Artwork by Linda Clark-Nelson

It's hard to look at oneself but..my auntie is an artist. And I am now a piece of art..and loving it. In a shaking the self-conscious issues kind of way.

David O. Russell in the hood

I finally saw the outrageous leaked video from the movie "I Heart Huckabees"
I'm not going to post the "Youtube" video because I just can't. It's appauling and upsetting beyond belief. Was this punk ass director really berating a comedic living legend this way? Is this for real? And if so, can someone drop David (the punk) in the middle of Compton in the middle of the night and force him to walk down Crenshaw screaming the N word all the while. That's the next scene I'd like to see from this miserable half a man. Then we'll see how tough he really is.

I don't give a rats ass what Lily Tomlin did or said to him, he should have a SHIT load more respect and control than to go off on a mad tirade..I mean this man actually used the C word on Ms. Lily Tomlin. I can't even imagine.

I am an aspiring screenwriter..broke and frustrated at trying to get a hollywood read and I can honestly sit here and say...If David O. Russell came to me tomorrow and offered to direct one of my films, I would run from him and continue to recycle bottles for food, and continue to allow myself to be mentally abused in the realm of commercial production work while waiting for my next opportunity. AND I MEAN IT!!!

One of the best things about a director is his or her ability to communicate with the talent. It's obvious this man can't communicate, so why does he continue to work? I also read that he didn't get along with George Clooney on the set of "The Three Kings" either. I've never met Mr. Clooney but have heard he's one of the nicest and clearly talented men in the business. So umm err where does the problem lie? With that miserable David O. Russell...the plague of directors. Actors should boycott working with him. But I know what'll happen...it's just gonna get worse, until a physical altercation rears its head. Actor or Actress..Legend or Newbie...no one is safe from a misogynistic, self loathing, impudent man, doubling as a director. Not to slander or anything but...I can only imagine a MAN going off on a woman (he's not having sex with )in that manner and that publicly if he's COKED up. And my writers mind can imagine a bus load of things. Just say no!

and damned if I don't love"Flirting with Disaster" and "I heart Huckabees"...Ms. Lily Tomlin being the highlight of both.

Thank God for the Ocean and Whitney Houston

This was the hardest work week of my life and the gracious and wonderful ending was finding this on You tube.



I didn't even know Whitney ever performed this beautiful gospel song that I only know through a Bebe & CeCe Winans album.
I officially love You tube for this discovery. I was trying to hate on it too.


Here'a a little rundown of me calling on the strength of my slave ancestors to make it through a WORK week, when I really just needed to spend the week baptizing my body, hair and soul in God's grand (carribbean) ocean.

This was the first year of the anniversary of my Grandmother's exit from this world..and I miss her even more.

I'm working on a NEW show with a NEW producer and we we're supposed to be shooting this week but the job pushed..meaning our 8 day shoot was delayed a week..meaning..we we're all in the office and I didn't have a moment. And I needed a thousand. Or at the very least we would've been busy on set. None of that happened.

And I spent this entire day trying to mask my heart-wrenching disappointment at being cut from attending the "Table Read". My first table read and such a wonderful thing for an aspiring writer to witness. DAYNA=DENIED and me being the emotional ball of madness I am, cried about it. And then had to hold it all in, once my boss and everybody else got back from it, tallking about how great it was. GOOD GOD!!!!

and the final kick in the gut...after a 13 hour day , I go out to my car to take this long ass drive home...NOTHING!!!!! My car is dead as a doornail. And I quickly realized how alone I really am out here in production land. Thånk goodness I'm a semi-cute damsel. Because , before I could really start going off on the Diva men in this industry who couldn't help me...A MAN, happily helped me. Not one I work with, but one who works on the lot. Thanks Todd, you are THE MAN. I just needed a jump. I left my lights on (like a dumbass). And all day, not one selfish bastard of an industry player thought to find the owner of the vehicle with the lights on. Please remind me to pay attention to humanity even when I'm a bigwhig showrunner..aight?

