Menage a Trois

Memorial Day is one of those holidays that reminds me of my father's father, as he was a veteran, as it marked the first family cookout of the year, and as it was on such days in my boyhood that I absorbed the idea that cooking was not just for women. Dude would be up at five or six to start smoking his ribs. Then it was down to the Wharf for crabs, then a stop to the market, all in the name of giving his family a proper feast on a day that had a much different for him than on the majority of folks who've never been in a wartime situation. As I painted up some chicken legs in a honey teriyaki sauce I hoped that he would have been proud of my work.

Armed with nothing but a container full of legs, a bottle of water and a blanket, I ended up in Fort Greene Park with a whole grip of my homegirls in celebration of my new friend Keisha's birthday. There's nothing better in the world than being surrounded by beautiful women, sipping on Dominican rum and listening to an Ipod full of old school tracks you haven't heard in a while. I arrived in the daytime and left at night with a belly filled and a brain filled with buzz, all of these ideas floating through my head about where I am and what needs to get done. I'm looking for my next gig, looking for my next rep and just trying to keep it moving. Tomorrow is never promised and all that.

I took the long way home, cruising through streets still filled with people, teenage boys and girls making the memories they'll most likely cling to for the rest of their lives. Skirts that danced in the cool breeze, open-toed shoes, loud voices, cop sirens and the intertwined scents of weed and incense make up all that I find familiar. I watched a whole family of Nigerian dance on their stoop to the rhythm of a drum and bell. For me that was beauty personified.

I wanted the night to last forever, knowing that there's so much work for me to knock out in this shortened week. It's been awhile since I've just hopped out of bed and dove right into work, avoiding AIM and Myspace, Facebook and other procrastinatory measures.

Somehow, as I cruised through Brooklyn a few ideas came to me all at once. And as I put them down in my cookbook, a plan came together so to speak. I think the hardest thing about screenwriting is that unlike books, there's maybe a 40 percent chance that what you're writing will ever see the light of day. And even if it does chances are it will look nothing like the way you saw it in your head. On the other side of the scales is the chance that it will, that you can millions of folks with your words and ideas, messages and commentary tucked into the little corners where the D-monkeys (Film development people) don't look, because they have nothing to do with the bottom line.

I was hesitant to give myself to this craft because it meant me starting from ground zero again. Having published six books gets you on the phone in Hollywood a few times, but it's learning to speak the language that matters. It's taken me seven years and a lot of disappointments to figure it all out. But what I also know is that I was in no way prepared for what I wanted. Not only did I trust blindly but I still wrote like I was writing books, like the audience was the same. And if I've said that here before I repeat only so that writers out there who want to do both know that not all kinds of writing are the same. But now I've made my decision. Now I've put a ring on her finger and given into a kind of creative polygamy. It's kind of nice. One on top of me. Another across my face. A third recording it all with the most creative angles. Every creative man's dream ;) The candles are lit. The playlist is in effect. Time to open up that Final Draft 7 once again. Out.