da devodiva

2011-03-20T07:47:00.000-07:00

Oh, How I Wish It Wouldn't Rain!

DAY TWO

It's really hard for me to explain my love affair with Soweto. Maybe it's the warmth of the people--so genuine and so unaffected by what's going on in the outside world. Maybe it's because even though there's a very distinct line between the haves and the haves not, they all seem to get along.

Mostly, I suspect it's because of Soweto's history. It served as the launching pad for many of the uprisings against apartheid in the '70s. In some ways I wish I could have seen it then as I'm sure it was an extremely different vibe. Thankfully, however, there are inspirational reminders of this city's horrid past.

One of the most poignant ones is the Hector Pieterson Museum. Pieterson was only 13 when he became the youngest casualty of the 1976 Soweto uprising. There's an iconic photo of Mbuyisa Makhubo, 18, carrying his Pieterson's bloody body away from the melee along with Hector's older sister Antionette. He subsequently hopped into a car and rushed Pieterson to the nearest hospital. No one really knows what became of the driver or what happened to Makhubo as both were consistently harassed by police following the incident. Some say Makhubo escaped to Liberia, others claim that he was killed before he could get away. Antionette, however, is still alive and works in the museum honoring her brother's memory.

It's really sobering once you realize that this was something that happened in your lifetime. The levels of hatred and violence back in the day are truly perplexing. But as the South Africans say: One must forgive but never forget.

Across the street from the HPM are vendors selling everything from handmade carvings to jewelry. With the exception of the batiks, this merchandise is not what you would call high quality. I think some of it might even be made in Taiwan! The other downside is that the vendors will harass you a bit, but you feel compelled to spend a rand or two because these are just men, women and children trying to make an honest living.

Hopefully, they used some of the funds I spent toward a good dinner. I bought a dashiki--just because i liked the colors; a batik for my friend's kids' room; one of those crazy horns left over from the World Cup; and two homemade patchwork hangings.

I would have bought more but because I only came armed with R300, which is roughly $50, I was out of cash by the time I spotted these fabric wall hangings made by the vendor's grandmother.

My friend Judy was with me and just raved about them. I, actually, hadn't noticed them until she said something but then had to have them. There was no ATM close by and Judy had no money. Friend that she is, however, she somehow found it through other sources.

Together, we jocked the vendor down from R600 to R400. Shortly afterward I saw another tourist hand the same vendor US dollars. So, after brief negotiations, I was able to buy another one for $45. Happy birthday mom.

Soweto wasn't my only stop of the day. I also went by Nelson Mandela's home, his foundation and the museum containing some of his personal effects. There I spent a great deal of time in the street watching boys play soccer with a ball that looked as though it should have been retired 10 years ago; snapped some shots of a street performer and was embarrassed that I was out of both currencies when he passed his hat to me; and engaged in some conversations with school kids who wanted me to take their picture.

And then came the rains--again. The day had started off with a downpour but we were very blessed that the rains stopped long enough for us to explore our destinations with no need of an umbrella. Lunch was the second best part of the day. We stopped at a place called Vikali Grill. It was buffet and very, very tasty--especially with a glass of pinotage.

By 3 p.m. I was back at the hotel, desperately needing a nap before meeting up with friends for dinner at Bukhara, a fabulous Indian restaurant in the Mandela Square mall adjacent to the hotel. There I met up with Arlene, a beautiful woman with a gracious spirit whom I had met nearly two years ago in Cape Town. We were joined by Judy, her son and his girlfriend, and a jazz writer from Toronto.

Good times. The skies are clear again.

2011-03-20T00:44:00.000-07:00

Say, What's the Word? Johannesburg!

The flight from Los Angeles to Johannesburg, South Africa is not an easy one, but it's always pleasant for several reasons. One, i always fly South African Airways and the service is impeccable. Two, I love Africa and just the thought of returning there and engaging with all the wonderful people trumps the pesky child in business class who spent much of our 15-hour flight crying.

This time Im here for the Cape Town Jazz Festival. I'll get an opportunity to shoot and interview some top jazz musicians, do a little safari, visit Soweto (which is one of my favorite places on the planet), eat some great food--particularly the curry (Indian) at Bukhara in Mandela Square and just mix it up with the people.

DAY ONE

I am exhausted. Didn't sleep much on the plane--despite the comforts of business class. The Joburg airport is much different from what it was when I last here, just before the World Cup. It's bigger, sleeker and even more user-friendly. After clearing customs I'm greeted by Joe of JMT tours. He's been my driver ever since I started coming here nearly four years ago. Joe is terrific not only because he knows so much about Joburg, but because he is so passionate about his work.

When we arrive at the Sandton Sun, in Joburg's swanky financial district, I heard those dreaded words: "I'm sorry Ms. Turner your room isn't quite ready yet." That was a blessing and a curse. a blessing, because it gave me an opportunity to engage in some great conversation with strangers; a curse, for the obvious reasons.

Yet, when my room was ready less than an hour later, I could not sleep! Oy! I got only about an hour of sleep before boarding a bus to visit a cultural village north of the city. Part of it was because I needed to catch up on emails after not having access to the Internet for nearly a full day; and I got caught up in CNN's coverage of the tragedy in Japan. Today's news, 8,100 dead.

And then there's the drama in Libya.

The ride to Lesidi took nearly as long as the flight. It appears that Joburg's rush hour begins around 3 p.m. on Friday afternoons. And, it didn't help that several of the traffic signals along the two-lane route to the village were not functioning and that it was raining. I took a rather blurry shot of a rainbow, the first one I had seen in a long, long time.

At Lesidi we were greeted by this darling little boy and a Zulu chief, who gave us a crash course in Zulu and other tribal customs. Mostly what I remember is that women don't have too many rights in that culture! Then we watched the dancers and feasted on traditional fare before heading back to the hotel. I fell asleep just seconds after putting the "do not disturb" sign outside the door.

Next up: Soweto.

2010-10-24T22:50:00.000-07:00

sunrise
sunset

some mornings you wake up, taking it for granted that you did.

and, even though i know better after 15 consecutive years of sunday school and countless fire-and-brimstone sermons, i go to bed at night fully expecting that i'll live to see another day and seldom feel thankful that i did.

and on those all too rare occasions when i do remember to thank god for allowing me to see another sunrise, i often think about putting a big "thank you" sign above the bookcase in front of my bed to remind me for the times i forget to do so.

but i keep forgetting to do that, too.

this morning i got up and learned via e-mail that one of my dear friends had lost the youngest of her two kids. he had died in his sleep the day before. i couldn't help but wonder if he had taken it for granted that he would wake up saturday morning. if not, perhaps he should have. at 19, zachary was supposed to have a gazillion more mornings to express his gratitude for the blessing of opened eyes.

that's just the way it's supposed to be.

as the news of zachary's passing began reaching my former college classmates, my initial sadness was magnified by the reactions of the mothers whose children did wake up on sunday morning. they say there is no greater pain than losing a child and each and every one of them felt our friend's pain because they were all wondering: what if?

it's one thing to lose a child from natural causes or in some sort of tragic accident. it's quite another thing when a seemingly healthy child just never wakes up.

as the day progressed there were more reminders that nothing is guaranteed. my annual sunday morning pilgrimage to the larchmont farmer's market was a bust as there was some sort of street fair in its place. that proved to be a good thing though. it forced me to explore other options and while doing so, i began thinking about what a strange season this has been.

several of my once happily married friends are no longer happy or married and the ones that are still together are so not happy. michigan state is undefeated. medications have way too many side effects and are making the sick sicker. mrs. cleaver and mr. cunningham, tv's two paragons of virtue, passed within a week of each other. babies are dying of cholera in haiti. i didn't get invited to the company party. and people are still losing their jobs, homes and self-esteem even though the government tell us that the economy is bouncing back.

and now there is one less manchild roaming the planet.

it all kind of plays out like a marvin gaye song from the '70s. had his daddy not murdered him on april fool's day 16 years ago, the legendary crooner would probably have closed his eyes that night, stepped into the light the following morning and evolved into a legitimate modern-day prophet writing lyrics that would subsequently instruct us how to navigate these challenging times.

mercy, mercy me.

i could go on. there are myriad examples of things that have gone awry in this wild, wacky and sometimes wonderful season. but right now, there's no time to compile such a list.

i've got some work to do.

i gotta go make myself a sign.

thanks zach for the reminder.

peace.

2010-06-19T20:08:00.000-07:00

i've written a letter to daddy

dear dad,

it seems odd that this is the first ever father's day letter i've written you and you're not around to even read it. hopefully, however, you can feel it. i'm starting to feel your presence more and more each day and that's been quite comforting as i face the anniversaries.

my first father's day without an earthly father.

your first birthday celebration in heaven.

and the anniversary of your passing.

sometimes it seems very surreal. but you'll be happy to know that i have good friends who have helped me get through the rough spots. and, that i'm doing ok. i have a job that i actually like--most days--and i'm focusing more on my passions, which i think would make you happy.

also, i'm thinking about getting a puppy! what kind do you think i should get? yeah, i know, i'm always gone, but you know me, i'm very resourceful!

well, i didn't want much. i suppose you're trying to get some rest so you can get up and watch the final round of the u.s. open. hopefully john h., cephus and mr. white are keeping you company. and i hope you're not losing all of your money to mr. jenkins playing cards. :-)

happy father's day. i think i'm about to do some things you'd be proud of. love you. miss you much. i'll write again soon. promise!

2010-05-18T00:26:00.000-07:00

sunset at chelsea pier, new york, ny, may 14, 2010

some people celebrate their birthdays once a year,
while others celebrate their re-births every day.
some folks think age ages them,
while others prefer to contemplate the essence of time.
some people blow out their candles and make a wish,
while others are content to let their little lights shine.
some people look forward to unwrapping presents in pretty paper,
while others realize that the best gifts will never come in a box.

gifts like these 85 personally selected words.

happy birthday today and always.

2010-05-17T19:24:00.000-07:00

mom, arnie, cousin marg back in the day!

eulogy for arnie

it's funny how that old african resolve always get you through the rough spots.

whenever i'm on the continent that's the one thing i'm always drawn to. it comforts me when i see despair. it strengthens me when when i feel as though i can't take another step. it inspires me when i see a half-naked child living in a one-room shanty smile at me as if jesus were standing behind me with a winning lotto ticket.

i'm searching for that resolve today as i prepare to send my cousin to the other side. like some of the africans i've encountered over the years arnie's life was less than idyllic. he served his country at a time when his country did not serve him. he made brave choices that set him apart from the norm at a time when that sort of bravery wasn't openly embraced.

yet, he still smiled.

that old african resolve shielded him from harm. it gave him the strength to ignore the haters and live life on his terms. those of us who knew and loved him may not always have embraced his way of doing things, but we certainly admired his defiance--even at the end.

because of the way arnie died, some of us will inevitably buy into the notion that it wasn't his time. i'm one of those people. i've heard the stories of how he wouldn't accept help, how he lived in a state of perpetual isolation, how he routinely rejected all of the things that would have made his final days on earth so much more pleasant.

and because all of our collective efforts were unsuccessful, we will undoubtedly blame ourselves for not having done more. i'm in that group, standing first in line.

but it's at times like these when we're told we must hold on to the good and move on.

i have so many great memories of arnie. he was inarguably the best cook in the mcdonald clan. i used to ask him to make his famous mustard coleslaw without the onions for me. he'd complain a little bit, but he always came through. i remember going to arnie and hat's house on oak street and eating city chicken, freeze pops, barbecue, baked beans and literally drinking cups of arnie's barbecue sauce because it was so dang good.

and they both taught me how to bake cookies from scratch--a skill, sadly, that has gone the way of the 8-track.

it didn't seem odd to me then that he lived with his mom until she died. it didn't seem weird that when he wasn't cleaning the homes of the rich folks up on the hill that he was finishing off six packs of hudepohl with his buddies in the kitchen. Nor did it seem unusual that he spent his off days watching soaps, cooking and frying hair.

that's just who arnie was and i had no problem accepting him then or now.

other than his cooking, arnie also had a great record collection. he always had all the best grooves. he introduced me to sunny and jr. walker's shotgun--tracks that still make me move to this day. and, you better not scratch his vinyl or there would be hell to pay. worse yet, lose one of his lou rawls albums like i did when i was a kid. i suspect, however, my brother gary had something to do with that. arnie could be a little obsessive, too. he'd order hundreds of vhs videos, cassette tapes and cds from the various clubs he'd join. his video and music library rivaled my own. and he was always buying junk he didn't need.

his things became his companions. they didn't talk back when he was at his most cantankerous.

and i'll remember that his heart, like hat's, was as big as mother africa. arnie was no saint, but he was saintly and sometimes that's an even better attribute to possess. just last christmas he gave me an unexpected and very generous gift, which made me gasp when i opened it. i didn't always call him when i was home and seldom visited, but none of that seemed to matter when i rang and thanked him this time. he was chipper and essentially told me what was his was mine. and that if i needed any financial help to just call him.

he also told me he loved me.

that's the last time i spoke to arnie even though i had meant to ring him again--just to check up on him. but, you know, i got caught up in the hollywood game--trying to squeeze a dollar out of a dime and find ways to deal with other less significant life issues. coulda, woulda, shoulda.

i never want to sing that song again.

all deaths teach us invaluable lessons once we're able to wrap our heads around losing someone we'll never physically encounter again. arnie was blind at the end of his life yet he saw far more than i can see now with my nearly 20/20 vision. he saw that the way to make it through life is to be who you are. it's not so much that he didn't give a hoot--although he really didn't--it's just that at the end of the day sometimes the only thing you have left is your resolve.

arnie wasn't much of a church guy but i'm hoping that the god of infinite chances whose mercy is so omnipotent and everlasting will look upon this fallen soldier, knowing that his heart was always in the right place and say: "well done, son."

2009-10-17T16:07:00.000-07:00

londontown

i am so happy right now. i've just spent an evening at a restaurant called bistro in covent garden where people were dancing, shouting and kissing each other randomly. where am i? i be in london luv and per ususal loving every freaking second of my visit.

but more on that later.

this is a town that i've loved since the first time i came here in the late '90s. i love the vibe, the people, the portobello market, covent garden, notting hill shops, ken high street, the west end, soho, picadilly and all the rest. unfortunately, this trip will be shorter than most, but this time i will leave london with more clarity and purpose than ever before.

london has given me myself back.

i know that sounds a little crazy and that sentence is way cryptic, but those of you who know me well know how tough the past 10 months have been on me. on top of the recession cutting into my income, one of my best friends lost her husband, one of my other best friends died suddenly, as did someone else very special to me. additionally, i lost a mentor and a slew of relatives including my beloved father, the one person who always had my back no matter what. any tinge of happiness i've experienced during this time just pales in comparison. it's been rough navigating the grief.

there's no road map for that.

but friday night, i put all my grief in my back pocket and went for it. i hung out with my bff kolton and some of his friends and by evening's end i had no worries at all. we drank mojitos on the corner of dean and greek in soho literally surrounded by tigers, bears and pussycat girls.

tonight, i went out to dinner with my friend steph, who has graciously put me up in her flat for the past couple of days. bistro--and you should all check it out-- is one of the best dinner bargains in a city where food, clothes and everything else are notoriously overpriced. you can get a starter, entree and dessert for 10 pounds, which is roughly $20.

initially, we sat there and ordered our dinner and chatted. thee food was good but we did send the house wine back--an italian red--because it was weaker than grape juice. we opted for a suitable south african pinotage instead.

and then the mayhem started.

after having carried my heavy camera around for two days and two nights, i decided to leave it at home this time so i could just blend in with the locals. but when a guy got up and started dancing to some '80s oldie with one of the eight women at his table (he was the only guy), it was on. everyone in the tiny dining room started clapping and singing along. the people sitting next to us became our new best friends and by the end of the night we were all facebook friends.

when "play that funky music white boy" came up in the rotation, the same guy got up and was dancing at the head of his table. at that point i'd had enough and just had to join him. i rolled up behind him, rubbing my pelvis into his backside and it was on. everyone cheered us on and his female companions began snapping pictures of us. me, the ugly american in the obama t-shirt and cargo pants; and he, the bawdy brit in his striped button-down and jeans.

a motley pair, indeed.

and then when they played gloria gaynor's "i will survive," everyone in the house rose to their feet singing, dancing and liberating themselves from whatever shackles had held them down all week. i don't think i've ever witnessed a more joyful scene in a public restaurant and felt compelled to shout out: "i love this town!"

much to my delight, someone shouted back: "we love that you love us!"

make no mistake. i've been prone to these types of spontaneous outbursts before, but this was a different kind of release. i actually hadn't been in a very good mood all day. my back hurt and i was still jet-lagged. but right after dancing with mr. guy all the frustration of that day and all the pain that had been heaped upon me throughout the year dissipated.

yep, it all went away. if only for a night.

2009-08-21T11:29:00.000-07:00

my dad

The day after my dad passed away a newspaper reporter asked me, “What are some of the most precious memories you have of your father?” I didn’t hesitate in my response.

I said I loved his sense of adventure, how he was always excited to experience something new. I said I loved how loyal he was to his friends and how committed he was to the organizations he belonged to. He was a real go-to guy—always willing to help.

I talked about what a great multi-tasker he was. He would try to fix a leaky pipe, a flat tire and install the TV antenna, even though his skills in each of those areas was lacking. I recalled how he supported my love for athletics, taking me to see the Bill Russell Celtics, Lew Alcindor in his rookie season with the Bucks, the Big O and Wilt. And I mentioned how he always supported my athletic endeavors—even though it really wasn’t the popular thing to do at the time.

Those times, along with packing my 250 Barbie dolls in the back of the Country Squire and traveling around the country are among my fondest memories of Dad.

But, I think the most important thing I revealed was this. As a daddy’s girl, I might have had my father wrapped around my little finger, but in turn, he had me wrapped around his heart.

I owe him so much. It was he who actually jumpstarted my journalism career by ringing me at 6 in the morning to tell me he had read about a summer journalism program at Berkeley. There was a catch, however. The deadline was that day. But we all know what God can do. And lo and behold, in the days before cell phones, fax machines and the internet, I was able to get it all done.

My bylines should actually read Miki Mose Turner.

We didn’t always get along though. He didn’t appreciate me always getting on him about his arterie-clogging, high-fat diet. And I wasn’t too keen on his criticisms regarding my hair. But I can’t ever remember arguing with my dad. I knew he loved me but I didn’t know how much until other people told me. Sometimes we try and see love even when we know it’s all about feeling it.
And if I have any regrets, one is that unlike Luther, I never got the opportunity to dance with my father. God knows he tried to teach me the jitterbug, the watusi and the lindy hop. I inherited his sense of adventure, but sadly, not his sense of rhythm. We never danced because I couldn’t.

I also regret that I didn’t take up golf when he tried to teach me as a kid. I thought the game was beyond boring, I couldn’t understand the scoring and the clothes weren’t really cool. Now, I am totally addicted to the game as he once was, but I’m still such a scrub.

Today, I am both relieved and saddened that dad has passed on. I am relieved because my Bible tells me that he will suffer no more. There will be no more pain or sorrow where he is now. He will now remember the things his illness made him forget and I trust that he is thankful, regardless of the way he passed, that he was blessed with a long and fruitful life.

I am relieved because that same book tells me that where he is, the streets are paved with gold and the only tears that are shed cascade down the happy faces of the righteous who have been granted eternal life. He is now among them, on the 7th tee with his 7-iron looking to bogey the next hole.

I am also saddened because he’s not physically here to slay the dragons that I will inevitably encounter as I grow even older. That’s what daddy’s do and my dad was the best dragon-slayer on the block.

No doubt, I will weep when I recall the good times in the future. Traveling the country with my dad and putting up with his annoying CB radio when all I wanted to do was listen to my Jackson 5 8-track. And I’m sure to get misty when I recall all the times I let him down.

Thankfully, however, he knew how much I loved and adored him and vice-versa. Our bond, along with the love and support I’ve received from my family and friends, will help sustain all of us as we mourn the loss of a good, honorable, loyal, giving and caring man.

Even though he’s gone, I am still strengthened by his spirit, his courage and his faith. I hope his new and old friends up in heaven realize just how very blessed they are to have him among them.

read by me on aug. 15, 2009 at my dad's homegoing service.

