Profunksticated

Eddie Griffin needs pointers on how to play older, racially mixed audiences.

Griffin, the 39-year-old comedian, was reportedly all but given the hook during the 14th Annual Black Enterprise/Pepsi Golf & Tennis Challenge  in Miami this past holiday weekend. Shortly after Griffin started his riff, someone cut the juice to his microphones. This excerpt is from an online column on minorities in media:

"…when (Griffin) started tossing around the "N" word and the one abbreviated "MF," and then brought white women into his repertoire, he suddenly found his hand-held microphone go dead. Griffin tried a floor mic, but that one was dead, too.

Griffin then turned to the audience, whose members hadn’t been laughing at the jokes but were uncertain what was happening when the mics were turned off. He said, ‘f— it, I don’t need no mic,’ and finished his joke. Then he left, with Morris Day and The Time not quite ready to go on next."

My initial reaction: What did the event organizers expect from Eddie Griffin, who’s no Chris Rock? After all, we’re talking about a business networking soiree’ thrown by Earl Graves, the old-school founder and publisher of Black Enterprise magazine.

My theory: Griffin ignored admonitions to tone own his act for the audience of 1,200 and then was shown the door. Graves then took the stage and apologized to the audience.

Me, I would have liked to have seen Morris Day and the Time, as long as Morris didn’t utter that long "sheeeeeiiiiit" at the end of Jungle Love.

Peace out.

As of 4p EST today, I haven’t heard jack about the consulting gig in DC. I’ve left a couple of messages yesterday and today.

But God, as they say, works in mysterious ways. I was called by a Florida-based firm and asked to interview for a position at a satellite office in my home state. I scheduled it for 10a on Friday. I understand this is a company that was spun off of a legacy firm that went bankrupt two years ago. As I’ve said in a prior post, I’m not all that hot about taking on another full time corporate position, especially this industry, which is environmental consulting and remediation.

The position would involve some measure of marketing and business development, or so the recruiter lady in Florida told me. I have little faith in recruiters, so I’m taking what she says with a grain of salt.

The last firm I joined back in summer of 2000, also was into environmental consulting and remediation. I got the job through a referral from a cousin who was a project manager there. More than a year later, it too had gone bankrupt but was bought out for a relative song by some manufacturing/engineering firm in the Gulf South.

Already, this position I’m looking at already has one major strike against it — a driving commute of at least an hour each way.

I was up late this morning and happened upon MTV2, which had a program on the history of fashion at the MTV Video Music Awards, which I never watch. They showed P Diddy, who appeared at the VMA one recent year in a nice white suit.

Which got me to thinking: What if I showed up to my interview in a white suit, looking somewhat pimpish? It would convey the message that I could take the job or leave it; or it could signal that I’m the type that is willing to differentiate myself from the rest. (Of course, being a late-40s African American man is already a hell of a differentiator.) I probably won’t, but the very thought brought a chuckle.

I’ve also gotten a call from a recruiter about a similar marketing job for a major telecom firm. Again, there’s that problem, a driving commute that would take me even farther afield within the state than the above-mentioned gig. But I provided my resume anyhow, and the recruiter told me she’d provide it to the hiring manager. It would be up to that person as to whether I’d be called in. Whatever.

More later.

Thanks for reading. Peace out.