The Beacon

The Power of Words

2012-01-20T14:16:00.000-08:00

thank you for sharing, arnold.

"Rant worth listening too"

2011-12-16T11:17:00.000-08:00

pretty well thought out.

Measuring Success your Way

2011-10-10T19:14:00.000-07:00

This piece was featured on Being Latino, Inc.

Recently, Being Latino prompted the question, “Do YOU feel that you need a college education in order to be “successful” in this country? Why or why not?” It’s a loaded question to say the least; in trying to answer it you have to know how to you define success. That in itself can be the root of one’s demise -- spending a lifetime trying to achieve “success” without understanding what their own definition of success is. But the definition of success isn’t what I wanted to address. It was the responses.

Many replies referenced the unemployment rates that many graduates are facing once they leave the comforts of the university, reiterating the perspective that a degree doesn’t promise anyone a job. Other people spoke on how hard it has become to find a job that doesn’t require a college degree; jobs that in the past only required a high school diploma, if that. The common thread: both perspectives share the desire to work or be working. For a lot of us, we grew up with this ingrained: do well in school so you get into a good college, do well in college so you get a good job, get a good job so you have a good life.

We are conditioned to be workers. Employees. We’re not taught to think about creating our own employment opportunities or entrepreneurship. The thought of being a business owner never crossed my mind, nor was I encouraged to explore that possibility. I decided to pursue a career in education because I couldn’t fathom the idea that making music could provide me the consistency and financial stability to have the life I wanted – but I stand here as an entrepreneur. It was my “ah-ha” moment that came once I had the audacity to pursue a career in music that I realized no one was going to give me the opportunity to create the type of music I wanted to make. I had to create the outlet, or opportunity, for myself. Growing up I wasn’t encouraged to take risks (especially financially) nor was I taught that if I fail then it’s not the end of the world. The hardest thing I had to unlearn was that failure isn’t the end of the journey -- its just the beginning.

College, classes, and professors will not make you proficient. They will provide you with knowledge which you apply to life, work and/or career. But what many people do is look for the path that is laid out like the yellow brick road; expecting success to be at the end of it. Just because you obtain a degree that doesn’t mean everything is going to be laid out for you on a silver platter. You have to figure out what you want to do and how to put yourself in a position to achieve that goal. Maybe a degree isn’t even part of that path, but you can’t expect to find success with a formula. You have to put in the work and pave their own yellow brick road.

Having a degree or multiple degrees does not determine nor define your potential for success – you do. It all depends on how hard you work to make it happen.

@OccupyLA Anthem - A Call for Revolution

2011-10-06T20:17:00.000-07:00

I hope you have been keeping up with whats been going on on Wall Street and the Occupy LA movement. This absolutely the most amazing time to be living in right now. We are making history.

and this is a little contribution from some of the 99%-ers at AG One.

The Kushé Collection by Arnold Randall [fotos]

2011-09-26T10:46:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday I shot Arnold Randall's latest creation: The Kushé Collection. We hit the Orange Circle with my favorite models Tanya Thomas and Akapela Jonz on a whim, and it turned out pretty cool. We found a couple dope spots to set up; these were a few of my favorite shots..

Like Father, Like Son

2011-09-24T20:48:00.000-07:00

Strong genes, and seemingly the same shoes.

Its kind of crazy how similar my pops and I are. Similar tendencies, tone of voice and expressions. Only difference would be that I'm a natural lefty -- I just learned to do a lot of things right handed because I used his old golf clubs and baseball gloves. Leaving my teens and going into my early twenties one of my part-time jobs was working at lids. I ended up having a hat collection of over 20 LA fitted hats. Come to find out my pops had about the same amount of hats at the same age. There are a lot of other instances my mom likes to point out to me on how history is repeating; such as how we both have a guitar collection consisting of about 4 or 5 each.

I don't think its a big deal, but when people meet my father they are stunned by how much we look alike -- when they meet my grandfather they are speechless.

And to reiterate these genes I was referring to...here's my a recent picture of my grandfather.