But I made it, it's over. My boss (who I do like a lot) just told me to go home. Tomorrow morning I will press the reset button with some rollerblading. I try not to rollerblade when I don't have medical coverage but....F&^% it!!!!

An Angel sprouts her wings - March 20, 2006

Rain showers taper off to a light sprinkle.
A simple seed advances to a blooming bud.
Beams of sun burn through dark clouds.
A stalk peeks its narrow head through the mud.
A flower commences to life on earth.
And Mother Nature is made aware of her worth.

A human seed takes root through love.
A tiny heart, find it's first beat.
Protective walls of love form in a womb.
A baby in waiting discovers his feet.
Unbreakable bonds take form through birth.
And a woman, turned mother, is made aware of her worth.

Tears of joy, replace those of grief.
Birds chirp soul-easing songs of release.
God's heart smiles, the bells of heaven ring.
And Saint's gather in choir-like fashion to sing.

Every time......an angel sprouts her wings. ©

-Dayna Clark


For my beloved Great-Grandmother, who though she has left this trivial world in body, has created a legacy of love on earth and will always reign supreme in my heart. I am forever grateful for my Great-Angel, Minnie Pearl Clark.


I didn't know it was possible to miss someone this much. But here we are. And it's raining today in Southern California where it rarely rains. How apropos.

Love is.....

Being able to vent to your white friends about "The ways of white folks" and them automatically knowing....you don't mean them.

Howdy Ya'll

Hillbilly Love Poem

Susie Lee done fell in love
She planned to marry Joe
She was so happy 'bout it all
She told her Pappy so.
Pappy told her, Susie gal
You'll have to find another
I'd just as soon yo Ma don't know
But Joe is yo half brother.
So Susie put aside her Joe
And planned to marry Will,
But after telling Pappy this
He said There's trouble still.
You can't marry Will, my gal,
And please don't tell yo Mother
But Will and Joe and several mo
I know is yo half brother.
But Mama knew, and said my child,
Just do what makes ya happy
Marry Will or marry Joe,
You ain't no kin to Pappy.
___________________________

I had to share this poem. I'm doing research for my newest writing venture and I'm finding hilarious stuff. Tis' the reason for my lack of posts. I mean how could I not post about the Oscars, when for the first time in my ENTIRE life I watched the ENTIRE show.

Ellen was great, and....... "We're movin' on up!" all the lovely folks of color nominated and winning...Kudos to my peoples for doing the damn thing and Kudos to yo' people for recognizing and being gracious enough to do the right thing...damn it's about time. It's not like we haven't BEEN doing the damn thing.... Denzel Washington(Malcolm X), Angela Bassett (What's love got to do with it) and so on and so forth and shoobee doobee doobee. I'm still on the fence about Halle Berry's Oscar. I mean come on...The voters were clearly living out some kind of jungle fantasy........ Monster's Ball...gross. That sex scene was gross. POINT BLANK. GROSS. I can't say it enough. I'm not saying Halle Berry didn't deserve one but I am saying that sex scene was GROSS!!!! And offensive. Did I mention Gross? I mean give her one for Losing Isaiah or something but I get it, it's Hollywood...and just like the girls at Eastland Academy, were taught...you take the good..you take the bad..you take them both and there you have....The Facts of Life!

And the documentary I worked on a bit, An Inconvenient Truth won one of those little gold men along with one of my favorite people out here in Cali (one of the producers of the documentary) very happy for her, she deserves it. Because, documentaries, yawn city. Yes they are great and serve a wonderful purpose, but you go and do some research and you'll quickly see....Research is exactly that...RE...search and search and search.

But again, I must jump and go back to my own research for my fiction flights of fancy. Peace!!!!

Happy New Year?

Talk about neglect!!!! There was no way I could carry myself and my blog through the holiday gloom.

I keep trying to NOT give up all my business but....Today....my mother would've turned 51 (talk about a gyp).

I've officially made it through. The fog is lifting.

I could start out with reviews of movies like Rocky and Babel. Concerts of John Legend and The Roots. I could talk about hiking in San Pedro, rollerblading by the Beach (my favorite thing about L.A.), but I don't feel like it.
I'll just say I thoroughly enjoyed all of the above and keep it moving.

