Feeling real good today - My man Austin “Big O” Croshere dropped 34 on the Sonics last night. Dude’s been buried on the bench, but given some looks, he can unleash offense. Of course our boys at Dime Magazine were killing him on their daily smack saying this game is the whole resume, but we all know Cro can score - He dropped 44 on Marquette in the Tourney, 36 on Syracuse in the Big East Tourney, and was the only Pacer that showed up against the Lakers in the finals. Now us Santa Monica ball players, with the exception of William “Pops” Benjamin, aren’t known for our defense, so I’ll grant you the fact that AC ain’t exactly stopping people on the regular, but he’s hard-nosed and working-class in his game and one can always appreciate effort.

I rehearsed with Grayson yesterday. We have a lunch scheduled today to introduce him to more of the team and then a rehearsal again for his screen-test on Friday. I know he is going to bring it on Friday. This whole process has been an eye-opening one for him. I think he’s really getting a sense of what goes into acting, movies and this whole process. It’s sinking in and he’s putting in work. I like to see that. The effort is as important at this point as anything else. We are doing this thing, it’s time for people to step aside or step up. No more B.S. It’s on. We are bringing effort and workman-like attitude. No more time to talk, time to work. Like Austin, we’ve all been sitting on the bench, cheerleading, now is our time. Let’s shine.

Our producer Michael is back from Sundance riding the high of having sold his film WAITRESS and, as a result, made his investors really pleased with their risk-reward bet on him. Big ups to him, we are so proud and so thrilled with all of his success. Not to blush a kid, but he has really handled all the tragedy and difficulty surrounding his film with a grace that is rarely seen. Furthermore the sale is great news for our team. It means that folks are checking for his next project and, bam, here it is.

We are stepping up our game in the ‘07 as we slip into the role of aggressive slashers rather than spot-up shooters. We’resimply done waiting for someone to pass up the rock. Michael returned from Park City and has hit the ground running. Actors need to answer our offers now. Investors need to step up with checks. It’s time to make this thing.

On Friday, we officially screen-test Grayson to answer all doubters and questions about his ability to walk in the heavy shoes of Sticky. I’m so excited because he’s out here in LA and we are rehearsing. I think he will really surprise people both in our screen-test and again in the final film. Some of my other guys are coming in to read with him and that’s really dope because it allows them to be seen exclusively early by our casting team and also because it’s a chance for me to work on actual scenes. I’m so fired up to do some directing, I can’t even tell you. Friday (and the days leading up) is a big day for us. BDL is coming, we’re pushing those stones out the way.

When you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. Don’t just set out to do a good job. Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn’t do it any better. If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well… For it isn’t by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.

-Martin Luther King, JR, Philadelphia, 1967-

I’ve always walked the right side of the road
If I wasn’t making song I wouldn’t be a thug selling drugs
But a man with a plan
and if I was a rug cleaner
betcha Pos’d have the cleanest rugs I am.

- Posdnous, de la soul -

So here I am on the one day a year that Hollywood shuts down to theoretically honor a black man, and he is not Spike or Oscar or Ossie or Forest or Eddie or Richard or Don or Charles or Melvin, but I figure the majority of the execs and agents are out snow boarding instead of taking pause to think about what it means to honor one’s life calling. To me, and not to reduce the man, Martin Luther King, Jr was a leader that spoke en masse with words directed at the individual. He asked his audience each and every time he spoke for excellence. Excellence in one’s self, excellence in one’s society, excellence in one’s world. Excellence is not without flaw, it can never be perfect, but our approach to it can be wonderous. We all have it within ourselves to strive for excellence in our life’s calling. The heads surrounding this project all know our life’s calling, we are practicing it, even if it is without nickel in palm. We are driven by words and works belonging to Martin, Malcolm, Huey, Baby Huey, Dennis Johnson, Posdnous, Marty, Steven, Michael, Steve, and others who bring us their best every time they step on their chosen stage.

The first thought in the dome will be what does a 6′5″, 286 lbs defensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens have to do with a movie about the world of streetball? But look closer.

Trevor Pryce is a musician stuck in an athlete’s body. When he’s not gathering up 13 sacks for the Baltimore Ravens and leading the top-ranked defense in the NFL to the playoffs, he is making music and making it quite well. Trevor Pryce runs Outlook Music, his own indie label, and has managed to make money doing it at a time when the music business is latest great American industry to go the way of the coal mine. He is the real deal and what’s more, he loves the story of Sticky. He sent me a handful of score tracks ideas and I felt them, so now Trevor is on board to score our film.

At 2:16am on Thursday, January 4th, 2007, I found myself staring into the future. My newly born daughter Mira stared up at me and dropped the sweetest of wails that seemed to say: What? Whacha gonna do? Whacha gonna be? And I said out loud in response to her telepathetic challenge, “I’m your daddy. I’m a filmmaker and I’m going to make a film called BALL DON’T LIE this year, your birth year, that is going to be important.” The nurses around me probably thought I was a little nuts, but they were nice enough to not show it in their face or their words. Instead, they gave me a “ain’t that sweet, dad” comment and handed me this tiny living miracle without even a patronizing pat on the shoulder. It’s all true, Mira and Althea, we will make this film this year and it will be important. We’re on our way to some semblance of security, even if that security is simply knowing that talent is not being squandered.

I heard that Zen-master Phil Jackson believes New Year’s Resolutions are things made for, and by, children. Well, Phil gets paid an obsurd amount of money to coach children in a child’s game. So I guess we’ll be even.

I stood at the foot of my Pacific Ocean on State Beach and stared into the deep blue breaking into white at my soles and I asked the ocean for abudance. This is an action my father did everyday when he could still walk without a wheelchair. Imagine a man being broken down by cancer tumors all over his body stepping cautiously, carefully down a winding sidewalk into a urine-stained tunnel under PCH and across a vast sand bank to the mouth of mother ocean to ask her for something, something akin to necessary help. Abundance in a time of need. He could have asked for anything, health, safe passage, and he was worried about his wife, my mother, making ends meet when he was gone. He knew what’s was up with him and he knew what to ask for - abundance. And it came in a form of a minor miracle at a time when miracles were definitely scarce.