Speaking on Our Thoughts...

The Game Of My LIfe

The atmosphere was tense. We were the top-rated team in the league, on a two-game losing streak. It was late in the season. Fatigue had settled in, and our top players were losing their touch.

I looked around in anticipation, scanning the sparse crowd for his face. No show. Maybe telling him about the game just three hours earlier had been too short a notice. Maybe he was busy at home. Maybe it just wasn't important enough to come to.

Of course it wasn't the intercity high-school marquee game or the NBA. It was only the Tuesday-night winter league at the downtown YMCA. Yet for the past seven weeks, this aging gymnasium had been my field of dreams.

You see, I hadn't been an athlete while I was growing up. Sure, I ran in the neighborhood and climbed trees, threw rocks and shot bottle-cap guns. But except for a short stint on the seventh-grade track team and a horrific summer in Little League baseball, I stuck with the choir and the stage. I didn't know how to play basketball. My father hadn't taught me the game, probably because he had grown up in the hills of east Tennessee and had had me late in life, when he was in his mid-forties. Whatever the reason, I wasn't on the court Saturday mornings trooping. In childhood pickup games, I was a liability to the team. I didn't even look athletic--I wasn't very tall, I had no bulging biceps or explosive calves, and my round, slightly chubby face struck no fear in an opponent. After so many jokes about my deficiencies, I figured out the way to conquer them all: quit. But somehow quitting never stopped the desire within. It just made me dream harder and higher, all the while fearing the serious thought of picking up that ball or hitting that track.

So I grew up with my self-esteem aiming from my intellect rather shall my physical prowess. Then I went to college and met some brothers and sisters who put some funk into my soul. They helped me discover that my ancestors founded civilizations and were kings and queens and architects and doctors. After a few months of study, I began to believe I could do anything. Anything?

I hit the track one day, or should I say the track hit me? I sputtered along, covering a little more ground each day, until I was running a mile, then two, then three. (Now I run four miles without a problem and work out every day.)

For a year before the night of the big game, I had been playing basketball with a passion. My growth spurt at age 19 had helped me develop my slender six-foot two-inch frame, and I would work my legs extra hard. I had finally developed enough confidence to sign up for the league at the local YMCA.

It was also the mane where I, at 29 years old, found a chance to live my dream. I might not ever be the lead scorer, but I figured that if I could just score a few points and snatch a few rebounds, I would be satisfied. I had already surpassed this goal, averaging ten points going into that night's game.

I was hanging around the perimeter practicing my now potentially deadly three-pointer. When I finally saw him come through the gym door, my heart leapt. There he was, just as he'd been there for me so many times before--at the choir concert, the play I was starring in or the speech I was giving. But this time my pops was coming to see his boy play ball. I ushered him to a seat in the bleachers as the ref blew the whistle for the opening tip.

I was in the starting lineup, and I found myself playing harder than I had ever played before. We lost the game by more than 30 points. But I had fun in a strange, boyish sort of way. I scored 13 points, a career high--nine of them from behind the arc. The last minute of the game I got a steal and passed it down court to our big man. He passed it back to me on the break. I went up hard and, you guessed it, made a slam dunk! My very first in a game, and my pops was a witness.

As I headed to the locker room in defeat, yet carrying an odd air of victory, I heard a voice in my ear. It was the voice that the latent athlete in me had longed to hear since I was young, uttering the words of empowerment, love and pride.

"You played a good game, son."

Better than you may ever know, Pops.

-jeff obafemi carr
(Originally published in the March, 1997 edition of Essence Magazine, Brothers Column. Reprinted here as a Fatherly remembrance to Haywood H. Carr)

Mint Chocolate Chip Soy Ice Cream

...at midnight just CANNOT be good for you. i think about that sometimes because yeah, i've got a decent diet, but i probably cast everything to the wind when i consume one meal a day, or eat in the middle of the night, then fall asleep in my clothes because of utter fatigue. does this lifestyle ever change?

who knows.

and why is it like this? why else: because there are never ever enough hours in a waking day. i used to feel so guilty if i didn't spend at least 18 to 20 hours a day working on some aspect of my dream. if the sun hit me, i figured i should be working. when others were out playing, i should be working. when others were sleeping, i should be working because "sleep is the cousin of death," and "we have promises to keep, and miles to go before we can sleep."

