The Urbane Urbanite

On paper, Red Hook Summer reads like an easy coming-of-age tale. Flik (newcomer Jules Brown), a precocious, spoiled middle-class tween from Atlanta, is dropped off in Red Hook, Brooklyn by his mother (without explanation) to spend the summer with his Baptist preacher grandfather, Enoch (played with gravitas by Clarke Peters), whom he's never met. But the latest joint in Spike Lee's Brooklyn-based oeuvre is anything but simple.

As a lifestyle and entertainment writer, I interview a lot of people. Almost every story needs quotes. You get quotes by interviewing people. That’s just the way it goes.  I’ve only been writing professionally for three years and in that short time span, I’ve had the opportunity to interview some pretty famous people. I’ve talked men’s style and fashion with John Legend; waxed poetic with Common about performing on stage versus on camera; listened to Ledisi (who is a super-duper sweetheart, by the way) reflect on how friends and family lifted her up during rough times. Two years ago, I sat across from Faith Evans in a hotel room in Boston where she raved about how Aliya S. King’s smokin’ hot debut novel, Platinum , was a spot-on depiction of what it means to be the wife of a hip-hop superstar. And then there was the time Angie Stone threw some very mild shade in the direction of her baby daddy, D’Angelo, during a quick backstage interview I conducted with her a...

Tyler Perry's latest film, Good Deeds , debuted last weekend to an underwhelming $15 million . But don't cry for him, Argentina. He's got three more times to get it right this year. With The Marriage Counselor , Madea's Witness Protection and Alex Cross all slated for release before Christmas, he'll more than recoup any losses at the box office. But does the top-paid man in entertainment risk overexposing himself? The Grio asked that very question in an article that ran on their site last week . Jarrod Harden and I, along with a few other folks, received the link to the story via email. Here's Jarrod's response.

Words By Perry B. With every Mark Zuckerberg and Sean Carter, there comes an equal yet opposite jackass who spent the past year devouring attention and contributing nothing to society. In honor of the douche bag debauchery, I have put together a small team of degenerate gentlemen to form the ultimate guild: The League of Un-Extraordinary Gentlemen. Usually, upon hearing the words “extraordinary” and “league” you may immediately comprise an urbane super-group with Tom Ford, George Clooney, Pharrell (of the Neptunes) and Idris Elba, ravishingly prepared to save the world, one swoon at a time. Or maybe that’s just me. In any case, a group of regal and rightfully deserving personas should come to mind. This is not that group. This is the other group: those who use so much time and energy soaking up all the free resources (both, sunlight and oxygen) that they’ve forgotten the true purpose of their presence. This is a league of gentlemen I doubt anyone would willingly want to be a part...

"There is something terribly radical about believing that one's own experience and images are important enough to speak about, much less to write about and to perform " -James Baldwin That quote by famed literary icon James Baldwin is a staple on the website for The Fire This Time Festival, and speaks to its mission to provide captivating, conscious portrayals of the black experience and offer a platform for early-career playwrights of African descent to explore new voices, styles and challenging new directions for contemporary theater. The festival, which kicks off its third season on January 16 with a panel discussion on diversity in contemporary theater, includes a four-night limited engagement of seven eclectic ten-minute plays and five staged readings (the panel discussion and readings are free) presented by the Horse Trade Theatre Group. According to Derek McPhatter, a playwright and lead producer of the festiva...

One of the most fascinating conflicts to watch on screen is the internal struggle of sexual expression. Only after watching important films like Pariah , does it become glaringly clear just how difficult it is to be your authentic self in a world where you feel there's no place to be the person that you know you are. Adepero Oduye brings that battle to life with her fearless portrayal of Alike (pronounced: Ah-Lee-Kay), a Brooklyn teenager who isn't really coming to terms with her sexuality per se, but more so struggling to figure out how, where and with whom she can be herself.

