Vintage Kudzu: "The Sights and The Sounds"

here's a snapshot -- taken from my old kudzu entries -- of what my moment-to-moment harlem life was like 10 years ago. enjoy!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Sights and The Sounds

Wake up to the sounds of Johnny Cash singing The Beast In Me on your Zumbidor.  Get up and drink a quart of water because you know you don’t drink enough of it.  Check The Weather Channel.  Jump into your gas station attendant clothing, grab your headphones and go to the gym.  You don’t want to go but you know that if you don’t do it now, you won’t do it at all.  As you leave your apartment, greet the children across the hall with their mother, the super who’s mopping the halls and stairwells and the grandma in the window of the ground floor apartment --- in Spanish, of course. Make a right and head for Riverside Drive.  Pass a crackhead or two and be sure to say “Buenas.” You know they will. They’re always so polite to you. 

It’s about a 10 minute walk to the gym inside Riverbank State Park.  It’s sunny and it feels like San Francisco outside.  You don’t like that chilly breeze.  Something has to get you going.  You crank The Circle Jerks, Fugazi, The Sex Pistols/God Save The Queen, The Buzzcocks/What Do I Get? And then you remember that Rancid is coming to CBGB’s soon, that Reverend Horton Heat is coming even sooner than that.  You love those bands.  You must get tickets. 

You get to the gym.  You’re listening to Manu Chao.  It’s relatively empty.  Lots of older Latino men, a few black girls here and there.  The Dominican guy at the front who monitors the room touches his heart and points at you and then he sticks out  his tongue at you and makes a face.  You do the exact same thing to him.  He loves it. You love it too and you don’t know why.

You make it through your weightlifting routine with Manu Negra and then you pull out Fatboy Slim to get you through an intense 30 minutes on that treadmill.  When you’re done, you’re dripping with sweat.  On your way out, shove your Dominican monitor buddy off of his chair as he’s talking to someone else.  He almost falls off and shakes his fist at you, pretending to be mad.

The Replacements/A Little Mascara gets you out the building and up the street because you like it so much, you play it three times.   Chris Whitley/Automatic Love is what gets you into your apartment. With any luck, it’s only around 9am.

You don’t eat anything until after 12 noon. You pop early Everything But The Girl into your jambox, and jump in the shower.  You exfoliate with your favorite scrub cream, that sudsy stuff from Aveda. Of course the phone rings several times while you’re in there.  Good thing you put the cordless on the toilet.

Once you’re out and smelling “fresher than thou”, you jump on the internet and do business---returning e-mails, synching your Palm, making phone calls, confirming audition appointments and “go-sees” and checking in with your manager.   You call your parents.  They’re not home.  Your manager has sides for you: two movies, a musical and an industrial.  All of that Everything But The Girl reminds you of when you scooped ice cream for a living in Austin back in the day, so you play XTC/Skylarking for old time’s sake.  You make yourself a protein shake to go and head up Riverside Drive by bus to your manager’s place.  You forgot to charge your cellphone.  You plug it in as you head out the door.  As you leave, you are listening to Derek and the Dominoes/Layla, the deluxe reissue.  You have three auditions this afternoon.  Mentally you are packing your rolling zipfront suitcase while you are on the bus.  While you’re out, you run errands.  You listen to the soundtrack of I am Sam and wonder why Paul Westerberg can’t get it together.  You’re genuinely surprised at how much you love Rufus Wainwright’s voice.  Enough Beatles.  You start start thinking about Rancid again, so you switch to The Cramps/You Got Good Taste.  Some hip-looking black guy stops you at the bank and asks you what you’re listening to, because “it looks like you’re really enjoying it.”  You think about making something up, but you don’t.  When you tell him, he makes a weird face.  You don’t give him a chance to ask why, so he leaves you alone.  A word floats above his head as he walks away: YUTZ. 

When you get back, you warm up your voice, sip green tea, run lines and make more phone calls, pack your bag, pack your purse, put on a slight amount of make-up, dress up and get out.  While you’re running around, you’re listening to Soundgarden, Rage Against The Machine, AC/DC to keep yourself going.  You don’t get back until around 7pm.  When you do, you’re absolutely ravenous.  Your cool neighbors Paul & Chad made lasagna and bring some over for you.  You toss yourself a salad, throw the lasagna in the oven and listen to Charlie Christian’s box set while you read the paper and answer/make phone calls.  

 Here are your options:  Do you a. go to some open bar industry party, filled with bony models, chatty stylists/promoters and people who call themselves actors; b. go to see a cool band all the way in the lower east side, virtually a million miles from where you are now; c. eat dinner in your underwear and bunny slippers with your feet up and then take a nice long hot bath? 

kurt vonnegut was right. (sort of.)

