muMs

WHAT A YEAR IT HAS BEEN
August 28th, 2007
I’m typing with one hand and not the one I'm accustomed to using, my left. It is in a half cast, a bitter reminder that I need to control my temper. Lately it's gotten out of control and gotten me into some shit that punching someone in the face just can't solve. Instead I punched a wall (well, really a really thick bench up against a stone wall. it laughed at me). "This really isn’t funny" is what passed through my head in my fourth hour in the ER that night. I just got home from LA shooting my final episode of BOSTON LEGAL and have had to tell the story of how it happened about 4 hundred times and don't want to tell it anymore. Let’s just say I'm not the biggest fan of Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez and Asha Bandele anymore. But I'd be wrong to fully blame them for pissing me off enough to let myself be overcome with emotion and anger that I would punch a wall and break my hand. My 98-year-old grandmother had just died and I had just come face to face with my inability to maintain serious committed relationship. Guess it isn’t always the honey's fault like I used to think and judging by how my hand really throbs right now; I'm not as invincible as I used to think. O well, we keep it moving right? Time only moves forward right? I don’t really have it in me to pull an Owen Wilson or a Curt Cobain yet. I don't have enough work accomplished for my special on the BIO channel.:) But downs aside, this has been my best work year since OZ ended in 2003. I started the year off pitching a TV show idea to the Sci-Fi network. My producing partners and I actually got in the door and had an official with the Vice President of Sci-Fi, an accomplishment in and of itself. Sci-Fi passed but hey, you live and you learn huh? Next, I shot a gritty drama called "ORDER OF REDEMPTION" with Buster Rhymes and Tom Berenger, crazy. Then, I was summoned to LA to shoot "BALL DON'T LIE" with a horde of actors I have respect for. Namely, Mikelti Williamson, Mathew St. Patrick, Steve Harris and Harold Perrineau just to name a few. The respect they showed me as an actor really hit home. While in LA I booked a guest-starring role on the first two episodes of BOSTON LEGAL, which was an adventure to say the least. I spent part of June and just about the entire month of July in LA. I know how to get around now, east to west, south central to the valley and beyond.
After shooting BL I went to Vermont to my theater Company's Intensive where my play MATCHDOTCOM was chosen to be part of the reading series there and compete for a slot to be produced in 2008. It needs a lot of work but it was a pleasure to see it staged. While at the intensive I was given the opportunity to be in a reading of a fabulous new play by Eisa Davis called "SIX MINUTES". What a powerful, smart, hip and provocative script that was. I have no doubt it will be produced sometime next year and I only hope to be involved. I was also given the opportunity to be in the reading of Steven Guirgis' new play, "THE LITTLE FLOWER OF EAST ORANGE". More incredible writing from the master. That Play will go up in the spring at the Public Theater. Again, I can only hope to be involved. Wait it doesn't end there. While at the intensive I was summoned back to LA by the Boston Legal folks because they needed to shoot additional footage of episode 1 because David E. Kelly felt the first episode needed to be 90 minutes instead of 60. Woo Hoo... also he liked my performance so much in the first 2, he wrote me into the 5th episode as well, which I just got back from shooting. LA was invigorating, broken hand and all. On my way back I walked through the airport on my way to my first class seat with my old swagger back, broke hand and all. When I landed at JFK, I handed the driver my luggage and took a well-deserved nap in the back of the limo all comfy-like with my next major project about to get underway, running through my head. A play going up in October at the Public Theater called "A VIEW FROM 151st STREET" in which I co-star. I've been looking forward to doing this play with the labyrinth theater company for the past two years and now the time has arrived. The places I get to go with this piece are unimaginable. Without giving too much away, doing this play will give me the confidence I need to make a run at the music industry one last time the way I planned when I named myself muMs the Schemer almost 17 years ago. Got a new album/book I’ve been working on for sometime now. It is really coming together as my mind settles. And barring any fantastic happenings here in NYC or east of that, I'll be moving west to LA this coming new year. Going to tackle Hollywood, see if I can't wrangle me a pretty house on a hill. My name is Craig Grant by the way to those of you who don't know. Broke hand and all.
Hope to see you all at the Public Theater this fall. All pertinent info coming in a few weeks.
muMs

REGRET
July 31st, 2007
We crucify ourselves between two thieves: regret for yesterday and fear of tomorrow.
-- Fulton Oursler

