Tag: Depressed

Jrnl Entry No. 5.6.2004

All day I can’t find the motivation to do anything but sleep. I guess I feel depressed for not being at work, or thinking that my professional, corporate, 40 – 50 thousand dollar a year life is over, and now what? I have completely written a documentary which I would like to put into film production. I have a director in mind but I don’t know if I want to work with him, a corny white kid. But then I think, maybe a corny white kid is exactly what I need to get that shit off the ground, get some funding for it. And then again when I think about how I am being discriminated against in my search for a job, I don’t want to work with any white people period. I’ve gotten two request for telephone interviews. That shit is nothing but a way for them to try and tell by your voice if you are black or not, and once they hear that you are, they can at least say they called you, discussed your resume and decided not to give you a call back.

I tried finding part time work before. I went up and down 125th St in Harlem and handed out my resume searching for part-time work and got nothing. I applied at Eckard drug store right up the street from where I stay, and they didn’t call me back. I’ve been in the village looking for work at the Atrium and the Lounge and at the Guess store and at H&M. It seems as if no one is willing to hire a black man in New York. I guess niggaz have stolen so much from their employers that no one any longer hires us.

I figured that my accounting degree would save me from some of that discrimination in finding part-time work, but that has not been the case. They really don’t intend for niggaz to survive in New York I see. Even with a part-time job, it is not great living by any standard, and they don’t want to give a nigga that. I guess it is too crowded here and they figure if they don’t give niggaz the least of the jobs that maybe we will go away. I don’t know what to do. Watrina is complaining that she can’t buy clothing for her daughter and that she has no money. I can’t go to the studio without any money to start recording my album so that I can get this label started which I have incorporated. I need money to buy CDs to reproduce, and covers, and posters, flyers, stickers, and Vinyl press ups. I can’t make a move regarding this business unless I get a full time job making $40,000 or more and that seems nowhere in the near future.

I’m currently working on my business plan which seems to be coming out nicely written. Once I have it written, I don’t know what I’m going to do from there. I thought about presenting it to my cousin Romeo and his wife for a $5000.00 investment. But they be trying to act like they broke and I don’t 
know if they will give me the money. Once I have it fully written, I need to work on a presentation, which will take me probably a month or so. Time is running out for me. I have $45.00 to my name. If I was stupid I’d probably kill myself or start taking drugs. But I’m a so-called smart nigga, but not that smart because I don’t know what I’m going to do to get up out of this situation.

I seen Heather B of the 1st Mtv Real World in Jay Z’s club 40/40. She used to have a little rap career. I asked what I gotta do to get her to record a song for me. She gave me the brush off like I wasn’t serious,  handed me an e-mail address. I e-mailed her yesterday. I want this album to be a compilation album but I got 10 songs picked out that I can write and record myself if need be. I don’t think a bank or investors have ever given money to a Hip Hop label on the cold front. I have thoughts that maybe I can be the first to get official funding from a bank or group of investors if I present my business plan right. I don’t have an inkling of collateral , which will make money hard to come by. I don’t have prior industry 
experience to lead off of. All I got is strong determination to make my dream come true of getting into this Hip Hop shit somehow someway before I die.

In the next 10 years it is my goal to be a Hip Hop Label Mogul with millions of dollars in worth behind my name. By the time I’m –, I want to be doing it for real. In the next five years, I want to be at my peak in record sales for my label. I think that is a realistic time frame. I got about 4 and a half years from right now to make it happen, I feel so strongly that I know this Hip Hop shit like the back of my hand. No one is going to give me the opportunity to prove that so I guess I have to prove it to them as well as  myself.

I’m trying to wait this unemployment shit out, but it is getting hard. I set around all day like I’m in a prison cell with no TV or no entertainment. I often say to myself that I should have been a drug dealer 
who would either be successful with millions of dollars right now, or in jail. Hell, I went the straight route and I still feel like I’m in jail. I wouldn’t complain so much if I was actually in jail instead of in my house  not doing shit. It’s not that I’m even bored because I am not. I’d just rather be doing something else during the day than sitting in the house thinking about my music career, my job situation and my  label business plan and how I’m going to get money to start this business.

