NaBloPoMo for August: KNOW

Interesting topic for this month's BlogHer NaBloPoMo, especially in light of all the misinformation that is constantly being spewed at me from every direction -- KNOW.

All I know is that I know nothing, sure. When it's time to find some things out, that's when all the balloons go right out the window.  I end up asking the same questions over and over again: Is anything well curated?  Can any news source be trusted? Does anyone know how to think critically? Do we know what's really going on -- or are we so buried in a never-ending avalanche of consumerism, branding, punditry and reality TV that we don't even care anymore?

All of this is compounded by those who don't know how to listen, those who don't know how to talk, those who don't know the difference between an opinion and a fact -- and of course, bad nutrition.  You can't think clearly if you don't get all the nutrients you need.

What's the first sign of bad nutrition? Apathy.  

I think I know and then I keep digging and I know more -- or less.  Not opinions. Because repeating your opinion over and over again authoritatively won't make it a fact. To wit: Obama is not a secret Muslim.  There were never any death panel provisions in Obamacare.  Planned Parenthood is not selling baby parts.  Blah, blah, blah.

I am intellectually curious.  I keep asking stupid questions and I'm not ever really satisfied with the answers I get. They usually lead to something else to get curious about. I pull the string until the whole sweater comes undone -- and then I go and start picking something else apart...

NaBloPoMo for June: Ready, Set, Go!

I think I've spent the better part of the year winding up and readying myself to sling art out into the world -- with strong ideas, performances and gigs.  Still and all, I don't really feel as though I'm doing enough. Probably because I'm still learning my intervals.

I'm going to take another stab at documenting my world as an artist this month, one day at a time.  You can find me online at these hotspots:

• Tumblr
• Twitter
• My Newswire on Twitter
• Instagram
• Periscope TV
• ello!
• Facebook - Queen Esther
• Facebook - Georgette!  
  
  ...and if you want to subscribe to my email list, click here.

NaBloPoMo for May: PHOTO!

This should be fun: post photos -- or write about them -- all month. 

MPB says that I have an eye and that's good to know. Taking snapshots on the fly has become another kind of journal.  Just about every smart device I've got in my purse has a great camera on it so it's hard not to take a picture or squeeze off a video when something interesting pops up. 

The thing is, I'm in the midst of giving myself a pretty severe makeover -- dental work, weight loss, hair ideas, and much more -- and all of it is forcing me to look at my physical self in a way that I find difficult. Or at least disconcerting. I was always too focused on technique as an actor and a vocalist to fret over something as seemingly frivolous as my image.  I mean, sure. I'm obsessive about how I look in performance, I push for a healthy lean strong body but what it takes to do what I do on the stage is light years away from what I need to do to come off well on camera.  

The thing is, I don't want to believe that talent doesn't matter -- even when casting agents say talent is only 7% of what they consider when auditioning actors.  (WTF?)

I get it, I get it -- film/TV is a visual medium.  My body was the first thing that came together.  It was, and continues to be, hard work.  Every morning, I start all over again, like Sysyphus -- beating my body into submission.  No one can say that I'm not taking my visuals seriously. I have an eyebrowist, for crying out loud. Because it takes time for bones to heal, my dental work will be the last thing and it will take the longest, and it will cost me plenty.  (What am I saying? It already has.) 

Once I'm done, I'll never stop smiling. Never.

I have to take new headshots, I have to make an actor's reel, I have to make a 2 minute EPK/video and I have to take promo shots for my upcoming European tour.  I need all of that as of yesterday. Yeesh. That's a lot of eye candy.   Very necessary, though.

Here's the blogpost epiphany from 2009 that triggered it all -- Your Inner Svengali.  And if you're curious about the snapshots I take or the images I like, you can find me on Instagram and that minimalist wonder,  ello.

In the meantime, here I am goofing off with my girl Chicava Honeychild of Brown Girls Burlesque.  I don't think we're capable of not having fun together.

NaBloPoMo for April: GROW!

For April Fools Day, I was going to announce all over social media that I'm pregnant (!!!) but then I figured that would be a really tacky thing to do and it would probably do way more harm than good, and probably in the most hurtful way imaginable. Instead, I'm jumping on the blog everyday bandwagon -- because I've got a lot of stuff going on and this would be a great way to keep track of it, and because the discipline of writing everyday does me a lot of good.  Morning pages work wonders creatively. This will be an addendum to that process. Maybe I'll shake even more ideas loose.

I'm hoping the discipline of running every morning will have the same effect -- especially now that the weather is nice enough to roll out of bed and hit the track in the park. 

