Entries from February 2005 ↓

I’m enjoying a very rare three day weekend. It’s absolute heaven to sleep late on a Saturday and Sunday. I forgot what it felt like. Still, it would be nice to have time for a real vacation and actually go away somewhere.

My brain cells work one at a time on days off. I have a lot of things I want to do and plenty more things I need to do, but no ability to focus on getting much of it done.

But I am taking time to cook at home, another rare pleasure. I can be surprisingly bad at it when I want to. I’m my own guinea pig so no one will ever know, but I get these great dishes forming in my head all the time then through trial and error figure out what the recipe needs to be. I had some really bad homemade potatoes au gratin last night, but I know what to do next time.

I don’t know what to do on Sundays without football. I’m losing the will to live. The NFL draft is in April. Training camps open in late July.

I got a call Thursday from background casting for Law & Order SVU, inquiring about my availability for work on Friday. Now, I’ve been officially unavailable for more than three years now, but I still get these calls out of the blue. I was tempted. Had I previously arranged for the day off, I might have. I do miss acting.

I may have a chance to do some narration on a project for an agency that serves the blind. That would be fun. I miss voiceover work even more than acting.

I’ve got friends looking out for me. They put in a good word regarding a call for submissions and the editor contacted me. Lately, I’ve been more news reporter than creative writer. Now I have to see if I have anything worthwhile to say.

In just the few short years since he left Juilliard, Anthony Mackie has enjoyed a level of work most actors would envy.

He made his screen debut opposite Eminem in 8 Mile; debuted on Broadway in an uneven revival of August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, with Whoopi Goldberg; starred in Spike Lee’s ill-conceived male fantasy, She Hate Me; appeared last year on Broadway in Regina Taylor’s Drowning Crow, which critics seemed to dislike primarily for being an all-Black adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull; and received Independent Spirit Award and Gotham Award nominations for the Sundance Award-winning feature Brother to Brother. Another actor on a never-ending search for a good part.

Unfortunately, Mackie doesn’t find it in his latest project. McReele, the world premiere of Stephen Belber’s new play, produced by the Roundabout Theatre Company, is now in previews at the Laura Pels Theatre on W. 46th Street in New York. While it offers Mackie plenty of opportunity to display his versatility as a performer, it suffers from a meandering story line that tries to make too many points, the result of which is to make few of them well.

Darius McReele is on death row in a Delaware State Prison as the play opens, accused of killing a judge’s son during a botched drug deal 16 years ago when he was just 17. He has steadfastly maintained his innocence and has gotten the attention of a local newspaper editor Rick Dayne, played by Michael O’Keefe, who is interested not in McReele’s guilt or innocence but in an essay he has written. It seems prison life has allowed him plenty of time to think about what’s wrong with the outside world and he writes eloquently.

Dayne becomes fascinated with the charismatic McReele and convinced that the circumstantial evidence that put him away may be flawed. McReele provides leads to another man who may be the real culprit, and when Dayne takes up the cause, finally gains his release.

Post-incarceration, Dayne and McReele establish a relationship that allows the editor to hear more of the young man’s well-thought-out, albeit surprisingly centrist, political opinions. An arranged meeting with the state Democratic Party chair leads to an invitation to run for U.S. Senate against an entrenched GOP incumbent. And with that, this contrived mess of a story line wanders off.

To call this basic premise preposterous would be an understatement. Democrats are hard up for good candidates but no one would ask an ex-con–innocent or not–to run for office with no previous political experience. Further, playwright Belber (Match, Tape, The Laramie Project) never seems sure of what angle he wants to take.

Should he tell a story about a charming young man who may have a secret to hide? Is this play about how a carefully shaped media campaign can make a viable candidate out of anyone? Perhaps a tale about whether a politician is capable of actually saying what he means? Or whether a Black man is a sellout for wanting to leave the ghetto and move in power circles? Belber touches on all of these but never stays long enough to come to any conclusions.

The characters are one dimensional and thus difficult to feel any emotion towards. Tony Award nominee Doug Hughes (Doubt, Frozen) directs, but with only five actors and no more than four on stage at any one time, often leaves then standing in place for long stretches, as they deliver at times ponderously long bits of dialogue.

With the exception of O’Keefe, who gave a very wooden performance, most of the actors in this production did their best with inferior material: Jodi Long as Katya, Dayne’s girlfriend and host of a local tv news show; Portia as Opal, McReele’s wife, and Henry Strozier in multiple roles.

As a vehicle for Mackie, well, it never hurts to be a working actor. Having a play running Off Broadway should give him the visibility necessary to land his next role.

McReele, now in previews, will open February 24 and run until May 1.

Imagine owning the saxophones of Charlie “Bird” Parker, John Coltrane and Gerry Mulligan, Dizzy Gillespie’s and Clark Terry’s trumpets, J.J. Johnson’s trombones, Benny Goodman’s clarinet and Lionel Hampton’s vibraphone. Imagine the opportunity of owning handwritten compositions and arrangements by John Coltrane or Thelonious Monk, or the unreleased tape recordings of “Bird”, tapes of music no one has heard in half a century.

These original, one of a kind, artifacts are among a vast collection of items that will be auctioned off this weekend in New York. Working with the families of these jazz luminaries, Guernsey’s has produced a comprehensive 200-page auction catalogue with hundreds of images of the objects being sold along with historic Jazz photos. A substantial portion of the proceeds will be going to several worthy Jazz-related foundations. On February 18th and 19th there will be public preview days at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s fabulous new home, Frederick P. Rose Hall, on Broadway at 60th Street in New York City. Then the live auction will take place Sunday, February 20.

