYTimes, and NYPost because I have to have something to post on Facebook.
Hope Clark, Writer’s Digest and the millions of other writery ones that don’t actually make me sit down and write, but make me feel like I’m taking writing seriously. Thanks guys.

And finally the ones I can do without that will never go away:

Chase- “Funds transfer not processed” or “Overdraft protection alert”
Juniper Visa- “You are approaching your credit limit” when I’m like $50 over my credit limit
AT&T for a landline I don’t use but I need it for the Direct TV, or do I? It’s not on now. I just found a phone. Okay, that’s stupid; I’ll take care of that tomorrow.
Citicards- “Thank you for your payment.” Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. What payment? Shit, now I’m gonna get another one from Chase.

So now that I’ve re-deleted them. I’m going to look on them with fond memories. I’ll still put some shoes in some baskets. I actually have tens of thousands of dollars in shopping carts all over cyberspace. It’s my virtual shopping that I pay for with all of my winnings from internet poker.

Gentrification Blues #3

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This weekend was hot. It was the official beginning of summer. I barely left my house. When I did I was again confronted with the changes in my neighborhood. It’s like the rats on a ship or roaches in the dark metaphor. Into the blinding sunlight and mildly scorching heat came the ghostly bodies of my new neighbors. Mouthdryinglypale and still without manners. It’s going to be a fun summer. I love sitting on the stairs of the library, now known as my office, and having to stare down the ParkSloperwith the baby crying because it’s hot and mommy can’t take it in the library SCREAMING like that to cool it off or leave because she’s got a great spot to get some sun on her legs.

So here I am sitting alone listening to myiPodscribbling furiously on the stupid story I’ve been hacking away at, I mean writing, for like 2 years now…. “Sorry, what? No, no one’s sitting there.” What could I say? No one was sitting there. I wasn’t prepared to act crazy and have imaginary friends. So down she sits and my table’s perfectly placed for two ways to get sun and put the baby under the umbrella. The screaming baby. The baby screaming so loud that my ErikSatiemakes my head hurt and hands shake cause it’s too loud and grating. I stare at the mother who apologizes profusely, but what am I supposed to say? “I accept your apology, but it would be better if you took your SCREAMING MONKEY home.”

She started doing all the things mothers do to make their children shut up, to no avail. I start shifting. I’m already hot and uncomfortable and writing outside and feel weird. How do I describe how I felt with the future sitting there raising hell and a mother who kinda didn’t give a shit. (Now, let me say that I have friends with kids and I know it’s a tough job and adults don’t want to be cooped up with kids all day. But I also know that that’s why I don’t have kids and really resent being subjected to other peoples problems.)

I guess it’s just that I’m seeing something more and more that disturbs me about this neighborhood I love so much. Too many babies. When I’m dictator, I’m putting amoratoriumon procreating in Prospect Heights. Go to Queens to fuck up your kids.

Open Letter to Michelle Obama

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Dear First Lady Michelle Obama,

Your husband and his people have been sending me emails for months now. I was sure you’d caught on because then you started sending them me too. After the election, well I thought we’d put this all behind us. But unfortunately, I’m still receiving emails and, well, I thought you should know.

You seem like a nice enough lady. I’ve even written you a letter that’s published in the book “Go, Tell Michelle: African American Women Write to the New First Lady”. It appears none of our missives elude publication.

You looked so lovely and happy at the inauguration I thought we could put these minor dalliances behind us. But they continue. I need you to be understanding about this, because I NEED you to be with your old man. You’re too important to a battalion of highly educated black girls who have all formerly had (and currently have) perms and have all enjoyed 4 wings with mild sauce from Harold’s, if you know what I mean.

But I would appreciate if you could get them to stop with the emails. I appreciate the updates, but I do read Huffington Post.

With Reverence and Love,
Charity Thomas

Open Letter to President Barack Obama

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Dear President Barack Obama,

I love you.

Sincerely,
Charity Thomas

P.S. I love you in a clean reverent “leader of my free world” way, that’s all. Make sure you tell Michelle that. I’m just saying, ’cause I don’t want her coming after me. I mean, I do have the weight advantage, but with height and arm length and strength- she’s got me beat. I, also, can’t pull my “I’m from the South Side of Chicago” intimidation routine on her. I know for a fact that if she though I was really trying something, she’d CUT MY FUCKING HEART OUT. So, it’s a platonic love. And it’s a true love.

Open Letter to President Barack Obama

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Dear President Barack Obama,

I love you.

Sincerely,

Charity Thomas

P.S. I love you in a clean reverent “leader of my free world” way, that’s all. Make sure you tell Michelle that. I’m just saying, ‘cause I don’t want her coming after me. I mean, I do have the weight advantage, but with height and arm length and strength- she’s got me beat. I, also, can’t pull my “I’m from the South Side of Chicago” intimidation routine on her. I know for a fact that if she though I was really trying something, she’d CUT MY FUCKING HEART OUT. So, it’s a platonic love. And it’s a true love.

Cigarettes are How Much: or Mayor Bloomberg can Suck It!

