Does Your House Have Lions?

"One day in the late sixties, I was on the phone with Rahsaan and mentioned to him that just that day I bought a house.
He responded by asking, "Does your house have lions?"
I said, "What?"
He said, "Lions, you know like in front of a museum or the post office. You know, concrete lions. My house has lions. Get a house with lions."

--Joel Dorn

Saturday, February 28, 2015

A warm note from the past....

One day I will post a picture of all the many journals I have kept since 1996, when I began writing about Rahsaan.  But for now, I wanted to share something that I came across the other day.  I recently just moved, and in the process of sorting, unpacking, organizing--a never-ending task--I found an old spiral notebook from 2001.  In it, I had taken notes from a conversation I had with Joel Dorn, (Rahsaan's producer and friend).  I had just sent him the first draft of the book, the first fifty pages or so, and was nervously waiting to hear what he thought of it. 

I remember him calling me.  I was sitting on the staircase of my mother's log cabin.  The first thing he said was that he'd read the whole thing in about half an hour.  I couldn't decide if this was a good thing or not.  But then he told me, "For something that's not a biography, it has the most in-depth view of Rahsaan as a kid that I've read."  He said many other encouraging things to this young, scared writer, things that would buoy me in times of doubt.  He told me that he liked it very much, but that he felt that the end result would be different from what I had written.  He was right. 

I will never stop missing Joel Dorn, but I am so happy that our paths crossed.

Black History Month concluded with a movie screening

Friday, February 20, 2015

Rah film tomorrow night in SF

http://www.ticketfly.com/event/747479-case-three-sided-dream-san-francisco/

Friday, February 13, 2015

Friday Quote

"You have to live with whatever you play on your instrument. You have to live with that yourself. It's about bein' true to yourself, too. When I make a record, I know I'll have to live with that record for the rest of my life."--RRK

Friday, February 6, 2015

Friday Quote

"Bright Moments is seein' Richard Nixon out on a street corner in Harlem, tryin' to sell his tapes for fifty cents apiece."

--RRK

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

West Coast friends--"The Case of The Three Sided Dream" is coming your way!

(from filmmaker Adam Kahan):

Friends,
We are pleased to be presenting The Case of the Three Sided Dream west of our New York home base this month.
If you are in Missoula Montana this weekend (or need a reason to be) please join us at the Big Sky film festival this Sunday, February 8th.
http://www.bigskyfilmfest.org/…/case_of_the_three_side…/c/17
From Montana, we head to LA for the Pan African film festival. Three dates - February 12, 15 and 16.
http://2014.paff.org/…/f…/the-case-of-the-three-sided-dream/
And we finish our February tour in San Francisco, former home of legendary jazz club Keystone Korner, where Rahsaan played regularly. (Also former home of Yours Truly where I learned filmmaking.) We'll be at ATA as part of the Noise Pop festival, on Saturday, February 21st.
http://film.noisepop.com/…/noise-pop-the-case-of-the-three-…
Hope you can join us.
Bright Moments.