Visual Journalism Interviews

The Fayetteville Observer

Published: 09:01 PM, Fri May 24, 2013 

http://fayobserver.com/articles/2013/05/25/1258752?sac=fo.opinion

The Cameo's story, in three acts

By Skye Dent

The credits for "In the Company of Men" were scrolling past the unit publicist and best boy. A couple sitting up front and I, leaning against the wall with a drained glass of Merlot in hand, were the only ones left in the loge.

Like everyone who has ever worked on a film, I watch credits to the end out of respect for the collaborative role that even the lowest-paid production assistant contributes.

This made me privy to something I had never seen in all of my previous movie-going experiences. The owners came out and started cleaning the aisles themselves. For them, it was just another day: picking up popcorn, forgotten napkins on the floors, soda containers and wine bottles. For them, standard operating procedure.

But, it wasn't so standard.

Because if it were not for Chris Kuenzel; his wife, Nasim, and the Fayetteville community, the Cameo Art House Theatre would have joined the tragic fate of thousands of other community theaters nationwide that weren't able to go digital instead of going dark.

If the story of the Cameo were a feature film, its arc would go like this:

Act 1

Chris and Nasim move to Fayetteville in the late '90s to start an architectural firm. Longtime film lovers, they quickly realize how much they miss independent films.

But film distributors make money from filled seats. The more seats, the more revenue. Independent films, despite their high quality, barely make back the costs of production. Without much marketing and publicity, chances of bringing in mass audiences that eat large amounts of popcorn and snacks (where the real money is) are small. So distributors generally don't take chances on small films and small theaters like the Cameo.

That doesn't mean audiences don't want the films or won't pay to see them. I first saw the American premiere of the amazing "Once Were Warriors" in a Utah gymnasium.

So, Chris and Nasim buy what was once the Dixie Theater building on Hay Street. They squish design and construction costs by using their own architectural knowledge and hands. They buy a 1950s film reel Simplex projector, which still runs smoother and faster than most people I know born in the '50s.

Their first film? "Cinema Paradiso," a film about a boy so passionate about films and a small-town theater that they determine the course of his life, his loves and his near destruction.

Act 2

Though it's never easy running their own firm and operating the Cameo, the Kuenzels make it work. Along the way, they become valued members of the community. Still, as is the case in most second acts, problems arise. Ever-increasing and ever-insurmountable challenges confront the Kuenzels.

Most recently, that challenge presented itself in the conversion from film to digital projectors. The Simplex, like the projectors you see in "Cinema Paradiso" and "Sunset Boulevard," or even those caressed so lovingly by the film lover Tony DiNozzo on "N.C.I.S." are flickering klieg lights.

The switch to digital should have hit five years ago. But both multiplexes and indie theaters got a reprieve while major theater owners and the studios, neither of whom fell in the slumdog millionaire category, bickered over who was going to cover the costs.

The savings were tremendous to producers. With digital equipment, one can simply stream or email a digital file to the theater.

Don't get me wrong. I love the big-budget blockbusters just as much as I love indies. I ferociously await "Fast and Furious 6." I saw "Star Trek Into Darkness" on opening day. Digital makes many things possible for the common man.

In fact, the use of digital technology was the key reason director J.J. Abrams allowed me to hold a free premiere of "Morning Glory" for 200 students two years ago. Without digital technology, such an event would have involved a negative pickup (actually picking up the film reels and bringing them to Fayetteville). Never would have happened.

The cost to convert can be $70,000 to $100,000 per screen. The Cameo needs about $200,000 because it has two theaters, the 40-seat loge and the 124-seat theater downstairs.

Act 3

The Fayetteville community is not about to let the Cameo die for lack of digital projectors. Residents form the Save the Cameo Committee in October and, with the help of the Internet, start raising the cash.
They garner media support. They plaster the city with fliers soliciting donations. They sell unknown quantities of "Go Digital or Go Dark" T-shirts.

When asked, all say that the films the Kuenzels have brought to the Cameo have been films they couldn't see anywhere else. Terrific stories that brought worlds to their eyes that they would never see at a multiplex.

But don't take my word for it. Go to this website - vimeo.com/66676952 - and listen to some of these residents yourself. Tom Thompson. Edwin Hopkins. Angus Bowers. Lynn Legatski. You and people like them have done all the heavy lifting.

They celebrate with a May 5 screening, free for all donors, of - what else? "Cinema Paradiso" in an extended-film version.

The importance of this achievement is noted by the fact that the news makes it all the way to Emerging Pictures producer Ira Deutchman, a longtime major name in the world of indies whose films regularly garner Sundance Film Festival awards.

"It's wonderful that places like the Cameo exist, and it's wonderful that the community rose up to protect it from technology obsolescence," Deutchman says. "It's so important that these venues survive and thrive all over the country."

