Murphy's Law loves me

Of course, after a week of ranting at every opportunity about how pissed I am that I paid my $130 in union fees this Monday, I get a callback from an Equity Principle Audition (required auditions for Equity members for union shows). It's for a play called "Driving on the Left Side" (Joy, stop singing Pass the Dutchie"). It required singing, preferably a reggae song. Since I neither knew by heart nor had the music to a reggae song, I had to bring some of that actor-in-NYC-on-the-spot-audition-type hustle: I did an island rendition Lord's Prayer sung (Sister Mahalia set the precedent - a fact I was ready to present those watching, if necessary).

Today I auditioned for the part of an aspiring rapper in an indie film. They asked the auditioners to bring in some East coast rap to perform. Unfortunately, I only read the full e-mail this morning, so I only new this a few hours before the audition. All that I know off-hand is Cee-Lo's verse from Cell Therapy. It would have to suffice.
So, I went in, did it - had to start over once 'cuz I didn't give myself time to feel the beat right, and then did it. It proved to be quite cathartic - and I'm not even sure what I was being cathart-ized from. I really enjoyed performing that. Actually, every time I perform that verse - as poetry, rapped, or whatever - I enjoy it.

We'll see how it goes...


PEace

Well, like a dummy, I went and paid my (in-)Equity dues for the year.

So much for that extra money I made to get some service done on the truck....

Last week I was in an elevator with Samuel L. Jackson.

No, I did not speak to him.

He was speaking to his wife. And as one would normally do in this situation, I left the two to their conversation.

One person I mentioned the occurrence to claimed that, if he/she see someone who's (famous), he/she is going to approach/speak to them. She seemed to feel that regardless of whether or not this celebrity appeared to not wish to be bothered.

I, however, choose to be far more selective about whom I choose to jock.

Most of the people on that very short list are dead, anyway.

what can I say. I'm hard to impress.

That, or I think people should be treated as people regardless of whether their profession happens to cause many, many people to know their names.

About Boyd....

A gentleman by the name of Boyd Vance passed away last night. He was the executive director of ProArts Collective - one of the few organizations focused on producing and encouraging the arts among people of color and certainly the main producer and facilitator of Black theater in Austin, TX.

Probably without really realizing it, Boyd helped me believe that I could be a professional actor. Before meeting him, I'd never been in a Black play. Before meeting him, I'd never paid my rent by performing on stage. Through an associate introduced to me by him, I received the opportunity to join Actor's Equity (and again get paid for performing on stage).

Boyd helped me have fun, helped me make a living, introduced me to people who touched me, helped me grow as a performer and was the object of what, I think, is still the greatest one-liner I'll ever deliver (I wonder if anybody from Jitney remembers it).

Yet, I'm only one of a rather large group of people who can say Boyd did the same for them.
The measure of Boyd as a singer, actor, entertainer, director, producer, etc. is not what I feel he should considered by - and there are plenty who rate him fairly high in those. That measure should be of his impact as a catalyst. Boyd created and gave people chances. And I can now only hope that he hears me when I give thanks in my prayers tonight for all that God, through him, gave me.

I believe that is how we will continue to know Boyd Vance, as a catalyst.

Well, that and being a certified, absolutely unrelenting nut....

Thanks for the cookies and punch, bruh.

Peace: C. Walker, Jr
aka "Shealy"


(after 11 years and the advent of  Wikipedia, someone had done this.

it makes me happy to know someone did. 

jealous

editor's note: At the user's request, comments were disabled on this post because, well, it's just not "that kind of post". Apologies for hurt feelings should be considered offered. - ed.

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jealous.

Mystery posts

I just found two posts that were never posted. One of them is about corporate America and how they will kill you. Don't even TRY to tell me it's a coincidence.

Here they be:

Feb. 10, 2005

Nov. 15, 2004

(scroll down to the second entry on this one)

I think I may have accidently color-coordinated the O-Fishul....

I have a strange affinity for brown....

(ramblerambleramble)

Masters pursue their craft constantly - it is first and foremost in their minds. They pursue it relentlessly – at times to the detriment of their most intimate. Their concentration so draws their focus from the average daily chore of life that it can induce to be social impairment…

And I've realized that I'm not that way about anything, acting included - not that I'm going to stop acting or that I'll never be that way about acting. I just know that I'm not that way about it now.

I went into grad school intending for acting to be that "thing" for me, but I guess you can't really choose it. Although, I guess that assumes a "thing" exists for everyone.

Maybe only some of us are given to the focus that leads to mastery of craft.

OR... maybe we CAN all achieve some great level of mastery, we just have to make the decision to be a master - like, mastery is its own achievement separate from a field of achievement like acting, etc.

