We need Jobs!

It can't help but strike me as symbolic (and worth talking about) that Steve Jobs died as people took to the streets to protest the grotesque difference between the wealthy and poor in this country.

I'm sure many folks are surprised that, in spite of his wealth and the blogosphere's obsession with the Occupy Wall Street movement, many folks of my description (lower economic class, college educated, anti-establishment hipsters) are sad (heartbroken, maybe) at Steve Jobs' death.

Why are we so sad? Because, despite what the Corporate Media wants you to believe, we don't hate wealth. No one of sound mind hates wealth. Occupy Wall Street and the discontent nation (really, world) wide has nothing to do with the fact that people are jealous of someone else's wealth. Particularly not Steve Jobs, a man who made his wealth on his ideas. Sure, he was a business man. And sure, he probably conducted some shady, tough dealings. But the guy's decisions, ideas and personal investment changed the world. No one has a problem with that.

When people say, "I wish I was a billionaire," what do you think they mean by that? Do you think they mean, "I want to take over a company, cut costs and staffing and pocket the rest!"?

No. They think "I want to be a billionaire because my ideas change the world." Really, at that point, the money is incidental. As it should be. A co-worker of mine had a great term -- "the parasite class." He used it to define the wealthy who "fly under the radar." Who, by design, you'll never know. Those gutless men who only know how to pinch pennies. The folks who never make eye contact, let alone say a word to their employees and who contribute to our nation's unemployment by viewing those employees as costs, not people. And they're who're destroying America.

That's who they are -- the parasite class.

And that brings me back to Jobs. Fascinating stories about him abound. At heart, yes, he was a business man. He wasn't super honorable. But read those stories and tell me he didn't care. Tell me that when he said an idea was "a dumb idea," that that comment came from anyplace less honorable than the truth.

This is what the conflict's about. The outrage in this country isn't bred out of jealousy for rich people. It's bred out of anger that the people who contribute the least can get the most. And it's also anger at the next generation of leadership that refuses to stand up to them.

But this is the moment to take our country back. I don't have a lot of power on this Island Earth, but we all know someone who does. So if you're in even a remote position of authority, I encourage you now -- heck, I'm begging you now -- don't spend the next few weeks, months or years saying "oh, the world's suffered a huge loss without Steve Jobs."

Instead, ask yourselves what you can do to carry on what the man stood for. Ask yourself how you can be leaders of the working class, not the parasite class. Treat your employees right. Don't put your head down in the face of an economy that is quickly proving to be the greatest challenge of our time, but stand up, be bold and lead. Every day. We need you to lead. Because really, success isn't measured by numbers on a ledger, it's measured by what you leave behind.

And we need to leave behind a world that works.

The Wall

I've spent the past few days checking out Occupy Wall Street here in New York City. If you have a chance, go check it out for yourself. I'd say the newsmedia has misrepresented it, but they'd have to actually cover it (beyond a few stupid protesters breaking the law after a few stupid Cops goaded them into it)

What you'll see down there, first of all, is an impressively organized campsite. They keep it clean, they're very welcoming, and there is a very constructive sense of outrage. It is, in effect, a primal scream of a country that's fed up with how marginalized 99 percent of us have become.

But the problem is they don't have a specific set of demands or objectives for their protest. (They would be wise to check out Nicholas Kristoff's Op-Ed for a list)

The lack of a specific goal has made me hesitant to sign on to the protest, full throttle. I admire the folks down there -- they're approaching this peacefully and they clearly have the will, they just need a way. During their nightly General Assembly (where they recap events, introduce committees, etc.) there are many different concerns at hand -- the LGBT movement, the Labor Movement, Race Relations, Womens' rights -- I don't disagree with any of those movements concerns, and the leadership of this rally seems to really want to have those demands be heard. It's admirable. But I urge the leadership to remember one important thing:

Unless they find a clear message, they will lose and this protest will go away. And also, you're in Wall Street for a reason -- you're mad about the money.