Most third acts are quick and dirty. The credits roll less than 10 minutes after the gal is got, the race is run, the war is won.

After the celebration, the owners haul out the old film equipment and instal the new digital equipment in time for the next day's movies.

The Simplex from the 1950s now sits in the lobby. Chris will show you how it worked.

"As a film lover, you love the fact that you've been working with the same technology and format that you started with," Nasim Kuenzel says. "But we've got to change with the times, and fortunately we're one of the few lucky ones."

The lucky ones? We residents of Fayetteville.

Skye Dent is a film and TV writer who lives in Fayetteville. She is a former member of the Observer's Community Advisory Board.

Not Just Another Acronym

Took another step in my goal of being the best damn writer-producer-professor prepared for a disaster.

Already had CERT training on both coasts, CPR training in three states, a Connecticut gun safety training certificate, and a California Dept. of Justice Handgun Safety Certificate.

Today, I received my card for the OSHA General Industry Safety and Health training I took a few weeks ago.

Now, I can rescue you, disarm your weapon, bring you back to life, and make sure the building we seek refuge in won't kill us.

So, there!!!

How many black sci fi chicks do you know who can do all that?

Skye's Column "Conventional Wisdom", Fayetteville Observer

  The Fayetteville Observer

"Conventional Wisdom"
Columnhttp://fayobserver.com/articles/2012/09/06/1201978?sac=fo.opinion
by
Skye Dent

Published: 12:10 AM, Thu Sep 06, 2012

Having watched most of the Republican National Convention on TV, I pretty much felt I was getting everything important without having to be there.

Yes, the commentators annoyed me by continuously pushing for feedback from an opposing side on everything. By now, you would have thought on-air journalists would know that context matters more to Americans than controversy.

But I forgive TV journalists for baring their teeth. Every other series normally airing during prime time features sharp-toothed vampires.

So, where comes the sun, now that it's the Democrats' turn? For me, it was a three-hour drive to Charlotte. I wanted to watch the convention in the privacy of my own home. But when you have ink in your blood and rare national events like the conventions or the SuperBowl are in your home state, you gotta go.

That's where the dreaded "C" word comes in. No, I refuse to diss Clint. He's one of my favorite filmmakers.
He's shot films in my Boston hometown. And the last time I saw him, he spent about 15 minutes talking with me about one of my two favorite novelists, Dennis Lehane. He's allowed a senior moment.

We're talking about Compromise. In my case, that meant driving to Charlotte for some pre-DNC meetings inside and hanging outside at the protest with my homeboys - police officers and journalists.

The protest was a bust. Twenty times as many spectators as protesters.

But conventions always hold wonderful surprises. Mine came because I couldn't take the heat. I went into the Caviar Nightclub for some air conditioning and stumbled upon famed musician Gerald Albright rehearsing.

Finally, my stupid iPhone came in handy. I got permission to shoot some footage while he played and even obtained a semi-commitment to score my short film.

My second planned event was equally rewarding. I was one of a fortunate 50 invited to The Charlotte Observer for a brunch hosted by UNC's School of Journalism and Mass Communication

Hodding Carter, a political commentator and President Carter's State Department spokesman, spoke with the folksy wit of Grandpa Walton and the relentless intelligence of Star Trek's Data.

His key point? The South is going through a fundamental change. The economically vital South is not static in its population base and thus has vast streams of people not tied to the past. "It was not a small thing that three Southern states voted for Obama," Carter said, "but revolutionary."

Peter Coclanis, an economic historian and the director of the Global Research Institute, was more pessimistic. He softened the blow with an intro joke, describing an economic historian as one "who loves numbers, but lacks sufficient charm, grace and wit to become an accountant." .

His main point was that the forces that created the Sunbelt South economy between the 1940s and 1980s had been largely spent.  The decline of light industry in the 90s and the new millennium shoved many once prosperous places in NC into forlorn, if, not hopeless basket cases “beset by every imaginable social pathology”

Kareem Crayton was next, a law professor whose research focuses on voter ID laws and voting rights. If one makes this a racially divided election, he said, the Democrats will always lose. The decreased availability of early voting will have a negative impact, he said, especially in the South, which used this tool effectively to get the vote out.

Jacqueline Hall, founder of the Southern Oral History Project, reminded us that the civil rights movement was about economic issues, not just legal segregation. And while many of the overt segregation issues were resolved, the economic discrepancies remained. "The distinction between the good civil rights that succeeded and the bad war on poverty that failed is often misunderstood."

Deliberate propaganda, she said, has stirred up and renewed feelings of resentment and stereotypes, redefining concepts such as affirmative action as "a wedge issue created to bring white workers into the Republican Party by creating the belief that it was a zero sum game."

