Saturday, January 24, 2009

Day 4 - January 19, 2009

When we came in at 4:30am the thermostat read 47 degrees so naturally I turned up the heat and lay down while I waited for it to warm up. I wake up at 7am in all my clothes and I am FREEZING! The thermostat now reads 45 degrees. Something is wrong. I try everything, to no avail. I decide to go turn on the heat in the van and sleep there, but first I go across the street to the other house to see if I can wake anyone and/or maybe sleep there. Luckily Deb wakes up and goes to investigate. I head for the spare (warm) bedroom. It seems the pilot light went out. Workers had been there earlier and the dust they generated killed the pilot. Deb went into the room Shirley was sleeping in and covered her with another quilt. The next morning Shirley woke up and said she’d dreamed she was freezing to death and an angel came and covered her. Deb’s been called a lot of things but this time-- “Just call me angel of the morning…”

Tonight we tape the HBCU Ball, that’s Historic Black Colleges and Universities for all of you who Negroid impaired. It is at the Sequoia Restaurant on the waterfront. This was truly a ball! The music was great, the DJ had the place rocking. Nothing like Black folks throwing down in formal attire. Add to that Sarah Dash, of LaBelle fame, singing. And then Rahsaan Patterson took it to another level—his voice like honey butter.

But for me the best was meeting a woman I love and admire. I think she is one of the most underrated actresses of our time, Ms. Debbi Morgan. You may know her as Angie Hubbard of All My Children fame or in her brilliant performance as the psychic sister in ‘Eve’s Bayou’. So of course I did my BA thing (check the series of pictures)

1. Meet









2.Charm









3. New BFF! (This time I was actually telling the truth when I said I wrote this role for her) She gave me her info and told me to send her my script;)












Our next stop was the Ethiopian Embassy to hang out with the Ambassador and friends. It’s funny because the Ethiopian Ambassador and my good friend, an ex-Chicago city commissioner, both have the same exact name and are the best of friends, Sam Assefa. So we are hanging out with the 2 Sams, one Sam’s wife, Desta from NYC, the famous Ethiopian model Liya Kebede is upstairs sleep (it’s only 2am) and others are in and out.


We have so much fun—laughing and talking (& drinking). The house is amazing. We are actually in Ethiopia when we are there. The only negative about the house is that it is next door to Donald Rumsfields house (oooh we’ve been slimed). We are all excited about tomorrow morning and the inauguration. Wait, its 4am so it’s THIS morning. We need to be there in an hour. Call the driver we’ve got to go…





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