And you should be. We all should be. Sometime during the last 15-20 years, America became a Corporate Welfare State (Most right-thinking people blame the demise of the The Glass-Steagall Act) And that's permeated the culture. The same folks who are probably looking down on this protest and scoffing that these folks should "get a job" are also the first to turn to the government and demand a handout when they mismanage money.

And until we as a country stand up to these people, it's just going to keep happening. Auto Union workers will get their hours cut while the executives get bonuses. Administrative assistants will lose their jobs while the folks in charge continue to pile on thousand dollar perks to their six-figure employees. Hard working employees will see paycuts while their companies post record profits -- all because someone in an office in midtown who's never met these people has an excel sheet with "margins that have to be hit."

Oh, and if you want to criticize the above examples for being vague, they're all real stories I've heard from friends and loved ones recently, but they didn't give me permission to talk about them, so I decided to give 'em a little bit of privacy. However, if you want a nice example of a big company fucking you over, Bank of America is going to charge you a fee for using your Debit Card. That's right, they're going to charge customers for spending money.

So no, what's happening down at Wall Street isn't, as our Mayor said, “protesters...protesting against people who make $40 or $50,000 a year and are struggling to make ends meet,” (although, wow, 40-50 thousand a year sounds lovely). And in fact, I spoke to a woman today who works on Wall Street and commented on how polite and fun the group has been to her at her lunch hour.

But it does need to focus -- it does need to say, explicitly, that we can't continue to solely look out for people who do not look out for the rest of us. Our country can't survive that way. If it doesn't focus, eventually, they will have to pack their camp up and go home.

That said, if they do go home, the primal scream you're seeing in Manhattan won't go away. It may even get worse. Anger doesn't die -- and in this moment, I urge this movement to use that anger the right way.

I GIVE UP!

(TRANSCRIPT OF TOM BRENNAN'S CONCESSION SPEECH AT THE ISIAH THOMAS CIVIC CENTER IN SCHENECTANY, NY)

...seriously? Fine. I'll talk to them.

My fellow Americans, good evening. A few moments ago I called my opponent to concede the presidential race. I say "my opponent" rather than name them because you know what's the point? What's the point of naming them? A plurality of you voted for them, in spite of weeks of polling that had us in a dead heat. Well, what are you gonna do?

But make no mistake, my fellow Americans, today may be a victory for my opponent, but it is not a loss for me but rather for you. You lost today, and you lost huge. You lost for your future. You lost for your present. You even lost for your past, I guess. Whatever. The point is, you're the ones who have saddled this shit-stain you dare to call a country with the kind of vapid, brain dead leadership it deserves.

Before I walked out here, my staff encouraged me to congratulate you on a campaign hard fought. So as always (and unlike my opponent), I will not lie to you -- clearly you didn't work hard enough. They also asked me to talk about my regrets and what I'll miss most about the campaign trail. Yes, how will I wake up tomorrow knowing I won't be going to another pancake breakfast in a deteriorating midwestern rec hall with a group of seniors who look like Dick Tracy villains?

Now I can spend more time with my family, who, I assure you, are thrilled to know that two years of my private life being paraded on the national stage, ads questioning my patriotism and a parade of former co-workers, ex-lovers and folks I owe money to popping up on screen every two days, has landed me back on the couch watching TBS's all day marathon of City Slickers 2: The Legend of Curley's Gold.

But hey, you had to vote for someone else. That's fine. My time's just about done here -- what? I have another five minutes? Great. For the next five minutes, I will list some of my favorite nicknames I used for your home states, moments after my campaign skipped town.

Shittsylvania
Delewhogivesashit?
Look at what a Genius I am cuz I read a book once! (that's New York)
Kansassholes
Califuckyourself
Arkansassholes
New Jersey

...excuse me?

Okay, my security team wants me to call it a night. Thanks, again, for not voting me into the job of cleaning up your dumb ass decisions. I'll see you all in hell, and may God bless America.

(HERE, THERE WAS A BRIEF PAUSE AS MR. BRENNAN ARGUED WITH HIS SECURITY TEAM, BEFORE TURNING BACK TO THE PODIUM)

Why don't you people like me?