The NaBloPoMo for March: News

I keep a journal, I'm diligent about my morning pages and once in a blue moon, I'll write an article or an essay that gets published somewhere.  Writing every day for a month at a time via NaBloPoMo has proven to be excellent mental floss. It never fails to shake something loose creatively, especially if I'm spreading that information around.  Spring is almost here.  I've been growing a lot of ideas.  It's time for them to bloom. 

When it comes to news, most people I know trust Reddit or Twitter before they'll tune into a network. I don't trust any of them, so I'm constantly cross-referencing whatever I can get my hands on until the mosaic of information that I collect gives me a three-dimensional picture of what's really going on.  Sorting through bits of "newsworthy" flotsam is such a constant, I do it without thinking about it.  All manner of trivia gets stuck in my head that isn't necessarily newsworthy.  Like the weather in Bora Bora vs. Walla Walla, or what A'lelia Walker's last meal was or what happened at Attica or overtly racist white people who justify their cultural appropriation or fun details about Freud's cross-dressing niece Tom. And having wide-ranging conversations with people who are smarter than me is really important because that's a wonderful way to grow and learn new things.

The problem is, most people don't know how to think critically.  It's not what's taught in schools, which is why most people don't know how to argue a point with any real clarity or insight.  They repeat what they heard or what they're emotionally clinging to or what some conservative news outlet told them.  They're too emotionally attached to what they're saying to be truly objective. Or they're just flat-out not listening to what is being said. All of this is compounded by the fact that they usually have a conflated sense of self that won't allow them to admit any of this. 

Meh. MPB is right. It's better to not engage in the first place.

February's NaBloPoMo - Make!

This month's theme is "make" -- whatever that means.

What's interesting is that there is so little that America manufactures anymore and most people have a tendency to not make things, but purchase them as needed and discard them with abandon. Once upon a time -- as recently as the turn of the century -- everyone made their own clothes.  They also grew much of their own food. When my mother was a kid growing up in the rural South, you weren't allowed in stores to buy clothes off the rack. You had a sewing machine, you learned how to sew what you wanted and mend your hand-me-downs. If you really had to have it, you ordered it in a Sears and Roebuck catalog. You got resourceful. You made what you wanted.

This was the Southern way, the way I was raised. To be able to make things with your hands, whether it was the curtains in the living room or the pretty dress you saw in the window.  To cook, to bake. To keep a garden seasonally, grow a fruit tree and eat what you grow.  I have all of that in me and have embraced some part of that somewhere along the way in my life -- but I live in a city that doesn't necessarily give me free rein to live that way.

Of course, this got me to thinking about what I make and as it turns out, it's a lot. I would like to add clothes to that list.  I was taught to sew as a child and I'd love to pick it back up.  Knitting, too.

It's kind of wacky that we need a website to scour the nation to find American manufacturers and then have them plead with us to buy American in this really jingoistic way -- like you're less of an American if you don't -- but here it is.  They should have that conversation with the American manufacturers that take their business to other countries.

And then there's The Buy Black Movement. But that's another conversation...

September's NaBloPoMo: Healing

What does healing mean, exactly? Is it all interconnected -- mind, body, spirit -- or can one experience a profound healing in one area of one's life and complete rot in another one? Is it perpetual? Can someone's body be overwhelmed in the process of healing and wear itself out in the process? Is there ever a moment when I can declare that I am truly healed in every way imaginable?  Won't I be like Sisyphus, constantly striving and ever reaching for healing of some sort but never quite getting there?

I don't drink alcohol, I don't smoke cigarettes -- or anything else for that matter. I stay out of the sun and I'm so Howard Hughes obsessive about my skin, I wear sunblock in the shade.  I definitely don't do drugs recreationally. I don't do these things for fairly obvious reasons, of course. I make sure that I drink this green stuff for breakfast habitually and I pop these vitamins after every meal.  I am making it my business to physically exhaust myself on a daily basis with boxing, bikram yoga, pilates and anything else I can stand,  to get my body back and keep it once it gets here. And as if all of that weren't enough, I usually eat clean. Yet in spite of my best efforts, there are moments when I can feel my body struggling against whatever modern day toxins the world is inflicting upon me at random. And I sometimes wonder how any of it is affecting the rest of me...

What is mnemonic, anyway?

A mnemonic is a device -- any device, tangible or intangible -- that assists in remembering something.  As an actor that's had to ingest iambic pentameter whole and spit it out at will, I'm well acquainted with this idea. Strangely, I've never given it a name.  Yeesh -- I never knew this had a name. 

