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Saturday, July 7th, 2012
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1:58 pm
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| Friday, July 25th, 2008
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8:32 pm - start spreading the word!
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| Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008
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1:56 am - dear nyc transit authority:
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NO. IT SHOULD NOT TAKE NEARLY TWO FUCKING HOURS TO GET FROM 60TH AND 3RD TO 155TH AND AMSTERDAM. UNACCEPTABLE. I MAKE THIS FUCKING COMMUTE EVERYDAY AND I DO IT DURING THE DAY IN UNDER 30 MINUTES. I UNDERSTAND THERE ARE FEWER TRAINS RUNNING AT NIGHT BUT THIS IS BULLSHIT. ALSO: IF YOU'RE GOING TO RUN THE EXPRESS TRAIN ON THE LOCAL TRACK, YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO SKIP STOPS UNLESS YOU FUCKING TELL US FIRST. PUT A FUCKING SIGN UP. PUT IT ON THE WEBSITE. MAKE AN ANNOUNCEMENT. DO SOMETHING. DON'T JUST PUT OUR ASSES OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF WASHINGTON HEIGHTS AND GIVE US THE FINGER. I WAITED FOR THIS GODDAMN TRAIN FOR AN HOUR AND IT ISN'T EVEN GOING TO GET ME HOME? FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU. I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU MOTHERFUCKERS HAVE THE BALLS TO LOOK THIS CITY IN THE EYE AND TELL US YOU WANT ANOTHER RATE HIKE WHEN IT TAKES ME TWO TRAINS, TWO BUSES, AND A FUCKING TAXI TO GET HOME FROM THE FUCKING MOVIES. FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING SONS OF BITCHES I HATE YOU AND I HOPE YOU ALL GET SYPHILLIS IN YOUR EYEBALLS. I'D GO ON BUT IT'S NEARLY TWO AM AND I HAVE TO GET UP IN FOUR HOURS TO GO TO WORK. GO FUCK YOURSELVES.
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, June 14th, 2008
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2:54 pm - into the dolphin.
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new songs are up on secret crush society's myspace. we have to finish the artwork for the CD and then get it printed and it is ready to go.
added bonus: apparently i put the unedited version of "reach into the dolphin" up there and after the song is over you can hear me trying to talk to kevin through his headphones for about ten seconds.
we play metro gallery next saturday, june 21 with the lovely tippy canoe and the paddlemen, the degenerettes, and uni and her ukelele. it should be a good show. tippy is always great, the degenerettes get better every time i see them, and i've heard good things about uni. also, SCS will have our old bass player tanya playing with us for this show. . . it should be a really good time.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Monday, June 9th, 2008
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7:21 pm - Note to self:
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One of the few constants in life is that the atlanta airport will always suck. You are making a decent living now. Spend the 50 bucks and take a direct flight instead of sitting next to hundreds of unhappy passengers who, like you, are also wondering where the fuck their plane is and at which gate it's supposed to arrive. It has always been like this in atlanta, and so it will always be. Like a battered wife, you always think atlanta's going to change and things are going to get better, and it never does, yet you still keep coming back. It is time to break this vicious cycle. Spend the money. Fly direct. You are a strong, smart, beautiful woman and you deserve better from an airport.
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| Saturday, June 7th, 2008
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11:47 am - Posted using TxtLJ
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In chicago. Was supposed to get in last night at 10:30, actually got in at 2am. Thanks jetblue!
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
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11:40 am - Posted using TxtLJ
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| Sunday, June 1st, 2008
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12:16 pm - this made me LOL
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| Sunday, May 25th, 2008
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12:40 pm - baltimore
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i got in last night.
i got drunk and danced my ass off at a roller girl party and wound up wandering around mount vernon until 4AM.
today i'm meeting some friends at rocket to venus for brunch and then i'll be going to overheardgirl's birthday BBQ.
this is so weird- as i'm typing this on overheardgirl's computer, i just realized that i'm sitting at my old desk, which i gave to her before i went to NYC. it looks a lot nicer with her stuff on it.
also, trying to see jazzometer and plantastic and the zebra child at some point.
might try to go see the pirate ship in the inner harbor with killer kitten before i go, but the chances of this are dubious.
that is all. text me if you want to meet up.
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(comment on this)
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| Thursday, May 22nd, 2008
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9:36 pm - congratulations
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| Tuesday, May 20th, 2008
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6:15 pm - karaoke on friday
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me and my friend andria are thinking about organizing a karaoke night in korea town or thereabouts this friday. anybody interested? send me a message.
i've got the greatest love of all inside of me.
