05 Jan 2012, Posted by caburkes in Missing Persons, 0 Comments Tagged BIGGEST, Marilyn Greene, Phylicia Barnes
Volunteer Work and Listening To Your Conscience
One of the BIGGEST arguments I have with almost everyone is how much I should charge someone. It’s been like that for me since I was a kid. I remember wanting to do my grandfather’s lawn … you know, mow it over the summer. He asked me how much was I going to charge him. I said .50 cents and both he and my friend balked at it. But here was my thinking:
1) That was my grandfather. I would do anything for him.
2)At the time, we were living upstairs from him so I felt I didn’t mind giving a little back to him.
I was mocked for my charity work and ultimately refused to do the lawn if I was to charge him more than that.
Flash forward to today, I wrestled with how to charge people for Bookcovermodels every day because I know times are hard and I’m simply not a greedy person. Money doesn’t drive me … although I need it. The last thing I want to do is charge steep prices for things because I don’t want to be ‘that guy’ that hikes up prices and squeezes out every dime from someone.
Meanwhile, i have a lot of debt.
Now, I know a lot of assholes who will be like: “You gotta make people pay!” “You gotta wake up and smell the coffee. This is business!”
Okay, never mind ‘business’ is so fucked up that rules of the game can evolve right before your eyes. You can’t trust anyone and business practices is only defined by who is successful no matter how they make their money … or charge less for it. Ask walmart.
Until I make a million on my ideas, I can’t say anything and I constantly tell people I know I’m not a great financier, but I don’t have to be. I’m an ideasman. I can get accountants to figure out how and what to charge people with no fight from me. This always goes back to how I have a lot of people giving me advice about what I’m doing wrong but won’t help to fix it. Fuck ‘em. My later journal entry will be about ‘Linear’ thinking people who have all sorts of advice but can’t come up with an original idea worth a damn. Granted, there are upsides to people who think in straight lines: school, graduate, family, house, children, work,retire, die. They always know where the next paycheck will be coming and it’s a guaranteed regular by-the-book life.
Boring as all hell if you ask me. Might as well slit my throat back at ‘school’.
Anyway, as i get older I’ve been feeling very VERY ‘wrong’. In me, I always feel we should do a little something to help others and answer the call when it’s called. Not a call by other people, but your own spirit. You’ll know it when you hear it and no one can tell you to answer it. Like a ringing telephone. It’s your phone, you can choose to answer it or not … most of us let it pass. Some of us answer it. I look at the 9/11 firemen that came from as far as Long Island to get to Manhattan. I don’t care if they were all told to go … they went. Some could have been, shit … thats not my jurisdiction. No … they seemed to have all went.
Or when a random act of kindness takes hold and you do it and keep on going. Somewhere in your consciousness, you are told to ‘act’ and either you do quickly because now was the time … or you fail to because of fear and the call passes.
I think answering that call becomes something of an exercised muscle after awhile. You hear it so much and you act on it so much, you start being a stronger … something … each time you act when needed. People wonder what talking to God is these days and the conscience has to be the closest thing. I don’t think anyones conscience ever tells them to take what’s not theirs, or kill someone. That’s usually reserved for the desperate voice we make when we want or desire something. The conscience speaks softly and it messes with your gut (thus gut feeling). The more you listen. the louder it gets. The less you listen and do your own thing, the less you hear it.
For sometime now, I have been an ‘sofa detective’ sort of speak. wow .. come to think of it … it’s been years I’ve been doing this. I’ve been toying around with an interest in finding missing people. I think it’s the saddest thing on Earth when someone is missing and then it’s worse when they are gone for years.
About a year ago, I was planning to develop this skill further. I even spoke with a renown missing persons investigator, Marilyn Greene, and she kindly gave me some advice. But I went about my approach to enter this field all wrong. Completely wrong. I was scared and concerned for the safety of my family and botched a few entry points. This was bad because last year, this time, I had charted out the possibility of Phylicia Barnes being murdered when everyone else was certain she was held captive or something less crucial. The most I did for that case was send an email to someone else asking them to deliver it to the mother of the missing person. Basically a detailed list of necessary questions that would have pointed in the right direction to the people involved. I never heard back from anyone.