This made me sit up. I had heard some professors describe Caucasian students as being part of the new minority that deserved greater financial aid. Was that a real or wedge issue?

Gene Nichol, a civil rights, constitutional and poverty law attorney, sure did know his numbers.

"Today we have more poor people and more politicians untroubled by it," he said. Over 15 percent of us live in poverty, some 47 million, and the highest raw numbers in our nation's history. Thirty percent of Latinos live in poverty. Over 25 percent of our kids. Forty percent of our children of color.

"We have more poor people in the South and less commitment to doing something about it," he concluded.

Being one of the newly unemployed, I started to wonder which figure I might soon be a part of.
Jesse White, former co-chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission, wrapped up the session by pointing out what he called the fallacy of globalization. "Over the last 30 years, globalization has ripped the covers off the bed of Southern society.

"By investing well in post secondary education but poorly in K-12, we've created a bifurcated society in which jobs have disappeared, leaving the bottom third of our population high and dry," he said.

These were all subjects and ideas that are being discussed at the convention, just not in front of the cameras. But the numbers were not just numbers. They reflected an equally diminishing lack of humanity deliberately being ignored by our politicians and the populace.

I put on my headphones as I left the seminar, hoping my impromptu taping of Gerald Albright might lift my spirits. But, for the first time in my life, I felt my hopes for the future... also diminishing.

(Skye Dent is a TV and film writer, educator, journalist and a member of the Fayetteville Observer's Community Advisory Board.)

Phage, My Star Trek Voyager episode

Was looking for a DVD of my Star Trek Voyager episode when I found it online.  No wonder I'm no longer getting residuals. :) Click Title to view.

Couldn't Help But See The Help

The Fayetteville Observer published this opinion piece of mine, the third in a commissioned series.

Couldn't Help But See "The Help"

by Skye Dent

I hadn't planned on seeing "The Help," the new hit film revolving around the lives of black maids catering to dark-souled white women in the 1960s South.

Sure, there were good solid reasons to attend.

As a black female who wrote scripts in Hollywood for over a decade, I know the small band of brothers and sisters of color still working there. I generally know someone who has worked on, crewed in, acted in or written any film somehow involving black people in front of or behind the camera. So, I support the product of my friends just as I buy the tamales my cousins make and sell door-to-door in Los Angeles.

And although many people think only black people can enjoy or identify with black films, that's preposterous. Audiences enjoy good films, no matter what. I've written for general audience TV shows such as "Star Trek Voyager" and "The Burning Zone." I'm proof positive that black people can write scripts that white people enjoy.

But "The Help" was another story, one I knew would hit home in a painful way from seeing the 30-second trailers. It was my story. My mom's story. My aunt's story. My grandmother's story. The story of many black women from generations before mine.

For all of them, it was a story of searingly brutal sacrifice punctuated with few moments of self-fulfillment.

The story of Negro women denied important time with their own families because they had to raise the kids of white folks. The story of women who scrub the floors of multiple level homes and then walk home in the dark to small cramped quarters shared with children and husbands they barely see.

My family's story

My mom is from Belize. As a young woman, she was runner-up in the Beauty of the Bay pageant. She had every right to expect a fantastic life when she moved to the United States in the 1950s.
Instead, she ended up being the help to a New Orleans family. Ten bucks a week to clean the house, take care of two kids, and cook breakfast, lunch and dinner. For the first few months, she didn't even get the full 10 bucks because the family deducted the costs of her passport and boat ride from Belize. When she became pregnant with my oldest sister, they kicked her out.

She and my dad, a railroad cook who was part West Indian and part Mississippi Choctaw, moved to Boston as did many Negroes seeking a better life and less segregation. Again, she became the help. I'll always remember Mrs. McFawn, the Jewish woman in Brookline for whom my mom worked. For the first four years before I could attend school, my mom took me to work with her and sat me in a corner while she cleaned.

In those days, tea-bag strings had cards attached. Mrs. McFawn did not make tea for me. Heavens no. But she did save the tea cards for me. Those cards had pictures of animals and little descriptions, my first clues to the power of the written word.

Later, during summer vacations from junior high, I became the help. I washed dishes and served food at a senior citizens home. My most vivid memory was bringing food to one patient and finding her dead. A nurse reminded a very shocked me that she'd told me the patient had "expired." How was I to know what "expired" meant? I soon learned.

And like the maid Aibileen that Viola Davis plays in "The Help," my mom lost her son at a young age - 16. We never knew the truth of how it happened. In those days, police used to take black boys into alleys and beat them behind the knees where the bruises were hesitant to show.

