thoughtsandthings...1/26 the truth series. pt. 1 (mother)

This post has been a long time coming.
Initially, I was going to talk about motherhood, my plans for it,
and what it's like for me.
I was going to tell you how I wasn't very maternal growing up.
That I wasn't the girl who babysat during high school.
That I didn't really do kids.
But that I've wanted them for as far back as I can remember.
I was going to tell you how I was going to be like Claire Huxtable and Carol Brady.
How I was going to keep a spotless home, COOK 3 fresh organic meals a day,
and spend all my time making my kids happy.
How I wasn't going to raise my voice at my kids, we'd be the of best friends,
and how I'd always have the right thing to say.

Then I was going to tell you what actually happened when I
became a mother.
That the Claire Huxtable/Carol Brady thing never really took off.
That I'm more like Roseanne.
That on any given day, you'll see a fresh load of laundry
sprawled across the sofa.
That sometimes I'm raising my voice, tired as hell, dinner is in the
microwave mommy.
That I spend so much time making everybody happy that I lose myself.
I was going to tell you that being best friends isn't the goal,
being respected is.
And that no, I don't always have the right the thing to say.
I was going to tell you how incessant questions and grocery store tantrums
make me want to disappear.
That my maternal gene didn't immediately kick in when my
first child was born and that sometimes I cry
cause I don't think I'm doing this right.
I was going to tell you how I now know just how much I really don't know
and that being a mommy isn't always cute, baby powdery and sweet.
That being a mommy, a lot of times, for me, is hard.

But last night as I was trying to get into my car to leave Trader Joe's.
There was a slightly handicapped middle aged man parked next to me.
We had a conversation that went like this...

ME: (trying to get my little one in his card seat, steps to the side)
HIM: That's okay. You go right ahead.
ME: No, you go. He doesn't like being strapped in and he's going to wrestle
me. So it may take a long time.
HIM: Oh, I remember those days.
ME: Then you KNOW what FUN I'm having (I said as I rolled my eyes)
HIM: But it's so beautiful isn't it? And it goes so fast.

And then it hit me. I knew this already. But something at that moment
just struck me.
I looked over to see my oldest son trying desperately to buckle
himself into his car seat;
And my little one climbing to the front of the car.
And I whispered what the man said to myself.

So instead of telling you all that other stuff that I was going to tell you,
I'll just say this:

I am a mother. I am tremendously blessed to be a mother.
Sometimes it is difficult and I don't always get it right.
But that's okay.
Cause really, I wouldn't change it for the world.
And yes, it is beautiful and fleeting.

1.20.09 The Inauguration of Barack Obama

Today I am high!
Turn to your neighbor and say 'President Barack Obama.'
I said turn to your neighbor and say 'President. Barack. Obama!'
This day is so surreal that I cannot breathe.
It's a day that I just didn't believe I'd see in my lifetime.
And my body is going crazy.
I want to throw on Afrika Bambaataa's 'Planet Rock' and get it.
I want to break out into the 'Wop', do the 'Running Man'. Do something.
It feels so good outside.
It's like someone poured milk chocolate in the streets.
There's electricity in the air.
It's Christmas day and New Year's Eve.
It's beyond magnificient.
I kept my son home from school this morning.
So that I could videotape him watching the inauguration of Barack Obama.
My children are very young right now but
I know that they will appreciate the video in the years to come.
I wanted them to see this beautiful black man take that oath beside his queen
on the bible that Abraham Lincoln used.
I wanted them to witness President Obama walk, erect, with purpose
and smile like it was 85 degrees.
I want them to know that this is a class act who took a train ride
from Philadelphia to D.C., who walked his predecessor to his helicopter and
bid him farewell.
Who stepped out of his part-tank, part caddy
and pimp walked down Pennsylvania Ave. like, 'What?!'
I am not crazy.
I know that Obama is not our savior and that he alone cannot
fix all the problems that we face.
I'm just comfortable knowing that he's going to try.
That he's going to do his best.
That at the very least, he's going to LISTEN!
If I could run onto the freeway and poplock I would.
Cause that's how I'm feeling today.
This is history.
And I'm so blessed to be alive to witness it!

thoughtsandthings...1/19 A NOTORIOUS review.

