MentortainmentTV.com

Amy Winehouse...We love her..we wish she'd clean up her act!!

This is a live recording, I thought that I'd show all of you Amy Winehouse's superb talent.  I'm deeply saddened by the recent reports about her health.  It has been stated that she has the lungs of an 80 year smoker, and she is in the beginning stages of emphysema.  Apparently chain smoking crack will do that.  Duh???????  It's important to also state that while we focus on her because she is famous, there are millions of 24 year old women who are not famous who also face the same destiny if they don't stop smoking Crack and/or Crystal Meth. Where are Amy's mentors?? And even if they are calling, is she listening?  Amy's life is not more important than their lives, but maybe her spotlight can shed some wisdom in our "merely mortal" lives. -Ilan Kwittken- Editor-in-chief

The Girl Who Changed the World in 6 mins...Please Watch

A 12 year old Canadian girl makes a soul stirring speech regarding environment, global warming, poverty at a UN conference on environment and development in Rio DE Janeiro, Brazil. Make this video go around the world  !!!  This was sent to me via email by my cousin Andrew.  Please take the 6 min. to watch this remarkable young woman tell it like it is.-IK

Craig's List Ripoffs..Caution to all of us

I was horrified , as all of you were I'm sure, to learn of the elaborate rip-off schemes and robberies of several people who ordered iPhones off of Craig's list.  Some words of caution from an over-protective mentor(me):  Buy your items from Ebay if you must purchase on-line, or from a reputable entity.  NEVER, I repeat NEVER go "in-person" to pick up your item. Watch this scam video below, beware of him and others like him!!-IK

P.S.  We happen to like Craig Newmark and his wonderful emporium of a website.  This is an example of Caveat Emptor(buyer beware).

Yoga: Meet Your Mentor..Exclusive to MentortainmentTV

We are so pleased to bring on-board Margaret Lesser.  Margaret is a Barnard grad who took her passion and spirituality and cleverly wove her business savvy into a successful business.  She will be presenting several yoga principles and techniques that you can easily do at home or at your desk.   Prepare to de-stress!!!

The Bachelorette: Fairy Tale Ending??? Oh Please

"Millions of viewers watched DeAnna Pappas, 26, suffer through a painful, last-minute rejection by Brad Womack on the last season of "The Bachelor" -- earning her the sympathy of women everywhere. Now DeAnna will have the last laugh as the tables are turned and she gets to choose from among 25 bachelors in her own bid for true love."

At the risk of sounding cynical, I was so nauseated by this promo from ABC(not that ABC is to blame, they give the public what they want, we don't judge, we point out).  This chick is living in a fantasy world.  She was on the The Bachelor, and he sent her home(boo-hoo).  We need to examine why women still buy into this myth that they aren't valid without a man.  This prince-charming thing is as old as the hills.  Nothing wrong with watching some reality television, it seems to reflect our culture.   If you do tune-in, think about what you really want in a mate and if you are in a relationship now, think about what you want out of it.  Just some food for thought:  Does your mate control you?  Are you a team or do you call the shots?-IK

Women's Self-Defense..Important !! Save Your Life

Women's Self Defense is a serious matter. We at MentortainmentTV.com will periodically post important videos and information on this issue.  We take it seriously, so should you.  This video features Lu Parker and experts Johnny and Noel Gyro.  It could save your life.

From all of us at MentortainmentTV.com

Women: Meet the right guy at the right place..not at a hotel bar

I think you'll like this selection.  It was sent to me by a friend and we both thought it be good for the site.  Enjoy !!  Remember:  When you are feeling a little bit lonely and you are in a strange city on business, and (I know we're really pushing it here) you've had a couple(of drinks that is), empower yourself and go up to your hotel room, by yourself.  You'll thank me in the morning.-IK

Hillary Clinton...Taking a Nap

Hillary Clinton grabs some shut-eye at her hotel room here in NYC.Our own Dana Brown and crew, at it again.  We are so proud of her!!  She'll stop at nothing to get a story![Hillary played by Ilan Kwittken]

Sunday contribution:How to Get Fired from Corporate America (Without Committing a Crime!)