but i'm too old for that crap now. sure, it did well by me as a younger man; pushed my productivity off the charts and set a tone for a work ethic that has served me well. but now, as a "thirtysomething," i'm starting to feel those little aches and pains. i used to be able to go to sleep upside down in a greyhound bus seat or lazyboy. now, if my head isn't squared just right on the pillow, when i wake up, my neck feels as if someone tried press a rairoad spike into one side or the other. and let's not talk about sleeping the wrong way on a shoulder and feeling like i tried--unsuccessfully--to break down a door like a b-movie detective.

that said, i'm trying to learn to sleep, but psychologically, i've got some things to get over. prepare for a short artist's rant.

let me tell you a cute little story. when i first decided to do my art full time, i consulted with my Pops for his ultimate wisdom. i suppose i was looking for some approval of sorts. i'll never forget standing at the corner of the yard and talking with him on the afternoon of the day i had submitted my letter of resignation to the full-time gig i was working at a really cool community center. i told him about my desire to act and the conversation went a little like this:

"Pop, i've decided to leave the center."
"Well, what are you going to do?"
(pause)
"I'm going to act."
"Well, that's a good thing."
(a pause for my surprise)
"You think so?"
"Yeah, you'll be good at that. You've been doing those kind of things a long time. (pause) But....um, what's your JOB going to be?"
"That's my job, Pop. I'm going to be an actor."
"Oh, I know. I heard that. But...where are you going to WORK?"

My Pops, rest his soul, had his unique ways. i love that cat.

most people, however, see it that way. so, we "creative types" have to go through life struggling not only to make a living, but to sometimes prove to others that we can make a living doing these things we love. it can be tough. i've got one person who swears in their own mind, that i can run around and do errands and favors for them because i have an "open schedule." what the blankety-blank does that mean? well, let me translate: "you don't punch a clock, so you don't have a real job."

years ago, that translated into working myself into a stupor to try and tie up my time and feel as if it were well spent. nowadays, i've created an awesome workload to have to keep up with, and to be honest, it's kinda get rough. now i'm not complaining here. i can say that almost all of the work i've been undertaking has been in my fields of dreams, so it's not like labor work. i enjoy it. yet, i find myself still finding a need to let go of others' expectations and judgements. that's a neccessary step for an artist to take--shedding others' expectations and judgments and just getting into one's flow, regardless of the "normalcy" of that flow's paradigm when juxtaposed to others' lives.

so as i sit and type and come close to closing, i say again that i am thankful for the dreams i've been blessed with. tonight, my class met Dr. J. Robert Bradley and it was a fabulous experience for all of us. i'm in the middle of a week-long actor's intensive workshop that is a joy to participate in. each class is unique, special. i'm enjoying the conversations and exercises i get to lead people through. i can't wait to see everyone step out into the field of their dreams and join me in the world of the weirdos. :-)

artists have to learn to maintain their sanity in an insane world. if one wears deodorant and goes amongst a community of people who don't wear any deodorant at all, then who is considered the stinky one?

hmmm...

everything is relative. the artist has to be confident, sure (pardon the pun) that they are not the stinky one, even when the surrounding underarms collectively smell so bad that they begin to smell good after a while. we cannot lose perspective. we are charged with the responsibility of weaving society's dreams. sometimes in that process, society turns on us, judges us, does not support or believe in the legitimacy of our crat(s). yet, we must push on, even if it means losing a little sleep.

blind with fatigue and about to call it in...

joc

An August Passing…

We lost a giant today. August Wilson is dead—well—transitioned. That’s right, transitioned. How could a cat like that ever die? Afrikan people believe that death occurs when your name is no longer remembered. That takes me back to a day several years ago when I found myself, luckily, in the presence of another since-transitioned elder, Dr. John Henrik Clarke.

I was speaking at a conference at The Ohio State University where my brother was attending law and graduate school. Some of the students and presenters were having breakfast with Dr. Clarke, asking him all sorts of philosophical questions, virtually sitting at his esteemed feet and soaking up all the wisdom. One young sister made a statement:

“Dr. Clarke, you’ve been harshly critical of Christianity, Islam, and other religions—what they’ve done to our people. So I have one question: Where do you believe you’re going to go when you die?”

what a QUESTION! I was like…wow…I can’t wait to hear this answer.