And what is bullet journaling, anyway? Sounds like a gigantic, well-organized to-do list.

NaBloPoMo -- June, 2014

Writing every day never fails to shake ideas loose and inspire things to bloom in other directions. Morning pages are one thing but this is something else. Let's see if I can keep this up every day for a month, shall we? 

And yes, something in me will pick up where I left off with Black Jesus on Holy Week. I promise.

April's NaBloPoMo = Scandal!

Who knows if I'll be able to keep up? Then again, if I can swing it with morning pages, this can't be that far off.

Here's to moving forward, new beginnings and an action-packed spring.

NaBloPoMo -- March, 2014

This month's theme is SELF. Blogging means writing about yourself, usually -- right? I don't really know what that theme means.  Whatever. Writing is something that lets me wring my brain out when I wake up.  Suddenly, my thoughts are orderly and assembled just so.  The subject matter is irrelevant. Those morning pages are the perfect set up.

Still thinking about the hot toddy I had at Superfine on Sunday.  (Actually, I had three of them.) Happy days.

End of the Year Blowout!

I'm going to do NaBloPoMo because I need to get unstuck with my writing. Whatever prompts me into these spontaneous fits with these little scribbly moments will give me the impetus I need to dig in with everything else.

Someone on Fitbit's blog threw down a gauntlet and challenged everyone to walk/run 600,000 steps by December 31st. They made that challenge three weeks ago but of course I didn't see it until last night. At this juncture, that would mean I'd have to run something like ten miles a day. Right away, I figured why not. If I aim for ten, I'll probably do five, which is what I'm supposed to have under my belt every day, anyhow.  So I'll be getting unstuck physically, too.

The real reason I'm jumping on the fitness fast track is because I'm singing at The Kennedy Center's Millenium Stage next month with my jazz collective The Hot Five.  When they told me that they're doing a simulcast that will be archived -- well, that just about cut it.  I'll be hornswaggled if I won't look amazing on camera for posterity.  A snapshot on an off day is one thing. Forever and ever for the whole world to see is something else.

The quintet and I will be at The Player's Club for New Year's Eve Eve and I return with a duo for New Year's Eve, so there's that.  What's really driving things forward at the moment is the timeline I sketched out with my director Talvin Wilks for The Billie Holiday Project, the musical I'm developing.  We had a meeting last week that truly lit a proverbial bonfire under my butt. 

I'm starting every day this month with a drop off to Bottomless Closet or the Salvation Army for that handy dandy tax write off, and I'm decluttering absolutely everything.  Stuff is getting thrown out, shredded, donated or sold, in short order. By New Year's Eve, everything must be in order -- cleaned, scrubbed, scoured and organized -- because as the saying goes, how you end the year is how you'll live out the next one.

Onward and upward, kids. 

May Cake

Nothing is going on and everything is going on.  It's all up in the air and it's all down on the ground and it's everything or nothing and nothing is going on. The sun shines so brightly these days -- with a blue sky brilliance that makes me feels so alive. And then I run outside and it's effing freezing and I'm walking home shivering like a small poodle and I'm thinking, what is the what.

The engine is revving forward and all systems are go and something in me is on pause. 

Spring cleaning abounds.  This seasonal winter weight gain is melting off me like I'm a snowman on the beach. I'm editing my closets very carefully. And thanks to that wacky tv show Hoarders,  I can't stop decluttering and throwing things away.  Needless to say, rewrites abound.  And of course, having a sinus infection and temporary laryngitis is pretty much the icing on my many-layered May cake.

The NaBloPoMo theme for May is Comfort -- whatever that means.  At the moment, I'm finding a lot of comfort in my ukulele.  I really don't know how to play it but its so simple, I can play it, if you know what I mean -- and every time I get a new chord right, it feels like I won the Lotto.

Okay, back to my closets and my rewrites. Just in case you're interested, here's what I'm working on with that uke: Ten Arpeggio Excercises!

Flash Fiction: "Chicken Lips"

  

This month's NaBloPoMo theme is RISK. I've been revisiting some flash fiction that I'd written some time ago and I found this one that seems to have a bit of risk in it somewhere, so here you go.
 

Chicken Lips

 

It was their first date and it was a blind one, rabid with good intentions and interesting talk.  A mutual friend had set them up and Dana figured, why not, it'll be fun.  They both put on a mock game face when they met--for Marion's sake, they laughed--but there was a mutual attraction that neither of them could deny.   After awhile, they were chatting as though they'd known each other for years.

Unfortunately, something was killing her buzz. 

