Los Mocosos Give me HOPE for our Future!

You remember that scene in "Coming to America" where Eddie Murphy's character, Randy Watson, starts singing "Greatest Love of All" by Whitney Houston?  One of the best comedic moments in cinema ever!  Serio!  You disagree with me?  I'll stab you then.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHRERLEM2eE

I had an incident today where two kids came up to me and were so polite, it put adults to CHAME! That's not a typo.  Latinos don't understand the "sh" sound in Ingles.  Can you imagine saying "Pansho Villa"?  CMC!  (George Lopez for 'LOL').

Anyways....

My job requires me to be muy (very) versatile.  Be on time.  Have strong organizational and communication skills.  Have strong attention to detail.  The latter is the most important. One day,  I had to pull a serious Mr. Hankey out of the toilet so the customers can come back and return the favor.  Chingada!

On this particular day, my Jefe (boss) scheduled me in the part of the job that I HATE the most: Giving out free food and coffee to the many mugrosos (nasty people) of Los Angeles.  You give people free samples and they critique and complain about how dry, nasty, or slow you are moving to give them their coffee, etc, etc.  It makes me pretty damn murderous.  Serio!

As usual, I was behind the eight ball.  I had people hovering over the plexi glass shield (like that helps) staring at me, waiting for the next batch of quesadillas.

I tend to stare down at my knife while preparing the samples, to avoid making eye contact with the people.

I failed to notice two little girls, sisters, that had returned for a second visit.  They looked up at me as I was slicing away.  I looked at them.  They smiled.

"Hi.  I'm sorry, but the next batch won't be ready for a minute.  I just pulled them out of the oven, and they're hot", said I.  "That's okay.  Thank you very much.  Can you Please give us some without the guacamole.  It's too spicy."

WTF?  Did these two kids just say "Thank You" and "Please" and "That's Okay".  Que? Que?  As I looked up, there were all these grown ups looking at me, waiting for their bite of freebie quesadilla.

I replied, "Sure.  Just give me a minute."  The older sister replies, "That's okay.  Thank you."

QUE?  I had to look up again?  I almost fainted!

See:  Most kids in this town are snotty, mocosos (BRATS).  Parents these days hide behind them with their stupid ass, disrespectful behavior.

Kid behaves bad.  Parent defends kid.  Parent is a shit.

I'm an evil shit for daring to look at a kid or telling them not to run into my workspace, because there are hot, dangerous items that could burn them.  BTW, it's usually white people that defend their kids for doing something wrong.

If I did what some of these kids are doing....Sheeeeeiiiiiiitttt!  You ever had a CHANCLA?  Back in the day, women would wear wooden flip flops.  That shit hurt ese!

Any wrong doing or smart ass comment to another grown up.....WHACK!  Even the stare of my Mom would make me think otherwise.

I'd give a Mom a Benny if she dared do that in public these days.  Fo Real!

I paused for a minute to look at these girls.  "Thank you for being patient and polite", I said.

"No problem."  Ya me cague at this point.  Yeah.  I let one go, but not poop.  TMI.  I know.  Whatevs...

People are always in such a hurry.  Me! Me! Me! Me! Me! Me! Me fuckin' Me!  And we're a Christian Nation?

According to La Biblia; Jesus said "I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child will not enter it."

"I have no idea what this means,"  is what you are probably thinking.  A bunch of kids wanted to meet Jesus.  People wanted to keep them away.  He said, "Chill.  They're not judgmental.  Be like them."

Yup.  Be like them.  But with the manners that these two girls displayed.

I thanked them out loud.  A few people skirted away.  One, homeless-ish, guy said to me "Thank you for acknowledging the good behavior of children."  He had a beard too.  Jesus?

Happy Fourth of Yu-Lie!

That's how my Abuelita, Tias, and most older, Latina women, where English is their second language, pronounce the month of "July".  It's an interesting play on words, because we are celebrating our "independence", as a united nation, from the tyranny of the British monarchy, which happened way back when.  When you look at the way shit is going down now, the @DecIND (Twitter Joke) looks like a big fucking lie.