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Cigarettes cost WHAT? $9 for a pack ofNewports(I’m black remember). Actually this all takes me back to when I first started smoking. (Hazy waves, hazy waves…)

It was my senior year in high school and I worked at a job with this totally rad grad school chick named Jen. She was also black and brilliant like me and working at a job with people she hated and didn’t respect (which I would come to understand moreviscerallyas I got older). I was the office assistant and she had actual work to do and would send me to go get smokes for her when she ran of Benson & Hedges Menthol Lights. Only I was only 17 and we worked on a campus that was hard onID’ingunderage smokers. So she’d not only call and tell them who we were she’d also send me with a note (handwritten even).

The night I was formally presented to society I turned to my escort and said “let’s get some cigarettes.” All I knew to say wasBensonhedgesmenthollights, so that’s what I got. By the next week when my escort was telling me how he’d had sex with his boyfriend in the car seat I was occupying on our way to see Tommy Tune in Bye, Bye, Birdie- we had cigarette holders, the long black and silver ones.

Smoking has always been so exotic and eccentric to me. It was also something grown-ups did. My grandma looked so elegant with her beautiful long brown legs crossed and smoke curling from her mouth. She’d look elegant until she got full of Schlitz and started cussing everybody out. But until that point, she looked like a movie star. And that’s really the crux of it, isn’t it. I’m an old movie queen and always wanted to move like Bette Davis or BarbaraStanwyck. I remember in All About Eve when Bette’s MargoChanningwas checking cigarette boxes to make sure they were full. What decadence.

Fast forward 60 years to a pack of smokes costing $9. So does that now make them a luxury item? I’m buying cartons now and can’t breathe because I feel like I have an unlimited supply. Until they run out. Then I’ll cry because THERE’S NO WAY IN HELL I’M PAYING $9 FOR A PACK OF SMOKES. I’ll have to start rolling my own, and I’m just too lazy for that.

Open Letter to Michelle Obama

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Open Letter to Michelle Obama

Dear First Lady Michelle Obama,

But I would appreciate if you could get them to stop with the emails. I appreciate the updates, but I do read Huffington Post.

With Reverence and Love,
Charity Thomas

I’m a cheater

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I always have been. Not on tests or anything important like that. But usually, the overlap time with boyfriends can be a little sketchy. And I also go back with them several years after we’ve broken up.

I tell you this as I’m watching Heroes. And I watched it last week too. I know, I know I keep railing against it. I still believe in redemption. I still believe it’s going to get better. Last week was totally worth it because I got to see Daphne (who I hated) die. Great week. Hiro got a little of his powers back, thanks to Matt Parkman’s baby. Good job. No Claire, and more Angela Petrelli. There was even a little Swoosie Kurtz to just sweeten the pot.

This week there is Claire, but it’s Claire and Nathan bonding as father and daughter- drinking and playing drinking games for money. Now, we’re getting somewhere. Angela and Peter spend some quality time at church and together, reflecting. It’s a Petrelli family reunion and everyone’s not acting like the Medici family. They’re actually doing a little of the bonding work necessary to bring the show back together. I have hope again.

Sylar’s a shape shifter now. Scary. And working for the “bad guys”. Ironic, no?

So, maybe we just needed a break. I needed to know emotionally that I could walk away from it if I needed to. It’s gonna take some time for me to rebuild the trust again, but I’m listening and not automatically erasing it out of DVR.

I’m a Cheater

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This week there is Claire, but it’s Claire and Nathan bonding as father and daughter- drinking and playing drinking games for money. Now, we’re getting somewhere. Angela and Peter spend some quality time at church and together, reflecting. It’s aPetrelli family reunion and everyone’s not acting like the Medici family. They’re actually doing a little of the bonding work necessary to bring the show back together. I have hope again.

Sylar’s a shape shifter now. Scary. And working for the “bad guys”. Ironic, no?

A little about ER

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I posted this comment on the Critical Condition website in reference to breaking up with a show you once loved:
My break-up with Heroes has been long and drawn out. I won’t watch, or I’ll watch during the commercials of 24, then call my little sister screaming into the phone how much I hate the show. I worked out my catharsis here, but there’s an even bigger offender on NBC.
You all know, it’s the elephant in the room: ER. I’ve broken up with this show so many times in the last 15 years that I had to give the last season a try. Every week is more painful than the last. Why introduce new characters at the end? What are they thinking? I want the helicopter that took Romano out to come back and wipe out the whole hospital.
This season they give me Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance as the pretty brown couple I want to watch but I know, I’ll never know. I won’t mourn them like I did Mark Green. I don’t care about any of these people.
And the people I did care about have randomly shown up with so weakly, it’s like seeing someone you used to love only to realize you don’t know them anymore. Hey Carol, Hey Doug. Bye Carol, Bye Doug. Oh, did you guys get married? Hey Carol what exactly do you do? Oh, I see, you can’t tell me. Oh, because the writers don’t care about me having any real closure. Oh, I see.
Every week of “television history” I’m hoping it’ll go all Hill Street Blues. Really, Neela and Ray. Give me a break. Carter has a million, billion dollars. The needing a kidney was a really wack way to reintroduce him. And Benton.
So, next week is the real last week. And I’m going to watch it, I’ve been doing it for half of my life. But in the immortal last word of Mark Green, it’s “shit”.