What I Do For A Living, Part 2: "Didn't I see you on TV?"

when i was a kid, singing was something that i did in church.  eventually, it was something that i studied formally, in a performing arts high school.  the singing that was respected there meant having range and power and lots and lots of melisma, for the most part. everyone could sing way better than i could. singing that way meant sounding exactly like stephanie mills. or miki howard. it definitely meant sounding exactly like somebody.  i didn't sound like anybody, except myself. clearly, i wasn't doing it right.  undaunted, i moved on to other things.

i never imagined that i would ever sing professionally.  i thought that singing was the kind of thing that would come in handy if i ever did a musical or a play with music, or perhaps some light opera. i certainly didn't want to be an actress. that sounded like someone that wasn't to be taken seriously.   i didn't want to be a movie star because i didn't think i was pretty enough to be on camera.  television looked like fun -- especially the commercials  -- but i wasn't really gunning for that, either.  i wanted to be a theater actor.  i knew that i had that undefinable something that compels someone to look at someone else and i knew that this something had absolutely nothing to do with what i looked like and i knew that this something was absolutely necessary if i wanted to do anything onstage. other people were tall. other people were handsome or beautiful. other people dyed their hair blonde. other people would say or do things to "pull focus" and draw attention to themselves. i didn't do any of those things.  when i was onstage, people were compelled to look at me.  otherwise, i was roundly ignored.

you can work on your skill set until the cows come home but contrary to popular belief, that indefinable something called stage presence can't be taught.  your talent, your excellent comic timing and no, not even how attractive you are can make people want to look at you onstage.  their eye will inevitably wander to that seemingly insignificant someone the director has conveniently located in the back, on the side -- the one who is perched at the edge of the scene who is simply standing there. who are they? what are they doing?  all that nothing is really something, isn't it.

i persisted with theater and musical theater and solo performance because i was determined to do all i could with the talent that God gave me.  i didn't want to sin against my talent. i didn't want to squander it.  i'm transitioning to film and tv because a. most theater productions in new york city don't pay a living wage; b. i'm priced out of nyc, for the most part; c. the pay is cray-cray. 

here i am in a prego commercial, getting paid.



a tv producer. a screenwriter. a song doctor. a concert pianist. a filmmaker. who knows where i'll end up in this business or what i'll be doing. what i know for sure is the theater is where i started. i stepped onstage when i was a kid, curious and unafraid, i looked out into that dark sea of people and i knew and i knew and i knew and i knew and i knew. 

next up? what i do for a living, part 3: "you didn't write that -- did you?"

hair apparent

guess what, sports fans. i got a callback for a capital one commercial. yeah, that's right - the series with the visigoths tromping around wrecking stuff. maybe it's me, but i think they all look like bears. imagine that! (heh.)

frankly, i was totally shocked that they wanted to see me again because i didn't wear a wig. i was totally going to wear a wig. i was planning on it. i had it all picked out and everything. even my agent told me to wear one. (think about that.) should i wear a wig or not, i asked her assistant innocuously and i could hear her yell out in the background, wear a wig! like she was a little kid in class and she had the right answer and she had to just let it out.

wear a wig! that little phrase reverberated all the way through the rest of my afternoon like an echo. i made every effort to make it happen. and therein lies the rub. doing my hair is an all day event. the longer it gets, the more upper body strength i need. they called me in the middle of the afternoon to let me in on the audition that was happeing the next day. no bueno. i wore myself out with a 14+ mile bike ride and a thorough gym workout that's still kicking my butt. i had the strength to ride home after class, to make a spectacular dinner, to houseclean. but i simply didn't have the strength to do my hair. again, no bueno.

and you know what? this is impossible to explain to anyone except other black women out there with a head full of healthy natural hair. if you're not in that particular group, i honestly don't expect you to "get" what i'm saying. it's just hair, some idiot said to me last week. no, it's not. in certain situations, it's a fairly bold political statement. and here's why.