A few reporters said police had killed my brother and wanted us to investigate. The police said he hanged himself. At the funeral, I snuck up front and tried to rub the makeup from his neck to see if there were burn marks. But my parents knew a world of trouble lay in wait for a black couple making claims against the then primarily white Boston Police. So, my mom packed away photos of my brother.

Like Aibileen, my mom remained the help. Like the women in "The Help," what choice did she have? She not only had to help take care of her children. As an immigrant, she was expected to help those she left behind in Belize. She sent money home for decades. She helped sponsor relatives so they could start a better life.

Results of their labor

My mom and my dad were the help all of their lives.

Because of them, I got to go to Brown University, became the youngest editorial writer of a daily newspaper, produce documentaries for Discovery Channel, write a script for, and co-create an alien race for, "Star Trek Voyager," get a job as a staff writer on "The Burning Zone," work on "Dirty Sexy Money" and now, teach at Fayetteville State University.

Because of my parents' sacrifices, one of my sisters went on to become a successful advertising production manager. The other is an artist. One of her paintings was in the "Sex and the City" movie. And the younger brother, the other brother, went into the restaurant business like my dad. We may occasionally have to put up with bosses who have Ph.Ds in stupidity and arrogance. But, we don't have to clean up after them.

And now all of us siblings collaborate to take care of The Help. Yes, my mom has Social Security. But, it's never enough. So we fill in the gap. We take care of my mom. We "help" out.

So, why did I go to see "The Help," knowing it would dredge up painful memories? My friend, longtime "NCIS" executive producer Charles Floyd Johnson (along with actors Terence Howard and Cuba Gooding) were appearing after the Philadelphia screening of "The Help" to talk about their new Lucas action-adventure feature film called "Red Tails."

So I went to see "The Help" to have a seat up front when the credits ended and Charles came on stage. Charles introduced me to the Lucas marketing people. I got to see my friend and put in a plug to premiere "Red Tails" in Fayetteville in January.

I'm glad I saw "The Help." The characters were nothing like the typical woe-is-me black maids we've come to know and dread. The women and men, white and black, were nuanced in a way that didn't detract from the realism, sadness and treachery of Jim Crow Mississippi.

And surprisingly, it made me and the rest of the audience laugh for days. It had a "Driving Miss Daisy" feel, with more attitude and an expectation that viewers were intelligent.

I don't care about the complaints that a white writer got to write a black woman's story. I don't care that, yes again, we people of color seem to star only in films from way back in history and cannot be stars set in our own time. I don't care that they fudge history (the film takes place in the '60s while the portrayed murder of Emmett Till occurred in 1955).

"The Help," for me, proved an unexpected tribute to my grandmother Hannah, my aunts Grace and Idolly, and my mom Rosetta.

When you go from being a Belizean Beauty of the Bay to bathing white folks' infants in the Jim Crow South, few people applaud.

But, when the audience gave a standing ovation at the end of "The Help," they were clapping for my mom.

New Novel, 3rd Section

A time so far away in time, yet always on the surface of Amelia’s memory.

She was only 13 and trying hard. Trying hard to fit in at a girl’s New England private school that didn’t usually let in people like her, people from mill fishing towns. Already she stood out. Here she was staying at the school through the Thanksgiving holiday because she couldn’t afford to go home. Sure there were a number of other girls doing the same. But, not because they didn’t have the money. Hell, there was more than enough money in the lives of these young women.

The family of Laurel Miranda had so much money that when she was sent from 90210 to this Western Massachusetts prep school, her parents transported her horses with her. Laurel’s father was a power player in the telecommunications world. Shipping and stabling a few horses for his daughter’s pleasure was nothing. But, actually seeing her and spending time with her over the holidays, now that was a bit much to ask.

So, when Laurel came towards Amelia on the lacrosse field…yes, lacrosse…Amelia knew she shouldn’t underestimate her. Laurel’s chance to release her frustration could mean a point in her favor, and against that of Amelia’s team.

Ouch!!! ABM!!! These bodies slam together. Sticks cross like lances.

Ten girls, 13 to 15 years of age, mud-stained uniforms, scowls to outmatch Wayne Gretsky.

“Ger her! Don’t let Amelia get inside!” shouts one teenager.

“I’m trying!,” huffs a second.

A third opponent, running and breathing hard, gasps out “Catch her. She’s just a sophomore.”

The amused coach, Ms. Burns, pipes in from off-field. “Girls, remember. Northfield Academy was founded on religion, not homicide.”

The 13-year-old Amelia makes a sudden break, pigtails flying. Or so she thinks. Oomph!! Laurel, Amelia’s roommate, plows Amelia into the ground. Laurel smiles her regrets…and sweeps the ball away.