2009-06-25T16:49:00.000-07:00

the thriller

icons pass on all the time. those of us who have enjoyed length of years have seen many of them go--some, way too soon.

today, the king of pop joined that exclusive club.

michael jackson was eight months and 26 days younger than me. he belonged to me. like many girls growing up in the late '60s and early '70s, i, too, embraced the jackson 5. they were the definitive entertainers and sex symbols of our generation. and although michael was unbelievably cute and tremendously talented he wasn't my favorite. i saved all my love for marlon and was sure that we would some day marry.

that said, i have every michael jackson album ever printed. as a kid my bedroom walls were covered with pictures of him and his brothers. i saw every j5 and every jacksons tour. and i drove more than 100 miles to see mike's "bad" tour in the late '80s at rfk stadium in d.c.

every event, every experience, every memory--extraordinary.

i was sitting at home watching the cnn coverage on farrah fawcett's death when i got a call from essence.com saying that tmz was reporting that michael jackson had been taken to the hospital, a victim of cardiac arrest. i was running late for an appointment but told the girl on the phone i would make a few calls. no one responded before i had to leave but the news was confirmed on kfi-am en route to my destination.

before i had a chance to digest this news my celly literally began blowing up with friends from around the world calling and texting.

"michael?"
"is it true?"
"it's not good."

and by the time i had gotten to the "lincoln heights" set:

"girl, tmz is reporting that he's dead!!!"

surreal doesn't even begin to describe it.

like many people i found michael to be a bit odd, weird. but given all that he had purportedly gone through as a child, and as a young adult, i can understand why he wanted to hang out with chimps and why he would purposely wear pajamas to court. i realized the first time i met him it ain't easy being green.

you can't, however, take away his impact on pop culture or ignore his enormous talent. he was, as many others will say in the coming days, one of a kind.

so, those of us who were weaned on "i want you back," "abc," "the love you save," "i'll be there," "dancing machine," "maybe tomorrow," "ben," "don't stop till you get enough," "rock with you," "thriller," "billie jean," "man in the mirror" and all the other gems should just remember the young boy who once rocked our world and not the aging superstar from neverland who spent most of his adult life dancing down a rocky road.

be proud that you lived long enough to experience the magic that was michael jackson.

i know i am.

2009-06-07T21:15:00.000-07:00

a time to smile--again

it has been a horrendously stressful week. another health scare with dad. extreme back pain. more disappointing news. so, i needed a sunny sunday. thankfully, my wish was His command.

it all started out really well. despite my vicodin hangover i made it to the 8 a.m. service at west angeles and was extremely elated that no one gave me attitude because i wasn't wearing first sunday sequins like 95 percent of the other women.

i was, however, blinded by the bling--particularly the multi-carat ice adorning the hands of pauletta washington (mrs. denzel) and cookie johnson (mrs. magic).

two hours later i headed over to the larchmont farmer's market. if i'm in l.a. there's no place i'd rather be on a sunday morning than larchmont village--mostly because it doesn't feel like l.a.

it gives me peace.

although i'm usually alone when i go to the market i'm never really alone. more often than not i'm on my iphone talking to a friend on the east coast. this morning it was marilyn monroe--yes, that's her real name. marilyn, who lives on long island, is a great listener and an even better storyteller so our conversations are always lively. plus she has this amazing ability to bring you out of the deepest funk, and can be very encouraging, too. this morning she convinced me that buying a small tin of five-cheese, high fat, severely caloric, artery-clogging mac-and-cheese would be a very, very good thing.

she was right. i bought it and served it up with the bbq tofu, baked beans and salad i had for dinner. sure, it raised my blood pressure 16 points but was well worth it.

my initial plan once i returned home was to spend a quiet afternoon reading my new books--"vegan soul kitchen" and "let's get it on"--but i got a little antsy after dinner and hit the road. i was hoping that i could convince my friend janet to play tennis.

that didn't happen.

she wanted to watch the fakers and nothing depresses me more these days than the thought of them winning another NBA title. so, i came home, drew a bath and was all set to settle down with jill nelson's sexual tome but i couldn't keep my eyes open. after taking a little disco nap in the tub i retired to the living room to watch a little tv. nothing in my 300-channel universe piqued my interest so i decided to watch an awards show.

i have never ever watched the tony awards but i was curious after reading several posts on how cool tonight's show was on facebook. and although most of the nominees and shows (save for the revivals) were unfamiliar to me, i found the vibe rather engaging. broadway is like this giant cesspool of acceptance.

bring me your blacks, your whites, your straights, your gays, your young, your old and everyone in between.

wouldn't mind going to that after-party--especially with the folks who were in that room.

like liza minnelli, damn, she's sounding just like her mom. wow, susan sarandon's gown is hella tight. neil patrick harris, the boy done good--especially on that closing number. how nice that the first winner mentioned diana sands. elton john, forever the diva. anne hathaway, stunning. james gandolfini is in a broadway show? who the hell is hallie foote and that chick who is screaming her acceptance speech? why does almost everyone accepting awards have a british accent? is there no work at the old vic? ah, tasha richardson. she was so cool.

man, i just realized that i've interviewed all of those people except the guy whose name i can't remember, the late diana sands, that hallie chick and the screamer.

anyway, i digress.

as sundays go today won't be all that memorable because other than watching the tonys i didn't do anything out of the ordinary. at church bishop blake reminded us how lucky we were to still be alive.that's true. my biggest blessing, however, is that my dad made it through.

here's hoping the sun comes out tomorrow, too.

2009-05-06T19:37:00.000-07:00

do you hear what i hear?

as a journalist it's not often that i get an opportunity to really really listen to people. usually i'm on some sort of deadline or in a situation where i have to try and determine what makes the stranger sitting across from me tick in less than 15 minutes.

tonight, as i was sitting in the open-air bar at the laluna resort in grenada. i listened to a lot of people. first, there was the young couple from new hampshire, who were recalling their day exploring the island in their rental car. it took them two hours to get to a place that was right down the road because of one errant turn.

amusing.

then there was the couple from dallas. they were celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary. the husband travels a lot and the wife stays at home with the kids. what a treat this little honeymoon must have been for her.

nice.

then there was the couple from new york city, who claimed they didn't know how long they'd been married, nor when the honeymoon ended. but even though they were on holiday they came to the bar equipped with two iphones and a mac laptop.

alrighty then.

and lastly was a trio of female friends from new jersey, virginia and north carolina. two of them had played college hoops and one was a basketball coach. they ordered margaritas and talked sports with me for 40 minutes.

fun.

but mostly i talked to kellon carter, the bartender and one of my new good friends. at 25, kellon has already lived a full life, but is concerned that he's not as productive and ambitious as he was at 18. he's married but his wife lives in ottawa, canada with their 10-month old son. they communicate daily by web cam. kellon is the kind of guy who has so much to offer but is just a tad bit lost.

i especially loved his insight into politics, culture and religion.

i think he's going to be fine. he's smart, has a good heart and makes a mean rum punch. in grenada that's all you really need.

2009-04-23T12:30:00.000-07:00

miki, felecia & darlene circa 1978, hampton institute

next stop heaven

i've been having trouble sleeping lately. i'm blaming it on residual jet lag, hormonal changes and general anxiety about the things in which i have no control over. so, when i can, i love to sleep late. the problem with doing so, however, is that sometimes you wake up to hours-old e-mail messages that needed immediate replies; or bad news that will ultimately ruin the few remaining hours of the day.

today was one of those days.

while i'm cognizant that i, more often than not, use this space to memorialize friends and loved ones, it has become increasingly obvious that these tributes will become a standing feature on this page . i'm at that age where the unpleasantries of life--such as death--are happening far more frequently. today's news: my friend, former roommate and consummate life adviser felecia (fu) kurtz gillis, died last saturday. a mutual friend of ours from college informed me via e-mail this morning. the subject line read: "guest book for felecia k. gillis."

i wasn't sure what to expect when i opened the message. i know what "guest books" are and have even signed a few. but, i was pretty sure it wasn't time to sign fu's. i thought maybe someone was honoring her.

sadly, i was mistaken. even though i was still in a post-tylenol pm daze, the text was very clear. fu, my friend with the gap-toothed smile and tilted eyes, was gone.

when i say that fu taught me more about love, compassion, forgiveness and men than any other human being on the planet, i'm not at all exaggerating. when we met as coeds sharing the same house at hampton institute back in the '70s, i was young impressionable and very suburban. fu, who was a year ahead of me, was a true southerner who would give you $2 if you asked for one. and, to me, was wise beyond her years. she always had all the answers to my endless stream of questions. we'd spend hours in her room just chatting about everything.

i often referred to her as my "first" girlfriend because i experienced so many firsts with her.

bored with the small selection of available and good men on a campus in which women outnumbered the fellas 8-to-1, fu and another friend escorted me on my first trip ever to a military base. they taught me how to pick up sailors on hampton boulevard in norfolk who were on their way back to the base. in exchange for a ride back to the ship we'd make them buy us dinner at denny's or sambo's. when we'd drop them off, i was often kicked to the curb because i was always far more interested in exploring the massive aircraft carriers than engaging in a one-night stand.

i also shared my first apartment with fu. she had recently graduated and was working in hampton and i decided to hang out there for the summer. we were doing the "three's company" thing with a guy named steve. it was a great summer. we hit the beach, her hometown of raleigh, n.c. and, yes, the naval base!

fu's job didn't last long and she eventually returned home. i was all caught up in the bittersweet splendor of being a college senior and we didn't stay in touch as often. In 1982, however, when i was in grad school in boston, fu was living in new york and we communicated more frequently. in 1984, at my wit's end as to what to do with the rest of my young life, i rang her and asked: "can i come stay with you in new york for two weeks so i can look for a job?" her response was an enthusiastic "why are you even asking me that? sure you can!"

then came another first.

fu already had a roommate, edith, a friend from church who had gotten evicted from her flat. i had just come from a situation with a really bad roommate, but living with the two of them was really fun. after finding a job my first week in new york, i ended up staying in fu's one-room, one-bath flat for the next six months rent-free. the only stipulation was that i had to go to church.

having been reared in the southern baptist church, that's what i knew and that's what i liked. but at that time i hadn't been a "regular" for years and certainly wasn't into this sort of new wave, born-again restrictive religion that they'd latched on to. plus, i'd never ever attended church in anything other than a church and they attended services in a brooklyn high school auditorium.

i hated everything about it. but even though it would be years before my spiritual transformation from fulltime to parttime sinner--i managed to learn a thing or two.

after six months of dodging each other in the loo and taking two-minute showers so that the next person could have some hot water to wash away the night's scum, edith and i left the nest. she moved back to brooklyn, but i moved into the next building. that's when it all changed. fu had started dating a recovering drug addict and despite my often less-than-best efforts, he and i couldn't get along. it got to the point where she had to choose and she rightfully chose the person she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

although fu and i stopped speaking to each other i never really felt that our friendship was over for life. our divorce was not really steeped in animosity. rather, it was all about the inability and/or unwillingness of immature people to work out viable solutions to their immature issues. once i left new york, i never attempted to reach out to fu and vice-versa. i heard through the vine that she and roy had married and that she'd moved back to raleigh. i also heard that roy had died and that she had given birth to two daughters.

in 2007, i was sent to raleigh to interview cullen jones for a show i was working on. prior to my trip i had contacted our mutual friend from college who very graciously organized a small dinner party that included other hampton alums including fu. it had been more than 20 years since i'd last seen or spoken to fu and i was understandably anxious. but when she walked into the restaurant we enjoyed a long embrace.

like me, she had locs and hadn't really aged a bit. we did the speed-date catch-up, exchanged numbers and e-mails. she told me that roy had seen me on tv one night and called her into the room. "and then he died," she said while bursting out in giggles.

i wasn't quite sure of what to make of that.

that night i e-mailed her, saying how good it was to see her. she replied the next day with a similar note. enough time had passed to eliminate the pain of what had gone down in new york, but we were also different people who had essentially grown apart. i think we both knew that we'd never become best friends again but it was comforting knowing that we were at least reconnected.

that would be the last time i'd ever see her.

about a month ago, however, i was surprised to get an e-mail from her. it was actually a form letter announcing her sister's new book. i wrote back offering my congratulations to her sister and added that i hoped things were well. she responded by asking how things were in my world. about a week later instead of writing i rang her up. it was way too much drama to record in an e-mail. you could tell it had been a long time since she'd heard my voice because when i said "hey," she asked me if i had gotten married over the weekend.

nope, that was some other friend.

for the next 20 minutes we talked at length about life. i was saddened to learn that both of her parents, whom i had been very fond of, had passed away. and we laughed about her kids and all their young adult drama. her oldest daughter had just told her she had planned on living with her boyfriend and fu was trying to wrap her head around why her baby thought it was OK to tell her that!

hysterical.

that was the last time i heard her voice.

in the next few days i will try to fully comprehend the enormity of a loss that has yet to really hit me. i won't think about all the wasted years because they really don't matter. looking back, i'm not sure there would have been many more phone calls, visits or e-mail updates regardless of what went down in new york 25 years ago. all i know now is that fu always brought out the best in me, and that we will somehow always be connected.

my true comfort, however, comes in knowing that she's in a place where she always wanted to be.

2009-04-09T23:07:00.000-07:00

someone's watch-ing over me

my dad, in his younger years, loved to roll. and it is through his love of adventure that i developed my passion for travel.

every summer, the turner clan would stuff 75 percent of our respective closets into these red-and-black plaid canvas suitcases and hit the road in the family station wagon. each year we'd take off for a different spot. i'd be so excited i wouldn't sleep for a full two weeks before our trip. traveling meant new underwear, tennis shoes and pajamas.

if we hadn't spent so much money on new clothes we probably could have used that bank to purchase plane tickets. i'm glad, however, my parents elected to waste their hard-earned cash on stuff none of us really needed.

had i been sitting in 25a i would have never fallen in love with that fry cook in needles, calif., nor had the opportunity to get that souvenir paper placemat in gallup, n.m. had i been 30,000 feet up i wouldn't have been able to spend that glorious night with my cousins in littleton, colo. or develop my deep, abiding and lingering hate for the pennsylvania turnpike.

those and so many other moments would have been missed.

but now that i'm all grown up and traveling on my own to far more exotic locales, i find myself thinking of all those great times with dad, who is now confined to a room with one window and a nightstand with no car keys. i'm having trouble dealing with that reality so i recently took him with me to south africa.

well, a part of him. i wore his watch--a class movado that i gave him for christmas years ago.

i wore the watch when i toured robben island,
as i happily played with the children of soweto

and interviewed musicians at the cape town jazz festival.

i had it on as i took a cable car to the top of table mountain and as i strolled along boulders beach with the penguins.

and i even wore it on all those nights when i couldn't sleep because of jet lag, fatigue or because i was consumed with thoughts about how much i wish he could see what i was seeing.

on my last day in south africa, i was treated to a 75-minute full body massage at the five-star hotel i was staying in. i had dad's watch on as i entered the room where this woman, whose name i couldn't pronounce, truly made me feel relaxed and rested for the first time in eight days. i was in such a blissful state that as i rushed to the atm to fetch her tip money (i was fresh out of rand), i forgot the watch. when i returned to the spa 15 minutes later, all of the employees were pleading the 5th.

i could literally feel my heart sinking into the bowels of my stomach. it wasn't so much that it was a movado. nor was i really annoyed at the staff, even though i knew someone had stolen it. i was devastated because it was the one thing of dad's that i had with me. i couldn't leave him there.

who would watch over me?

enter judy, our rep from south african tourism. when we bumped into each other at the elevator just minutes after i had left the spa, judy asked about my massage. "you look like you have no worries," she said while pointing to my forehead. i told her it had gone well but that i was having some issues with the staff over my lost watch. in less time than it takes oprah to make another dollar, judy was on the phone to the hotel manager demanding that the watch be found.

fifteen minutes later i got a call in my room. they had "found" it.

i hadn't felt that much relief since my last "fuzzy" mammogram came up negative on the second fry.

i won't be so careless on our next trip. i'll be taking dad to grenada in three weeks. i really don't think lush resorts are actually his thing, but hopefully he'll enjoy the company.

i know he likes watching over me.

2009-03-25T21:58:00.000-07:00

in the still of the night

last night before i closed my eyes i made a ttdl (things to do today list). it's not something i usually do, but since i've been preoccupied with so many other things that i have no control over, i needed to make sure that i did do what i had to do.

those things kept me busy all day but now as i sit alone in my living room with the television on mute, reality has stopped by to say hello. i'd really like to write about what's going on right now but i'm afaid that if i do it will become even more real and keep me up all night--again.

so, i'm going to leave it alone for now and pray that god's will be done. better yet, that i will be strong enough to accept that which is inevitable.

everything must change.

in five days i leave for my second trip to south africa in less than a year. i'm excited because i love traveling--even to places i've already seen. i'm inspired because if i can accomplish my goals over there, hopefully my words and pictures will inspire others around the globe. but i'm nervous about the things that might go down while i'm gone.

stay with me dude.

2009-03-08T01:50:00.000-08:00

hoo-ray for hollyhood

it's been another one of those weeks.

something i fully expected to come through, didn't. dad was rushed to the hospital with pneumonia. my bff's dad was also rushed to the hospital with symptoms of pneumonia. and as if all that weren't enough to make me hypertensive, being force-fed a steady diet of the chris brown-rihanna beatdown truly made me wanna walk on rusty nails.

but some cool things happened last week, too. on wednesday, my new nikon d200 body arrived in a beautiful gold box. trust me when i tell you i was so awed by it that i didn't even remove it from the box for two days! it's a pretty thing. the night it arrived i officially launched mikiphoto. the next day i had my first two clients.

this new venture is really the culmination of a dream. i've been passionate about capturing images since i was 5 and got my first camera, a kodak brownie. since then i've moved on to a variety of polaroids, followed by more kodaks. i didn't actually get my first slr until my sophomore year in college when i enrolled in a photography class. i replaced it a few years later when i studied with one of the original life magazine photographers at boston university.

i still have my first body--a minolta srt 201--and it ranks among my favorite cameras ever. but i now use nikons exclusively. i've lost count of how many i have but they've all served me well for the past 27 years. the new one, however, is a little intimidating so i asked my friend leroy hamilton, a brilliant shutterbug, to help me get to know this new beast. he was tremendously helpful.

leroy's 2-hour tutorial helped me prepare for mikiphoto's first clients--two young women who were celebrating their 27th year on the planet by throwing a party on the top floor of a hollyhood club with no name. i was happy for the business, but as the night wore on i was even more elated actually to have the experiences--in and out of the club.

it's been a while since i've been on that scene and i found myself wondering if i had ever been that girl?

had i been the kind of girl who would willingly stand in line to get into a club? did i ever spend half my check on club gear, club admission and overpriced club drinks? and did i ever travel in a pack, thereby lessening my chances of meeting mr. right or his buddy mr. wrong?

well, last night i was the smart girl who left her flat about three hours before the games began because parking in hollyhood is always a nightmare--particularly on a weekend night. it took me about 20 minutes of driving up and down sunset to find a free spot that was about five blocks away from the club. to kill some time i bopped into amoeba--an oasis for music and film junkies. but as i was perusing the dvd bins upstairs, i became a hungry girl.

i needed a slice.

there are at least 20 pizza places in l.a. that purportedly make new york-style pizza. most, with the exception of mulberry street in beverly hills, don't even come close. but this greco joint on the corner of hollyhood and cahuenga was undeniably authentic and very, very tasty.

this girl was satisfied.

eating pizza at a joint on the corner with eclectic crazies all around me reminded me of times square before it turned into disneyland. that slice not only hit the spot but it inspired me to do something i've never ever done in the 16 years i've lived here.

i was going to explore hollyhood by foot. it's an amazing place.

first, i had to go back to the car and pick up my camera bag. i still had at least 2 hours to kill before the party. with my old nikon around my neck--i wasn't quite ready to break in the new one yet--i headed back to hollyhood blvd. there i saw a lot of teens traveling in packs, some "hollyhood" types hanging outside hot spot kress, a small assortment of homeless men (no women) and some cops. for some reason i wanted to know all of their back stories.

but since it would have been rather impolite to ask them, i made them up as i walked past them.

i wish i could be that girl.

those street scenes, however, in no way prepared me for what was about to happen outside the club with no name. i was standing in line behind one man and his three female friends. i was immediately annoyed by the manchild. perhaps, needing to hear the sound of his own broken english, he began berating his companions--referring to them as "drunk asses."

he wasn't just jawing. the scantily dressed trio of divas with weavas were lit but one of them appeared to be a little more so than the others. when it became apparent that what ever she had been drinking was not going to remain in her stomach for too much longer, her two girlfriends tried in vain to convince the bouncers to let them in so they could take her to the loo.

too late. one, two, three--oh god, thar she blows!

i know i was never that girl.

thankfully, she and her crew were bounced from the line. five minutes later someone came and poured bleach and sanitizer on her accident.

since the party wasn't supposed to start until 11, i grabbed a seat adjacent to the dance floor and watched the parade. there were a plethora of fools who thought that they were too cool for the room and scores of women in spandex--many of whom shouldn't have been.

i wasn't that girl either. spandex makes me itch.

once i started shooting the guests memories of my own club days flooded my brain. i recalled the days when me and my crew couldn't wait to hit the club. we even had our own theme song.

