The way I see it!

So I was introduced to the singing/karaoke app Smule 6 months ago. The app allows you to record yourself singing almost any song that has ever been written. You can sing the entire song solo, as a group, or duet with other Smule users. The app has been a great outlet for me to get back into a regular rhythm of singing, to try some new things, learn new songs, and collab with some pretty amazingly talented folks from all over the world. I have somehow managed to amass more than 800+ covers; some good, some great. Here’s one of my favorites, a slow acoustic version of Britney Spears’s “Toxic” I sang with DT_Paige. 

                Petrified with his arms paralleled at his sides, jutting out of the black leather vest he’d picked out to wear specifically for today, he clenched his hands into fists as if to keep the sweat in his palms from pooling at his feet.  He didn't quite know what he should do. He thought to his self, so this is what a deer caught in headlights actually feels like, as the entire 6th grade student body, faculty, and staff sang Happy Birthday to him. He was sure that was the longest twenty seconds of his now twelve years of life and now he wasn't quite sure how to proceed. A moment passes as he stares blankly at the blue stripe lining the wall of the gymnasium just above the heads of the people sitting on the top row of the bleachers. He takes in a deep breath. “I can see the tears in your eyes.” He points to his eye and traces the track of an imaginary tear. He continues, “You’re not the same since he said, ‘goodbye.’” Moving his arm from his elbow down, he gives a wave farewell. No more movements. Just get through this and get out of here.

                Still considered “the new kid,” he and his family had moved to  Lexington, a predominately white rural/suburb town, eleven months prior and he still found it a challenge to, among other things, make new friends in the school comprised solely of sixth graders. Everyone seemed to have grown up together making it hard to find a place to fit in. He had kept his head down spending recesses volunteering in the school library and on occasion going outside to play basketball or put his soccer skills to use in a game of kickball. When he found out about the school’s talent show, he had his reservations but ultimately decided to audition.  He had regrets of missed opportunities to participate in previous schools’ talent shows, and figured it would be fun to channel his inner Wanya Morris and croon an R&B tune. After all he loved singing. Music was how he dealt with difficult situations.  Nothing else mattered when he was singing…usually. He had been told that he had been singing since he was two years old, participating in school and church choir groups with a solo from time to time. This was different. This was the first time he was on a stage by himself and the vast emptiness of the of the stage gave him the feeling that it would swallow him at any given moment, only adding to his nervousness.

                “Happy, she’s the saddest little girl around.” By the time he got to the chorus of his song something happened and the nerves were no longer an issue. Settled into the groove of the song, he felt at home. After the second versed he noticed the entire gymnasium was clapping to the a cappella arrangement.  This is what I want to do for the rest of my life, he thought to himself as he rounded the bridge. When he finished, he received a standing ovation. It was in that moment that he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had a gift that needed to be used often. Not because of the approval of the gymnasium, it certainly boosted his confidence, but rather the ease with which he was able to share his gift. This was only the beginning.  

(to be continued)

*I'm not sure how to describe it, but for anyone who has ever had that feeling of "when you know, you know," that's what I experienced. It came all of a sudden and was the most sure thing in my life. 

February 1995

In HIS Word:

 http://inhisword.tumblr.com/

I am a Christian and this is where I post my biblical studies and inspiration as I mature in my walk.

Roynell Photography:

 http://roynellphotography.tumblr.com/

My photography portfolio

Photo Inspiration:

 http://wheninspirationhitsyou.tumblr.com/

As of February 4, 2011 I have a Los Angeles address I call home.  Now I'm not sure how familiar you are with the greater Los Angeles area outside of knowing about Hollywood and Beverly Hills. I'm not going to lie, I would be ok with living in a spot in Beverly Hills (which as it turns out most of BH is not on the hill at all) or picking out a modest size place with a Spanish roof in the Hollywood Hills, but a brotha is not quite balling like a TV/movie stars and studio executives that flock to these real estate hot spots.  No no I spent my first month going out every day scouting places and scrolling through craigslist ads you would think "there is no way this person is being for real" (see previous post: 4 or 5 post back)

Through a friend of a friend I was offered to sublet a spot in downtown LA. A part of LA I really hadn't heard much about. I have kind of fallen in love with it. Getting out and exploring the different districts has been more than enough to pass the time on a slow Sunday afternoon. I started looking up the history of the city and how each district. Stay tuned as I give ya first-hand rundown of downtown over the next few post.