my hair was (um, i mean is) a freshly undone and filthy, tangled, glorious mess of raw heavyness. it is a mystery and a wonder. it is indignant. it is unapologetic. it is relentless. it is unforgivable. indeed, it is the epitome of what i like to describe as unforgivable blackness. my hair is a highly visible societal indicator, the one thing i've got that shows my compliance to the powers that be. to walk into a situation with this african face and hair so raw and full that african cab drivers give me the dap as i traipse up the block means that when i show up, i will be considered suspect, no matter how shiny my penny loafers are.

you have to think about this stuff when you audition for commercials. you have to think about everything. they will type you out in a flash, solely based on what you look like. and exactly where are they getting the idea of what they think i should look like, as a black woman? you tell me.

good thing they caught me at a weak moment -- too weak to wash my hair. oy! and oh yeah. i thought i did a super crappy read.

great news

guess what? i got a callback for that commercial i auditioned for earlier this week. (yay!)

i don't think anything is going to happen with that progressive spot until april, maybe. i was probably too black for them, anyway. (and isn't that always the risk?) we'll see. maybe they'll totally surprise me.

like i said before, commercials are a complete crap shoot. it's freaky-deeky that i got this far - and yeah, that's the way it goes with any kind of on-camera work. but you probably already know how i feel about that.

i'm not sure which part they want for me, so i'm learning the lines for both characters. i'm not taking anything for granted. of course, the script will probably be on display somewhere near the camera while we're doing it, but i don't care.

needless to say, i'm wearing the same outfit, too. funny tidbit, that - the casting agent let me wear my snowpants on camera. why not? he got a medium shot of us, so who would know. besides, it would have been such a hassle to take them off. heh. i was all styled out from the waist up.

and yes, my hair was natural. (sort of.)

Yay! Another Commercial Audition! Out of Nowhere! On the Street! Yay!

i jumped off of the 1 train at 18th street the other day in the early afternoon and headed west, on my way to the nyc discmakers offices near 5th avenue for an impromptu meeting about my newly released cd. my mind was flush with a long list of questions and suggestions and situations that i kept reconfiguring as i neared my destination, like a jigsaw puzzle that wouldn't leave me alone. it was cold and sunny, which always aggravates me. the heat of the sun never seems to penetrate the iciness of the day -- and in the end, its all just one big miserable tease that leaves me yearning for the unyielding warmth of the south and a home i would never see again, a home that is alive and well, inside me.

what was i wearing? a hat with ears on it. snow pants, of course. and underneath it all, my gym clothes. as a fledgling pugilist, i have very little upper body strength and even less endurance. so i run and lift weights to boost my staying power. the truth is, most days in boxing class find me leaning against a wall like a cripple and gasping for breath, my heart pounding in my chest like thunder, every beat a sonic boom that reverberates so heavily through the rest of my body, it rattles my teeth. i am pushing myself to my limit. in these moments, my instructor george never looks at me sideways - much to his credit. because he's pushing me, too.

the other day he said to me, "there's no such thing as fighting like a girl. either you can fight or you can't." then he turned waved his arm towards the rest of the class and continued nonchalantly. "hitting isn't gender specific. you think all these guys came in here knowing how to hit?" and with that, he snorted and made a face. "no," he said flatly. "they came in here hitting like you." and with that, i twisted at my hips, pushed my foot forward and gave him a solid left hook that made his face light up with pleasure. now, that was a good day.

when it's all over, i congratulate myself for making it all the way through yet another round. my arms are so weak, i can hardly lift them. it hurts my ribs to take a deep breath. i can hear the blood rushing through my veins as i ask myself, when am i going to get better at this? and then i realize i'm getting stronger. and leaner. i just have to stick with it. that's usually the hard part.

so there i was, thinking about discmakers and what i was going to tell these people and what they were going to tell me, thinking about my left hook and my right cross, thinking about running a mile in less than 10 minutes. thinking about a hot shower afterwards and exfoliating and sitting in the steam room until my muscles melted and my beloved moroccan oil. thinking about finding a piano tuner. thinking about how i couldn't afford the mezcal i really wanted and thinking maybe ralph would split it with me so i could at least have some in my leather-bound flask that lives in my purse, for an emergency cocktail now and then. thinking about my chinese acupuncturist. thinking about kwanzaa presents i have to finish. thinking about the boxing gloves i'd get from modell's the following week. thinking and thinking and thinking. and listening to music. t-connection, i believe it was. don't let nobody tell ya what to do, gotta be your judge and the jury too...