"the men all pause when i walk into the room."

yeah, we thought we were all that back in the day. and you know what? we were. we really were. we drank, but never had to have anyone hold our real hair up in the bathroom. we danced and flirted and talk s--t. and we always went home with at least five phone numbers unless we had found "the one" for that night.

since the women outnumbered the men, i seriously doubt if any of them found "the one" last night. but i suspect that's not why some of them are here. sometimes it's just cool to tell folks you went to the club last night.

i might have been that girl.

by 1 a.m. the party was winding down and the guests were making their ways to the exits. it had been a very nice affair. there was dancing, a little drinking, chatting, birthday cake, celebrating and networking. the difference between these people and the ones i had met downstairs was that they apparently knew when to leave the party.

i could identify with that. i am that girl.

2009-03-03T23:46:00.001-08:00

feets don't fail me now--puhlees!

ok. you know how some people are always a little apprehensive when they have to go to the doctor?

i've never been that person.

usually, the main reason i hate going is because i'd rather stay in bed or wherever else i might be. this morning was no exception. after being prematurely awakened by a pesky east coast editor who can't tell time, the last thing i wanted to do was get dressed and make the 2-mile trek down to cedars on my bike. my bed was begging me not to go.

besides, this was to be my third doctor's visit in less than a month. just eight days ago i'd gone in for my annual physical and was slightly distressed when dr. peters discovered some unsettling things pertaining to my health--or lack thereof.

one, i was vitamin d deficient and would have to start taking supplements--again (that kind of thing comes and goes in waves because i hate taking pills).
two, since my mother, her mother and maternal aunt had all had some form of cancer, i might be genetically predisposed to that unwelcome occurrence, too, someday and needed to convince my mother to take some costly genetic screening test to see if i would be adversely affected by the outcome.
and three, i was told that i might develop arthritis in my flat feet unless i started wearing orthotics. worse yet, my feet could very well be responsible for the perpetual lower back pain i've been experiencing since my last birthday.

joy.

i eventually decided not to cancel or postpone tuesday's appointment but what i thought was going to be a pretty routine office visit soon turned into me being the guinea pig du jour at cedars for a world renown podiatrist. trust, after hearing the price of the orthotics (steep even with insurance), i was actually on my way out to "think about it" when dr. oswell, a lovely woman who has cradled my feet on at least three previous occasions, introduced me to dr. dude (sorry, can't remember his name) just as i was lacing up my sneakers.

her: "would you mind having dr. dude look at you? he's written the books we all study."
me: "uh..."
her: "if you stay you'll get a huge discount on your orthotics."
me: "otay."
her: "you're very lucky he's here. this is a good, good thing."

he was good. there was something very sensual about the way he caressed my feet so i trusted him immediately--even when he started using terms i didn't understand and those i did such as "abnormal." all the other doctors were taking notes and asking questions.

mental note: shouldn't i be a little concerned about my doctor asking dr. dude questions? shouldn't she know this stuff by now? it's been at least 20 years since med school!

i spent the next 40 minutes walking up and down the hallway so that the doctors could examine my gait. it was distressing to hear things like: "can't walk straight," "one hip is higher than the other," "oooh, that bone is in the wrong place," "if we had caught this when she was 10...," and "uh-oh, does that mean?"

me: "what, what?!"

after the x-rays, which revealed even more abnormalities, i'd grown way weary of playing porky. it's one thing to be examined by a purported expert but quite another to take all of this mental abuse just because you wanted to toss your corrective shoes after the third grade and wear penny loafers like all of your friends.

sorry, yet another repressed childhood memory resurfacing in the midnight hour.

so, what does all this mean for lil' miki? i'm not quite sure yet. i have to go back in two weeks to see drs. oswell and dude. although dr. dude is retired and lives in the mountains outside of l.a., he's purportedly making a special trip back to cedars just to share his findings with me and the rest of the class.

i have officially joined the ranks of the apprehensive.

but since i still need my feets i guess i'll have to get over it. i've got a few more pick-up games in me, a lot more tennis, a lifetime of golf and i still love kicking it in my manolos--the most comfortable heels i've ever worn.

hopefully manolo makes a corrective slingback.

2009-02-19T12:47:00.001-08:00

to be loved by duke

at this moment in time i'm supposed to be saluting some friends and acquaintances at essence magazine's 2nd annual black women in hollywood luncheon at the beverly hills hotel. but, when i opened my eyes at 10 a.m. today, i immediately realized how difficult it was going to be to attend yet another masturbatory hollywood award season opus.

it so doesn't matter.

it became even harder to motivate myself after receiving some news on my facebook page that rocked my world.

"Melissa invited you to 'Melissa Duke-Mooney Memorial Service' on Sunday,
February 22 at 2:30pm."

because of the way it was worded i honestly thought it was some kind of joke. i had just read duke's last irreverent status update a few days ago. she was fine.

but then i read the rest.

Event: Melissa Duke-Mooney Memorial Service
What: Ceremony
Host: Neil Mooney
Start Time: Sunday, February 22 at 2:30pm
End Time: Sunday, February 22 at 3:30pm
Where: Eastwood Christian Church

naturally, i was like wtf? i quickly pulled up duke's facebook page and after sifting through dozens of sympathy messages i realized that this was no joke. my girl, melissa duke, was no longer breathing and i had no idea why.

i immediately contacted two mutual friends--lisa and claire. claire was the first to respond. she wrote that duke had been in intense pain monday night, slipped into a coma on tuesday and was gone early wednesday. bacterial meningitis. then i had the unenviable task of informing lisa, who was at the hospital with her young son and hadn't heard the news.

like many of duke's friends i am stunned and shocked beyond words. duke provided a significant amount of our daily light. she was equal parts sun and moon. and at 41, still very young.

naturally, at times like these your mind is awash with memories. duke and i first met at a press junket. at the time she was a publicist for fox and i was the pop culture columnist for the fort worth star-telegram. i fell in love with her instantly because she was so outside the norm for a studio flak. duke exuded warmth, seemed genuinely interested in who you were as a person and didn't really involve herself in the journo class wars--"the my paper is bigger than yours, etc. bs." she treated everyone the same regardless of circulation figures or tax bracket.

our time together in l.a. was brief because she and her husband packed up their bags and moved southeast to nashville. i was truly saddened but understood perfectly when she said, "it's about quality of life issues."

throughout the ensuing years duke and i kept in touch. i remember getting the first pictures her oldest daughter and then chastising her for not sending photos of the second baby in a timely manner. we also used to bump into each other from time-to-time at various junkets. she would always take care of me. and, one of my great pleasures was jumpstarting the friendship between duke and lisa, when lisa and her family moved to nashville.

last year when i started this journal--because that's what it really is as opposed to being a blog--duke was one of the first to send her love. she wrote:

"I just wanted to let you know that I've been reading your blog....and I LOVE your voice. It is clear, true and feels like a friend. You have a gift with words but it seems the way you see the world....the way you prioritize (for lack of a better word) is your true gift. Your words inspire and have got me thinking more about my own priorities.

I know we only pass each other in junket life....barely knowing one another really but I am enjoying reading you - getting to know the real you. Thanks for sharing.

Continue to find the beauty.
xo Melissa

P.S. I have some tomatoes for you - get to Nashville!!"

i'm so glad i saved that note. i always will. yet, i'm saddened that she perhaps didn't realize that she was more than just a junket pal.

i'm sorry duke.

i'm sorry that it took your death to hammer home an age-old cliche. you really do have to tell folks how much you love them while they're still here.

c u later girlfriend. xox

2009-02-12T10:54:00.000-08:00

say wot?!!

this is a happy day.

three thousand years ago when i was a grad student at BU/harvard, my friend denis peycher introduced me to a song that would eventually come to define that most enjoyable time. i had it on tape but god only knows at what point my parents threw away that era of my life that was once stored in the family garage.

For years all i could remember of that song was the beat line, "say captain, say wot" and not the artist. today i typed in that phrase in on my itunes account and bingo!

denis, who was from paris, was fond of european hip hop. he was always listening to songs in languages none of us could understand. i was initially introduced to him by my friend elisa gaffney from london. we called her spoon because of her family's wealth. all of us were part of a group of students who had formed a club called SPC (School of Public Communications) International. Among the members were people from egypt (anwar sadat's daughter), the uk, south africa, spain, italy, france, greece, malaysia, canada, germany, mexico, brooklyn, ireland, india, switzerland and sweden.

i'd like to say that our motley crew spent a considerable amount of time at cafes poring over pertinent world events but we really didn't do very much of that. our days (in between classes) were spent at rumple's, a precursor to starbucks just across the street from SPC. but we spent most of our time perusing that wine store on harvard ave. (two bottles for $5), stocking up on refreshments for our nightly chat fests.

with a group so complex and diverse the only things we generally didn't talk about were religion and politics. our gatherings were really all about the cultural exchange. we were all fascinated by our respective life stories and i am a wiser and more enlightened person now because of those meetings.

denis, however, was somewhat of an instigator--always making fun of the trust fund babies, of which there were many. he would also make cracks about the brits and our one indian friend who was having difficulty adjusting to life without "servants." denis also introduced me to gay life 101 and convinced all of us to accompany him to buddy's one night, a famous gay bar in the copley square area. it was the first and only time that i've ever danced all night long without once sitting down.

one night i suggested we have a surprise birthday party for spoon even though it wasn't her birthday. spoon was in on the ruse but felt guilty once everyone started bringing her presents and spilled the beans. i was in charge of the music and as a former dee-jay, it was a welcome assignment. it was the early '80s and disco had pretty much run its course. at that time i was listening to a lot of duran duran, journey, hall & oates, rick james, michael jackson, police, spandau ballet, culture club, marvin gaye, prince, thomas dolby, lionel richie, after the fire, kajagoogoo, earth, wind & fire, men at work and clash.

i made a mix tape (god, remember cassettes?) and took it over to spoon's back bay studio where the jam was being held. we were all rocking (with spoon's weak-ass speakers) when denis shows up with this vinyl. "you've got to play this," he said.

i was a little leery. i'd never heard of the artist or the cut and didn't want to damper the flow. but he kept insisting and to this day, i'm glad he did. the "captain" song became our party staple along with "she blinded me with science," "dancing on the ceiling" and "rock the cashbah."

so, today i've been ushered back to a time when i was happily unfocused, absolutely immature and totally enjoying the experiences of a lifetime. although denis and i both moved to new york at the same time after school and kept in touch for many years afterward, i suppose i should have suspected something was amiss when the christmas cards stopped coming. it wasn't until i had reconnected with gilles, another SPCI friend, about four years ago. he informed me that denis had been dead for just over a decade. AIDS. denis had contracted the disease from tom, another SPCI member from sweden. tom died while denis and i were still in touch but it never occured to me...

i had also lost touch with spoon. she returned to london and eventually married and had three kids. two years ago i was able to track her husband down through a random press release and we were happily reunited in london in '07. it was the first time we'd seen each other in 22 years.

mitch, the only other american member of the group, has moved from brooklyn to manhattan and is a vp at one of the largest pr firms on the planet. gilles runs an AIDS center in manhattan, russ has gone back to canada and i suspect the others are all doing well wherever they are.

today, i'm really missing all of them--even francine, the skinny and arrogant winch from paris whom none of us really ever liked.

tonight i'll lift a glass in their honor while i'm listening to da captain. take a listen.

2009-02-03T11:32:00.000-08:00

miss rosa revisited

today's visit to the nursing home resulted in a couple more surprises. first, i ran into an old neighbor who actually works with alzheimer's patients at the facility. two, miss rosa, who was all over me monday with hugs and kisses, didn't remember who i was on tuesday.

oh well.

i wasn't really disappointed because she's at an age where the memory is the first to go. and besides, she was still warm and friendly. so much so that i got up the nerve to ask her some questions. yes, she is from germany and has been in the states since the '60s. and yes, she did recall the war and said, "i could never understand the hatred. it was so stupid. it made me sick."

again, it was hard to understand miss rosa as her accent after more than 40 years in this country is still really thick. but she did tell me she enjoyed her birthday and that her daughter had sent her some new kicks, a pair of walking shoes which she proudly showed off by lifting her right leg.

it's good to know she has somebody.

as for dad, he's still not eating the way he should and that concerns all of us. he was a little reflective today. he recently lost his first cousin in atlanta, a gem of a man who kept that side of the family together and popping. dad hated that he had to miss his funeral.

"i was just thinking back when i was a boy," he said wistfully. "i think i should have stayed in atlanta longer because i never got an opportunity to know any of my family." dad's father brought him to ohio when he was just a boy and he didn't get to know many of his relatives until much later in life. i only saw my paternal grandmother about three times in my life and each time she never knew who i was.

i wonder if rosa still misses her family back home--if she has any regrets.

perhaps i'll find out tomorrow.

2009-02-02T21:51:00.000-08:00

rosa

god knows i hate hospitals and nursing homes. i loathe the smells, the sights and the sounds of them. if my dad wasn't in one, i'd never ever go near one. but after yesterday's visit i dislike them a little less.

on monday after stops at two malls and a grocery store i drove up to the extended care facility my dad now calls home. he was a little listless and was lying across his bed when i arrived. after about 15 minutes of small talk he suggested that we go sit out in the lobby. we opted to sit around the big conference table in the sun, across the hall from where a few folks were watching a big-screen TV. seated at the table with us was a woman i had recognized from the day before when i had lunch with dad in the facility's dining room.

her name was rosa and she was very lively. as dad repeatedly beat me at tonk, a game i hadn't played since college, rosa was talking to everyone that passed by. she had a thick german accent and at times see-sawed between english and german.

i'm not sure she realized she was doing that.

at one point she looked over at me, attempting to put together a child's casper the friendly ghost puzzle and marveled at how well i was doing. she also informed me that it was her birthday as she sorted through the snacks that a nurse had just given her.

"look at what they have given me!" she said in broken english. "it's my birthday!"

"well, happy birthday!" i said enthusiastically.

rosa smiled and went on about her snacks and how she loved lemon pop. it was really hard to understand her at times so i just smiled and nodded. she offered me a cookie and i gave it to my dad because i'm not really trying to eat nursing home food! she asked if he were my father or grandfather, but i couldn't determine what she said after my response.

it was my understanding, however, that spending your birthday in a nursing home with relative strangers probably wasn't emotionally satisfying. where was her family? did she have one? what about friends? my thoughts were broken up by another woman who had joined us at the table. this woman, apparently near deaf, was clearly agitated because she was strapped to her wheelchair. she kept screaming at the nurses and aides and told one of them, "i feel like i'm dying!" she said it so loudly i'm sure she woke up st. peter.

and, across the hall, when a man started mumbling loudly to himself. rosa, in perfect english told him to "keep it down over there!"

i almost fell off my chair.

just after these incidents--rather events--my mother rang, asking me to make yet another kroger's stop to pick up some pot pies for her dinner. i kissed dad and patted rosa on her shoulder and said "happy birthday miss rosa." she smiled and waved goodbye. as i made my way down the long hall to the exit i began wondering who rosa was and why was she here? was she a holocaust survivor? i couldn't help thinking that she was a great story needing to be told.

on my way to the grocery store i was consumed with thoughts about how she must be feeling. it was her birthday and she's in a nursing home with no family in sight, surrounded by a bunch of people with varying degrees of dementia and celebrating with hard cookies and a can of pop.

that was so lame.

it occured to me that i might be in rosa's wheelchair one day. that's when i knew i had to do something for her and for me. i bought rosa a birthday cake and some candles.

i'm glad i did. i will always remember the look on her face and the way she squeezed my hand and kissed it when i put the cake in front of her and said: "birthday girls should have cake on their birthdays." she then kissed both my cheeks, put her arms around my waist and ordered me--in her broken english--to kiss her cheeks, too.

with perishables in the car, i had to drop and run but i hated to leave her--alone. again.

i hope that random act of kindness made her day. i hope she knows that she's not alone.

i never asked rosa one question during the time i spent with her on monday but i learned so much just by being in her presence.

i kind of feel like it's my birthday.

2009-01-11T22:19:00.000-08:00

pappy

i suppose even in our collective delusion, we knew that kalvin marcelle hicks sr., a man who never met a bottle of hennessy he didn't like, was not long for this world.

last year, the man we called pappy was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. soon after that devastating news we learned that the cancer had metastasized in his back. still, being the believer that i am, i was sure that pappy had a few more parties left in him.

i remained confident even after the frequent hospital stays, the transformation of his once lively voice into a raspy whisper, the termination of his chemo and radiation treatments and lastly after learning that he'd gotten a visit from a hospice nurse on saturday.

even after all of that today's news was still shocking.

i was making the 2.5 mile trek back home from the larchmont farmer's market this morning on my bike when i got a call from my dear friend mary. we had been missing each other for the past 24 hours. i was halfway home when mary informed me that she was on her way back to the hospital. pappy, her husband of nearly 28 years, had been having trouble breathing due to the fluid in his lungs and had requested that she ring 9-1-1.

"i'm so tired miki," she said wistfully.

"i know you are," i responded softly.

about an hour after that call--and about 40 minutes after i had spread the word to the sorors on the east coast--mary rang back. she was crying.

"i just wanted to tell you that pappy just breathed his last breath. call your mother and tell her you love her."

at the time i felt like i was inhaling my last bit of air, too. there's a weird thing that happens when you get really bad news. your brain really stops functioning and you never say the things you're thinking or feeling, thereby making you feel emotionally bankrupt. and, on top of my inability to articulate, i was just stunned. not only had i not fully grasped the seriousness of the situation earlier, but i had spent far too much time bitching about my mother's bitching to comfort my friend in a time of obvious need.

denial.

after absorbing the news i immediately started making another round of calls and texts. like me, everyone, everywhere was shocked and saddened that we had lost such a vibrant personality at age 50. pappy never went to college but he had become a favorite fixture at hampton homecomings. he drew everyone in. we all adored him. he truly was one of the lovliest and most geniune people i've ever met.

i did eventually ring mom but it's been a real struggle for me to get through the remainder of the day. i kept one eye on the meaningless, muted awards show on the telly while attempting to come up with enough clever prose to make all of my monday deadline stories sing. that was tremendously difficult. the chronic insomnia has me barely functioning on a good day and with this news i was unable to concentrate for more than a few seconds at a time.

but i've got to get it together. i've got to be there for my friend, who is experiencing the unimaginable pain of losing her best friend.

pappy, if they have hennessy up in heaven go ahead and put it on my tab.

2009-01-01T01:31:00.000-08:00

watching the night go by

there we were sitting in row q, seats 1, 2 & 3 of the west angeles church of god in sequins--sorry, i meant christ--cathedral with thousands of other people. me, jackie and anita. three highly skilled media professionals ready to write the next chapters of our lives as we happily said goodbye to the not-so-great '08.

we, like so many other people who had entered the sanctuary on dec. 31, were more than ready to get off pity parkway and alter our respective courses. jackie would like her personal life to be as stable as her professional one. anita is looking to get out of a shaky job situation. and me, i just want shalom in the home, a great gig and a cure for my chronic insomnia.

but even though i had a firece headache and the black-eyed peas i'd eaten hours beforehand weren't agreeing with me, everything was on point during the service. the music was inspiring as was bishop blake's message. he had us all convinced that everything was going to be mighty fine in '09.

it already is.

normally, the three of us would not ever be together socially. and honestly, i didn't even want to go and not just because i wasn't feeling well. yet, god saw fit to bring us together tonight so he could reinforce his promise three-fold.

he's got our back.

and that's a good thing because he probably wasn't too happy when all three of us were responding to all those "happy new year" text messages from our friends back east while bishop blake was delivering the word.

it must have gotten through, however.

jackie, anita and i entered west a last night with an unwanted and uninvited friend called complacency, but we left this morning with our new best friend named hope.

