Yesterday I received phone calls from THE THREE MUSLIMS. Hakeem, Said and Rashaad. I've been participating with espionage activity and Islamic take-over agendas for the last ten years with THE THREE MUSLIMS. Our latest crusade is to ambush the snack aisle at K-Mart. It's full of preservatives and artificial ingredients that have been known to kill lab rats on contact. I'm not supposed to reveal this information, but since my cell and COMPUTER is now tapped, well, what's the point of all the secrecy. Right?

I hope you know I'm LYING! lol.

Hakeem is a good friend who I've known for nearly 15 years. Hakeem grew up in Oakland in the Nation of Islam, and although he no longer participates in the Nation, he is a secular yet practicing Muslim. He called yesterday to share some good news: He's now manager of Marketing Services at Universal Pictures. I met Hakeem when I was living in the Bay Area. He moved down to L.A. to pursue a career in the music industry. I'm happy he's been plugging away and now resting comfortably over at Universal.

Said [pronounced Sa-eed] is one of my closest friends. He's actually not Muslim at all. His mother's Jewish and his father's Persian with socialist tendencies. Said grew up in Pittsburg in the Socialist Worker's Party with his mother. And recently found out that Random House will be publishing his first book—a memoir about growing up in the Socialist Worker's Party.

Rashaad is also a good friend. I met Rashaad 9 years ago at Dartmouth College in New Hamsphire. I was there participating in a theater residency with the New York Theater Workshop. A former football player with a mind as sharp as glass, Rashaad was a freshman English major who had been bit by the "acting bug" and was determined to become an actor. Rashaad is not Muslim either. Actually, his mother is Puerto Rican and his father is a Black attorney from Jersey. Rashaad gave me a call yesterday to let me know he's been short-listed for a top-notch film school.

The good news of Rashaad spun us into a conversation about films. About films that inspired us, that shook up our humanity. I shared my litany of An Angel at Our Table, Boys Don't Cry, Tu Mama Tambien, Salaam Bombay, To Sleep With Anger, Daughters of the Dust and Crooklyn. His litany included: Motorcycle Diaries, Braveheart, Passion of Christ, Glory, Do The Right Thing, Million Dollar Baby and Crouching Tiger.

We slumped into a gloom when one of us mentioned the opening of Tyler Perry's Family Reunion. You probably wonder why would somebody do something crazy like that. Easy. It's me. I'm always trying to stir up things. LOL. I defended Tyler's back porch comic ingenuity in his creating of MaDea—the "black man in Drag" Grandmama with gun and scripture in tow. The character is funny, but for me the buck stops there. I can do WITHOUT the movies. Rashaad had a similiar response. And as a budding filmmaker, he expressed disgust and disappointment at the lack of films that chronicle the complexity and humanity of "black" life and experience. With all of the Barbershops and Beauty Shops and Best Mans and other such thin depictions of "black" existence, Rashaad and I couldn't understand why more filmmakers weren't demanding such films to take a backseat to more complex films. But with money on the mind of EVERY film producer and studio, a consensus has been created: the only way to get black folks to spend money at the movies is to feed them something thin and it better make them laugh [or horny; or both].

So with that said: Rashaad and I's discussion catapulted into resolution: we must stick to our guns and tell our stories and be mavericks and understand the money dilemna will always reign, but that can't stop us from believing THICKER stories can make folks laugh, cry, think, change, shoot a bullet through the screen... something, anything. And hope that black folks will happily spend money to see themselves costumed in integrity and realness on the silver screen. [And not DRAG]. Yeh. Me and the Muslim got some work to do!

Until next time,

Keith