Which was fine … I wasn’t doing anything right anyway. The interesting thing was, I took my writers perspective and acute awareness of people, which is what adds well to storytelling, to help me map out what could have happened to her. I had all the players known, the locations, the timing that was told and literally designed a few probable story outcomes and the most realistic was she was dead by accident … by a family member or close friend. Scared and afraid, they hid the body and denied everything.
April 2011, Phylicia’s body washes up from the waters after they thawed. Because you know it was an exceptionally cold winter in Baltimore that year. So, as expected, all that excessive smoke screen about her leaving for food the next morning was erroneous. You don’t dump a body during the day. Not if you have an ounce of discretion.
But of course, all this is my opinion from my ‘sofa’ detection. Backed by excellent Google research and mapping. The cops are saying child porn industry but that seems to be a huge stab in the dark. I would believe a micro-porn industry setup. A bunch of thugs that her step-sister knew if there is evidence that supports sex at all. I’m thinking accidental drug overdose. But who knows.
Anyway, I’ve done this for years. At home location of people and creating probable directions that sometimes people don’t think of. Shit, it’s fairly consistent with my writing as a whole.
Well, it’s 2012 and I feel I should volunteer my time to help people in that kind of pain. I’m not saying I’ll be out there shifting through the forest looking for bones and what not … yet … I’m just saying I would be happy to give advice and maybe offer suggestions to put people on the right path. Most of that I can do from home.
Being the ideasman that I am and I won’t stop … don’t ask me to … I just bought a domain (missingpersonsassistance.com). I wouldn’t call it a service because I’m not charging anything at all. Maybe donations if anyone so wishes … but it’s a casual site and the way I’m thinking it needs to be is like an online help desk. Ideally, if someone needs help finding someone, they post the details and I give my assessment. No guarantees, of course, but here I can help without going to far and answer that call that’s been nagging at me for damn well 30-something years. Seriously. It’s like I’m one of those guys who has the question for every answer on Jeopardy. But then when asked if he would try out for the show, he says no.
I’m trying out for the show and doing what I can until I can’t. I have to see where this sort of thing fits into my life because it’s been an ever present ‘gut feeling’ for years.
Now, I would probably have some detractors: What the hell do you think you can do? They got trained detectives searching for people? Don’t get involved!
Some of the people who would like say this are the same people who claim to be Christians. I’ve said this before many many times … I’m probably the worlds BIGGEST sinner with a certificate in SINology (graduate studies!) … but I hear God clearer than the bible thumping church going born again zealot who misses God’s voice because they’re so loud thumbing that bible. Oh and don’t for one minute think I think I’m doing the work of God. For all I know, he could be calling me an idiot! I am responding to a call … if the call is wrong … I’ll know, but many many MANY roads have lead me to this act so why the hell not follow it.
No I’m not giving up on any other work I’m doing. This is side stuff to fulfill my obligation to the human race. I’d rather do this than join the army (again) and shoot somebody and that’s only satisfying whatever orders by my government.
I would like to experience the joy of connecting a missing child with his or her parents. I have never had a child missing, and it doesn’t take much for me to imagine what i would do to find my child. I think knowing that potential anguish allows me to feel the parents sorrow a little better; giving me the insight to do a little volunteer work. Besides, they always ask for help so here it is.
The website idea is better than my original direction because it gives people a chance to come to me willingly. Before, I felt like I was trying to help and they rejected me because they didn’t know who i was. Valid reasons … so my door is open. I’ll be messing with the site later today. I need a template that helps in a Q/A design. I have one in mind.
Corey A. Burkes Author/CEODesktopEpics Entertainment
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