Amelia fall to the ground. Clutches her stomach. Sudden agony. She looks surprised. The impact wasn’t that bad.
Suddenly, her vision clouds. The surrounding sounds disintegrate to a mesh of whispers. She feels something malevolent lurking. She strains to see. And still, a shrouded world. Oddly, she feels no fear. Just an overwhelming sadness.
A teammates’ admonishment brings her back.

“Amelia, get up!!!”

Clarity returns. Its as if time passed for her and no one else. She nervously laughs it off and charges after Laurel.

“Ok, Roomie, I’m warning you. I’m gonna’ sweep your feet,” laughs Amelia. They’re the best of friends.

"You can’t do that!!! Against the rules,” says Laurel indignantly.

“That’s why I’m telling you first. Perpetuating, girl,” says Amelia as she makes her move, trying to trip up Laurel. Laurel dodges the first attempt. Not the second. No such luck.

Splat!!

Laurel’s a lame duck in the mud. Amelia races back to her goal as her teammates hold off opposing forces. Amelia dashes back to assist Laurel. Laurel sits laughing in the mud. Amelia pulls her up. Laurel surrepticiously drops some mud down Amelia’s back and givers her a friendly pat on the back. Amelia jumps.

“Aaah!!!” she cries.

Ms Burns looks up. “Is something wrong, girls?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” says Amelia with a bright, false smile. “Watch your back, roomie.”

But, it’s Amelia who’s watching her back, wondering if her imagination was playing tricks. Or was it something or someone else?

By the evening, Amelia has passed off the incident as something from her imagination. Nothing to interfare with the fun of making hot cross buns with the other girls.

“Staying at school for Thanksgiving was the best decision,” laughs Laurel.

”Me too,” says Amelia. “Finally learning to cook.” The other girls look at her strange. “You don’t cook at home,” says one.

Amelia tells the truth without thinking. “Uh uh. My mom will cook turkey her way, which I love. But, if I ask her how to cook something, my daddy puts in his two cents. Then, they start fighting. And I never get to cook. Last Thanksgiving, my parents got so mad, dad threw the turkey in the dumpster.”

She looks up to see faces more shocked than she’d expected. Not at her story, but at her unusual expressiveness. She plays it off.

“Boy, that was one fowl Thanksgiving,” says Amelia. The other girls still aren’t sure how to react. Amelia flashes her most convincing smile. “A joke, girls. Come on.”

The other girls chill. But, Laurel’s concerned look says she knows otherwise.

“What time is it?” asks Amelia.

“Why?” asks Laurel.

“Girl, would you just tell me the time fore I give you five across the eyes,” laughs Amelia.

Laurel adapts a long-suffering “how long oh Lord” look.”

“About eight-thirty,’ says Laurel.

“I gotta call home before it gets too late,” says Amelia.

Amelia walks through the old-mansion-turned down house. Through the windows she psses…spacious grounds and turn of the century mansions. Tall, Methuselah trees. And in the distance, the Connecticut River, and the dim lights of 18th Century road lanterns. If any setting could bespeak tradition, wealth and family values, Northfield Academy for Girls would be it.

Taking two steps at a time, she jaunts up to the second floor hallway payphone. It was a vintage antique payphone. All mahogany with stained glass windows. Amelia felt positively elegant whenever she used it even though waiting for the heavy ringed dial to wind back after each number took a patience users of 90s technology were unaccustomed.

To Amelia, the sound engendered a contentedness within her. Rather it always did in the past. Not tonight.

She dials. The squeaker voice of an operator pierces her ear.

“Yes,” says Amelia. “This is a collect call from Amelia Chatman.”

She waits, blowing air on the window, drawing faces in it. Muffled voices drift over the line.

“Mom? Daddy?” Amelia’s tentative, wondering why someone would pick up the phone and not speak. Finally her mother breaks through in chilly tones.

“Amelia, is that you?”

“Mom, What’s wrong?”

“Who called you? Who told you to call” She could almost see her mother’s glaring eyes sweeping the room for a culprit.
“I told you not to call her. She doesn’t need to come home.”

Now, Amelia is freaking. The weirdness of the lacrosse field comes back to her. Is this what that meant? Did she ignore the warning that might have prepared her for this.

“Mom nobody called me. What’s wrong?”

Only silence. Amelia hears someone crying in the background. The crying generates an anxiety and fear in Amelia. Why doesn’t her mother simply tell her, she asks. Whenever it comes to Ruby, nothing was easy.

“Mom!!! Where’s daddy? I want to talk to Daddy,” insists Amelia. “I want to talk to daddy.”

But her mother had pulled rank and had had enough.

“Your brother’s dead,” Ruby says flatly. “The funeral’s tomorrow. But, you don’t have to come. We can…”

Ruby’s voice fades. Amelia stands in shock. The world, her world, fled.

