HUSTLER FO REAL - Article 4

I am constantly amazed by the hustlers of the world. While my honest career efforts have been met with a sea of no’s and mocking, there is a population of people who by hook or by crook take the world by the balls. Hustler’s of the world stand up and take your places. I’m talking about the people who walk to the front of a long line saying, “You don’t mind do you? I just have one quick question.”

A hustler uses what they have. I have lived in my building for almost 3 years. My neighbor, lets call her Mary who has never asked my name, yet has asked me for the most ridiculous things like; telling me to decorate her windows by greeting me with a strings of Christmas lights and a chair with which to assist me in scaling the walls. She has asked me if I wanted to rent her cell phone for 3 months while she was out of the country. After only 2 weeks of living in the building, she asked for my work hours so I could take her to the airport as needed. She has an accent which fluctuates on thickness depending on her need. One day she came to me, with yet another ridiculous request. She was using the thicker accent on this day so she was barely understandable. She was talking really fast and my attempts to slow her down were ignored.

This is ‘the devil is in the details’ portion of the game. The idea is to move you so fast through something you say yes, without really understanding what you’re saying yes to. I told her “no, she was asking too much of me.” .She kept saying, “I don’t understand…I don’t understand”. I said, “Yes you do. You just don’t like what I’m saying.” It was like the wind got sucked out of her lungs. She threw her hands up and walked in her apartment. For the record, Mary has never approached me like that again. She did understand. Mary uses her age and her accent; positioning herself to seem helpless. Mary may be a lot of things, helpless is not one of them.

Mary has 5 grown children who live no more than 30 minutes away. She has homes in Paris and Greece (where she was born), she speaks 3 languages, travels 6 months out of the year and in her 20+ years of living in America, has never worked a job.
Gurl…pa-leeze. I grew up in Inglewood and was raised around professional liars. As they say, Game recognizes Game.

You have the wanna be hustler. He (or she) would be more successful in the game except for the fact that they’re such narcissists’ and so surrounded by the fumes of their own farts they can’t see straight. These are the people who go to the Larry, Moe and Curly School of Criminality.

I use to hang out with this guy who was a party promoter. That’s kind of a racquet in itself. Anyway, I met him while he was passing out flyers for one of his events. A few weeks in; he tells me one of the prerequisite’s (yes people, there was a list) for being his girlfriend was to participate in his side business. His side business which was running car accident insurance scams. I sat and listened as he explained to me how the whole thing worked. I heard problems all though out his crazy scheme. In addition to being illegal; there were too many people involved. The fact that he hadn’t known me for long but was spilling out the inner workings of his enterprise was a little concerning. There were too many layers; such as the doctors who wrote the false medical reports which also meant false prescriptions for your false aliments; then there were the mechanics who wrote bogus estimates along with the various people he used for the accidents, such as victims and witnesses. It was like he was casting for a musical. He tried to sell this to me as a wondrous opportunity; I wondered why he couldn’t put all this effort into creating a legit business. I knew turning down this life changing career opportunity also meant losing him, but not ending up in jail seemed to be the winning draw.

Then you have the pros. They may not be moral or honest, but their hustles fall within the legal limits. These are the ones who make a living at the expense of others.

Aunt Zietuni Onyango is President Obama’s Aunt from Kenya. She is an illegal immigrant and she herself admitted she’d ‘overstayed’ her time in this country. She was denied her prior request for asylum and she said she planned on leaving, but then became ill. After she recovered, she had no money to go back home, so she stayed. Aunt Zietuni lived in a homeless shelter for 2 years and was then assigned public housing. I couldn’t find any specific information on her illness but that’s not the issue. I’m glad she got better and its good she got out of the homeless shelter. However, she was given public housing ahead of thousands of legal residents who have paid into the system. In a recent interview, when asked about this she said, “I didn’t take advantage of the system. The system took advantage of me. I didn’t ask for it. They gave it to me. Ask your system.” The interviewer made a comment about the U.S. giving her so much. Her reply, “So. It’s a free country.” She is right in that we should ask our system because it is clearly broken and she has benefited from it.

In reference to her illegal status she said, “If I come as an immigrant, you have an obligation to make me a citizen.” We do??? I’m not sure if she’s an actual Christian, but she attributes her favor to God. She said, “When you believe in Jesus Christ and almighty God, my help comes from heaven,” oh and from the influence of having Illinois State Senator who then later becomes the U.S. President. I’m just sayin.

I believe in help coming from heaven as well, but I thought somewhere in the Bible it mentioned, obeying the law, humility, grace, thankfulness… again, I’m just sayin.

Let’s recap: Via Boston legal residents, Aunt Zeituni has public housing and she gets monthly disability payments without ever having held down a job or paid into the system. In 2010 she was granted asylum by the same judge who denied her years earlier. I guess who wants to be the judge who deports the Presidents’ aunt. Her game may not be intentional, but she gets my vote for an honorable mention “Hustler Fo Real’ award.