This Biggie thing is personal for me.
I was standing in my mom's kitchen when I heard Hot 97’s Miss Jones
shouting from the radio that Biggie was dead.
Big had a new baby boy. A 4 yr. old daughter, and a career that was about to BLOW!
It was crazy and numbing and unbelievable!
I watched Big's funeral on Eyewitness news.
The hardest dudes on the block were screaming. 'Hypnotize' was blaring.
Fans filled the streets. Mary was holding Lil Kim. Queen Latifah was there.
I will never ever forget.
Big was laid to rest on my birthday.

I moved to Los Angeles 2 days after the "Life After Death' c.d. dropped.
One of my first stops was the Peterson Museum on Fairfax.
I wanted to see where he was killed.
Riding down Wilshire listening to Theo play "Going Back To Cali"
in the very city of his demise, was surreal.
It’ll be 12 years this March since Big was gunned down.

When I heard that there was going to be a movie about his life, I was nervous.
Initially, I thought NOTORIOUS was going to be like a made for t.v. movie.
Bad acting. Horrible lighting. The wrong cast.
But fortunately that isn’t what happened…

What happened was I got an inside peek,
a deeper appreciation for Big and the people who loved him.
Angela Bassett is intense. Though, her jamaican accent threw me off.
But really, who else would you want to play you in a movie? I understood the choice.
I felt Lil Kim. I felt for Lil Kim. I cared about her. I knew that girl.
I wanted it be better for her. She was Big’s ride or die chick.
And Naturi Naughton IS the next big thing. She simply ripped that performance.

Anthony Mackie and Derek Luke are both phenomenal actors.
But it would be difficult for anyone to capture the complexity and beauty of Pac.
So I can’t be mad at Anthony. It wasn’t his fault.
And I wasn’t able to get into Derek Luke as Puff.
So what I did was just appreciate him as Derek Luke.
A handsome guy, a great actor, who has his own swag.
At times, I thought that he was putting too much on it.
But maybe that’s really Puff or maybe that’s just me.
Antonique Smith did a decent Faith.
And I was pleasantly surprised when she began to sing.
Jamal Woolard had his work cut out for him.
But he exceeded my expectations.
He. Was. Big.
I honestly could not tell that this was his first time acting.
Other than me wanting to hear Big’s voice, When he performed,
he was more than convincing.
Woolard did him justice. Big would’ve been proud of his performance.
The movie was well cast. It looked great! The characters were believable.

Overall the film reminded me that Biggie was a rock star!
He was magnetic.
He was flawed and hilarious and fun.
There was substance in this story. I cared about these people.
And even though I knew the end of the story, I cried anyway.
Cause it reminded me of all we’re missing now that Big’s gone.
We hadn’t really gotten to know him well.
We were just sinking our teeth into who he was.
This was definitely not a made for t.v. movie.
It was a beautifully done biopic.
It was about a dude in the struggle,
trying to grow, and change and live his dreams.
It was about one of the dopest lyricist to ever do it, that died way too soon.
But I love Big Poppa, so...

Remembering Aaliyah 1.16.79 - 8.25.01

Aaliyah had me at 'let me know, let me knooooowwwww'!
Her rendition of 'At Your Best' was lovely.
And that's saying a lot. Cause the Isley Brothers are the truth!
She wasn't Whitney Houston. But you felt it.
Her voice was soulful. sultry. simple.
She sang like chamomile tea w/lavender.
Who knew then that she was only 14?

Aaliyah arrived on the scene with Monica and Brandy.
But she stood out from the pack.
She was quiet. mysterious.
I didn't know what to make of this girl with her midriff showing,
Tommy Hilfiger jeans, and Veronica Lake style.
But here's what I did know...
Aaliyah had 'IT'.
She reminded me of the old school artists.
She'd drop an album every few years.
Didn't do a whole lot of t.v.
She kept us hungry, wanting, and waiting anxiously for more.
When 'Romeo Must Die' opened. I was done.
She was an actress too!

