She has “smoked herb on glaciers with Eskimos while on a video shoot”, worked with arguably the two most famous rappers of the mid 90’s and traveled on business purposes to foreign countries with no knowledge of the native language.
So, how exactly has Deborah Bolling been able to do all this? Simple, “dazzle them with brilliance or baffle them with bullshit,” she said in a speech to the Society of Professional Journalists Monday at the Student Center.
Bolling started out as a film major and stayed in that industry 20 years. She worked for Nickelodeon, HBO, Showtime and MTV, where she was part of the “I want my MTV” campaign.
MTV coupled with her background in film took her to “high” (pun) places. She worked on music videos with the late Christopher Wallace (yes, The Notorious B.I.G., Biggie Smalls, or just Biggie.) To her, Biggie was a “big, huggable teddy bear.” She also knew him well enough to tell the audience that “if he had a blunt and a Bic, he was set.”
Simply described as “arrogant” by Bolling, Tupac Shakur (yes, Tupac, 2pac or just Pac) was simply another name on her list of associates. While walking through a hotel lobby with him during a video shoot, he “just lit one up right there and I told him he couldn’t do that kind of shit, but he didn’t care.”
Bolling also worked alongside Prince Rogers Nelson (yes, Prince, The Artist Formally Known As Prince or that symbol thing.) The two never talked, but Prince would tell his thoughts about the current situation at the video shoot to an associate who would then tell them to Bolling. In instances like this Bolling was typically standing right next to the two of them.
“Prince was a weird dude. He was like, this tall,” she said as she held her hands down at her waist, “and I never saw the man without makeup and mascara.”
Her departure from the West Coast landed her in Philadelphia, where she picked up a career in journalism, which began with a short employment at the Philadelphia Inquirer and then a brief stay at the City Paper, where she was the first African-American female reporter. Soon after, she quit and eventually advanced to Director of Communications for Mayor John Street at City Hall. Bolling was simultaneously teaching journalism at Temple from Jan. 2003 to Dec. 2004, while employed at the City Paper then City Hall.
“I was making $100,000 per year, driving 105 miles per hour down the highway and got to see the Salvador Dali exhibit for free. It was the shit!” she exclaimed.
Bolling knew she had made enemies at City Hall. One morning she was told to call a local radio where the DJs were bashing on John Street. “It was a set-up” she claims. “I curse a lot, I know, but I didn’t curse once in that phone call.” But City Hall saw her attitude over the phone differently and she was fired.
Bolling’s wide variety of talents would provide her with all types of experiences. She left the film industry because of the image black females were acquiring in rap videos, quit her job at the City Paper because two of her friends got fired and despite ending these jobs, still had successful careers in film, television, newspaper, magazine and radio and ranked within the 97th percentile of all journalism teachers while she was here at Temple, in a survey done by students.
“You’re going to run into a lot of greedy and stupid people” she warned but encouraged the audience to express “a willingness to part of something.”