Next honorable mention goes to Mr. Kevin Trudeau. He is an author and a salesman.
He has written books such as,

Natural Cure They Don’t Want You to Know About
More Natural Cures Revealed
The Weight Loss Cure They Don’t Want You To Know About
Debt Cures They Don’t Want You To Know About
Money Making Systems They Don’t Want You To Know About.
Your Wish Is Your Command (cd set)

I had purchased the Natural Cures and The Weight Loss Cures They Don’t Want You To Know About. The ‘They’, Kevin refers to is the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and in regards to the cures; Kevin doesn’t want you to know about them either. The emperor has no cloths and these books have no information. In both books, much of what was written was either repeated or rephrased. The Natural Cures book was filled with remedies such as; for a Hepatitis C infection he suggests hydrogen peroxide therapy and a crocodile peptide. I’m sorry, what? 100 pages of the book are a reprint of someone else’s case against guess who? …the FTC. He really hates the FTC. Reading this book was like going on a date with a guy and he spends the whole night complaining about his ex. One of his weight loss cure suggestions was to get 15 colonics in a 30 day period. Depends diapers anyone?

I learned the book review portion on Amazon is there for a reason and I should utilize it before I put out money for any book. After a wikipedia search, I discovered Kevin has had legal troubles starting from 1990, for issues such as credit card fraud and a conviction, up to 2010 for criminal contempt of court. He’s has a long running legal battle with the FTC, with them suing each other back and forth. He has been fined in the millions for false claims he has made in his books and infomercials, which still air by the way. I’ve seen them as recently as last week.

His legal battles aside, this man needs to teach a class because he has made vagueness an art form. He has no medical training and no proof of claims. He’s sitting on his leather couch in his bathrobe and just making up stuff. He’s the budget (and ineffective) version of Tony Robbins. If this ain’t hustlin’, I don’t know what is.

Next in line is the beloved Al Gore.

For many, Global Warming is considered junk science. I found scientific info on the internet (so it must be true) stating the earth has been in a cycle of warming and cooling for like ever. The big argument seems to be is global warming man made or just the planet doing what it does. Al Gore is working the man made angle. As a matter of fact he has created a whole movement.

I love the earth. I’m amazed at how the sun and the moon exchange places without pause and I’m amazed that we have nothing to do with it. I agree we should strive to for cleaner air and alternate fuels and less plastics, however, I wonder can’t these things be done without crippling the economy through the legislation the government is trying to pass in order to drastically reduce emissions.

Gore has been interested in the environment since the 70’s; peace, love and all that. He found a system already in place and capitalized on it or in other words, he took credit for someone else’s homework. Most hustlers can only affect a few people. Mr. Gore has affected the whole world; he brought a small and previously much mocked industry to the forefront.

He has introduced us to a new vocabulary:

Carbon footprints – the crap you do on a day to day basis that is killing mother earth…like breathing.

Carbon Offsets – This is what you do to compensate for your contribution to the murdering of the planet. For example, you can plant a tree or wash your cloths in a stream and hang them to dry on tree branches.

Carbon Calculator – This is to see exactly how many pounds of toxic emissions you are putting into the atmosphere so you can be properly shamed.

Carbon Neutral – This is the perfect balance of a footprint and an offset. If you take a plane ride to go on your much needed vacation, then when you get back, you plant a tree. Or to break it down a little further; Say a man cheats on his wife – footprint, then he buys her a diamond bracelet from Tiffany’s – offset.

Please keep in mind, offsets and calculations are done by companies for a price. If in the act of your hustle, you can help other hustlers, this is a win win. This mutual back scratching is the foundation on which this country was built. It also adds more weight to the stuff coming out of your mouth.

Having people of influence on your side is a big help; it makes your game legitimate. Laurie David, who besides being Larry David’s ex-wife; is a producer, a VP of comedy development for a division of Fox Broadcasting and environmental activist herself, attended one of Gore’s townhall speeches. She was so inspired, she got together with another producer and the documentary, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ was born.

Gore does not debate. It is best not to participate in open or televised discussions with people who may know more about a given subject than you. Sometimes it is necessary to make comments, but one must learn to master the art of being clear yet vague at the same time, mixed in with a little bit of, ‘What the???”. In a TV interview Gore said something like, ‘To not believe in Global Warming is like believing the earth is flat.’ Brilliant.

In a throwback from the pimp game; the pimp lives by one set of rules and hoe by the rules the pimp gives her. Mr. Gore has brought being a hypocrite to a new level.
He makes up to 200K for his speeches. To those speeches he flies a private jet. Once landing, a chauffeured car, not a Prius or any other fuel efficient vehicle; takes him to his next town hall meeting or the golf course. It has been reported his mansion in Nashville consumes more electricity in a month then the average household in a year. He says all is made well by his purchase of carbon offsets. What he probably doesn’t mention is, the carbon offsets he buys are from a company he is part owner and a chairman of.

People keep sipping the kool-aid. For all his efforts, Mr. Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 and the Hustler Fo Real award for 2010.