Among the many discoveries this event is bringing to light are Coltrane’s early writings leading to his masterpiece A Love Supreme; an uproarious thirty-one page letter written by Louis Armstrong; paintings of Miles Davis, the gowns of Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald, and material from the beginning of Barbra Streisand’s career.

Oh, to be rich enough to bid on and own some of this history.

My Valentine’s Day has come and gone with barely a whimper. The director of my department handed out cookies with “Love” written on them. A few friends sent perfunctory email greetings. Other than that, this was another quiet day, same as in year’s past.

Regardless of your relationship status, this is a day of reflection. People in relationships assess where they have been, where they plan to go and what each person means to the other. Single people, whether happy or unhappy in that state, can meditate on the positive aspects of being by themselves, or dwell on the negatives associated with being loveless on a day set aside for lovers.

I’ve grown more philosophical about the whole issue of being alone. As I’ve written previously in this space, the six and a half years I’ve lived in New York have been spent in relative isolation, with many acquaintances, few real friends, no love interests to speak of. There are no signs of that changing any time soon.

This has allowed me time to examine my situation. Certain hard truths have been faced that shed light on why I am a party of one. While it would be easy to fault other people for not loving me the way I wanted, as the saying goes, “When you point one finger, there are four pointing back at you.” I have to take responsibility for my own condition.

To start, I don’t need another person in my life. I want one. There’s a difference. Perhaps in the traditional heterosexual relationship model, some women marry more for financial security than love, but such models don’t easily translate to same sex relations, where both people are more apt to be self-sufficient.

I don’t need anyone to take care of me. I want someone–as a friend, life companion, shoulder to lean on, confidant, sex partner, vacation buddy, etc.—so my standards are a bit higher. Men who don’t bring the right energy, intellectual stimulation, variety of interests, values and life goals, get passed over not because they aren’t kind and decent, but because they don’t adequately complement my life.

I also recognize that I haven’t always been ready for a meaningful relationship. Passed failed ones will do that to you. With trust issues, self-esteem problems, and feelings of rejection and abandonment, even when I met nice guys, I wasn’t open and prepared to accept them. I needed reassurance of their interest in me, and absent that, had my worst fears reaffirmed. Until I realized that one person’s disinterest didn’t mean I was unlovable, I routinely pushed people away.

Finally, I have known my whole life that I am different from other people. Oh, not just the sexual orientation part, but in so many other ways. Despite living in NYC, I am really a small town guy at heart. I don’t need a fast pace, but rather a steady one. My tastes and interests are eclectic, from football to modern dance, 1940’s film noir to a fascination with trains. I loath hip hop and rap, preferring traditional jazz, and have no interest in drag balls, bars or clubs. I’d much rather go deep sea fishing or sky diving. I don’t fit into the same boxes other Black gay men do, making it very hard to wind up in spaces where I meet people with things in common.

But I’m ok with this because it is who I am. Old dogs can learn new tricks but not easily and not without a damn good reason. Until one comes along, I am content to go it alone.

I put on a suit and tie last night and tried to pass my way into high society. I attended a charity auction for my employer, an annual event that raises literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in just a few hours time.

With honorary co-chairs from the worlds of fashion and show business, like Todd Oldham, Lucie Arnaz, Alan Cumming, Eve Ensler, Natasha Richardson and Susan Sarandon; donated auction items from some of the largest companies and finest boutiques in New York; and personally shot donated photographs from still more celebrities like Fran Drescher, Missy Elliot, Linda Evangelista, Tim Robbins and Chloe Sevigny, the event drew some of the wealthiest people with a social conscience to the Puck Building in SoHo.

As someone who has spent most of his life either in the arts or the non-profit world, I don’t often rub elbows with the fashionistas and glitterati. (Ok, I never do. I told you I was trying to pass.) In both a silent, and a live auction conducted by an auctioneer from Sotheby’s, this was the crowd that can start the bidding at a high four figures and work upward, all with ease. People with perpetual tans, not from spending the afternoon under a sun lamp, but because they flew in from their winter home on an island somewhere. People so rich, an unshaven rumpled look is a fashion–not income–statement. In other words, people not like most of the folks I know.

The overwhelming majority of the clients our agency serves are people of color, mostly low-income, previously homeless, some formerly incarcerated or marginally educated, all living with HIV/AIDS. Our donor base is, ethnically at least, the exact opposite. Affluent Whites, many of them gay men, often coupled. Older, White presumably heterosexual couples were also in attendance. The absence of well-heeled Blacks (who do live in this city, I’ll have you know) as well as a significant number of Black gay couples was quite noticeable however. It was interesting to see how simple it is for some people to support their pet projects when they have the financial wherewithal to do so. Perhaps one day, I’ll hover in that world legitimately.

The food was sumptuous and the drinks flowed freely, both served by more gay wait staff than you can sling a dead cat at. But shirtless bartenders at a charity function is a bit over the top, don’t you think? I bid on a few silent auction items but haven’t heard yet if I was high bidder. At one point, our CEO and I were in a bidding war for the same item. Following the live auction, a musical guest, the lovely and talented Billy Porter sang, “The Look of Love” and I swear he was singing it directly to me. (He was. I swear!)

When it was over, I got my coat from the check room and was given a very heavy gift bag courtesy of InStyle magazine, and as others filed out into taxis and private cars, I hopped the D train back to reality.