How would you reject "You"

When we submit an application, what do you think happens with it? Among the thousands that US Congressional office, insurance companies countrywide, and consulting firms worldwide see daily, what happens when they dance elegantly out of that card deck pile into someones hands?

A recent article on Gothamist got me thinking about this. For a period of time, Hunter S Thompson wrote rejection letters for Rolling Stone Magazine. Needless to say, he didn't beat around the bush and the only portion of purple prose included was written in a derogatory and insulting manner, in order to exasperate the point. I particularly like the way he ended the letter, giving young Michael some hope.  http://gothamist.com/2011/08/17/when_hunter_s_thompson_penned_rolli.php

A psychiatrist once told me that whenever anxiety creeps up on your like a rapist in the middle of a snowstorm just stop and say "what is the worst thing that can happen." If a rapist were to sneak up on you, the worst thing that could happen is that he rapes you and wears your skin around Little Rock, Arkansas for 3-4 months in her mothers basement. I do not really agree with the psych's analysis. When I told him that trains give me anxiety in the morning he asked me to think about the worst thing that could happen.

"The worst thing? I start sweating uncontrollably in front of the hottest woman in the world as she stares at me. Her jaw drops as if she just seen a moose fucking a Chihuahua, but doesn't ask me what's wrong. I start to panic, my breath gets short and noticeable warm pouring out of my mouth, but its stuck near me like I am in a tight bubble. Now even ugly people are staring at me as the raining sweat falls from my forehead to the train floor. My knees tremble, lighting gets darker and I pass out. My loafer loses its footing as it slips on the sweat puddle formed by my leaking pours. I fall down hitting my head on the adjacent handle rail. I hit hard enough to die, but I don't - death would be a welcomed result at this point. Soon I wake up and the hot woman, the Asian retard, an old man with perfume on, and a bum holding his dog on a rope lease as it licks my face are all standing around me for support."

I have attached an image of my resume, the actual resume I submit to new job offers. I think this will help out during this experiment. I am going to write as if some deranged, pompous asshole would write if he was forced to send me a rejection letter (worst thing that could happen). Keep in mind his flippant tone is due to the fact that A) he doesn't care B) he is forced to do this and C) this is rejection letter number 110 for the day.

Dear Mr. "Thanks for putting your middle name" -

While I wish only to quote the film Billy Madison and award you no points at all for your efforts, I am obliged to give you my full original attention. 

If the first sentence did not give it away, someone else already obtained employment here. Well, that's actually a lie, the position is still open but the take home here is the "right fit" is not you. It seems here that your career has been on a little magic carpet ride with a no stop ticket to "what the fuck do I want to do with my life?" You started off working for a woman running for Michele Bachmanns congressional district in Minnesota. While there was a slight moment of sympathy due to the fact that the only excitement you had while working in MN was stealing meth from a local and huffing it down in your motel room apartment. From there you campaigned for an illiterate Yuppy attempting to make his name known in the family by obtaining a powerful seat on political office. Judging by the dates listed to the right, he didn't win - there are two loses in a row for you Ryan. 

At this point you got the picture...You're not the next Ryan Gosling in Ides of March. It's time to stop and move forward amicably into making more than $2k/month and hitting on candidates daughters, or anyone willing to sleep with a poor fuck with pity employment. You work for commonsense media, which may be the worlds smallest political advertising firm. At no point do you talk about advertising in this section, kind of sounds like you were the owners bitch. There is a good chance that some of your daily tasks included but are not limited to picking up dog shit and delivering groceries. Glad you can use Salesforce - we have absolutely no use for that here, this actually lost you points...if we had a point system. 

Before hitting your last section of employment, which is probably fake, lets delve into your achievement and "publications." I put the publications in quotes which added an extra 12 seconds to this to emphasize the hilarity of the list. I hope your next advertising job can find a nice use for that psychological test your wrote and never administered. Maybe you can give it to the HR department and they can use it to write down phone numbers for WB mason on the back. Literally fucking ANYONE can write in Bostinno, you simply just sign up. Telling yourself you have a publication there is almost as laughable as calling yourself an author because you have a blogpspot! Take is easy the T.S Elliot. 

