Mere moments ago did I realize that the Black doctor that gets cut in half in The Omen II is none other than Meshach Taylor.

Damien... that little scamp.

As of yet, I've never completed a show with the feeling that I would repeat a production with all the same people involved. Often, I'm running headlong for the door.

Lemme guess: that says more about me than the stuff I've done. Right?

That may be a slight exaggeration....

I guess it could just be the throbbing pain going down the left side of my cranium talking.

DAAAAAAAAAYUUUUUUUUUUUUUM, Faith Evans lost a lotta weight!

innocent eyes?

I helped out as a reader for the class taught by one of the major casting directors in town last night. She was having her class read Dave Chappelle and I was reading - you guessed - Dave Chappelle (insert black actor here).

She stated that she felt part of the attraction with Chappelle is that he has these "innocent eyes", so he can say these outrageous things and you don't hold it against him.

Okay...

Well, each student was doing a practice screen test, and at the end the the teacher/CD had me do one. Afterward, a student made basically the same comment about me as the teacher made about Chappelle.

So I have "innocent eyes"..... then why do I keep scaring white women and small children when i walk down the street?

And you know what else? Headshots suck.

You HAVE to get 100 shots at $1 each. "They can't print just 50"? What? And digital retouching is $35 PER shot retouched - for like 5 minutes of work. And that's a deal? My stretch-marked ass that's a deal...

I'm supposed to by auditioning for the Barbershop TV series. We'll see how that goes.

If today isn't a better day, I'm gonna catch a brain tumor trying to keep from snapping at somebody.

Enthusiasm, at some point, will always get shitted on.

Ok, so, like, there's somebody who I wa
nt to like me, who I think they don't l
ike,who I'm not sure whether or not I l
ike them, and I'm mad 'cuz I don't thin
k they like me,and I don't know if I sh
ould say something 'cuz I gotta see the
m on a regular basis for a while, but i
f I don't say something then gonna feel
stupid for not saying something........

uh.

yeah.

You know, the web used to be far more intersting than it is now. Now it's like watching cable TV - the same thing over and over again. I find myself wasting hours at a time looking at stuff I want but cant' afford... just lke TV.

I'm in a bad mood.

Girls are mean.

I hate rehearsal.

Rehearsal sucks.

Don't go to the Park in New York at night

Alright, I think I've finally healed enough to tell this story...

Back in December, I was going to a poetry reading in Harlem (I'm trying to do a better job of fulfilling my duties as an artsy Negro). I got there early and decided to walk down 125th. Particularly if you live somewhere that doesn't have much in the way of a black population, 125 on a Saturday is amazing, maybe even surreal. You walk down the street and see nothing but black faces go in and out of stores that are being managed by and employing mostly black faces. You see philosophical and religious debate going on the street as the 12 Tribes, NOI, (insert your favorite religious/political/separatist group here), etc. continue to try to save black folk from themselves and the occasional passerby challenges their particular doctrine. You walk past black sheets covered in stacks of the newest CD's @ 2 for $5 or 5 for $10 and two week old movies already on DVD (sometimes it's hard for an actor to fight the temptation...). You may also see groups of 12-yr-old boys up against store walls for trying to steal (out of need for recreation). I really had to make sure that I was awake when I looked up at St. Nicholas and realized that Michael Bivens was crossing in front of me (personally, I would've gone into hiding after Hootie Mac).
The reading was taking place at a new culture store that was right next to the National Black Theater (that has a façade that should be considered as one of NYC's must see statues). Down from that I noticed a large structure that I decided to investigate. I go down to it and realized that it was the swim center in the middle of Marcus Garvey Park. I decided to explore around the park to kill time before the reading. Now, at this point it's about 6:30 in the pm, and it's fall so it's already nighttime dark in the city. I walked a little and found a path leading up a round the swim center, so I checked that out. While looking at the swim center, I see this baby carriage just sitting on the path ahead. This is where things begin to get "interesting". I see this carriage and think, "I should check this out to make sure that something hasn't happened. The carriage is up that path toward a less lit part of the park. Up ahead toward the left is this cat that appears so talking on a cellphone - and there's nobody but us there. So, I go a little closer to this carriage and decide that people in New York consider strollers disposable and leave it alone. I've also decided that old dude on the phone ain't interested in me. There's some steps leading up this rock hill type situation, and I decide to investigate that. Thinking that it's a path that I'd already been on when I was in Harlem before I kept heading up. However, I realized that it wasn't the path I thought when it ended at this big plaza with a VERY few lights.
I didn't see anybody there and I thought, wow, as out of the way and unlit as this is I'm surprised there aren't people up here doing things that they shouldn't. Across from me I could see a ledge and headed toward that. On my way I realized that there were four or five people about 50 yards off to my left. There were no big groups and I thought they were just couple standing around and some others scattered around, though the spider sense was still set to alert status. I went to the ledge and looked, it wasn't really high enough to see much other than the park, so I headed back. On my way back, one of the people had crossed and headed to the stairs. I looked back over to the couple and realized that one of them was now kneeling in front of the other. In about 3 milliseconds, it occurred to me that this might be the place the crackheads service johns at, and I decided to move faster. On my way down the stairs, the person that had crossed was standing on the left side. As I passed him, I said wassup. Just as I did so, he turned and I noticed his right hand at about crotch level. I just caught of his jimmy johnson in his hand and finally realized that this was the place that the outdoor freaks came to engage in their public acts of sexual gratification. To make matters more fun, he started coming down the stairs as I was leaving. I got the distinct impression this dude was trying to catch up with me. When I got back down to the street, I quite conspicuously crossed before the intersection, so if I followed me, I knew that he was following me. Instead he crossed to the other side of the street, but heading in the same direction as me. Right before I crossed 125, I glanced over and he seemed to be looking back at me like, "don't tell nobody I was over there".
In summation: don't go to Marcus Garvey park after dark. Unless you want watch people masturbate. In that case, by all means.....

Pretty Sky

I don't know if many people know, but NYC is on the coast and, therefore, provides opportunities to see some amazing sunsets. I just happened to get home to get on the boat in time to see one today. The sky was glowing with this red/purple blaze right behind the Statue. Particularly impressive since the rest of the day was completely grey, wet, and windy.
I may just get a camera phone yet...