Source: twitter.com via Joani on Pinterest

i'm feeling especially grateful for my creative life -- all of it. i have no idea why this feeling of gratitude has covered me like a strange dark shroud. the epiphany that unfurled itself inside me the other day probably has everything to do with it. for some strange reason, that simple thought and all of what it really meant rattled me all the way to my bones. i'd certainly had that thought before but this time, it carried a weight to it that made it so profound, so overwhelming. all of a sudden, everything seemed divinely ordered. all of a sudden, in one bright moment, everything made perfect sense.

i realized that i didn't choose to be an artist. my early years were a series of happy accidents and strange coincidences and "lucky" moments that made me aware of a knowing feeling that grew inside me, a feeling that constantly reassured me that i am who i am -- an artist -- and that's all that i am, no matter what. my only real choice meant coming to terms with this information and deciding what to do with my life.

my most productive and satisfying moments came when i got out of the way and let God take over and give me whatever ideas i was meant to have. that's the way its always worked for me. i get out of the way and have a kind of blackout while inspiration takes over and works through me to make something wonderful. very stanislavski. actually, it was through method acting in performing arts high school that i learned how to get out of the way. more on that later.

when i first came to new york city, a beautiful dancer -- one of those stunning ailey acolytes, i think -- told me that it was a sin to have a God-given talent and do nothing with it. she said it in passing. it was almost an afterthought. i never forgot those words. in my darker more mundane moments, when i was working and working and working and (seemingly) not getting anywhere with what i was doing, those words would float back to me and drift just above my head, like a smoke ring. and i would keep going and then a breakthrough would sail into my life with so much ease, it would leave me breathless.

now i know that although mr. vonnegut was wrong -- you can make a living in the arts -- he was also so very right: every human being has a grand capacity for creativity and art. it can augment all of our lives and make them better, and make life much more bearable. so many apply their bright ideas to the most mundane parts of their world and illuminate them with ingenuity and verve, leaving light and love in their wake.

i'm not talking about haberdashers who use their albums and music videos and their ability to "beef" and start static to shill their clothing lines, alcoholic beverages and energy drinks. i'm not talking about fashion victims or fame junkies. i'm not talking about corporate tools or media whores.

i'm talking about creativity in its purest most elegant and accessible form -- something that we all have within our grasp as human beings. something that is there to give you joy within the confines of your everyday world. something that you can take further than that, if you feel so inclined. something that connects you to the divine in such a deliberate way, it's almost stultifying.

here's to my creative life -- and yours.

...no, i haven't seen "the help" -- yet...

the buzz about the help has been growing to a decidedly two toned fever pitch -- at least on the black hand side. the reviews, from armand white's entertaining empathy to valerie boyd's the help: a feel-good movie for white people have been interesting, to say the least. what some black bloggers have said is especially insightful. the book has sold well over 3 million copies so far and it's been translated into 35 languages. because of the the success of the book, the movie will certainly find box office gold. if it's anywhere near as lopsided as everyone says it is, those sales statistics are pretty frightening because that means this southern white socialite's ignorant pap about who we are as black women is being shmeared all over the world.

that's got a super high creep factor for me -- something you'd know a lot about if you're black and you've ever turned on the tv in a foreign country and seen sanford and son or good times running ad nauseum, complete with an elaborate foreign "negro" voiceovers.

i'm going to see the help -- and yes, i'll probably read the book -- for a myriad of reasons. the first one is pretty obvious: as a professional actor, i'm a part of the entertainment industry. it would behoove me to see and hear what's out there, especially as it relates to me as a person of color. most of the artists that i know in this industry of any genre that are on top of their game are all about paying attention to everything that's going on, whether it's a top 40 album or an off-broadway show. it's all the same industry, it's all entertainment.

i also have a big fear of being an ignorant actor -- someone that doesn't really know anything at all about the world they work in, much less the world itself. i want to be able to intelligently discuss and dissect ideas amongst my thinking peers. i don't want to be uninformed. i don't understand how any thinking person can criticize any work of art that they haven't seen or read. when that happens, what's really being attacked is the idea of what that art represents and not the work itself. that's not good enough, not for me.

and last but not least, i really need to be able to give a very straight answer to anyone i'll inevitably meet who will see this movie and may perhaps subconsciously view it as a documentary and not a work of fiction. i don't need to see a documentary about the help. my grandmother worked as a maid for years. all my life, i learned what it was really like, straight from her. i sometimes rode an early morning city bus to school with domestics. the stories they told haphazardly were unforgettable. even now, i am surrounded by elders who continue to set me straight, with the truth.

apparently, viola davis agrees with me. her mother was a maid. so was her grandmother.

haven't we had enough contemporary race relations movies with long suffering black maids that's told from a white perspective? wait, what? you don't remember the long walk home, with whoopi goldberg?

while i fully understand the concept of artistic and/or creative license, i often wonder what these these films would be like if we as black folk created them, or at least had more of a hand in their development. what do you think the help would be like if a (southern) black woman wrote it? or adapted the screenplay? or directed it?

i've included a well-informed response to the film from the association of black women historians. please pass it along. you probably know someone that really needs to read it.