-tjg
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, May 19th, 2008
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8:00 pm - oh i totally forgot
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i would be totally remiss if i got so wrapped up in my bitching about work that i forgot to say:
CONGRATULATIONS TEAM ATOMIC!!!!!!
team atomic, for those of you who don't know, is a little cycling group i helped to start a few years ago (although i always considered myself little more than a figurehead. the real work was done by ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) overheardgirl who has made this fundraising juggernaut what it is today). . . four years ago i rode my bike in my first ever ride for the feast, which is a two-day, 140-mile trek from rehoboth beach, delaware to baltimore, maryland, done almost entirely by bicycle. the first day of the ride is 100 miles, the second day the riders are bussed over the chesapeake bay and they ride the remaining 40 miles back to baltimore. RFTF is a fundraiser for moveable feast, a maryland non-profit group that is like a meals-on-wheels service for homebound HIV and AIDS patients.
the next year overheardgirl, docjules and i, along with our friend chris, did the ride together, calling ourselves team atomic as a shout out to our sponsor, atomic books in baltimore. we raised a shitload of money and signed up again for the next year. this time, we increased team atomic's numbers from four riders to eight riders.
this past weekend, team atomic did their third RFTF and i'm sad to say, their first without me riding with them. i really wanted to be a part of this but with the move and the new job i couldn't ride this year. however, along with co-founders overheardgirl and docjules, the other three members of secret crush society rode along with a ton of other people (i seriously lost count of how many members the team had this year. twelve? fourteen? it was a lot.) and the team raised close to TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS- that is a 2 with five zeros behind it- to help people living with HIV and AIDS.
guys, i am so seriously proud of you and i am so sad that i had to miss it.
even though this year's ride is over, it is not too late to donate- click on one of the links above and it will bring you to the team's fundraising page, and you can donate by credit card.
i seriously hope to get back on my cycling game this year so that by next year, overheardgirl and i can race.
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| Wednesday, May 14th, 2008
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10:58 pm - huh.
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put this up on twitter a couple of hours ago:
returning a faulty gig bag to guitar center.
come back home a few hours later, discover that the fucking CEO of guitar center is now following me on twitter. almost felt compelled to send him a message that the guys at the 14th street GC are really nice.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, May 13th, 2008
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2:11 am - candy candy candy i can't let you go, all my life you've haunted me i love you so
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so melissa's here and this weekend has been amazing and far too much shit happened for me to possibly post about but the most important thing is that one of these is on my right arm and one is on her left shoulder and they will be there for the rest of our lives.
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(7 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, April 28th, 2008
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6:25 pm - this saturday.
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i will be in baltimore playing with my pretty fucking amazing band, Secret Crush Society. we are the hotness. this is going to be a great show, supporting an even greater cause, and it will be good to see some of your smiling mugs in the front row, holding up your lighters (but seriously, don't do that corny shit at my show. grow up).
here are the details, and the new and improved flyer, cropped for your pleasure:
Frazier's on the Avenue
9:30PM
w/ South Carey
Dreaded Sunny Day
Kitty Victorian
This show is a benefit for Moveable Feast, a Baltimore based non-profit organization that provides meals for homebound HIV/AIDS patients. Three of SCS's members (and one of South Carey's members) is riding as part of Team Atomic, a bicycling team that rides 140 miles in two days (from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware to Baltimore, Maryland) to raise money for this great organization. Come out, see some rock and roll, buy some raffle tickets, have some drinks, and kiss a dolphin. It all happens this Saturday.
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(comment on this)
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| Monday, April 21st, 2008
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9:31 pm - it's on
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| Friday, April 18th, 2008
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6:57 pm - fuck bank of america.
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seriously.
for those of you who are new readers, let me explain the back story: i worked for b of a for about two years in baltimore, under a crazy, depressed, drugged up branch manager who a) had absolutely no idea what she was doing and b) almost never came to work. in the last year i worked there, between medical leave, sick days, vacations, and just not showing up, she missed over six months of work in a twelve month span.
i will also throw in that b of a is horrible company to work for. . . they are something of a joke in the financial industry because they vastly underpay their employees, and they are one of the few major banks that will not offer to train their bankers to get an NASD license. the reason why they don't do this is so that they don't have to pay bankers commission on sales of securities. their banker training program was pretty much non-existent (i was literally plopped down at a desk, give a 1-800 number, and told, "if you're not sure what to do, call that number. there are your customers, start waiting on them"), they increase revenue by intentionally understaffing their locations, and out of all the people that work for the company, only half of them seem to know what they are going. to get my job with this company, i had to go on SIX interviews before an offer was made to me.
the reason i do not work for them anymore is because i decided that i wanted to move to new york city at the beginning of this year. i gave my crazy manager three months notice that i wanted to move. i began applying for open positions internally. was told that i was applying too soon, and i needed to wait until six weeks before i was ready to move. i waited, and applied for over a dozen positions over a span of a month. i often was met with indifference from the corporate recruiters, who kept making excuses why i- an experienced banker already working for the company with a proven track record of bringing new accounts, mortgages, lines of credit, etc- was not qualified to do the job i was already doing in another city.
