Blind Spots

If at fourth you don't succeed...

No *sigh* we did not pass our road test, but, yet again, thanks for asking. Again.

First / Second time:
dad just died. broken [me &] u was shaky and parallel parking was a mystery only half solved.

~ took a year off to settle nerves, find face & new driving school ~

Third time:
learned to rock the broken u & fairly well cracked the code of parallel parking. however, we failed to distinguish difference between stop for & ignore flashing lights on small school bus.

Fourth time:
k turn is still good, parking is even better, but even as i am now far more aware of the possibility of small blinking school busses--aware & awaiting them with cat-like readiness--it seems as if no one but my friend ami and my driving instructor will ever know how well i park & turn & handle the vehicle over all as i failed to yeild to phantom race car that neither my driving instructor nor i saw upon take off but was smilingly cited by my sweet wrenlike examiner as she etched F into what felt like my heart.

Fifth?
if i don't pass this soon coming tba next time, i'm gonna need at least a fifth. (and a slow boat to china...)

*sigh*

The blues ain't nothin
but a good
woman
feeling bad
about knowing
how 2 drive,
but not how 2 pass
the *&%!@
road
test!

pat yr foot to that, why don'tcha.

some divas are known to make their annual trip to the Carribean or Cuzco, whilst i, on the other hand am surely somewhere helping the local economy by giving liberally of money, time and no small amount of dignity by allllmost getting my driver's license.

the good news is i really have re-learned how to drive. the bad news is what i have described thus far. so, several handfulls of faux cheerios later, i type, as Duke describes my case so eloquently in Solitude.

in other news,

you need to see THE GREAT DEBATORS. full stop. just go. and take your teens & tweens with you.

what a moment in history: Oscar winners Mr. Denzel Wasington and Mr. Forest Whittaker produced by skillionaire Diva and Oscar nominee herself, Ms. Oprah Winfrey, star in critically & locally acclaimed film THE GREAT DEBATORS while Mr. Barak Obama wins in Iowa.

what a time this is, indeed.

ok. so maybe instead of burrowing deeply into my bed as the rotten scene of me not passing plays ad infinitum in my head, i will go to bible study & then set my face like flint and quietly endure the inquisition of invested friends. and then point them to this page.

but come what may, i remain...

Blessedly,
DivaCardista
blessedstarcards.com

ps: happy new year! we shall not be overcome!!

Like Them Who Dream...

Happy Fall, y'all!

How's tricks? Hope all is well with you and those whom you love.

Aside from a brand new specialist milking me like Dracula's cow--let that image combo work on you for a moment or two--all is groovy like a ten cent movie. Plus, both lady doctor exams -- annual boob/cootch check -- came back normal. Thanks be to God!

Ladies, get your gear checked, ok? Promise? Ok. Good.

Yo, I was crazy on the fence about whether or not I should drop my mortgage money at Radio City last Tuesday. But that Concert was rich like grandma's gravy, so i would have been crazy not to.

After seeing the nicest liver doctor who has asked for the most plasma so far, it hit me, y'know? Like, is this living? Is this what I want to speak for me? And is there an award for most doctor visits in a year? Do I get some kind of prize for all of this skin popping and co-paying?

Or do I need to break out [or be clowned]?

So I began talking to my Savior, like, Lord what is up with this? This rut of a life that just five minutes ago was so ripe and bursting with promise? And, in a way that only God can, He sent me to a small church to pray and stretch my ears wide so I could hear Him good and clear.

He said, "you need to go see a Broadway show. like now." So I got up from the altar, jumped on the train and got off at 42nd & 8th.

As I approached Times Square en route to tkts, I see these three AfAm sisters, all fanning themself with Legally Blonde [funeral] fans.

Odd, right? I mean, big up to the PR folk over there to pull that deep from The Community!

Then four strides later I see three/four Latinas with the same hot pink paper fans.

Now, as my inner marketer is going, "what in the world...?", I am beginning to hear lots and lots of singing. In fact, I'm beginning to hear...show tunes!

My heart starts getting happy the louder and more decipherable the lyrics get because the Lord gave me my mandate to go see your first love, you need to go to Broadway on the very day of the annual Broadway on Broadway celebration! What?!?

The doing everythingbutperforming rut, the mourning for my Dad [two years ago this month] & good times past with my Mom [now in nursing home, two years] in our old house [sold, two years ago]...all kinda went *poof* as I stood in the middle of Times Square and joined a few thousand of my fellow citizens & theatre lovers in a rousing chorus of Greased Lightening.

I just got so light and happy. And if that were not enough, at the very end, they released the most colorful confetti you have ever seen. It just poured down like one big happy hippy dippy baptism.

And, believe me, my soul got drenched.

Once I got to the tkts booth, however, tiny wisps of sadness returned. This time for August Wilson. (Again.)

So after I finally decided to go head on and buy the tkts ticket for the excellent Curtains!, I went and ate happily at the Edison diner, where August sat, ate, ruminated and wrote some of the best text ever.

I won't go so far as to say that I felt August as I got my pre-matinee munch on, but your girl was feeling the Edison's way reasonably priced chicken on a bun. It was on point and had me feeling good all over again. I even ate my half pickle. (Yes, I got "The Deluxe".)

That was Sunday. And just two days later...mph mph mph!

