Jrnl Entry No. 3.8.2004

I went to an employment agency today, Trandon Associates. I’ve been to this place like two times in my career of looking for employment. The place is total bullshit, at least, that is, for African Americans. Here is their routine. They have you fill out this little card with your name and employment history and post your resume behind it. They call you back to a little room where they mark down your qualifications. Now both times as I remember it; once five years ago when I was first trying to move to New York, and again today, they noted that I didn’t have charge back experience. So I’m figuring that must be the excuse they give to the black applicants they mistakenly call because they have regular American names. The lady says she had a position which requires charge back experience so they are probably not going to be interested in my resume, but they will contact me later if another position should happen to come up. Of course, I already know that I will never hear from Trandon Associates again. This also seems to be the case with the all the employment agencies in New York.

In my three experiences of looking for employment in New York City, visiting many agencies, only one has gotten me a position, and guess what the catch was to that agency: it was a British agency, all the people had British accents, had just moved from Britain to start this business in New York, and my guess is that oversees, they aren’t as racist and prejudice as the white Americans from the United States. I’ve gotten many calls from agencies, which all somehow, never got me any work after I went into their office, or they didn’t let me come into their office in the first place.

Like this lady called me two days ago from Access employment agency. She says that she got my resume which interested her, and then she asked what salary I was looking for. I says $45,000.00 and she says the only position that she has available is for 40,000.00, but she still would like me to come in for a meeting. Now me, knowing these agencies, I said to my girlfriend, “this is another bullshit call from an agency” and I tell her the situation. My girlfriend tells me to call her back and say that I would not like to come in until she has something more suitable to my salary range and qualifications. She wanted me to call right away so that the lady would respect me more, but I said I would call her the morning of the meeting and tell her. My philosophy is that she does not respect me anyway. She does not intend to get me a job anyway. My girlfriend says “you’re the one who is looking for a job, not her.” So I says “and she is not going to give me a job in the first place so it doesn’t matter.” I called the lady today around 4:00 P.M. and tell her what my girlfriend suggested. The lady called me back an hour later and said that she would call me when she gets a position in front of her that fits my salary.

Another situation happened about two weeks ago. A lady called and e-mailed me from Gothem Search Group and asked me to give her a call concerning my resume. I called her back but did not leave a message because I know that once she hears my Black voice that she is not going to call me back as has happened before. I went out of town, and when I returned I had receive another e-mail as well as a voice mail message for me to call her. So I called her and explained that I had been out of town but I was back now and we could set up a meeting. At the sound of my black voice, she says, “I’m sorry, but we have many Michael’s on file, why are you calling, in reference to what, could you please send me your resume as a word document and call back.” I says, “I already sent you my resume as a word document
when you e-mailed me the first time.”She asked me to send it again. I laughed and said, “O.K.” and hung up and sent her a message about her obvious discrimination. How are you going to e-mail me and call me twice and then when I call you back, you don’t know who I am? This is the type well-hidden discrimination that I faced within my year of looking for employment in a tight economy.

I’m seeing that 40 years later from the 60s and civil rights action, integration of schools, etc. that today in 2004, it’s the same shit. No one wants to see black people prosper or give us a chance. The economy is down and black people are the last people who are going to be employed and helped out. And even when the economy is good, we still get the same treatment. If these companies aren’t made to hire us due to affirmative action programs, they do not hire us, especially not in New York City. So I’m figuring that New York is not the place for me, but it’s the place that I want to be. No one, not even black people are trying to help achieve your goals and dreams. Everyone is selfish and dreaming to get theirs first before they even think about helping you get yours. I have been interviewing for a year now, and
only a few interviews at that. I’ve gotten like five interviews and only one resulted in an offer for $34,000 which would grow to $37,000 with incentives.

I just am not making it here. I’m living off of my girlfriend who likes to spend all of her money on her daughter, jeans, and expensive boots for winter. She’s covering me as far as a place to stay and food, but not leisure money. She claims that she is by my side, but I don’t think so, especially since I’m not working and my unemployment has run out and I have to ask her for any money that I need. I’ve tried going and handing out resumes for a part time position somewhere, but that is not working either. I would like to work in a Hip Hop clothing store or one of those high prices foreign wear stores downtown like the Atrium or The Lounge, but they don’t seem to want to give a brother a chance either. I applied at Eckerd drugstore the other day and they seemed to brush me off with a “we are not hiring right now.” I still applied and gave them my resume. You’d think that a little company would love have a college degree accountant working part time for their store, but knawl, it doesn’t seem to be the case in New York City.