i didn't get far.

i was passing this velvet roped off situation on 18th street between 6th avenue and 7th avenue in some wide open space that's usually got some shin-dig going on. there were two or three people out there, waving me down like they were hitchhikers on some deserted stretch of highway. what fresh hell is this, i wondered. i yanked out my earphones and got an earful.

they were talking over each other, they were babbling and they were saying it in different ways, but they were basically saying the same thing: come inside and audition for this commercial! one of them looked like edith bunker, which made me smile faintly. and that probably made me look agreeable but nothing could have been further from the truth. the truth is, something in me recoiled instinctively at the very idea of auditioning for a commercial in the visual state that i was in. because getting cast in a commercial has everything to do with what you look like. in most cases, the prettier you are, the better - but you can get away with not being pretty if you're actually funny. and yeah, being funny is usually what gets me the gig. and it was the only thing that had me seriously thinking about going past those velvet ropes. i had to be funny because i had absolutely not one shred of makeup on my person. not even cover stick. i didn't have bags under my eyes. i had luggage. (who wears makeup to the gym? wait - don't answer that...)

on the other hand, i wasn't going to blow off any opportunity to get seen for anything. so with all that in mind, and all that other stuff flying through my head like rainbow-colored confetti, i went inside.

it was an auditon for a progressive commercial. they were looking for an assistant for flo. yeah, that's right. that's the dark-haired, wise-cracking, wide-eyed, wiggy looking white chick that's so excited to sell you car/home/pet insurance. everyone, and i mean everyone was dressed like flo, from the coat check girl to the magnetic name tag girl to the girl on headset who gave me a goody bag and a card with instructions on it, and answered all of my stupid questions. white button down short sleeved shirt, white oversized overalls, white sneakers. white, white, white. actually, the whole set was white, white, white - like i'd just stepped onto the set of the commercial itself. everything was roped off just so, so you'd move through the room like a hamster in a habitrail.

it was a space odyssey 2000 meets a boy and his dog. yeah, something like that. at this point, i didn't know if i was the boy or the dog. probably both.

as it turns out, they were holding auditions at hotspots all over the country. i had 30 seconds to tell them why i should be flo's assistant. i had to end with the phrase, "now that's progressive." hm. the more i thought about it, the more i didn't want to come off like my man friday to her robinson crusoe - or any number of variations therein. at this point in the habitrail, there was a perfect replica of the progressive commercial's set, with three white director's chairs all in a row - complete with a white director, who looked very el lay and the right kind of frumpy and bored and annoyed (can you frump in armani?), set in front of a long white table and then there were a small set of stairs that led to three white booths in a row with cameras and recording equipment that boomed your audition all over the room, so whenever anyone started, everyone stopped scurrying and kind of went on pause for a sec, to hear what you were throwing down. especially the other actors and stand up comedians and whatnots who were trailing in, trying hard to look like ordinary street people, smelling of desperation.

i took all of 17 seconds. i didn't plan what i said, i just blurted out whatever rose to the surface first. i do remember that i made the director laugh. and clap his hands. and when i left, i told that hipster looking black guy at the door what i said - an actor that i instantly recognized from way too many national commercials as "that hipster looking black guy," the one who wears those squared off black glasses and is ALWAYS the only black friend in a group of hipster white people and who always looks bored and kind of over it - and he laughed and gave me this massive high five. and then i strolled down the street like miss black america, laughing and waving at him. good times.

as it turns out, that impromptu audition was just the boost i needed to get through that meeting with discmakers. and that workout. and boxing conditioning class.

if you want to see and hear what i threw down, click here. and if you want to kill some time at your desk job, check out the other auditions. they're kind of a hoot.

guess what?

friday the 13th is working for me, apparently. or maybe it was that natural afro wig. who knows. all i know is, i got a callback for that PSA commercial. i go in again on monday afternoon. go figure.