Of course, like everything else in the world, it's probably something in the middle.

Or - whatever...

!

I just found a check for $250 from January that I never deposited.


um,... (gulp) is that you, God?

The next new hotness

The new junior high fad gaining momentum in NY and coming to a rap-wear/mall kiosk near you: Scrolling LED belts.

That's right. Now you can personalize your style at the waist daily via the latest in light emitting diode technology.

http://www.nycscrolls.com/


I saw two girls with these on on the bus already.

Hollye, I can't make this stuff up.

Look at Cartoon Network Be Progressive

Justice League Unlimited on Cartoon Network just started by showing a mixed couple (BM, WM)climbing up a mesa in Nevada. Of course, they immediately ate it - sucked into some mechanical, parasite-mass type thing that can replicate using any substance (Stargate Replicators, anyone?).

Maybe Bruce Wayne and Supes will figure out a way to re-form them by the end of the episode - but I ain't holdin' out hope.

I'm beginning to understand how New York winters drive people crazy.

It's not really through sheer intensity (though it can, on occasion, impress that way to).

It's through ridiculous longevity.

It's almost the second week of March, and we're still getting consecutive days of snow.

Not a lot, but...


It's like water torture...with snow.

Here comes the snow again
Falling on my head like a memory
Falling on my head like a new emotion...

So, I'm starting yet another week off wack...

Was late to a meeting (that wouldn't have taken place on time anyway; still, me and tardiness MUST un-acquaint ourselves).

Didn't manage to yank my largess out of bed until 2pm today.

Just realized that, for at least the past few days, I've been handing out resumes that don't have any contact info on it.

In other news, this actually happened to me:

I was walking down a stairwell at the 14th St. orange line stop. I stopped halfway down to rethink getting on the subway. While I was in thought, a gentleman enters the stairwell and says:

"Yo, look out man. Watchya back, man, I gotta go."

And he begins urinating in the stairwell.

In one of those blissful hour-long 3 millisecond moments that we have where we realize what someone is doing/saying, it occurred to me to vacate. I think I did so in time to avoid splatter. Said gentleman did not appear to be homeless or particularly unstable.
So, New Yorkers really do treat the subway like a toilet.

Ingenious, I tell you. Ingenious.

cable PUBLIC ACCESS channel, Time Warner Staten Island

12a eastern


I'm flipping through the channels when I see a woman completely naked jiggling around a stage. Jaw agape, another comes out, of color. At some point I see on the backdrop that this is some sort of "Ms. Black Nude" contest. I hit "info" on the cable box and it tells me "Industrial Television". I've watched this show before and flip back and forth a few times trying to see if the title is wrong. I've seen these little goofy looking wet T-shirt contests on one of these access channels before, but NOTHING like this. While back on the station trying to figure out what the hell is going on, two white men in black face and babble in what is, at best, the worst depiction of black dialect I've ever heard.

Then they show an old Looney Tunes episode featuring a jungle bunny stereotype.

Then they show an abridged version of a movie that seems basically to be about a Black Panther-type group starring a young Billie Dee Williams... and containing a love scene that features yet another nude black woman (got pissed off and changed it, turned back).

Then:

- a Cool Whip commercial featuring Bookman from Good Times

- a Crest commercial with a Black professor and his two sons

Next movie: "Way of the Black Dragon" - again the intro featuring to white men in blackface (speaking a pidgin' that I've never heard emanate from the mouths of black folk), except now they're wearing chinaman eye glasses - certainly hate to leave out a minority group.

Next movie: a silent movie having something to do with a trading post in Central Africa, which means, of course, more naked Black women. In the event I need to clarify: this had nothing to do with anything that actually takes place in Africa, it was just early film era masturbatory material.

And to finish: a "burlesque" film of a black woman.



So.... should I be upset?

Does it makes sense when I say I have a willingness & desire to work hard, but I don't know where to go do it?

I can't remember what I wanted to say..... Oh, well. Your loss.

I want to be a regular on Reno911!

Saying "it's not bragging if it's true" is absolutely moronic. If it weren't true then it'd just be lying.

It should be against the law to use the phrase "girl, girl action" or the variant "girl on girl action" in earnest.

Sore throats aren't very pleasant when one has to sing. Loudly.

Ossie Davis
1917-2005






And so, the sunset of a king.

Thank God -
Thank you God, for a king.

As though "American Idol" wasn't already annoying enough, now there's LL.

(sigh)

In other news, a make-up artist working on Jimmy Kimmel's show has alleged that Snoop and his boys messed her up with spiked champagne and gang-raped her. He's suing for extortion. Look this up on the internet. The story gets pretty deep with the details of her allegations.