The other night I was mixing and mingling it up at an office party for a production company with some friends. Definitely one of the best office parties I've ever been to. I'm talking, people dancing to 60's soul music (a few on top of desks), a bouncy castle in the conference room, popcorn machine filling the air with buttery goodness, and free liquid courage which was the source of a lot of chanting, seductive glances, and me being asked a lot of random questions. The question I was asked the most was "Do you go to USC?" apparently my doppelganger is a student there and even shares my name or so I was told. That's just weird. Other questions that frequented my ears were, "Where are you from?" "Don't you work here?" "Haven't I seen you in something?" "Can you teach me how to dance like that?" and "Are you sure you don't wanna come bounce in the castle with us?" Just an overall fun and random kind of night.

Top 3 moments of the night:

3) So I'm walking behind three friends on our way to refill my popcorn cup and some random guy looks at the girl he's talking to, stops me, and says "Hey I bet this guy has some weed we can smoke. He's black." In that split second I decided to take a deep breath give a nervous chuckle to avoid having a n*gga moment to put this ignorant fool "in his place." I could have been the poster child for anger management.

2) I get to talking music with a guy who does color correction for the company and we eventually make it to Stevie Wonder. As soon as I say his name his eyes lit up like I had just said the word of the day and he was ready to crap himself with excitement. So he has me follow him to his office where he gives me his business cards (he has two companies) and Googles Stevie Wonder videos. He starts by showing me this clip of Stevie, Deon, Whitney, and Luther "sangin" "That's What Friends Are For." So we're laughing and having a great time vibing the tunes. Then he starts talking about how he wishes he could sing as he hears me singing along with the selections. This is where he starts playing black guy/white guy duets...awkward much? Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney "Ebony and Ivory" Phil Collins and Philip Bailey (who he kept calling Billy Ocean) "Easy Lover" he played two more videos before I could think of a believable reason to leave.

1) I joined my roommate who was discussing his film with a chick named Tamera. Once they finished and my roommate left to get a drink, she asks me the usual "where are you from?" "why LA?" then she pops me with "Who's your favorite director?" so I tell here that I really enjoy Joss Whedon's work, to which she asks why. So I tell her all of my reasons for being a fan of Joss Whedon and in doing so I realize all of my reasoning was coming from a fan's perspective not from a film maker's. This was my favorite moment of the night because it's when I made a decision to look at films and shows a little more analytically in terms of shot options and choice scene by scene.

(image: Halley Berry accepting her Golden Raspberry for her role as Catwoman in 2005)

My senior year of high school and the first two years of college I worked at a movie theater. Any free time I had was spent watching movies for free. Movies like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, A Beautiful Mind, and Gangs of NY were among my favorites. But I saw a lot of movies that I would have been pretty upset if I had to spend my hard earned money and highly valued time to see. A few years later I found out that they actually give out awards (Razzie or as I like to call it, the "Imma Need You to Do Better Awards") for the worst movies of the year. In most cases, it's not that I think that these are bad actors, directors, screenplay. It's just I feel like something was lost between when they were given the green light and when it was released. Maybe it was the editor's fault. Who really knows?

I don't care if you're team Edward of team Jacob the movie was a HOT MESS. I mean your a vampire, how is it you can walk around in the middle of the day? Uhhh and the constant "I love Bella, You can't have her" every time you think the story's finally moving along had me writhing in my seat preferring water-boarding over this cinematic train wreck. I'm not even gonna go in on the boy with henna tatoos. Although it stayed close to the story line of the cartoon and book, I felt it limited M. Night's style of unconventional story telling. Both Twilight Saga: Eclipse and  The Last Airbender lead with 9 nods each. Scary thing is they both also have at least one more film to be released in the series. But for now...Alas! Vengance is mine!