What better way to celebrate the the second most scariest day of the year (the first being tax day, of course) than by paying tribute to my favorite scary movie? In 1960, the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, did with showers what Spielberg would do with oceans a decade later: Use them to scare people out of the water! Psycho tells the story of Marion Crane, a woman who skips town with $40,000 of her employer's money to start a new life with her lover, Sam. During her journey, a torrential rain storm causes her to pull over to the side of the road and seek refuge at a creepy, vacant motel. There, she meets meek mama's boy Norman Bates - and her untimely demise. More mystery and suspense than horror,  Psycho  is a tightly wound thriller directed by Hitchcock with such precision and exactness, you'd have to be blind to miss the trademark nuances - his blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo, countless bird references and innuendos - that make up this cinematic classic....

I absolutely adore Viola Davis. Truly. Not just because she's a phenomenal scene stealing actress. (See her powerful turn in the 2008 drama Doubt . You almost forget Meryl Streep is even on camera with her!) But because she's the real deal. All around. Period.

Homer, ancient Greek poet & scholar Scholarly is the last word I would used to describe myself. In fact, the adjective is on my list of words people overuse when describing themselves and others. (Other words include: epic. icon. amazing. etc.) But, today, I am quite proud to announce that I've got a clip in a scholarly journal. Woot! Woot! Wait. Are written pieces in journals even called "clips?" The word "clips" sounds too light and general - not serious enough. I think the proper phrasing is: I've got an article published in a scholarly journal. Ah, yes. That sounds much better. Yes, yours truly has a piece in JENdA: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies. *Takes Bow*  Here's how it all came to be.

My love for the geriatric set does not start and end with The Golden Girls . In this youth driven culture of Jersey Shores and Kim Kardashians, I always welcome a seasoned diversion from the mainstream. Such was the case for Lovely, Still , a delightful, romantic film about Robert (Martin Landau) and Mary's (Ellen Burstyn) whimsical December-December love affair. A lonely Robert gets a new lease on life when Mary moves in across the street and asks him out on a date. What ensues is a heartwarming exploration of late-in-life romance with a sentimental twist that will leave you heartbroken. First time director Nicholas Fackler does a fine job of layering this fable with its snow globe setting and Christmas-themed backdrop. Lovely also boasts spectacular performances from its two leads, Oscar winners Burstyn and Landau, respectively.  Through SAG screenings and my addiction to Entertainment Weekly , I usually have my finger on the pulse of good independent films. Somehow, t...

I didn't lose anyone on September 11, 2001. I don't even know anyone personally who lost a friend or loved one that day. And because of that, I've always felt like an observer, like a voyeur who stood and watched this heinous, horrific thing happen to other people. If I had to guess, I would say it's because of the way I watched the attacks on The World Trade Center unfold: From a large office window in New Jersey, just close enough to know that what I was watching was real but far enough removed to be out of harm's way.

 Dion Parson  Looking for some culture in New York City this holiday weekend? Treat yourself to a night of jazz at the world famous Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola where Grammy Award winning drummer, Dion Parson and The 21st Century Band will be performing  now through September 4. I was in attendance for the kickoff of Dion's 5-day concert series, where he and his ingenious musical crew treated a packed house to a 90-minute set of traditional jazz fused with soulful, islandy sounds. Percussion, saxophone, steel pans, trumpet, piano, bass and Dion on the drums provides for a perfect blend of lively Caribbean rhythms and standard jazz harmonies. Not to be upstaged by the stellar musicians that play in it, the venue itself is a site to behold. Situated inside of the Time Warner Center, Dizzy's offers a vast, elevated view of Central Park and an intimate setting (the walls are lined with b...

For the past five months, Paul Shaw, an internal consultant for a government agency in the nation's capital, has called a cozy row house home. Situated in Trinidad, a gentrified section of Northeastern Washington, DC, is his completely renovated two bedroom, two bathroom abode where African masks, chocolate browns and vibrant artwork pepper a sun-drenched open layout. Shaw, a native of St. Louis, MO and frequent entertainer, took me on a tour of his welcoming 1400 square foot digs, which includes a Club Monaco inspired friendship wall, a skylit bathroom - and an upscale kitchen that serves as the soul of the home.