Every time Jason smiled at her, what little was there in the way of a mouth disappeared into the rest of his face, revealing two rows of gleaming whiteness. Dana smiled at him warmly and tried not to think about it but as the night wore on, it was all that she could think about.  The words glowed as they hovered around his head, in neon: chicken lips. After she watched him talk through the main course, she was ready to politely excuse herself and go home.  But to tell the truth, she was having a good time.  And besides--she never skipped dessert.

A question loomed over her thoughts like a cloud: Would he kiss her?  No sooner did this query appear than another floated along behind it, listlessly: If he did kiss her, what in God's name would it feel like?

That she was unlike anything that he had even remotely expected was enough to knock the wind out of Jason's Nantucket sails.  The details she gave him about herself and her life made him sputter with a mixture of bewilderment, confusion and pleasure.  He had driven his car past quite a few, locking the doors carefully as his vehicle came to a complete stop at the red light.  Perhaps there were one or two in his classes at his alma mater that he hadn't really paid any attention to.  This was certainly true at work.  And he'd certainly seen plenty in the movies, on television and those videos--music, sports, porn and otherwise.  But to have an intelligent insightful conversation with one--and a beautiful one, at that--this had never happened.

Jason, on the other hand, was exactly what Dana had expected. 

Jason was wonderful in a New England white guy kind of way.  The kind that can trace his family tree all the way back to Old England.  The kind that likes to go rock climbing on the weekends. The kind that walked through this life with the patented swagger of privelege and entitlement.  Jason had no need to stand up and demand whatever he wanted out of life. He understood from a very early age that clearly, it was already his.  An all-American birthright, if you will.  Somewhere down the line, whether they had any money or not, didn't they all come off like that to some degree?  Doing whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, with society condoning them all the way?

If my brother behaved like that, Dana thought, the cops would shoot him in the back 41 times.

As he excused himself and disappeared to the men's room, she sighed and wondered what she'd say to Marion the next day. Dana could visualize the look of disappointment on her face so easily.  How could she get out of explaining this one?  She'd have to think of something.  She always did.  Only someone who'd been in a situation with someone like this would truly empathize. As Dana nibbled on her dessert, she began to count the days leading up to the next night in with the girls and thought about how she'd describe this encounter.

Suddenly, she felt a slight pressure on the embankment next to her.  It was Jason, sliding towards her in the booth.  Here it comes, Dana thought and for a moment she closed her eyes to clear her thoughts.  When she opened them, he was very close to her.  Too close.

"Have you ever seen that movie Annie Hall?"

"Yes."

"You know that part about how they kiss each other at the beginning of the date to get the kiss overwith?  Because if they don't, Woody Allen will be thinking about it for the whole date and then the evening will be ruined?"

"I remember that scene."

"That's how I feel."

Dana looked into his face.  She could see the freckles that speckled his eyelids so delicately, so faintly, she had to resist the urge to touch them.  She wanted to tell him that they were beautiful but nothing would come out of her mouth.  She waited for the words to say and as she did, she held his gaze.

"I feel like if I don't kiss you now, I never will."

As he spoke, he came closer gradually, lowering his eyes to look at her mouth, stained with berries from her half-eaten dessert.  She held his gaze and readjusted, smiling faintly. All at once, she knew. That's why he noticed her.  That's why he harassed Marion into a blind date set-up. That's why he persued her all this time, polite and unassuming and direct.  He wanted a kiss, a real one, from big soft lips like hers that would taste like everything he'd ever wanted.  He got everything he ever wanted, didn't he?   Isn't that why this should be the one thing he doesn't get?

In that moment, Dana felt like the most powerful woman in the whole wide world.  And for a moment that seemed to last an eternity, she was. 

nablopomo - again?

falling into the dead of winter with nablopomo, to jump start some ideas and keep my creative juices flowing.   although blogging everyday for a month sounds daunting, i'm determined to not fall off this time. wish me luck -- or better yet, join me!

february: it's all relative

"Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity." - Albert Einstein



this month's nablopomo theme is relative - whatever that means. i'm always willing to blog without ceasing because like morning pages, it's such a wonderful creative trigger. something gets unhinged and new ideas erupt all over everything else i'm doing.

happy black history month -- though i must say, don cornelius' suicide is a rough way to start it.

for your viewing pleasure

now that october is upon us, it's time for halloween: stocking up on candy for the kiddies that may stop by or the neighborhood thugs that will invariably bang on the door; pulling together a costume from out of your own closet so you won't have to get something generic and pricey from ricky's; haunted houses that really scare you; and scary movies that sometimes freak you out way after the fact.