My family is the perfect example of pursuing the "American Dream" in the fact that each generation lived a better life than the previous; and they were able to accomplish more because of sacrifices made to give their children better opportunities. As for myself, it takes a conscious effort to make sure those sacrifices were not made in vein; being aware of my blessings.

People often talk about "failure" as not being an option for them. Failure plays a quintessential role in achieving success. Giving up, however. That is not an option -- its unacceptable.

I Don't Need Your Help

2011-09-14T20:20:00.000-07:00

This article was featured on Being Latino.

Well, at least didn’t think I did. I suppose you could say I’m prideful -- machismo, even. But I am not arrogant nor am I disrespectful. Part of the problem is that I don’t like to ask for help. I know I am fully capable of completing the task at hand on my own, but sometimes there’s just too much to do. The other part of the issue is I couldn't recognize that people want to help because they want to see me succeed -- and being able to trust that someone else had my best interest at heart isn’t the easiest task.

When I started my business four years ago I made a couple major mistakes that limited my potential for growth; all because of my pride. The first one was when I decided against accepting money from investors. I didn’t want to have any pressure over my head of having to pay anyone back -- I also wasn’t sure I was even going to be able to. I didn’t understand the concept of spending someone else’s money before spending your own -- I wanted to do it my way with my money. The second mistake was in building my staff, and learning to delegate responsibilities. I didn’t want to inconvenience people that I really couldn’t financially afford to have working on my team. So I ran myself ragged trying to do it all myself.

The issues bled into my relationship. I am very adamant about keeping my personal life and my business separate, but I wasn’t demonstrating that very well. I became, and sometimes still am, one dimensional. My lady was only able to experience one facet of who I am, and since I was being consumed by my business, that is who she knew; and that's who she wanted to help. That led to many moments of frustration and even arguments concerning boundaries between our relationship and my business.

That was my biggest misconception.

She wasn’t trying to over step our relationship nor was she trying to take over what was mine. Her way of showing love and appreciation for me was to contribute to what she knew meant a lot to me. But I wasn’t open to accepting it; I wasn’t able to recognize what her love looked like. The same way I wasn’t open to investors; people who truly believed in me and wanted to help me succeed by providing much needed capitol. The same way I refused to delegate tasks to people who were more than willing and wanted to be a part of the company I created -- giving their time even when they knew there would be no financial compensation up front. But I couldn’t see that.

Pride can be blinding. In my case my pride was holding me back from receiving the blessings people wanted to give me. I was stuck in a state of mind where I was the only one that could do what needed to be done. I confined myself by believing there is only one way to complete a task; or only one way to show someone love. Machismo has gotten the best of me, but I’m learning to grow through it. I just keep reminding myself, “No one ever choked to death swallowing their pride.”

Does the hyphen syphon equality?

2011-09-02T09:21:00.000-07:00

This piece was featured on Being Latino Magazine. And yes, that is a picture from my soccer playing days.

I forget how old I was when I first learned that I am Mexican. This to me is not necessarily a bad thing — depending on how the information is presented. You can easily shape a child’s perception of specific people or put a chip on their shoulder at an early age. What is that going to do for them? Ultimately, it will affect the way they build relationships growing-up and in school. Understandably, later on down the line they will wise up to the realities of society; so no need to pollute their minds early on with what we think. That inhibits progress, but I digress.

When explaining my background my grandmother always told me, “you are American of Mexican descent.” It wasn’t until I just wrote that sentence a few seconds ago that I realized how deep it truly is. It’s a strong, strong statement declaring that I am contributing member to American society and deserved to be treated as an equal American citizen; it also embraces my rich family heritage – which is significantly different than identifying as “Mexican-American.”

I have an issue with the hyphen. African-American. Asian-American. Meixcan-Amerian. Second-Class. While it gives me the outward appearance that we are able to embrace our culture when we identify our nationality, I feel that by adding the hyphen we allow a degree of separation from what society identifies simply as “American.” I’m American, too. Why do we have to be a sub-category or sub-classification of what type of Americans we are?