It is not as easy as one would assume…

----By Kelly N. Patterson         

First a little background music…

As you may or may not know, I work exclusively with non-profit organizations, development agencies, academic institutions, and the arts.  Call me what you will, but I have yet to find a political/economical ideological system that works completely for me and thoroughly empowers the disenfranchised, and no, I am not some crunchy-granola, tree-bark bathing, do-gooder—I have never owned Birkenstocks (aka, “Jesus Shoes”), I shave and I am a chain-smoking pescotarian.

Well, one happy hour, directly following a (slightly alcohol-inspired) Pulitzer-prize winning anti-Corporate America monologue to a bunch of “suited” friends, a good friend of mine, a corporate capitalist, challenged me:

            “Kelly, how can you make such harsh judgments without actually having worked for an American Corporation?”

            “Touché, pussy cat.”

Acknowledging the uncomfortable truth in her query, I sought out a job in Corporate USA.  Conveniently located in “www.SanFrancsico.com”  just following the legendary Silicon Valley boom of the mid-90’s—where people spoke fluent Stock Options--  ridiculously enough, I was hired by, um…let’s call them “Perfidious Financial” (hint:  they have a tall building on Market Street) as one of four corporate communications writers. 

And yes, we, “the writers”, were the “freaks” aboard a financial battleship, easily identified (and whispered about on the elevators) due to our lack of corporate uniform (aka, “the suit and briefcase.”)  I carried a day-glow, flowered 70’s suitcase, cleverly disguised as a briefcase, but I suspect I was not fooling anyone.  I did not fit into the corporate environment from Day One, much less the veal-fattening pen they assigned me. 

But hell, I was still going to take their $5,000 sign-on bonus and spend it as quickly as I cashed it.  (I flew my whole clan from DC to San Francisco to see the opening of my first play, “Story Time with the Dead Mrs. Treat” and I treated several friends to a trip to the nonprofit Zen retreat center, Harbin Hot Springs, just outside of Napa Valley.)  The Deal with the Devil (no, not a new story but how I got out of it—yes!) I would retain my $5,000 sign-on bonus on one condition:  I must “loan” my soul, excuse me, services to Perfidious Financial for one year.  I thought:  How difficult could this be?  I survived bloody Rwanda!

Much to my frustration, it became immediately apparent that my “Editor” was not actually an editor at all, but an ass-kissing wanna-be-banker with no editorial credentials whatsoever.  When I referred to the Chicago Manual of Style, he looked at me as if I had an armadillo playing a banjo on my head.  And when I proved repeatedly correct in the grammatical defense of my work, he was quick to blame “the lawyers”, who so carefully monitored all of our communications.  However, working under a certifiable dildo is not unique in Corporate America—my friends have led me to believe this is actually the norm. 

Very early into my new career as a corporate communications writer, I became skeptical of my company’s activities, and I am by no means a financial specialist.  Therefore, if I sensed that my work was shady, it should have been obvious to the general public, especially the bank customers…alas, it was not until the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the OCC—basically, the watchdog of the banks) showed up (and conveniently located on MY floor) that my suspicions were confirmed. 

I had a dilemma:  If I were to quit (which I felt I could not in good conscience continue this deceitful work), I would have to pay back my $5,000 sign-on bonus, and between us, it was GONE.  I carefully perused my contract. I handed it over to a lawyer friend (though she does not specialize in labor law) and asked, “So, if I get fired, I don’t have to pay back the sign-on bonus?”

“Kelly, you should have been a lawyer.” 

The trick, however, was to get fired without committing a crime (for further reference read anything about Enron.)  My original plan was to do my work (on time) but make it as difficult as humanly possible for my “Editor”—in other words, I sought to drive my editor insane.  This proved to be a lot more difficult than I thought.  Following are a few things I did in attempt to get fired:

Come in obscenely late EVERY day—without apologies
Invite colleagues to see foreign film matinees during “lunch break”, and then narrate entire film upon return
Bring Kimchi or Lahori Charga Curry in for my desk-side lunch (which would make the entire floor smell for days)
Do yoga in the empty cubicle next to my desk—especially the “Lion Pose”, a crowd pleaser!
When office equipment failed to operate, I put signs on the copier/fax/etc. reading:  “I am Impotent!”  “No me moleste!”  “Gone Fishing!”
Whenever, I walked past the OCC “sanctuary” on my floor, I would rap:

“You down with OCC?
Yeah, you know me…
You down with OCC?
Every last homey!”

