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I always joke, if you want to become a succesful author, actress, cover model or even have your own sitcom you should go into the studio and cut an album first. Hitting high marks on the Billboard chart will open all kinds of doors. The music artists seem to beat out seasoned actors for coveted roles. Take for instance; Mary J. Blige has been cast to play Nina Simone in a film. Really? And you don’t have to simply have a hit. No, sleeping with a successful rapper can land you on the cover of major magazines. And Fantasia confesses to be illiterate yet she landed a book deal. I won’t go on about this pet peeve of mine. You get my point, right? Being popular in music can get you the next big gig.

Last night on the BET Awards Show Chris Brown, affectionately known as Breezy, made his first television performance in over a year. He hit the stage executing Michael Jackson’s dance moves like no one else can. (Sorry Usher.) And the crowd roared. I jumped to me feet, excited by the very sight of him doing Thriller. He KILLED IT. It was a victory dance, if you will, for those of us, who have been rooting for Breezy to come back.

Let me set the record straight. I have always been a Chris Brown fan. I’m not his demographic but I can appreciate any artist with real TALENT. Something many entertainers lack in this day and age. There’s innocence about Chris Browns image. Good PR. In a world of hip-hop artist who look thuggish, Breezy looks college bound.

I read all types of fiction. I really do. But when asked to list a few of my favorite reads….look what happened. All of these books are about oppressed people. Females oppressed by men and boys in the hood oppressed by society. I’m not sure why these books resonate with me, but for better or worse here’s a list of some of my favorite reads. Books I didn’t want to put down. Stories that gave me pause. Characters, who remained on my heart and mind long after I’d read the last page.

1. The Book of Night Women by Marlon Thomas
2. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hussieni
3. Douglass’ Women by Jewel Parker Rhodes
4. The Pursuit of Happiness by Chris Gardner and Quincy Troupe

In HOLLYHOOD, Naja Starr is the in-house diva and co-starring actress. To maintain her slim figure she secretly consumes jars of baby food by day. And like many women in Tinsel Town, Naja fears gaining weight and getting older. Either one could send her into early retirement. It’s the sad, sad truth. But Hollywood executives and directors, who are mostly men, are unmerciful in discriminating against women of a certain age and weight both on and off the screen. The overall preference is anorexic, twenty-somethings.

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of joining a book club in DC for their monthly meeting. My book, HOLLYHOOD, had been selected by Leigh Robinson Warfield for the group to read. Now I’ve belonged to a book club or two. I even started my own here in Brooklyn a few years ago. I’ve attended book launch parties, book salons and book events at museums. Yet, I was a bit unprepared for what my host had in store.

I went to see Brooklyn’s Finest more out of curiosity than anything. The trailer didn’t entice me but the recommendation of a friend did. So, I tramped towards Court Street in Brooklyn to catch a matinee.

Today I’d like to give to a big, loud, ghetto shout-out to Devon K. Shepard and Bentley Kyle Evans, two writer/producers who have landed television deals for 2010. WhooooHoooo! Now, that’s how you start a damn decade!

If you have read my novel, HOLLYHOOD, you know the story is not about a seductive female as the busty book cover implies, but it is the story of African-American males like Devon and Bentley making moves and money in an entertainment world not created for them.

I love Oprah. I'll admit it wasn’t love at first sight, but over the years we have become quite close. You see, she comes by my home everyday around the same time. And she never shows up without a good story, a good book, a good joke or even a good recipe to share with me. It just depends on what’s happening in the world at that time. Because like myself, she stays abreast of what’s happening in the world and she’s involved. She’s also into spiritual things like I am. It was Oprah who turned me on to Eckart Tolle in a whole new way. Yeah, she eventually won me over with her substance and content, not to mention her grace and her class.

Precious is the story of a young girls struggle to escape slavery, except in this modern day saga the white slave masters have been replaced by black slave masters who commit the same dehumanizing acts. Mary, played by Mo’Nique, is as lazy as any white woman during the eighteen hundreds, not having to do anything she doesn’t want to do. And she doesn’t want to do anything. She saves all the housework for her slave child, Precious, who she cracks the whip at daily with beatings and insults. Precious is raped, not by the white master, but by her black father. And in real slave fashion, Precious cannot read (though she daydreams in a foreign language) and she is breeding babies while she struggles to complete chores to stave off beatings and please her master/mother.