Our First Blog Talk Radio Episode--Redux

Back Story: If you did come here and had a chance to listen, we decided to pull it down, and put up a real one, so stand by for the email with the new episode. I maintain the website www.ourworldpodcast.com so I will share the mic with Kathy Williamson since we work so well together. My World. Her World. Our World. We will try and do them live Weekly.

We will again discuss her nonprofit "Beyond the Mic" and her blog "www.LAStylin.com."

Email: look@isidrapersonlynn.com.

The Presidential debates a la You tube

My son was texted this joke earlier. It actually made us laugh out loud: What black man can repeatedly beat a white woman in public and get away with it?
Answer: Barack Obama.

And so, I bring you to my point about this presidential race via the Internet. The revolution will not be televised, but it will be thwarted on the Internet.

My son is recently in from studying this past month in Colorado, so he missed the viral messages back and forth. We played "Derrick" for him...the black young man the white reporter couldn't trip up in his impromptu interview. We also had him listen to Derrick's response which was just as profound. Then we found an interview with Derrick and his band that made me want to buy his album and nominate him as Barack's running mate.

Our son told us of the You Tube video of a man claiming to have had all kind of crazy homosexual encounters with Obama. Somebody Sinclair. Then we saw another one from a gay black man that was actually a spoof of Sinclair's. The first was reading. My husband found a story on him and how he was in a mental institution. The second was just raw. Neither made the news, nor should they have. The media is more and more savvy about Internet hoaxes.

Earlier last month, I received one talking about Barack being Muslim and how he was going to take over the world. There are Hillary hit pieces as well, and the cacophony of voices is deafening.

This presidential race is not for the faint of heart. But folks, lest we forget, take the high road. Publish PostIt is too easy to carry a bone. Check it out on www.Snopes.com before forwarding or better yet, let's just bury them.

Me? A Filmmaker??? What an Experience!

Walking Tall, The Life and Wife of Walt Walker Executive Producer, Gail Parker who co-directed with Isidra Person-Lynn | 54 Mins
I also wrote and narrated it!

Join Us Feb. 15 or 16 at PAFF www.waltwalker.com

My co-director, Gail Parker, just pulled off, after having given me one of the biggest "gifts" of my life: My director's pass to the Pan African Film Festival. Not only does it make me one of the filmmakers--it means I get to go and see the other filmmakers' works!

When I brought it inside, I turned it over in my palm, and showed it to my husband. Kwaku has entered a film in the last two Festivals, 2006 and 2007. And here I am carrying on the family tradition with 2008. So that's why he and I put the passes on the post just to sit there and marvel at them.

Last week Gail, William Byers and I received an email that our film had been nominated for best short documentary. Man! What an honor. Gail asked if I would go to the luncheon. I told her "No, it is good enough to have been nominated." (Of course I want to go, but the competition is stiff. If we don't win, I don't want to spoil the glow of having been nominated! But, we may as well go and congratulate the winners...)

For every long night, for every butt blister, for every dead end when trying to research Mr. Walker's life, for every three way debate and 1000's of emails, this moment that I received the pass is all worth it.

I believe I can fly.

Thank you God, and thank you, Kwaku for the wind.

JOIN US!! For random photos from the Making Of Walking Tall and Beyond Click here. . Now, if you are over 60, the movie is supposed to be free on Friday, Feb 15 (the 1 p.m. showing). Saturday morning, Feb 16, the movie is only $7.75 (matinee.) After that, we will have DVD's to sell, and this all helps Mrs. Walker, Walt's wife and business partner of 62 years. At 87, she will be there with bells on.
www.waltwalker.com

The Artists In Your Life: Are they Creating or Slaving?

What would this world be without the artists in our lives? They see things as only they can and create things that only they can. Unfortunately, school counselors and many parents put a dark mark on artists and suggest these students get a "real" job. That's why too many toil away--unfulfilled, with their creativity ebbing away as each day passes.

My sister, Alicia King, is a talented artist, although yet undiscovered. I love her work. She excels in oils, and pastels but she loves making things, flower arrangements, hats, shoes. Who thinks to actually MAKE a shoe? My sister does. But my sister does not work as an artist. She is working with autistic children as an assistant teacher. Before that she worked in a cafeteria. Before that she worked in a motor home building factory. My sister. The one with more talent in her little finger than our whole small town back in New Jersey works in anything but art.

