Bliss.Luxe'

Paris Is Burning (1990) director Jennie Livingston

Jessie Jackson and Marvin Gaye

Mahershala Ali for Esquire, March - April 2019

ROMEO MUST DIE (2000)

RECENT

“It’s our anniversary today.  We always talk about how lucky we are to have found our person.  I wasn’t even supposed to go to the bar that night.  My friends and I were going to a golf tournament the next morning, so we wanted to get some sleep.  But at the last minute we decided to grab a quick drink.  My buddies were doing their thing, so I decided to take a lap around the bar.  And I noticed one girl that was just glowing.  I’m pretty sure that she was sitting right under one of the bar lights.  I just had to go for it.  I walked right up to her.  I said something like: ‘I want to take this opportunity to introduce myself to you.”  After that I was grasping at straws.  I kept trying to find a common denominator.  But the best I could come up with was that she was in the same sorority as my friend’s cousin.  Somehow we ended up talking for the next fifteen minutes. The bar was so loud that we had to lean in to talk to each other.  At one point we actually touched cheeks.  And my buddies are gonna tear me apart for this, but I just remember thinking that she had the softest face.  I gave her my number at the end of the conversation.  I wasn’t really expecting to hear from her.  But the next day she told her mom the story, and her mom said: ‘Give him a call.  You don’t have to marry him.’”