(MR. BRENNAN WAS PROMPTLY TASED BY HIS SECURITY TEAM AND DRAGGED OFF STAGE)

Sleepaway Camp V

When I was a child, the world seemed a lot bigger. Mainly because I was very short. In the summer time, I went to summer day camp. A day camp in the city is a bizarre experience, because you're basically in some abandoned high school doing arts and crafts or listening to music for six hours, with a pool and playground sprinkled in there. One summer, my parents sent my sister to sleepaway camp for four weeks.

Four Weeks! That's a month! That's FOREVER as a kid! I remember when she left, I cried, which was odd because at the time, my sister piling into a van with some strange man and then disappearing for 4 months was what I wished for every night. But, y'know, life. Changes. All of that crap.

Anyway, she came back alive and the next summer, they sent me with her. I was a pretty smart kid -- I think. Growing up in New York with an intellectual mom and self-made dad gave me a unique perspective. For my wild imagination, I was pretty realistic. Put together the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy fairly early (thought I put on the act for my parents.) The only imaginary things I still believed in around 1994-1995 were Santa Claus and love (Ba-ZING!).

But when you take anyone out of their natural environment, their minds will play tricks on them. I remember one time, a kid from camp said he was afraid of Jason Voorhees. I'd never really thought much about Jason Voorhees or any other movie monster, mainly because those movies were set out in the 'burbs and the country. Imagine, for a moment, that Jason Voorhees did exist. Why would he come to New York, a city of 8 Million, get to my parents' apartment building, kill the concierge, climb 18 floors, knock down a metal door, and murder my family just to kill me? Seems like a waste of time. Particularly given I was an eleven year old boy who hadn't done anything to anyone.

But then, one night, I was at my grandparents house and watching TV on their back porch. It's late at night (probably 9:30), dark and crickets are chirping. And i keep hearing a rustling in the leaves. And i ran like hell. Cuz I realized I was in the countryside. Anyone could just reach into his ground level suburban home and grab me, or murder me, or worse!

(Interesting side note: my freshman year of college at Drexel in Philadelphia, I recall the other students being HORRIFIED of the loud police sirens at night. And I slept soundly.)

So there I am, plopped down in the middle of Camp Fuller in Wakefield, Rhode Island, in the woods. Worse, we didn't have cabins -- we had shacks with no windows or doors, just canvas flaps we had to roll down at night time. So I struggled to sleep with every cricket chirping, leaf rustling and raccoon scampering about outside.

Every camp has scary stories. Camp Fuller had three -- the Walker (some Ukrainian ex-counselor who killed kids and still stalked the grounds), Greenie (a camper who had been set on fire or something, and now lived in the woods, covered in moss and mold) and the 9 Indian Braves (a legend of Indian Braves killed out by the lake who would appear when it rained or something)

Do the math, that's 11 individual monster-ghosts haunting the woods. ELEVEN! Why stop at eleven? Who else ya got in the woods? Hitler? The Detroit Pistons? My former Chemistry Teacher, Mrs. Yang?! Rick Astley?! (actually, I'd have loved that.)

So with the Legion of Doom wandering the woods, I could barely sleep. Cuz think about it -- y'know why I didn't buy monsters like Jason Voorhees? Cuz I grew up in New York and I saw almost every type of freak -- but I never saw a monster in a hockey mask. But a violent Ukrainian? That wasn't just a menace in the woods, that was my parents' superintendent. And now he's lurking about the woods, ready to kill me just because I wanted to spend the summer learning how to sail.

So to the kids coming home from summer camp this summer, congrats on getting out alive. I hope you weren't tormented by Ukrainians or erections like I was those four weeks in Rhode Island. And remember that, like me, you're only a few short summers away from being able to spend it doing something really terrifying: working in the dementia ward of a nursing home.

BED WETTER!