While my hand is cramping and the vodka is fuming off my breath as I stare at the rising stack of failures to my left, I feel compelled to finish. Tt looks like you're gearing up to stay in mobile advertising but  your track record proves otherwise. I would not doubt that in two years the top line of this resume will read "UPS delivery guy." The numbers look nice but remember 45% improvement on 0 ain't shit. You and your make believe company can honestly go fuck themselves. The fact that they created all these tasks for you to do makes me think they couldn't find one thing you were good at, so figured why not try this. I do wish you th

I was about to finish that last sentence but the bourbon/vodka mix and your lack of ability to prove your self worth on a piece of paper has forced me to vomit the contents of my luncheable. The luncheable was stolen out of the fridge, thus making it free as fuck. Better get better at stealing.  

Hiring Manager

Girl Scouts of America 

Hemingway's Truth

Hemingway tells us in "A Moveable Feast" that when we are stuck as authors, write something true. From a man who often wrote tales of fiction, this may hardly make sense. However, most works of fiction are true representations of the authors life, and repressed thoughts, concerns, inhibitions, and dreams. He says to not just write something true, but have it be the 'truest thing you can put down on paper' at that given time.

Often we, or rather I fear, letting the truth envelope to those around me. It is much simpler to put a series of words on paper, that most often will not see another set of eyes. This is what makes Hemingway's words of wisdom even more intense, ore maybe fantastic. His words were read by millions, and as he wrote about his trials and tribulations among Paris' writing elite, he knew he would be published, and his truths would become known, transparent, and alive.

As an author, storyteller, or fiction producer, how much are we willing to tell about ourselves? How aware are our readers and spectators to discover what is a piece of fiction, what is hyperbole, and what is stone-cold fucking truth? Can our readers tell when we are being vulgar to grab attention or will our tenacious writing and use of a foul tongue deem our writing "inaccrochable." Will it be considered 'writing that is like a painting that cannot be hung,' in the words of Gertrude Stein. Stein's writing always fascinated me because we saw so little of it. From someone who judges the likes of Hemingway, Ford Madox Ford, and Fitzgerald, she produced very little to be looked at by the public. Maybe she knew that her writing would not be placed on coffee tables and classroom bookshelves and that is why she wrote each and every day in a continuous, possibly sexually vulgar, fashion. I bet we could find some brilliant truths in the unpublished notebooks of Miss Stein.

There is a fine line to truth, how much to give, and when is appropriate. Fiction masks truth because for the most part, readers cannot decipher the complexity of the author enough to denote truth and falsities. I often tread carefully on the diction of truth, its delivery, and appropriate nature. When we do not tell the truth, whether it be a white lie or a full on fabrication, people get hurt...no? During the times that I have been the most truthful, I have seen the most pain. Of course there is the difference between immediate pain like a gunshot, versus the lasting cancerous pains. As I think this through in writing I present the following question for the reader"

Would you rather the truth that hurts you now as you live, or the lie you never knew until you were dead?

Just something to ponder....And to tie everything together, I believe Hemingway found in his simplistic writing style that truth was the only thing to lift you out of a rut. In times when we are truly confounded, averting to truth maybe our only solace. There is nothing complicated about truth when it only involves you - it is unchallenged. It is when others are involved that we find distress, uncertainty and fear - human nature, I truly believe, wishes it could refrain from harm to others at all times.

Then again "truth is beauty and beauty truth, that is all we know and all ye' need to know..."

Bon Voyage to Three Ill-fated Men

This is happening. While traveling the world has long been found on my list of governing values, I never knew when it was really going to take off. In attempts to not sound too pretentious - money certainly is a slight prerequisite for international travel and that is finally coming around. You could travel with your parents...However going on any trip with your family at the age of 21 or older is about as fun as creating an ice luge of Lexington Steel, a famous and well-endowed black porn stars dick, using just your teeth and letting a group of college kids pour urine down the frozen slide into your enamel scraped mouth. I say this with all due respect to my loving parents, who  have traveled to beautiful locations. I am sure the sites are great, the new friends are even better and the food is "on point." But - my governing values while on the trip are not exactly in line with my parents, and I really don't see us coming to a common ground on what we see as enjoyable activities. I can see the conversation now:

Mom: "_________ do you want to go see the shoreline of Santorini on  Greece on a ocean tour?"

Me: "It's the shore, I'm physically standing on it."

Mom: "But ships are amazing and you might meet some nice people."

Me: "There is a bar down on the pier, apparently there are young college girls who have trouble with basic arithmetic, Id rather try my chances at meeting those people. Chances they are a bit more encourageable."