Aaliyah was beautiful, a tomboy even.
Then the 'Are you that somebody?' video dropped.
It was official. She'd made it to my little brother's bedroom wall.
She was sexy, a bonafide grown ass woman.

2 weeks before 9/11, Aaliyah died in the worst possible way.
And it was an incredible loss. shocking.
She had everything in front of her.
She was on the doorsteps of superstardom.
I was so ready for what was to come in her career.
I wanted to see her in 'Sparkle', 'Honey' & 'The Matrix'.
And I can only imagine what she, Missy and Timberland had in store.
Yes, we're all going to go.
And I try not to question God,
but Aaliyah's passing just seems so wrong.

Aaliyah would've turned 30 years old today.
And she is still sorely missed.
There are many that attempt to do it the way she did.
But they don't come close. I don't think they ever will.

R.I.P Babygirl

NOTORIOUS 'an essaysandthings' Q & A with director George Tillman Jr.

I thoroughly dig The Notorious B.I.G. He is clearly one of the best to ever touch the mic. He’s a story teller, an icon. What other rappers struggle to do came easy to BIG. It’s been 12 years since Biggie was ripped away from us. While Hip- Hop is the hottest genre of music today, Big’s absence has forever bent its structure. I caught up with George Tillman Jr. the other day. We chatted a bit about his experience directing the film NOTORIOUS and his thoughts on Christopher Wallace, the man, the rapper.

LBE: First of all thank you so much for calling. I know that you’re crazy busy promoting the film. So I truly appreciate you taking the time to speak with me. I have a few questions. And I want to tell you that I LOVE BIG!

GT: No problem. No problem. Good.

LBE: Biggie’s death is still a hot topic, still an open investigation. How difficult was it gathering information about the film?

GT: We focused more on the stuff that people don’t know. We focused on his life in general; his life from age 13 to 24. What made him who he is today. How his life changed over the course of 24 years. And we get into a little bit about the death. You know, it wasn’t really complicated. When we got around to the Quad studio scene with Tupac, and when we got around to the L.A. stuff, it was a little difficult but at the same time what we’re hoping is that the movie is going to open the doors for a lot of that stuff to come out.

LBE: How involved were Big’s friends & family (Mrs. Wallace, Faith Evans, Diddy) in the making of this movie and what was it like working with them?

GT: It was great. You know, when I first heard that Ms. Wallace was going to be on the set every day...

LBE: Everyday?!

GT: Yeah, everyday. I was thinking that she was going to be there trying to maintain what goes in the movie and what doesn’t. But she was cool. She was very open about showing the good side and the bad side. She always recognized that her son had another side to him; a dark side. And she feels that it’s very important for the audience to be able to experience both sides. So it was great.
C.J (biggie’s son) is in the movie and that allowed Faith to be around a lot. She was great to talk to. We got a lot of inside scoop. Puffy was around a little bit. He didn’t get a chance to be on the set as much. It was a little emotional for him. He respectfully allowed me to make the kind of movie that I wanted to make. We just got a few notes here and there. So it was really good. We had Junior Mafia, Money L, (Biggie’s real hype man) We had a lot of his people around, Lil Cease, Nino Brown. All of these guys were around when we were making the movie so it kept things authentic. It kept things real.

LBE: Was Lil Kim around or was she locked up at the time?

GT: No, I saw Lil Kim one time. It was really complicated. Something went down with her and the family early on before I got involved with the film. She came one day to the pre-production office and she was pretty upset. And, um, that’s the last time I saw her. I wish she had a chance to see the movie because I think she would love the movie if she saw it. I think she has issues about some script that she saw before we even shot the film.

LBE: How was it working with a new crop of talent? I understand that Biggie’s character Jamal Woolard, is a new guy. Was that challenging for you and if so, in what way?