Maybe the greater issue of identity lies in the question, “What does it mean to be an American, really?” So much effort goes into figuring out what everyone is because there is no real definition of what American is -- to each his own. The beauty of this country is its diversity; its downfall is equality.

You would think equality would have been a standard by now. Some may argue it is, which to an extent is true. The rest of us would say there is still a long road ahead to reach that point. Equality is something that will never be achieved over night on the mass level. It starts at the individual level; how we raise our children. Teaching them we are equal, and in order to be respected as an equal we must treat all people equal, ourselves. Embracing our differences culturally or superficially, but being accepting and open-minded with other cultures -- its proven to be more difficult than it sounds. I truly believe racism and prejudice are taught in the home; children aren’t born with these ideas or misconceptions. If we want change how we are perceived, it starts with us. In our homes. Educating our future.

MOVE

2011-08-04T13:01:00.001-07:00

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

I thought this was really cool. Courtesy of Howard.

When was the last time you listened to the radio, really?

2011-07-17T23:30:00.000-07:00

I was recently asked what my thoughts are on the state of mainstream radio on my formspring. More and more, this is becoming a prominent discussion point among my peers. It was no more than a week ago that I got a call from Mr. Notes talking about his frustration with the radio and how it is all sounding the same to him. Ironically, I had just read an article by Bob Lefsetz talking about the role mainstream music is playing in today music industry. I love how he relates major labels to mass manufacturing companies, and people are interested in supporting small business because the have better quality products.

"No one has the magic keys. Top forty radio is a formula fed by a conveyor belt no different from the one at GM, but with a lot less innovation. If you're interested in making a Cruze or a Camry, sign up. But it's the aforementioned Prius which is sold out and unavailable, it's what people want, what they're willing to overpay for, even though GM killed its electric car. It takes a while for the public to catch up. The Prius was not an overnight success. Hipsters and the green signed up first, Toyota improved the product, gas prices went through the roof and voila, a mania! Manias are not manufactured, not ones that last, they're all about being in the right place at the right time, anticipating the market, not playing it safe, but being dangerous." - Bob Lefsetz

In the past year I have found myself listening more NPR, or podcasts such as Gordon Gartrell Radio. Notes hit the nail on the head when he said, "its all starting to sound the same to me." Some may say mainstream radio is playing it safe, others may argue that they are just playing the artists who have the marketing dollars behind them. Its a lot of static sound, no one that is getting air play can say they are pushing the envelope musically, really. There a few acts that are, but they aren't getting as much love as they should. People with the budgets -- that are slowly dwindling -- are taking less risks on acts that THEY can't see as being immediately profitable. Instead, they are banking on revenue from these cookie cutter sounding artists that were successful during this current trend. But once that trend is over, then what?

I miss how DJ's used to break local acts by giving them air play -- and due credit should be given to those such as DJ Roial 1, Nick E. Nice, and other DJ's who still practice this. Radio used to be a balance of top 40, as well as regional artists. Now you can go from city to city across the states and just hear the same songs. That's why so many people are hitting the internet so tough and are devouring all the music -- especially the free music -- from these unsigned artists.

Internet radio has its moments. Pandora or Slacker sometimes throws me for a curve ball and hits me with something or someone I've never heard of and is really dope -- I have high hopes for spotify, once I really get it going.

Podcasts like Phonte and Zo (gordongartrellradio.com) will do mixing classic hits and new music, and it never fails, I always end up researching who just played so I can hear more from them.

But to answer the question I think people that are really looking for new music aren't listening to mainstream radio. To have your song played on mainstream radio is more of a status marker opposed to the best music really getting to most spins.

What are your thoughts? Where do you go to find your new music?

Continuous Play part 1

2011-07-12T16:52:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I was at a fish fry with my friends. While sitting around, Cliff asked everyone at the table what their all-time favorite album was -- the album that they could listen to over and over again and not get tired of. For me, I couldn't answer. I am all over the place with my musical tastes to be able to narrow my choice down to just one album.