eventually, i got fed up with them, and i submitted a resume to the company i work for now. at my job interview, i was offered a job on the spot that paid a lot more money and provided me with NASD licenses.
after working my ass off for b of a for two years, many times working non stop from open to close because my manager didn't come to work, i figured i didn't owe them anything. after all, i tried to continue working for them. i really did. they couldn't get their shit together to offer me a job so i went elsewhere. crazy, depressed, drugged up branch manager lady got really depressed because she really believed that i was going to stick around and continue pulling her weight. i came in on a monday, told them my last day would be friday, and started packing up my stuff. my last day of work, the manager didn't even come in. she quit two weeks later.
after moving to new york, i received my final paycheck through direct deposit. about a month ago, i got a letter from bank of america saying that they'd overpaid me and i now owe them $721. the figure didn't make sense to me- $721 is about maybe seven days worth of my old salary. i contacted my old branch about it, but the assistant manager is, of course, shorthanded because her banker and branch manager have both quit (and b of a didn't replace us) so she told me she'd try to look into it and call me back.
this week, she emailed me to tell me that because she wasn't the manager at the time i worked there, they couldn't discuss the matter with her. she gave me a phone number to call and i called them today on my lunch break, where it was explained to me that i had been paid for seven days of vacation time that i hadn't accrued yet. bank of america wants their vacation time back, since i don't work for the company anymore.
it seemed a little trifling to me but when they explained it, it made sense. . . you accrue vacation time at a percentage of the time you work. i took a week of vacation in february that i hadn't earned yet. no one told me this, and no one warned me that if i was planning to leave the company then i shouldn't take vacation time, actually they were persistently telling me to take a vacation so that other people could take theirs. i tried to explain to them that no one told me this, and they gave me the go-to corporate response that every big company uses: "it's in the handbook."
i talked to three people on the phone today and even laughed in one person's face when she explained to me that i left on good terms and was eligible for rehire if i ever wanted to come back (my response: "you couldn't pay me enough money to work for your sorry asses again," this is a bridge i do not mind burning) but the response was the same: this was the company policy and there was nothing i could do.
they then gave me two options: i could just whip out a check and pay them $721 on the spot (because everyone's got that much cash just laying around) or i can set up an installment plan and pay the money back over ten months. i chose the installment plan because that will give me time to find a lawyer and see what my options are. i don't want to pay this money back and don't feel like i should have to- fuck what the company policy says.
i have worked in some fucked up, negligent places, but the amount of ineptitude i encountered while working for bank of america is staggering. not so much on the customer side of things- i never had problems with my accounts while i was there (my credit card was another story- they would change the due date sometimes by as much as two weeks without telling me, meaning no matter what i did i was almost always making my payments late) and there are enough good people working there that care enough about their jobs to not let customers get sucked into all this red tape.
the employees, though? fuck 'em. ever since i decided to go to new york the company as a whole has been a bunch of incompentent and petty sons of bitches, and this whole thing- letting me take vacation time that they knew i'd have to pay back- is the final kick in the nuts. i am really, really angry about this. . . angrier than i've been in a long time, almost as angry as i would get when i actually worked for them and had people yelling at me because they had to wait two hours to see me and i can't help them with their problem because i'm not the manager.
so that's it. i am going to try to talk to a lawyer as soon as possible to see if i can take them to court or threaten to take them to court so that i don't have to pay this money back. i can afford it, but it's the principle of the thing. . . another gigantic pain in the ass from a company that i just want to be done with but shit like this keeps coming up.
the moral of the story is: if bank of america offers you a job, run. run screaming. run away as fast as you can. you do not want to work for these sons of bitches.
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, April 5th, 2008
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10:01 pm - on second thought
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i'm starting to suspect i might have the beginnings of a sinus infection. my glands are swollen, throat is scratchy, and everything smells/tastes funny. thinking it would probably be in my best interests to not push it.
i'm going to venture out into harlem to get some dinner, come back here and watch the star wars marathon on tv. really want to hike tomorrow, so hopefully i'm cutting this shit off before it gets worse.
let's hear it for saturday night! woo hoo!
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(comment on this)
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| Monday, March 31st, 2008
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8:12 pm - regarding today's announcement from the treasury dept.