GT: The whole movie was challenging because these are real people. Biggie died only 12 years ago. So a lot of these people are still alive. It isn’t like most bio pics where the person died 30 or 40 yrs ago. That made it very difficult. These people are still in the public eye. People have their own ownership of who these people are. A lot of people own Biggie and really love him as an icon. So that it makes it very, very difficult to get the movie right. We knew that we had to come with it every day. We had to boot camp and work with new actors. Everybody had their heart in it and we just took it an extra 200 percent to get what we needed to get across.
Having new actors is the best thing because it brings a new concept to an idea when the audience is watching. It doesn’t bring extra baggage to the table.

LBE: Well you pretty much knocked out my next question (lol) which was going to be -Do you think that there was extra pressure making a movie about a person that many in this generation consider an icon?

GT: Well, Biggie is an icon now. When he was around he wasn’t. What we tried to do in this movie is show you Sean Combs. Puffy isn’t Puffy or P. Diddy. He’s a guy, hustling who lost his father at a very young age. Just like Biggie comes from a single parent, single mom. You know, these guys had gifts and vision. A lot of this movie is really the genesis of who these people are in the beginning. That’s what makes it exciting; not portraying what people see on ‘Making The Band’. We’re portraying these people in the early stages. And that alone will make the film more universal for everybody.

LBE: What are we going to learn about Biggie that we don’t know now?

GT: I think that people are going to learn a lot. Really. You know his mom called him ‘Chrissy Poo’. And then he was Biggie Smalls. He was Notorious B.I.G. and then he became Christopher Wallace. So we watched the evolution of a young man becoming a man. And how he struggled with being a father, struggled with being a son, being a husband. He was all these things. And he was doing the wrong things for the right reasons at certain times. He made a lot of mistakes along the way. This is about a person coming full circle and realizing some of the mistakes that he made. So we’re looking at a movie that universally deals with a lot of men , especially African American men in general. Some of the issues and problems that we’re having in our society, we kind of represent that.

And music takes a back seat. But we have a lot of music. We have like 6 concerts. The fans will enjoy the music but you’re going to see a little bit of the struggle and how he dealt with that. How he looked at his life especially after Tupac’s death. You know, when Tupac died he had 5 or 6 months to really look at his life. And that car accident really let him look and analyze certain things. That’s why you can look at “Sky is the Limit” and listen to that song. He’s talking about a whole different thing on that album. So this is for people really being able to realize that the icon is human. And the human aspect is very close to what I may be dealing with in my own life. You’re walking away with a tear jerker, bittersweet, but you’re going to be walking away feeling good.

LBE: Can we look forward to any unreleased music from Big on the soundtrack?

GT: Yeah, the soundtrack comes out Tuesday. Sean Combs (Diddy) will be using about 5 or 6 original demos that’ll be on the soundtrack. Some of these demos are actually performed by Jamal in the movie. So you’ll get a lot of new stuff. Again, it’s about the beginning. And that’s what we’ll be representing.

LBE:Does Jamal actually do the vocals or do you use Biggie’s Tracks?

GT: When Jamal’s performing the vocals are his. When Lil Kim’s performing the vocals are Naturi. Any singing is Antonique (Faith’s character). We come with it with performance and just get them as close as we can to these people and sometime you can’t tell the difference. But we’re also using Biggie’s songs in the movie. And you would never know. So all that stuff is live. It’s done live.

LBE: What’s your favorite Biggie song?

GT: I got two. One is ‘Warning’. Besides Biggie’s flow, he was a storyteller. He told stories in that song. And not until years after that song was released did I realize that it was him doing both vocals. I really looked at his technique as an artist on that song. And he listened to country music. So that’s how he learned how to tell stories.

LBE: That is funny.

GT: Yeah, you’ll see that in the movie too. His mother loved country music. That’s where that story telling comes from. And the second song is ‘Going back to Cali’.

LBE: I love that too.