An Open Statement to the Fans of The Help:

On behalf of the Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH), this statement provides historical context to address widespread stereotyping presented in both the film and novel version of The Help. The book has sold over three million copies, and heavy promotion of the movie will ensure its success at the box office. Despite efforts to market the book and the film as a progressive story of triumph over racial injustice, The Help distorts, ignores, and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers. We are specifically concerned about the representations of black life and the lack of attention given to sexual harassment and civil rights activism.

During the 1960s, the era covered in The Help, legal segregation and economic inequalities limited black women's employment opportunities. Up to 90 per cent of working black women in the South labored as domestic servants in white homes. The Help’s representation of these women is a disappointing resurrection of Mammy—a mythical stereotype of black women who were compelled, either by slavery or segregation, to serve white families. Portrayed as asexual, loyal, and contented caretakers of whites, the caricature of Mammy allowed mainstream America to ignore the systemic racism that bound black women to back-breaking, low paying jobs where employers routinely exploited them. The popularity of this most recent iteration is troubling because it reveals a contemporary nostalgia for the days when a black woman could only hope to clean the White House rather than reside in it.

Both versions of The Help also misrepresent African American speech and culture. Set in the South, the appropriate regional accent gives way to a child-like, over-exaggerated “black” dialect. In the film, for example, the primary character, Aibileen, reassures a young white child that, “You is smat, you is kind, you is important.” In the book, black women refer to the Lord as the “Law,” an irreverent depiction of black vernacular. For centuries, black women and men have drawn strength from their community institutions. The black family, in particular provided support and the validation of personhood necessary to stand against adversity. We do not recognize the black community described in The Help where most of the black male characters are depicted as drunkards, abusive, or absent. Such distorted images are misleading and do not represent the historical realities of black masculinity and manhood.

Furthermore, African American domestic workers often suffered sexual harassment as well as physical and verbal abuse in the homes of white employers. For example, a recently discovered letter written by Civil Rights activist Rosa Parks indicates that she, like many black domestic workers, lived under the threat and sometimes reality of sexual assault. The film, on the other hand, makes light of black women’s fears and vulnerabilities turning them into moments of comic relief.

Similarly, the film is woefully silent on the rich and vibrant history of black Civil Rights activists in Mississippi. Granted, the assassination of Medgar Evers, the first Mississippi based field secretary of the NAACP, gets some attention. However, Evers’ assassination sends Jackson’s black community frantically scurrying into the streets in utter chaos and disorganized confusion—a far cry from the courage demonstrated by the black men and women who continued his fight. Portraying the most dangerous racists in 1960s Mississippi as a group of attractive, well dressed, society women, while ignoring the reign of terror perpetuated by the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens Council, limits racial injustice to individual acts of meanness.

We respect the stellar performances of the African American actresses in this film. Indeed, this statement is in no way a criticism of their talent. It is, however, an attempt to provide context for this popular rendition of black life in the Jim Crow South. In the end, The Help is not a story about the millions of hardworking and dignified black women who labored in white homes to support their families and communities. Rather, it is the coming-of-age story of a white protagonist, who uses myths about the lives of black women to make sense of her own. The Association of Black Women Historians finds it unacceptable for either this book or this film to strip black women’s lives of historical accuracy for the sake of entertainment.

Ida E. Jones is National Director of ABWH and Assistant Curator at Howard University. Daina Ramey Berry, Tiffany M. Gill, and Kali Nicole Gross are Lifetime Members of ABWH and Associate Professors at the University of Texas at Austin. Janice Sumler-Edmond is a Lifetime Member of ABWH and is a Professor at Huston-Tillotson University.

Suggested Reading:

Fiction:

Like one of the Family: Conversations from A Domestic’s Life, Alice Childress

The Book of the Night Women by Marlon James

Blanche on the Lam by Barbara Neeley

The Street by Ann Petry

A Million Nightingales by Susan Straight

Non-Fiction:

Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household by Thavolia Glymph

To Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors by Tera Hunter

Labor of Love Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family -- from Slavery to the Present by Jacqueline Jones

Living In, Living Out: African American Domestics and the Great Migration by Elizabeth Clark-Lewis

Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody

Any questions, comments, or interview requests can be sent to: ABWHTheHelp@gmail.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

pie!

