Nemesis Stories: Larenz Tate
Everybody can get these hands. These words. This side eye. Even famous people.
Detroit City, 2005. Charles H Wright Museum of African-American History. Private room upstairs. Press junket. Place was lit. Guest of honors were the Tate brothers, Larenz, Lahmard, and Laron (I think. It was something with an L). In the main ballroom below there was a sold out screening of their first joint project as brothers. An abomination of a film called THE HOT SPOT. We, the press were privileged enough to meet and greet the brothers upstairs, followed by a round table discussion of the film. I was the youngest and finest sister in the room and was asked to sit directly across from Larenz.
At the time, I was known as the Urban Film Critic. My endgame was to be the first black woman version of Roger Ebert. I had a website and a lanyard with a sexy pic of myself on it. I had gained a little momentum thanks to a lot of love shown by a Paramount publicist named Dawn. She invited me out to cool events like this one, she passed my name on to other publicists so in a few short months I had made a lot of headway in the Detroit press community meeting several celebrities, and attending events. I might have thought I was hot stuff⌠but unfortunately this was my first lesson in how popularity and revenue are not the same thing. So the brokeness kept me humble.
Sitting across from Larenz I did get a little more attention than the other journalists. We talked about his movie, his inspirations but I was also able to broach other topics of convoâŚsuch as, my website. At the time I was trying to drive more traffic to the site. My reviews werenât cutting it. So I ran a promotion called âTop 25 Black Filmsâ. I encouraged people to vote their top picks and I would update the site daily to reflect the results. At the time of our meeting, all of the Tatesâ films had made the list including Love Jones, Why Do Fools Fall In Love, Menace II Society and Donât Be A Menace. I told him about the promotion and asked him for a quote or a drop that I could use to further market the site. He sat up with enthusiasm when I described the promotion. He asked for details regarding how I tallied the votes and how his films were ranking. I was happy to be getting this extra conversation time with a famous person so I blabbed on and on outlining my promotion. He asked that I give his personal publicist the website information. She stepped into the conversation and took my name, email and website information. I was super geeked and honored that he was taking an interest in my dinky little site. We all took some pictures and then adjourned downstairs to catch the end of the screening and the Q&A that would follow.
Do I even have to tell you how the Detroit sisters represented for this screening? 300 strong. All fine. Nobody got caught slipping. These women came to meet Mr Love Jones himself⌠but before they could meet him, they had to sit through his awful film. They considered it a small price to pay. But about halfway through the movie they changed their minds. Some had already started walking out. And the women that stayed only did so because they wanted to curse Larenz out. And thatâs exactly what happened. The Tate brothers learned that Detroit women donât care who you are when you waste their time.
THE HOT SPOT was a comedy about a sexual predator who had lied to several women and finally got caught cheating by all of them. It was like How To Be A Player only without the jokes, cinematography, casting, sound quality, and overall production value. It was like John Tucker Must Die without the Ashanti factor.
The Q&A was a disaster. I can still see Larenzâ face as he squirmed to answer such questions as:
âHow could you make some mess like that?â
âWe expected better from you!â
And my favorite from a woman I could tell had just left the salon and the mall to attend this event. You could read the disappointment on her face. And she was broke now.
âThat was some bullshit!â
Everybody can get these hands. These words. This side eye. Even famous people. This is Detroit.
The Q&A that was scheduled for an hour lasted about 12 minutes before the Tate brothers escaped out of a side door with the voices of 300 fussing black women behind them.
And that was that. UntilâŚ. the next week when Larenzâ personal publicist begin to email me daily about assisting her in promoting the film in the Detroit market. That film? To my people? Ummmm⌠no? Larenz got enough credibility to handle a flop. I, on the other hand, just got to the party. She was trying to get me thrown out. I pacified her over the next few weeks, by posting pics of the event to my website and MySpace page.
And then one day a few months later.. I was channel surfing and I saw a familiar face. He said, âWelcome Back! Iâm your host Larenz Tate and this is BETâs Top 25 Black Films!â
I donât know what part of the countdown I came in on. And I admit I smiled for about 15 seconds before I realized what I was watching. There he was, seated on a couch counting down the top 25 black films. Just like I had told him. And it was another 2 hours before I accepted that he had actually stolen the idea from me. I wrestled with him being a nice guy and not needing to steal from little old me. But his publicist was relentless on my webpage. He took my ish to BET and cut me out of the deal. She emailed me for weeks about his crappy movie but not one email to say, âbtw Heather we took your concept to BET!â
Nemesis worthy? I think so. And of course it could have all been a coinkey-dink but cmon nahâŚ.
That was a year before I started doing comedy. And when I told my veteran comedy friends the story they scoffed and told me their stories about bigger names stealing bigger projects. There were tears. It couldâve been worse. So I decided to let it go. I guess he showed me that my ideas were good enough for television. And I needed that boost of confidence.
And I still could remember him squirming in that room full of angry black women when I needed a good laugh. I retroactively loved every woman that screamed at him.
That was my welcome to showbiz.
Next up in the Nemesis Stories: Memphis Bleek. Radio City Music Hall. Jay Z is involved but he has no lines. A side chick plays a big part. It was all her fault.
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