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Reality TV Makes a Statement

I originally saw this in the hardcopy edition of USA Today, and I was instantly intrigued. If you haven't heard, ABC has a new reality show (premiering in a couple of weeks) called Welcome to the Neighborhood. The premise of this show is that three self-described white Christian families in a suburban Texas neighborhood must choose their new neighbors from a group of seven "diverse" families. The winning family gets a free house and the quasi-blessing of their judgemental neighbors.

Now, of course, the show has already stirred up controversy among a number of groups including fair housing advocates and gay rights activists who view the show as offensive. As a black gay man, I do see where they're coming from, but I also think they could be making a big fuss over nothing. On the one hand, if ABC's intention is to showcase the three choosing families as the collective soul of good clean America who are being forced to choose the lesser of all the evils, then frankly, we should all be offended. However, juding from what I've read and ABC's own website, that doesn't seem to be the intent at all. If anything, the show seems determined to bring out all of the stereotypes and prejudices that the choosing families hold and tear those stereotypes and prejudices down. . . on national television. And if ABC can make a few bucks while doing it, then fine.

However, what I do take issue with are the prejudices demonstrated by whoever wrote the family descriptions on ABC's website, particularly the descriptions of the Eckhardts and the Morgans. The Eckhardts are described using the derogatory "pagan", instead of Wiccan, which is what they really are. And the Morgans, who seem to differ from Crenshaws and the Lees only in their race, are the only ones described as "picture perfect". Now I wonder why that is.

In any event, even though the whole reality thing became stale a long time ago, this is one show I'm eagerly awaiting. Tune in!

Backlog 1: Re-Coupling

Many thanks to my company for giving us free internet access in our hotel rooms, for without them, this post would not be possible. :-)

So, a few weeks ago, after an almost 2-month separation, Colin and I decided to give our relationship another go. I hate to say "give it another go" because I don't really think of it as a "go". I admitted to Colin that I never truly felt that our relationship was over. Of course, after you've been with someone for so long, and shared so many experiences and parts of your lives with eachother, it's hard to instantly sever all ties and keep on trucking. But for us, I felt and do feel that there was more to it than that. Yes, I was hurt and angry at first, and yes, I tested the waters a little during our separation, but I always felt like I was just biding time. Until what? Whether consciously or unconsciously, I think I was just waiting for the time when Colin and I would get back together. Not that I just assumed that I could call him up, say "let's do this thang", and we would instantly be re-united (although if I knew then what I know now . . . he he he). To tell the truth, I wondered whether he even wanted to get back together (despite one very lengthy note I received on my birthday). However, he came over a few weeks ago and we finally gave into what we were both feeling.

And now that we're back together, I can look back on what happened and see that in some ways it might have been a good thing. For one, I think we both realized just how connected we are and how much we really want to be together. I also think it was good for me because, even though it was only two months, I had to learn how to be just Geoff again (how quickly you can forget in three years), as opposed to being part of the collective GeoffandColin. In some ways, I'm still rediscovering myself, which is why Colin and I haven't moved back in together just yet. I feel though, that if I'm forced to be a little less dependent for just a little while longer, maybe it will stick. Maybe I'm just talking out of my ass - who knows? But I do know that I'm happy we're back together and there's nobody else in the world I'd rather share my life with. I love you, Colin. :-)

Feel free to gag, now. :-)

Maybe I'm not going to hell afterall . . .

Only a 37% chance? I thought I was in much more danger than that! Well, at least I know I'll get to ride on a shuttle before I die.

After spending a great weekend with Colin at his cousin's apartment in Battery Park (it's soooo much fun to spit out of the window of a high-rise), I'm heading off to Chicago for work-related training. Hopefully I'll be able to steal away some time this week to clear out my backlog of posts (including "the re-coupling" and Brooklyn Pride). Take it easy.

Return of the Meme

Thanks to Marc for this one. . .

FAVORITE
color: red (blue is a close second)
band/musician: Gwen Stefani
video game: hmm, Civ III?
movie: Shawshank Redemption
book: The Great Train Robbery
game on a cell phone: Five Stones (a thinking man's game)
CD cover: mp3s don't have covers
flower: they remind me of death
animal: Birds
comic book: Do the Dilbert books count as comic books?
website: askmen.com

DO YOU . . .

