On a panel yesterday...

The California African American Museum here in Los Angeles invited me to be a panel on black fraternities and sororities. I did it as a favor to a high school friend who worked at the museum and I had a good time. On the panel was a young sister named Monique Jones, a VP of finance at a Hollywood production company (I'm always proud when I see black folks get positions in the REAL centers of power within Hollywood. Being an artist is fine. I need someone with my back who is crunching numbers and making decisions), George Alexander, a cool writer and author from NYC, and Art Evans, an actor who appeared in both School Daze and more importantly (for me and my boys) as Private Wilkie in Soldiers Story.

Now, this may sound peculiar, but there are two famous dramas that have turned into comedies for me and my frat brothers. They are damn near drinking games. The Color Purple is one, and Soldiers Story is the other. And Private Wilkie is a key character in terms of his lines. So I sat there, looking at him, wanting to reenact the scene between Private Wilkie and Captain Davenport, where Wilkie protests that Adolph Caesar's character had "taken my stripes and yes I wanted him dead!" You've got to watch it again. It's laughs.

But the panel went fine, got home in time to do some work on the documentary proposal MK and I are working on, and get some rest. This is going to be a long week. I have three more booksigings to set up and then I'm done. Kensington is going to email me today with a list of radio stations I'll be interviewed by. They're also going to let me know if they'll have postcards for the book and a bit more posters of the book cover. I feel like we're on the same page, which is good.