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this is a subject that affects everyone: fiscal reform and economic regulation. unfortunately, it is also a subject that makes america's penis go soft as soon as you bring it up. economics is not sexy the way the war on terrorism is or reality TV shows are or governors banging hookers or things like that, but it's a fact of life, and it's something that affects you and me and your kids and your kids' kids and everyone and everything around you. it could even be said that larger global problems, like the environment and war and terrorism, all come back to the same thing: economics. the problem is that the world of economics is enveloped in this very arcane, complex way of doing things and it's very hard to understand unless you are in the world of finance in some capacity.
today's news is just a new variation on an old theme that we've seen for the past eight years in the bush white house: let things get out of hand, and then give someone unlimited power to fix it; nothing will get fixed, but it makes the bureaucrats look like they're doing something. we saw it with 9/11 and terrorism and the department of homeland security and the gradual erosion of our civil rights. we saw it with FEMA and the senseless tragedy of hurricane katrina's aftermath. today what we are seeing something very similar play out in the financial world.
the federal reserve is america's central bank. it regulates all other banks and has a hand in keeping the country's economic growth (or lack thereof) in check by manipulating the economic cycle of expansion, peaks, recession, and troughs, and controlling the country's money supply. the fed's critics have said that over the past few years, they've become too manipulative, artifically expanding and contracting each economic wave, causing bigger and bigger fluctuations in the cycle. it could also be said that the current state that the economy is in started as far back as 2003 with alan greenspan cutting interest rates, which caused homeownership rates to skyrocket. what goes up, must come down and thus began the sub-prime mortgage crisis. . . the big banks began developing the use of pools of mortgages as complex investment vehicles, under the presumption that housing prices would never go down. well, they did, and here we are.
i know it's boring. stay with me, here.
today, the treasury department just handed the federal reserve- a semi-private and semi-public organization whose members are not elected but appointed, and are not accountable for their actions- power over the SEC and the mortgage industry. in laymen's terms, this is a lot like giving the executive branch of the government complete control over the legislative and judicial systems- you have several self-regulating sectors all controlled by one entity, and you eliminate all checks and balances within that entity. you now have the entire financial industry under one umbrella group with no public accountability whatsoever.
this is a very frightening development. i'm sure one could look at it and say, "but isn't more regulation a GOOD thing? isn't a lack of regulation what got us here in the first place?" not necessarily. what got us here in the first place was the credit culture of "buy it now, pay for it later". we as a society were told that not only could we spend more money than we make, that we are ENTITLED to it. people maxed out their credit cards and then refinanced their credit cards with home equity loans. banks had the money to loan out because they were selling mortgages to investors. investors made money off of the interest, banks made money off of the investors, people had big screen TV's and fancy new cars, and the economy was booming. this economy was a house of cards ready to be knocked down at any second, and we are now watching the first few levels come crashing down around our ears. unfortunately, we're too far gone to know how high that house was built and exactly how bad things are going to get.
even if you are not a financial genius, one does not have to know a whole lot about economics to wonder why the government is handing a blank check to a group that, just a few weeks ago, was engineering a multi-billion dollar bailout of recklessly managed investment banks while at the same time, thousands of families were losing their homes.
if you've ever had a doubt about where your government's loyalty lies, look no further than the business section of today's newspaper. if you truly want to save the economy, abolish the federal reserve, put our currency back on the gold standard, bring back the glass-steagall act and stop the artificial inflation of economic markets. stop regulating and start demanding some accountability.
i would like to let anyone out there know that if you're reading about this stuff and you're worried about it but you don't understand it, email me at rockandrollgenius AT gmail dot com and i will try to help you make sense of it. believe me when i tell you, it's important.
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| Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
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7:49 pm - R.I.P. Al Copeland
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this is something i heard about yesterday and meant to post something about it and didn't. the founder of popeye's fried chicken passed away this week.
this is something you just don't get if you're not from new orleans, so i'll try to explain it to you.
there are lots of people in new orleans who are born into poverty, who grow up poor, who spend their whole lives poor, but instead of doing something about it and trying to better themselves and their situation, they hide behind it and use it as an excuse. i've been lots of places and i have never seen the culture of entitlement that you see in new orleans. . . generations of people who not only don't work but won't work, won't stay in school, people who willfully stay ignorant and uneducated because they know that they can get by on the handouts they get from the government and people who do work and try to better themselves. then those people grow up and they teach their kids not to work, not to try to be anything, because somebody somewhere's going to take care of you.
i grew up there and i hated those people, and i refused to give in to the cop-out of making it a racial stereotype the way most people do. this entitlement culture i'm talking about, it's not a black thing or a white thing or even a poor thing. it's a new orleans thing, and i've never seen anything else like it anywhere in the world. i grew up hating people who never wanted to make anything of themselves, and swearing that i would never become one of those people.
al copeland was not a saint. i won't try to defend the guy's character or his business practices or the thousands of public controversies he embroiled himself in. but i will tell you that al copeland was a guy who came from nothing who didn't even have a high school diploma, and he took a shitty job working a deep fryer and turned it into a multi-million dollar global restaurant empire. that guy was like the scarface of the fast-food world.
mr. copeland, some of my fondest childhood memories were the amazing christmas light displays you used to put up around your home. even though your neighbors sued you to take them down, there's a part of me that always associates christmas with al copeland's house.
rest in peace, sir.
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