Another day, another (commercial) audition - PSA

i went in for this spot later in the afternoon, which meant that i was rested, relaxed and already thinking about stuff like guitar practice and what i'd make for dinner. it was in midtown, so it was easy and quick to access. i breezed in right on time. no tension, no nervousness. no packed room, either. there was a monitor, a sign in sheet, a comfortable brightly lit couchy space and only a few of us there. i dressed casually (in a t-shirt and boyfriend jeans that i purchased for such auditions) in very little makeup and i wore a wig -- a natural wig no less -- because my hair was literally in knots and i didn't feel like wrestling it into submission. (yeah, blackgirls -- it was one of those days...)

the audition was quite simple, really: the government wants to let everyone know that there's an earned income tax rebate if you make a certain amount a year. this public service announcement is especially nifty because it's paying sag rates. so it's two black women chatting on a bus. they've known each other for a million years so it's very casual and spontaneous and open. i went in with this lovely woman whose name escapes me. we were both wearing the same color - baby blue - which cracked us up, for some reason. we were so chatty and friendly, we left the audition together and rode the train all the way up the west side, fully immersed in conversation. she was really sweet.

i guess it was like we kept the audition going. weird, right?

what's cooler than cool is that ever since that on camera acting class i took, the camera doesn't freak me out the way it used to. i can trust my inner life and my intent and let myself feel things, knowing that those feelings will magically resurface on my face. because of this, i have a whole new level of confidence that is stronger than any amount of swagger i've ever brought to a situation like this. so there's no need for nervousness. or fear. i go in, i do my thing, and i leave.

tra-la-la!

auditions and callbacks and go-sees, oh my!

sorry i haven't written anything in a minute. things have been a bit hectic, in a good way.

i got a call on friday for a commercial audition on saturday, and then i got a call on sunday that i got a callback for this morning. so it's been a weekend of blowing my hair out, basically. that's the good news: i didn't wear a wig. i was totally naturally all afroed out -- and i got a callback. still shaking my head and going wow over that one. maybe things are changing.

as far as i can tell -- and yes, of course there are exceptions to this all the way across the board, but this seems to be the invisible rule that gets reinforced with most casting choices -- the black women that get cast in commercials are usually natural, with unprocessed "ethnic" hair and a minimal amount of makeup -- whether they lean toward that neutered mammy stereotype or not. they represent the wife, the young mom, even grandma: women of color who populate your everyday world. the black woman that gets cast in movies are usually the fantasy, so they've got the perms, the weaves, the make-up, they're usually a size 4/6 and all that rot. i know that when my agent leaves me a message that says, they want everyday people, that means a minimal amount of makeup and no wig -- or if it is a wig, it should look as natural as possible.

unbelievable, how little acting ability has to do with getting considered for something like this. you could get the once over and get typed out just like that, on looks alone. or height. or whatever else someone is seeing that they don't like. i think that getting callbacks is terrific. it means that i'm close.

bizarrely enough, the commercial -- a christmas spot for wal-mart -- shoots all day tomorrow. can you say fast turnaround?

in the meantime, i got called in to audition for another commercial tomorrow morning -- for applebees. thank God i'm losing weight -- can get back into my audition clothes. for this, i'm probably going to buy a bright red baby t on the way home, so i can look like i'm wide awake when i'm on camera tomorrow.

let the games begin.

"wassup!" the 2008 version

remember the infamous "wassup?!" budweiser commercial from a few years ago that caused such a sensation? here's the updated version. enjoy.

what if jesus ran for president?

what if Jesus Christ ran for president against senator mccain? i think that this "commercial" is probably the way the senator would turn his republican constituency against Him. and judging by how rabid and ignorant and soft-headed mccain's followers seem to be (did you see the videos i posted yesterday? yikes!), they would probably believe it.

all in a day's work

housework (that daily constant), a commercial audition (in chelsea), two voiceover auditions (from home), a full workout that includes a boxing conditioning class (in soho), a piano lesson uptown (and yes, piano practice for at least an hour) and round 2 of the jazzmobile jazz vocal competition this evening at the alhambra ballroom (in harlem), with all the getting ready prepwork that goes with any gig.

still don't think i do anything all day?

the day before the audition -- hair, hair, everywhere!

