Longtime readers of my descriptions may remember that, three years ago, I was putting together a pitch for a new television show I was working on called “Jared Dudley’s Cornrows A-No-No.” The premise was simple: as a former owner of ugly-ass cornrows, Jared Dudley would find similarly afflicted people and give them hair makeovers so that they didn’t have the cornrows anymore. Dudley would be cast as kind of a sympathetic figure who had overcome some great personal tragedy (the cornrows) and thus had the depth of wisdom and knowledge necessary to help people resigned to a lifetime in cornrow purgatory. At the end of each episode there would be a lot of hugging and crying when family members finally saw their loved ones with a normal, non-stupid hairstyle. Then Jared would get back on his tour bus thing to find the next soul to save.
That was the idea. But it didn’t quite work out that way. First of all, I never really got Dudley on board with the idea. He ignored every single tweet and instogrammer I sent to him, and believe me, I sent him a lot over the last few years. I even lied and told him he would make a million dollars per episode because CBS was so hot to trot on the whole thing. But even with those lies I couldn’t get his attention.
I’m not proud to admit it, but I actually stalked around his house for a few days during the summer and just sort of stared creepily in his windows. I was too much of a wimp to actually pitch my show directly to him. Him calling the cops was really unnecessary, but I think he got the message, so I’m hopeful that this show gets off the ground soon.
The second main problem is that none of the networks were interested in my idea. I couldn’t even get my local public access channel to broadcast the pilot episode I made. Maybe it was because the pilot episode didn’t have anybody with cornrows in it since I don’t know anybody with cornrows. It was just me goofing off with a camera for half an hour. I thought it was great TV but apparently not everybody recognizes genius the way I do.
So I don’t know if “Jared Dudley’s Cornrows A-No-No” is ever gonna happen, but I know one thing, I’m not going to give up on my dreams. “DTB my boy, never give up on your dreams,” that’s what my grandpa told me. That and “the only things we have are the things we have.” He was a wise man.