Anyway here's this year's nomination list:

Worst Picture 'Twilight Saga: Eclipse' 'The Last Airbender' 'The Bounty Hunter' 'Sex & The City 2' 'Vampires Suck'

Worst Actor Robert Pattinson: 'The Twilight Saga: Eclipse' and 'Remember Me' Ashton Kutcher: 'Killers' and 'Valentine's Day' Gerard Butler: 'The Bounty Hunter' Jack Black: 'Gulliver's Travels' Taylor Lautner: 'The Twilight Saga: Eclipse'

Worst Actress Jennifer Aniston: 'The Bounty Hunter' Miley Cyrus: 'The Last Song' The Four "Gal Pals": 'Sex & The City 2' Megan Fox: 'Jonah Hex' Kristen Stewart 'Twilight Saga: Eclipse'

Worst Supporting Actress Jessica Alba: 'The Killer Inside Me,' 'Little Fockers,' 'Machete,' and 'Valentine's Day' Cher: 'Burlesque' Liza Minnelli: 'Sex & The City 2' Nicola Peltz: 'The Last Airbender' Barbra Streisand: 'Little Fockers'

Worst Supporting Actor George Lopez: 'Marmaduke,' 'The Spy Next Door,' and 'Valentine's Day' Billy Ray Cyrus: 'The Spy Next Door' Dev Patel: 'The Last Airbender' Jackson Rathbone: 'The Last Airbender,' and 'The Twilight Saga: Eclipse Rob Schneider: 'Grown Ups'

Worst Director Sylvester Stallone: 'The Expendables' Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer: 'Vampires Suck' Michael Patrick King: 'Sex & The City 2' M. Night Shymalan: 'The Last Airbender' David Slade: 'The Twilight Saga: Eclipse'

Worst Screen Couple/Ensemble The Entire Cast of 'Sex & The City 2' The Entire Cast of 'The Twilight Saga: Eclipse' The Entire Cast of 'The Last Airbender' Jennifer Aniston & Gerard Butler: 'The Bounty Hunter' Josh Brolin's Face & Megan Fox's Voice: 'Jonah Hex'

Worst Eye-Gouging Use of 3D 'Cats & Dogs 2: Revenge Of Kitty Galore' 'Clash of the Titans' 'The Last Airbender' 'Nutcracker 3D' 'Saw 3D'

Worst Screenplay 'Last Airbender' 'Little Fockers' 'Sex & The City 2' 'Twilight Saga: Eclipse' 'Vampires Suck'

Worst Prequel, Remake, Ripoff or Sequel 'The Twilight Saga: Eclipse' 'Clash of the Titans' 'The Last Airbender' 'Sex & The City 2' 'Vampires Suck!'

...

"Holy Crap!" My first thought when my Google search took me to www.metro.net and I opened the Maps and Times table PDF. I figured it would take a while for me to get a handle on this beast of cluster cus. Plus I figured it probably wasn't a good idea to try to take the bus from LAX to where I was staying with two 50lb bags and 2 carry ons.

Day one in town was pretty much spent walking around the neighborhood I was staying in and trying to swallow the fact that I just moved to LA. "I LIVE in Los Angeles." Still kind of a trippy thought. Day two was the day of some friends of mine's show in Hollywood. I had planned on walking the 2.8 mile trip, but no matter how early I left to make it to the show that started at 8pm, it wasn't going to change the fact that the walk back would have been in the dark. So I tap on the "Map" application on my phone, pulled up the directions for "from: My location to: Hotel Cafe, Los Angeles, CA," and for the first time in all seriousness switched from "by car" to "by public transit" and hit "go." The directions told me to walk a few block south, take to Metro Red Line west to Hollywood/Vine Metro Station, and walk west 3 blocks, turn left on Cauhenga, and I'd be there. All-in-all the trip was going to take 30min. But wait...Metro Red Line doesn't sound like a bus, but a train or subway. So I opened above pictured PDF now downloaded onto my computer to scan for a subway or train but there were so many routes that I gave up, took a nap and decided when it was time to leave I was just going to follow the directions on my Google Maps app.