so there i was on saturday morning, flying through the underbelly of the city on the 1 train with my gigantic vintage purse next to me, listening to public enemy, looking for all the world like it was 1922 - bob wig, lashes, heels, the works. i am surrounded by what can only be described as the unwashed masses. why shouldn't they gawk at me, i remember thinking. i would. i looked like i lived in a time warp. or a time machine.

here's a colorful tidbit: the navy blue dress i wore was a special number that i fought for on ebay like a frackin' tigress. it had this bizarrely conservative off-white/ecru doily of a lace collar that was so starchy and conservative, it seemed anything but tame to my way of thinking. i looked for all the world like a sexy librarian -- my favorite way to dress up.

to be completely honest with you, my dress is technically straight out of the 1930s. when it comes to dressing in 1920s attire, i'm a little insecure about my overall look because i'm not flat-chested and i don't have an androgynous boy body that the clothes seem to require. my decade is the 1940s or the 1950s because my hips and my chest are the same inchwise, i've got a total hat head and -- as many a construction worker in this town tells me constantly -- i've got good legs.

the kicker is that i had carefully wrapped, straight-out-of-the-oven hot property perched in my lap. i entered the roaring 20s jazz age lawn party's pie contest with not just any pie, mind you. i made a sweet apple wood smoked bacon apple pie. and i was really excited about it. so excited, in fact, that i wasn't really wound up at all about the audition i was heading towards at telsey casting in midtown -- the lead role in the broadway musical sister act.

yeah, you heard me the first time -- but i don't mind repeating this one. they turned the movie sister act into a musical, developed it in san diego (i think), ran it for awhile in london's west end with whoopi goldberg in the starring role, briefly. and now, it's time for the broadway run. they had auditions for most of the cast two weeks ago. rehearsals start in january of 2011. interesingly enough, whoopi goldberg produced this. i met her when she was one of several producers for george c. wolfe's harlem song.

renee emailed me about this open call on a saturday -- a blue sky, sun drenched, picture-perfect saturday, by the way -- which also happened to be the first day of the lawn party and the only day for the pie contest. everything happened all at once. i should have been crawling the walls about the audition but instead, i was obsessing over pie. pie! would the crust be flaky enough? did i put in too much sugar? what about the bacon and the tartness of the granny smith apples -- would that combination work?

i didn't even bring my book to the audition. i brought one song -- unthinkable! because if they didn't like what i was singing, they could ask me to sing something else and (heh!) i had nothing else, so that would be that. but for some reason, i wasn't sweating it. pie!

this character is an aspiring disco diva, so i picked my favorite abba song, updated my resume and sailed in as close to the noon start time as i could. not that it mattered. the room was packed. everyone was well dressed and well-heeled and chatty, with just enough makeup on to look fresh in the blazing heat. when i saw someone holding a card that said 205 in big type, i thought, 205 people? i almost left. but for some reason, they started with 200, like a weird checkbook. so i stayed. i sat there, panic-stricken, as #239. that pie had to be on the judge's table on governor's island by 3pm. would i make that deadline?

fortunately, God always sends help when i really need it. even if what i'm agonizing over is something that's as insignificant and meaningless as a pie contest. for lo and behold, my friend mindy sailed into the audition room like a superhero, changed into her vintage attire in the bathroom and took the pie to governor's island. before i got seen, she texted me that the pie hit the table as #9. i was free to panic something else but there was no time. all of a sudden, i was next and then all of a sudden, i was in the room and then all of a sudden, i was done.

i must say, it was a good feeling, stepping into a room full of beautiful talented black women in that 25 - 45 year old age range, all of us our own individual lovely selves. we aren't an anomaly. we aren't anyone's stereotype. and we are legion. i met quite a few who were from the south. two from atlanta, in fact. and one of them had only been here for a few weeks.

who knows if i got the part. who knows if i'm what they want. who knows. it's such a massive crap shoot. and ironically enough, as i've said time and time again on this blog and as is often the case with acting and "getting the part", talent has absolutely nothing to do with it. what's important is that i threw my hat in the ring. i didn't leave that stone unturned. i got seen for it and i did a solid audition. who doesn't love the song dancing queen, anyway? who's that idiot? in a way, the pie contest probably allowed me to relax and not take any of it too seriously, and that usually means a better performance.

oh, and about that pie contest? i won!

my movie watching progress so far...

This is the IMDB Top 250 movie list. I thought it would make me a less ignorant film actor if I watched more movies, so I figured this list would be a good start. I’ve seen everything that’s in bold letters. Wow. I really don’t have too far to go with this one. Time to crank Netflix a little harder. If I do, I’ll be done with this list before the end of the summer.

