Tag Archives: SPIKE LEE

THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2024

NYC, DAY 5 — Finale

Last night in NYC & the city had me fully feeling myself.

Valerie June, Louis Mendes, Joe Hammond, Tiffany & Co., Selena Nelson, Spike Lee.

By this point, you couldn’t tell NYC Joy nothinggg.

And she had a thought.

That first night, no one expected Valerie June to exit into the main hotel.

On my last night, I could use that knowledge to squeeze one more drop of magic from the Big Apple.

Worst case scenario, I was all dressed up for a Saturday evening in NYC. Oh, no.

So I called a car to take me back to Café Carlyle where this all began.

For the next 15 or 20 minutes, I slunk around their lobby trying not to be weird. Temperatures were in the 30s most of my time in NYC, and I’m too old to choose cute over comfortable, so to hotel guests and passersby, I was just some creep in a coat.

Just as I was reaching peak levels of awkwardness, the café door swung open and Valerie June rushed out in a wave of pink tulle…

Until her dress snagged on someone/something along the way, jerking her back like a pull-string doll.

It was the most adorably ordinary thing I may have ever seen.

And snapped me back to the reality that I was WOEFULLY unprepared.

Another fan nearby clutched a VJ album and book with a blue Sharpie.

I’d shown up with absolutely nothing but a story about how I’d seen her in Austin just the week before and my NY-given swag.

You ever looked back on a moment and realized that your brain was the real MVP, working faster than you were actually processing thought?

Did I have any writing utensil? No.

Did I have a single scrap of paper? Of course not.

Would it be silly for her to sign a key card from a totally different hotel? Absolutely.

But Valerie June’s setlist had included one of my favorites, “Workin’ Woman Blues.”

And what I DID have was a $20 bill. And somebody else’s Sharpie.

“Can I ask you to sign something too… And can it be a twenty-dollar bill?”

With an infectious giggle that rippled through her curled locs and pink tulle dress, VJ remarked that nobody had ever asked her that before.

After the way NYC met me, it made my heart happy to leave behind a lasting impression of my own.

[Ed. Note: This post is part of a one-time February 2024 mini-series that took me to NYC where I was treated to an abundance of Blackstories first-hand. In place of my usual February content, I chose to share my own real-time (-ish) lived experience to honor the vibrant people New York put in my path.]

THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2024

NYC, DAY 5 — The Spike Thing

“Spike Lee is having a signing at the Brooklyn Museum on Saturday if you want to go.”

(Tbh, Louis could have asked me to go to Mars at this point, and I’d ask what time.)

So bright and early, we popped up from the Eastern Pkwy station into an entirely empty museum lobby.

OF COURSE only members were allowed before 11. Us plebes were ushered outside where Louis did the mental math. “I’m thinking. Wondering if we should join.”

I reached for my phone. $64 for a dual membership. Joy Barnett & Louis Mendes could swing that.

So with two hours until the signing, we talked. As fans & families gathered, we watched. And through it all, we sat comfortably after Louis pulled the elderly card like he doesn’t put in miles across NYC every day. And when the museum shop opened, we rose to our rightful place at the very front of the line.

Floral arrangements imagined by mrflowerfantastic

Around 11:45, a famous face poked out from a black velvet curtain, scanned the crowd, and did a double-take in our general direction.

That’s when Spike Lee marched over, shook Louis’s hand and picked up the stanchion himself to usher us in.

The two of them fell in so fast it almost felt scripted. Spike posed, Louis clicked. Spike handed Louis a bill, shook his hand again and thanked him. Then Louis went off-script.

“I wondered if I could get a picture of you and Joy.”

“Come on, baby.”

I scurried over like a rat to a charcuterie board. It’s almost literally written all over my face.

As Louis tucked the photo into his usual cardboard frame, Spike slid it across the table, and wrote without a word: “Love, Spike Lee.”

He began his goodbyes when I awkwardly chimed in to ask if he’d sign our books too.

The relief when he took it as a timely reminder vs. clumsy begging.

“Oh, tell all them people to open their books to THIS page,” Spike pointed a pink spread out to his manager. “I’m only signing THIS page.”

I flipped like my life depended on it, taking the opportunity to thank him for his work. He received my words graciously and signed both books before Louis & I started to slip away.

“Oh…” he called to his manager once more.

“And tell them NO PICTURES either. This is a BOOK SIGNING.”

[Ed. Note: This post is part of a one-time February 2024 mini-series that took me to NYC where I was treated to an abundance of Blackstories first-hand. In place of my usual February content, I chose to share my own real-time (-ish) lived experience to honor the vibrant people New York put in my path.]