2008-12-25T20:57:00.000-08:00

a couple of days in her presence

"Just before Eartha Kitt steps on stage tonight at Hollywood's Roosevelt Hotel Cinegrill, Eartha Mae will be waiting in the wings with a nervous stomach."Don't laugh. I'm a terribly shy, terribly inward person. It's rejection. I'm always afraid of rejection. I'll be all glamorous and vomiting." That's our Eartha Mae. Eartha Mae is the force inside Eartha Kitt. It was Eartha Mae,..." Miki Turner, The Orange County Register, July 26, 1995

in the summer of '95 i had just wrapped up my first season of covering the los angeles lakers and clippers for the orange county register and needed a challenge. i found out eartha kitt was playing at the cinegrill club inside hollywood's historic roosevelt hotel, and decided it was time i crossed the aisle--again.

i went over to the features department and pitched a story on kitt to cary darling--a guy who really lives up to his name--and he agreed, but said to keep it short.

when i arrived at the roosevelt on that warm july day, i was told to go to suite 501.

i rang the bell.

kitt's manager, an older guy with an abundance of charm, opened the door. sitting on the floor about 10 feet behind him was a really old woman wearing a terry cloth robe with a scarf around her head. i was just about to ask where miss kitt was when the woman's eyes locked in on my own.

deep.

initially, i thought that the old woman on the floor speaking french to two white french poodles was eartha kitt. but as she got up to greet me, i soon realized i was speaking with eartha kitt's alter ego eartha mae, kitt's real name. i wouldn't meet eartha kitt until later that night at the club.

although kitt was best known for her sultry ballads, sex kitten persona and putting all four letters into the term "diva," eartha mae, who died today at 81 from colon cancer, was quite an animated character herself. during the hour or so i was with her we discussed a plethora of topics including the civil rights movement, that altercation she had with lady bird johnson, her daughter, her mens, race, playing catwoman, "santa baby," her dogs, growing up in the south, the ghosts of divas past and what had kept her motivated after all those years in the biz.

she was uniquely intriguing. and how ironic it is that the woman who cooed her way through the eternally sultry and seductive "santa baby" would pass on christmas day. that sister always knew how to make an entrance--and an exit.

i think the two of us connected because she realized i had done my homework and because i was really interested in her stories. there was no time limit on our interview, but whenever you're dealing with divas it's best not to waste their time with stupid or redundant questions. eartha mae seemed relieved to have an opportunity to reflect on the past--hers and eartha kitt's.

some of it was good, some of it was bad, some of it was ugly.

it was as though we were up in an attic going through old trunks. i was thrilled to help her sort through all of her baggage.

most of what was said that afternoon never made it into the paper. cary was gracious enough to give me some space in the register's weekly entertainment tab, but it was barely enough to say anything other than eartha kitt is playing the cinegrill. come. enjoy.

as i left her suite that day i told her i had just bought her latest cd and that i played her version of "moon river" every morning. she seemed stunned.

"You do?" she said softly. "thank you. thank you very much."

maybe the fact that i was actually listening to her music was some kind of validation for a performer in the twilight of her career. at thirtysomething i probably didn't fit the profile of the typical eartha kitt fan. later that night i realized i truly wasn't.

the cinegrill was filled with a lot of people who didn't look like me but i ended up bonding with a couple of guys from we-ho (west hollywood) who were seated at my table. these dudes could have been kitt's official biographers. they had books, album covers and all kinds of paraphernalia. they were positively giddy. also in the audience that night was ann miller--old hollywood royalty; and two-hit wonder freda payne, a delightful woman.

when the band started playing i was a little taken aback by eartha mae's transformation into eartha kitt. it was as if someone had clicked their heels three times and poof! the scarf had been replaced with a wig, the robe with a sequined gown and eartha mae now looked about 20 years younger in the proper lighting. it was a terrific show. kitt sang, purred, made a few jokes, acknowledged the celebs, interacted with a few fans and wrapped it up. afterwards i met up with her as she was taking photos with miller and payne. i have one of those shots.

i was so impressed with her show that i made arrangements with her manager to come back the next night with a girlfriend. when i tell you that i saw the same exact show i had seen the night before i am not exaggerating. it was like precision clockwork down to the questions she asked the audience. the only thing she did differently on that second night was smile when she spotted me at my table.

after that show we met again briefly. she grabbed my hand and said that she had loved the article i'd written. i hadn't been that happy with it--only because it was so short--but i was thrilled that she had validated my efforts.

i never saw either eartha again after that night. but when people ask me who are some of the coolest people i've interviewed, she's always at the top of the list. the time i spent with eartha kitt was memorable because she introduced me to eartha mae, a person not everyone got an opportunity to meet.

2008-12-21T22:05:00.000-08:00

one of my favorite christmas tunes ever!

happy holidays everyone!

2008-12-19T19:49:00.000-08:00

looking back

in the bible eight is the number of new beginnings so at the start of '08 i was looking forward to a great year.

it was.

despite all the challenges, the pain of losing loved ones and absorbing the pain of others as they struggled, i can't and won't complain about what went down in '08.

sure, i could have made more money but i'd trade it all just to see that little zulu boy in durban smile at me again, or hear the laughter of the kids i met in soweto.

priceless.

i could have worked harder, but if it meant having to miss spending precious moments with my folks i would have said no to an opportunity to shoot with annie leibowitz.

i could have prayed more and will do as the year winds down, but i'm thankful for the blessing of life, the love of my family and friends and for the $10.99 bottle of marquez de caceras at trader joe's.

i'm not one for resolutions really but i will enter '09 with a lot more clarity. i have what i need so now it's time to go after what is there for the taking.

the best of '08

travels: south africa, london, turks & caicos, tobago, toronto, new york
music: i was particularly fond of songs by alice smith, benjamin dube, the west angeles mass choir, beyonce, heart, amy winehouse, coldplay, keb 'mo and many others
tv: mad men, the l word, private practice, ugly betty, entourage, gossip girl, lincoln heights, cnn's situation room, unsung
movies: dark knight, the duchess, tropic thunder, notorious, secret life of bees, slumdog millionaire, rachel getting married, the boy in the striped pajamas, pineapple express, step brothers
worst: seven pounds, quantum of solace, the women, meet the browns, it's a great time to be black and sexy, cover, zohan
books: (unfortunately i didn't read a lot--no time) the legs are the first to go, passing for black, the last lecture
purchases: a big ass fan, a nikon lens, the felecity box dvd set, some custom jewelry in barbados, asics, computer bag on wheels, oakley specs, wine cooler, gps
worst purchases: a small ass fan
the jury's still out: iphone
best times: road trip with gaby, my birthday dinner in oakland, safari in south africa, reconnecting with old friends on facebook, dinners with cm in nyc, lunches with rrr in l.a., happy hours with jacks at kado, diving in tobago, dining in turks, exploring london, late-night calls with mam, surprise calls from jew and hanging with dd, the tremendous support i recieved from bl and btr, election night, giants' super bowl win
worst times: dad in rehab, mom's surgery, the deaths of pancrazio, nancy maynard, big frank and mr. white, the break-ups, gaining weight, hot flashes, any time i had to spend in vegas, new year's eve, severing ties with the doc crew, megabus, pappy's cancer
best interviews: james franco, kevin smith, rod lurie, rosario dawson, joe the tour bus driver in johannesburg, annie hathaway, colin farrell, taraji p. henson, nicki micheaux, sanaa lathan, kathleen mcghee-anderson, angela bassett/faith evans and my dad
restaurants: m cafe, kado, thai market, red bamboo, electric korma, taco loco, pink, ago, zen garden
best move: letting go and letting god and learning final cut

2008-12-18T14:06:00.000-08:00

season's greetings

as many of you know i write and produce content for the entertainment and sports industries for a living. i try hard to relate to the peeps i cover, but as we all know that's very difficult considering we aren't exactly in the same tax bracket. that said, i discovered the one way in which i can connect to those whose every little movement we chronicle with mindless minute-by-minute updates.

i could, like angelina, madonna, meg ryan and countless others, adopt some kids from an impoverished third-world country.

since the aforementioned celebrities have already "taken" just about every available and unavailable african and chinese child, i, of course, opted to adopt two poor little white boys from the west village. their names are carden and brandon and i rescued them from a private christian school in manhattan.they weren't actually enrolled there because they are, er, poor. they just showed up every day looking for someone to buy them a metro card so they could search the city for the parents who abandoned them and moved to brooklyn to be closer to the ghost of the notorious b.i.g. as you can see they are as sweet as can be and if i work it right we will be on the cover of peep-ho before you know it. then, i, too, will be able to afford better kids from more exotic locales.

but you know what, these little critters have brought more happiness to my life than my deadbeat baby daddy dwyane wade ever has. i'm so thankful that i've been able to experience the joy of parenthood just after getting my aarp card.

but, like i said, i am not as financially solvent as my celebrity friends and need all of you to contribute to this cause. look at their sweet, innocent eyes. they still twinkle when they see inspiring things like el debarge's mug shot or britney's crotch, but they rarely smile any more. and we can't afford prozac. all carden wants for christmas is a 60-inch lcd screen so that he can watch sex and the city reruns at night and feel closer to home. all brandon wants is an iphone so that he can keep in touch with his friends on greenwich street. so please, dig into your wallets and your skinny jeans and send us some C notes. tis the season of giving.

please send all contributions to:

miki turner
c/o the nigerian foundation for poor undesirable white kids
p.o. box 007
lagos, nigeria 4h3

i set up this special account for tax purposes. i'm not going down like wesley snipes.

but if you can't afford to send us any cash during these recessionary times, please know that we sincerely wish you a very ^%#$$^*@## holiday season. that goes double for you d wade!!

cheers,

miki, carden & brandon

2008-12-14T21:18:00.000-08:00

i love new york--especially at
this time of the year

it's been more than 20 years since i lived in new york city. i came here from grad school with a simple plan and reconnected with a gracious friend. my plan was to find a job in two weeks or i'd go back to boston and give it another go. the friend was felecia kurtz, one of my best friends from the hampton institute days, who was sharing a studio flak in lefrak city, a lower middle class housing development in queens near laguardia airport, with one of her church friends.

looking back it's a good thing i had lived in boston beforehand. after being reared in an upscale suburb and attending an elistist black college on a very picturesque campus, the gritty streets of beantown helped prepare me for life in the projects. lefrak wasn't a bad place to live, but it did contain some "elements."

as luck would have it i got a low-paying job with the american council for the arts on day 1 of my search. giddy as a piglet in mud, i raced back to queens from midtown on the n train and cut a deal with my new roomates. fk said i could live rent free for as long as i needed. all i had to do was pay part of the ultilities and attend church regularly.

last thursday my shuttle driver took me past my old hood. it looks much bigger now than it did when i lived there. and it looked better all illuminated with bright and colorful christmas lights. there's something about this season that makes you all giddy inside, particularly when you can't help but fall victim to all of the external, electronic, energy-sapping yuletride trappings.

it also makes you rather reflective. i couldn't help but look back on those days when we were all twentysomethings making less than twentysomething annually. we were three women living in a cramped one-room, one-bath studio. we were from vastly different socio-economic backgrounds and had varying degrees of spiritually. the only things we had in common were our affinity for african men--shoutout to james and matthew--and the fact that we were young, seemingly gifted, black and broke.

fk very graciously allowed me to live there rent free for about six months. all of us got along wonderfully until we went our separate ways. i have no idea where edith is now and i saw fk for the first time since 1985 last year when i was on a shoot in her hometown of raleigh, n.c. we exchanged digits and email addresses, but its not like we're blowing up each other's smart phones.

breaking free from the pride back in the day, however, actually allowed me to discover my new york. i love the night life and i would often leave my spacious studio around 11 p.m. on a friday night and cruise over the 59th street bridge in my honda civic hatchback to see what i could get into. more often than not i ended up in the west village or times square, where i actually worked.

i loved racing up and down the avenues with minimal traffic late at night. i still do. once i got to the village i'd stroll into the west 4th st. bar & grill and have a drink. sometimes i'd meet randall kenen there. at the time he was an editorial assistant at knopf, a subsidiary of random house. we both started at the house on the same day. he was smart, gay, gulliable and reasonably good company. he's now an award-winning author of four books and a professor at the university of memphis. sometimes eric simmons would join us, too. eric was tall, gay and a little more streetwise than rand. he had the energy of a herd of wild horses. sadly, eric died years later after jumping into the hudson river to save someone was trying to commit suicide.

that somebody survived.

when it was just me and rand we'd usually eat at burrito loco on w 4th. that was our idea of fine dining at the time. these days neither one of us would be caught dead there. whenever i was alone, i'd usually go to washington square park, which at that time was bustling with activity well into the wee hours of the morning and watch the old men play checkers and the young men sell drugs. and, i'd always spend some time listening to this jazz guitarist on the corner of w 4th and 6th avenue. i'd put some change in his case and request my favorite song--"the new york city woman blues."

every time i come back to the city i go to that same spot at night. he's never there but i can still hear him croon.

if i stopped at times square i'd usually just people watch for a while and then go to curtain up, a cozy little bistro in manhattan plaza. i loved that joint. i once sat next to james baldwin there. bobby short was a regular and a lot of the actors from the negro ensemble company hung out there. lee chamberlain, who played debbi morgan's mother on "all my children" and ellen holly, who played al freeman jr.'s wife on "one life to live" introduced me to it. i followed them there one night after watching them perform in p.j. harvey's compelling play, "a long time since yesterday." it was staged at the henry street settlement house, another favorite spot. it was there that i had the priviledge of seeing beah richards' one-woman show and meeting ossie davis and ruby dee for the first time.

i loved being a part of that crowd and they didn't seem to mind having a green kid from the midwest around.

i wish they were all still here.

the one man who is still around is harvey, the elevator man, at 570 7th avenue. he worked in the building that housed the aca offices back in the day. harvey has to be 90 by now so i was overwhelmed with emotion when i was walking by the building one day three years ago and discovered that he was still there. he still remembered me. i also saw him there earlier this year.

i'm not so sure he remembers me now.

when i jokingly told him it was time to retire he flashed that famous sammy davis jr. smile and said: "why? what would i do?"

since this trip was more about work than enjoyment i didn't get the chance to see harvey or many of my other friends and former co-workers. i did, however, manage to squeeze in a visit with linda, my sister-in-law from cincinnati, and her nephew, my friend nate, from cali. they were in town visiting linda's parents up in harlem. late friday night they came down to my swank eastside hotel and had a drink. i then suggested we go see the tree at rockefeller center.

ironically, i don't think i ever saw the damn tree when i lived here. nor did i ever see the macy's parade, spend new year's eve in times square or even visit any of the iconic tourist traps like the empire state building or the statute of liberty. and sadly, i never did step foot into the twin towers. i thought it would be around for a while, ya dig?

since i've become a vistor i have hit everything except the statue and the parade. the latter will never happen. little miki loathes a parade.

friday was actually my second time visiting the tree. the first time was a few years ago with my then boyfriend. it was so beautiful that it took my breath away. it was so romantic.

this time it was with people i love and it was still glorious. i normally loathe being around tourists, but i loved being in the midst of that crowd. after capturing a few digital moments we headed over to times sqaure--mostly because i love the lights and the vibe when the theater crowds hit the streets after seeing a great show. also, it was something i wanted to share with nate, a wide-eyed surfer dude from orange county.

after my mandatory stop at virgin records to check out the dvd racks and the m&m's store to get my favorite candy (chocolate, no yucky peanut), we headed back to the east side. i put linda and nate in a cab heading uptown and i called it a night. normally, i would have hit the streets again but the frigid temperatures curtailed my desires.

on saturday, after putting in a full day of work, i headed uptown on saturday to visit nate and linda at linda's mom's flat on 148th and 7th. she has the most magnificent view of the entire manhattan skyline. it's just awesome. they were putting up christmas decorations and i was reminded of what a wonderful place this is to spend the holidays.

and these giant ornaments are just the coolest!

i spent about 90 minutes with the fam and then headed downtown to do dinner with CM. i always look forward to these meetings because the conversation is always so stimulating. we met at a thai joint on the yupper west. the food was great, the wine was better and the conversation superb. it was a very good time.

again, i would have hung out after we parted because it was still early. but with the windchill cutting through my gloves like a knife, my hands felts as though they were broken. so, i hopped my chilly ass on the 1 train, transferred to the e and headed back to chelsea, a part of town that i'm madly in love with now.

i love the cobblestone streets, the bars, the bakeries, the shops and the people. it reminds me a lot of london. i stay at this place called the jane, an old residential building that once housed the survivors of the titanic. the rooms are all designed like a ship's cabin (i.e. small) and there are shared loos. i like it here for several reasons. one, the location; two, it's clean and quiet; and three, it's $99 a night.

last night, however, i thought i was going to die. the rooms have no thermostats and the steam heat was on full blast. to keep from melting i had to turn on the air conditioning, which offered little relief, and pat my self down with damp cloths.

sometimes, you really do get what you pay for!

i'm also digging the bk. like chelsea and the east village, there was never any reason to go to brooklyn unless someone you know had died. wow. that's no longer the case. the bk is seriously what's up. i discovered this a couple of years back, but it was reinforced on a recent press trip i took retracing the steps of the late biggie smalls. it was hosted by his mother, viola wallace (below), who was cooler than she ought to be!

although i had originally planned on staying in new york longer i'm leaving tomorrow night. the cold weather and the stress of the past three weeks have made me weary and hungry for my own bed, my bike, my car and the southern california sunshine.

i'll definitely be back here, however, when the seasons change. you can catch me having a pinot noir at bar 51, chowing down on the soy soul chicken at red bamboo in the west village, purusing the stacks at strand and virgin records, making sure harvey is still in the building, hooking up with CM and exploring new culinary options.

spring can't come soon enough!

2008-12-07T19:24:00.001-08:00

always keep close friends on speed dial

given a choice i would have preferred not to have gone through all the drama i went through last week. that said, i wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

as a result of having to damn near cuss one of my mother's doctors out, i'm actually a kinder, gentler more rational person than i was a week ago. i know that sounds contradictory, but it's true. given the circumstances of last monday morning when my 82-year-old mother was undergoing gall bladder surgery, i could have easily gone off on her i-am-better-than-thou-because-i-went-to-medical-school m.d. instead, i maintained my cool and avoided becoming some neck-rolling stereotype from a bad '70s network sitcom.

when i was told by a really kind and supportive nurse that my mother's doctor had ordered her to go home on the same day as her surgery, i immediately pulled out my iphone and rang a pair of former college classmates. to say that they kept me out of jail that afternoon is perhaps an understatement.

first i rang my soror, homegirl and friend rhonda from dayton (she's the one with the red hair in the photo). she got her j.d. from howard. then i rang my soror and friend mary from the atl. she went to unc med school. normally, these aren't really my go-to people for more emotional issues, but on monday i needed advice from a doctor and a lawyer. thankfully, they were both reachable when i rang and asked, "what should i do?" they prepared me well to deal with the ensuing BS.

rhonda reminded me that the doctor was working for me and not vice-versa, so i treated him as i would an employee. mary (below) reminded me that doctors from his "cultural background" tend to look down on people who look like me, so i had to school him on who i was in order to get the end result.

so, when i told the charge nurse that we needed to call the mofo m.d. and chat about my mother being admitted, he had the audacity to tell her that he had already discussed it with me and that he wasn't coming to talk to me even though he was still in the hospital.

breathe. one, two, three, four...don't call him a mofo, don't call him a mofo...

calmly and kindly i said: "either he can talk to me or he can talk to the three lawyers i have on speed dial. it's his choice. she's not leaving this hospital today."

he was there in 20 minutes.

when he started babbling about how the insurance might not pay for it, i again remained calm and said: "don't let these sweatpants fool you. i'm a hampton magna and i know that you can write it in such a way that we won't have any issues with the insurance company. so write it out like you would for your own mother."

he cowered and started telling me what he was going to write.

"cheers," i said.

i'm not afraid of a challenge nor do i shy away from confrontation if it's all up in my face. but if it hadn't been for rhonda and mary talking me through that situation, i may have allowed my temper get the best of me and that would not have been a good thing. "the others" need to learn that you can't mess with black folks and their mamas. you will lose every time and quite possibly get your feelings hurt. as a result of my kinder approach, my mother was admitted and the nurses in the outpatient surgery unit at bethesda north actually applauded me when i left that night.

they know what time it is and i must give them big ups. they totally rocked and had my back every step of the way. they were rewarded with fine chocolates and a dozen cupcakes from graeter's for their efforts. a small, but yummy token of my appreciation.

healthcare in america is scary people. and as much as i adore barack obama, i think it might take the next five administrations to straighten this mess out.

last year on a flight to london i watched michael moore's "sicko." although i already knew that healthcare in the U.S. was pathetic, i really had no idea how bad it was until last monday. if i had been forced to take my mother home she could have had all kinds of complications--especially with her high blood pressure fluctuating. and if it hadn't been for mary telling me ahead of time that all of that could happen, i wouldn't have known any better and probably would have taken her home on Monday evening.

after leaving the hospital last monday i had a long conversation with mary. she's an amazing nethrologist who routinely works 19-hour days running her own office, making hospital rounds and being the primary caregiver for her invalid mother. we usually talk two or three times a week--mostly when she's driving home after yet another long day. just before we hung up that night she said, "i think i've given you the wrong impression of doctors. most of them aren't like me. the difference between me and most of them is that i didn't go to med school right out of college. i waited until i was 30. this was something i wanted to do. many of them are slaves to their income and their bottom line."

she's wrong. i didn't have the wrong impression. i knew there was a vast difference between her and some of the doctors i've dealt with personally. many of them don't possess mary's compassion for their patients. it's hard to find one that puts the patient above the bonus check. that goes for lawyers, too. although rhonda doesn't practice law (she owns a college prep academy), if she did, she'd run her law firm in exactly the same way that mary runs her medical practice.

the right way.

since i was unable to reward rhonda or mary with any artery-clogging pastries, i'll do them one better. i'll give them my most precious possession. my words.

