My Surreal Life : Its Hard Out Here For A Pimp
Normally I don't post about my personal life for various reasons. The main one being that I figured no one really gives a shit so I only tell a handful of people online (my AIM gang) about what's going on in my world. This time I've decided to make an exception and go there with ya'll.
Just don't fall asleep on me.
For those who do not know, I work(ed) at a financial institution aka bank as a teller. Counting other muthafuckas thousands for nine hours every weekday (except Wednesdays, the bank closes at 1 p.m.). Today started off as a normal Friday. I wore my jeans, "official bank shirt", and Pumas to the office as I do on most Friday's. Anyways, our drawers got audited and guess what? Your girl came up $80 short in bait money. Bait money is the money that you give a robber if they're jacking your ass to set off the alarm. It's supposed to have $100 in there but mine only had the $20 that was still under the clip. My guess is that I must've given it away while doing a transaction. Pretty normal shit I thought. One of my white co-workers even told me she had done it before so I didn't think anything of it. Nor did the manager of the bank at the time she was counting my drawer. All she said is that I would be $80 short today, cool.
I'm a pretty honest muthafucka. I don't steal, kill, lie, or anything else. I may talk shit time to time but I would never steal from someone else, let alone my fucking job! So about two hours later I get called into her (manager's) office for an improtu meeting aka firing session. She tells me that since I should've caught the mistake yesterday that it was my fault for not reporting it and also that I was "force balancing". That is saying that you are balanced when you are indeed not. No one ever counts that fucking money! Everyone always assumes that it is in there so I never count it. So if I don't count it, surely the assistant manager at the bank who always counts my drawer after me should've caught my mistake. Ha!
So to make a long story short I got fired today over some bullshit. I know they aren't ever gonna hire another nigga now. I was the only negroid in the entire bank (its only three others in the whole branch system who have been there for years). Do you remember that When Keepin It Real Goes Wrong episode on Chapelle's Show where Vernon goes off? How he secretly feels like an Uncle Tom because he gets along with all of his co-workers. That was my ass!
Of course I was pissed off, shocked, and hurt by all of this. I feel like my integrity has been questioned. In the words of Richard Nixon "I am not a (fucking) crook!". Down with whitey! As I walked into my home from the car it started to pour down raining. It was something out of a damn movie, fo real.
I'm over it though because I know I didn't steal the shit. What I'm going to do with 80 bucks? Buy crack? I just know that this employer will not go on my resume and that I will be finding another bank for my money. Thanks Jon and Prodigal for making me feel better about all of this.
So to continue on in the spirit of bad news, I'm checking my email from the good folks over at The Mindset Army and read this:
TV Guide: So is that it for Chappelle's Show?
Murphy: Chappelle's Show is over, man. Done. It took me a long time to be able to say those words, but I can say it pretty easy now, because it's the truth. There's no way to get around it. It's a new day. I'm disappointed it ended the way it did, but I'm not angry with anybody. Chappelle's Show was like the Tupac of TV shows. It came out, it got everybody's attention, it was a bright shining star, but it burned out and for some strange reason, it burned out quick. The two seasons I acted on that show made me a star. Now I can go out and do stand-up. I'm getting movie offers. It's off the hook. Me getting to the next level or whatever's going to happen is going to come from the next things I do, but Chappelle's Show served its purpose and I'll always be grateful.
What a damn day. There is a silver lining in my cloud of gloom today though. Soli nominated this crunktastic site for the Black Blog Awards (I should really check my email more often, no?). So feed a hungry child in GA and vote [/not really].