i got a call from my agent for an AT & T commercial at beth melsky casting near the flatiron building. the set-up? it was a support group and i was "susan." when she described the character as "somewhat polished," i asked if i should wear a wig and she let out this perky yet elongated yeeeeeeees that made me burst into laughter. i knew what that meant: if i wanted a shot at this one, i had to take care of business.

i washed and conditioned my hair and then i worked through it with a blow dryer -- an all day event reduced to an evening of hard labor. but it didn't stop there. i went to 125th street and decided to go with the first nice african lady that approached me. and there were quite a few. after some haggling (because you have to haggle; that's just the way things get bought and sold, and it makes what you're haggling over more valuable) she cornrows my hair so that i can put on a wig cap comfortably. now the wig i'll wear to the audition will have me looking "somewhat polished." heh. i suppose i could find some other way of putting my hair away but anything else makes it look as though i'm smuggling something on my head, and that can't possibly read well on camera.

the upshot of it all has me looking more like a nigerian graduate student or an office worker from ghana -- young and african with my own air of sophistication, and yet so desperate to fit in, to blend somehow (is that even possible?!) or at least not look like a threat to the status quo. the idea is to be the black woman that someone behind a desk thinks of as pretty. apparently when it's time to look "somewhat polished," this doesn't involve my natural hair.

should i protest by showing up with an afro and my fist in the air a la angela davis? i suppose i could -- but that's not going to get me the job, now is it. this question of "what is black beauty" is answered everyday a thousand times over whenever you look at a black woman in an any kind of an ad or album cover or whatever. how far she has to move away from what she actually looks like to encompass that ideal is your answer. shifting things in the right direction is an inside job. if cornrows and natural hair were trendy to the extreme, absolutely everyone would do it. even the white folks. especially the white folks.

in the end, preparation is everything -- not necessarily talent. who would ever guess that i would have to do all of this to my hair to audition for a commercial?

another day, another audition: outback steakhouse -- "crave on"

okay. first of all, i have to say that it takes a lot of makeup in real life -- carefully and strategically applied -- to look like you're not wearing any makeup at all on camera. after all this time, i think i've finally got it down. the contouring. the shadowing. the highlighting. the layering. i can finally leave home and look made up but not really and take a photo at the audition that has me looking dewy and glowy and fresh. not powdery and caked on and fake.

truthfully, i owe it all to way bandy, that extrordinarily gifted makeup artist from the 70s. i found his book in the half-price pile at a local bookstore when i was in college in austin and read it on a lark. it's such a classic. when everyone was running to MAC counters and grabbing overpriced kevin aucoin tomes, i have clutched mr. bandy's book to my chest like a breastplate. he taught me the basics about makeup and skin care. if he only knew how much i loved him, how much his book has helped me.

i zipped over to donna deseta casting at broadway and spring for this one. they had 3 commercials going so it was a little crowded. i filled out my card, took a polaroid and settled in. as soon as i decided that i didn't know anyone there, i realized i knew someone there -- it was grace savage, the fun-lovin' nutroll i worked with on ed durante's movie jake gets paid. she was zipping around from one audition to the other and of course, she looked totally beautiful and happy. and then she was gone.

as soon as i walked in, i knew which actors belonged with which audition. there was a chase commercial that paired up chatty little black girls as sisters and a mom type, so there were all of these very-pretty-but-somewhat-thick-and-therefore-middle-aged-looking-but-
still-youngishly-attractive-in-a-weird-way black women set up with these girls who were basically grown and pretending to be children, and in so doing getting one over on the adults that were wrangling them. a little too perky and polite and knowing and smart and hip. i mean, how hip can you be if you're only 7 or 8 years old? nothing is more disconcerting or annoying or scary than a child that isn't a child.

there was a hardee's commercial. lots of attractive, generic-looking "middle america" white people. like they opened a portal to the country's breadbasket and let it out somewhere in soho.

and then there was my commercial. a good mix of young and old, supposedly everyday folk. the idea was that we were all standing around at a taxi stand (huh?) listening to someone talk about the entrees at outback steakhouse. sort of a riff on that "lean cuisine" from stouffers commercial where everyone is salivating over a description of the food. we went into the room in groups, depending on who had been seen and when they had been called and we reacted to what the speaker was saying or whatever. easy, right?