Still haven't gone to see Dreamgirls, I don't know what my problem is. I've got some kind of block. I want to see it, I've been told to run, not walk to see it, but somehow...I just haven't done it yet.


The television show I was working on was cancelled, right before the holidays. CANCELLED. FIRED. LAID OFF.....I was put out on the streets 3 days before christmas. The tv world is no joke. We set up these grand offices, thinking we'll be there for a while and then when the plug is pulled....."don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya".

Madness. But I met some GRAND folks and proved to myself that I CAN take a lickin' and keep on tickin'. Cause honeychile' I was an assistant to a Producer. And let me just say, there is a part of your humanity you MUST give up to be a seasoned producer. Truly. So if one can chisel through a hardened and nutty producer's mind and heart, one can hang in there.

But here's my next question...hang in there for what? The best thing to happen to my "career" was working on that tv show and realizing I don't want to give up a part of my humanity. I like, love even, my humanity and intend to keep every single bit of it. So my goals and how I intend to reach them have drastically changed and I'm grateful. So begins the next chapter of life for this nonconformist who is trying to work out having a career in entertainment while holding on to her common sense and humanity. I tink' I've found a path. Or I'm about to grab the machete and carve a path.

Must everything be such a struggle?





P.S.

Thanks to the music of Nina Simone, Jacques Brel and the Kill Bill Soundtrack (I and II).
My new favorite song in the world is a French song "Ne Me Quitte Pas"...the great Nina Simone covered it and I found a You.tube version of Jacques Brel performing the song live...almost creepy, yet so touching and earnest, I was able to flow into the magic of his performance and never look back. Fell in love with the feel of the song without the translation...upon finding the translation...my love was confirmed.

I have rediscovered Nina Simone...currently in crazy rotation....Ne Me Quitte Pas, Mississippi Goddam, My baby just cares for me, Nobody knows you when you..." I seriously appreciate her existence in the music world. Seriously!!!! If I could go back in time....she's one for my books.








Hey that felt good. I was considering deleting this blog because I sometimes (most times) use it as a distraction from my "WRITING". But nah...I think I'll keep it. Especially since I use all kinds of things to distract me from my writing..anything from a dog barking to a car backfiring to the smell of cigarette smoke creeping into my apartment through the vents (beyond annoying).

Fright Fair

Last week a friend invited me to "Fright Fair, Scream Park After Dark". It's part of a Halloween Harvest Festival at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, California.

He treated me to the full service scare - Corn Maze, Haunted House and Haunted Trail.

Now I think of myself as a pretty tough individual but boy oh boy and girl oh girl did I lose it.

My Step-Grandmother used to always tell me I was ass backwards because I felt safer in the street with hoodlums than in our house (with a security system) and I'll say on this day, October 26, 2006 over 20 years later....She is correct.

I'll take the evil I know, anyday, over monsters, ghouls, demons and the likes. Make believe, shmake believe. There is a line from Toni Morrison's book, Song of Solomon, it reads "What difference do it make if the thing you're scared of is real or not?" AMEN to that. If I jump out of a high-rise window trying to escape a make-believe monster, I'll still wind up scattered on the sidewalk.

So...We get there..... LATE. We get to the Haunted house and we're told...."The creatures are on a 10 minute break" You think that would help ease the fear, once you are told creatures have to eat and take bathroom breaks...but no, not at all.

First of all...If I ever go to another Haunted House or Cornfield, I need to go with a GROUP of people. It was just the two of us and because they were about to close...it was really just the two of us. I wasn't safe walking in front of him, I wasn't safe walking behind him. I wasn't safe jumping on his back. There was no safe haven. I needed one more body to sandwich myself between. It was outrageously horrifying to me. Opening doors and walking through different rooms with different horrible and bloody scenarios. Sometimes we'd hear moaning in the next room, so we'd know we were in for it and sometimes the creatures (dressed up teenagers, I'm sure) would come from behind.