What I do for a Living (part II)

So, when we left Tony in part I, he was getting periodic reports from the management of Tony's Pizza. Because of Tony's inability to (1) know that the information he is receiving from management is correct, and (2) know that the information means what he thinks it means, Tony has decided to hire an auditor.

I didn't remember hearing that fat bitch crow

I haven't forgotten about part 2 of the "What I do for a Living" series, but in the few minutes I have to post, I thought this was more important.

Colin and I have decided to give it another go! More on that later. Have a good day at work, school, or whatever is you do, folks. :-)

What I do for a living (part I)

My grandmother's funeral (where a well-meaning preacher taught me that it's okay to say Mary "Magalene" instead of "Magdalene" and that "disrepesputible" passes as a word in some circles), aside from giving us a chance to mourn and bid her a final farewell, also served as a mini family reunion of sorts. Of course, amid all of the catching up with people who I have not seen for several years, I was asked a number of times what I do in New York. Not what I do for fun, but what I do as a job.

Since I started my job last August, I have never once found pleasure in answering that question. My usual reply of "auditor" is generally met with stares that range from blank to hostile, at which point I usually make a lame comment like "It pays the bills." Afterall, the only time that most people encounter the words "audit" or "auditor", is in association with the IRS, arguably the most unloved institution in the country. And of course, my career confession sounds even worse here in New York City where everyone else seems to have a super-creative or high profile job that challenges the boundaries of the imagination. This is made all the worse by the fact that I'm typically drawn to the types of people who, in college, probably derided "Business" as a major for jocks, the intellectually challenged, and those who weren't good at anything else. One of my female co-workers, upon telling a man in a bar that she was an auditor, found herself standing alone 2 seconds later holding a drink and watching him walk away. I have, at times, tried the more vague answer of "Oh, I work in accounting," only then to have people nod in mock understanding and give  a sorry little smile as if to say "Oh, that's nice. Next, please."

Now, it doesn't always stop there. Sometimes people (usually friends or family) will attempt to pin down EXACTLY what it is that I do all day. Without fail, the question comes in the following form: "So-and-so asked me what you do other day, and I couldn't really tell him/her," leaving an opening for me to explain my job. Usually, I fumble through an impromptu explanation trying to leave out as many technical business-babble terms as possible. However, those explanations are often incomplete, and probably don't come off very well. Therefore, for all of the polite nods and blank stares, I'm going to try to truly describe what it is that I do.

Imagine, if you will, that there is a pizza-maker named Tony (a stretch, I know, but hang in there). Tony opens a small pizzeria in the fictitious city of Eaton. It turns out that Tony's pizzas are extremely good and his business grows quickly. So quickly in fact that he opens a second store across town. Tony works hard and splits his time between the two stores. Over time, Tony's two stores multiply into four, then ten, then twenty. Eventually, Tony discovers that he is not getting any younger, and decides that he would like to spend his remaining years taking care of his family and watching his hard-earned money grow from afar. So, Tony hires a general manager/president to manage his pizza empire. Note that Tony still owns the company - the GM/President is an employee of the company.

Over the next few years, the company continues to grow, and Tony gets periodic updates about the company's financial performance from the president, who has since expanded the management team to include various VPs (in marketing, finance, etc). These periodic reports are called Financial Statements. As the business gets bigger and bigger and Tony becomes further and further removed from its inner workings, Tony realizes that he really has no way of knowing if what's presented to him in the financial statements represents what is actually happening at the company. Afterall, management, though not necessarily dishonest (most management teams, on the whole, are not dishonest), has huge incentives to prepare rosy financial statements for Tony, especially if things are not going well - they get to keep their jobs, pay themselves handsome bonuses, and if they are truly unethical, engage in outright theft. This is what textbooks describe as the "Agency Problem". The managers, acting as agents for the owner (Tony, in this case), have an inherent conflict of interest.

In our scenario, this is the point at which Tony might hire an auditor (that's me). It is the auditor's job to look at the Financial Statements and give an opinion on whether those statements are accurately stated (within reason).

*Phew* That took a lot longer than I thought (it always takes far longer to come up with and transcribe these things than to read them), and I'm just getting started. Let's call this lesson one. We've established the need for an auditor. In my next entry, we will explore specifically what the auditor does. I will describe what exactly we mean by "accurately stated" (what is accurate? who determines what has to be in those statements, and what doesn't?) and what exactly an auditor has to do to figure out if the statements from Tony's Pizzeria are any good. Until then. . .