1. The Shawshank Redemption
2. The Godfather
3. Inception
4. The Godfather: Part II
5. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
6. Pulp Fiction
7. Schindler’s List
8. Toy Story 3
9. 12 Angry Men
10. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
11. Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back
12. The Dark Knight
13. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
14. Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope
15. Seven Samurai
16. Casablanca
17. Goodfellas
18. Fight Club
19. City of God
20. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
21. Raiders of the Lost Ark
22. Rear Window
23. Psycho
24. The Usual Suspects
25. Once Upon a Time in the West
26. The Silence of the Lambs
27. The Matrix
28. Se7en
29. Memento
30. It’s a Wonderful Life
31. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
32. Sunset Blvd.
33. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
34. North by Northwest
35. The Professional
36. Citizen Kane
37. Apocalypse Now
38. Forrest Gump
39. American Beauty
40. American History X
41. Taxi Driver
42. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
43. Vertigo
44. Lawrence of Arabia
45. Alien
46. Amélie
47. Saving Private Ryan
48. WALL·E
49. The Shining
50. A Clockwork Orange
51. Paths of Glory
52. The Departed
53. The Pianist
54. To Kill a Mockingbird
55. Aliens
56. Spirited Away
57. The Lives of Others
58. M*
59. *Double Indemnity
60. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
61. Chinatown
62. Requiem for a Dream
63. L.A. Confidential
64. Reservoir Dogs
65. The Third Man
66. Das Boot
67. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
68. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
69. City Lights
70. Pan’s Labyrinth
71. The Bridge on the River Kwai
72. Raging Bull
73. The Prestige
74. Back to the Future
75. Inglourious Basterds
76. 2001: A Space Odyssey
77. Life Is Beautiful
78. Modern Times
79. Singin’ in the Rain
80. Some Like It Hot
81. Amadeus
82. Downfall
83. Full Metal Jacket
84. Up
85. Cinema Paradiso
86. Braveheart
87. The Maltese Falcon
88. Once Upon a Time in America
89. All About Eve
90. Rashômon
91. The Green Mile
92. Metropolis
93. Gran Torino
94. The Elephant Man
95. The Great Dictator
96. Sin City
97. The Apartment
98. Rebecca
99. Gladiator
100. The Sting
101. The Great Escape
102. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
103. Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi
104. Slumdog Millionaire
105. Unforgiven
106. Bicycle Thieves
107. Jaws
108. Avatar
109. Batman Begins
110. Die Hard
111. Blade Runner
112. On the Waterfront
113. Oldboy
114. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
115. Hotel Rwanda
116. No Country for Old Men
117. Touch of Evil
118. The Seventh Seal
119. Fargo
120. Princess Mononoke
121. For a Few Dollars More
122. The Wizard of Oz
123. Heat
124. District 9
125. Strangers on a Train
126. Cool Hand Luke
127. Donnie Darko
128. High Noon
129. The Sixth Sense
130. The Deer Hunter
131. Notorious
132. There Will Be Blood
133. Snatch
134. Annie Hall
135. Kill Bill: Vol. 1
136. The General
137. The Big Lebowski
138. The Manchurian Candidate
139. Platoon
140. Yojimbo
141. Ran
142. Into the Wild
143. Ben-Hur
144. The Wrestler
145. The Big Sleep
146. The Lion King
147. Million Dollar Baby
148. Toy Story
149. Witness for the Prosecution
150. It Happened One Night
151. Life of Brian
152. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
153. The Bourne Ultimatum
154. Finding Nemo
155. Wild Strawberries
156. Trainspotting
157. Gone with the Wind
158. The Terminator
159. Stand by Me
160. Groundhog Day
161. Scarface
162. The Graduate
163. The Thing
164. Kick-Ass
165. Amores Perros
166. Dog Day Afternoon
167. Star Trek
168. Ratatouille
169. Gandhi
170. V for Vendetta
171. The Wages of Fear
172. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
173. Twelve Monkeys
174. The Secret in Their Eyes
175. The Grapes of Wrath
176. How to Train Your Dragon
177. Casino
178. The Gold Rush
179. 8½
180. Grave of the Fireflies
181. Diabolique
182. The Night of the Hunter
183. Judgment at Nuremberg
184. The Incredibles
185. The Princess Bride
186. The Killing
187. The Wild Bunch
188. Kind Hearts and Coronets
189. Children of Men
190. The Exorcist
191. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
192. In Bruges
193. The Best Years of Our Lives
194. The Kid
195. Dial M for Murder
196. Nights of Cabiria
197. The Hustler
198. Good Will Hunting
199. Rosemary’s Baby
200. Ed Wood
201. Harvey
202. Big Fish
203. King Kong
204. Let the Right One In
205. A Streetcar Named Desire
206. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
207. Sleuth
208. Rocky
209. Magnolia
210. Letters from Iwo Jima
211. Kill Bill: Vol. 2
212. Shadow of a Doubt
213. Mystic River
214. Stalag 17
215. Network
216. Brief Encounter
217. The African Queen
218. Rope
219. Crash
220. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
221. Bonnie and Clyde
222. The Battle of Algiers
223. Planet of the Apes
224. Duck Soup
225. The 400 Blows
226. Manhattan
227. Patton
228. La strada
229. Toy Story
230. The Conversation
231. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
232. Barry Lyndon
233. Changeling
234. The Truman Show
235. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
236. Little Miss Sunshine
237. Anatomy of a Murder
238. The Nightmare Before Christmas
239. All Quiet on the Western Front
240. The Adventures of Robin Hood
241. Mulholland Dr.
242. Spartacus
243. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
244. Monsters, Inc.
245. My Neighbor Totoro
246. Ikiru
247. Shaun of the Dead
248. Rain Man
249. The Philadelphia Story
250. Arsenic and Old Lace