(The OCC, for the record, was NOT amused.)
7.  Convinced my colleagues to play Bingo during our sanctioned Monday meetings, using corporate-speak terms such as “out of the box” and “the bottom line”—the weekly winner got a free lunch, a chip-in effort of the remaining three writers.  Whenever someone else yelped “Bingo!” (and the editor looked up from his Boring Office Meeting Cliff Notes) everyone would yell, “Bless you!”  Clueless.
8. Left several unprofessional voice-mail messages on my in-house only phone.  Only the editor, the other writers, the CEO, and the lawyers had my phone number: “Kelly is on the astral plane and will be back once she reaches enlightenment.”

“Kelly is not in, but no need to panic, here is the number of a good therapist….”

Painted my nails at my desk
Walked around the floor barefoot
Chewed gum loudly, all the time
Took a cigarette break every hour (at least)
With speaker phone on: “You have a special delivery from…um, a Good Vibrations?”  “Thank you, I have been expecting that forever, I will be right down—no pun intended.”

I thought my plan was fail-proof.  My editor called me in one afternoon, following my viewing of “Run Lola Run!”, and instead of firing me, he said he thought I needed to be challenged…I suggested Scrabble or arm-wrestling, but he offered to double my workload and tweak my salary.  Shit! 

Now I began to panic.  I was running out of non-criminal annoyance tactics—and I was being bloody promoted.  Therefore (and I know I am terrible), I decided to give up on perturbing my imbecilic editor and distract my literary colleagues by constantly interrupting them during their work by listening to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 (aloud) at my desk or throwing small and large office supplies into their office nests.  Not only did I fail to distract my crew from their diligent work, they would fiercely return my office missiles or yell, “You sank my battleship!” 

I was about to give up when, serendipitously, without even trying, I pissed off the lawyers.  And it all started with a preposition.  Historically, the lawyers “edited” one of my letters on behalf of the CEO, and ended a sentence with a prepositional phrase.  Addressing the other editorial notes, I sent the document back to the lawyers, but I changed their edits.  They sent it back to me again, with a hand-written note to change the sentence back to a prepositional phrase-ending.  I refused, and wrote in red ink:  “This is English Grammar 101; please refer to Grade 3 English text.”  Well, that just about did it.

When they phoned me, they got a voice mail message that said something to the effect of “I see dead people and I am having lunch with one right now.”  In return, the lawyers left me a nasty voice mail message expressing their “disappointment” with my “unprofessional” voice mail message.  I phoned them back and reminded them that I had a private line, in-house phone only.  They were still not pleased, so I faxed them an apology:  “I am sorry I did not realize that lawyers have no sense of humor.  My humblest apologies.”

Within 24 hours, I found myself in the Human Resources “Mediation” room.  And yes, “Human Resources” is the most well-known misnomer, as they are not human nor are they resourceful.  The assigned HR representative was cross-eyed, which thoroughly distracted me because I could not decide in which eye to look.  All I recall is something about “personality conflict.”  Two days later, I was fired.  You can imagine the look of surprise when my editor skulked to my desk and handed me my “pink slip”—I do believe I did a Walt Whitman-esque yawp: “My god, FINALLY!”

Yes, I did get to keep my sign-on bonus and yes, the OCC fined Perfidious Financial several millions of dollars for fraud.  I consider this a Happy Ending.--By Kelly N. Patterson

  Originally from Washington, DC, Kelly has worked as an international development and communications specialist on four continents.  When she is not "saving the world", she is writing hate mail to the London Public Transport Authority (even though she left London a week ago!)

ADOPT- A - PET DAY!!!!!

We at Mentortainmenttv.com want people to understand how important it is to adopt a pet.  Fact:  An older dog can actually be a better choice, particularly if you are not home for the bulk of the day.  They get put to sleep(I hate that euphemism, let's just call it what it really is...killed).  North Shore Animal League in NY is a no-kill shelter.  You can make a contribution and support this wonderful institution.  If you really want a special breed, there are always rescue organizations for each breed.  Check out another place to donate, Noah's Ark.