This last week I have been reflecting on what albums I like to listen to. Since my taste is somewhat diverse I figure I would break it up into two posts -- this one will be on hip hop. Its rare to find an album in any genre I can listen to them in its entirety -- from beginning to end without skipping a song. For me, these are them:

The Renaissance - Q-Tip

This album is one of my favorite albums, hands down. I often argue with Cliff about which albums is Q-Tips best. I say This one, and Cliff always sides with "Amplified". In all honesty, both are dope albums. I think I just chose this one because its actually what was playing in my car this morning.

Biyani - Blue Scholars

My line brother put me up on game when it came to the Blue Scholars. The first song I ever heard from them was No Rest for the Weary, and from there I was a fan. I love that they possess the essence of the old school Producer/DJ and Emcee duo. The production sometimes has unique elements, but doesn't lose familiar sound of hip hop. I admire their dedication to empower the people -- true activists.

Fishscale - Ghostface Killah

This was definitely one of my best purchases during my college career. The album is solid. As great as the follow up album, "More Fish" was, That seem more like a compilation of songs that didn't make the cut for "FishScale." The Production knocks -- but Just Blaze never really has a weak track. Lyrically, Ghost is one of the more influential writers on my own writing and if it wasn't for my little bro, I probably wouldn't have as much of an appreciate for Ghost as I do.

Reasonable Doubt - Jay Z

A classic. Ironically it was my friend Mischalay who gave me my first copy of this album my freshman year of college. Back in the dorms I told her I had a brand new ipod with no music, and a few minutes later she dropped off a couple GIANT books of cd's -- that looked like this! I spent days uploading music...I could listen to this album any time and it is just so timeless.

Finding Forever - Common

I dont know what it was about this album, but it was definitely one of my favorites. Now granted, I've been a fan of Common for a long time and this is arguable the most pop he has gone (with the exception of endless summer)...but I loved it. I had this on repeat in my elantra back in college. I might be the topics he spoke on or where I was in life, but for me I could listen to this all day. The production on this project really influence my style as producer. Its a given that as a writer Common's catalog of music has been very influential.

Honorable Mentions:
Busta Rhymes - Big Bang
Kanye West - Homecoming
Common - Be
Big Pun - Capital Punishment

Now please do not get this confused....this is not a declaration of any kind stating that these are the best hip hop albums of all time. These are just simply some of my favorite albums because I am able to listen to continuously.

What are the hip hop albums that you can listen to on continuous play?

Nick and Yadi's Wedding [fotos]

2011-07-06T11:00:00.000-07:00

I love this shot.

We stopped traffic..

These were just a couple of my favorite shots from the day.

I forgot to post these a while back...a wedding I helped shoot last year.

Encouragement

2011-07-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

I immediately loved this when I first saw it. Everyone has a starting point, but where they go from there is directly correlated with how much their loved ones believe in, and encourage them to continue to grow.

Happy 4th of July.

oh, by the way...do you think this would have had the same ending had the little boy been brown or black?

Planking

2011-07-02T19:47:00.000-07:00

"PLANKING= slavers stacked slaves on plank beds face down,hands chained to there waist & called planking there slaves..."

I haven't really found the humor in this recent obsession [click here for images of planking] that has hit pop culture, and now I understand why. I've seen kids all over taking pictures of themselves looking stiff as a board.. I've seen my peers indulge in the moment. I just hope that those that do know about history are taking the time to share this with our youth. Too many people, not just children, are walking around uninformed and not because the information isn't readily available or accessible -- some people just don't care

Maybe it was just me. Maybe my struggle to find out where I belonged led me to dive into finding out where I came from. I can never get enough knowledge, history, and stories from my family. My grandparents especially. There were many sacrifices, many set backs, and many struggles that happened, but my family and my community still made it to where we are today. Now WE -- you and I -- are blessed with the burden of responsibility.