New Novel, 2nd Section

A hallway light flips on.

Amelia’s mother, Ruby Chatman, 50s, comes down the paisley carpeted stairs. He eyes are clear and unclouded for one her age. She pauses mid-level, hesitating, both wondering and worrying at who’d be calling so early.

But, then she surges forward, as if “what will be will be.” Besides, she’s preparing to go to work, herself.

Black pleated skirt stretches below Ruby’s calves. She rushes to button a high-collared floral blouse, step into black pumps sitting at the foot of the stairs, and strains to see through the curtained door window, all at the same time.

Ruby presents a matronly figure from her opaque panty-hose with reinforced toes, to her legs thickened by time and matted varicose veins, to the tight French twist imprisoning every strand of hair.

But, when she walks, her steps are light, her movements frenetic.

Ruby is an inherent contradiction, sometimes even to herself.

She pulls back a corner of the curtain just as Amelia finally negotiates the keys. Ruby jumps as Amelia, unknowingly, almost hits her with the full force of the door.
“Mom!!! I didn’t see you,” exclaims Amelia.

Amelia tries to keep the family Irish Setter, Kelly, from bounding outside. Finally, Ruby intercedes.

“Kelly!!! Go!!!!” says Ruby “In the kitchen.”

Ruby’s Tone? Harsh and cold as a Siberian winter. Kelly quickly obeys. Ruby’s a remote, recalcitrant woman with a visage that shows no hint of kindness.
Amelia hugs Ruby. Ruby half hugs, half pats Amelia on the back the way people never comfortable being warm do. Amelia’s expression says she’s used to it.

“Oh!!! I didn’t know you were coming so soon. Your brother wouldn’t come get you.” Says Ruby impatiently.

Ruby studiously ignores the tone. She’s determined to ignore any and all irritating statements from her mom, knowing that sometimes the fact that they came from her mother and not someone else was sufficient cause for it to be annoying.

“I didn’t want to bother him.” Says Amelia. “Besides, the way he drives, all up on people’s fenders. I’da been in some ditch.”

Ruby leads the way into the kitchen. Everything’s dour yellow. The walls. Stove. Fridge. Yellow. Dour. Ruby tries to lighten the room with a breezy tone.
“You painted again,” says Amelia.

“Just a few weeks ago. It rained. It leaked.”

Ruby’s the exact opposite of Amelia when it comes to words. Ruby’s inexpressive, uncommunicative. Amelia’s a speed-talker. Words, like swarms of bees, surround her.
“Mom, I keep telling you. You should get the leaks fixed so you don’t have to keep painting all the time.”

Amelia puts some water in a small pot on the stove to boil. She sits at the table. She’d really like a drink. But that would have to wait for later and certainly at a time when Ruby was absent. Despite the new millennium, Ruby was still back in the 60s when it came to women drinking.

Not that women didn’t drink back then. But, Ruby didn’t run in those circles. In fact, as far as Amelia could tell, her mother never ran in any circles that did anything fun. She just got married and had children, like most women who grew into their twenties in the 50s.

Ruby responds with irritation. It seemed the two had the same effect on each other.
“You don’t talk to me about painting my walls, I won’t say nothing about your hair.”
Ruby puts the water into a larger pot.

“That pot doesn’t cook water fast,” says Ruby.

“I’m not going anywhere fast,” Amelia retorts.

“I’m on the way to work,” says Ruby, “I don’t have time to make you breakfast.”
Ruby takes the suitcase from the corner that Amelia put it in and moves it closer to the door entrance. Her movements are nervous, frenetic, almost the opposite of Amelia’s.

Oddly enough, Ruby shys away from touching the hat that Amelia left near the suitcase.

Throughout her life, Ruby unconsciously redoes what others do, as if she’s fixing their actions.

Amelia looks at the plastic covering the table. She looks down the hall into the living room. Plastic covers the furniture there.

“Mom, why are you always covering stuff with plastic,” asks Amelia.

“Oh, Amelia, you know I like to keep my furniture nice,” says Ruby. Don’t start trying to change things.”

“I just always wondered. That plastic always sticks to my legs,” says Amelia.

“Not if you wore stockings like proper girls do. You girls never even wore girdles,” says Ruby.

Amelia smiles at the old-fashioned notion. Ruby takes it as an insult.

“You didn’t have to come home,” says Ruby.

A conversation of an echo…15 years ago.

New Novel, First Section just finished

Committed
A Novel
By Skye Knight

“Doors open for a reason, Miss”

The bus driver honked for emphasis. Not that Amelia Chatman needed the second reminder. She knew she was home. She just didn’t want to be there.