Imagine a world where the carpets are so plush you could almost loose a shoe with each step, and then not miss the shoe until your foot hit cool & beautiful art deco marble.

Imagine a tribute to a history changing hero who, by stepping up to the plate & giving his very best ended up eternally elevating lives even though it cost him his own.

Imagine such a person with such posthumous inspirational power that voices from country to gospel to rap to rhythm and soul to classical thought it no less than an honor to share a stage for just one night...

If you can imagine this, you can begin to understand the supreme delight that was The Dream Concert!!

The Dream Concert, featuring just about every hot with the hotness vocal artist you can think of, was given as part of the fundraising mission to build the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial in Washington, D. C. So, not only was this a good reason to drop a benjamin or two, but the Concert itself was absolutely celestially wonderful.

And it was long.

Since your DivaCardista had a stockholders meeting in Harlem, USA in the am, then The Bloodening at noon, it was a long day's journey into night for your girl. Consequently when I got to my seat, I probably drifted off for a bit. Only to awaken to none other than Donnie McLurkin and the Boys/Girls Choir of Harlem opening the show.

So you know how high the bar had to have been with this as the opening act.

Then came Babyface. Then Santana. Then Bebe and Cece, Josh Stone, Garth Brooks, John Legend, Jessye Norman, Talib Kweli, Luda...

Crazy, right?

And as if all that were not enough, Mistra Stevie Wonderful himself came out to center stage. Lord have mercy! Then he had the audacity of bringing out our girl, India.Arie.

At this point I could have used one of those free pink fans they were handing out in Times Square. Or some straight up oxygen.

And to think: if I hadn't gone to that small church & jumped on that train or if I hadn't jumped off that downtown bus & cut through Rockefeller Center--if I hadn't jumped out of my rut-- I might have missed all of this.

Before the snow falls, I hope you check in with your first love.

Blessings,
DivaCardista
blessedstarcards.com
fab fall sale 10-1 thru 10-13.
(don't sleep...)

it's hard to keep a good woman down

i'm here jammimg to classic Queen Latifah [and her "European partner"] & thanking the good Lord for a good breeze in a week noted for its 90+ degree weather. Whooeee.

taking a break to holla bout the happy phenomenon that I've noticed in my heavy Broadway viewing of late--

sisters are holding it down!

from Tonya Pinkins to Angela Landsbury and Marian Seldez to Fantasia (by way of Oprah), whether it's magical thinking you're after or if you just need it to rain real bad since, after all, it's 110 in the Shade, it's a sister thing happnin on the great white way.

Welcome into my Queendom, come one come all...

110 in the Shade
when we found our seats at Studio 54 last week to see "110 in the Shade", we could barely contain ourselves whenever Diva Audra McDonald spoke, much less sang. mercy. the cast is excellent, but Audra is extraordinary. really.

spring awakening
one of the few reasons to sit through the too many Tony Award-winning teen sex / masturbation musical set in bad old Germany (so that makes it ok, right? it's all about the setting, after all...) is newcomer and LaGuardia Arts High School student Lilli Cooper. nice strong voice, good acting, and very pretty. she'll do well, i'm sure.

ok. i was clearly not in the demographic intended for this show, as i spent many a moment looking as far away from the dead center stage action--eww--as possible...but, i did actually appreciate [well deserved Tony winner] bill t jones' choreography/stage movement, and the set design, and, shoot, the costumes, and, dare i say it, even the performers, just not the "eww" factor that had the teens & tweens totally enraptured, titillated [as Chester Himes would say] and absolutely giddy. how do i know this? we could hear them giggling during the sexual scenes and stomping and hooting during the tremendous applause, especially at show's end.

this very same factor, by the by, had the other half of the audience--we who are nobody's prude but just don't necessarily need to see a teenage boy lose his whole hand inside of a teenage girl to get the fact that they are finna "do it", as twere--leaving the theatre as swiftly as possible at show's end, making eye contact with no one as if to say, let us never speak of this again.

made me wish i had Tyler Perry on speed dial. (Madea wda beat every child on that stage.)

the color purple
interestingly enough, my church sisters were down the street to see Ms. Fantasia in "The Color Purple" at the same time i was watching those intensely irritated girls sing well and frantically stomp about their mamas who bore them. go see this show! i've only heard amazing things about what Fantasia brings to an already fabu show.

grey gardens
dang. missed it. but not for lack of trying...

spamalot
you want to have a fun evening of theatre? go see this happy hodgepodge of in-jokes, Monty Python references and sight gags. just go. you know you need a laugh. and Marin Mazzie is just pure-d funny. [of course, the d stand for Diva!]

and, speaking of divas...

radio golf
now, your DivaCardista initially went to see this piece because of our alumNoir hero pal and brilliant star Harry Lenox, but stayed because...well...in significant part because this was August's last piece. I tell you, every time I see the Hotel Edison--where he took many a meal and wrote many a brilliant theatrical scene--I get all wistful. August was the man. (more about him in another post.) but radio golf stands well and is an excellent show. i wish Diva Tonya Pinkins had more to do, as she did in "Caroline, or Change" or even "Wild Party", but she takes the scenes that she has and, as always, works them well.

ahhh...it's a great time for theatre, y'all. whatever your flavor.

enjoy the day.

Blessings,
DivaCardista
blessedstarcards.com