I believe that if people know better then they will do better. I hope the above image isn't what they are looking to imitate or recreate.

what are your thoughts?

Save Your Work. [life lesson]

2011-06-26T04:46:00.000-07:00

I can't sleep. So I'm writing.

I've been on a bit of a hiatus from blogging in the last couple weeks -- almost a month, actually. Yeah, I posted a couple videos I liked here and there; just to stay in the groove...but I haven't really written anything or even picked up my camera to take any pictures recently since I returned from my grandmothers funeral in Texas. I'm not sure if discouraged is the word to use, but I just haven't feel too inspired lately because of some recent events.

I'm sure its a combination of the stress that life produces... The heavy heart from the recent loss of my grandmother. The frustration of losing all my work as a photographer, musician and writer. Losing the funding for my grad school classes because of a policy change. The uneasiness I have each time I've received a text in the last month when my grandmother (paternal) and/or grandfather are sent to the hospital.

Out of everything I touched upon, only one was within my control to be completely avoidable. Saving my work. I thought I had a secure way of saving it all, but I've found out the hard way that I was wrong. When I bought my last laptop I purchased an external hard drive to save all my work on. I figured all my computers in the past crashed because I saved too much on the hard drives, in an effort to preserve the life of my computer...well yeah. I lost my hard drive. Everything was on there. Well, everything but the AG One and ENOGA catalogs. At the moment, not all hope is lost -- I still have a friend that may be able to get the data transferred over to a new hard drive....but we'll see

In the meantime I'm researching servers to save and back up all our work -- especially our catalogs. But this was definitely a hard lesson to learn. Computers don't last forever, external hard drives dont last forever, CD's dont last forever.

So remember, saving everything isn't enough, it all needs to be backed up.

LIVE AT DISNEYLAND - TIGGER is The real Cat Daddy (Tigger does the CAT DADDY)

2011-06-09T13:22:00.001-07:00

Cliff sent this to me today. It really did make my day.

Divine Intervention?

2011-06-04T10:30:00.000-07:00

Let me apologize in advance to my readers who feel that images of a cemetery are morbid.

As some of you may know, my grandmother recently passed away and I spent a week on the road to be at her memorial services with my family in Texas. While in the process of making reservations in Fort Davis, Texas, we found out that many of the local hotels were booked up from displaced residents of the town due to brush fires.

When we arrived in Texas, the fires had stopped -- thankfully. But what was amazing to me is that the fires had completely gone around/avoided the cemetery that my grandmother was to be buried in. The adobe house -- the place my grandfather, his nine brothers and sisters, and parents called home-- that stood between the cemetery and town, gone. The house across the street that belonged to the town judge, gone. In the pictures above you can see how far spread the damage from the fire is, but the cemetery is completely untouched.

Side bar, while on the way to the cemetery my Tio Joe (my grandfathers baby brother) was telling me how this cemetery was reserved for the Mexicans, and the "Angelo's" had their own cemetery on the other side of town -- supposedly it actually had green grass, but I couldn't confirm this.

Interesting tidbit of history.

Afternoon Sun

2011-06-03T12:04:00.000-07:00

I love how the colors came out. I shot this while driving through either Arizona or New Mexico. I cant wait till this October when I hit up the Balloon Fiesta in New Mexico

Ricky and Olivia's Wedding

2011-06-03T12:00:00.000-07:00

A couple weekends ago I had the honor of being in my cousin Ricky's wedding. I'm very proud of the man, and happy that he has found such amazing partner to spend the rest of his life with. I got a couple shots during rehearsal at the church

A couple shots from the church during rehearsal. I love the one of my tia taking video

a lighter shade of brown?

addicted.

Here are a couple teasers from the shoot I helped coordinate. I just took a couple shots here and there...these two were a couple of my favorites.

Defining Moments

2011-05-18T12:00:00.000-07:00

There are some things that stay with you forever. Be it a life lesson, something someone said when you were actually open to hearing it, or even something you can't make sense of until years later after life changed your perspective. Its not quite a burden nor a chip on your shoulder, but more like a impression. Its one of the few defining moments in your life that made all the difference in who you are, and where you are today.