The day after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Kathryn Stockett found herself sitting in her downtown New York City apartment, reflective, lonely and terribly homesick. "I was thinking about my family and thinking about this woman named Demetrie," said Stockett. "She was the African-American woman that worked for our family for 32 years and for the first time in my life, I started to ask myself 'what was she thinking all of those years?' I had totally taken it for granted. I was so naive as a child. She knew everything about us and I didn't know anything about her. So I started writing in what to me was her voice." Ten years and over 60 rejection letters later, Demetrie's voice has become the bona fide literary phenomenon that is The Help . Stockett's debut novel about the complex relationship between black maids and their white female employers during the dawn of the civil rights movement in Jackson, Mi...

I attended my very first (and certainly not my last) National Association of Black Journalists Convention & Career Fair in Philadelphia last week. The Philadelphia Convention Center was the nerve center for everything NABJ: Ceremonies, panels, receptions, parties, film screenings, celebrity performances and a huge career fair. Although I was in reporter mode covering the event for VIBE magazine, I still managed to attend several panels, a couple of receptions and one lively film screening.

Image: S. James An unseasonably cool breeze whips through my rental car as I zoom up I-80 on my way from the San Francisco International Airport to The Meritage Resort & Spa in southern Napa Valley. After a six-hour flight from New York City, the fresh air is a welcome reprieve. The one-hour drive, which features glimpses of The San Francisco Bay, grassy knolls and rugged mountainous terrain, goes by in a flash. And before I know it, I pull up to a palatial 158-room resort that looks like an estate plucked straight from a Tuscan painting. I can't wait to check in! Image: Courtesy of The Meritage Resort & Spa

Teyari Jones’ new novel, Silver Sparrow , a stirring first person narrative told from the point of view of two sisters (Dana Lynn Yarbor and Bunny Chaurisse Witherspoon) who live in the same city, share the same father but don’t know each other, is so specific, so personal, so authentic it almost feels more autobiographical than fiction.

I was 8-years-old when I owned my very first album. Up until that point, Mom would purchase singles for me. The first single I ever owned was the Inspector Gadget theme song sampled joint by Bad Boys. And yes, it was a vinyl record. I'm sure Mom still has it. She's a pack rat. But the very first full length album that I not only owned but listened to from start to finish was Tracy Chapman's eponymous debut. The young man who drove the church van would always talk to me about this album that he could not stop listening to. One Sunday, he surprised me with a copy he recorded for me. After church, I ran straight to my tape recorder to give it a listen. Even at the tender age of 8, I could recognize good music when I heard it. I instantly connected with Tracy Chapman , especially the popular single "Fast Car." Backed by a gentle percussion and acoustic guitar arrangement, Chapman narrates a story of loss, hope and despair as her dreams for a better li...

If you ask Jack, the 5-year-old little boy who narrates Emma Donoghue's audacious 2010 novel, Room , life is grand. He's got the whole world at his fingertips, at least the world he's come to know. Trapped in an 11-by-11-foot room since the day he was born (there's a spot on the rug that "marks" the occasion), he and Ma, his 26-year-old mother, live day in and day out in a soundproofed shed in the backyard of their captor's house. A man Jack and Ma refer to as Old Nick, kidnapped, rapped imprisoned and impregnated Ma seven years earlier. Now, she's left to raise her smart, inquisitive son under the constraints of this hellish lifestyle. Tough stuff. Donoghue's brave decision to give herself such tight quarters to play with is admirable. The entire first half of the book takes place in the room where mundane tasks - bedtime stories, bathtub time, breast-feeding! - are novelized and made to sound interesting. She also pulls off another daring f...

There's a new musical in town that's garnering a lot of buzz. Baby It's You , which is currently in previews and officially opens on April 27, tells the little known true story of Florence Greenberg. Eager to be more than just a homemaker, Greenberg stepped out on a limb and did the unthinkable for a 1950's housewife: started her very own record label - and changed the landscape of the music industry forever. I caught a performance of Baby It's You earlier this week when they hosted a lovely bloggers night. The night started with a one hour pre-show cocktail reception at the ultra swanky Library Bar above the bustling lobby of The Paramount Hotel in Time Square. I nibbled on spring rolls and sipped on my favorite libation, Grey Goose and cranberry, while chatting up other bloggers. My hand on one of my many cocktails After my ___th drink, it was time to head two blocks south to the Broadhurst Theatre to catch the show. The moment you sit in your se...