I was thinking of trying to get some work as a security guard during the day. Right now I’m thinking of all the options I can to get some income in my pocket. If don’t find a job making $40,000 or more, I’m not going to be a happy man, as I already am not happy living here off of Watrina and her having the power over me knowing she can just kick me to the curb anytime and I’m out on my ass or back to Ohio, which I really don’t want to go back there. She has told me to get out a couple of times because I ain’t going to be no bitch ass walking around here treading water. Like I showed her when the New Year hit and we had an argument, If worse comes to worse, I’ll just move my ass to Atlanta and stay. And the next time I am forced to go there, I will stay there.

So I’m just now starting to study to take the GMAT exam to get into graduate school. One thing about graduate school is that I don’t want to get into debt and have to pay it back when I start working again, starting out in debt, leaving me where I once was. I was full of debt with rent, my car payment and utilities and I had no money left to live. I don’t want to go back to that shit. I have a few good looking pictures that Watrina took of me three years ago. I’m going to take them to a few modeling agencies and see what they say about representing me. I kind of feel that I don’t really have model looks, just a handsome look for a man my age. I feel like I have a deep smile wrinkle line on each side of my face and my cheeks are starting to droop a little. You know, just getting old, not that old, but seeing and feeling the effects of — years on this earth.

I wrote a documentary about Puffy’s revolution of Hip Hop that I have sent off to be copyrighted. I want to incorporate my production company named for my mother, my grandfather (R.I.P), and grandmother (on her death bed as I write this) “Leann, Michael & Ella” Productions respectively. And for those dumb fucks who don’t know what “respectively” means, it means that the name of the production company matches the order of the relatives I mentioned before it. I want to incorporate the production company for the documentary to be under and also for my music production company to be official to receive checks and write expenses off against, etc.

I have scanned “The Only Child” Logo into the computer and designed a CD cover with it. I have dreams that I could use that Logo as a strong marketing tool. To me it seems noticeable, memorable, and marketable. I see it printed on T-Shirts. There could be different versions of the T-Shirt, each one with the Logo printed in a different place; just simple T-Shirts with the Logo in different places each time. They could become collector’s items. And the name “The Only Child” also seems powerful to me and memorable: simple and unforgettable. If I had the money, I would start the whole campaign. I would go ahead and record my album.

I got skills in rapping I feel I really do. But at the same time, I do feel that my rhymes do have a little old school flavor to them like my friend J Johnson and my girlfriend Watrina used to always say when I first started writing raps again like two years ago. But this nigga Kanye West is inspiring me. If he can have a whole album out and it sells 400,000 in the first week, I can release an album and at least create a name for myself in this music industry. But I don’t have money so I don’t know what I am going to do about putting out my album and starting a record label. I feel that I have the knowledge and know of these streets to run a label. I know all the flaws of the current labels that are out right now and are failing to make hits and losing their distribution deals.

I have an idea to put together a business plan and take to a label like Def Jam to have them sponsor me and once I create enough buzz for my name, I will sign with them. The good catch to that is that they don’t even have to give me money, they can pay for my beats and have artist use them on their albums. I don’t think anyone has ever done that; propositioned a label to sponsor their pre-career so that in turn they could sign with that label. And since I’m about to be out of professional accounting work for a year and will have to take some shitty job that I don’t want, I will definitely be motivated to put some of these ideas into motion.

I’ve been trying to get my album recorded for the past six months but the guy whose studio I go to is jerking me. I’ve only recorded three songs in six months and that is no good. I need to move faster than that, I can move faster that but he is slowing down my progress. I don’t have the money to go to any other studio.

MONEY, I so tired of that fucking word. NO MONEY I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY. If I had this MONEY I would do this; if I had that MONEY I would do that. FUCK ! No money, no job. This shit is ridiculous. I think I would rather be dead. That is one reason why I didn’t want to have any children, putting them in this world to go through all this bullshit without a single advantage in the world. If my life continues like it is, I won’t be able to help my daughter with shit just like my parents didn’t help me with shit: no house, no car, no money, no business knowledge or any other knowledge. Having kids is some selfish
shit on the part of women just to make them happy. With my life right now, I’d rather not been born. This life is bullshit!