GT: I think the reason why I think I like it so much is because part of the evolution by the end of the movie, you know, people will see that Big knew that the last thing for him to do as a man was to go back to L.A. to repair that relationship. He had to go back. And even though he knew there was danger out there, he still went out there. And I think that song represented that. He wanted to heal the relationship with the L.A. crowd, with Tupac’s crowd. He wanted to move beyond that. And I think it was very heroic for him to do that.

LBE: How big a part does Tupac play in the movie?

GT: He’s a big part of the movie. There’s not a lot of scenes with him. But a lot of people didn’t know they were friends. That’s what we show is the beginning of their friendship and how that friendship became strained. And Anthony Mackie did a good job.”

LBE: HE IS FANTASTIC! Did you have any reservations or fears about making the movie?

GT: Not really, I’m like 8 years between directing movies. I’ve been producing the last year. Trying to get back into directing. Something was telling me not to do those other movies that I turned down. Something was telling me that, to lead me toward this movie. It was very difficult. It took a year to get it. Something was telling me that this is what I was supposed to do. I think I was destined to do this movie to really show that we’re not making a hip-hop film. We’re making a movie with real characters that has hip-hop in it. I never really liked any of the hip-hop films that came out ,maybe 8 mile. But I feel like it was my destiny to really create a genre that people can look at and say ‘these are real characters’ It’s not just a black film. It’s a film for everybody. The characters are very well thought out, very well arched. You look at all the characters and it has a theme in the film. I feel like I had to do it. Even though there were reservations in the beginning, I felt like I would be adding something to this movie.

LBE: If Biggie were alive what do you think he’d say about the movie?

GT: I think he would say 'You got it. You got me.' Cause a lot of people only saw Biggie smile one time and it was on the 'Hypnotize' video and that was his last video. All the behind the scenes footage that I saw he was always smiling, always laughing, cracking up. He was very charming. He had to be charming to get the kind of women that he got. He was funny. And what we captured is his lovable attitude and his personality really comes out.
And another thing I think he’d be happy with, on the musical tip, is his shows. A lot of people haven’t seen his concerts. He was really only on 2 tours. A lot of people didn’t see his shows. So here you get to see a full show… how he did it. And we got some of his real guys, Money L, who’s his hype man , Dj Enuff, whose his real DJ, Nino Brown, those guys are on stage with Jamal. So you’re getting it right as if he were doing a show.

LBE: Well George THANK YOU so much. I’m glad you’re doing this film. I will be there opening weekend. And I’m wishing you the best.

GT: Thank You.

your friendly neighborhood police officer?

Around 4am this morning this dude was running NAKED
down the middle of my street SCREAMING ‘I LOVE MY MOTHER!
I LOVE YOU MOM! I LOVE YOU MOM! I LOVE YOU MOM!
Abruptly awaken from sleep, my initial reaction was
‘Really? Well, can you love her at a reasonable hour,
quietly and in your house?!’
When my toddler was awakened, I was hot.
I went to the living room to find my husband looking through the blinds.
My husband, baby and I watched this dude…running.
I realized that he was not well. It was frightening, sad even.
Suddenly, out of nowhere 2 cops showed up.
They started yelling at the man to stand still…stop moving.
He wasn’t listening. He kept right on yelling about his mom. THEN I got nervous.
The officers reached into their pockets ….and yelled ‘STAND STILL!’
I told my husband to get the camera.

Remember when you were little and your cousin wanted to be a cop?
Remember when you felt safe when an officer was around? What happened to that? Where did our friendly neighborhood officer go? When did we start filming the police? When did we start WANTING to film the police?
I’m in the fourth decade of my life and I am more afraid of cops than I am of bangers because at least a banger may face a trial and get locked up.
I am more afraid because there are 3 beautiful black males in my house.
I want to know who's protecting us from the protector?
Who protected Amadou Diallou’s mama? Sean Bell’s mama? Oscar Grant’s mama?
Who’s gonna protect MY babies?

My husband never got the camera.
And 12 more officers and an ambulance came to the scene.
All ended well.
The young white man was taken away without incident.
I pray that they found his family and that he’s home safe today.
But I still went to sleep afraid.
I went to sleep afraid.