The words "American Revolution", "Liberty", "Justice", "Freedom", are everywhere in the media.  Even the cuete (fireworks) stands are all named after these words.  I personally always bought my stuff at "Red Devil" fireworks.  It probably says a lot about me.  It's funny, because in Latin nations, they don't need a holiday to light fireworks and party. We just like to light shit up! 

Anyways,  I just want to make clear that I'm not a historian, political scientist (whatever that is), pundit, CNN or MSNBC junkie, etc.  I'm just an average Jose, who loves movies, and wants to make a living by being in them.  (Christopher Nolan: my Wednesday is now free.  Let's reschedule).  Ahem...

The past 3 years has been tough on everyone.  Last year, I got a couple of acting jobs, made some residual money, and also got a "Day Job", because all that acting money wasn't enough to cover expenses.  It's not like I'm leasing an Audi or living beyond my means by clubbing and doing all that Hollywood caca.  Don't have the time or money.  If you saw the car I drove, you would say "Yup!  That's a Mexican's car."  Although, I'm not a Mesican by birth.  Ahuah!

Where am I going with this, and what does have to do with the 4th of "Yu-Lie"?  Our economy se fue a la verga (went to shit) three years ago.  If you get a moment, please watch "Too Big to Fail" on HBO or HBO on demand.  Yes, it was a dramatization about what went on in the week of the financial meltdown.  


The movie did a great job of creating sympathetic characters out of people who are probably selfish pricks in real life.  They're investment bankers.  WTF do you expect?  I'm also not convinced that Henry Paulson's intentions to let Lehman Brothers go down a nasty, "Trainspotting", toilet, were merely to set an example that the government was not going to bail out every investment firm in danger of failing.  Ha!  Remember that Mr. Paulson made un chigon de dinero (fukcking lot of money), at Goldman Sachs- a major competitor of Lehman's. 

The movie successfully showcased how much power these banking firms actually have.  When Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection, all of the money invested by people and companies was frozen.  All of a sudden, every investor wants to pull their money out of every firm (Goldman's, Citi, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanely, etc.).  


Companies like GM, who make light bulbs, refrigerators, and airplane parts couldn't get money to continue their operations.  Mickey D's (according to Aaron Ross Sorkin-the author of "Too Big to Fail") couldn't get money to pay their employees.  Can you imagine being the person that has to tell kids flipping burgers at a McDonald's in a poor section of town (where the employees are more than likely minorities) that they "ain't getting paid today"?  Sheeeiiiiiiiittttt!  Wall Street shits on Main Street.

At the end of the movie, the government forces the banks to take capital injections (the TARP program) so that they could loan out to the average Jose and Josefina (let's not be sexist).  What do you think happened?  According to the movie, investment firms had record bonuses for executives last year and loaned out less money.  Hijos de Puta!  

Basically, another financial meltdown will probably happen.  This is when a real revolution or a new "Declaration of Independence" will need to be drafted.  The whole point of the American Revolution was to free the nation from overbearing, power hungry, aristocratic pricks.  Well, we have them in the form of these major investment firms.  What's even scarier is that 7 out of the nine heads of the financial "families" (it's pretty mafia) were all white, males.  John Mack (Lebanese background with a redneck accent) was replaced by James Gorman at Morgan Stanley- Whitey!

If I was white, I'd be freaked out by this too!  Who can you trust?  I don't know what the solution is.  The industry I work in relies heavily on money from these "mafiosos".  With the exception of Warren Buffett, most of these guys are not super-gifted, geniuses.  They make decisions and mistakes like all of us.  Sadly, millions of people pay for their mistakes, while they make out okay.  


Let's keep hope alive, by being strong, and educating ourselves. There are tons of books on economics, history, and finance at the public library. I'm going to try to keep the minimum in the banks and stick with my credit union.  Cause fuck these putos!  When the shit hits the fan again, I want to be ready.


I'll leave you with a quote by Thomas Jefferson, who was flawed, controversial, and contradicted himself a lot.  However, he was crucial to the American Revolution and had this to say about Banking Institutions:


"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.  Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."    Thomas Jefferson


To the People!  Revolution and Integrity for All!