Mom: "_______ - That is rather rude and uncalled for. I thought we would do something nice... together."

Me: "Trust me, there is nothing that I want to do that we could legally partake in together, not even in Greece."

In just three and a half weeks I will be flying from LGA in New York City to San Jose, Costa Rica. From there, myself and two categorically insane college friends will board a shuttle that will take us 1.5 hours down the road to hell. Hell = Jaco, pronounced "Yako" with a short "a." Jaco has been compared to its counterpart for Spring Break tirps (Tamarindo),  quite tastefully; "If you want to hook up with single Europeans go to Tamarindo, if you want a prostitute and a bag of cocaine, go to Jaco." Needless to say the decision was made with a very short decision matrix, aka a coin with flip with heads on both sides. Heads we go to Jaco - Jaco here we come.

Honestly? There was some decision making, and while the "paid for sex villains" and Columbian bam bam does make my dick twitch, it was not the deciding factor. Jaco is well known for those seeking adventure; ATV tours through the jungles filled with animals that I cannot name, zip lines, bungee jumping, and surfing. The suft is supposedly phenomenal - which unfortunately does not appeal to me. Seeing as I have never stepped a foot, or even laid my body on a board, "epic surf" is sincerely not needed. A fucking swimming pool with a long board moving side by side would easily do the trick and serve as a tangible lesson. Instead, I will pretend to paddle on the sandy shore of Jaco beach, imagining its anything like the high seas. Then I will head out 50 meters, attempt "catch" a wave, fail to stand up, slip and unstrap my harness. This will be concurrent with being pulled under by the mystical undertow only to watch my forehead line up through the transparent and flourescent water with a thick sharp piece of coral. Sounds fun. Looking forward to it. Punishment.

There will be a follow up post to this which will likely explain a series of indiscretions followed by an tutorial on my trip to the Mass General Free STD clinic. The conversation with the nurse is likely to go as follows:

Nurse: So, everything was fine three months ago. Why are you back?

Me: Just got back from Costa Rica.

Nurse: So what does that mean? What are we testing for?

Me: I dont want to waste your time, the labs time, or Mass tax payers money. Just give me four pink pills and we will call it a day.

Nurse: Well, I cannot legally do that.

Me: Okay - well then stick that cue tip in my dick hole and lets do this the quick and hard way.

This trip consists of 3 man-children riding aimlessly on vespas along Costa Rica's Pacific coast - clinging onto glimpses of our adolescence as they fly around the humid air getting stuck along the way. It is because of those glimpses of immaturity and hopeless struggles to maintain youth that we continue to live wild, free, and content. While the fucks we give about what people think of our vagrant actions soar into the sun dripped sky, we will smile, sip rum, and sing a favorite collegiate tune. The days will zoom by like a Mazda commercial and we will soon return back to the cold chilling reminder of reality that lies in the Northeastern part of the United States. That is why we will revel in every moment we have - drink an extra glass of rum, zip from the higher tree, fuck the model and the fat chick for the story, crack our heads on coral, and sing out of tune.

Without governing values, we lead a life of no guidance, no pursuance, and a pathless journey.

Here's to another adventure. To be continued...

Where have you gone.

Dear Man

I gave in to you. I lacked the things you needed the most. Your sweetness was wasted just to run and hide, seeking nothing but loneliness. Your heart filled up the milky way, but we were traveling in parallel universes. Never once did you look at me like you did at that far away distance. The tolerance you had for the bottle surpassed all that you had for my kindness. Did you ever wake up feeling like you needed somebody? Were you ever afraid?

I cling to songs that make me think of the nights where smoke drifted softly against my hair from your brilliant mouth. Does it feel better where you are? Do those people in your stories measure up to reality that you could not stand to be around?

Am I selfish to love a man who has not love to give but love to steal. Why, you devils Robin Hood – poaching the hearts of those rich in love, only to feed your poor soul. You are too far gone now. Your rusty beard indicates your nonchalant approach at maintaining awareness. Your sunken eyes are kept afloat by the bags that lay underneath them. They tear holes through passerby strangers as to get a better look at the emptiness that lays beyond the tightened skin that once supported a man worthy of knighthood.

With tainted love,

Girl

Liver Massacre

When you get yourself into a serious binge drinking cycle there is little that's going to motivate you to stop. The cool liquid asphyxiates any emotional qualms you may have had and the subtle yet noticeable anxiety you carry from day to day dissipates like the sugar at the base of the shot glass. You are encouraged by close friends to continue the collegiate consumption of distilled product only to feel looser, stronger, but less in control.