2008-11-06T21:59:00.000-08:00

Poitier-Carroll Love Child Surfaces!

One of the things that Diahann Carroll left out of her recent revealing biography, "The Legs Are the Last to Go," was the fact that she and ex-lover Sidney Poitier had a secret love child who was conceived during the filming of "Paris Blues."

The child, let's call her Baracka, tracked down her bio parents at an A-list Hollywood event in the '90s and watched while Mr. Poitier and Ms. Carroll argued about her paternity. A bystander at that Women in Film event honoring Ms. Carroll reported that the actress accused Mr. Poitier of being a "Calypso-loving, brown-bagging ho" who knocked her up in the prime of her career.

Upon hearing himself described in that way, Mr. Poitier claimed that sisters like Ms. Carroll were the reason why "black males gravitate toward the white women who adore them."

"It got pretty ugly," the source said. "And I felt so bad for their daughter. She didn't even have enough money to valet her car and had riden her bike."

While Ms. Carroll did spend some time talking with Baracka--telling her she should stop dressing like she shopped at a "Compton Flea Market"--Mr. Poitier totally ignored his alleged child and began chatting up Jane Fonda.

Today Baracka (who preferred not to reveal her real name) spends a lot of time on the couch critiquing her parents' early films. Peep-Ho magazine tracked Baracka down at The Grove recently where she was perusing the sale racks at the Nike store. Dressed in Nike sweat pants, a hoodie and last year's Ugg boots, Baracka said that she was hurt that her mother didn't mention her in her new memoir.

"She spent half the book trashing my father, a man who did her so wrong," Baracka said wistfully. "Yes, I am hurted. I could have brought her so much joy. We could have done a mother and daughter spread in Essence, or a photo spread in Ebony standing in front of our big house with our 10 cars. Instead I have to stand in line at Book Soup just to see her.

"I'm not bitter though. My adoptive parents did the best they could. Last year they gave me a 1967 Ford Country Squire station wagon for my birthday. I was cruising. This year, they forgot to call, but that's OK. That night I had sex with an old head I met at Lucy Florence and he left me some McDonald's coupons in the morning. He didn't have to do that."

Baracka says that she has no plans to reach out to either of her parents in the near future. Instead, she plans on writing her own book.

"I'm going to call it 'The Parents Are the First to Bolt: Dirty Diahann and Sorry-Ass Sidney."

2008-11-05T01:17:00.000-08:00

Yes We Did

When I was a little girl growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio, every Sunday my mother would transform me from an ashy-legged, nappy-headed tomboy into a Sunday morning debutante. She’d press and curl my hair, dress me up in the obligatory uniform—starched dress, anklets and black patent leather Mary Jane shoes so I could watch history unfold while sitting in the pews of the Mt. Zion Baptist Church.

The man who had a dream was a frequent visitor as were Fannie Lou Hamer, Andrew Young, Fred Shuttlesworth and other icons of the Civil Rights era. On Tuesday, in the hours preceding what is probably this nation’s most defining moment, I thought a lot about them, along with my wheelchair-bound 93-year-old dad who has voted in 18 presidential elections dating back to Franklin D. Roosevelt and couldn’t wait to get to the polls to cast his vote for a man who really wasn’t supposed to be on the ballot.

As a child I couldn’t really grasp the importance of that parade. I knew they were special people because whenever they’d stop by to tell us that we were on the verge of overcoming, we’d have a few nervous white (reporters) visitors, too, lining the back wall. I had no way of knowing, however, that those journeymen would be part of the relay team handing off the baton to Barack Hussein Obama.

As an adult the importance of this moment in time is not lost on me. I get it. Yet, several hours after Obama was elected to become the 44th President of our diverse and complex nation, it still hasn’t sunk in.

It’s not that I’m surprised, I’m not. I’ve been predicting an Obama victory for more than a year. It’s just that after bearing witness to the struggle for so many years Obama’s victory is something that must be realized in every fiber of my being.

Right now it’s just a little difficult to comprehend this reality because in America sometimes it’s hard to believe what you see. It’s like a wow, wow, wow moment that has yet to resonate.

A true African American has become the first President of color in the United States.

For those of us in my generation Tuesday night was the culmination of centuries of opportunities deferred. After watching Obama stroll on stage with his family to make his acceptance speech at Chicago’s Grant Park, I had to wonder if the Middle Passage, the habitual exclusion, the abject discrimination, the dogs, the fire hoses, the bombs, the horrific lynchings, the loud cries and the silent tears were all worth it.

Was that what it took to get to this point?

I’m not sure because those were ungodly acts orchestrated by ungodly people. Evil, as those who experienced the horrors of the Holocaust know all too well, does not discriminate. But here’s one thing I’ve learned about being black in America. We have a natural resolve. Despite everything that has happened to us since arriving on these shores, we still smile.

And the one thing that all of those years in Sunday school taught me was that sometimes God takes you through some storms so that you can truly appreciate the sunny days.

Tuesday was a very sunny day.

On Tuesday night America, a nation of immigrants, elected one of its own to unite it so that this country, which has yet to achieve its true greatness, could perhaps rise above the internal battles that have been raging here for the past 221 years.

Yes, those of us who cheered Obama’s victory last night can see brighter days ahead but it would be foolish of me to suggest that just because a black man will occupy the White House in January that those who harbor hate in their hearts will immediately embrace those who don’t look like them. Or that the economy will bounce back by Jan. 20, and the war in Iraq will be over by Valentine’s Day.

Not going to happen.

What Obama will do, however, is challenge the way people think. He represents change, hope and progress. He will inspire all of those who dare to dream and draw upon those who died while trying.

After hearing his acceptance speech tonight I’m pretty sure that Obama knows why he’s here and what it is he has to do. He said he needs our help and he surely does. In this new America we are the bricks and he is the newly appointed bricklayer. The America that Obama is inheriting is a troubled nation that seems more intent on being politically correct than just simply correct.

Brother Barack has some serious mountains to climb.

But you know what? I have a feeling that he’s going to find a way to get over—just like the others who ran the good race before him on Sunday morning.

2008-11-01T01:31:00.000-07:00

the view from the couch

honestly, the week that was kind of wore me out.

it wasn't because i was abnormally busy because i wasn't. it was just that most days i couldn't get up off the couch because i was so mentally exhausted. so, when i had to write stories on deadline, i wrote them in a slumped position on the couch with my laptop, uh, on my lap, and with my feet up on my teak coffee table. when i had to edit video, ditto. when i had to deal with my dad's doctors and caregivers, i sat up, put my feet on the hardwood floor, held the phone in one hand and my head in the other. and when it was time to eat, i pushed my computer to the left and repositioned my masai coffee table book to make room for the tray with my homemade vegetable soup and pita samwich.

i know, it sounds kind of pitiful, but it really wasn't. i was surrounded by my books, my cds, photos of friends and family, my masks, my art in a room awash with sunshine. it made me feel kind of warm and fuzzy in a one-flew-over-the-cuckoo's-nest-kind-of-way.

one day i watched three un-riveting hours of a pbs documentary on the royal family--because i had to--and then another six hours of cnn while my musician neighbor downstairs banged away on his drums. on another day i took a short nap, waking up just in time for "gossip girl," which has quickly become more than just the gulity pleasure it used to be.

when friends rang, i'd sometimes get a little animated and start pacing around the couch. at least i got up!

and on the day he rang--surprise, surprise--i got up--again--grabbed a bottle of wine out of the cooler, sat back down, put my feet back on the table, giggled and joked my way through a 40-minute conversation and then went back surfing the web for plane tickets to london.

ok, i did have fleeting thoughts of going on sabbatical (from the couch), hopping in the saab and heading north on the 5. but that would mean i would be without a couch for at least five hours.

i knew i couldn't deal with the separation anxiety in my fragile state.

then there was the day a friend from cincinnati rang and said she was in san francisco. that news caused me to jump up from the couch because i realized that i was supposed to be in SF, too. not to see her--i had no idea she'd be there--but to attend the "milk" premiere in the castro.

alas, since the film was starting in two hours there was really nothing i could do. i began pacing again, but was lured back to the couch by the couch.

"miki," the couch said. "come back. i am here for you. there's no need to worry about all those 'senior moments' you've been having lately. your career will survive. come. lay down. relax. have more soup. watch 'krazee eyz killah' for the 35th time. baby steps."

yes, i was indeed the prototype for the couch potato this week. but considering that i had day-long headaches nearly every day the week before, it was time well wasted.

i'll do the laundry next week.

2008-10-28T17:14:00.000-07:00

boolshyt!!

my sister-gurl charlene sent me this strip today and it literally brought tears to my eyz! click on the strip to make it bigger. laughter is so good for the soul!

2008-10-27T21:34:00.000-07:00

lottie & lucille

i was walking around my neighborhood today trying to shake off the remains of a sunny, but blue monday when i was suddenly touched by an angel.

make that two.

i was 5 years old when judy garland and barbra streisand sang this melody on garland's old cbs variety show. i don't remember if i actually saw the show that night but i have always loved this collaboration.

garland and streisand, however, are not the angels i was referring to. that distinction belongs to two very special women who helped mold me professionally and personally.

lottie knight was my former hampton institute professor and mentor who passed away two years ago this fall. i never made a career move without consulting her. lucille deview was my former writing coach who would always take my good copy and make it great. she died just two weeks before mrs. knight.

losing them in such close succession was extremely jarring but oddly inspiring.

still is.

they never met and that's really a shame. mrs. knight was all pepper while lucille, who was about 10 years older, was the salt of this earth when she was still breathing. had their paths ever crossed they would have had some amazing conversations about life, craft, politics and perhaps, me.

maybe they're doing that right now.

maybe that's why i thought of them today when i heard these lyrics.

the sun is shining c'mon get happy
the lord is waiting to take your hand
shout hallelujah c'mon get happy
we're gonna be going to the promised land

thank you ladies. rest in peace. the meaning of your lives is still unfolding in me.

2008-10-24T22:20:00.000-07:00

today

today i realized my dad's dementia had gotten worse.
today jennifer hudson learned that her mother and brother had been murdered and that her 7-year-old nephew was missing.
today i consoled my dear friend whose older brother was found dead on sunday at his home in new jersey.
today i apologized to the same friend for not getting her gift basket off in time because apparently you can't ship wine to maryland.
today i told my hampton classmates that i probably wouldn't be making it to homecoming despite my best efforts.
today i stayed in bed hoping to shake this cold or whatever it is.
today i spoke to a friend who was administering pain meds to her husband with inoperable cancer.
today i wrote two meaningless stories on the stars of "zack and miri make a porno."
today i woke up with a sinus headache at 4:50 a.m.
today i told a total stranger i would critique their clips because i'm a maynard baby and we must always pay it forward.
today i had vegetarian orange chicken and vegetarian tom yum soup delivered from bulan thai.
today i spilled chocolate syrup on my "sex and the city" nightshirt and never bothered to change it.
today a family member got on my last nerve.
today i listened intently while a dear friend shared the milder details of a recent sexual encounter.
today the man whose radio show i did yesterday called to thank me for coming on.
today i was challenged, but less stressed than i had been all week.
today i realized yet again that one should never put their faith in man because man will disappoint you each and every time.
and today i feel blessed that i can now lay myself down to sleep, thanking god for today and tomorrow--for the good times and bad.

2008-10-17T13:15:00.000-07:00

bye-bye levi

i'm not going to lie. when it comes to '60s boy bands i am all about the temps. back in the day i was totally mesmerized by the late paul williams. his voice was so smooth, so haunting--particularly when he performed "for once in my life" on that "tcb" tv special featuring the temps and diana ross & the supremes. that boy felt every lyric of that song.

and he was fine.

but i also loved levi stubbs, who passed today at age 72. paul died young when i was just a kid. i grew old, however, with my other crush, the lead singer of the four tops. i loved levi's vocals on "reach out (i'll be there)." remember that as the closing theme in "cooley high?"

2008-10-12T22:30:00.000-07:00

decisions, decisions

why is it that sometimes you get really freaked out when your prayers are answered? maybe that's why the old-er folks always say "careful what you pray for."

change, albeit both refreshing and challenging, is something that you can never really willingly accept as its happening in any form--spiritual, physical, geographical.

i bet most babies would prefer to remain toothless; that some inmates have separation anxiety when they are finally released; that a lot of kids who can't wait to leave home miss it more than they thought they would and that 90-year-old parents would be much happier if their conflicted 50-year-old kids didn't have to make decisions for them.

i know i would.

i've been through a lot of changes in the last 12 days i've spent on the road. i've struggled to find common ground with those who share my DNA and those who don't. i've witnessed old parents get even older. i was mildly amused when a woman at a thai restaurant in upper manhattan insisted that i was whoopi goldberg even after i repeatedly told her i was not. i was absolutely stunned when my favorite cousin--who owns a porsche convertible--picked me up from the bus station in philly in a mini van with her two kids in tow. and i was often at odds with myself because i couldn't answer any of my own "whys?"

now as i lie here in bed in my flannel jammies waiting for the nyquil to kick in so that i can breathe again, i'm oddly looking forward to the bumps in the road that will undoubtedly trip me up in the coming days, weeks and months. sure, i can't afford to make a wrong turn at this point in time, but even if i do--again--it's oddly reassuring to know that there's some billionaire hedge fund dude in greenwich, conn. who is trying to make sense of it all, too.

2008-09-21T15:51:00.000-07:00

the lady in black

one of the highlights of my career was the opportunity to work for and with bob and nancy maynard at the oakland tribune. i say "with" because it always felt as though the "trib" was such a collaborative effort that no one really worked for anyone else. we were all in it together.

perhaps that was because it was so important to the maynards that their newsroom reflect the community we served. at the trib it was not unusual to have a black city editor send an asian photographer and white writer to cover a latino funeral in east oakland, which would then be edited by an irish catholic assistant city editor.

that was life at the trib, the best place i ever worked.

one of the worst things about working there was also the best. there was no money. but that just made us work harder. the maynards, along with eric newton and roy aarons wouldn't settle for mediocrity, so even though the trib didn't have the numbers or the cash flow, we had the talent, the commitment and more importantly, the desire to be the very best.

that was something nancy, particularly, insisted on. she was such an accomplished woman with sterling credentials. to this day i've never ever met another journalist with equal parts style and intelligence.

the first time i met nancy was in 1989 at the opening reception for IJE's prestigious summer program for minority journalists. honestly, she scared me just a little. she was so glam and graceful. it kind of felt like having an audience with the queen. i think we all secretly wanted to be her.

as luck would have it i was placed in the sports department at the trib following my completion of the program. although i was still somewhat scared of nancy, my fear dissipated once i got to know her.

nancy always wore black. nancy always looked good. nancy was not a hands-on kind of mentor, but she always had time for you and praised your efforts when you had done well. nancy was a great mom. nancy's home office was solid red and was the coolest room i'd ever seen. nancy always smiled at me and spoke when she walked past my desk, but i'll never forget that one time when she rolled her eyes at me.

it was my 34th birthday and i was bemoaning the fact that i was six years from 40--as if that milestone would mark the end of my life. nancy was like, "baby, please."

the last time i saw nancy was at the memorial service for roy aarons here in l.a. at USC. i literally fell into her arms because i tripped on a snag in the carpet. although i hadn't seen her since Bob's funeral in '93, seeing her there felt like i was back in that dusty old newsroom on the fourth floor of the tribune tower in downtown oakland.

it felt good.

i always loved being around her. she was smart, straight-forward, cosmopolitan, somewhat vulnerable and knew her way around a joke. the more i got to know her, the more i adored her. you really couldn't help but look up to NHM.

about 13 years ago i was asked to write a tribute speech to nancy at an event honoring her career. i was in cincinnati at the time and missed my plane and was unable to get to oakland in time. i was crushed because i'd never actually had the opportunity to tell her how much i appreciated the influence she had on my career and life. i knew then i might never get another chance to do so.

the irony.

i think, however, she knew. maybe she got a clue when i started wearing more black than usual.

nancy, thanks so much for letting me ride on your shoulders.

2008-09-09T02:32:00.000-07:00

falling

sometimes i make really stupid decisions based on my inability to realize that i'm no longer 20.

last week i foolishly agreed to take a redeye flight from l.a. to toronto so that i could have a full day to do whatever i wanted to do in one of my favorite cities in the world. it seemed like a good idea at the time since i had no way of knowing that i'd have one bitch of a headache during the 4.5 hour flight from lax to yyz.

translation: i got NO sleep.

regardless, i was determined to accomplish one of the goals on my bucket list once i arrived in canada. i had to see niagra falls. my parents had been there, all of my siblings--even my grandmother who passed away in 1981. i'd been to TO many times but had just never gotten around to making that 80-mile trek to experience one of the planet's most breathtaking natural wonders.

i was determined this time because i've come to realize that tomorrow really isn't promised. if you wanna do something, you have to do it now.

so, with my knapsack on my back and my camera equipment stored in my roller bag, i walked up to the rental car counter, handed the clerk my driver's license, credit card and new mantra.

i need a car right now dude. i'm living for the moment.

at 6:30 a.m., he so didn't care.

it was a lovely drive. sensing that i was going to need some body fuel, i stopped once to get an egg mcmuffin and a hot cup of tea. half of tea spilled out when i was trying to re-open the car door because i was too out of it to realize that the roof on my WTF kind of dodge is this was slanted.

about 35 minutes later i was driving through ontario's unimpressive wine country--i'm sorry, give me napa, tuscany, the rhone or my cousin arnie's homemade wine--and less than 40 minutes later i arrived in niagra, a little resort village that is about 200 miles beyond cheesy.

the canadian side of the falls looks like disneyland threw up on las vegas, circa 1967. the only thing missing was the rat pack.

ironically, once you get into that crazed maze of chain restaurants, casinos and tacky tourist traps, signs and arrows directing you to the falls are nowhere to be found. fortunately, i've been blessed with a good sense of direction. i looked to my left and there it was--god's eternal shower.

since i had gotten there so early i got to park for free in a lot that would have otherwise cost me $8. the streets were empty and i only saw a handful of people strolling along the edge of the falls.
the mist was so thick at times that you could barely see through it, but the raging currents cascading over that ledge were a sight to behold. suddenly my fatigue dissipated, my head stopped pounding and for about 20 minutes all was right in the world.

my only regret is that i couldn't share that dance with laura, rhonda, mary, pappy and all my other friends who are bravely fighting through some of life's inevitable challenges. hopefully, these visuals will strengthen them, too.

2008-08-28T22:50:00.000-07:00

A Victory That Had Been On Ice

Thine eyes saw the glory on Thursday night.

From Jennifer Hudson's stirring rendition of the national anthem to Martin Luther King III’s powerful tribute to his dad on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech to the tremendous ovation Barack Obama received when he strolled onto the stage in front of more than 80,000 people on the closing night of the Democratic National Convention at Denver’s Invesco Field.

These same eyes, however, have seen 50 years of momentous events in America. But perhaps none were as significant and memorable as this one. It was, as Elder Bernice King said, “One of our nation’s greatest defining moments.”

All day long I had listened to the pundits go back-and-forth on what Obama would or should say as he accepted the nomination of his party for President of the United States. All day long I listened to various politicians, commentators and common people say that he needed to hit it out of the park if he wanted to close the gaps in the polls, unify his party and convince America that he had the ability to lead. I knew, however, that at the end of that long day, it really wouldn’t matter what he said.

You see, it’s already been said.

It was said in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat and Mamie Till insisted that the world see her murdered son’s mangled corpse.

It was said in ‘63 when Martin Luther King Jr. stood in the shadow of Abraham Lincoln and challenged America to dream.

It was said a month later when four young black girls died in the basement of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., showing the world that America was not the great nation she purported to be.

It was said again in ‘65 at the Mt. Zion Baptist Church in suburban Cincinnati when Dr. King took my tiny 8-year-old hand in his and told me I could be anything I wanted to be.

It was said again on April 4, 1968 when Bobby Kennedy told America to chill out after King’s assassination; and when Shirley Chisholm became the first black woman elected to Congress that same year.

