A MESSAGE FROM TYLER...

How You'duurin?!

In  case you did know... your girl here simply love's herself some TYLER PERRY!   Not to mention Madea is the funniest act since Jackie "Moms" Mabley... overall, the man brought dignity back to black television with simple yet ingenious antics; down to earth yet meaningful plots and plays.  Below I've linked his 60 Minutes interview with Byron Pitts (aired this past Sunday) where Perry spoke on everything from his journey thru a troubled childhood to his triumphant adulthood.  I think there's alot to be learned from this interview. Tyler himself explained in his latest open letter how even he  came to the realization that he's not quite out of the woods yet.... 

Message from Tyler: Taking Time

October 22nd , 2009

Hi there,

I know you've been waiting to hear from me. It's been a little crazy, sorry. I just gotta say, thanks for all the encouragement and for all the sharing you did with your own stories after my last email. I knew I wasn't alone. Just know that as I take this journey into all that my 40s will be, I am looking forward to every day of it, and I am thanking God for it and you. I like being this age. It has given me a sense of liberation. I'm no longer a boy...I finally feel like a grown man (smile).  So many people have asked me why I started talking about this now...I don't know where they've been for the last ten years. I've always talked about it but never to this degree, I guess. I think it became overwhelming after turning 40 and also filming a 60 MINUTES interview. If you get a chance to watch it, the interview airs this Sunday after the football game.  It made me come face-to-face with so many things. Byron Pitts asked me so many questions, that it started me thinking about my entire life. We went back to my old neighborhood and the house I grew up in. Wow! That was hard! But it's a journey that I have to face.
I feel as if God is allowing me to look back...for my future...if that makes any sense.  For instance, when my father heard about my last email, he sent a message to me through my brother. He told him to tell me this: "If I had beat your ass one more time you probably would have been Barack Obama." I don't even know what to do with that. No sooner than he sent me this message, my aunt called telling me to come home because my mother was very ill, (she needs your prayers) so I've been flying back and forth trying to keep my obligations all over the country and at the same time be by her side. It is very hard to see her this way, as well as my having to sit ten feet from my father, when I do...God is funny; He will make you deal with stuff even when you think you're over it.  I said all of that to say, it may be a while before you hear from me again. I need to take some time away. After the PRECIOUS premiere on November 1st, I've decided to take the rest of the year off. I just need a break.  I thank God for you and, again, thanks for being there and understanding.

-Tyler

Watch CBS News Videos Online

FOR THE LOVE OF ITALY by Cheri Gionne, 2009

Like love in birth
It's heaven on earth

Like a lover’s impromptu kiss and butterflies in the belly
Likewise I flutter underneath tye-dye skies and thru rustic corridors
I saw no sacrifice
Yet, my quickering lips prayed to feed my eyes a slice of paradise

The fire of the sun touching my skin
The spice of life at my fingertips
To hear the wind & rain in a shell
Go! Spellbound, I am yet another statue standing along the shore
Glaring & salty
The heartbeat of the city beckons
With him I walked the fertile parts of mother

T'was endless rolling pastures goin' on into tomorra’
Amid rivers of bright colours
Flowing thru the city like the blood of Gomorrah
Sienna, gold, crimson and deep green bleed thru its chambers
Squat, red clay pots to tall, indigo vases sat along thistled windowsills
Fragrant cigar smoke twills up as fine spirits spill down over crystal clear conversations

And a red door
As red as the wine of Florence
As red as my heart!
There we left our mark for the eyes of men
Winds swooshing over a teal ocean with doves looping
T'was dark chocolate and light laughter as curious tots prance
Snickering at our romantic gestures at sundown
The moon is full... hanging fat and lazy over the horizon
Odes of romance saturate nocturnal peak and mariachi ballads serenade the streets
We dance in the lush to violin strings and loud drum busts
Soft whispers in the ear
Gentle kisses by the pier
Let's never leave here...

KEEP'N IT REAL

Oh yes!  Celebrity gossip... the people's guilty pleasure. We hate to admit we love it like we do but just eat that stuff up like backyard bbq.  Well, allegedly some little celebrity tiff between Nia Long & Beyonce Knowles was the hot topic of AfricanoBoi's YouTube session. Props to AfricanoBoi for this down to earth, real, and of course down right, stupid-hilarious commentary. So without further a'do, for comedy's sake press play and see what homeboy has to say!

You can follow AfricanoBoi via Twitter at http://twitter.com/AfricanoBOi or subscribe to the AfricanoBoiShow via YouTube.com

GOOD HAIR

Well, if you were watching Oprah Friday you'd really think Everybody Hates Chris!  Mr. Funny Man, CHRIS ROCK promoted the debut of his new comedy Good Hair.  At a point, Oprah read a few letters from her audience and let me tell you honey... there were some angry sistas out there. As if, how dare Chris expose black women's beauty secrets! White women in the audience had a combination of lost and amusement on their faces while Chris defended his movie and Oprah kept the dialogue peaceful. As usual, Chris brought his nearly insulting, "pushing-the-envelope", comedy to the O show & I about died laughing.  Oh, let's not get on Shirley's letter. C'mon really?  

