anatomy of a scenario

it wasn't what i thought it would be.

i expected something bigger, grander. a bit of flash, at least. what i saw was a sliver of a building next to an auto body shop -- weirdly appropriate, somehow -- that squatted on a narrow street near a four way intersection that demanded the cars stop several feet away from the red light so they could make turns without hitting each other. the LIRR was right there, hanging above us in this stealthy ominous way, racing by every so often, its parking lots sprawling across the street from the action, this infamous gentleman's club, and all of us.



all of us was ed durante our somewhat fearless leader, tanya the ever-present script lady and james at the camera and at the ready, with a host of black actors that have worked with ed before, for the most part. all of us were dressed in black, as per ed's request. all of us were a little freaked out.



all of this was for the sean bell film project, organized by ed. this was some fast and furious-ness at work here, creatively. all the directors were given the same rules: one day shoot, two charaters speaking, no more than 3 minutes long, delivered in 7 days, all of them done by early september.



for ed's piece, all of us had to learn a monologue from hamlet. this would have been a cakewalk for me under ordinary circumstances, especially since i took a shakespeare workshop earlier this summer with jeff at dog run rep. and what with all the work they had to do, one would think that the least i could do was learn my lines. but once i was actually in front of the camera, all i could think about was these three brothers in their car getting shot at 50 times by cops that never identified themselves. my anger had long since dissipated. i was swimming in iambic pentameter, drowning in so much feeling, choking back something that felt way more like empathy than anything else. shockingly, ed didn't yell at me. to tell you the truth, i think i kind of wanted him to. anything to shake my lines loose.

and oh, what a beautiful day it was. there was something ironic and depressing and black-hearted and foul about all that sunshine and the picture-perfect blue sky wonderment that framed it so incessantly. yeah, the sun wasn't helping me, either.

it got even worse when we began to talk amongst ourselves and share our feelings about what happened. it got grim when we put ourselves in sean's place. it was james (the actor) who really brought me down when he talked about his bachelor party and dissected how it could have happened to him or any of his fraternity brothers. it was strange, all of us wallowing in our makeshift grief on the sidewalk as the bright sunshine made everything gleam like something out of a disney movie. somewhere in there, i walked to the bodega on the corner and got a piece of fruit and some tea and someone told a funny story and everything got a little giddy, because every thing was so sunny and so dark and so abysmally strange.

when it was all over and we were finally left with the unspoken question -- where did they shoot him down, anyway? -- we collectively walked around the corner to find our answer.



i tried to leave the sunshine there but it followed me all the way back to a gentrified west harlem, chok full of way too many hipster white people and the overbearing police presence that they brought with them. and so did this weird, weird grief that sits on my chest like a playful 2 year old and leaves me feeling like i swallowed a cinderblock.

i don't know what to do about a police force that won't collectively think before it shoots, especially when their guns are aimed at black men, or a local/state/federal government that won't prosecute the police officers in question when they kill innocent black folk and call it a "horrible senseless tradegy" or "a terrible accident" or "a case of bad timing" or a "misunderstanding" and all of the other phrases they use to justify themselves. i don't know how to battle any of that.

i am beginning to think that art can affect change. i'm beginning to want to make art that changes things. being a part of that process in someone else's project/vision is an important step to make towards creating something powerful that's mine.

this is how it begins -- someone or something inspires me and i get ideas...

the sean bell film project

when sean bell was murdered by undercover nyc police officers nearly two years ago on what would have been his wedding day, the powers that be dismissed the entire incident and explained it away by blaming the victim. and just as in the amadou diallo case in 1999 wherein four cops opened fire simultaneously and emptied their guns on a stuttering african that spoke little or no english, all of the police officers were acquitted. there have been many more senseless killings, acts of aggression and the like but these two cases stood out for me because they seemed especially savage.

and yes -- i know that there are white people in this country who are convinced that they aren't at some sort of an advantage because of their race, but i don't hear tell of any of them getting shot at 41 times by cops just because they reached for their housekeys. if you are black, these streets are more than just dangerous. and if you are black and male, they can easily become a slaughterhouse.

once i got past my anger about all of this, i realized how frustrated i was. i wanted to do something, anything. write a song, maybe. make art.

a few days ago, i get a call from ed durante. he and a collective of filmmakers have formed the sean bell film project to (according to their press release) "create cinematic arts events that produce unique and nontraditional media coverage for human rights issues." brilliant idea. before he could tell me all the details, i said yes.

we're going to be shooting this weekend at the very location where the incident took place -- in front of the club kalua. each director in the collective will do a short of their own. ed wants to do a blip from hamlet, two very short male/female monologues. looking over the script makes me glad that i did that shakespearean workshop earlier this summer and warmed up to iambic pentameter all over again.

this is the way it happens -- you come up with great ideas and you find ways to execute them. all of a sudden, i'm a lot more hopeful and little less frustrated.