Sure, she had come of her own volition, with no prompting from or warning to anyone. In fact, no one even knew Amelia was arriving. After all, it was just yesterday that she had asked for an impromptu two-week vacation from her editor, crossed the country red-eyed on the red-eye, and scooted on the first morning bus for an hour-long ride past towns and villages still shockingly burned into her memory.

And through all her speedy preparations and the dusk to dawn flight, she knew she didn’t want to be home. Nothing good ever came of it before.

Amelia lugs her suitcase down the bus steps with a reminder to herself “I’m not here for something good.”

A sideways look from the bus driver lets her know that she actually verbalized the thought.

The bus door closes with the finality of a prison gate. It lurches away, its tires flipping bits of pebbles back at Amelia, almost as if the bus were spitting a goodbye.

When the dusk settles, it reveals Amelia to be a 28-year-old, eye-catching blend of West Coast funk and East Coast punk. She wears jean, topped off with a tie fitted top, flashing jacket and close-cropped, dyed copper hair with honey blond streaks. Everything about her shouts “Now!!!” Well, except for one thing. The 50s men’s Cavanaugh hat.

“Anywhere I hang my hat is home.” So sang Cleo Laine to the accompaniment of John Dankworth. So sings Amelia in a low melodic strain.

Amelia looks around. In many ways, the town has changed…and in most ways he hadn’t.
The fish business that once made its residents proud as well as prosperous? Dried up. The mill business? Taken elsewhere.

Millertown still had its charm, thanks to residents who refuse to let appearances reflect their vanishing bank accounts. In fact, the town still had its schools, banks, all the services one expects of a stable community.

But, the frayed around the edges taint gave away the fact that a healthy economy is not of the things Millerstown sports.

In other words, this is a town still loved by many, increasingly ignored by most. Betwixt boom and bedroom. A coastal community dying of thirst.

Amelia starts walking down a lane. He face reflects the resolution of a sidelined player unwillingly stuck on the permanently disabled list.

She passes a white oak tree. Her initials still engraved after all these years.
Suddenly a wolf whistle cuts the air. Amelia turns towards the sound. It’s one of several construction workers laying ground for a seedier version on 7-11, if such a thing exists. His admiring look doesn’t sway.

Amelia gives him the finger. Then pauses to light a cigarette. And continues walking the Cape Cod styled home at the end of the lane. Continues walking to death’s door.

She doesn’t notice the driver inside the dark gray sedan, a driver who’s been watching her since the moment she stepped off the bus.

Why should she have? Too busy talking to herself. Like now. “Get a grip, Amelia.”

Yeah, right. Like such an admonishment had ever worked any of the other times she had returned home and felt the same trepidation now staining her body with each step. Some people would say, you get what you wish for. Was that why within a day of each of her prior visits, something had happened that drove her to get a hasty return ticket and return to the comfortable superficial embrace of Hell-A.

But, here she was, pre-dawn and unprepared. The keys jangled in her hands as she fumbled at the carved oak entrance to the home where Amelia was born.

1. To be continued...

David Mills - Yesterday Continued

I did say yesterday that I would post the piece that I wrote on David Mills. I was asked yesterday to read what I wrote if there is a memorial for him here in Los Angeles. But, I'm a writer, and a little too tall for podiums.

So, here it is.

I know that everyone will talk about what a great writer David Mills was. And indeed he was.

But, I remember him as someone who took the time to meet with a stranger, me, in the process of striving to be a TV and Film writer.

It was a number of years ago. I invited him to meet me at Itana Bahia's restaurant in West Hollywood. It was our first meeting.

In those days, I always offered to pay dinner, coffee, or lunch for the honor of meeting with anyone in the industry who agreed. They were the experts. They were giving me their valuable time. It wasn't a fair exchange because I got more out of it than they did. But, I was always taught not to try to get something for nothing.

David agreed to meet me. At first I thought it was because I had also left journalism for entertainment. But, in the course of the dinner, I realized that he was simply a giving person. He didn't need a reason to meet with me. My asking for his help was reason enough.

About a year later, when I was passing through Maryland, he offered to take me to the set of The Corner, a TV series that he had co-created. On the way, we stopped at a coffee shop. One of the writers of Homicide, the one who wrote the great subway train episode, was there. I tried to stand off to the side in case they wanted to have a private chat. But David pulled me into the conversation and introduced me as "a writer friend of mine".

We then went to the set. I had visited film and TV sets before. But, generally I was told to stand quietly in a corner. Even when I visited the set of a series for which I had written a freelance episode, I was told to blend into the background, and mind you, not stand too close to the director's chair.

Visiting The Corner was a different experience. David introduced me to director Charles Dutton and other key members of the producing staff. David explained what was happening in the scene, and talked with me about the script. And when others came to ask him questions, he kept me within the circle of conversation.

