The Reverend

Former U.S. Congressman, the Reverend Dr. Floyd H. Flake is the senior pastor of the more than 20,000 member Greater Allen A.M.E. Cathedral of New York and President of Wilberforce University. The church and its subsidiary corporations operate with an annual budget of over $34 million. The church also owns expansive commercial and residential developments; a 750 student private school and various commercial and social service enterprises, which has placed it among the nation's most productive religious and urban development institutions. Allen Church has provided resources and guidance for innumerable faith-based and secular institutions. Its net assets are valued at over $100 million.

Flake served eleven years in the U.S. Congress, and was a member of the Banking and Finance, and The Small Business Committees. He established a reputation for bipartisan, innovative legislative initiatives to revitalize urban commercial and residential communities. Most notably, the Community Development Financial Institutions Act of 1993 contained provisions named the Bank Enterprise Act (BEA), authored by Representative Floyd Flake, which provided incentives for financial institutions to make market-oriented investments in destabilized urban and rural economies.

I had the pleasure of hanging out with Floyd for the afternoon. He was interviewed for one of my Television productions, Dollar™, for which he appeared as a professional authority. Maureen Aladin of Eye On It ® Studios, did an outstanding job producing the piece.

Eye Surgery

Well more like lens surgery. I am on location filming for my current feature film project "Anomaly" and the internal ground glass of my 35mm lens adapter had some particles on it, so I dismantled the enclosure and got busy (me on right). Everything went great after I got my adapter all cleaned up. John (pictured on left) provided the facility for our shoot. He's an eye surgeon and budding producer (working on Anomaly as Associate Producer) and an awesome person!

HR & Kelly PR

Theresa Kelly (pictured in middle) of Kelly PR, a good friend of mine and member of the Guns 4 Cameras committee.  

Stop the Violence - Harlem

I am at the Bread & Roses Integrated Arts High School on 135th in Harlem.  They are having a Stop the Violence Talent Showcase and invited me to speak.  They will be giving an award in my name to the winner.  It's always a pleasure to attend events like this, no matter how busy I am with my schedule. 

My New President!

I've been watching the votes come in (via a live internet stream, as I still have to work on the computer right now, besides the fact that I got rid of my TV at home... that's another story) and of course Barack Obama has won the contest by huge margins.  McCain just gave his concession moments ago and now Barack is about to give a historical speech.  The most important election of my lifetime, I made contributions to his campaign, encouraged friends and even Directed a commercial for his campaign (featured on CNN).  I did my part as an American to bring the right person to the White House.  I look forward to Barack's exceptional leadership and his vision to reshape this country, bring us new prosperity and improve our image to the rest of the world.

Proclamation

And so it was written, with a ribbon and a gold seal.  This is from "Hezues R' Day" the other week.  I just got the actual proclamation.  I had to come back to Poughkeepsie today to VOTE!