I often wish and dream that I’d hit the Mega Millions Lotto or just the New York Lotto; then all these bullshit worries will go away and I can concentrate on some new worries. I’m starting to get grey hair in my head. My dick don’t get as hard as it used to. My girlfriend is not as interesting as she used to be. All  she does is clean up, cook, tend to her daughter and sleep. I try to communicate to her that shit is not sexy to me, every time I see her she is washing dishes or folding clothes or on her hands and knees scrubbing the bathroom floors and walls. I guess I’m just going through a phase in life right now. I’ve had my peak in life during and after college; now is the downturn, where either a nigga goes crazy, gets a divorce, robs a bank, goes on drugs, or becomes an alcoholic. Me, I’m just trying to ride this shit  out. It’s not even that hard, I’m just tired of being patient that’s all. 


Some nights I don’t get in the bed until 5 A.M. I need to stop that shit because I know it is taking a toll on me and causing me to age. I know everybody has to age but I don’t wanna speed up the process anymore than Ihave to. Tomorrow is another day to feel lost. I told myself that I might go to Best Buy and put in an application there. Deep down in my heart, I did not come to New York to work part-time making $6 to $8 dollar. I may as well go back to Ohio for that shit. I came to New York to prosper, to get that push I need to actually get off my ass and get some real riches because you need them if you are going to live in this city. But New York has flipped the script on me. New York has me jobless, just dreaming. I guess that’s why they call it the Big City of Dreams. That is all that I am doing right now 
is dreaming. I don’t have no resources what so ever to make any of my dreams come true except a dollar to play the lotto, and everyone knows that is the biggest of pipe dreams that will never come true.

I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I try to think what to do and my mind draws a blank. I guess that is what my sleeping and sitting in silence during the  day is all about, trying to dig deep within myself to figure out a way to get out of this whole I’m in. But my efforts are coming up empty. I don’t know man, but I got to do something. This can’t be my life for the rest of my life. I will not let it be. I guess maybe I’ll have to start all over like I’m in high school, work a part-time job and turn tragedy into triumph. I hate to do it but going back to Warren, Ohio is not an option. New York is a perfect home 
away from where I grew up at, not that far away where I can’t visit, not that close where I’d be home every other week like I still live there. I got to make this happen for me, I got to!

Jrnl Entry 9.13.2000 “MY HIP HIP STORY” PART VIII

Yeah, I live in New York now and have been here for a year. That feeling I used to have when I’d visit of walking around blending in as a New Yorker with Timberlands on and baggy jeans caused me to move here. I am finally here now, and it’s not feeling good at all. My plan was to move here, find me a couple of women to chill with, and make moves in the music industry. What actually happened when I got here was that I wasn’t able to meet any women, none! I thought I could maybe meet people out shopping or something, in a nice lounge bar, but it’s not like that here. Come to think about it, I don’t think it’s like that anywhere. When I was going out in Cleveland, I never picked up any women. I guess women don’t talk to you if they don’t know you or know of you, or someone that they know knows you. “I know I look good so it couldn’t be my looks.” (Ed O.G.) When Ed O.G. made that song “Gotta Have Money To Make It Witt The Ladies In The 90’s” He was telling the truth for the 90’s and beyond because it’s year 2000 and the same applies. If you don’t have a fly ride or are not a celebrity in New York and don’t know nobody, you are doomed.