just when i was comfortable readjusting and reacting in oh-so-small ways to what was being said, the casting person asked me if i wanted to read it. i couldn't say no to that one but i'm not so sure i was ready to say yes. and of course, the next thing i knew, it was over and i was walking up broadway towards the N/R and wondering what really happened...

random sightings from the gym

i ran into cameron at NYSC in harlem yesterday. we were working out next to each other on those machines that are like long distance ice skating. when he heard my name he balked and reached out to grab me. how sweet!

cameron and i did a production of the wiz in the round at the arena theater in houston, texas some time ago. i was addapearle. i was in the show for probably all of 15 minutes -- the beginning and the end, really, with one hot number to make me really happy. i heard that it might go to broadway, so i did the part because i wanted to be a serious consideration if that happened. george faison choreographed/directed this one. i'd heard the stories about him and how crazy he is, and somehow instinctively i knew that if i was funny, he'd leave me alone. and he did. we had something outrageous like 3 weeks to rehearse and that he got the whole thing choreographed and up on its feet in 9 days.

when cameron told me that he was still doing theater, i told him to stop. on-camera work pays so well, i'm not so sure i'll ever do theater again -- unless it's something that i'm writing/developing, or something that i can originate. we talked about our options on broadway and otherwise. cameron told me that india.arie is going to star in the broadway revival of for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf as the woman in purple, with whoopi goldberg producing it. i had no idea she knew how to act. if you are a musician with little or no theater experience, is broadway really the place to learn? especially if you're doing an iconic black feminist play? hm...

i remember when molly ringwald did her star turn on broadway. and christine applegate. and john stamos. and deborah cox. and toni braxton. and p diddy. these people don't originate work. they guarantee ticket sales, bolster sagging box office reciepts and give themselves a little credibility. but at what price for the rest of us? at what price for broadway?

and therein lies the irony: for actors like cameron and i who want to originate work, it's a bleak scenario for us because we haven't done lots of film/tv. we're not famous musicians. not yet, anyway. as far as the acting stuff is concerned, all we can do is keep auditioning. all we can do is stay in a constant state of readiness. all we can do is wait our turn.

well. this isn't a waiting room situation for me. i don't like to wait for the phone to ring, so i'm doing all this other stuff -- like writing another one person show or making another CD -- while all of that acting stuff does whatever it's going to do.

of course, none of this has anything to do with being talented or being good enough. go figure.

oh, lebron

why is it that whenever a black male athlete is on the cover of a nationally distributed and well-respected magazine, he looks like a wild beast of some sort that someone just unleashed onto an unsuspecting public -- yet when his white counterpart is featured on the cover, he looks like a strong, handsome (sexy, even!) conquering hero, with his foot on his helmet and his shirt off and him looking out past you, into the horizon and everything, like he can see the next game he's going to win?

come on, now. i can't be the only one that sees this distinction and wonders about it.

what's especially heinous is that this is the first black man on the cover of VOGUE magazine. all of the black male models we know and love, black models that were ruling the runways in paris and milan and gracing everyone else's magazine cover, these people waited until 2008 to feature a black man on the cover? then again, that shouldn't be surprising when you consider that they didn't put a black woman on the cover until 1977. (and yes, it was beverley johnson.)

lebron james (also called "King James" by the way -- i like that) says he was putting on his game face for this shot -- but why would he need that look for a VOGUE magazine cover? shouldn't he save his game face for the actual game?

he certainly hasn't pulled out this game face for the commercials he's done. we've all seen "the lebrons" in the sun, haven't we: lebron, dressed in an all-white suit and carefully shaped spherical afro looking for all the world like an elegant dandy, pulling off a spectacular swan-dive in slow motion into a large swimming pool and smiling at the camera beatifically as he seems to lounge underwater, all the while surrounded by various and sundry characters at poolside who turn out to be lebron himself, a la eddie murphy/the nutty professor.

not surprisingly, it's my favorite one: lebron as comedian and character actor is so unexpected, and what with all the assumptions/stereotypes about black people not knowing how to swim/being afraid of the water, a poolside oneupsmanship/showdown against his many selves was effing brilliant. what's next, i wondered? will "the lebrons" go skiing?