EL AAA...
June 23rd, 2007
Im here on my Sixth day in LA. It's no milestone, Ive been here before... done it before even more flamboyant than I'm doing it now, but this time is special because I'm here working. And I mean working-- shooting a film, BALL DONT LIE for my boy Brin Hill. The dopeness of the project aside, I get to play an utterly disgusting character- a gay sexual predator who has a thing for white boys, yum. To those of you who really know muMs, percieve it how you will, but I had to make it personal in order to find this character. I believe slavery, self hate and the emascaltion of Black men could have been just a few of the contributing factors that could create such a sociopath. Or is that a path of nature?(that's for another conversation. I will expound) I made up in my head that his father had been a late generation black panther who blamed the white man and the system for everything wrong in his life. He ended up in jail leaving his son to be raised with no father. Not to give the character an excuse for what he does as to elicit sympathy but to give him reason, to create authenticity. I LOVE being an actor especially when there is real work involved. It allows me to see multiple perspectives. It's almost like being a mathematician creating and solving equations.
SO, while out here, I also booked a guest-starring role on the first two episodes of BOSTON LEGAL. There is good fortune coming my way now and I smile knowing the state I'd been in the past three years. the waveform of life has an irregular frequency. I just know when I'm up, things can get down and when I'm down they will eventually go up.
random thought 0003
June 13th, 2007
Don't steal or create anything you cannot pronounce.

June 10th, 2007
In the abundace of water, the fool is thirsty.
--Bob Marley, Rat Race

PURE IN THE GAME
June 7th, 2007
I remember my football coach telling me that I had to be pure on the field, that unless I was truly honest with myself about my abilities, there would be no way I’d be affective out there. He was right. There is no way to be affective out there if you are second-guessing yourself. There is no time to think twice. You make your move and you deal with it. Ask any linebacker, ask any running back. The same can be said about the game of Life and Love. Now I know what you’re going to say, Love is not a game or life isn't a game. Well in as much as one has to manbge their movements and mindful of the rules, neither can’t help not to be. Let's take love for instance. The best way to play the game, in my experience, is to play it like it's not a game, knowing it is a game. If it weren’t a game everyone would throw their cards on the table at the start. express their true and utmost desires. But instead we hold back not wanting to show all our cards so as to not give the other person the upper hand. Not that the other person purposely would take advantage of having that upper hand but it always happens. The baggage of our past relationships (experience) dictates it. Since the average attention span in adults is around 20-25 minutes, blowing your load early on in Love can prove fatal. Some say Love is like Chess and the King is the heart. You plan your moves ahead of time. You wouldn’t necessarily go after the King in your opening move or would you? That would depend on how good you are. Everything is relative I guess. But the one thing I can be sure of is that ‘purity of self’ factor. Second guessing will surely have you run over by a running back on the football field as well as in Love. Now matter how you choose to play the game, whether you choose to move cautiously or put your heart on the table for all to see, own it, live it and follow through knowing the game. Therefore you will never be out of control of yourself, even through tears.

random thought 0002
June 3rd, 2007
There is a natural pattern to our actions which reveal the purpose of the soul. yup.

random thought 0001
June 3rd, 2007
There is no such thing as sex without consequence.

Suicidal Instinct
June 1st, 2007I've gotten into a regular cycle of reading the newspaper each morning again. It was something my father did and tried to instill in me. "Be well informed...” I can remember him saying. I can only really appreciate his advice now as I approach the age he was when I was born. But anyway, as I read the paper I always seem to flip through the pages until I get to the celebrity section. There is always this certain excitement about what's in there. Who's doing what and with whom they are doing it. Trivial garbage and I love it. I have no idea why. Is it because I'm somewhat in the "industry" so to speak? Nah, I'd be reading Variety if that was the case. No it's just a simple fascination with the lives of privileged people. The beautiful people who seem to have everything money can buy. "Such and such was spotted kissing such and such in a dark booth at such and such party last night". I read it like it is breaking news that somehow will affect my life like the weather or something.
But a small article caught my attention one morning just before the celebrity section. It was an article about the Pandas and how they really should be extinct. It explained that zookeepers have to basically force the Pandas to mate and that when a new Panda is born the zookeepers have to take care of it because the mother Panda will have nothing to do with it. The Pandas used to live on a strict diet of Bamboo but now they will only eat a distinct type of Bamboo that only comes from one place. If the Pandas do not have this rare Bamboo they will eat nothing and starve to death. The Panda has lost all of its survival instinct yet we keep them alive so that we can press our faces against the glass and look. It was the saddest article I think I had ever read. Then I flipped to the celebrity section and read once again about such and such celebrity having to go to rehab yet again. By those standards half the people in jail should be in rehab. But this isn't about rich and poor.
As we teeter towards the end of the second democracy ever formed, knowing why the first one failed, we see why in the end it just doesn't work. People are just not responsible enough to live their own lives without any moral questioning. Hey, I'm no saint by far (the 12 year Glenfiddich with a splash of water, thank you and hold the ice) but damn are we to end up like the Pandas, pampered, uncaring, unable to care for our own children, wanting to taste only the finest bamboo? Does freedom to do what you please result in a suicidal instinct? We may be past saving.

