Maura Gale.

My only agenda for today was to participate in the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ceremony today at Kelly Ingram Park. Little did I know today would be so eventful. I’ve been a little anti-social for the past few days mainly just to collect my thoughts - exactly how I’m going to go about approaching my boss to ask for her recomendation to be accepted in the doctoral program to obtain an Ed.S in administration. I participated in going through the motions at the ceremony as I watched a few of my brothers stand before the podium and recite various Alpha poems and songs. Afterwards we formed a line of two brothers and marched over to the MLK statue where we layed the ceremonial wreath, sang our Alpha hymnal, and eventually went our separate ways.

Sounds pretty drab doesn’t it? Well, in all honesty, to me, it was, so I proceeded to do a little sister gazing. Ahhhh…a beautiful, tall redbone wearing knee high boots to my left. A poised middle-aged sister wearing a black power suit to my right - hips and booty defying her suit with the zeal of a woman half her age. Then, I noticed her. A slim, sexy, chocolate sister with two white individuals assisting her as she was trying to set up a camcorder on a tripod. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of the brilliant sheen of her Godiva chocolate skin and sharp facial features.

 I approached her to find out why she was spending so much time filming the ceremony. “Excuse me,” I said to the gorgeous sister. “Why exactly are you guys filming the ceremony?” The young sister responded “We’re students from Doane College in Nebraska. We’re doing a documentary.” Interesting, I thought to myself. But before I could walk away the young sister made a proposition: “We were hoping we could interview someone for our documentary. Would you mind of we interviewed you?” Damn, here we go. I hate being interviewed on the spot because a question will always be asked that I’m not fully prepared to answer to the best of my ability, thereby, making myself look retarded.

Don’t you hate that shit? You make yourself look like a fool and it isn’t until several hours later you think of something brilliant you could have said. Okay, I digress. Anyways, while the young sister worked the camcorder her collegue, a young white girl, asked me a series of questions pertaining to whether Dr. King’s “dream” has fully been realized today. Sure, I ran off at the mouth whatever I could think of off of the top of my head but I couldn’t help but to keep looking at the young sister’s chocolate skin. It was like I could just walk up to her and dip some of her skin right off her face with my index finger to get a taste. At the end of the interview I decided to use this opportunity to do a little networking and plug my weblog.

“Do you have a business card or perhaps some other type of information I could have to contact you about the progress of your documentary?” I asked. The young white girl handed me a notepad. “Sure. If you could, please write down your information.” She said. I wrote down information where I could be contacted. Simultaneously, the young sister wrote her information down on a sheet of paper and handed it to me. “Here’s my information. My name is India,” said the Godiva chocolate sister. Damn. Her name is India, I thought to myself. Too good to be true. A sister that looked like she stepped right out of South Africa, a princess in a prominent royal African family undercover here in the states trying to be mild mannered.

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My frat brother invited me to a gathering at the Birmingham Museum of Art later today. Little did I know I would have the opportunity to meet an aspiring actress. When I arrived at the museum I assumed detective mode and investigated the scene. There was a large table of refreshments in the center of the floor, a bartender to the right serving wine and beverages, and several tables where a few people were seated. I proceeded over to a table where I noticed an assortment of books, pamphlets and other reading materials. While I was thumbing through one of the books a pleasant, attractive sister approached me.

“Hello, I’m glad you could attend the gathering. My name is, Maura Gale. How are you?” I’m thinking to myself this is definately not your average sister. She had a brilliant smile. She was very articulate, poised, professional, assertive, and what I liked most about her was that she made solid eye contact. “I’m doing well. Romulus,” I said as I shook her hand. “How are you?” I asked her. “I’m well, thank you.” She said as she leaned her head slightly to the side and smiled. As it turns out she was the focus of the gathering. The books and what I found out later to be spoken word CD’s on the table were hers. She was promoting a play that she was having in Montgomery. Once again, yes I did, I became Mr. opportunity again and plugged my weblog. “Do you have a website?” I asked Maura. “Of course I do.” She responded. I smiled and proceeded with my little pitch. “Excellent! I’d love to read your entries.” I said. “Do you have a business card?” I asked her. “Actually, I have something better than that,” she replied. “Here’s one of my pamphlets.” She handed me the pamphlet. Just as I was about to carry on the conversation one of my frat brothers came up and began a conversation with her. Cool. I wanted to scope the pamphlet so I could find out exactly who this woman is.

The front of the pamphlet reads: Maura Gale of IMMACULATE CONCEPTIONS presents THE 2007 ANOINTED AGENDA. ORDER MY STEPS LORD Psalms 37:23. I scanned through the pamphlet and decided I’d peep her website when I got home. Okay, now that I’m home I peep her site and in her bio it says:

 

Maura Gale is an actress, poet and the author of Anointed Agenda®. She is being called the Maya Angelou for the new millennium. Her spirit filled stylish sounds are sort of like a Jill Scott meets the Word of God and her ability to transform synergy, which she calls “spiritual energy” into reality is definitely worth experiencing. Maura, the 1st Gospel Poetry recording artist, released a spoken word CD entitled “Ear Candy” on sale now!

As an actress, you may have seen her on “NYPD Blue”, “Ally McBeal”, “City of Angels” or as Claudia the lead role in “Love and Fate” on Starz, Encore and BET. She has over 100 radio and television commercials and promos to her credit, including Warner Bros. Jaheim “Ghetto Love”, Sears, Kraft, McDonalds, Southwest Airlines, UPN’s Star Trek Voyager and Metal Gear Solid II - Play Station animation.

I’m grinning like Borat - Niiiiiiiiiice! Okay, back to the rest of the happenings at the museum. Of course you know I had to peep the current artwork that’s on exhibit there at the museum. I strolled through the contemporary section and what do I run into but a peice of work by artist Bill Viola. Viola was one of the artists I researched in order to write about in my 8 hour long comprehensive exam for the masters program in Art Education. I simply did not realize how powerful his work truly is until I saw his work in person. There were two plasma screens on display that appeared to be transparencies of a man and a woman with a backlight in the box. However, while I was reading the description, I noticed that the man and the woman’s faces appeared to be submerged in crystal clear water. All of a sudden the man and the woman slowly pull their faces out of the water, showing their distorted image through the shimmering water - fascinating. As the two faces hovered above the crystal clear water the images of the two faces shifted into what appeared to be two faces of an older man. All of a sudden, I could hear someone talking into a microphone: “Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming to our gathering.” Maura began her pitch to promote the play that will be showing in Montgomery and gave times for when the production will be in Birmingham. All in all, an interesting day.