Dr. Clarke, who was legally blind even then, sipped a little from his saucer, then he spoke something like this into the deafening, respectful silence:

“Well, young lady, I’m often reminded of a young Malcolm X who used to come and talk to me at my home in Harlem. No one, by and large even knew who he was. It was frustrating to him that many people didn’t want to hear his message. Yet now, many years later, I see movies about Malcolm, and people wearing X hats and X t-shirts and the like. Then I realize that, because of the legacy Malcolm left, he is more alive today than when he was physically walking on the earth. I’d like to think that I may have written a book, or a story, or a poem, or something that may be read or shared after I’ve gone. I’d like to think that I’ve left a legacy through the work that I’ve done. So, in answer to your question of ‘where do I think I’ll go when I die,’ I don’t think I’ll go anywhere. I think I’ll just stay around.”

I believe Dr. Clarke said it best. With a 10-volume cycle of plays in the can, August left himself all over the canvas of the artistic world, and he cannot be erased or ignored, because he’s at the center. He now holds court amongst the greatest writers of both our time and times before. He is the greatest American playwright to date, and he has set the bar high for those of us who call ourselves writers.

There aren’t many people I can say I’ve wanted to meet in life. I’ve just never been the star-struck type. However, there are a few souls that I would’ve loved to cross paths with or work with: Paul Robeson, Zora Neale Hurston, Curtis Mayfield. I missed that chance. Over a year ago, I did get to meet and chat with Ossie Davis, and that was an unforgettable experience. Perhaps God will bless me with the opportunity to meet another icon, Maurice White, before the gray gets one or both of us.

As for August, I thought I’d meet him twice. Out of the 10 plays, I’ve performed in two: “Fences” and “The Piano Lesson.” Each time, something deterred him from attending. This last time, we came to find out, it was the liver cancer that quickly claimed his mortal shell. So I can’t say that I have shaken his hand or been in his home or ridden in the car with him. I have not worked with him.

But I have worked FOR him. And oh, what work it was.

His words have roared, stumbled, and flown from between my lips; they have shaken houses and moved women; they have elevated the souls of those who heard them; and they have made me appreciate the gift I have to recall them and share them with an audience.

So I am thankful to have been employed by the words of God, spoken through the pen of a man who, if he had lived hundreds of years before, would have been the gold standard we judge literature by in the western world. In fitting fashion, we would’ve been saying one unitary remark after completing a read of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets:

“Wow…this Shakespeare cat is pretty good. He’s like…the white August Wilson.”

;-)

joc

Fakin' the Funk...

i can't find that blasted cheat book to save my life! on a night when i'm feeling like fumbling around with my keyboard, i can't find my most recent acquisition: a big book of great songs with the guitar tabs AND the chords charted for simple folks like me who can strum enough chords and finger enough tunes of a keyboard to pass as a musician.

there has to be a lesson for me here.

well, i do have a guitar chord book. and taped on the wall in the corner is a master list of piano chord fingering. hmmm...

snap, there it is! instead of learing just the songs, maybe i should learn the chords, then i can play ANY song, and not just a few. "Give a man a fish you feed him for a day; teach him how TO fish, and you'll feed him for a lifetime."

so, let's tread into some dangerous water here now...

this hurricane katrina thing has been tough on so many people. i've been involved in a couple of initiatives (maybe i'll write a little more detail later, generically, as to preserve the true motive of providing assistance without soaking up props) here and there. most recently, i was asked by an artist in the community to get on board with a benefit that is supposed to be multi-cultural in nature. no problem about that, after all, i just got done participating in one. the request for participation in this one sparked within me a certain age-old curiosity, however. to begin, this person just happens to be white and well-known in the "mainstream" community and mentioned that this benefit would be different from others out there. then, when it was described, it was almost identical to the one i'd just participated in that was held in North Nashville (yes, across the railroad tracks). it made me ask, "Where has this person been?"

now, i'm not questioning sincerity, or the desire to help. but i find two things to be very interesting about some people who operate in the popular circle of the mainstream:

A) we little folks don't register as a beep on the radar screen. this kind of initiative has been going on for weeks, especially in the communities of what's popularly referred to as the "inner city." all of a sudden, there is a unique idea being generated. "what we have here is...uh...a failure to communicate."