You know that the countless hours of non-measurable drinking is starting to take a toll on your internal organs, reminding you through ill tempered stunts that you should slow it down. The third trip to the bathroom in under 2 hours and a mild dry heave that strokes the basin of your esophagus is only the tip of the iceberg. You know this is bad, but its feels better than not knowing the good. The real change of events occurs when you are able to bury the hints of your miscalculated tolerance and just move forward amicably to a full bodied blackout.

This is how its starts. Where it ends is a decisions left up to the innate principles remaining within you subconscious cerebral cortex. When does it click? When do you pull the chord, or do you hit the earth at peak velocity over and over again until something gives and you fall through to the core? As images become blurred and your knees wobble, battling the stairs from the bottom floor of the bar upwards like an overweight diabetes patient striving for caloric intake. Women close to Glenn Close's age begin to look like Meghan Fox, and overzealous hand shakes and hugs with the same sex dance upon the level of homosexuality. Passersby look at you as if your face constantly appears as it does in a fun house mirror, you sneer back at them forcing the awkward moment to the next level. Brushing off the sweat from your brow and checking your underarms for annoying and drastically unnecessary pit stains, you go to the bathroom to breathe and wash you liquid palms. It has been 30 minutes since your last drink, partially due the long line, but more blame belongs to your lack of desire to use the last 40 dollars in your checking account. The nerves are sliding back in, and the anxiety levels are pushing at your pores. You drink.

The night ends in a violent undressing to a bed face plant with a lack of nutrition leaving you mouth void of any hydration. The morning comes quicker than necessary and with the inability to avoid the pain in between your temples and the lack of anti-depressants pouring into your body. You reach for a Xanax you bought from an effervescent waitress at cheesecake factory, and attempt to crush it against the dresser. Giving up as the morsels of prescription drug finds its way in the mahogany finish, you swipe the crumbled into your hand and land them on your pallet. Entering the sun dripped kitchen with a vague memory of how you had entered this broken establishment, you pour yourself a glass of water. Elegantly you sip the the city flow and pour out the rest into the sink and grab your only solace - the last three sips out of the handle of vodka you purchased to last the week. Your mind settles and a faint smile emerges.

The Grouper Experience

In a society hindered by the grueling 24 hour day, measured by people who can manage to only sleep 4-5 hours a night in order to fit in more time to "lead the nation," dating is not always "in the cards." Some turn to online dating, or other forms of structured dating that extends beyond genuine social interaction simply because they lack the type A, mildly sociopathic and extroverted sense. Randomly approaching an appealing face at the local watering hole is not a plausible option without filling out your underarms with Lake Erie size puddles and stuttering over every word in constant fear that your voice is as nasally and Gilbert Godfreid. For these introverted beings, low on the sociability scale I constructed during my tenure at Roger Williams, orthodox dating is also not found in a 52 card pile of paper.

The options are increasing, as local and nationwide companies see the growing demand and supply unique niche's and stabs at this constant dilemma. Widely accepted commercially is Match.com offering compatibility for the middle aged man or woman, eHarmony, which allegedly finds you the perfect match based on series of questions and algorithm's. Then you have OkCupid, a place where you can find someone at 8am EST on a Thursday and fuck them roughly 8 hours later, possibly sooner if you can fit it in on your lunch break. Plentyoffish is another FREE site where youngsters are lining up to ignore substantive profiles only stare at photos and fire of a quick message, including but not limited to, innocuous banter and verbal foreplay. A new player in the game, if they could stop their goddamn app from crashing is Tinder - An app that links to your Facebook and gps location and finds matches that you say "yes" or "no" to simply based on their profile photo and mutual friends. Then the app allows you to fire up a hopefully witty conversation with them to see if you are a "fit."

While I am no stranger to the online dating scene due to time constraints or modern curiosity, none of these options listed above have been all too lucrative and vaguely touch upon interesting. Beyond of course the intriguing willingness for young girls to sleep with you on the first date. Then came a new form of online dating that I think appeals to both sides of the problematic spectrum; the time challenged and the socially sweaty. You can find this gem at joingrouper.com. The name is GROUPER. This, in my opinion, falls into the category of online dating but is not as pressured, and in all honesty, not as creepy as Michael Myers. Imagine Michael Myers rolling up to your dinner table at Sorrelina for a nice sit down Italian meal followed by a Texas chainsaw massacre at his 2 family home in Malden, MA?