In this world, contacts matter. And David made sure everyone there knew I was a writer in a manner that made them think I mattered. For David, it wasn't just because I was a good writer than I mattered. It was because I was a person, a human being.

David believed that the heartfelt goals of every human being mattered. He could not help everyone with their goals. But, as one writer to another, one ex-journalist to another, he could help with mine.

Over the years, even though we did not see each other for long stretches, we kept in touch. I clearly remember one call I made. When he returned it, he said that he could not talk long because his mother had just died. But, just the fact that he returned the call at all in the midst of his grief says so much about his humanity.

And during the heights of success when he could have insulated himself in, let's face it, what is predominantly an all white male showrunner business, David's hands and heart were continually stretched out to other blacks.

Because David was light-skinned, most people thought he was white or Italian upon first meeting him. But, even while pitching to people who would clearly treat him differently knowing he was black, he would casually drop in a comment indentifying himself as black man.

Although he eventually created a blog called "Undercover Brother", in partial response to jealous peers who made negative comments behind his back, David always identified as being black. He was far from being the kind of "black writer" hire to write downtown characters. We know from his credits and his work as a journalist how versatile and extraordinarily brilliant he was as a writer and then producer. But, he was a "black writer" in the sense that being a writer and being black were of equal importance.

The last time we spoke, he was in New Orleans on his new pilot "Treme." We didn't talk long. I got off the phone quickly because I know the working days of a tv producer stretch long into the night. We just planned to talk when the pilot was finished. Who knew.

David's success in Hollywood was on a level beyond that of most any writers or producers in Hollywood. That in and of itself is enough to celebrate his memory and mourn his loss, especially at such a young age.

But, I will always remember him for the heart and courage he displayed in regularly being there for people of color on much lower levels. As K'naan calls it. "People like me."

David took the time to do things that maybe he didn't need to, but believed someone ought to do.

A successful man with an unchanging sense of ethics. Not many of those in Hollywood.

I hope your heart rests in peace, David, just as I hope you know that I will always carry within me... a piece of yours.

Skye

David Mills - Sorry For Our Loss

Hello,

Just because I have a new blog, don't expect to read a lot from me. I make my living as a writer. TV. Film. Newspaper columns and features when they let me.

So, why should I give away my words for free?

I can't actually say that I will be. I have no idea where this will lead. But, on a blog, there's room to share a lot more than one can share on Facebook, Linked In, or Twitter. And yes, I have them all. But, hey, you're talking to a chick who used to make her own yogurt. So, you know I don't half-step on anything.

In addition to being a writer, I'm a communications professor. Journalism. TV writing. Film. Documentary production. I'm all about the medium and the message. So, I keep up to date with all things communications wise so that I can try to stay one step ahead of my students. "Try" being the operative word. Though I must admit that InDesign is kicking my butt.

Please forgive me if you think I'm starting off on a dark note. Of course I am dark. A black choctaw latina. So, I guess every time I start anything, it's on a dark note.

However, another reason I'm starting this blog today is because I wrote a short remembrance of former journalist and TV writer David Mills, a friend of mine who died this week on the set of his new HBO series "Treme." Friends who read it say that I should post what I wrote.

But before I get to that...Treme is about life in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

And ironically, during the one time in which I was back east this year, the college students I met expressed very passionate emotions about the news coverage of Katrina. Students that were not even in that state, and yet were still emotionally outraged. Treme will be of great interest to them and perhaps make viewers who watch it feel the way that they and others still do.

Back to my remembrance of David, I originally sent it to David's Facebook site and some of my friends. One of Variety's top journalists, Brian Lowry published part of it on his blog today. My friend Donna wrote to say that I should repeat it at David's memorial.

Emotionally, I know I'd never be able to get through delivering it all verbally. But, for the students who I met, who will inevitably watch Treme when it airs in April, I wanted them to be able to read something about David from someone who he had helped and encouraged for many years.

But, at the same time, since, as I said, parts of it are in Brian's column, it would be rude to print them today, on the same day that his column runs. As a writer, I have great respect for other writers.

As to why my blog is called Possibly Go Wrong? Well, I wanted to name it Possibly Go Right. But, that was already taken. I simply didn't want to spend a lot of time thinking about a name. And Possibly Go Wrong turned out to be available. Who knew.

In any case, I have a project due on Friday. So, I have to get back to that.

If you go to variety.com/bltv, you can read what Brian has to say and a bit of what I had to say. And if that piques your interest, come back and you'll be able to see the rest.

Speaking of rest, R.I.P. David Mills. You will not soon, or ever, be forgotten.

Skye Dent

P.S. If you look me up on Facebook, I'm the chick standing in front of the car wearing black sweat pants with a Japanese design. Not one of the other three Skye Dents. My production company web site at www.theroxburyprojects.com.