Jrnl Entry No. 2.23.2000

So I goes to Justin’s last night. I didn’t have any trouble getting in or nothing like that. I walked in and walked to the bar and ordered a Guiness Stout at $7 a bottle. They were playing D’angelo’s new album “VooDoo.” I was just standing around peeping the scene for a while. I seen this girl who looked like an enterprising young lady. She had on a business suit with a nice pair of shoes in my book. “I like a woman who spend a little cash for her shoes..” (Jay Z “What girls/guy like”) She had long hair or long weave, whatever the case it looked nice. She was skinny from what I could tell so I wasn’t lusting after her. She just looked like somebody who knew somebody who could probably help me break into the Hip Hop Music production arena. She was talking with different people every time I saw her. This one guy came up to her and her friends and he never left, and he was talking to her mainly. After a while I left or just stopped looking at them.

I was standing on the beam in the middle of the floor and I seen this beautiful girl. She reminded me of Lynette Treason from college. She had that dark brown complexion, she was slim from what I could tell on her figure, and she opened up her coat so I could tell she had a little body. After standing there for a few minutes wondering how should I approach her, I finally says, “fuck it,” and I goes over to her. I was staring at her and she gave me a couple of glances back. I went over to her and asked my usual polite, “how you doin’?’ She started smiling so I figured it was on. I started smiling back, but then after I started smiling she said “I’m here with someone.” I said O.K. and left and went and stood back where I was.

Oh did I mention that when I walked in the place Black Rob was one of the first faces I saw. He was drinking a bottle of something. He didn’t seem to have a friendly face so I didn’t start talking to him. I just stood there by him for a while. At one point I did say to him “how you feeling tonight god?” He had his attention focused on the coat check lady, and I guess he didn’t hear me. I didn’t attempt to speak again. I walked across the room a couple of times but I didn’t feel comfortable on that side with really nowhere to stand so I returned back to my beam by the bar.

I was just standing there trying to see if there was anyone I was interested in talking to. There was this one woman or young lady. She was light skinned, short, nice ass that I liked. She looked mature which is what I am looking for. I thought about talking to her, but she was talking to some older men. It wasn’t really buggin’ me to go and say something to her anyway, so I let that go. After two beers, I went back over to the other side. I heard this guy spittin’ rhymes to this other guy. I figured I’d camp out and wait for him to finish talking to the dude, and I would then talk to the rapper, and I would catch the other guy later and talk to him also to ask him who he was that this guy was rhyming to him. They were takin’ too long so while I was standing there, I noticed this fine honey standing over on the wall with space enough for me to go and holla at her.

I waited a few for these guys to stop talking. Then I saw the honey walk across the room in my direction so I was scopin’ her. When she returned to the wall, I seen a guy who was standing a few feet away from her on the same wall looking at her, but he didn’t say nothing to her. So then I walks over and ask him, “why ain’t you talking to this honey standing right directly next to you?” He says something like he was waiting for me to do it, so I said hey, and stepped over there. I said my usual “how you doin” and what not. It was a pretty dry introduction, but sometimes those are the ones that land you into some pussy. I asked her name and she told me and didn’t say anything else. So I just stood there for a moment and then I started kickin’ it to her about Tuesday nights at Justin’s. She took the conversation over from there telling me that there used to be a DJ but Puff didn’t have a cabaret license for that so couldn’t have a DJ.

After her infomercial about the restaurant, I started asking her the usual questions: age, occupation, residence, etc. She said that she worked and lived with her parents, but her real interest lye in starting up a Women’s Sports Magazine. I thought that was interesting. That is what I like about N.Y. is that I run into people who want to enterprise and start something of their own. I don’t want to start shit, but just work for them when they get their shit. I told her that I wanted to be a Hip Hop producer and asked her advice on how I should go about doing that. She just told me to start talking to people like in the restaurant because you never know who was in there. I asked her if she thought it would be a good idea to talk to people who already made it who were in there like Black Rob and Little Cease. She said that was a good idea. She made me feel good and confident to talk to someone. She was about to leave so I asked her since I had seen this ring on her finger, “friendship ring” she says. I asked her did she need another friend, and she said no. And come to find out, her twin sister was sitting right next to her. I told her that since she didn’t want to talk to me to tell her sister what a nice guy I was, and tell her to talk to me. I mean they were twins, same everything; what would I be missing if I talked to her sister? I was joking of course and she started laughing. While talking to her I spotted this bangin young lady. She had on one of them colorful knit skirts that I like, and it was knee length. She had a feathered like short haircut, ass was busting out the back of the skirt, and she had on some leather boots that came above her cav, below the knee. She had a cute little face.