ROAD RAGE (&(^!% ...

So... I'm on my way to campus today.  Midway, I decided to stop and get a bite to eat at Wendy's; bad idea.  It was so much traffic that I'd sat at the intersection waiting to turn for nearly 10 minutes.  The light had to have turned red twice.  What's more, the most irritating non-driver's are those who block intersections.  Well, I finally saw an incidental opening so I decided to squeeze my little sedan thru it so to finally get to the other side, and BAM! some chick came out of nowhere and hit my car dead in the passenger side!

Immediately, I jump out of my car and commence to cuss out everyone in the middle of the intersection and told her where to go... "... and NO! we're not exchanging insurance!" I ended. I have my reasons.

At any rate, I was clearly red with road rage! Either way, I said what I had to say, got back in my car, put it in drive and ever so politely continued on into the Wendy's parking lot. I parked, went in the restaurant and ordered my food as if nothing every happened. The crew members looked at me as if I'd lost my mind because I was so calm & stoic.  The guy behind the front counter asked me if I wanted BBQ sauce with my nuggets. I kindly shook my head no.  He asked if I wanted my receipt. I kindly shook my head no.  He handed me my bag of processed food and I strolled out the door.  I checked out the basketball sized dent in my passenger-side, rear door before hopping into my car.

I did not sulk. I did not pity myself. I didn't even feel anger rising its ugly head again. I simply accepted it. I phoned by bestfriend and told her that I was a bit alarmed by my own indifference.  "It happened and now it is over, c'est la ve!". 

She says, "Girl, perhaps you just realize that in the end things like that don't really matter." I knew what she meant by that.  I've learned not to dwell on the negative but focus on what's most important.  OK. I'm still alive, no one died... including my engine.  Fine.  Now, if I can work that temper...

INERTIA by Cheri Gionne, 2009

So, I closed my eyes and saw a crossroad  

I felt paralyzed: don’t want to make the wrong decision. Death by indecision.

I hope to look back and smile

Seems miles away

I hear my father’s truck come roaring around the house like a lion

Like a rumbling, I hear wisdom when he speaks

Sometimes it’s hard to look him in the eyes

He has learned and earned

Yet, I cannot seem to stand on my own two feet

God bless the child who has his own…

On his land I took a seat

There is a promise every child must keep

With my head in my hand I weep

Father is strong yet I feel weak

Mother endures

They say 2012 is curtains

Either way I am certain someone will have regrets

I pray not I

I toil this earth with hope still

Though disappointments haunt me

…mind, body, and soul

I seek myself, wants, and needs

Courage, truth, and honor

I seek strength for my convictions

I seek to move mountains

Almighty where did I go wrong?

Hell, where did we go wrong?  You know... the propriety in society.

I yell HIS name from inside this temple

I am hurting it is just that simple

How long? Where do I belong? Can I be strong?

They say, you say…

In you is where we find peace

Well…

Maybe misery is my comfort

Maybe my heart is suicidal & rather pities me than face the challenge of being free

Maybe it’d rather suffer in silence than laugh out loud

Maybe it’d rather care than love

Maybe it’d rather live in idle motion than miraculously moving

Maybe it’d rather be damned

Human nature is a funny thing

Living and surviving on the cusp of time

From beginning to end our hearts know no bounds

As life takes us thru every up & down

“A smile is simply an upside down frown”

-surely the quote of a realist

Yet is it not true?

Our joys are simply the opposite end of sorrows

Still…

Hopefully tomorrow’s face will be right side up

Tired of feeling blue without so much as a clue of what to do…

This is a crossroad

In this vast field of ambiguity the devil is a scarecrow

My compass needs energy

GOD uplift me

I dream what now seems like the impossible…

To fly free like the Eagle

Enjoy grace like the Swan

Shadow the darkness like the Crow

Love like the Dove

And know no fear for the sake of clarity like the Owl

Lawd have mercy on my soul!

…With GOD’s mercy I shall someday rise like the Phoenix

My heart will find my guts

Nor will my eyes lie to my mind

One fine day I’ll be able to put my pride aside

Put my sins behind and live with no sense of time

Only a sense of purpose...

YOU'VE GOT MAIL!

MONGST THE JUNK YOU MAY FIND TREASURE... especially when it comes to email.  I recently had this incredible email forwarded to me from my sister yesterday....

Dr. Andrew M. Manis is  Associate Professor Of History at Macon State College in Georgia.  He Wrote This For An Editorial In The Macon Telegraph:

When Are WE Going to Get Over It?

For much of the last forty years, ever since America "fixed" its race problem in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, we white people have been impatient with African Americans who continued to blame race for their difficulties. Often we have heard whites ask, "When are African Americans finally going to get over it? Now I want to ask: "When are we White Americans going to get over our ridiculous obsession with skin color? Recent reports that "Election Spurs Hundreds' of Race Threats, Crimes" should frighten and infuriate every one of us. Having grown up in "Bombingham," Alabama in the 1960s, I remember overhearing an avalanche of comments about what many white classmates and their parents wanted to do to John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Eventually, as you may recall, in all three cases, someone decided to do more than "talk the talk."