It was said by the defiant acts of Thurgood Marshall, Fannie Lou Hamer, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Dorothy Height, John Lewis, John H. Johnson, Muhammad Ali, Nikki Giovanni, Angela Davis, Cesar Chavez, Barbara Jordan, Jesse Jackson, Tupac Shakur, Spike Lee, Al Sharpton, Dave Chappelle and countless others who sang “Yes, We Can,” long before will.i.am made it the national anthem for change.

Finally, it was said again on a cold, blistery day in 2007 when a dreamer stood on the steps of the state capitol in Springfield, Ill. and announced that he was running for President of the United States.

And again last night when that same dreamer said, “Enough. This moment, this election is our chance to keep in the 21st century the American promise alive…In defining moments like these the change doesn’t come from Washington, it comes to Washington.”

Barack Obama, the son of an absentee African sperm donor and a nurturing Caucasian mother, is simply riding the wave. Therefore, it really didn’t matter what he said on a balmy Thursday night in Denver. He’s just the anchor on the relay team. He’s picked up the baton and is racing toward the finish line.

I’m not saying that Obama doesn’t deserve his due because he most certainly does. What the 47-year-old senator from Illinois has accomplished in the past 19 months has been extraordinary, historic and evolutionary. I’m sure the ghosts of dreamers past are rejoicing in this moment.

This victory has been on ice for a very, very long time. My hope is that we can all bask in this moment despite our varying agendas and regardless of what was said or not said.

Celebrating accomplishment is at the very core of humanity. It rises above race, gender, political affiliation and one’s socio-economic status. As Americans we should just be proud that one of our own done good.

Obama’s speech might not have been as stirring or as lyrical or as prophetic or as inspiring as Dr. King’s was on that hot August night 45 years ago. It won’t be recited by generations of elementary school kids from Spokane to Silver Spring in dusty auditoriums, and it may not do anything to improve race relations or effect tangible change in this country.

On Friday morning there will still be folks who hate people who don’t look like them—just because.

It will, however, be remembered because it was delivered during this very special moment in time by a man who believes that he is truly his brother’s keeper; that these defining moments are not all about him. I believe from this point on that me, Obama and all the other dreamers,
past and present, will now be able to raise their collective voices and sing a new anthem.

“Yep, We Did.”

2008-08-27T23:57:00.000-07:00

a new kind of addiction

i've really broken out of my box this week. i've actually shared my opinions about the upcoming presidential election in two columns and in nightly conversations with friends.

i've been so caught up with the democratic national convention coverage that wolf blitzer's voice is the last thing i hear when i fall asleep in the wee hours of the morning, and soledad o'brien's is the first one i hear hours later.

it's crazy.

i've been watching cnn 24/7 and i like it.

i love james carville's home-spun i-told-you-so wisdom. i dig suzanne malveaux's professionalism. that sister knows what she's doing and it shows. i admire the way donna brazile makes her points without raising her voice and i like the way anderson cooper just chimes in with his intriguing little anecdotes.

they all live up to their mantra as the best political team on television.

tonight is the last night of the dnc and i fear that i'm going to have some sort of separation anxiety when i have to go back to watching "soul food" reruns instead on bet j with all of those annoying penis enhancement commercials.

as if!!

of course, the best part of this new addiction has been watching history unfold in living color. as someone who is old enough to remember the post-jim crow camelot era, it's been thrilling to see a black man rise to this level. i'm part of a generation that grew up thinking a black man in the white house wasn't exactly impossible, but it was highly improbable.

the highlights for me this week included the tribute to teddy kennedy, a man i met once backstage at the kennedy center in d.c. i loved every second of michelle obama's speech. it wasn't about her making me proud to be a black woman--my mom, grandmother, great-grandmother myra, aunt hat and all the mcdonald women that came before them that i never knew, are responsible for that. i just dug that she kept it real. political speeches--such as the ones joe biden has been making--are so, so scripted, filled with all of that old school political rhetoric.

rah, rah, rah.

i think michelle must have written hers all by herself. she made it personal and no one else would have been able to record those emotions on paper.

isn't she lovely? indeed she is.

and billary, they did their thing. i never bought into bill being the first black president and i'm not sure i entirely trust their motives now, but i do give them credit for sucking it up and putting the party before their massive egos.

but more than anything else, i've enjoyed talking to my friends. they've seen a different side of me this week. i've been up for the debate. every night before or after the speeches i've been on the phone with bo, bren, charlene, mary, mary and darcea discussing what was said, dissing the republican responses and trashing that sister who was crying after hillary clinton's speech the other night. i've also been engaging in online chats with my facebook buddies.

all of this is highly unusual. for me, talking politics was akin to getting a root canal.

painful.

barack obama's candidacy hasn't made me more patriotic. i was one of those kids who refused to say the pledge of alligence and i still won't stand for the national anthem because the words don't resonate with me--at all. and i'll never wear a flag pin. but it has made me buy a few t-shirts and formulate some strong opinions about where we are as a nation--and where i think we're going once president obama is in the white house.

it's a start.

2008-08-17T21:23:00.000-07:00

20 really cool things about getting older

it's been one of those weekends in which old friends have resurfaced--thanks to facebook--and older friends have reached out because my girlfriends and i are at that point in life when we know what we're doing but don't quite know what we want.

translation: your phone rings at 3 a.m. and before you know it, it's 6:30 a.m. and you still haven't gotten to the point.

making all the right moves in what is essentially the last half of your life cycle can be stressful at times, but there's still something incredibly liberating about reaching this milestone--even when you make stupid mistakes.

the recovery time is much quicker than when you were younger and even more stupid.

here are some of the reasons why:

1. you're more inclined to preface everything that comes out of your mouth with "wtf "or "at the end of the day..."
2. you aren't too vain to use those lovely aarp discounts at l.a.'s trendiest restaurants.
3. your eyes, rather than your mouth, become the windows of what's really going on inside of you--especially when you have to go there...
4. you can drop bombs of wisdom on younger folks, watch them roll their eyes and dismiss you, but it no longer bothers you because you've come to realize that they need to make their own mistakes and learn from them just like you did.
5. you no longer have to question authority because you are now the authority.
6. you no longer freak out when your man doesn't ring because you realize that life is getting even shorter so you are no longer sitting around waiting for him to do anything.
7. you have more in common with your girlfriends than ever before because you are all going through similar emotional and physical changes.
8. you really don't sweat the small stuff any more because it's like small.
9. you're more willing than ever to take risks.
10. you no longer allow yourself to be an "option" to anyone who doesn't really care about you, regardless of the way you feel about them.
11. honesty is no longer a novelty.
12. you no longer feel all that compelled to hide your toys.
13. you no longer care what people think about you're wearing.
14. you develop the strength of sampson because you have so much more to deal with.
15. you stop counting calories when it comes to a bottle of good wine.
16. you really begin to comprehend what the good times are all about.
17.getting older is the least of your worries--especially when you consider the alternative.
18. there's no more morning-after guilt.
19. you forgot to shave your legs and...? oh well!!
20. and the one question you always ask the fools you never suffered gladly--"and your point is?"

phew! that felt really good. c'mon monday. let's go!

photo credit: hot muddy fun in calistoga. who cares if you look like crap? wheeee!

2008-08-10T18:30:00.000-07:00

issac: all is forgiven my brother

i've got to be honest. issac hayes was not one of my favorite entertainers growing up.

to be clear, it was nothing personal. i wouldn't meet him until later in life and he'd never really done anything to offend me. i had the "black moses" fold-out cross hanging up on my wall right next to my coveted jackson 5 photos.

my beef with hayes was rooted in my mother's obsessive musical tastes. once she liked something she played it to death. and it wasn't just hayes. i feel similarly about roberta flack and marvin gaye.

every morning for about six months she blasted his "black moses" lp while she was getting ready for work downstairs and i was trying to savor those last few zzzzs before getting ready for school upstairs.

it was years before i could listen to anything hayes recorded. i loved "shaft," but i used to pretend it wasn't him. besides the version we played in the wyoming high school marching band sounded more like "we are the champions" than hayes' oscar-winning track with the funky beats.

but today, after learning of hayes' death at his home in memphis, i grabbed my iphone and played "by the time i get to phoenix"--the duet he did with dionne warwick--again and again and again some more on my way to the virgin megastore in hollywood. and before the night's over, i will probably play it a couple more times.

love that track.

mom was understandably shaken when i rang her this afternoon with the news of hayes' death at age 65, but i think that lp is probably too warped by now to be played on the old dusty magnavox in the basement. oh but wait, that album is now in my possession!

oh well.

i only remember meeting hayes a few times. the first time was on the set of "girlfriends." he used to play jill marie jones' father and it was the day they were shooting her wedding out at a rented home in malibu. i was so busy talking to the girlfriends that i barely noticed hayes standing over in a corner by himself just chilling.

"black moses," i whispered to myself. at that point i wasn't really sure whether i wanted to throw him in the pool--redemption for all those years his voice woke me up prematurely--or embrace him for the genius he was. i wisely opted for the latter. he was nice, but kind of on the quiet side.

that old school cool. sexy.

my most vivid memory of him, however, is protesting his nomination for an naacp image award for his portrayal of chef on "south park." i was like, does anyone realize he's voicing a cartoon character and maybe shouldn't be up for best supporting actor in a comedy? well, that's what i wrote and my readers agreed. thankfully, he didn't win and was never nominated in that category again.

crazy.

i also remember that he was bald before it became bold and sexy and that he had a flair for wearing some outrageous stuff on stage. none of that mattered, really. the man could sing and play. the last time i saw him was shortly after his stroke and he had to be wheeled into the banquet room. as luck would have it, he was seated at my table. he was wearing african garb and was really, really friendly.

i think he was just happy to be there--anywhere.

like bernie mac, who reportedly passed away saturday morning (ironically, mac and hayes will appear together on screen in this fall's "soul men"), hayes' legacy will live on in cds, dvds and on whatever new media they come up with next. i'm thankful for that. i have a feeling that too much of hayes in the coming days will surely become a very, very good thing.

maybe i'll sync up my ipod/ihome alarm so that it plays "hot buttered soul" nice and low. that might be nice to wake up to.

so long you bad mutha... i wish you nothing but good mornings up above.

2008-08-09T09:04:00.000-07:00

king bernie mac always

kept it real and original

the first time i met bernie mac i said, "what's up." he said, "chicken butt." from that point it was on with me and one of the original "kings of comedy."

in the ensuing years i would interview him at least a dozen times and it was always a pleasure. mac was always present in the moment, consistently dressed to impress and so eternally lively and engaging that i thought we'd be teasing each other for years to come. perhaps that's why after all the rumors of his death that surfaced earlier in the week, i thought i was dreaming when i actually heard that bernie mac had died. in fact, i had fallen asleep watching CNN early saturday morning and subconsciously picked up the tragic news.

and now mac is sleeping, too, at 50 years young.

the last time i saw mac i was interviewing him for his role in "pride," the true story about a black swim coach in philly who trained a championship team. mac played the gym janitor, a composite character. the thing i remember most about that interview is mac's claims that he really could do some damage in the water.

"i'm a SCUBA diver," mac said in a voice that made you want to half believe him. "i can go down to 60 feet and do some things."

talk about your double entendre.

later, his costar terrence howard said the only thing mac could do in the pool was jump in and "splash all the water out."

i also remember how healthy he looked despite the fact he was "just getting over something like pneumonia," he told me. there was a period when the chicago-born comic didn't look so good. toward the end of "the bernie mac show" run mac had developed a condition called sarcoidosis, a lung disease. his face was bloated and he'd gained a lot of weight, an apparent side effect of the meds he was on. he freely discussed the details of that disease with me during the press junket for "mr. 3000," a comedy about a retired baseball player who returns to the game to reach a career milestone. according to early reports that affliction, which had been in remission for three years, had nothing to do with his death this morning. mac apparently died from complications of pneumonia.

what I always most appreciated about mac as a performer was that he had the ability to elevate even the weakest material--if only for a second. he was able to hold his own in starring vehicles like "guess who?" and also in supporting roles in which he had very little to do like in the "ccean's" franchise. but it was his television show that gave his fans the greatest joy. from the moment he uttered, "I'm gonna beat them till the white meat shows," America finally had the first TV dad we could relate to since cliff huxtable.

and, on the real tip, bernie was far more real then mr. bill.

what i dug about him most as a person was the connection he was always able to establish with people from all walks of life. he was one of those celebrities who always made you feel like you were a cherished cousin he hadn't seen in a while. and, the brother could brag. according to mac he was the best at everything from cracking jawbreakers to playing hoops.

maybe he was.

mac will live on in reruns of his show and in his last film, the upcoming "soul men," a flick about an estranged duo who reunite at the apollo to pay homage to their recently deceased band director. i'm totally excited about the potential comic possibilities between Mac and his costar Samuel L. Jackson.

i'm just sorry i'll never have the opportunity to chat with him about it.

r.i.p. bernie mac.

allmylove,
chicken butt

2008-08-05T12:01:00.000-07:00

imagine that

here we are
half a century old
thriving
surviving
grateful
planning
plotting
singing
dancing
hopeful
faithful
and embracing all of the challenges of today
and tomorrow on the corner of
gray cloud boulevard and sunshine parkway
so far, our lives have been pretty lively
maybe a little too much so at some points
so far, our lives have been fulfilling
maybe not as much as we would've liked at times
so far, we've outlived some of our
friends
former classmates
parents
siblings
teachers
preachers
boyfriends
and pet dogs
but did you ever imagine we'd ever get here?
i'm smiling at the thought of that
because my fondest memories of you include:
sleeping on your floor in moorings
friday night happy hours in roz's room
toiling in the booth at whov
stepping over howard's football pads
struggling through the uncertainties of post-hampton life
dancing to beats that only we could hear
and then finally realizing that:
stones are meant to be stepped over
obstacles, no matter how high can be hurdled
that there are, in fact, answers in the sea
and that sometimes you just have to
chill and be still
for it will come
in short, we've learned to wine and dine
as opposed to whine and dine
the more i think about the time we've already spent together
the more i love god for putting you in my life
thank you for being that willow
that shelter in the storm
happy birthday ms. thang
celebrate all of the possibilities on this day
and on all of the ones that follow
i look forward to 50 more years of memories
can you imagine?

top photo: (1980 on the steps of moorings hall) miki, paula stewart, charlene alexander, birthday girl brenda mallory and roz murray. we had gotten dressed up for church on our last sunday as undergrads but the memorial chapel was closed!
bottom photo: (2006 at croaker's spot in richmond, va) miki, charlene and brenda talking to roz on the celly

2008-08-02T01:12:00.000-07:00

party over here, party over there
and right down the hall

i've never been one of the party people per se--even when i was in college and it was considered socially irresponsible not to get your groove on whenever and wherever possible. me, my gurls used to have to drag me out to the wednesday night groove parties off-campus or to some jam at the officer's club at ft. eustis.

given a choice of staying in my room and chilling in front of my 13-inch black-and-white tv with my sweats on, or getting dressed up, heating up the curling iron and putting on uncomfortable shoes so that i could look "cute," i' was all for staying in the room.

crazy thing is, once i got to the party--kicking and screaming--i inevitably became the life of it. go figure.

truthfully, after receiving the news of a cousin's death and word that another friend was awaiting the results of a biopsy, i would have liked to have stayed in my room tonight, too. but that was in no way possible.

my production partner and i were hosting a fund-raising reception for our documentary on girls and gangs at the lucy florence coffee house in leimert park and i certainly had to be there. it was a wonderful event that brought out community leaders with deep pockets, a few celebs and some other folks who had been adversely affected by gang violence. we raised a lot of money, folks got their grub on, people responded positively to the screening and best of all my feet held up.

it was a very, very good night.

after the reception my friend jackie and i headed north on crenshaw to attend a "divine 9" party at the kappa house. for those of you who don't know, "divine 9" refers to the nine black greek organizations--alpha kappa alpha, delta sigma theta, zeta phi beta, omega psi phi, kappa alpha psi, alpha phi alpha, phi beta sigma, sigma gamma rho and iota phi beta.

jackie and i kind of knew what to expect when we entered the building because when you get to be our age and live in l.a., you always ring someone already at the party so that you can determine whether it's worth your while--even if it is on your way home. our friend herbert had been there for two hours when jackie called him to check on the scene. he reported that there were a lot of women--akas to be specific.

he was right. there was a room full of women doing the electric slide when we strolled in. the only men i initially saw were some old school kappas behind the bar. but the longer we lingered the more interesting it became. since my boy and his boy were running late jackie and i stepped outside to peruse the patio area.

bingo.

there was tons of eye candy--mostly kappas--and jackie and i didn't even care that most of them looked like the ink on their college degrees was still wet.

well, i didn't care.

my motto has always been: teach a child in the way you would have him go and he'll never depart those ways. but with my boy and his boy on the way, i restrained myself from opening up my very own magnet pre-school.

once my boy and his boy got there my feet and back were on orange alert. it was only a matter of time before i'd self-destruct. so after participating in a few line dances and doin' da butt, i was ready to call it a night.

a funny thing happened, however, once i parked the ragtop in my garage. the woman down the hall from me had left a note on the door inviting the other five occupants in my building to her birthday party. although kate (whose surname i don't know) and i had lived less than 20 feet from each other for nearly two years, the only things i knew about her was her name and that she was an obama supporter.

when i walked into her flat it looked like i was crashing a un meeting in session. there were white people, brown people, black people and some who were a mixture of all three. kate greeted me warmly with a hug--even though we had never said more than "hello" to each other in passing and introduced me to all of her cool friends. i spent the most time with patrick and eric. pat was from nigeria and eric hailed from senegal. both were really engaging and funny.

when she wasn't tied up in some seemingly deep conversation with one of her friends, kate and i had a brief introductory conversation. i found out that she was a school principal, had gone to tufts and harvard and that she was in the process of looking for a house. i also had some pretty enlightening conversations with others about politics, the l.a. dating scene and public education.

it was a very, very cool gathering and i'm so glad i came out of my room tonight. i wasn't the life of any of the three soirees i attended on friday, but i certainly felt very alive.