So after the twins leave, this girl and her friend were standing right in front of me and the girl I liked was writing something down. So me, feeling the alcohol, I started like peeping over to see what she was writing. The first time I did it she didn’t get bitchy or nothing so I did it again. She looked at me and looked at her friend and laughed, and then her friend put her hand up in Martin “Dis” fashion, and put it in my face, touching my face. I figured they were safe to talk to once this guy they were talking to left. He didn’t leave soon enough, so I went over by the door where Little Cease and his entourage were standing trying to get up the nerve to say something to him. At one point I reached over and gave him a pound and said whats up. He was constantly talking to his man though so I couldn’t break and talk to him.

Meanwhile I spot the guy who was rhyming earlier. I walks up to him and start telling him that I heard him rhyming to the guy earlier, and told him I was a producer trying to break into the industry, and asked if he needed some beats. He started talking to me and asked for my number. I handed him a tape. He told me his name was Camilion. He said he’d give my tape a listen and he would definitely give me a call. He spit some shit in my ear to the Tribe ”Stressed Out” beat that was playing. I was feelin’ him a whole lot better than I am feeling Ricardo. He sounded nice and had skills with his words like an MC supposed to. After I talked to him I was definitely ready to shout at Little Cease, but just as I was looking over there, he was headed for the door. I walked to the back one more time and then left.

When I get outside I notice that the side of the street where I had parked my car was all clear. There was nothing over there but a garbage truck. My car had been towed. When I first pulled up, I pulled behind another car so I assumed it was safe to park over there. I starts walking up the street to read a sign which would tell the violation I committed for my car to be towed. At the corner of the street I see a sign that says, “Night Regulation: No Parking from 11 P.M to 6 A.M.” Where my car was parked I didn’t see any such sign, and I didn’t worry about it because usually all the signs say that you can’t park from 7A.M. to 7P.M. So from there I goes to a pay phone and calls the operator, and asks her for a number to call to get my car back. The operator had no clue and told me to call information. I called information and they gave me a number to call. I called the number and it said to call back during opening hours 8A.M. to 7P.M.

From there I walked down the street to catch the train. It’s a good thing I learned to ride the subway and learned how to read a subway map. If you ever come to N.Y. to stay or for a few weeks, you must learn the subway system if nothing else. With some simple instructions from a friend and a little experience of taking the wrong trains a couple of times, you’ll be a pro in no time. It’s a pretty basic system to learn. About two blocks away was the subway station with the train that I could take all the way to my neighborhood in Queens. I goes down the stairs and the attendant tells me that the train is only running to Brooklyn from that stop and not in the opposite direction to Queens. I didn’t panic, I just walked a couple more blocks to another station, but that station was closed. From there I figured I better walk all the way down about 12 blocks to the 34^th street station at Herold Square. 34^th street is a major stop, and the train had to be running from there. I asked the attendant was it. She said it was but you had to go down on the Brooklyn side to catch both trains: the one to Brooklyn and the one to Queens.

I catches the train home. I got home at three O’clock and went to bed. I had to get up at six to walk to the train station or catch the bus to the train station. I was prepared to walk, but when I walked outside my apartment, the bus was right there waiting to get on schedule so I hopped on it. I got on my beautiful N Train to go to work. I was gonna transfer to the G Train at Queensboro Plaza but I decided to stay on the N which was going to the same place, but I thought the G would have been faster. I got off the train at 7:30 A.M. as close to my job as the train would take me. My job is out on the water by the Brooklyn Bridge on the pier “pier 3”. I started walking and got to work at 7:50 A.M. My beautiful N Train is what I call it because it takes you to all the main points in the city: Times Square, 34^th St, the Village, my job and home.

After sleeping all day at work, I took the train to Time Square and walked to go and get my car. It cost $150 to get out. I got it and went home. If I ever meet Puff, and we have some kind of relationship, I’ll tell him reimburse me for my expenses that night:$21 I spent on beers that night; $150 it took me to get my car; $55 for the ticket I had to pay; $7.50 for the train and bus fair to get home that night and to work the next day, and the $35 I spent on dinner when I went to eat at his restaurant when I was first moving and spending a lot of money. On a normal day, I would never spend $35 on dinner for one, not at this point in time in my finances

IF YOU’VE EVER MOVED TO A NEW CITY, WHAT ADJUSTMENTS: SOCIAL, TRANSPORTATION, DRESS CODE, YOU NOTICED WERE DIFFERENT THAN YOUR ORIGINAL PLACE OF ORIGIN?