In my travels, I have met great artists who stepped out on faith, trusted their art and created their livelihoods: Charles Dixon, Varnette Honeywood, Synthia St. James, Charles Bibbs. These are artists and entrepreneurs. But the granddaddy of them all, the one that could have passed for white, but chose to paint black images AND led the way by opening a gallery featuring the works of black artists was the one who saw his art as viable and used it for commercial work to sustain his family. He then parlayed that into a stellar career as a fine artist. His name is Walt Walker, and I had the pleasure of writing and co-directing a documentary on his life.

As is the case with all successful artists, Walt had a dedicated agent: his co-pilot was his wife and business partner Jane Walker. He passed on 5 years ago, but at 87 years old, Mrs. Walker is still growing and learning and working on the business of Walt's art. She will be there at the premiere, surrounded by her family and friends and all who knew and loved Walt. She makes things happen.

Two years ago, she asked Gail Parker, her web designer(www.WaltWalker.com), if she could help the world remember her husband. Gail and I had been dabbling in video production and took the project on as a way to learn, under the tutelage of our mentor William Byers. Harold Brown was our first cameraman, who shot Mrs. Walker and Cecil and Miriam Fergerson. We looked high and low for those who had footage of Walt and memories to share, or even a picture of Ray's Kitchen. We pulled together what we could but we were stuck. William saw us floundering and even tried to edit what we had. But we did not have enough.

One day, at last year's Los Angeles Black Business Expo, my husband and I had a booth to promote his World Afrikan Civilizations Class. On a break, I ran into Mrs. Walker. She looked good, but now she was walking on a cane.

I called "Hello! How are you?" She replied "I'm 87!"
Hmmm. I went back to my booth and told my husband I got Mrs. walker's message, loud and clear. My husband said "while you were gone, Moza stopped by and said they extended the deadline for the Pan African Film Festival (PAFF). You know you guys better finish this movie because tomorrow is not promised."

A few minutes later, I again went walking around the convention floor. The very next aisle Sandra Evers Manley, of the Hollywood Black Education Resource Center had just strolled in (with her queenly walk). I fell into step with her and asked "do you know where we can find money to finish a film project?" She said "How much do you need?" Flabbergasted, I sputtered "Let me ask Gail." At one point, she had been Sandra's web designer as well. Days later, Gail set a price and Sandra answered our distress signal.

William Byers agreed to shoot and edit and in one day we captured interviews with Ayuko Babu (PAFF Director), Charles Bibbs (626 Gallery Owner), Russel Walker (Walt's son) and Jesse Raudales (up and coming Olympic artist walking in Walt's footsteps.) We worked around the clock, and one day, it was finished.

Thanks to this chain of events, it has been selected to premiere at the Pan African Film Festival. Feb 15 and 16.

We are so excited, we cannot tell you. But I digress.

Perhaps I should have been the one to help my sister see that her art was viable. That's what Varnette Honeywood's sister Stephanie did by helping her create Black Lifestyles, when the popularity of the Cosby show flung Varnette's art to the national stage. And that's what Jane did for Walt.

My sister and I did create an unpublished children's book together "Penny and the Popsicle" and she has done various sketches and artwork for my projects through the years. What makes me most hopeful is that her daughter, Sonia King, now 16, had that same artistic eye and she has already had a number of art shows, and is getting formal training in her art at the Governor's School in Norfolk, Virginia. The world that Sonia is about to enter into is wide open as opposed to the one my sister had to navigate through.

It's not too late. If Mrs. Walker at 87 can see her dream realized surely my sister can share her talents with the world. That is my goal for 2008. Thanks, Mr. Walker!

Take care, and hope to see you on Feb. 16!

Note: All artwork above is my sister's (pictured at left with me-she's the one on the right). To see Walt Walker's art visit www.WaltWalker.com and click the link to his gallery.

Please: Go see The Great Debaters Today

And, please, take me with you.

5:55 a.m. I really have another cool hour before I have get to up, but all I could think about was how to convince you to go see The Great Debaters.