oh, you haven't seen my favorite lebron commercial, you say? well, here it is.



what's in this commercial is a far cry from what i see on the cover of VOGUE for the month of april: a King Kong for the 21st century, with giselle as fay wray.

i suppose one could say that i'm being overly sensitive or touchy, that it's just a magazine cover, that it doesn't matter. but actually, it does. in a media-saturated world where such images are carefully thought out and planned by people who are supposedly intelligent and educated and worldly, any visual inference that portrays black men as dangerous, angry, violent animals is not a good thing and it really shouldn't be celebrated as such. subconsciously, people are absorbing those images as truth and they treat black men accordingly.

you don't even want me to get into the images that are floating around out there about black women. you really don't.

the racism inside all of this is so obvious, it feels idiotic to explain it. it's like my friend ralph, driving up on a white skateboarder in the middle of the street at 120th and 5th and yelling at him to get out of the road. the kicker was that marcus garvey park was right there, mere inches away, but he'd rather skate in the street. (seriously, that really happened...)

interestingly, there are a lot of people who disagree with me on this. and one of them is lebron. hey, it's the april issue, it's out there. at this point, what else can he be but magnanimous?

boy. they'd better hope i never get famous.

Charles Bronsom is...MANDOM!

i loved charles bronson when i was a little kid. he was a man's man -- the ultimate tough guy. now that those million dollar japanese commercials that american celebrities have been doing for years have come to light, gems like this one are starting to surface. he must have done this in the 70s.

as i watched it, all i could think was, that's totally the life i thought i'd have when i grew up: there i'd be, all dressed up and having a cocktail of some sort while some nat king cole look-a-like tickles the ivories. and then some midget doorman would give me that hearty "goodnight" along with my car keys, and i'd zip through gotham, feeling powerful and arrogant and in control. wheeee!

i wonder what that stuff smells like. do they still sell it? or has it gone the way of right guard and hai karate, two other very important emblems of my manly childhood...

finally!

for all of you folks out there in foreign countries, those of you who don't have televisions or who categorically refuse to watch them, here it is: the prego commercial i did last year! yes, it's still running. yes, as long as it's still running, i'm still getting paid. yes, residuals are a beautiful thing. yes, yes, yes!



by the way: i had an audition today at HOUSE, for the fast food folks at sonic. more on that later.

another (commercial) audition -- antidepressants!

this was an audition at kipperman casting on friday for an anti-depressant drug that had me coming into the frame with a cup of coffee and a smile as "the black friend." (no, i'm not kidding.) bizarrely enough, i was wearing all black and they gave me the black mug (she held the white one.) at first she's depressed but then her mood changes. when it does, i enter and sit down, and then we pretend to laugh and talk as we both cheat front and "relate" to each other. it was over as soon as it started. hilarous.

no waiting, no lines. i was in and out in all of ten minutes. my white counterpart was a very pretty, wide-eyed mom-looking young mom, with sleeping baby in tow. the actress that came out of the audition room (a young black woman who had on a terrific "ethnic" wig, by the way) was kind enough to watch the baby while we went in. i remember thinking, this is how some people do it -- and why not bring the kid along? you're not in the room for very long and it's well worth it for the money you could make.

wow, what a crap shoot. the hardest part? i have to keep my hair like this for all of next week, until my agent knows that i didn't get a callback.

wouldn't it be the best christmas present ever, to land a commercial before the end of the year?

another (commercial) audition -- sculptra

this one was at house on thursday afternoon for a new product that's hitting the market soon. really caught me totally off-guard. there was no script. they simply wanted me to talk onscreen about my idea of beauty. once i settled into my chair and slated, i was asked "does a beautiful woman look like?" what a huge question. it totally took me off-guard. my immediate response was, a beautiful woman is someone who takes what she's got and makes the most of it, no matter what it is. and when that happens, every woman is beautiful. but to tell you the truth, i actually had to stop and think about it. as i explained myself, what i said surprised me.

