The Giant that WAS

Sooooo…they tell me that there’s cheating in college sports?!?! I had NO idea!!

Now, unless you’ve been SO tuned into that wild, exciting World Cup Soccer coverage, then you probably didn’t miss this HUGE sports headline. The NCAA has found the University of Southern California GUILTY of numerous violations because they knowingly allowed players to accept gifts – some in the form of money, some in the form of HOUSES – like the one that was given to Reggie Bush’s parents – from professional sports agents, promoters, and other people who had vested interests in the post college, professional careers of the then student athletes. A mouthful for me…a mess for USC!!! Because of Bush’s ineligibility, the sanctions thrown down at USC include vacating their football victories from December 2004-December 2005, losing 30 scholarships for the next couple football seasons, and the UNTHINKABLE – they MIGHT even lose their 2005 BCS Championship Title. Or could THIS be the unthinkable– Reggie Bush’s 2006 Heisman might be yanked.

So this sucks. It sucks for the USC recruits who signed their lives away to become Trojan men. Players and recruits who now won’t even be able to play in a bowl game for two years…oh yeah, did I mention that their post season play privilege was revoked, too???

But ultimately, you gotta commend the NCAA for taking on the giant that WAS USC and making an example out of them. It seems that USC – coaches, athletic director, players, and fans were all subscribing to this Hollywood ideal. They were the actors; college football was the movie. But the actors thought they were bigger than the actual film. They weren’t, and the NCAA said, “it’s a wrap.” It’s difficult, I’m sure, to play by all the rules when the competitive climate begs of you to “win, win, win!” But if you’re gonna break some rules, at least be discreet versus openly socializing with your financial backers as did Bush on USC’s campus with his own, personal investors. Pete Carroll and crew got sloppy and arrogant…so much to the point that the NCAA could no longer turn a blind eye.

Everyone knows life isn’t fair and that sometimes you DO have to bend the rules. But everyone also knows that you NEVER let your RIGHT hand know what the LEFT is doing and USC, with all its PAC-10 and national football dominance and glory for the past 10 years, let the ENTIRE world know what it was doing without a care or concern about any possible consequence.

So …it DOES rain in Southern California or at least it does on USC until they can emerge from this muddy mess they’ve made.

Don't Let Yourself Be Mad...It's Trivial!

"Put positive energy into the things that matter most; don't give negative energy to the things about which you care the least."
-ERD

My above quote is an affirmation - a mantra - that I am having to repeat to myself a lot these days. Here's the story.

Everyone moves to LA to pursue a "dream." You already know mine - to become a host/talk show extraordinaire. In pursuing that dream, everyone serves, bar tends, or does some other something in the restaurant business. It's inevitable. These days, I'm serving and bar tending at, what usually is, the ideal place to work.

For those of you who have never worked in a restaurant, working in one is similar to attending high school. You have your cool kids, your awkward, quirky kids, the smart, organized kids, the teachers' pets, and so on and so forth. And just like in high school, everyone is competing against everyone else, but the stakes in restaurant world are higher because ultimately, everyone in this world, is competing for money. And as we learned in high school or in Sunday school or, hell, some where along the way, money is, what...the root of all evil. Exactly.

The bosses at my job, generally, are cool. So cool, in fact, that the "cool" kids get to dictate how things in our little parallel Universe are run. And you remember what happened in high school when some groups of students were suddenly granted the privilege to determine what other students could and could not do? Well, I don't particularly remember either, but it probably wasn't good. In our restaurant world, the "cool" kids getting this privilege is never good. It's not good because, with everyone competing to make the most money in the shortest amount of time, a co-worker having the ability to dictate how and where your money will be made while also possessing the power to give him or herself the best opportunity to make the most money (by virtue of being a "cool" kid) in a restaurant, is a recipe (pun intended) for disaster. To put it briefly, I walked into work tonight on what was supposed to be a huge money night to find that one of the "cool" kids decided, "Hmmm...I'll give myself the best section in the entire restaurant. And to do this, I will take away Erica's section and give her what I was supposed to have because I don't want to wait on that shitty area, so Erica can have it." Hmph.

I was livid. Livid. LIVID. Then I took a step back and repeated my little mantra to myself: Put positive energy into the things that matter most; don't put negative energy into the things about which you care the least. Because I'm only human, it took a minute (or two or three) for me to internalize this and let go of the situation AS it was happening to me, but by letting it go, my night went smoothly, and I was blessed to, as we servers and bartenders like to say, make bank.

Making money - especially while living and pursuing entertainment in LA - is muy importante. So I'm not implying that I don't care about work. But at the end of the day, when I "clock out" and go home, I'm NOT here in LA to be a lifelong service industry employee. I'm here pursuing bigger-than-life dreams and goals. My mornings are filled with auditions, callbacks, and countless hours behind my laptop emailing my headshots, resumes' and reels to people for whom I want to work. My afternoons are filled with acting and hosting classes and 2 hour workouts so that I can maintain my "Hollywood" image. Yeah, my evenings may be spent serving and bar tending, but my late nights are spent praying and asking God for clarity to make the right decisions as I live this unpredictable life. To put it simply, having a not-so-good section at work, in the long run, is definitely something about which I could care less. Gotta put my positive energy where my heart is, and my heart is NOT into fighting with a "cool" kid for a good section of tables in a restaurant.

And besides, EVERYONE knows that the "cool" kids in high school actually were pretty "uncool" in the real world.