B) we people, who are darker than blue, can be found when needed. now i'm not called for certain events, or invited to planning sessions for major initiatives that originate from mainstream arts organizations. yet, when some color is needed, all of a sudden, i find messages everywhere.

this leads me to believe that we've concentrated too much on a few songs and not enough on the music theory. personally, i'm kinda worn out with the notion of token involvement. either share the power or let me head to the shower. we'll never get anything flowing righteously in this country until "mainstreamers" realize that in order to be inclusive, everyone must be at the table. in order to make good music, all of the notes and chords must be understood. as a matter of fact, the more notes, the fatter the chord; the fatter the chord, the deeper the chill in the spine.

the other thing is, we have to understand our role as individual notes. i've been a little hot with some of the grandstanding that's been taking place with this whole benefit thing. i'm of the firm opinion that if we want to help, we should just go out and do it, then leave it alone. Press and media is good. Necessary at times. but only insofar as it is used to support motivating more people to help. too many people are seeking publicity for publicity's sake, and that's just dead wrong. what happened to not letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing.

i'm not gonna go too deep in sharing specifics. i think we can get the picture without me telling anyone's personal business. plus i want people to feel free to read and contribute here; i know of another writer who utilizes so much personal information that 1) people don't trust the person enough to talk with and befriend, and 2) people instantly delete whatever this person sends without reading it. i don't ever want that to be the case with this new undertaking. but alas...i digress...

so, now that i've written enough about this, i'm gonna look over that chord chart and play around a little, see if i can memorize some of these "configgerashuns." maybe i'll be a better musician. maybe not, but at least i'll have a better understanding--and appreciation--of the music itself.

joc

If This World Were Mine...
(for the record--u spelling buffs leave me alone, cuz i ain't finna be hyper-checkin' my stuff, 'specially late at night!)

i just got off the road from a whirlwind trip to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where my daughter just finished performing in her first professional theatrical production, "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe," where she mesmerized me as a member of the white witch's army. i was overjoyed, depressed, and motivated--all in various stages.

OVERJOYED
You have to understand something: i'm a lot of creative things, one of them being a professional actor. i am a card-carrying, dues paying member of Actor's Equity Association, who got in during the time when people were still--for the most part--earning points in pro shows to get in. now you kinda just "pay the fee" and you're in if you get a good gig. i was a "tweener," so i was working up points, THEN had a good opportunity on a show several years ago that put me over the hump. Why do i relate this story? Because, i've worked my a** off to develop my craft over the years.

When i was a little feller, i never saw any people who looked like me onstage anywhere. When we went to the children's theatre or the performing arts centers, there weren't any Black faces; and when there were a few, they seemed to always have a friggin' rag on their head or be carrying a serving tray. Hindsight is 20/20, so i can say now, that was some psychologically damaging mess. At around 8 years old, i saw an all-black production of Aesop's Fables at Tennessee State University called "Aesop's Falables." It starred my cousin, Gloria Charles, as Jacqueline-In-The-Box. How do i remember that when i can barely remember what i ate this morning for brunch? Because i saw something i'd never seen before:

A stage full of gifted, magical people, who looked just like me.

It was on from there. My first real acting teacher was probably Robert Smith, a local attorney who started the In-God's-Name Players at Kayne Avenue Missionary Baptist Church in South Nashville where i was raised. My brother, sister and i all got started up in that joint. Robert was a founding member of the legendary Princely Players and he brought that work aesthetic to us as children. The bug had bitten me, and i was stung good. i was a little tyke of a fella in those church plays. i so looked forward to moving up from being a member of the chanting mob that lynched Jesus to playing the role of Pontius Pilate. "Art Thou King of The Jews?!!" i uttered with a high-pitched, Richard-ish country twang that destroyed my elder brother's nerves when it escaped from between my anxious little lips. Ahh...the good old days, i reminisced, as i joyously watched my daughter bounce her little minority butt across the stage with high energy. She got her start doing plays in her summer program at Fisk University a couple of years ago and she's quite good i must say, much better than a few of the kids in some of the bigger roles...more later on that.

For a while, i was happy to see her doing her thing.


DEPRESSED

Church gave me a lot of early acting esteem--Thank De Lawd--because i would need it.