immediately, i thought of my great-grandmother, my grandmother, my aunts, my mother -- the first women i ever knew and spent any real time with. none of them ever wore make-up or had regular spa visits and yet to this day, i think of them as the most beautiful women that i have ever known. my Godmother, my aunt doris, in her twentysomething/thirtysomething prime was prettier than most women i know now.

why, she asked. more thinking.

they were lean and strong and healthy, as i recall. my great-grandmother would work all day in more than an acre in her backyard that was filled with vegetables and fruit and flowers, and she would do this in that south carolina sunshine, the kind of heat that made me dizzy as a child. she did that almost every day without a tractor -- unthinkable then and now for a woman her age. and that's not all she did.

i don't come from heavy-set, overweight people, either. when my aunt doris got married, she had to be all of a size 4, if that. there's a balance and a lankyness to us physically. but that's not it, either.

there was that unaffected natural approach to beauty. i understood at an early age that i didn't need to do anything or get anything to be pretty. there was an emphasis on cleanliness, order in the home and staying close to God. everyone had such pretty brown skin -- so clean and clear -- no matter how old they were. it was almost as though they were saying, this is who i am. no apologies, no excuses. this is it. if you don't like it, whatever. there's a lot of power in that.

she also asked me what i thought about plastic surgery and what i thought about the way i look at my age. as i'm jump-cutting through all this verbiage in my head to give her a clear-cut answer and tell her what i really think, i'm also thinking, where is this going? what kind of a commercial is this going to be? .

in the end, i don't think they're going to call me because my hair was natural. heck -- i was natural. they could surprise me. we'll see. what i'm really wondering about are the kind of answers they got from everyone else. it felt like a dove campaign for real beauty ad, not a commercial audition for a product that "plumps up" your facial skin.

another day, another (commercial audition): breakfast cereal!

my agent -- all wiry and full of nervous energy and bounce -- called me yesterday talking sideways into my answering machine, like he had a question in his thoughts. he goes, "hi, bunch!" (why he calls me that is a bizarre little story. remind me to tell it to you sometime.) "there's an audition for Curves cereal," he said like he was telling me a secret, and he went on. "didn't you tell me that you just lost 15 pounds? they want you to talk about losing weight on camera. very natural. chatty. you know."

i'm listening with one ear and i'm thinking, Curves? isn't that the excercise place for, um, all those big beautiful women out there? and right on cue, he goes, "they want real women, all shapes and sizes, not just big," and then i'm thinking, what about my hair and he added, "just so you know -- your hair is fine natural, bunchie. okaaaay? call me!"

i figured why not. at this point in my on-camera life, i've figured out how to relax on camera -- no small feat. i wasn't worried about what my hair would do. it was cornrowed into a bun and therefore rendered powerless. would i oh so tame "natural" hairdo get me a callback? if i did, maybe i had a shot.

this was at house on 15th street and 10th avenue of course -- the place that cast me in my first two commercials -- so it was very much a home for me, no pun intended. i tromped through the wet sleety snow to get there. this not being my first time at the rodeo (and time being of the essence), i made a beeline for the sign-in sheet (beating three other ladies to it in the process), grabbed the lines, checked to see if someone was in the room (yup) and if there was someone ahead of me (yup again), then took off my coat and whatnot as i looked over the lines, took a picture and filled out the card it was printed on. in no time at all it was over: i was in the room, i was jovial, chatty, friendly and open. and then i was back out on the street in the snow, bewildered, not knowing how i did. i could say, i was great! but i'm not sure. i'm never sure. maybe she hated me. maybe my face wasn't relaxed enough. whatever happened in that room, i couldn't take it with me. i trudged off, and with every step, all of it mattered less and less. by the time i got home, it didn't matter at all.

here's the thing, though: my spidey sense is tingling because the palms of both my hands are itching like crazy. southern black folk, you know what that means.

i've got another audition tomorrow -- for anti-aging cream. stay tuned.

this is willie horton

for those of you who were born in the 1980s and have absolutely no idea who the willie horton is that i mentioned in my last post, i thought i'd enlighten you. his mugshot was called "every suburban mother's greatest fear" and his name is pretty much synonymous with everything that white america is afraid of when they think of black men, incarcerated or not.

here's his big moment: the commercial that cost dukakis the 1988 presidential campaign against bush the senior.