8.04.2005
Well Its About Fucking Time: Dateline To Discuss The Disparity In Media Coverage of Missing Minorities This Friday
NEW YORK - When "Dateline NBC" reporter Josh Mankiewicz asked television news division chiefs to talk about disproportionate coverage of attractive white females who go missing, only his boss agreed. His report on the trend is scheduled to air on Friday's edition of "Dateline NBC." Chandra Levy, Laci Peterson, JonBenet Ramsey, Elizabeth Smart and now Natalee Holloway all became household names because of the way television news divisions, particularly the cable networks, extensively covered the story when they went missing.Each had another common trait: they were young, white, pretty and female. Some have questioned how they became stories, when more than half of missing people are male and nearly three in 10 are black.
Mankiewicz follows the case of Tamika Huston, a black woman from Spartanburg, S.C., who disappeared last year. Her aunt, a public relations representative, told NBC she tried hard without much success to get national news outlets to report on the story.
Mankiewicz said he asked news bosses at ABC, CBS, CNN and Fox News Channel to talk about the issue."It's an uncomfortable question to address," he said, "and I think there may be a feeling that if there's going to be an examination done, they're going to do it themselves rather than watch it on someone else's network."NBC News President Neal Shapiro was interviewed, telling Mankiewicz that race is not a factor in decisions about who NBC covers and how it is done.
"Our mission is to try to cover America," Shapiro said. "And that means all facets of America ... and when our coverage doesn't reflect that, it distresses me. That said, I think it's important that people in the industry talk about it. I think the fact that `Dateline NBC' is devoting airtime to it means we take it seriously."The case of Holloway, a blond Alabama teenager who disappeared in May while on a vacation in Aruba, has been tirelessly covered on several cable news shows, particularly with Fox News Channel's Greta Van Susteren and CNN Headline News' Nancy Grace.
Van Susteren said her show has covered missing minorities, citing stories last week on LaToyia Figueroa, a pregnant woman from Philadelphia who hadn't been seen since July 18.Figueroa's case attracted a brief flurry of television attention after several Philadelphia area bloggers waged a campaign urging networks to give the same attention to her as they did to Holloway."We could certainly do more," Van Susteren told The Associated Press. "You can never do enough. I'm not going to say we're perfect on that; I wish we did more on missing minorities. But I'm not going to be bothered by the critics."
Simple Bitch of the Week
This shouldn't come as a shock to anyone. Remember the award I gave her?
By now, fans have seen the allegedly hacked nude photos of model Vida Guerra circulating the internet. Everyone from industry folk to fans were logging on to see for themselves within minutes of hearing about her T-Mobile Sidekick being hacked. What first seemed to be the result of a devious internet hacker, now seems to be merely a publicity stunt by the model herself.According to Flash Records' label head Flash Rodriguez, Vida's former record label, Ms. Guerra released the photos herself in an attempt to hype up her upcoming single "You Ain't Ready" -- a stunt Rodriguez did not agree with."When I confronted [Vida] about it, she said that the vagina shots were not hers," Rodriguez said, "but I told her that it had her tattoo, and her nails were done in a way I could tell that they were of her. She responded with 'Isn't this good publicity for my single?'"
"The surfacing of nude photos of Vida became a very serious integrity and marketing issue to the label due to the fact that we have sufficient reason to believe they were not hacked, but were a publicity stunt," he added in a statement on the label's official website (www.feamgroup.com).
The release of the nude photos has since caused Flash Records to drop the model/singer off their label roster. Rodriguez also revealed that Vida was difficult to work with because of her "diva like" attitude, and went as far as saying that her singing ability was less than sub par.In fact Rodriguez alleges that the first single was not even sung by her. To impress The Source magazine, who recently ran a feature about Guerra's singing ability, the model allegedly had Rodriguez play the magazine's staff, vocals of another singer."[Vida Guerra] couldn't cut it," said Rodriguez. "She was scared to sing on the phone and in person. She produced no music for my label."Although the label constantly asked her to take singing lessons to improve her abilities, Vida refused, according to Flash Records. The label also cited bad management, constant unrealistic contractual renegotiations, and an unwillingness to do promotional appearances as factors that led to her being dropped, so Flash wouldn't "compromise the integrity of the label."