Randy Jackson Presents: The Return of AC Slater

Now this really burns my frijoles. Quite sadly, I did not have the opportunity to flesh out this monster thought freight train yesterday as was originally intended, and somehow The Detroit Free Press entered my brain a-la Minority Report and stole my idea - kind of. I always heard that big media controlled our thoughts, but to literally take the thoughts out of our heads is just not fair.

This post is primarily a television recommendation, but with a heavy metro-Detroit slant. Thursday nights at 10pm, MTV (R.I.P. music videos) airs a truly bombastic show called Randy Jackson Presents: America's Best Dance Crew. This show is nothing like Dancing with the Stars, but I would say it is the spiritual successor to Dance 360, hosted by Keenan of All That and Fredro Starr of Moesha fame. I may have just lost you there, but if you are familiar with Dance 360, I would like to be your new best friend. Furthermore, ABDC (what the in-the-know call America's Best Dance Crew) is hosted by Mario Lopez. It takes me back to the episode of Saved By the Bell where there is that ridiculous dance-off at The Max and Screech jumps around on one foot the whole time.

Back to the point: when I first saw commercials for this show, I was extremely skeptical, but after I gave it a shot, I really was shocked at the quality and originality of the dance crews. This is true modern street dance, and the athleticism, precision, and creativity of the crews is fascinating to watch. This season, a group hailing from Detroit called A.S.I.I.D. is doing its hometown proud and serving as excellent ambassadors to Michigan. Even more impressive, a member of the group named Joey is 100% deaf, and can barely hear bass beats with two hearing aids. They deal with his deafness in an overly heavy-handed fashion on the show, but even with that, Joey is a natural inspiration.

Crew success is based partly on viewer voting and partly on the in-show judges. I could not give a higher recommendation for everyone on planet Earth to watch this show, and if you are in the mood, perhaps send off a vote for the hometown favorite. Michigan isn't known for its dance prowess, but A.S.I.I.D. is ready to rock Randy Jackson's world (note: Randy Jackson has almost nothing to do with the show. He pretty much just shows up in the first and last episode to say "Whattup this show is hot yo")