Last night I had coffee and a bite to eat with an old high school friend. Weird thing about this meeting is this woman and I weren't particularly close friends in high school, but I always liked her as she was one of the few people I remember being friendly and positive. I just got invited to my high school reunion -- on the invite they have our class pictures from our Junior Year of High School. Every guy on my class is just glaring at the camera, myself included. We all look like we're about to enter lock up. Why were we so angry? Seriously, I wanna go back in time and just scream, "SMILE. YOU DON'T HAVE TO PAY RENT YET." Someone work on the Delorean.

So anyway, in winter of '98 (or was it '99?) this girl (she's a woman now but in high school, she was a girl. So there. PC snobs) was my Chemistry tutor. I was doing a terrible job in chemistry (it was math AND science) and was already on academic probation for failing Biology the previous year (the A+ in summer school apparently counted for nothing) If I failed again, I'd be expelled. This is around when my lifetime love affair with anxiety really kicked into high-gear.

So this girl was helping me stay alive in chemistry, and the big mid-term exam was coming up. It was winter break and she was going to come over to my family's apartment to help me study. I remember being notably anxious about her coming by because, while I wasn't romantically interested (can you be romantically interested in someone at 15), this still constituted the first time a girl would come over in my teenage years. I wanted to come off well.

Remember how I mentioned having anxiety problems? I used to wet my bed up to about my junior year of high school. I'm not sure why; I mean, the easy answer is "anxiety." Some unfair pressures get put on high school kids, and I really wonder about that, particularly in today's America. You spend 4 years having pressure heaped on you from all corners, reminding you that you NEED to make it to a good school if you're going to have a chance of making it in your career of choice -- and now we live in an America where careers are in short order. Of what value is education if you're too anxious to enjoy the learning process? I never realized until I took classes as an adult just how much I love learning. In many ways I feel robbed by the pressure. A worthy philosophic debate? Or simply a man trying to justify the fact that he wet the bed until he was sixteen? I'll let historians decide.

(Fun fact: Famous bed-wetters-who-should-have-outgrown-it-sooner include Chris Rock, Sarah Silverman and Moe Howard in his later days)

Well this is a round about way of saying that on the very same day that a girl would finally, even in a tutor capacity, come to my home (at 10 AM!) , I awoke to discover I'd wet the bed. It was pretty awful.

I remembered that story late last week and resolved to make sure I didn't bring it up when we met for coffee. And I didn't! But I thought it was a wonderful thing to share with an internet full of strangers. Go figure.

Well, I guess I should get going. Hmm...seems like a waste of time to just read a story about me wetting the bed, right? I should have a moral or something. I mean, presumably you're not just turning on your computer box to read trivial stories about some guy, right? C'mon, I can leave ya something, right? ...right?

OK, I'm gonna watch some TV and see if that helps. Imma be right back. Talk amongst yourselves.

Right, I got it! So last night, I had a lovely time with someone I wish I'd been a closer friend with in the ten years since high school (ten years?!). But maybe that's what life's about. Not everyone can stay. But that doesn't mean that those folks who only make guest appearances aren't of value -- sometimes it's the exact opposite. Quality time vs. quantity time and all that. Everyone plays a role, and it will all make sense in the end. I'm pretty confident of that.


Ah jeez, the episode of Mad About You where Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt almost split up is on. God this one gets me. I...just...alright, I'm outta here. Talk to you next week.

It's my Birthday

I'm extremely fortunate. Why? Because I was raised in New York City.

As a man born and raised in New York City, it's funny to me that I always see people ragging on my hometown as unAmerican. 364 days a year, we get dumped on as not understanding America (yet on September 11th, it doesn't happen. How odd...)

I find that funny because there is no more American city than New York. A melting pot of different cultures, religions and beliefs? That's America. And that's New York.

Sorry, Twin Cities. Sorry, Houston. Sorry, Atlanta, Iowa and New Hampshire. No one doubts your patriotism. And you contribute so much to this country. But if you're looking for a town that captures the perpetual debate, diverstiy and initiative of this country, well, it's New York.

SO yeah, it's funny to me that I'm told we're not America because we're more American than any of you could ever hope to be. We just are. We embody this country. You're welcome.