2008-07-29T22:50:00.001-07:00

my kind of town oaktown is

anyone who's known me for 10 seconds knows that oakland, calif. is one of my favorite cities in the world.

i love lake merritt (pictured above), the shops on lakeshore, jack london square, rockridge, the taco truck on e. 14th street, marcus books, the restaurants, the tribune tower and most of all, the people.

it was they who first supported me when i took a job as a sportswriter/columnist at the bob and nancy maynard-owned oakland tribune. those were the days. i fell in love with oaktown during the summer of '89 after having completed a fellowship at nearby cal-berkeley. i officially moved to oaktown on the day that huey newton was murdered.

talk about your agony and ecstasy.

the oakland tribune had the most diverse staff of any newspaper in the country. we sent a chinese photographer and a white writer out to cover newton's funeral and the copy was edited by a black assistant city editor. plus, it was a very nurturing environment--a great place for a green bean like me.

also, the trib really launched my career and i am eternally grateful. it's the spot where i had most of my professional triumphs--as well as a few of my biggest blunders. what made that experience even more meaningful was that an entire community embraced me--the poor little colored girl from the suburbs--and i them. one of my most memorable moments was surviving a 7.1 earthquake in the already structurally unstable tribune tower. i sat at my desk and watched a support beam crack down the middle as my co-workers scattered to find open doorways and dove under desks.

these days one of the first things i do whenever i go to oakland--especially if i'm driving--is to raise my arms in triumph every time i pass the windmills on the 580. to me, that means i'm home--even if oakland is another 60 miles away. one of my first stops once i do cross the city line is always le cheval, a vietnamese-french eatery located in downtown oakland.

it's one of my top 5 favorite restaurants in the world and the place where i chose to celebrate my 50th birthday with some very, very dear friends in january. (below: maria, carlton and joseph chan).

this latest trip up to the bay was something special. yes, i had some business to take care but my good friend gaby--the woman who taught me final cut pro and so much more--agreed to come along for the road trip. gaby is such a trouper. we were supposed to leave at 9:30 a.m. and i usually am such an anal stickler for time, but i had gotten back late sunday night from san diego and been up all night doing stuff, so i snooze-buttoned my way through my 8:30 a.m. alarm. two hours later gaby rang wanting to know if i was on my way. i wasn't because i still had to get the oil changed in the old saab turbo. sweetie that she is, gaby wasn't even mad. she had some things to do and told me to just ring when i was on my way to studio city.

i would have been on my way sooner but of course there was drama at jiffy lube.

unfortunately, a green bean employee had written up my initial order. when i asked him how much it would be he quoted me the low, low, price of $37.99. about 20 minutes later, however, his manager rang me up at $82.50. you know i wasn't having that so after a brief "discussion" and threats to drive away, the price was dropped to $67 out the door. the reason for the discrepancy? you can only use that costly synthetic oil with saabs. had i known that before i bought the ride i'd be cruising in a corolla these days.

the ride up--with the exception of missing the 5 north exit because i was so busy gabbing with gaby--was uneventful. it usually never takes me and my size 81/2 lead foot more than five hours to get to the bay. monday was no exception. since we were basically averaging about 90 mph and stopped only once to pick up some really bad subway sandwiches, we actually made it to our downtown oakland hotel in 4 hours, 40 minutes.

upon checking in, however, i discovered that not only had i forgotten my lingerie, but my mac cosmetics bag as well.

lovely.

it's one thing to replace a bra and panties, but to try and restock hundreds of dollars of mac goodies was something else entirely. i'd have to make it through the next few days with the face god initially gave me.

scary.

the first stop after we checked in? le cheval. but you already knew this!!

i love le cheval because the food is great, the atmosphere is relaxed and diverse and the staff--some of whom still remember me from back in the day--are always cool. plus, they have the best martinis in town.

i ordered, as i always do, the lemongrass tofu, the garlic string beans and a glass of pinot noir. gaby, a le cheval virgin, had the lemongrass chicken and a vodka gimlet. our mutual friend venise, who had driven down from vallejo to meet us, ordered the tofu spring rolls and some water (more on that later). of course, we engaged in communal dining and had a great time catching up on each other's lives. not wanting to end the evening just yet we headed up the street to another one of my old hangouts--the bar at the marriott hotel.

did we have too much to drink? well, maybe gaby and i had one glass too many, but when venise ordered herb tea we decided it was time for an intervention! her excuse? she was staying dry because vallejo was a long ride home.

whateva.

i love it, however, when lips get loose after a few drinks. even though the three of us have known each other since the early '90s, it was probably the first time we'd ever been that open and honest with each other about everything that was going on in our lives. (below: venise, miki, gaby).

bloatedness.
carb-intake.
men.
careers.
aging parents.
annoying siblings.

and yes, we talked plenty of you-know-what, too!

i learned a lot about them and vice-versa. perhaps they learned too much about me, which is why pinot noir is no longer my friend.

the next day i had some meetings in the city--which is what east bay folks call san francisco. i dropped gaby off at van ness and market so she could explore touristy union square and picked her up two hours later. we then went to zachry's pizza in the rockridge area of oakland for a chicago-style deep dish pie.

i think one slice weighed two pounds. no joke.

after dinner i was feeling a bit nostalgic and drove by my old flat, located just up the hill from lake merritt. man, that 'hood has changed--but in a good way.

also bopped over to berkeley, another one of my favorite cities in the world, so i could puruse the dvd bins at amoeba. we made it an early evening, however, heading back to the hotel just after dusk to watch "reign over me" on gaby's 17-inch macbook pro.

gaby thinks adam sandler and don cheadle should never, ever hook up ever again on screen. she didn't buy sandler as a victim.

on wednesday, gaby and i had sushi at a waterfront spot in san mateo with her friend fernanda. we then reconnected with venise in berkeley, even though we should have been well on our way back home to l.a.

but, i can never say no to b-town. i love walking up and down telegraph avenue. my inner-hippie creeps out while i'm checking out the street vendors, ducking in and out of used book and record stores and sipping happily on a soy milkshake from smart alec's.

the folks who regularly congregate on telegraph are my people! from the white guy draped in mudcloth to the homeless man screaming at the wall to the sunburned cal swimmer grabbing a sandwich from the cafe on the corner to the brother with the pink and blue afro playing a plastic bucket in front of the old cody's bookstore.

the telegraph area isn't as colorful as it once was--especially since the people's park has been removed--but it's still irresistible to me.

venise wanted us to meet her at berkeley bowl where she was grocery shopping. this store, located not far from cal, has every imaginable fruit, grain, spice, bread, vegetable, meat and wine on the planet. since i spend very little time in supermarkets, i'm always fascinated by the vast varieties of foods found there, but every five seconds i was picking up some strange looking fruit with feathers or gills and asking v: "what is this?"

v to gaby: she's just like a child. she picks up everything!

me: (picking up some green tomatoes with yellow spots) these tomatoes are rotten.

v: they're organic.

me: eat them and you'll die. trust.

afterwards we went back up to telegraph so i could get a berkley t-shirt. since i did a journalism fellowship there in the '80s and lived on campus in the russian house, i feel i have the right to represent.

about three hours after kissing venise goodbye, having a really mediocre meal at another favorite spot on university avenue and stopping by the marina square mall in san leandro so that gaby could get a cap from the gap outlet, we headed south. again, an uneventful ride. we spent most of the trip down trying to determine if there were any living british actors who were both talented and sexy.

clive owen, you're like the only one dude.

now that i'm back home and slowly getting back into the old routine--waking up, thanking god, suffering through the hot topics on "the view," spending way too much time on the net and then finally getting to work--i'm thinking that i should perhaps spend some more time up north. the people are so naturally common--and that's not a dig. sure, some of them are pseudo-intellects with five degrees from berkeley and perpetual bad hair days--but at least they look the part and are seemingly botox-free.

brings a whole new meaning to the term "organic."

even the stock boys at the whole foods stores here look as though they just stepped out of the makeup trailer.

as for me and pinot noir, i think we shall mend our fences by the weekend. sometimes you just have to talk these things out. sharing, as i experienced this week with v and gabs, just makes you that much closer.

thank goodness my fully stocked wine cooler is less than 10 yards from my bed. that was one smart move on my part. i'm sure my berkeley peeps would totally agree.

2008-07-23T00:21:00.001-07:00

the *%&$@#!* ex files

writing this blog is a little bit like walking down the main street of my hometown buck naked. it, in a way, exposes who i am now and who i aspire to be once i get it all figured out.

last week was so very challenging that i lost sight of myself for a moment or two. the reason? the ex's.

i had very brief encounters with four ex-boyfriends in the span of two days. that's enough to make a lesser woman reach for the vicodin, but fortunately for me my prescription had run out so i had to settle for a double-dose of rooibos tea and a pinot noir chaser.

the first encounter, we'll call him ex-a--or slacker on the dl if you like--was just a chance meeting on the street. i was speeding down the avenue one morning en route to work with the top down so i was hard to miss and vice-versa. he was on his way to the donut shop on the corner.

damn, he looked good. i waved, stopped the car and we chatted for a few seconds before the impatient driver behind me started blowing the horn.

that's probably a good thing as i was starting to have some rather unsavory thoughts. and i had begun to second guess the reasons why i kicked him to the curb--gently, of course.

geez. i am so not a morning person.

ex-b and i actually communicated via email. he invited me to his military retirement party and i accepted knowing full well i wasn't going to go. since we hadn't spoken in more than a year, i asked him if he still had his corporate gig. he wrote back saying he had been undergoing chemotherapy since february and had several more treatments to go.

since he wasn't very forthcoming with any other details i'm still not able to wrap my head around this one. ex-b totally dropped a bomb on me.

ex-c just rang out of the blue, as he is prone to do. we talked, laughed, teased and he made promises that he knows he's not going to keep. while these sporadic calls still make my heart go aflutter, they're starting to get pretty old.

sort of like the both of us.

ex-d rang up one day and invited me to lunch at one of our old haunts. i hauled ass to get there because like ex-c, i always fall under his spell. given a chance, i'd like to remove the "ex" from in front of his name.

and then the current beau who is somewhere in between boy and friend these days, started blowing up my celly, too. i think he's at the point where he's channeling his inner r.kelly.

he don't see nuthin' wrong with a little bump-and-grind.

thankfully, i didn't have too much time to dwell on these untimely random encounters because i was way too busy covering the tv critics tour and hanging out with friends from out of town with what little down time i had. once the tour ended, however, i found myself discussing the ex's with a variety of folks from close friends to sanaa lathan.

for the record, she's a great listener. and even though she's 14 years my junior, she dropped some wisdom on me that i'll keep to myself at this time. what she said, however, definitely helped me plug up the holes in my head.

i concluded that what happened last week was god's way of getting me to determine what it is i want so that he can wrap it up in a bow and fed-ex it to me (priority overnight). i think, however, he should send it via ground service. i may need some more time to really figure that out.

until i do i will keep working at this feverish pace, get my breasts squished on thursday, have lunch with rrr immediately afterward, pick up an iphone on friday, edit video and wish my dad a happy 93rd birthday on the train to san diego on saturday, interview tyrese for the 2 billionth time on sunday, cruise up to the bay with gaby on monday, drop some dimes at my favorite restaurant in the world--lecheval in oakland--on monday, talk to some folks about my future on tuesday and head back home on wednesday.

and on the seventh day i will rest. perhaps, that's when i'll start to get it. i'd call ms. cleo but i think she's still on lockdown.

there is something positive, however, that emerged from all my confusion. i heard from a very reliable source that chris brown is into older women. that totally ex-cites me.

i wonder if i can keep blogging from jail?

or from the sanitarium?

get well soon ex-b.

photo: mik's four ex's immortalized in cape town for their contributions to women worldwide.

2008-07-15T11:40:00.001-07:00

what i do on my dayz off. don't hate!

2008-07-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

black in america is way too gray

i just finished watching cnn's four-hour series on being black in america and i don't think the all-news network really got it.

to be fair, i was forewarned about the inadequacies of this project by a fellow scribe. reported by award-winning journalist soledad o'brien, i was told that the documentary jumped all over the place and had no point. as much as i had hoped my friend would be wrong, he was not. because the piece is so poorly edited it makes it hard for viewers to fully invest themselves in the stories.

and when that happens you just don't care.

also, one of the problems with documentaries of this ilk is that while they routinely attempt to chronicle the struggles, the pain and the strife endured by the people being profiled, they rarely capture their resolve. that's one of the reasons we have been able to survive being black in america.

another issue i had was with the panel of "experts." there's one exceptionally youthful looking harvard professor who comments on nearly every segment from education to hiv/aids to religion and faith. what, cornell west was unavailable? skip gates was on holiday? angela davis said no? no disrespect to the brother from harvard, new voices are needed. but even though the aforementioned people are used ad nauseaum by media entities from around the globe, at least they're old enough and learned enough to know what they're talking about.

and more importantly, they have a certain cache, credibility.

additionally, there's no significant mention of the impact of hip hop or mega churches have had on the culture. how can that be?

towards the end of the third hour i was still wondering what the point was. it kind of felt as if cnn were trying to say: "hey white people, looky here. black folks are a-0-k, too!" my great fear, however, is that cnn is marketing this project to the wrong audience. black folks already know what it's like to be black in america and none of the stories presented were at all enlightening.
and, for the random white person that watches this, it's quite possible that black in america will reinforce all of the stereotypes he or she subscribes to.

thus, they won't see anything new either.

yet you have to give props to the cnn marketing machine. even though i believe it is selling us a hunk of hype, so far it has done so very effectively. interest has been generated and details of the special have gone viral.

too bad it won't live up to its potential.

like my cousin the anchor woman said, it's almost as if cnn has proclaimed this the year of the black and put together this program to prove themselves enlightened. well, if the network had been smart as opposed to simply enlightened, it would have selected six or seven of the most compelling stories and spread them out over five nights so that the backstories of the people involved could have been more fully developed.

had they done that, we might have cared about those folks.

in a private conversation following the presentation of the series to the nation's television critics last week, o'brien explained that one of her goals for the series was to explore the disparity between blacks and whites and why it exists. i'm not sure that's something that can be fully examined or comprehended in four hours, especially when there are no references to the middle passage.

for me, being black in america isn't just about limited opportunities due to overt discrimination and racism. it isn't just about buying a big house in the suburbs and driving expensive german cars. and it's not just about overcoming drug addiction and poverty.

it's about the journey.

it's about having merry christmases, wonderful easters and happy birthdays despite your circumstances. it's about maintaining hope and faith in the eye of the storm. and, as nikki giovanni once wrote it's about realizing that "black love is black wealth."

that's what people need to understand.

kudos to cnn for trying. but unfortunately the powers that be got to the station too late and missed the train on this one.

2008-07-05T23:07:00.000-07:00

summer vacation?
yeah right!

i'm laughing as i write this because my recent trip home was anything but a vacation. it was more like a never-ending, somewhat exhaustive journey of discovery.

i discovered i had the guts to sing donna summer's "last dance" in front of a crowd of people chilling at an upscale restaurant bar.

i discovered that some people--most of whom were still seemingly sober--actually thought that i could sing.

i discovered that some older women really, really like their liquor.

i discovered that i had an adorable little cousin whose personality is as big as cyberspace.

i discovered that i could actually enjoy spending my monday nights watching aging athletes and classmates drink beer and play softball. it's fine family fun.

i discovered i really need to lay off the carbs.

i discovered, with the help of my cousin bishop clay, that there really is a difference between faith and hope.
i discovered my parents really do need to get out more.

i discovered, finally, that my mother has a movement disorder and what we must do to deal with it.

i discovered that there really are never enough hours in a day.

i discovered just how frustrating life can be when you're staying in a house with no dsl.

i discovered that i need to spend more time mentoring and less time bitching.

i discovered the need for medical power of attorney forms.

i discovered that my parents are ready to give up their house.

i discovered how high gas really is.

i discovered that talking about the lack of diversity on television on npr with a couple of colleagues is really enlightening. check the link!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92223523

i discovered that there are a lot of photo opps in downtown cincinnati and i missed them all.

i discovered that the amish are good cooks.

i discovered the right way to begin each day.

i discovered that good friends always know what you need without you having to ask for it.

thanks mam and jap for all the medical advice. thanks cat, bl, bm, dd, memc, br for all the support. thanks mrs. waller and cousin marg for telling me what i must do. thanks docjr and hvk for bringing it on home. thanks mm for ringing at just the right time when i needed a diversion from all the madness. thanks ctw for exposing me to new things. thanks bnyc for the amusing text. thanks mw for the free legal advice. thanks kmb for that amazing photo that our girl angela took--it was just the one i wanted. and thanks jm for the ride home.

photos: 1. me with my cousins tierre and stephen; 2. me with my high school classmates and friends steve fletcher and barb richman; 3. my cousin steve "bro" bell; 4. my uncle chicks and cousin bishop donald "pepe" clay jr.; 5. my cousin eric bell; 6. my cousin joann with my mom

2008-06-27T21:31:00.000-07:00

you can go home again,
you just can't eat there

despite the humidity, the dead cicadas, this slow-ass dial-up internet service at my brother's house and my aching back and rotator cuff, i am happy to be home in cincinnati. i've been here less than 48 hours and i have already seen two of my best friends, interacted with a few relatives and found a house that i must buy--more on that later.

it's all good except for the food. generally the choices here are fast food, faster food, meat, meat and more meat, and cheesy and greasy. not exactly vegetarian-friendly.

i didn't get up until after noon today and it was after five when i finally got around to getting something to eat. i started the day off fixing a bathroom cabinet at my parents' house, then planted them and their canes in the family ford for a little cruise around the burbs. our first stop was the dry cleaners and then we journeyed out at my uncle's house in silverton, about 10 miles away. i rarely see my aunt and uncle when i'm here so it was lovely to see them and a nice treat for the folks since they don't get out much. after that visit i took them to a soul food dive where they ordered fried whiting and some high-fat, sodium-laced sides.

you know i couldn't have that--even though it was smelling pretty damn good.

since i've pretty much weaned myself off of bread and cheese, sandwiches were pretty much out. i had pasta the night before with my BFF&E bo. wasn't feeling a salad and i'm always suspect of eating any ethnic cuisines in the suburbs. i finally settled on some general tsu tofu from this chinese spot in a strip mall not far from my brother's house.

big mistake.

it was greasy and the broccoli was overcooked. and, of course, they looked at me as if i were an alien when i asked if they had brown rice.

brown rice here is white rice soaked in brown gravy.

my brother and his wife had invited me to dinner but only after i had already ordered my take-out. i had to eat it. i was starving and i needed something in my stomach so i could take my pain meds for the whack back and sore arm.

but bonding time is important when you get to be this age because you never know who's going to be here and who's not the next time you swoop into town. i told them i would go with them but that i needed to stop by my friend bo's house to see her grandson first. grandma bo was babysitting and it sounded as though she was having a hard time keeping up with an energetic 1-year-old.

i'm always willing to lend a hand when i can.

i was about three minutes from bo's house when my sister-in-law called and said i had locked them out on their back porch. what? oh, this was too deep. so, i had to make a u-ie and release those caged birds and then head back to bo's. i spent about 20 minutes with her and her grandson before cruising back to my brother's house which is about 10 minutes away.

when i got back to his house there was no one home. my homies had left me.

i grew up in suburban cincinnati, so i don't know the city that well at all. i had a general idea where this restaurant was, but it took me quite a while to find it. by the time i arrived they were half-way through their dinner. i had a glass of domestic pinot noir--the horror of it all--and shared a piece of carrot cake with my sister-in-law. the cake was the best thing i had had all day.

did i mention how much i love being at home? i do, i really, really do for myriad reasons: i never have to overhear any conversations about what's going on in the biz; people are generally friendly even when my road rage shifts into high gear and i'm screaming at them; no one mentioned the 15 pounds i've gained since last summer; i love that people are genuinely happy to see me and likewise; i think it's wonderful that some women think that it's ok to wear pants with whales and ducks on them; and oddly enough, i miss the thunderstorms and how fresh and clean and clear everything is afterwards. we don't get those in l.a.

plus, what's old is really new and that kind of re-energizes me.

the things i don't dig? i haven't been around to see my parents grow old and it's a really jolting experience; my brother not only has no dsl, but no call-waiting, no tivo and no on/off remote for the tv in my room so it feels like i'm living in peoria, circa 1958; i'm also not real keen on the humidity after that horrendous heatwave i just left in l.a. but it's the lack of healthy food choices that gets me the most.

even the wyoming bakery is closed this week because the staff is on vacation! WTF?! so that means no smile cookies for little miki--my one sugary indulgence.

maybe i'm going to have to venture out of the burbs.

or it might be a good time to start that fast.

WWOD (what would oprah do)?

she'd probably buy the house with the pool and hire a cook.

photo: my mother nancy and her cousin marg

2008-06-20T06:47:00.000-07:00

angela pancrazio, 51

photojournalism lost a great one last night at 10:18, and i lost a friend.

a, i have no shots of you--how can that be? but at least i can still see you every morning/afternoon/night when i wake up. i've got your nikki giovanni in front of me and the shot you took of pensive me after the trib had been saved to my right.

funny, i can't help but wonder if you were able to capture your transition on film with one of your old leica's. i bet the lighting was just perfect.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/06/20/20080620Pancrazio-obit20-ON.html

xox.

2008-06-18T23:40:00.000-07:00

rookie blogger makes major snafu with
"r" word comment, insults legend

every now and then those of us who use words to enlighten, inform, inspire and empower make mistakes. i made a big one in a recent post called "locker mate for life" when i wrote that i didn't much care for folks whose surname began with the letter "r."

in doing so i offended a sister blogger, a legend in her own mind and a proud member of the "r" crew. since this sister has been a faithful visitor to this space--and also because she put me on blast earlier today--i felt compelled to issue this heartfelt apology.

what had happened was that my mind was locked in a time warp. i was actually referring to some people i used to know back in the day: royston, runnels, reckseit, rosenberg, rosenthal. i in no way meant to offend any other "r's." my own name has several "r's" in it, too. now that this faux paux has been brought to my attention, i can honestly say i have seen the error of my ways and grown from this most unfortunate experience.

alphabetism is the ugliest of all hate crimes.

i hope no one will hold this against me as i don't want to lose my job as a part-time blogger. blogging has made me a better person--one who simply wants to serve humanity.

so, as tyler perry is my witness, i swear on a stack of poorly-written scripts that this won't happen again. i am truly sorry miss ross.

photo: da devodiva addresses fans and the media at her recent press conference.

2008-06-18T02:23:00.000-07:00

tears on my laptop

i'm one of those people who almost never cry. it's not that i don't feel things, i do. it's just that sometimes the tears, for some reason, just don't flow. that said, i almost always cry when i see the team, or a player i'm rooting for win the big one in real life or in the movies. rudy, remember the titans, kareem abdul-jabbar's final game, kevin garnett.

i initially predicted that boston--a team i can go back to hating now--would top l.a. in five games for the nba crown. i was wrong. it took six for kg and crew to win the big one and for my tears to fall.

why kg and not kb?

when i covered the nba back in the '90s he was always one of my favorites. always open, always polite, always making you laugh and never cocky. he had the most amicable demeanor of anyone in the locker room, which made it so much easier to be a small woman in the land of the giants. that's why i got a little misty as i listened to him try and express his emotions last night through his own tears.

i was especially moved when he embraced celtic great bill russell and thanked him for his guidance.

class.

this title, this feeling, this moment has long eluded kg. and he has been repeatedly maligned for it.

kg is now going to get that elusive ring, but i think he's also going to learn a very valuable lesson.

sometimes you've just got to be still and it will come.