See more progress on: watch the IMDB Top 250 movies

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!

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.

i'm versatile

every once in awhile, a voiceover gig would fall into may lap and i'd tell myself that i would make a demo and start my voiceover business for real. and then i'd forget about it until some other voiceover gig came out of nowhere and i'd go, wow, i really have to get it together and make a demo. and then i'd go back to whatever i was doing before. back and forth i went. you'd think i would have learned my lesson from the voiceover work i did in lackawanna blues, but no. it took a year of residual checks from that oh so happy afternoon in the recording studio with george and most of the cast of caroline or change that made me think, am i nuts or what? and then another gig fell in my lap: a musician who'd seen me with jc hopkins' biggish band found me via j walter hawkes for a PBS children's cartoon called Word World that had me playing "elephant" and singing a little song called "bit by bit" about putting words together. sooooooo cute. i was in and out in less than an hour and the check was lovely. and it was fun! hm, i thought. wouldn't it be great if i could do this all the time?

i'd been getting newsletters every month from dan and carol duckworth at AAA Voiceover Casting/Voiceovers Unlimited for God knows how long, so when their "january jumpstart" came around this year, i jumped on it. their total package is more like total immersion. they don't just help you put together a demo, they show you how to run your business, for real: classes to develop and maintain your skills, regular mailings to business contacts, seminars to teach you how to market yourself, workshops and one one one sessions to hone in on your weaknesses and strengthen them. everything is so goal-oriented. and i'm a compulsive list-maker, so that's going some, for me to say that. i loved the way dan kept referring to everyone as the president of our respective companies.

once i realized that recording at home to audition and take voiceover work via your laptop, garageband and a mic was the wave of the future, i thought, hm -- wouldn't it be great if i didn't have to leave the house to go to work? then again -- wouldn't it be even better if i could do this voiceover business anywhere?

dan said it in our first marketing seminar, but i've always known it to be true: most actors just call themselves actors. they don't know how to treat acting like a business. they don't know how to hustle, how to make it rain, how to generate work for themselves whether the phone rings or not. they don't know how to market themselves. here's a perfect example of what i mean: most actors don't do mailings regularly -- that means a postcard with updates every month, to keep everyone up on the latest things you've done, after you've sent a headshot and a letter of introduction. it goes without saying that you having all the talent in the world doesn't mean anything if the casting agent in question with the perfect gig for you has no idea that you even exist.

i have one friend in particular who is convinced that the postage to spend on such things is a waste of money. whatever.

all i know is, i'm versatile. and i'm pretty sure that's a part of what can keep the residual checks rolling in. whaddya know: i'm only a few weeks into this total package and i just found out today that an in-house corporate gig just landed on my head. nutty.

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.

"Jake" didn't get in!

unbelievable but true -- the film i was in called Jake Gets Paid didn't get accepted to Sundance Film Festival. well, thankfully they're not the only game in town. there are festivals everywhere, not just colorado. if you know of one, tell the director ed durante all about it at jakegetspaid@gmail.com.

panning for gold

last night i went out to dinner at pastis with joan. we had a lot of catching up to do. ah, joan. when i say her name, a flood of memories from my earliest years in new york city come rushing back to me, all at once. she was one of the first people i met in the city. i liked her right away and i don't know why. she was pretty and smart and cool and funny. gobs of insight. west indian by way of the bronx. big family. her long-time boyfriend eric person (that she eventually married) was a musician. although she was in publishing, she wanted to be an actress. clearly, we had a lot in common.

the years floated by. with every bit of progress, joan was somehow a part of it. over steak frittes, she reminded me of when she came to boston when i did RENT and i popped the strap on these amazing shoes she let me wear. and then there was the work i threw at her, at random. one of them was a short off-off broadway stint that i couldn't finish. she stepped in and closed the run. she saw my one person show. i gave her sheet music. "you were good to me," she said. truth be told, actresses don't do things like help each other. especially black ones. but i never concerned myself with that kind of backstabbing piffle. i knew i'd never get anywhere by stepping on people and using them. i figured, what's mine is mine. so why not tell someone about some audition or whatever. why not? no one can take anything away from me that God wants me to have. God is sovereign -- not some casting person on the other side of the table. if God doesn't want me to have it, i don't want it.

