Interview with an Entrepreneur

This is an interview with Ms. Proctor; an accomplished entrepreneur and loving mother. I ask her questions about her various entrepreneurial endeavors and she explains how starting your own business might be the way to go during this economic downward spiral.

Links
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/01/26/massive-layoffs-hit-america/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/06/over-20-illinois-firms-wa_n_183606.html

http://www.seattlepi.com/business/164018_outsource10.asp

http://www.examiner.com/x-3629-Philadelphia-Progressive-Examiner~y2009m11d9-84-of-Green-technology-jobs-being-outsourced

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/July07/ILRKuruvilla.html

Novella

Erotica novella, romantic author, best seller,
searching for carnal pleasure, precious like lost treasures,
mysterious persona, allow my curious mind to undress ya,
what lies beneath the surface?, what will i find?,
enjoy talking with you, intimate conversations with just our eyes,
sophisticated verbiage, subtle nuances drive me crazy,
they say the beautiful ones aren't born yet, but you still my baby

Ballad Of That Nigga That Used To Live Round Here

I'm living the lifetime of a soon-to-be dead man
My Bloody red hands, steer the 'lac
and like formal pants I slack
I slouch
the night is dull, thoughts kicked out,
My wisdom dies
bobbin my head to the sound of
bullets wizzin by
Under the crimson skies, I ride
a couple dead bodies rot in the trunk
I hit the breaks, then i jump out
pump out rounds,
my bullets quite blatant
turnin niggas to crustaceans
Give 'em shells on their backs
Their blood covers my tracks
Then I pop a pill
Then the rain from cloud nine
washes it all down the hills
I hop back in the car,
wave at the law as i drive away, stressed
The smell of henny still strong on my breath
Riding even slower now, tires rollin over
broken wine bottles and crack rocks,
cigar smoke smokes out the exhaust pipes,
fogs the night, clouds my perception
feelin a little like bruce wayne
flirting with insanity, married to lois lane
but havin an affair with mary jane
She comes out the ziploc
when i dont want to feel my brain
and when i want to feel alive.
And when i want cake
I exercise, life weight and end lives.
And despise the fact that I'm strapped
I still feel insecure
Hollow tips hit the floor
Then the law strips my life
till its nothing more
than drawers
and a BBQ stained wife beater
My gun
produces franklins like mother of Aretha
Ima keep robbin niggas blind
till im spotted like a cheetah.
Then im gone
Back in the 'lac listenin to the shootout theme song
Ballad of a hustla that dreams wrong

The rims on the car and my mind
are similar how they keep spinnin
when i stop
And the distributers whispers in my ear
wanna sell me rocks
As i walk on the chalk-outlined sidewalk
into the heart of my block
Called the liquor store
where killers corps
strut around, spied on by security cameras
and the shifty eyes of the Korean clerk.
As i lurk
through the aisles, searchin for a stress reliever
I end up purchasin a 40
The clerk almost has a seizure
when i reach deeper in my pocket
He didnt know
If i'd take out money or a rocket
And stick him up for the money.
I did and the safe, i made him unlock it
Took out his profits,
stuffed it in the duffle
I had a choice to transcend
or end the trouble
I shoot a hole in the lens
of the security camera and put the hammer to his temple
I said, "I can make this simple
let me lay down the fundamentals...
snitchin will be detrimental--
do it and i wont be sentimental when i send you to your god
I'm a tempermental nigga
and i only pull incidental triggers--Im a crook at large
I run out and all the vibe and xxl magazines on the shelf applaud
I hop back in the car and cruise abroad
And that was the ballad of a member of the mob minus an honest job

Got Faith?

My hunger for knowledge has lead me to taste the bitterness of existence. I've learned that religion is like a prison to the seekers of wisdom. I should know because I'm serving a life sentence. And I have been since birth, though in my aging, my faith has become more and more my excuse. It has become something where I can take all the problems I should have to deal with and place them on the Lord's shoulders. It's become a substitute for my trials and tribulations. Instead of study for an A on my test, I'll just pray I'll get an A on my test. I know that it is wrong but my faith has grown too strong. It has made me an idealist; though I love the feeling of thinking in some transcendent way everything will work out without any prior 'working out', I know it will get me nowhere. The only thing that has kept me from a complete ignorant euphoria and kept me in the house that night I was thinking of sneaking out to go across the street to the girl house because she whispered over the phone, 'if you came over, you know I'd wanna fuck you , right?' is a six word sentence indirectly told to me while I was on the X2 bus. "Imagination is the fabric of life". When i fully understood the meaning of this it was like cumming for the first time. I heard somebody say this on the bus. Of course nobody I was with heard it--just me. I believe it's because I was the only one who needed to hear it. For some reason the words keep me in somewhat of a reality. They make me interpret causes and consequences. I don't know why because when I hear 'imagination' it makes me think of being free when all the phrase did was keep me restricted. I think more than anything the phrase made me think.....Imagination is just ideas. All religion and faith were ideas until people started killing over them and forcing them upon us. My Ideas are my faith. It takes a lot of responsibility but I think it is best. So I fail that test that I didn't study for I can't say 'WHY GOD?', taking all the blame off myself. I can only say 'WHY ME?'. Why didn't I have the idea to study....wuwuwuwu. Do you get it? My ideas are my faith. I have faith in my ideas. I believe in God... but God bestowed my intellect upon me and he wouldn't give me anything he didn't have faith in. So if he has faith in my intellect--he must believe in my ideas. AND so must I.

