I've been reading non-stop this weekend. After another very full and draining week of training my employees for an exciting new school year, I decided to have a very low-key weekend. I finished up Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I was introduced to that book when I was doing background work for my current screenplay project and was led to Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" which ultimately led me to Underground. The book provided the "meat" so to speak that I needed lend a sense of authenticity and depth to my screenplay's lead character.



After I finished it, I went the library and found another book, one in which I had read many times before: Don't Block the Blessings by Patti LaBelle. Anyone who knows me understands my love for the legendary group LaBelle fronted by the one and only Patti LaBelle. In recent years, I have been toying with the concept of writing a screenplay about the career of this amazingly underrated supergroup. To me, they epitomize what a female vocal group should stand for: they were politically, socially and sexually conscious and miles away from their contemporaries and even those who dare to call themselves girl groups today. When I was in New York, I managed to acquire the contact information for the group's longstanding manager, Vicki Wickham. I'm currently working on a presentation for them. After putting it off, I decided that I would make a go of writing a screenplay about this important group in rock and roll history.

Another thing that's been on my mind lately is Las Vegas. If you don't know, I lived in Vegas for a total of seven years as a kid and teenager. My father and my brother still reside there. I haven't seen or spoken to either of them in almost two years. Now that I live in L.A., I'm only a hop, skip and a jump from them. Since, I can't get to Florida as often as I would like, I decided I should try to mend the long-broken relationships with the "Black sheeps" of my dysfunctional little family. My mother called me a few days ago and shared that she would like me to begin making monthly trips to Vegas, particularly to check in on my father and his health.

Some early readers of my blog may remember that my father experienced a brain aneurysm followed by a couple of subsequent strokes two years ago. I took a month off of work to supervise his extended hospital stay. Well, once my father got "better" he blamed me for what he was told was a "mishandling" of his care and took his anger out on me. Myself and my uncle tried to convince him that it was the other family members, relatives and "friends" who complicated the process, not me. Unable to make him see the efforts and lengths I went through to save his life (even making plans to move him to Florida with me while he went through the rehabilitation process) and ensure his care, I stopped speaking to him. I was tired of the arguing, the lack of trust, the lack of gratitude. I needed peace. He didn't understand that the only thing I was afraid of was losing him to a premature death with our relationship perpetually on the rocks. One thing about my father: he sees things in life or death. Even when he drew up his end of life care, he didn't consider his options if he became terminally ill. This made my job harder when the situation actually occurred.

Anyway, I've decided that I am going to force my way back into my father's, and even my brother's life. I know it means a great deal more struggle, more arguing, more discontent is on the horizon. But, I think I'm learning to keep my eye on the bigger picture. Ironically, as my father gets older, he is getting physically weaker. I'm using this to my advantage. Maybe if he's weaker, he'll be too spent to try to fight with me so much and realize that he wants a great relationship with his sons as we want with him. My father is the kind of guy who's used to fighting hard. It's so easy to let him piss you off which just makes you, forces you, to stop dealing with him altogether. It's almost like he expects you to give up on him. And he's too proud to say he wants otherwise. But, I'm not giving him the easy way out anymore. I'm gonna stay in his face. I'm gonna keep coming around. Even if we have to curse each other up one side of the house and down the other - that's the way it's gonna be. This is one of the times when I am becoming the teacher. He must sit back and learn. Because, after all, I only have one father.

2 comments:

I AM PATTIS BIGGEST FAN..I HAVE ALL OF THE PATTI LABELLE AND THE BLUEBELLS ALBUMS AND SOME FOOTAGE AND I HAVE ALL OF LABELLE'S ALBUMS AND I HAVE ALL OF PATTI LABELLE'S ALBUMS AND OVER 400 LIVE PERFORMANCES. I AM PATTI'D OUT HONEY! I GOT DAT BOOK IN PAPERBACK AND HARDCOVER!

STANDING BESIDE PATTI FOR ME IS DELLA REESE! CANT TELL ME NOTHIN BOUT DELLA REESE I WILL EDUCATE DOWNE!

LOL

a Labelle flick would great, I'm sure your take would be good

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