after the divorce, as joan settled into her new place in east harlem with her son, she thought of me and decided to take me out to dinner, to catch up and reconnect.

i'm glad she did.

of course, everything was running fast in our conversation. fast and strong. that's the kind of thing that happens when you're with someone that you know, and the love and respect are ever-present. when someone doesn't have an agenda with you, when they aren't denigrating you or one-upping you or playing games with you. when you're just talking -- free and open and easy. it's actually a relief, to be that way. no wonder i've always liked joan.

i caught her up on my family, my career and my love life before the steak hit the table. there was her babysitter to relieve uptown, so unfortunately, there wasn't much time. nevertheless i gleaned so much from what she said. and of course, with those pearls of wisdom came a great deal of sweet relief. but i'm getting ahead of myself, i think.

it's so easy to get stuck here, doing the same things over and over in the name of your career or progress or whatever. making the rounds and going to auditions is something you have to do strategically. you can't just do it ad nauseum -- not without strong results. but then again, auditioning is one of those things that you can do and do and do and keep doing, whether anything ever happens or not. because something could happen. and so you keep doing it. and i suppose that makes it hard to walk away -- there is always the idea looming that the next audition is The One. it's like panning for gold. you're an eternal optimist. but after the divorce, joan makes the rounds again and discovers that those early 40-something trying-to-look-30-something black dolls were now in their early 50s. they never stopped to have a life -- to get married, have kids or whatever. they never stopped auditioning and hustling to the callbacks and scheming towards the next job. they never stopped panning for gold.

i stopped that hustle with Harlem Song. i hit a wall and i realized, i didn't want to do any more regional theater. i didn't want to do any more off-off broadway for the glory of a great new york times review and no money. and club dates made me sick. i wanted to get paid. and that meant transitioning into movies and television. what did i do in the meantime? i wrote songs. i played guitar for fun. i treated working out like it was my part time job. i spent optimum time in day spas. i got my teeth fixed. i worked a day job. and somewhere in there, i landed a ton of callbacks, three commercials and a movie.

all of a sudden, i was so grateful. for everything. i was so grateful to be in the place that i'm in right now. i'm not out there, grasping at sheet music, standing in line and waiting to sing 16 bars. i don't even think i want that anymore. that's when i realized: something happened. i don't know what it was, but something happened. i took a turn somewhere in there and the next thing i knew, everything headed in another direction. and as if all of that weren't enough, i have a friend that's the coolest guy in the world. go figure.

for joan, it was her little boy. she says having him changed everything. it forced her to live on a certain level, get organized and reconfigure her life. auditioning was no longer a priority.

i think we're thinking along the same lines: we want to create and produce something for film and/or tv. have a comfortable life filled with creativity and family and ideas while the checks come in.

we're still panning for gold. we're just not standing in the same stream, doing the same thing over and over again, hoping for different results.

hm. the next time her son is with his father for the weekend, i think i'll show joan my screenplay.

Jake Gets Paid

here's the trailer from my first feature film, Jake Gets Paid. it's my first real role. you know what i mean: more than five lines. not background work. not "extra" work. it's me, in a supporting role that has me saying and doing things all the way through the flick. that's never happened before. i'm filled with sweet relief that it's happening now.

i was antsy about what i'd look like because i'm not as skinny as i was last year and my hair is totally natural and i'm not necessarily a film actor (yet). but when i saw the rough cut, i realized that my hair looks way better than i dared to imagine it would. and when i relaxed, the camera seemed to like me. now i'm very comfortable on camera, thank God -- which is probably why i keep getting called back for almost every commercial that will see me.

what's especially cool is that the director ed durante is using two of my songs, in the very beginning and the very end of the movie.




ed and his editor sen are close to a final edit, so they want some viable feedback. they're going to show it at tisch school of the arts (ed's alma mater) next week. i can't wait to see what it looks like and how it feels. and yes -- when all is said and done, i'm really glad that i did it.