2007
So what a year this has been so far. After last year being pretty rough-- the end got kind of good with some unexpected joys that masked some real issues with me-- I said to myself the night of my purposely uneventful brithday (thank you to those that really wanted to make it special for me) that 2007 would be a year that things would change. I should have stipulated for the better. :) I say that smiling because things are getting much better but you dont realize how bad things have to get for them to change or for you to change for that matter. I've been in a few relationships with some really great women that has been part of a catalyst for change within me. Or for at least the accepting of some harsh truths about myself. This year I've had the first major dissapointment of my career as an actor/producer. This business can be so unforgiving. It reminds me of the very first time I stepped onto the set of OZ. I had no experience as an actor or being in front of a camera for that matter and as the director said "action", I had to be ready. there was no one to coach me along, no one to give the excuse, "oh he's new, give him a break". You learn quickly when other actors are having to wait for you to get your lines straight before they can do what they are paid to do. It was unnerving. But that was 10 years ago this year. I'm proud to say that I have grown immensely as an actor and as a writer and poet, just not as equally as fast as a person or human being. I say that because in my recent search for the source of my depression I came across some things about myself that I just didn't like. Some things that I had problems shaking. Traits about myself like jealousy, insecurity and selfishness. sounds pretty broad I know but as I dove in deeper I could see how these traits were affecting my relationships and career decisions. At 38 years of age I'm proud to say that I've cried more this year than I have ever in my adult life and it's only May. This year I moved out of my apartment that I've lived in for 7 years. And I've made some concrete decisions about the type of people I'd like to see in my life. suffering is the salvation of the ego. well, alright. Bring it on life, what else you got for me? I guess par to the description of being a tortured artist is to have thought about suicide at least 3 or 4 times during a depression. I looked it square in the eye this year unflinching and ready but that grand ego of mine is good for something I guess. it always stops me cold when I think that when I'm gone and they go to look at my filmography or onto my computer at my work, it just wouldn't be special enough. I would probably be just a little article in the paper, if that. My friends would cry and remeber me then move on with their lives and my mother would suffer. Who wants that. Just to get away from a bit of pain and some small dissapointments in this life? The one thing I can take from religion is some where in the bible it says that god will not give you anything that you cannot handle. In the Alchemist it says that anything you want bad enough in this life the universe will conspire to give it to you. I haven't done enough to leave this planet as of yet. Shit, maybe I'll save the world. It sure needs a hero. through all that, my greatest revelation to myself this year is that I DO now want to die. I think that is natural. I used to be scared of death. I didn't even go to my best friends funeral. In fact the last funeral I went to was of my father's way back in 1988. Maybe there is something to that. who knows. But Im not scared of it anymore. I welcome it in it's proper time and I know I have a lot to do before it comes. I want people laughing and joyous, remebering me at my passing. And whoever cries would be immediately comforted by someone close by with a story to tell of how I touched their life. That is what I want. That is what is important to me. It took a long time for me to realize it and now that I know what I really want out of this life, it's ON!!!!So, I just landed a role in a movie--tell you all about it when it's in the can-- that is taking me to LA for two weeks. This comes after officially making the decision to Move to LA for pilot season in January 08. I've got the lead in a play opening at the Public Theater in the fall that I'm extremely excited about. I'm putting to finishing touches on a book of rhyme naratives and just finished a T.V. pilot script for a project very close to me that Ive been trying to get made for a few years now.
I'm very excitied about the possibilities of life right now. I realized that you cannot depend on others for your own happiness and happiness for me comes from the creative process.
love love, love life,
muMs

Morning Breath: A Brooklyn Love Story
DVD of Morning Breath
$14.00 USD (Price includes tax, shipping and handling)