Jrnl Entry No. 2.22.2000

I went over to Elaine’s house last night to pick up some grease that she makes. I got over there and sat for a while. She is ugly man. I had been figured this out when I first met her for an outing at the LaBar Bat. After that outing, we really didn’t talk anymore. She does have some nice tidies though, but she doesn’t look clean. She has this dirty look about her. I really can’t see myself reaching over and kissing her.

Well my car has gotten its second official nasty scratch, and it is on the hood. A truck must have backed into my car and its bumper got my hood. I had a little luck getting some phone numbers on Saturday night but so far they have not been anything but the same ole bullshit. The one girl who is a school teacher, we sat in the club in the booth and talked with her and her friend all night, she hasn’t been home the two times I called her. I left my name and number on her answering machine but she hasn’t called back. Another girl who does accounts payable work and has two kidz, she actually called me Sunday to my surprise. I called her Monday, and we established that I was going to visit her. When she told me to call back, she had left and I waited a little while for her to call me back but she never did so I went to Elaine’s house.

So the women here are still bullshit. Nothing is happening for me here in this city. All I see is a bunch of ass, most of it Rican and white which I know I can’t have, and when I go and meet black women, they don’t respond to me. I really got no place else to go though, but I’m about fed up with this shit. But fuck it though, things will get better somehow.

I’m going to some shit tonight that Elaine was telling me about. I guess it’s an after work spot, free from six until. From there I’m going to go over by Justin’s for some industry networking party that Elaine was telling me about. Hopefully, I’ll meet someone to talk for real about my music at Justin’s. I probably won’t be able to get in or some shit, or it will cost too much. I’m gonna go though to see how it goes down. I hope I run into Puffy so that maybe I can get an accounting job with him, and maybe that would make my life happier for the moment.

And I don’t know why but when Thursday night comes around, I get happy. I’m free for the weekend to do what I wanna. So maybe like in that stupid movie “Office Space”, each day at work is like the worst day of my life. When the weekend approaches, I get happy because I don’t have to go to work for two days. Friday is like a day I just wait for work to end so it’s really not a bad day at work. I don’t even take a nap at lunchtime on Friday.

I heard a couple of beats that Elaine’s cousin did for someone, and the one was kind of wack. He has the same beat machine as I do. Ensoniq ASR 10. This leads me to think that maybe I have what it takes to become a producer in this town because the amateurs are really amateurs. Lark has some good shit and some bad shit coming out of his MPC 2000. Kenneth and them were telling me about a guy they met who has an ASR 10 and they said his shit didn’t sound all that. He was telling them that the ASR 10 was a limited machine. No its not, and in fact it’s probably one of the most complete beat machines that are out there. I can do everything but put different effects on the eight different tracks that are available on board. I program a sequence to do whatever I want it to: stop on a certain beat, take out an instrument, etc. Maybe he hasn’t put the extra money in his to purchase extra memory like I did. Without the extra memory, yes you are very limited. You can only use a certain number of tracks before all of the memory is used up, and you can only program a certain number of sequences. Maybe I ought to keep that as my secret to give me an edge in the game; unless someone asks because they’ve read and know about it, don’t tell em’. Sometimes you got to keep shit to yourself to have that competitive edge you know.

I think that Lauren will be my forever lover, and one day we will get married probably when her kidz are grown and we are like in our 40s. I have been thinking about that ass lately and I want some. I tried calling her last night but she didn’t pick up the phone. My dick instantly gets hard when I see that little big ass of hers switching around. She turns me on like that. But I don’t know if right now I can get over how she was treating me because she had her man Jamelle. She was dogging me to the fullest. One moment she’d be nice and let me fuck a couple of times. The next moment she’d have some attitude and we’d argue and I’d end up leaving her house. We had great times together though.

She came to my house to see me in N.Y. about a month after Sausha and I broke up, and it didn’t feel all that good to have her there. She was trying to get me to fuck her all night and day like I used to but I just wasn’t feeling it like that. She was there from Friday night to Monday morning, and we had sex Friday night and Saturday morning; Saturday night and I think Sunday morning but I’m not sure. She was getting on my nerves. Sunday night she put on some little lingerie thing and I didn’t even make an attempt to fuck. But I’m thinking about her now though.

I am just not motivated to work. I take too long to do my task. It takes me two to three days to review the accounts of three yards, and Dawn just told me that she reviews six or seven in I don’t know how long. And maybe I’ll always be this way or maybe not. Maybe something is just missing in my life and my work life. And NO it is not god.