For myself, one of those moments happened in the spring of my junior year of high school. I had just transferred to Western High and was playing JV baseball -- so my Friday nights were spent sitting in the stands of the varsity games. I remember being at Brookhurst Park, and my assistant principal stopped by to watch the game for a bit. We started talking about sports and how he played basketball at Chapman University. He was telling what his recruiting process was like and what happened when the coach that recruited him left -- we had just lost our varsity and JV coaches, and he wanted to make sure I was going to be in my teammates ears about staying on the team so the program wouldn't end while they were finding a replacement.

I remember Chris Jackson was at the plate when we started the conversation, and I think he popped out to left for the 3rd out when Mr. Brennan asked me, "whats your plan after high school?"

I really didn't know. At the time the only thing I really wanted to do was play baseball and with as much time as I spent on the bench I didn't think I was good enough to play at the next level. College, I could take it or leave it; it was so expensive and I was scared to commit myself to something I couldn't see myself being able to afford paying back. I was always taught to live within my means, and college wasn't affordable unless I went the community college route but even then I would need to find a job to pay for tuition.

Statistically, the odds were against me either way. I was a first generation college student, as well as part of an under represented minority group which at the time I had no idea how those factors could ultimately inhibit my potential for success. But that's all hindsight.

He interrupted my train of though by clarifying his question.

"Have you picked which universities you're going to apply to?"

Thats a huge question when your school attracted more military recruiters than admissions counselors from universities. That's when I told him I wasn't sure about going to a university, and basically spilled my guts about everything that factored into that perspective. As I was rambling on trying to explain my reasoning, Mr. Brennan interrupted me with two simple questions.

"Do you plan to have a house, and a mortgage payment?"
"Yes."
"Do you plan to have a car, and a car payment?"
"Yes."
"Then why not make the best investment you can make in yourself, and have an education payment, too?"

I remember watching Matt Ward make a sliding catch behind first base to end the game. More importantly I remember feeling a sense of empowerment. It was almost a feeling of entitlement; an opportunity I owed myself after what I had accomplished in high school. That was the first time I truly felt that I deserved to be amongst the brightest students in the state in pursuit of a degree from a prestigious university. I had a bad habit of down playing my academic achievements because that path didn't seem financially feasible to me -- I'm just glad I was smart enough to know I was wrong. Thank you Mr. Brennan.

Jon Stewart Goes Head-to-Head With Bill O'Reilly

2011-05-17T13:44:00.000-07:00

So how much longer till Jon Stewart hosts Common on his show?

Jon Stewart Slams Fox News Over "Common" Issue

2011-05-13T10:15:00.000-07:00

I love the Daily Show. Jon Stewart is pretty good about keeping both parties honest -- thats a baseball reference/analogy, I don't know anyone who could actually accomplish that.

Fox News did go too far, in my opinion, with trying to depict Common as a "vile rapper." I really felt like they were reaching with that one. I'm not sure where they got their intel, but for people who don't know how to read or listen to an entire poem -- I could see how his fox could exploit his work so people who listen at face value (or those who dont care enough to find out what he's does) could misconstrue his impact on the community.

For those who aren't too familiar with Commons Work, here are some of my favorite records:
Faithful
A Dream
Be
6th Sense
Misunderstood

I love this guy

2011-05-01T08:33:00.000-07:00

We all know the game of politics is dirty, people amplify petty issues so that the either someones agenda is deferred or the real issues that the county should be worried about are over shadowed and ignored. The President has been very good about ignoring accusations or large scale distractions such as Donald Trump, but there is a certain threshold of ridiculousness that one will no longer tolerate. Lets just say it was nice to see the lighter side of our president and his sense of humor.

Over the river and through the woods

2011-03-30T14:03:00.000-07:00

About this time last year I took a road trip up to visit my grandparents in Weaverville, Ca [google it] with my cousin and his wife...now, a year later I took the SAME road trip with a DIFFERENT cousin and HIS wife...here are some pictures from our 3 day adventure.