It's amazing how a grown woman such as myself and a grown man such as my friend..we'll call him K for short, completely lost our senses in a Haunted House set up in the middle of a field on a College Campus. And the screaming....I hit notes I never thought possible and I really didn't realize how much I was screaming until K let me know about it. The screaming was innate..I couldn't stop.

I still can't decide which was scarier...the Haunted house or the Haunted Trail (in the middle of a cornfield). Actually, as I type this I realize, CORNFIELD! Mucho scary as hell. I mean, who wasn't horrified at the thought of " Children of the Corn" and a cornfield all by itself is scary enough. But add monsters, ghouls, fools with chainsaws and the memory of that screen ode to dysfunctional kids in a field and you've got the recipe for a FIRST CLASS HEART ATTACK.

And, I, of course was wearing heels (never wear heels) but when an invite comes in, ya gotta roll with the punches.

Punch 1 - Heels in a haunted cornfield.

The first scare was a big football playing looking child of the corn. And man for a big guy he chased me a longggggg time. Because when he jumped out, I went back to my days of high school as a 100 yard dash sprinter. The problem with me, is I am a sprinter. I am incapable of long distance running, apparently even when a 350 pound monster in blood drenched overalls chases me in a cornfield. K, who I wouldn't let out of my sight, went down as well and had the nerve to wave the ghoul on...telling him to go get her. Her being "eat my dust" Dayna. I was sprinting right out of his realm until ..BOOM..I took a hella dive. Here's some advice - Don't run with scissors OR in heels. And they were boots with heels, good solid heels, but I'm a flip-flop girl. So I went down.......hard. I'm not ashamed to say it. Jumped up caught my breath and took off running again (still trying to get the grass and dirt stains out of my favorite jeans.) There was no end to the cornfield and no end to the amount of creatures jumping out from behind the stalks.

Finally K, caught up, because I could no longer run. I even told a monster to just keep me. I mean it was really unbelievable. The deep, heartfelt horror of it all. The pain in my chest from screaming AND sprinting at the same time. They should add that to the Olympics roster - Horror sprinting. You have to run for 200 yards while screaming the whole time.

When we emerged from the horrifying haunted trail. We both were sore, it was like a horrifying work out at the gym. A "hurt so good" feeling. Crazy. I slept like a baby that night. Until I heard a noise in my kitchen around 4am. I'm certain it was a creature from the cornfield (grown world traveled woman here) but I can't be sure.

Eddie Murphy does a stand up joke about the difference between white and black people when it comes to being scared. He uses Poltergeist as an example.. A White family buys a new house, hears a ghost say "get out" and they invite other people over to come hear the ghost. A Black family buys a new house, hears a ghost say "get out" and they take the ghosts advice. I felt similar when I heard the noise/creature in my kitchen, I didn't get up and leave, but I sure as hell didn't get up and go investigate. I just moved the stungun closer to the bed and layered my sleepwear in case I had to escape through the window.

But after all of the fear, the running, the screaming, the busting of my ass, the staining of my jeans and so on and so forth....I had a slap ass good time. I really did. A horrifying and gratifying good time. But I'm not going back. No haunted houses and trails for at least 3 years. I mean the whole concept is brilliant! You walk in with your lips twisted in disbelief and you walk out humbled because you damn near wet your pants. Brilliant!!! Though I suspected I'd be an easy target, just didn't know the level of horror. And thank the Big God of little Fishes, I wasn't drunk or on any hallucinogenic drugs. I would've been featured on eyewitness news.

Thanks K-MAN. Let's have more fun, more fun!!!!! Oh, Halloween in West Hollywood. I haven't done that since I moved to California. I'm working that day, but I'm dedicated to making it. We'll see.

This is the entrance....other than those lights....DARKNESS!!!!!

We love fabulous gay men....

So if all these so called straight shooter left wing "closeted" bible-belt Republican males just embraced their desires and picked up a copy of Diana Ross' greatest hits...and a Barbara Streisand box set.....wouldn't life be grand. Although, the thought of Mark Foley, in drag....not so much.