First, I love movies like this: tastefully acted, suspenseful and fulfilling, rich in history, but so dramatic that you don't realize you're learning history. I can't wait to see it again.

I really planned to see it when it opened Christmas Day but these holidays were so all consuming that I looked up and it was Jan. 5 (Ravi's s birthday) and I still had not gone. I wasn't even thinking about going, until I was at KJLH Radio, about to go on the air, guest hosting for L.A. Speak's Out, when I had to run to the door for this nice young man. My guests for that segment were wedged between an Obama discussion and the topic of my next post. They were promoting the upcoming Martin Luther King Parade in Los Angeles. Founder Larry Grant invited his celebrity grand marshalls, Dr. Mildred Garcia, the president of California State University Dominguez Hills, (a Puerto Rican sister, fresh in from New York) and Jermaine Williams, the young man who was trying to figure out how to get in to the station.

He looked slightly familiar and I welcomed him in, but it was time to crack the mike so I did not learn that he was "Porkschop" from Stomp the Yard until we were underway. But, Mr. Grant introduced him as Jermaine Williams, who played Hamilton Burgess in The Great Debaters. Like my youngest son, he just turned 25, and he was a joy to get to know. He easily interacted with the other kids in the studio for the next segment.

So, since I met this young man, after the show, I called the family to get up (No easy feat on Saturday morning). Kwaku was already out but Jaaye was sleep but I told him to get ready, we were going to the movies.

We went, and we were not disappointed. When Jaaye was younger I took him to see Lean on Me, a movie which he often says was one of his favorites. That one, Akeelah and the Bee and The Great Debaters are great movies for young students to see to help inspire them along their studies.

I am not going to tell you what the movie is about. If you lived in America, you've probably already seen the interviews of Oprah Winfrey, Denzel Washington and Forest Whitaker (click the link above for clips). Still, somehow it has only made a reported $16.5 million to date. It's been my experience that boot legs of I am Legend and American Gangster were readily available, (which in its twisted way attests to the popularity of a movie) but I have seen none of this one. The fact that many families are blowing off this movie is a tragedy.

Go see it in the theaters. This is one of those films we have been clamoring for, always saying if our rich superstars got together and made better films we would support them. But the gang banger films with basic unknowns are laughing all the way to the bank, while this one features two Oscar winners.

There were only four Debaters featured, and Jermaine is the one who did not compete in the end, so you will know which one he is, but the eyes of his co-star (the youngest debater coincidentally named Denzel Whitaker), haunt me to this day. You must see his last scene, his greatest moment.

More powerful though, was his interaction with his father and how they inspired each other throughout the movie. And Jaaye reminded me that he later turned out to be James Farmer, the founder of CORE (Congress of Racial Equality), since this is based on a true story.

Please. Go see The Great Debaters while it is still in the theaters. Not just for Denzel and Oprah's sake, (I do hope they venture into more cinematic efforts like this) and Denzel's great directing, but you should go see it for you. And bring that young person with you--no matter who he or she belongs to --and inspire their spring semesters.

Here's a few more pix I snapped from that radio program: Click here!

Muhammad and His Mother: Together Again

Wow...life is happening so fast, I can't keep up. Last Friday, like many who knew and loved Muhammad Nassardeen, I went to the Faithdome and sat and listened to an oral history of Los Angeles through his life and times and his efforts to get us to recycle black dollars.

Speaker after speaker got up and told stories that we would otherwise not have known. I enjoyed his personal friends best. They told all his business. I thought I knew Muhammad, but who knew he was a mama's boy who loved to sing? Who knew he had such a beautiful wife and children? I had read his daughter Alicia's writings in the Black Dollar, but that was it. And I did not know he was close to Attallah Shabazz, daughter of Malcolm X.

I last spoke to Muhammad right before the Expo when Randall Pinkett was Recycling Black Dollars' invited guest to a seminar at the Expo. Every year I covered RBD's Black Business Month activities on Crenshaw in front of the Sentinel. Except the fact that he was my same age (who knew?) I don't have any prophetic last moments.