halloween is one of the nights i almost always stay home if i'm in new york city. everything seems so safe these days, even in the ghetto. but it's still new york city, no matter how sanitized everything is. i mean, honestly. if you want the suburbs, move to long island.

there are a lot of scary movies out there -- this is a list of 50 of the (supposedly) most popular ones of all time -- but nothing is more frightening to most folks than the truth. with that in mind, here's a few documentaries to consider when it's time to make some kettlecorn and dim the lights.

ah, yes -- h.h. holmes: america's first serial killer. at first glance, he looks a little too much like daniel day-lewis' bill the butcher, blue eyes and all. the bestseller the devil in the white city entwines his gorey antics with daniel h. burnham, the architect of the chicago world's fair. i don't know what creeped me out more -- the elaborate hotel he built to efficiently murder travelers or the fact that he tortured, killed and dissected small animals as a child.



this one is pretty disturbing -- the iceman interviews. with an expressionless face, infamous mob hitman richard kuklinski recounts one murder after another in this unaffected monotone that should guarantee at least one solid nightmare after viewing. you know what's really creepy? this guy spent his last few years of freedom with his wife and three children in a new jersey suburb.



...and of course, no halloween eve should end without ed gein: the ghoul of plainfield. if you don't know who this is, you are the unibomber, living in a cave, cut off from society and all that rot. can you believe ed died in 1984? i mean, wow. that's kind of recent...

watch out -- this one is hella graphic. (sure, it's halloween when you'll see this so you're expecting gore of some kind. i'm jus' sayin'...)




any creepy documentaries on your list? please recommend a few. i'm always looking for more...

unbelievable but true!

crime really doesn't pay, does it.

this guy got sandwiched in between two buildings when a robbery in patterson, nj went wrong. (brilliant, right?) at first glance, i can't even begin to imagine exactly how he ended up here -- or how they got him out.

...between...

nablopomo's theme for the month of october is between. of course, that could mean anything. my immediate thought is of indian summer -- that strange expanse in between fall and winter that can bring stunningly beautiful sunny breezy blue sky days or an absolute water-logged slosh fest. or both! in nyc, you get the full visual spectrum of the changing seasons. a constant sunny blue sky year round sounds like fun but it seems abnormal, somehow. kind of like dealing with someone who grins at you all the time. after awhile, wouldn't you think there was something wrong with that?

all those women in that movie a boy and his dog with their pasty faces and painted on overly rosy cheeks and lipstick. full of sunshine, totally disturbing and strange. i guess that's why some people have a fear of clowns. that fear is called coulrophobia, by the way.  geez. i guess there really is a name for everything.

if you haven't seen a boy and his dog, it's worth watching. here's the promo. it stars a very young (and very pretty) don johnson.

swim, swim, swim

nablopomo's theme for july is SWIM - whatever that means. since i could use a distraction from the funeral i attended today, i'll answer today's daily prompt: Where would you love to go swimming?

why, barton springs in the nation's capital, of course!


located in beautiful zilker park, barton springs -- and yes, that includes barton springs pool -- is a thing of wonder. without a doubt, austin texas was one of the prettiest places i knew of, and those natural springs set off every season just right. picture it: sunny days, blue skies, world-class mexican food, the best bbq you've never had, live music everywhere and lots of swimming holes. i couldn't have picked a more perfect place to go to college. but that was then. the austin i knew no longer exists.

with barton springs pool remaining a relatively toasty 70 degrees in the dead of winter, swimming in austin was a year round essential moment to cherish.

we grew up with a swimming pool in the back yard, so i could swim -- but i was lousy at it. wading around and dog pedaling it was good enough until i got to school and watched everyone else take to the deep end of the lake with abandon. i promised myself that i would take lessons and become a strong swimmer and maybe become a lifeguard before i left texas. and i did become a strong swimmer. i worked at it until i could swim and dive comfortably. baywatch knocked the idea of being a lifeguard right out of my head, thankfully. finally, i could enjoy barton springs the way the rest of my friends did, instead of looking nonchalant at the water's edge whilst posing in a vintage one piece swimsuit and nibbling on things.

of course, there was also hippie hollow, the clothing optional situation that everyone knew of and no one frequented. well, just about everyone went there, actually. i imagine that back in teh 70s, everyone was smoking pot and sunning themselves endlessly and whatever. (frackin' hippies!)

austin had such a hippie vibe when i was there. lots of outlaw biker hippies chillin' out all over the place. but that's another conversation...