The issue here, is not that this man is/was a closeted Republican, it's that he decided he likes, little soft "confused" boys, who are looking to be mentored, not molested. He decided to take advantage of a situation, instead of being a responsible grown gay male, who takes the time to DATE other grown gay males. Nothing wrong with that. Something way wrong with seducing young "confused" males who are probably only going along with it based on his position of "power." Sad...sad...sad....and disgusting. I mean if these boys ARE gay, would that old, ugly man be their first choice of a love interest.....hell no.

I'm sure the parents of these boys were so proud of their sons, so happy for the career path they were on. Then they learn, the career path was really just male prostitution. God help an old man who'd try that on an offspring of mine. I hope to raise a child who would take the inappropriate solicitation, first, to me and then, second, to eyewitness news. I can't imagine....What was Foley trying to create, a new legacy of confused Republican, molested males to take over Congress one day. What he did to these boys is beyond unfair, selfish and nasty...it's beyond. Okay, so you have these thoughts and feelings towards little boys that you can't seem to control. Then move to a mountain and live alone or seek psychiatric help. You selfish bastard. Now you've got several boys who have to grow into men and function in society with the memory and public humiliation of some old stinky Congressman who took advantage of them. A vicious cycle of abuse.

It's funny how, because this guy is Republican...every excuse in the book is being brought to light for his sexual deviance...he was molested and yadda, yadda, yadda. And when Michael Jackson's dysfunction came out, nobody cared or excused his alleged inappropriate behavior with kids, whose own PARENTS dropped them off at grown ass Micheal Jackson's house. I wonder who molested Michael and if and when that comes to light, will he be excused for "unproven" lewd acts.

And oh how they are going on and on about....these, being, just text messages and Foley, never had sex with any of these boys. Of course he did. Maybe not all of them but at least one. Or some kind of inappropriate sexual act with a minor... of the same sex for God's sake. Come on. Denial really is a river in Egypt when a Republican's dirt is aired. If this guy was a democrat, he would've been exiled and dropped in the middle of the Sahara dessert. "They" would magically find old condoms and bottles of alcohol with leftover DNA from the teenage pages in the deviant democrats house. So I see why the wicked claim Republican...you get away with doing a busload of grimy stuff. And if by chance, you do get caught....no matter how heinous the crime....you get a tiny slap on the hand to keep the public quiet and then you get a gift basket filled with chocolates and champagne as an apology for the public slap on the hand your cohorts were FORCED to give to appease the masses.

Outrageous!! But all things come to light. So I've said this before and I'll say it again and I feel the same way about myself....If you don't want anyone to know about some shady shit you're doing.....Don't do it. Because if one other human knows, rest assured, several know. And eventually you'll have to deal with whatever it is you were trying to hide or deny.

This man, Foley, makes enough money to go get therapy for his sick addiction. And that's what he shouldv'e done. But we live in a society where if you have enough power and money, you and several fools under you, will start to believe your own bullshit of...."Whatever I want I can have and whatever I want to do is okay" And with several yes men or women whispering behind your back but not telling you to your face how sick and disgusting you are.....you are never checked and the monster just grows and grows. This dude was really throwing stones in a glass house. Good for the Aide who ratted him out. I'm usually not a fan of rat finks, but I love a good shake up amongst the so called "Elite". This Foley guy is the elite of America....money makes it right.

Money makes, extortion, adultery, child molestation, murder, mayhem, sodomy, R. Kelly, rape, and a slew of other wrong things....right.

Wrong!

I have to be a bit shallow and add what I just read....Foley has allegedley been involved in a long-term relationship with a dermatologist..Ummmmm....Foley's skin shows otherwise. So if this is true, either that is the worst dermatologist on earth or he didn't like his boyfriend very much.

Thankfully, it is now like this...

Life is 10% what happens to you, 90% how you respond.



My mantra...and it really works for me(as long as I remember to remember this point)

The Sun continues to rise and shine EVERYDAY!!! Unless you're in Alaska....no thank you.. as I am solar powered.

Hip-Hop Hooray!!!!