Vocal Expressions

Sometimes we just need to step back and allow ourselves the simple pleasures of life. Like, smiling at a stranger, sleeping in on a rainy day, chatting with your friends about any and everything without passing judgment, watching a really silly movie, singing and dancing without an audience. Well, this week I managed to chat with a few friends, smile at a stranger in yoga class and take a walk along the lake. It felt so good to be out in nature, to bask in all it's glory. Then when reality kicks in you'll be ready to handle it with a smile!

I just finished reading this novel by Sister Souljah today. This novel introduced readers to Winter Santiaga, the 17 year old rebellious, pampered teenage daughter of Ricky Santiaga, a notorious drug dealer. But when the FBI arrests Ricky Santiaga and seizes his house, money, guns and drugs; Winter, her mother and her three sisters lives are turned upside down. Her sisters Porshe, Lexus, and Mercedes are placed in the foster care system and her mother gets locked up for assaulting an officer. Winter escapes by pretending to be a friend of the family and must rely on the hustling tricks she's picked up from her father to survive the streets and maintain her materialistic lifestyle. Everything that followed including being eventually turned over to child authorities, living at the House of Success, a group home for teenage girls, pissing off Simone, her partner who would boost clothes and other things for her to sell to her housemates and later hooking up with Bullet, an old boyfrien...

This evening, I enjoyed this play by August Wilson at Center Stage in Baltimore. The performance was riveting and left the audience wanting more. August Wilson has a way with teaching life lessons through his many plays. Other plays by August Wilson that I've enjoyed are: "Radio Golf," and "Joe Turner's Come and Gone." Synopsis (Ma Rainey's...): In a Chicago based recording studio, Ma Rainey's band players, Cutler, Toledo, Slow Drag, and Levee turn up to record a new album of her songs. As they wait for her to arrive they banter, tell stories, joke, philosophize and argue. As the play unfolds it becomes clear that the tension is between the young hot-headed trumpeter Levee who has dreams of having his own band and veteran players Cutler and Toledo. By the time Ma Rainey does turn up in full regalia and entourage in tow the recording schedule is badly behind, throwing the white producers Sturdyvant and Irvin into more and more irate disarray. Ma...

A girlfriend and I just got back from seeing the new Tyler Perry movie, "Why Did I Get Married Too." I'd have to say this movie was very good and one of TP's best work. It explored the marriages of four couples and the ups and downs they go through. All in all, it showed that there is no such thing as a perfect marriage. There will always be arguments, issues, temptations and other problems but as Janet Jackson, who plays, Patricia Agnew, a psychologist and author of a string of successful self-help books commented in one scene, "Fix it!" and that's the key if it's worth fighting for.