Video of the Day – ‘New York New York’

  The past few years, the majority of my volunteer work has been with the Screening Committee for the LA Film Festival.  One of the films I advocated for last year was ‘G Funk’, which gathered most of the living legends of West Coast Hip Hop to talk about how they met each other, how […]

Video of the Day – ‘Livin’ It Up’

  I was trying to figure out why I feel so conflicted when I heard this song this morning so I looked up the video… ‘Oh yeah, Case is karaoking a Stevie Wonder classic…’ ‘Oh there’s Ja throwing up the W with Pauly Shore…’ ‘Is that Baron Davis meeting them outside the Viper Room?’ In […]

Video of the Day – ‘Springtime for Hitler’

  It’s the weekend! It’s also Mel Brooks’ birthday.  Even if I’m not terribly focused on comedy in my art right now, I am focused on the world I live in.  Mel Brooks remains one of the best to have done it. My personal favorite of his will always be ‘Blazing Saddles’ (of course), but […]

Video of the Day – ‘One for My Baby’

  Today’s video is one of my theme songs, performed by one of the show biz greats. I’ve auditioned to play Sammy once; it’s still a dream part for me.  May realistically be a little too far removed at the moment for what Paramount is setting up, but you never know… Enjoy!  

Hallelujah

  My Ramadan goal this year wasn’t as dramatic as the past few.  I didn’t focus hard on improving my Arabic; I didn’t donate all my excess material stuff to Goodwill. I came into the holy month in awe that I’ve been able to live my life without destroying ‘my life.’  I’ve also been aware, […]

Shaykh

  The official answer to it all is, ‘It is the will of Allah.’ If I go before I resurface next month, Surah 2, verse 286 should be on the front of the program: ‘Allah imposes not on any soul a duty beyond its scope.’ When my mind is quiet though, (which is often now), […]

Song of the Day – ‘Cult of Personality’

  One more song… This is darkly comic now, but in my deep dive of Malcolm’s life there was a 48 hour period last week where I was listening to the full audio of ‘Message to the Grassroots’, and ‘the Ballot or the Bullet’, then Kanye went public calling a slavery a choice and I […]