In fact, my fondest memory of Muhammad was years ago when he invited me on his show which was then on KYPA, to talk about the Expo. I do not remember everyone in the studio, but Kitty Davis-Walker, his co-host was there, as well as Bill Overton, (Jayne Kennedy's husband and actor/author). Muhammad's massive presence anchored the small studio and just as we were about to crack the mikes to begin the show, his suspender popped and hit him dead in the face. Shocked, but now on air, we all stifled giggles, but Bill Overton couldn't hold it in. He said "No, man, I can't let that go!" and we all burst into laughter, along with Muhammad.

He was working on that weight. Harold Hambrick, expo president, said he saw Muhammad out some mornings on his bicycle. Some told me they saw a smaller Muhmmad at the Expo, but those who saw him at Jazz at Drew said he was limping and he did not look well at all. But he was still going.

But that is not why I am writing. The news of it all was the fact that everyone who mentioned it acknowledged that Muhammad was an admitted momma's boy. After the trail of teary eyed speakers finished, that Mom, named Amina, got up to address us about her son. She was dry-eyed, in full command, and spoke like a prophetess. She said she welcomed the opportunity to speak about God. She told us she last spoke to Muhammad a dew days before he passed and after an hour of chatting and laughing and joking on the phone, when she hung up, God told her he would be the first of her children to pass away. She said God repeated this message to her clearly. "He was preparing me," she said.

But who could prepare us for what came next? As she spoke ever so eloquently, assured, proud and dry-eyed, I snapped her picture on the monitor. Afterwards, I thanked her for teaching us how to mother. She seemed genuinely glad to hear her words had an impact.

And then this woman, who looks like our well coiffed mothers do-- picture of health and spryness--went home and in her sleep, passed away. ON THE SAME DAY SHE BURIED HER SON!!!!!!!!! Oh. My. God.

After I heard, I called my Mom in Virginia and told her the story. And as much as I tell a gazillion people I love them, I rarely, if ever, told my Mom. She doesn't tell me either. She will say "God bless you!" and I know she loves me and supports my every endeavor, but "I love you" is just something that we rarely say in our immediate family. And I climbed that mountain and said it. Surprisingly she said "I love you, too." And no matter what happens from here on out, she knows. She knew it before I said it, but it was important for me to say it and wonder of wonders, I got to hear her say it in return.

So call your mother. Don't let time slip by. As my mother always says "You never know the minute or the hour." And oh! I love you too.

Isidra Person-Lynn
look@isidrapersonlynn.com


PS: My condolences to the family and especially to Kitty Davis-Walker, who I enjoyed working on air with for years before Muhammad scooped her up and Muhammad's right hand Jacque Bee. Outside of his wife and family, these two heroines were the wind beneath Muhammad's wings.

Finally got here

Hello all. Yes, I have blogs about various things: the kids travels, my clients. But, this blog is for me and you. There are things that have been my experience I would love to share. I'd like to save you from all the trouble I went through.

My area of interest is technology and parenting. I hope there is something you can learn from my experiences.

Here's experience #1: No matter how chubby you are, how big your forehead or how thick your glasses, someone on planet earth will think you are beautiful. The most important thing is for you to think you are beautiful. Once you have defined beauty to include your big heart, your thick skin and your willingness to share, you too will see the beauty.

I started out life all of those things. Oddly enough, in the 5th decade I am still bigheaded, still wearing glasses and still chubby! But! I love me, I have a husband who loves me, children who love me and a Mom, siblings, aunts uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews who love me. I cannot say that for all the beauty queens of my high school.

God did allow me a brief period of phsyical beauty--from my teens til the birth of my second child. When I look back on pictures I say "Hey, I wasn't that fat, and my head didn't look so big." I even went through a major payback period when I thought I was a real fox. That wasn't much fun. Too many girls hated me who once felt comfortable with me. And I really did not like being mean to guys who once did not know I existed. I feel comfortable here, where I live...somewhere in the middle:

Oh, sure, I would like to weigh less. I am working on that. But losing weight will not make me one iota more beauitful than I am right now.
Did you know you can use your Ipod as a flash drive? When you insert your IPOD into your computer, you can set it up to "Enable disk use in Itunes," Then, whenever you are at a friends and you need that file, put it on your IPOD and load it when you get home. That's been my experience.