Sumn Slight

I'm sitting across from somebody who I don't really care to be with. Yet, choose to be with because of boredom and the way she looks. I guess the depth of her beauty could make up for the shallowness of her heart. She's one of the girls who dislikes other kids simply on how they dress. If they aren't wearing the right labels then she wouldn't talk to them. Since this is how her mind is set up, she makes sure she is fresh everyday. She made sure no matter who she runs into they would complement her on her outfit; like somehow the outward validation on something as trivial as apparel would make her feel good about herself. And it did. But I really can't talk; sometimes when I buy clothes I wonder if it's for me or the public's eye. I'm wearing Prada sneakers, a jacket from Neiman Marcus, D&G cords, and of course a bow tie. I can't talk about her without talking about myself, especially since I'm sitting right across from her in this overpriced salad bar in Gallery Place. She twiddles her fork around in the 14 dollar salad I bought her; trying not to look fat or just trying to piss me off. Either way she was accomplishing both. Every time she doesn't take a bite I wanted to just knock the fucking salad bowl on the floor. When she was not NOT eating, she was checking herself out in her pocket mirror--making sure she was as pretty as she was 5 seconds ago.
"Are you done?" I ask her.
"Yeah." She says, getting up from table, salad bowl in hand. "Thanks for the salad, boo." She says, giving me a kiss on the cheek and walking toward the trashcan where she would burn 14 dollars out my pocket. I just watch her as she throws away the salad. I get up. She straightens out her jacket and I rub a small smudge off of my shoe. She positions her skirt just right and I brush off whatever lint or debree may have fallen on my jacket since I've been sitting down, though there is none visible. She makes sure she is fresh and I make sure I am fresh. Together, we make sure we are made for each other or at least look like it.

I'm Not Black Like....

I’m not black like go-go,
Not black like basketball,
Or gangsta rap
I’m not black like conga drums,
Not black like tribes, hunting
Or Kwanzaa
I’m just black like
If it were 1742,
I’d be a slave to.

See Me

What do you see when you see me?
Or do you even see...
..ME?

Do you see a humdrum slave
quietly, picking cotton for his master?
Or do you see Nat Turner
hatcheting the heads off the white men
that ensalved him?

Do you see Huey P. Newton with a
proud black fist clinched in the air?

Do you see Bob Marley, the musical revolutionist,
guitar in hand, legendary singer/song writer?
Or do you see Bob Marley, the weed addict,
blunt in hand, ganja smoke slowly escaping his mouth?

Do you see a black man or do you see a man?

Do you see Martin Luther King,
the political activist, leading the bus boycott?
Or do you just see him when he gets shot?

Do you see pookie?
Do you see Tookie Williams
pre or post childrens book author?

Do you see a dead beat,
no good, abusive, drunk father?
Or do you see a dad that goes
to his kids every basketball game,
every PTA meeting, and helps with the homework?

Do you see a poet or a rapper?
Do you see a scholar?

Do you see my Uncle Lewis that's in jail for life?
Or do you see my Uncle Clyde, millionaire, set for life?

Do you see a gang-member, driving up your block,
shot gun out the window, doin drive bys?
Or do you see that man on the street
that's always tryna sell u bean pies?

Do you see Marion Barry, your former mayor?
Or do you see Marion Barry, marijuana smoker?

Do you see Common, Mos Def,
Malik Yusef, Kanye West, or Talib Kweli?
Or do you see Soulja boy, Arab, or V.I.C?
Or are they all the same to you?

Do you see Sidney Poitier or J.J.?
Do you see James Weldon Johnson or Jay-Z?

Look at my sister
Do you see the color purple?
or do you just see the color black?

Do you see me hustlin drugs
or hustlin an education?

Do you see R.Kelly, the music legend?
Or do you see R.Kelly, the pedophile?

Do you see Michael Jackson
singing Pretty Young Thing?
Or do you see Michael Jackson
molestin' pretty young boys?

Do you see Dave Chappelle, comedic genius?
Or do you see Dave Chappelle, AWOL dumbass?

Do you see a monkey?

What do you see when you see me?
Or do you even see...
...ME?

See me as i am
not how you expect me to be