(image: LA's Metro Red Line train in station)

Feeling refreshed and energized but also skeptical yet anxious, I grabbed my phone, some change, and my trusty "man-bag" and headed down the street. I passed several bus stops, coffee shops, sidewalk cafes, and juice bars before I reached a set of escalators leading to and from what I then realized was a subway station. On the way down the two escalators I thought "what happens if there's an earthquake while I'm down here? This has got to be the last place I'd want to be when/if 'the big one' hits." then funny enough I began to think of the Sunnydale Hellmouth from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and how the "Scoobies" would have had a field day battling "vampires, demons, and forces of darkness" down in the metro station. (Yeah I know I got a little nerdy, but someone reading this knows exactly what I'm talking about). So...down at the bottom of the 2nd escalator I waited a minute or two for someone else take the escalator ride down into the Hellmouth so I could observe what I needed to do to legally pass through the turnstiles now that I had purchased a $1.50 one-way boarding pass from the little kiosk. After I watch a guy scan his pass, did the same only to have the turnstile beep at me. Confused as to why this thing was beeping at me like Wal-Mart's security alert, I ignored it as the guy had done before me, and kept walking to yet another escalator, this one leading down to the actual boarding platform.

Being a man who take joy in knowing where he is in relation to a map I appreciated the tracks being clearly labeled, "To: Union Station" and "To: North Hollywood." It made my decision as to which train I should take a simple one. The Red Line runs every 10min-12min until later in the evening when it runs every 30min, so I was impressed that I had only just gotten off the escalator and read the track signs before I felt the gentle photographic hair tossing breeze of the arriving train. I boarded, took a stripper's grip to the pole and two stops and five minutes later I had reached my stop. I detrained to surface on the corner of Hollywood Blvd. and Vine St. feeling like a kid at an amusement park wanting to ride the same ride over and over again. That mixed with the excitement of getting to see Johnnyswim (http://www.johnnyswim.com/home.html) and Britten (http://talesofavillian.tumblr.com/) perform put an expression on my face the bouncer at Hotel Cafe couldn't help but let out a half stifled laugh. I didn't care. I was now a fan of LA's rail system. Not only did I have the show to look forward to, but I got to take the train to get back home. #imadork

When I was younger thoughts of public transportation conjured up images of the bearded man, presumably drunk or stoned, talking to himself wearing tattered clothing, the lady with the scarf on her head surrounded by what seemed like more groceries than she should be carrying considering she also had a child in tow. Both minorities and belonging to a lowly income class.

Growing up in the suburbs really didn't do much to evolve these pictures into anything more realistic. There wasn't really a bus system out side of the main city so just like most teenagers in the suburbs I made sure that the day I turned 15 I was ready to take my driving test to get my learners permit which at the time would become a normal state issued driver's license 3 months later. It was like, "finally, freedom to go as I pleased" as long as you had a car or your parents lent you the family car.

Any time my vehicle was inoperable I felt trapped or stuck in the house unless I was able to bum a ride from a friend. Sure I thought about taking the bus when I move away to "the city," but often times pride, and fear of being a bus person (or not having exact change), would lend more time to becoming a better gamer, trying to put together a meal by experimenting with whatever food had in my cabinet, or loooooong scenic walks around town (I mean, at least it's exercise right?).

So of course I was bummed when I figured out I had to leave my car behind when I moved out to LA, but with my "Make the Most of 20-11" New Years resolution I decided everyone's "You need a car when you move to LA" advice was not going to keep me from doing what I wanted and going where I wanted. Enter LA's public transportation system.

I remembered buses being everywhere during my visit the year before moving out here. So I Googled "Los Angeles bus system" to finally figure out exactly how it worked.