High School came along (we didn't have drama in what we called Junior High but what is now "middle school," and i had excelled well in the small parts i had at Percy Priest Elementary), and i found myself one of the only flies in the buttermilk. Unlike many upwardly mobile knee-grows of today, i do not say that with pride. :-) As the darker brother, i quickly learned a lesson: if you are really good, talented, articulate, versatile, and learned in the ways of demonstratable and repeatable drama, you can still play 13th fiddle to a gallery of white guys with none of the previous skills, but possessing the one thing that could guarantee a lead: white skin. So, i toughed out a four year career playing any number of roles including the frightened orderly in "Dracula," the pissed-off black kid with one mini-monologue in "Up The Down Staircase," the jovial Stew-pot in "South Pacific," and some other forgettable theatrically-related roles that, to this day, remain non-descript. i had a really cool theatre teacher who let us lay on the floor in class and promised every year to do "Othello" in the coming season so that i could play the lead. that was over 20 years ago, and it still hasn't been done at that school. that must be a record for a mule's carrot, huh?

Needless to say, i rescued enough esteem to make it to college and the loving arms of Tennessee State, where color didn't matter--we were all black and got to experience what most of my white colleagues and friends take for granted in America: what it's like to be in an environment where you are judged on talent--WITHOUT race being a factor. That scared me at first, because i realized that now, i had to be good to make the play. If i was shining a shoe, it was because i couldn't deliver otherwise. Luckily, though, i had a powerful four years of drama that ranged from Shakespeare to Philip Hayes Dean and all points in the middle. What a life! Then, i graduated and got into the professional world and guess what?

Back to High School it was.

THAT was jacked up, especially living in Nashville. But i paid dues. I sang the ooos and ahhhs behind some singers whose voices could barely project five feet ahead; i acted with Juliard-trained well-to-dos who had the instincts of the socks i just took off. i resigned myself to "paying professional dues" until i got sick of it and started traveling. i went all over the country to seek out roles and it was all the better for the career. i decided not to do work unless it was important to me or moved me or did something for someone to lift them up.

i was poor a long time. i probably still am, but since i eat everyday i don't think about it.

There was a time, though, when the heat wasn't on, i had no phone, i ate rice almost every day, and i had to scrape for change between the seats of my car just for a little gas money. It's been a tough row to hoe, and that's just with acting alone. i've got a million other stories about my singing, my writing, my commentaries, radio and film work, newspaper publishing, and other areas of Media Science. These experiences have helped shape me, who i am and who i ever shall be. i've been criticized, beat down by people in relationships who didn't believe in me, ostracized by people i thought were friends who really weren't, attacked verbally, put down, put on, almost put out, cut off, cut down---you name it. All because i had this dream thing going; this artistic dream thing going. i wouldn't trade my experiences for the world, but i wouldn't put them on anybody.

Anybody...Somebody...Oh no...

That's when the depression hit.

I looked at my little bit and remembered last summer. By then, she'd been in a couple of plays already, had helped me in my one-man show, and had just seen me in "The Piano Lesson" with Carl Gordon of Roc fame. In the car, she informed me that she still wanted to be a Pediatrician (yeah!!!), but that perhaps she would be an actress instead.

Lawd. Lawd. Lawd. Help me.

She's got the skills--memory, voice, and the presence thing you can't teach. She can make it, but i was depressed for a while because i don't want her to have the face the same esteem-damaging world i faced, and i began to glimpse the black child's pattern on the stage before me. We need some art that allows our children the same luxury that kids from the mainstream have: a place to shine....

MOTIVATED

All of a sudden, i saw it: an all-black version of LWW. or better yet, a whole new series of plays and books that have faces like mine at the very center. How cool is that? Then, little black children won't have to deal with questioning their talents and doubting themselves. i run a theatre company that is establishing itself well in the community. We have a lot on the horizon. i was reminded that, while i'm developing art for the grown folks, i must NEVER forget the children.

And why not a production FULL of children, at least once a year, with some training in between to make them sharp and focused? if not me then who, if not now...you know the rest.

RENEWED

And now, after having driven over four hours, seeing a play, taking an emotional/theatrica/psychological roller-coaster ride, then driving back home to the 'ville and exorcising some insomnia with this first real blog entry, i'm ready to lay in my bed with Tananarive Due's latest book, "Joplin's Ghost." It feels good to express like this, and i wonder how naked i'll dare to be? only time will tell.

For now, i sleep, perchance to dr--heck, i'll be happy if i can just sleep. bump tha dreamin'...

obafemi