August 3rd is my birthday. On August 2nd, I was taken out to birthday drinks by folks I volunteer with. We work at 826NYC, a nonprofit writing/tutoring center in New York. It's the New York branch of an initiative meant to help kids improve their writing and homework. It's not through a religious or political group. It's simply regular folks who want to do what they can to help kids communicate in an ever-competitive world. Awful nice, right?

Tonight, I was surrounded by my follow volunteers -- diverse in gender, race and religion. All of us sitting as equals.

Earlier today my company announced that a major character would be half-African American, half Hispanic. We got hit with a ton of complaint e-mails form people outraged that we made this decision.

As I sat with my friends -- my equals, people who simply wanted to celebrate my Birthday as friends -- I thought of those people who chose to complain about our decision. And I pity those people.

I pity them because they don't understand.

They don't understand just how wonderful it is to be surrounded by such diversity. They don't understand how lucky they can be to connect with so many different points of view. They'll never know how truly loved they can feel to look around a table and see so many different types of people appreciate them not for the color of their skin but content of their character.

They will never know that. They will always be somewhat alone in this world that demands that we stick together.

I am incredibly fortunate. I can greet news like "Spider-Man will now be an African/Hispanic-American" and say "HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!"

They'll never have that good fortune. I hope and pray they one day will. But until that day, I can at least know that my birthday was celebrated by true friends. People I know I love, admire and respect. And I can at least wake up every day in the most American city on the planet -- and hope that one day the rest of this country will be able to find what we have found.

We are America. And we are better for it. And I hope you join us one day in this beautiful tapestry.

Hell, even Spider-Man has.

I thought I was funny a year ago!

About a year ago, I spent the commute to work writing jokes as I went along. Then I stopped, cuz my boss wanted me to show up earlier, which meant I had to leave during the rush, which meant I couldn't sit down and write.

::cough::

Here are some of my favorites that I found, re-reading my notebook:

1) Why do beer ads even bother having text on them? I live in New York and am currently on the subway in rush hour. It's 8 AM and I already don't need much more motivation to get drunk tonight.

2) SOmetimes I worry if I've become the crazy guy on the subway. Those days, I just smile and tell myself "BLARGHTheGovernmentRAAARRGGHHJewsGNAAARRRRRcorporations!"

3) I used to think a girl reading comics on the subway was sexy. Now I wonder who she's killed. Or how she got that killer bod after the sex change.

4) I'll tell you what I love about babies on the subway -- they are fully aware how much power their ability to cry has, and they're ready to destroy your day if they have to. They're like miniature martial artists -- perfecting their art that they need never use it. Also, like martial artists, they poop their pants and need mom to clean it up.

5) Old-timey news headlines were referred to as fat faces. Ironic as most of the newsboys selling them could barely afford to eat.

6) I'll tell you what the best part of 19th century typography was -- the pussy.

7) What's with this asshole -- amIright? (editor's note: this guy really was an asshole. For serious.)

8) Racism is so silly to me. How can you hate the Chinese just because they look different? You should hate them because they're out to destroy our economy, our way of life and kill our female babies.

9) The D train to work is like that girl with the nice face who gives good blowjobs. It's always there, it gets me where I need to go but I'm always disappointed when I get off.

9B): Alternate punchline to that joke: The D Train to work is like that girl with a nice face who gives good blow jobs -- always full of immigrants.

10) I'll tell you what I love about babies on the subway -- odds are, they're single

11) You know what the difference between Catholics and everyone else is? We're not going to Hell. You sinners.

12) I love how pissy people get when you read the newspaper over their shoulder on the subway. Why so private? It's the world's news, not the "You have bad credit and a UTI-Times Picayune"

13) The higher-ups are working from home today. If "working" you mean "Watching 'The View.'" And if by "from home" you mean, "from home."

14) I'm the kind of guy who likes to control his destiny. That's why I pee my pants 3 times a day.

15) My favorite insincere hello in the morning is from the old black security guard at the front desk of my building. Mainly because he doesn't have to be insincere, but he takes the time to do so.