Aron Ranen's Black Hair Documentary

if you are a black woman that straightens your hair, you might want to take a look at this 10 minute clip. it's a real eye-opener. as it turns out, getting that kink out of your hair is a billion dollar industry -- and the ones who manufacture and control the distribution of the products you use are (hit it, gomer!) * surprise, surprise, surprise!!! * korean.

what bothered me when i saw this is that not straightening your hair at all didn't really seem to be a viable option, especially on the west coast. the black folks in the hair industry are annoyed, not because of the warped image that we have of ourselves as females, but because they weren't getting a bigger piece of that financial pie.

can you imagine what would happen if black women everywhere stopped straightening their hair and invested that money each month, instead of putting it on their heads in some chemicals or a horsehair weave? we'd be rich.

oh, heck. if you've got that much money to blow on your hair every month, you already are.

you can buy the 50 minute documentary from http://www.blackhairdvd.com/.

chasing kismet

some time ago, i got a phone call from shell white. it seems that her ft. greene neighborhood was plastered with posters for a movie that she'd never heard of. none of the other white people she knew had ever heard of it, either. all of the black people were talking about it everywhere she went -- so she called me for an explanation.

"that's tyler perry," i yawned. "it's his first movie, diary of a mad black woman. i'm sure it'll be huge." that's when i tried to change the subject. but shell wouldn't let me.

one of his big splashy theater piece/gospel musical DVDs was always running in the background at somebody's momma's house, somebody's bbq, somebody's backyard get-together, somebody's weekend social: a big black man (6'7") in a dress playing a big black woman, shooting guns off onstage, smoking pot and cussin' people out and carrying on, while some high drama unfolds that usually involves some long suffering black woman, her ne'er do well black man and of course, a slut. all of their extended families are involved as well, so there's a lot to laugh at, evidently. and because tyler is a southerner, there's redemption for someone and a big gospel send-up at the end.

i can recall conversations that i'd had with many a blactress after i joined the union who were seriously considering renouncing their Equity affiliation to do theater on the chitlin circuit -- or at least work illegally under another name -- and they encouraged me to do so, too. in a way, it made sense. for the kind of money a broadway star like nathan lane gets, you could have a supporting role in one of tyler perry's shows. with a $100 million in revenue, he could certainly afford to pay you. everybody knows that broadway has been in the red and hemmoraging money for years. the urban theater circuit, on the other hand, is swimming in cash and is totally -- pardon the pun -- in the black.

on the other hand, those shows were craptastic spectacles of lowbrow minstrelsy in the highest order: bawdy, trashy and -- i have to admit it -- fun. don't get me wrong: i'm especially pleased to see one of us make it in the entertainment industry on our own terms. when he went to hollywood and vyed for a production deal, they told him that his audience didn't go to the movies. so he made his own, for less than $5 million. over $50 million gross later, every white anybody in hollywood is wondering who he is. so yes. that's a lot to be glad about. as black folk in atlanta are quick to tell you, tyler perry's house is bigger than oprah's.

but i'm not about to make him out to be something that he isn't. tyler perry getting over makes him a great businessman, maybe -- but it doesn't make him a genius. no one is mistaking jackie collins for joyce carol oates, so why should i ever mistake him for august wilson? i can go to his shows and laugh like everybody else. why not? it's fun stuff.

the more i told shell, the more intrigued she became. all of her questions seemed to be leading to, what's behind all this?

"this is what you need, queen esther," shell said. "you need that grass roots explosion." and i'm thinking, sure. i mean, don't we all? but you can't manufacture that. what she saw out her front window with those posters was years in the making. she could walk down the street and feel the electricity of it all from the black people in the neighborhood and she wanted to examine the anatomy of their excitement close up. i wasn't sure if she could.

now that i stand on the verge of going into the studio, i've given that conversation with shell a lot of thought. i know myself well enough to know that if i record/mix/master it with no outside financial backing, i'm not going to just listen to it around the house -- i'm going to have to release it, too. and that really freaks me out because i actually know what it takes to do it the right way this time. i was flying by the seat of my pants with the last one -- my first effort -- so mistakes were made and thankfully, i learned from them. but if i knew then what i know now, i probably wouldn't have done it at all. it's when you come out of the studio that the work begins. but work and kismet are two completely different things. chasing kismet can age you, blind you to the basics in some instances, and for the most part, make you appear to be more than just a little desperate. chasing kismet can wear you out.

as far as i can tell, it's like being a part of a champion tag-team partnership: the work is on me, but kismet? that's God's job.

sure, tyler perry created his own genre, film-wise -- a black Christian romantic revenge comedy -- but it's kismet is what shell was alluding to, when she saw that sea of movie posters on her block. i am fairly convinced that kismet is the one thing that no one has any control of. someone told me once that if i got closer to God, i'd get closer to my kismet. hm.

"we have to see this movie," shell blurted. i agreed -- but only if we saw it at the magic johnson theater in harlem. i knew that she wouldn't get the gist of the movie unless she were surrounded by a bunch of black folk, and harlem did not disappoint me. as you can well imagine, it was quite a hoot. in spite of the fact that the place was fairly empty, sisters were present and they were on. heh.

at the end of the day, i'm left knowing that God will give me whatever i'm supposed to have -- and i won't ever have to chase what's mine.