2008-06-18T00:10:00.000-07:00

espn's jemele hill fouls out of the game--for now

here we go again. don imus. isaiah washington. mel gibson. and now jemele hill.

i can't say i know exactly how espn.com page 2 columnist and on-air personality jemele hill feels right now, but i know it can't be good.

just 96 hours after expressing her disdain for the boston celtics, espn suspended the prolific scribe indefinitely. hill's column, which hit the worldwide web last saturday, contained some offensive references to hitler and the celtics organization. hill, the site's only black female columnist, earned her unscheduled vacation time, however, for penning this passage:

"rooting for the celtics is like saying hitler was a victim. it's like hoping gorbachev would get to the blinking red button before reagan."

baby girl, that was one stupid thing to write. hitler is no joke today, tomorrow or in 2099. you should never, ever, ever go there--especially in this climate when some folks, upset over the skin tone of the presumptive democratic presidential nominee, have gone and exhumed the spirit of jim crow.

yep. hill's timing was as off as kobe bryant's jump shot in the second half of game 6. in less time than it takes a new york city cockroach to get across a room in broad daylight, espn.com readers, celtics fans and various media outlets began hurling knives at hill's head. the worldwide leader in sports claimed that the "inappropriate comments"--which were quickly extracted from hill's column-- slipped through the cracks because of some sort of editorial breakdown. it apologized to hill and her readers for letting them down.

alrighty then.

but, despite all of the conspiracy theories that some of my old sportswriting buddies have come up with in defense of hill, my best guess is that someone posted her column without reading it. and, if that's the case, i'm wondering if that careless editor has been "relieved" as well. but if someone did read it, well, this speaks volumes about the need for diversity--particularly on the copy desk.

although i once worked for espn.com as a page 3 columnist, i only hit the site about once a week so i've not read that much of hill's work. i do think, however, that this was simply an err in judgment committed by someone who is young, eager and at the top of her game. having been in that same position when i was younger i understand how screwy things can get when you're trying to live up to your own hype in an alternate universe without good editors.

hopefully, now that she'll be holidaying on earth for a while, she'll learn to choose her words more wisely. the view is a lot clearer down here.

2008-06-16T16:38:00.000-07:00

locker mate

for life

about an hour ago i was sitting alone in a bedroom at the four seasons with one of the sexiest men alive but i wasn't in a very good space. just minutes before my interview with common, a man who will always and forever set my heart aflutter, i got word that my mother was in the hospital.

my brother gary rang with the news--what little he had. apparently she had gone to see the new doctor i had set her up with--one that was recommended by an old high school acquaintance--and was immediately sent to jewish hospital in cincinnati for tests. my best guess is that the tests were inconclusive and the attending physician admitted her for observation. she'll be examined by a neurologist in the morning.

that's about all my brother knew.

living 2,500 miles away, hearing the term "tests" and not knowing is, of course, driving me batty. on my way home from the four seasons i rang one of my gurls from college and dumped all of my stress on her weakening shoulders. she's dealing with a bed-ridden father, an active 5-year-old and a mother with a nagging sore throat.

she was there for me though, as always.

when i got home i rang my dad who had been home alone all day. he hadn't had anything to eat or drink all day with the exception of his daily cup of instant maxwell house. is that stuff still on the market? i digress. so, now i have to start worrying about him.

i rang my brother back. he was frustrated and confused and hungry and defeated. i understand. he's had the bear most of the burden that comes along with caring for aging parents, who more often than not, don't want to listen. he's ready for them to go to the home.

not on my watch. that's when i had to call my dear friend barb.

i've known barb since 7th grade. we really had no choice but to become close as our lockers were always next to each other. she was a toney, i'm a turner. i'm now thinking that was an act of god. had her name been richman, like it is now, we might have never hooked up.

i didn't much care for any of those "r" peeps.

i knew barb was something special even back in the day. she was eternally gracious, uniquely real and always looking out for the people she dug. that was a rarity at wyoming high, a predominantly white and affluent college prep school, where most people never got past the do re mi, mi, mi on the social scale. barb would help me play all those silly games girls play when they're trying to snag the boy of their dreams. she would let me copy her notes from the biology lecture i missed and would always take up for me when the boys of my nightmares tried to dis me.

some of the best times i've ever had with her was when we'd go thrift-store shopping or hit up about 25 local garage sales in a single morning. my gurl knows how to find a bargain! and then there were always those "pepsi" talks we had in her kitchen(s) while her three, extremely well-mannered kids, zipped in and out. and she was the first person to call me when i had that breast cancer scare years ago.

but it wasn't until i saw her deal with other people that i realized how truly wonderful she is. barb works with special needs kids at our alma mater. it's a beautiful thing to see her interact with them. she's so patient and kind. they adore her.

she must sleep really well at night.

and, when i went home last summer barb had moved her ailing father into her home for what would prove to be his final days. she was so gentle with him. so compassionate. i told her then that care-giving was definitely her calling.

i told her that again today.

when i started to tell her about mom, she immediately knew the right things to say. she offered, more than once, to go out to the hospital to see what she could do. then she told me just before we hung up not to worry.

"if you start to worry, call me back," she said.

because she said that i won't have to call her back. i'm much more at ease.

back in the day when i ran a high school journalism program at san francisco state, one of the first things i would always tell my kids is to make sure they get to know the people to the left and the right of them because, "one day you might be working for them."

i'd like to be working for barb someday. it might seem that i have the more glamorous life because of what i do for a living, but as i have told barb many times my work is so not important. it's not like me spending 20 minutes with common will have any kind of lasting impact on the global community. but what god has called her to do can and will.

i'm telling you this girl is a gem. i love her madly. i'm so very, very blessed that's she been in my life for the past 36 years. she's like the quintessential point guard. she makes everyone around her better.

thanks bt for all that you do, and all that you will do.

2008-06-13T22:41:00.000-07:00

a little friday night enlightenment for a brain that's gone on an extended holiday

by the time the weekend rolls around i'm either too tired to hang out or have nowhere to go. although some folks find myriad ways to enjoy weekends in l.a., i've always found the night life here a little dull. maybe it's just me. perhaps i need to drink less red rooibos tea and more red bull.

or just move.

actually, i had really planned to tackle the heavy workload i have this weekend but writer's block--something toni morrison once told me was "your brain telling you to shut up because you have nothing to say," prevented me from making a dent in the pieces i have to write up on justin timberlake, meagan good, anne hathaway and dwayne johnson. so, since my brain was no longer functioning, i thought about just hanging out.

one possibility was the sorority mixer i had been invited to in marina del rey. but after careful consideration i determined that with the cost of gas it was waaaaaaaaaaay too risky to journey across town to attend yet another l.a. event where folks would likely be tripping. plus, after having spent most of the day in the clothes i slept in (notice, i didn't say pajamas) the thought of getting all dolled up to hang out was most unappealing.

there was also the sweet baby j'ai concert downtown. j'ai is a local jazz singer whom i've been trying to catch at the biltmore for the past month. love her but sadly, the same issues applied.

gas and clothing.

i only had like a quarter of a tank left and my good jeans were all crumpled up in the trunk of my car and would need ironing. unfortunately, ironing to me is akin to undergoing a root canal just for the hell of it. i would never do that and i've actually only pulled out my iron or someone else's three times this year--when i absolutely had to.

i'm trifling, i know. but not to worry. i have many, many other fine attributes and/or skills--like talking on the phone while i'm taking a shower. it requires a shower head attached to a hose and some strong thighs.

my third option was to stay closer to home and ride my bike over to lacma (l.a. county museum of art) and listen to some live jazz on the courtyard. this was a no-brainer since it would require no gas and i could go in my cargo shorts, obama t-shirt and thongs.

sweet.

i arrived at lacma in time to get one of the seats in front of the stage but when i'm flying solo, like i was tonight, i prefer a more panoramic view and plopped my butt down on a concrete divider already occupied by several other jazz enthusiasts.

that's when all hell broke loose. an older man, wearing sunglasses, baggy jeans and a tweed blazer, turned toward me and actually spoke.

wtf? didn't he know he was breaking the rules?! black folks in l.a. aren't supposed to acknowledge each other! as if!! what if someone saw us? reps could be ruined.

scary.

seriously, i loved that he acknowledged my presence. after a long day of logging video clips, watching cnn updates on tim russert's sudden death, faxing paperwork so i can get paid and dealing with crack-head publicists, how could i not welcome the opportunity to talk to some seemingly harmless stranger?

i took a chance.

him: "how are you?"
me: (somewhat surprised) "hey, howya doin'?"
him: "i'm good.
me: "great, glad to hear it (and i actually did mean that)."

since he had uttered about five more words than i expected to hear from some random dude on a friday night in miracle mile, i assumed that would be the end of our conversation.

not even.

him: "i just had to come out to see red (the 82-year-old saxman). i haven't seen him since the '70s."
me: "wow, i've never seen him at all."
him: "really? you haven't? he used to play at this club--the, uh, ah...it's right on the tip of my tongue (two minute pause). oh yeah, the parisian. do you remember the parisian? everybody used to come through there."

i bet they did. at my age it's not often that i can say that something was before my time, but i had never heard of that spot. and since i'm not from l.a., i'm not too familiar with all the long-gone local landmarks.

me: "oh, ok (which is my stock reply to any stranger when i don't know what the hell they're talking about)."

that marked the end of our conversation. he started talking to the people on the other side of him and shortly afterwards took off. the interracial couple that claimed his spot while it was still warm apparently knew the rules and didn't speak. about 15 minutes later red came on and blew his jaws off, but i must admit i was more caught up in my surroundings.

i couldn't take my eyes off of all the old men stepping out.

they were everywhere. most of them wore cool hats, some were stylin' in tailored linen trousers and there was one old head kicking it in a really cool vest and some jeans that fit him perfectly.

not that i was looking.

i was really just digging the way they were all getting their groove on. there's something rather orgasmic about watching old heads tap their toes to a blues tune because you know that they, moreso than anyone else, can really relate to the music. not only can they name that tune, man they've lived those lyrics.

that's kind of cool when you really, really think about it.

that experience was far more interesting than sitting at home and listening to justin timberlake ramble on about the speedo he wore in "love guru." please. don't get me started. that's another post. i'll tackle that as soon as i break through this block or borrow someone else's brain.

any volunteers?

maybe i just need to spend more time at lacma. these jazz sets roll out every friday evening from 6-9 throughout the summer. sure, there's a risk in making this commitment. i might bump into someone else who doesn't know the rules, but with mid-grade at $5 a gallon and my iron collecting dust in a kitchen cabinet, it just might be worth it, eh?

2008-06-11T23:56:00.001-07:00

daddy's girl

make no mistake. i'm a daddy's girl and i know how to work it.

still.

but even though the days of me needing dad's ok to validate the decisions i make, or the things i write are dwindling, i sure hope he'll be honored by the words i have written here tonight.

my once strong and active dad is now a frail, yet proud and stubborn old man with congestive heart failure. there's still a twinkle in his eye and his dentures still gleam when he smiles. but much to his chagrin, he needs a walker to get around. and most days he has to wear depends because he can't get to the loo fast enough.

not much pep left in his steps.

and even though he sometimes has those "senior moments," he's still a pretty sharp cookie at 92. he's one of about six people in the country who still read a newspaper every day; and despite my constant bitching he still makes himself a cup of instant maxwell house coffee every morning to go with the bacon and eggs he's not supposed to eat. at night he sits in the den and devours a big bowl of artery-clogging, high fat vanilla ice cream while watching c-span.

makes me crazy but he's 92 and still breathing. what can you do?

throughout the years dad and i have had our "moments" but we share a love of sports (i'm so sorry i didn't take up golf a lot sooner like he wanted me to!), fast cars, polo shirts and globe trotting. i totally get my love of adventure from him. every summer we used to load up the car with my barbie dolls and our overstuffed suitcases and head to whatever city the shrine convention was. i cherished those days and i know dad did, too. i remember driving to new york in a sleek 1964 blue ford galaxy convertible, and then making our way out west for the first time in a 1976 ford ltd station wagon. always ford and more often than not, always blue.

at the time dad was working as a postal clerk and every now and then when he was quizzing me on the names of the state capitols he would talk about his days "running the road." during WWII dad was a pullman porter and was proud of the fact that he had traveled to every state on the mainland during his tenure. being a porter sounded like the best gig in the world to me but i had no idea how significant porters really were until i was an adult.

i was working for the ft. worth star-telegram out of L.A. and had been assigned to write a review on a showtime movie called "10,000 men named george." starring andre braugher, the 2002 film chronicled the contributions of porters and a. philip randolph. high up in the review i mentioned that my dad had been a porter and about three weeks later i got a call from a boston-based author who wanted to interview dad for a book he was writing on porters called "rising from the rails." it has since been made into a documentary.

that was the beginning of dad's 15 minutes.

earlier this year i got a call from a woman who works for images usa in atlanta. they were holding an event in chicago to pay tribute to the surviving porters and wanted to know if dad would be willing to come. i was absolutely elated and committed him before calling home to see if he felt up to it. he said he'd love to go if he were able. my brother, mother and i went back-and-forth on the issue for a while. mom didn't want him to go at all (end of story), and my brother wasn't sure that he was strong enough to endure a 10-hour train ride. i argued that getting out of the house would be good for him. he's a road runner. walker or no walker, he needs to run-- sometimes. finally, we all got on the same page and my brother escorted dad to chicago. regretfully, i was unable to be there because i was on assignment in south africa.

prior to their arrival in the windy city dad had already done some local media in cincinnati. in chicago he was featured on wgn and in a wonderfully written story about the event in the june 2 issue of jet magazine. below is a piece written up in the cincinnati enquirer by a friend and colleague of mine on the turner family's newest media darling.

i am still beaming. the man who once lamented that he once thought that "he was going to be somebody" finally got his due. he is and has always been somebody. i couldn't be prouder to call him dad.

happy father's day daddy. i'm heading to the driving range with my 7-iron in the ayem. i'll make you proud yet!

WILLIAM TURNER, 92, WYOMING

Interviewed by: Son Gary Dixon, Springfield Township

With Union Terminal celebrating its 75th anniversary, Cincinnati Museum Center invited retired Pullman porter Turner to make the inaugural StoryCorps recording here.

Most of the conversation with his son was about his railroad career (1941-53) out of Union Terminal.

He worked overnights, preparing sleeping quarters for passengers and caring for them until the train arrived in New York City the next morning. Turner also worked the Cincinnati-Chicago route, and some Canadian charters.

"I enjoyed being a porter because I got to see most of the country," he says. Until attending a Pullman reunion last month in Chicago, he didn't think he had done anything special. "It was a just a job, and I needed a job."

But recording an oral history was very special to his son.

"You don't think about doing something like this unless someone brings it up," says Dixon, a retired school teacher. "It's important to do this. This is who we are as humans. If you don't record the history, you don't get a perspective of what happened, and what Cincinnati was like."

enquirer photo of gary dixon and william turner by michael e. keating

2008-06-10T10:38:00.000-07:00

RIP pat tobin

we all knew it was inevitable, but at the same time, we all thought that there was no way cancer was going to defeat the indomitable pat tobin.

i can't remember when or where i first met pat, but i do recall the impression she made on me some 12 years ago. pat was what i like to call a pistol publicist. she sucked you in with her smile, captivated you with her bubbly personality and before you knew it you had agreed to cover some toyota event in rosemead which was far, far removed from your beat.

bang. bang. you've been had baby gurl.

that was pat. you couldn't say no to her. the only way to do so was to avoid contact and that was damn near impossible because she was everywhere. parties, premieres on aisle 12 at ralph's--you name it. and it wasn't unusual to get twice weekly packets from tobin & associates that more often than not included a b/w glossy of pat in one of those grin-and-grab shots with a host of suits.

for those of us who knew her, it was heartbreaking to see this once vibrant woman suffer the way she did. conversely, it was inspiring to see that she never lost her will to fight. i'd like to believe that the cancer that claimed her life early this morning didn't really beat her. i just think pat saw an untapped market in heaven and went for it.

go get 'em girlfriend.

(photo by valerie goodloe--pat tobin, miki turner, darlene donloe at the hollywood bowl in '07)

2008-06-10T02:17:00.000-07:00

my baby boyz

it wasn't a bad monday by l.a. standards. i mean, my road rage was kept to a minimum--meaning i didn't have to utter the f-word once (out loud); i only had to return two new malfunctioning dvd recorders to circuit city; the film junket i attended for a movie i hadn't even seen was only running 30 minutes behind; and i got some nice new assignments that hopefully won't have me pulling my locks out one by one before completion.

normally, all of the above would make me totally menopausal. but, because i talked to both my baby boyz today, all is very, very good in da hood.

i was rolling down sunset with the top down while chatting up pj, my first-ever godchild, son of my BFF&E mary radden hicks. he is the sweetest, kindest and coolest 22-year-old manchild i know. his parents reared him right. pj is currently a senior at hampton (yay pirates!), majoring in political science. i luv, luv, luv him. the above shot (right) of me and pj was taken at hampton's homecoming in '04.

about 15 minutes later i was on the phone with my other godson josh (above left at homecoming '05). he's 5 and operating on full blast 24/7. and he's so grown. today he told me it had been 100 degrees in richmond for "three whole days" and then added with one of those sighs old folks let loose whenever you ask them about their day, that it was "very, very hot." to top it off, josh then said-- without prompting from his mom, my other BFF&E charlene alexander-taylor-- "i hope you have a good day tomorrow. i love you."

i'm now good for the rest of the week. bring it on l.a.

now if i could only get some sleep...

2008-06-08T22:33:00.000-07:00

yep, i'm a hater

every year when the final four and the nba finals come around i make these predictions based on nothing more than my disdain for one of the teams. nobody ever listens to little miki, but little miki is almost always right.

in march i told all of my ucla alum friends that the bruins would not be NCAA champions and what happened? kansas beat dey azz! all year long i've been telling all my friends who are fakers fans that the purple and gold would not win the nba title. now they're down 0-2 to the celtics, a team i've always hated, especially when i was a showtime lakers fan. but i gotta love a celtics squad with paul pierce, kg and that sweetie ray allen. i want all of them to get rings so beantown can throw them a big parade and jam up traffic in back bay.

celts in 5.

2008-06-08T15:08:00.000-07:00

weekend woes

ok, so i'm finally coming out.

it's me, the original devodiva going against my own convictions and creating a blog for all to savor, rip apart or ignore.

it's been a pretty uneventful weekend. friday, i was one of the hosts for legendary entertainment publicist roz stevenson's retirement party. one of the most memorable moments of that evening was having my first film short screened in front of a mass audience. man, was i nervous. but it was all good. folks laughed in all the right places and no one threw cheese.

i also reconnected with ja'net dubois. you might remember her as willona from "good times." earlier this year we shared a table at a really boring-ass function saluting cathy hughes and at one point--even though i routinely boycott cash bars at these types of events--i couldn't take it any more and decided to plunk down the $11 needed for a glass of bottom shelf merlot. ms. dubois asked me if i would bring her a glass--because she was feeling similarly--and i did. when she offered to pay me for it, i wouldn't hear of it. i mean, c'mon. it's willona! she be broke! she returned the favor, however, about 20 minutes later. anyway, i never take photos with celebs--it's so, so cheesy--but she's very, very cool.

and i needed that second glass.

on saturday, i was continually tortured. first, by the length of time it took to find a reasonably priced dvd recorder. the one i own, which is barely 16 months old, has much to my chagrin and disgust, already died a premature death. when i did finally find an open-box sony model at the circuit city in culver city for a great price, not only was it incompatible with my current antiquated system, but it had a toshiba remote! oy! so, back it went to another circuit city.

as i settled down for an evening in front of the telly i was repeatedly serenaded by the woman "exercising" in the next building over. she was having what appeared to be enjoyable sex--albeit i'm not sure she was with anyone because her shrill--one that was drowning out the cnn special on 1968 i was watching--was the only voice i heard. could be that that the other person (you never know who or what so we must stay clear of suggestive pronouns) just wasn't feeling it. then my friend DB rang and said she had just had sex with a guy she's known for 20 years and well, it just wasn't worth waiting for.

life can be rough sometimes.

i can't decide if i need to get out more, or stay in. the madness is everywhere.

so, today i created this blog because i really enjoy reading the ramblings of friends and strangers. and, it's cheaper than therapy.