I’m here trying to accomplish my dream of getting into Hip Hop, but with no women and no friends, it’s getting hard. I’ve talked to at least 100 girls in the last year, more than I’ve probably ever talked to in life, and didn’t strike anything with any of them. I talked to about 5 over the phone and nothing became of them. It’s ridiculous that there are millions of people walking around in this city and you can’t talk to anyone, at least not on a meeting and get to know on a relationship level. New York has some of the finest women of all races walking around, but you go and speak to them and it’s like “why are you saying something to me?” Even if you are polite, you still get dissed. Right now as I am writing this, I am depressed and don’t know what I am going to do. I don’t even like being outside in the city. I feel like it’s just me here and the rest of the outside world I’m seeing through a sound proof glass.

I went out last weekend with Burton who came to New York from Ohio. I talked to a really nice young lady by the name of Michelle at the Club Two Eyes We exchanged numbers and she gave me the wrong number. I talked to about four other girls that night and gave them my number and no one has called. Women here don’t give out their phone number like I can get to em’ and kill em’ through the phone. I told Michelle, if after calling a couple times and I see that you are not interested, I will not call anymore because I don’t have time for that. I told her I was a mature young man looking for a mature young lady, out of college or stable in her life. She told me she was in graduate school. I asked if we could get to know each other? She said yeah and we exchanged numbers. I called her Sunday night, and she gave me the wrong number. It just gets me down that I can introduce myself to a woman that I like, talk to her for a moment, and then she gives me the wrong number. I’m at the point now where I’m telling myself that I will not introduce myself to anymore women in this city.

I haven’t made any connections in the Hip Hop world neither. I ‘m kind of confused as to what type of Hip Hop I should be making. Underground artist such as Mos Def and Slum Village, who both have dope albums, they don’t sell. I want this music to be my living, and a good living. How am I supposed to live producing songs on albums that don’t sell to provide me with that living? The tracks being produced out on the mainstream, I don’t like half of them. I just try and make funky music. It must not be funky enough because out of like 25 tapes that I’ve submitted in person to rappers such as Raekwon of the Wu-Tang Clan, Talib Kweli of Black Starr and Reflection Eternal, and Rampage of the Flip Mode Squad, I have gotten no calls. I gave a tape to Black Rob’s brother and he gave me no call. I gave a tape to this kid named Poo Cabroxi, he called me and wanted two tracks on the tape. After I gave him the two tracks on a separate tape, he never called me again. He was telling me that I was gonna be recordin’ the songs in Daddy’s House Studios because his boy who wanted the songs was signed to Bad Boy Entertainment.

I sent a tape to my cousin who used to work for Motown. She is in Atlanta now. She didn’t respond. I cursed her out for not responding to me to tell me anything. She talked to me like she was some big A&R, not my cousin. She said since I cursed her out, she cannot help me. And she was working in the same office building as the Organized Noise producers who produced Outkast. She never introduced me to no one, so I said fuck her. I also know a guy who is down with DJ Clue. He is one of my good friend’s cousin by the name of Windexter. He was on the inside cover of Clue’s first mix tape on a major label. He grew up with Clue’s manager Richie. Every time I call this guy, he is never home. Or when I do talk to him, he never seems to have time to hang out, not even as a friend, which was my initial plan anyway because I thought he was a cool cat. I asked him to introduce me to Richie one time. He told me to call him one Saturday so he could listen to my tape, but he wasn’t home when I called. I even told him that if I get paid, I’d pay him, but he still hasn’t responded to me.

So I’m just here and I don’t know what the hell I’m gonna do with my life. I’m not gonna quit yet. I’m just feeling really down. So what started out as a bud in 84/85 lead me here to New York City feeling kind of depressed in the year 2000. I expected the rejection in the music industry, but the rejection from these women, I didn’t expect, and I am not handling it so well. But hopefully with time things will get better. I feel I want this music Hip Hop dream so bad, that I’m willing to go through all this because anywhere else I’ll have nothing to chase but a corporate ladder, which I don’t feel like chasing right now. I have a feeling that chasing that ladder will probably take me further in life than this Hip Hop dream, but what can I say. I want Hip Hop to be my life, not accounting in a corporation and definitely not in an accounting firm. It’s providing me with a means to live, but it’s not in my heart, HIP HOP IS!