Tetrogrammaton.

Tetragrammaton.

I'll say without, with no embarrassment, my older brother Andrew was a hero to me.

He was six years older, and he was a theater director, and he was an unbelievably beautiful theater director.

And I was so inspired when I would go to see his plays. I just wanted to be just

like him. So when I got to university, it seemed like a, maybe not a very original choice,

but my godfather, Melvin Van Peebles, who had also inspired Andrew. Melvin had been a theater

maker. He had two huge Broadway shows. And then another in my childhood. I was his little

assistant and I became his stage manager on a Broadway show that Melvin did called Waltz of the

Stork. And prior to that, he had done Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death, which is one of the

most anthemic pieces of work about Black America that I've ever encountered. And he did Don't Play Us Cheap,

which was also hugely powerful. And my life was shaped by a theater maker in many ways in

Melvin. And then my brother echoed that and gave it shape in the body of a pudgy white Jewish kid.

Because it was hard to make the leap to be Melvin in a lot of situations. I used to go out with girls and Melvin, I've gone out with a girl or two in my life.

And Melvin at that time would give me kind of like father's son, ladies' advice.

But Melvin, I don't think I can say that.

I mean, I'm not like some super handsome black dude from Chicago.

Like, I don't think that's good.

Trust me, he'd say.

So I'd muster up the courage to say some relatively like kind of bold thing to a woman

and my teens or my, and I'd say something to somebody and wouldn't go over that well.

And I'd go back to Melvin, I'd say, Melvin, that thing blew up in my face.

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