Copy Of A Copy

I rarely watch music videos these days, but apparently my good friend Kevin Ross does. He writes daily on a great site called 3 Brothers & A Sister. One of his recent posts features Alicia Key's latest video. Kevin writes about the video:

Seeing as though I met my now wife when I was twelve, I'm absolutely digging "Teenage Love Affair" by Alicia Keys. It's my favorite cut on her slamming cd. After watching the video, I'm just beside myself [Kevin gets this way sometime!] As a Morehouse Man, the whole "School Daze" vibe is so on point, I feel like I'm back in time.

Okay, first thing first. Watch the video. Trust me. It's decent. No booty shakin' or platinum grill teeth flashin' at ya.

alicia keys - Teenage love affair

I agree with Kevin in that there is a wonderful sense of nostalgia invoked by this video. However, that blast from the past ahh shucks vibe resonates with me mainly because the video is modeled off of "School Daze"--- a movie that echoes with visions of my experience at Morehouse in the late '80's. But there is also something disconcerting about director Chris Robinson's video.

Instead of culling his video idea from a fictional film I would loved it more if he had pulled from his own vision, his own scenarios, and his own take on the black college experience. As it is now, he's made a copy of a copy. The black college experience is so rich, so vibrant, so visual to mine from, that he could have created his own homage to the past if he had done a little work. Maybe he and Alicia didn't want to. Did they love "School Daze" that much? Has it become a "classic" already? Or was Chris perhaps a bit, um, lazy?

This video is really an homage to Spike Lee and the black college experience that was seen through the prism of HIS artistic vision, and not Chris or Alicia's. The issue (and hence the reason for this post) is to express my concern when artists rely upon other art as their sole inspiration instead of life itself. They lean on the learning of history or life from another's work without deriving that knowledge from the source.

Of course, especially as it regards old knowledge, you can't talk with anybody who has lived in ancient Rome or fought in the Civil War, so you've got to pull from third parties, books, archival films and whatnot. I'm a fan of Alicia Keys and I do like Chris Robinson's work. He has a fine narrative sensibility in many of his videos, but lawd knows, there are plenty of people who attended Morehouse, Spelman, Clark, Hampton, Howard and other HBC's to gather insight from--even if Chris didn't attend one himself.

Heck, they could have called me.

Worried About Pissing Off People Equals Zero Posts, Stupid

Before the word blogging was invented (it's kind of funny to think of words being invented but they are--every year), I published by email a regular little column for my friends and family that I dubbed "L.A. Diaries." They were basically short essays, thoughts and stories about my experiences as a young fresh earnest screenwriter embarking on my career in Los Angeles.

These days I'm still earnest, though perhaps not as fresh (or young!) as I once was (hopefully more knowledgeable and experienced though), and the blogsite has replaced the en masse emailing. Though I love the technological benefits blogging gives me, I've lost something in the transition.

Because of the public, aye, world-wide access posting anything on the web provides, I have found myself becoming very conscientious about mentioning particular names of people I interact with. I speak namely of the stars, those people who generate fifty-zillion Internet pages when they are googled (that's a recently invented verb).

It's not that I have anything damaging to say about any of these people (for the record, my relationships with all of them are good and those I really know are GREAT people), it's just that in a business whose daily decisions are so precariously perched on the pinnacle of public opinion that they can be swayed by a mere positive or negative breeze, I don't want to be the guy who's blowing the wrong winds. Are thousands of people reading my blog? Heck no. But it only takes one:

"Ya know this writer named Avery has told the world that he's frustrated at how slow things are moving with you."

So in trying to decide whether or not to write about this or that, I ultimately end up not writing at all. That's got to change.

In fact, my whole approach to writing professionally needs to be fixed. What that entails will be the subject of my next post--unless, of course, I have a very important story meeting with Tom Hanks or Steven Spielberg to tell you about first.

I could only wish.

Desperate People

BET held what they termed as a "job fair" yesterday in Beverly Hills. I went, with shoes shined and resumes in hand. I sat in front of a rep from New York named Wayne Brooks who looked like a football player. He seemed like a nice guy as we quickly exchanged pleasantries. He read my resumes while I talked about myself as a writer. "Well, we definitely need strong writers," Wayne said, "And from the looks of things you certainly have the experience. I'm going to pass your resume on to Robin [a BET exec who works in the LA office] and hopefully she'll give you a call." A few more kind words were swapped, then a handshake and I was gone. I've never gone on a speed date but I would imagine it feels something like that.

"Hopefully" echoed in my brain as a I walked to my car passing dozens of hopefuls, on their way inside, grinning nervously with resumes tucked under their arms. I've probably become a bit pessimistic these days but it all felt kind of sad and desperate, like cigarette ashen gamblers pouring in their last monies into a Las Vegas slot machines. Personally, I'm tired of pouring. I doubted that Robin or anybody else from BET would call me, so I quickly fixed my mind into other income generating ideas.

After talking with Stacey McClain, a former stand-up comic and talented writer who wrote for "The Parkers" and "House of Payne" but who is now relegated to going to the "job fairs" too, I drove over to Julie Baker's house to finish up a treatment for a reality show she wants to do with Queen Latifah. (She's Latifah's very good friend who's been styling the Queen's hair for the past decade).

And all the while I'm thinking, my future will dry up waiting on things to happen from other people. Why not do my own thing? So I started pondering once again on a business I'd like to start. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this probably is the way to go, a way to pull myself away from the Hollywood slot machine and pour my talents into something with a bit more guarantee for a decent pay off.

I'll discuss more about that idea, later. My phone is ringing right now. Maybe it's BET calling...
yeah right!