Day 1 :

The long road ahead..

our way into the grapevine..

Over the river and through the woods...

Day 2:

My favorite wall in my grandma's house.

standing in the drive way

My cousin getting mad that I'm not in the car as they are about to leave for the dump

There is no trash service in Weaverville, so we have to they have to drop it off at the dump on their own.

My grandfather just realized I was taking pictures of him. He wasn't too happy.

I was a native at one point in time...this tile is part of a gazebo in the town park.

This is hanging above the stove in my grandmas kitchen.

Day 3:

I loved that the resturant used regular ass coffee mugs to serve their tea.

Google it.

winding roads and snow...gotta love adventure

The drive got pretty intense.

When the windows fogged up in our rental car, we noticed two names had been written on the inside of the window..."Kathy & James"

What the hail?!

The drive home was nice though.

All in all, spending 10 hours in a car (each way) to spend a day with my grandma was totally worth it.

The worst job I ever had

2011-03-18T11:00:00.000-07:00

I was sitting down eating breakfast with my Grandfather the other day. I have to consciously remember not to tweet the gems of wisdom he gives me -- when I pick up my phone he shy's away from talking because he thinks I'm either not interested in what he is saying, or am talking to someone else. So now I have been bringing my voice recorder with me every time I go over there. So my voice recorder now has random poems and song ideas I start while I'm driving mixed in with some of my Grandfathers stories.

He was asking me about my job, and I was expressing how unhappy I was in my situation. I started telling him about what I went through on a day-to-day with the people I work with: one of my brothers who saved me from unemployment when I was pinked slipped working in the UC system, and who also taught me one of the most valuable lessons I learned while pledging -- pay it forward; I carry that with me to this day. The three counselors who work in the revolving door of Academic Review (in my time, those three positions were held by seven different people), and then there was the older women that held the same position as myself -- she was the bulk of my frustrations at work, however I did get a lot of positive feedback from people who loved reading about my misery in working with her on twitter through my #joanism tweets.

So between working with the older woman, and dealing with the students that have attitude problems, professors who are pretentious, and parents who feel they are entitled to everything under the sun because they pay tuition (despite FERPA regulations) -- its gets to be a bit stressful, and it starts to wear you down and it affected my personal relationships. That's where I was -- short tempered, stone faced, low energy -- and that's what I was telling my grandpa about; mainly venting about the root of my frustrations; having an inept co-worker with no common sense.

It made him laugh, and triggered a few memories he had from his working days. He told me, "you'll never find common sense in the work place." He proceeded to tell me a stories about some of his experiences working with bosses and corporate executives with no common sense that made his job more difficult than it needed to be.

He'd say, "now, this could be because I'm not 'educated' and didn't finish high school...but, me going out of my way to sell only one crate of soda to a guy at the corner store was more important to these execs than me hitting the other higher traffic stops on my route and selling and extra 5-10 more crates to each vendor....they said it was about volume...they want volume...what do I know? ...they want the one crate sale over the 10 crate per vendor sale. I wanted the bigger commission check" ...he then told me how he got the guy who refused to buy no more than one crate to become a regular 3 crate purchase every time; but got in trouble for doing it. He said, "how do you get in trouble for bringing in more business?"

There was a custodial position he applied for -- the hiring manager told my grandpa that he was the best candidate to apply, but he couldn't hire him. When asked why, he told my grandpa, "well, I'm Mexican, and you're Mexican...I dont want them to think I hired you just because you're Mexican, too." Thankfully, my grandfather still got the job.

We went on with stories for a couple hours, and I told him "you know grandpa, I think this is the worst job I've ever had..." He took a moment and drank his coffee. He stared off into what seemed to be a day dream while he was looking out the sliding glass door and then said to me, "until you've been the guy holding the sledge hammer as the cows come into the slaughter house, you can't say you've had the worst job you've ever had."