To explain grouper - It is a site where you link your facebook profile and sign up. You then receive a confirmation email asking you to choose two "wingmen" or "wingwoman." Once you have a full group of 3 they will take your info and match you up with another group of 3 of the opposite sex (I am not sure if there are same sex set-ups yet). Upon them finding a match they secure a date, time and location. In addition they give you a reservation name and the deal is done. I followed through with this process with two other males, who I believe would be good in holding a conversation. For this first trial I decided it was best not to include someone who may fart suddenly when asked about his hometown or possibly spill his drink due to his Michael J Fox hands.

Walking into the bar we were all stricken with innate fear that we were going to be dropped into a Kuwait like war zone surrounded by chicks that look like the dinosaurs depicted in Fear and Loathing in Lost Vegas when J. Depp was tripping on acid. To our great surprise this was not the case. They were actually three friends, of the preferred Jewish decent, all of which I would have taken home and definitely with one or two cocktails which I had already consumed prior to entering the establishment. Pro Tip 412; Always pregame the date, but not to blackout status. The "date" was completely carefree, with three well articulate men leading the conversation, and the girls not being to shy to carry it forward. We had a failed attempt to play two truths and a lie, and after we realized we all forgot each others names and had to start over, things were truly rolling.

This social experiment as I like to call it was well crafted and avoids many of the fears that most have upon going on a date:

1. They will be raped (happens to guys too)
2. The person will look like Shrek (still possible, but there are three options, only one Shrek)
3. They will be too nervous to hold the conversation
4. There will be nothing to talk about
5. Getting stood up

All of these issues are generally avoidable unless you have a group of raping mutants who cant speak English, sweat profusely, and are not timely. All in all, I truly recommend the experience for any fucking stock/ insurance broker complaining about late hours and the lack of time to pick up their dry cleaning. I concurrently recommend it to Adam Smithens, the poorly dressed man in his fathers Men's Warehouse blazer with a mild lisp, bad social manners, and inability to do magic besides turning his baby blue shirt navy.

Group me yo.

The Birthing Egotist

I was recently presented with a question, or rather a theory to be analyzed. The topic: Childbirth, and whether its fundamentally selfish. Each day we make millions of decisions, albeit, many of them much more important than others. The underlying fact is we make almost microscopic decisions and life altering decision daily. How many of them are selfish? For some, I predict its the majority, for others possible not a single microscopic decision was psychological egotistical. 

Psychological egoism is the concept that all humans are motivated or driven by self-interest, or at least delusions of grandeur for ones self, even if those acts appear altruistic in ones mind. While, I believe this concept is very accurate for many decision I myself make, I do not believe that every benevolent act is done for self-improvement. 

Late last night I got a call that my Uncle Fran, brother of my close Grandfather had passed away from liver failure. He had a long battle with this illness. I can count on one hand how many times I had seen Uncle Fran. Our relationship was cut short by the differences he shared with his brother, essentially ostracizing one side of the family from the other. The point is, we were not close, I didn't cry, and I felt nervous for the call to my grandfather. I simply did not know what to say to him. How would I show sympathy for a man who I was kept from most of my life due to his alleged shortcomings? 

I made the call. I apologized for his loss, and I began to feel sad. I could hear the pain in his voice, I could hear that he was scared. The people around him were slowly passing away. His sister is in a nursing home with terrible dementia, and while she has her wits about her, she simply does not recognize her friends and family. His wife of 35 years is on hospice care, and breathing through a tube. And now, his brother has left him after years of hardly speaking. He is facing the harsh reality and inevitable realization that our time here is finite - there is an end. I can hear the worry, and almost monotone words, flowing from his lips and transmitting to my ears. His ennui pattern shines light on his defensiveness and lack of desire to let his emotion show. At this point, I change the conversation and ask about something innocuous, just to break the depression and avoid the possibility of extending anymore useless platitudes. 

I remembered at that moment a passage from a book called Tuesday's With Morrie. Throughout the book, the maim dying character, discusses life, and his lack of fear for dying. He believes he has lived a complete life, gave back to humanity, and helped 3 beautiful children grow. I will paraphrase:

 In South Africa, there is a tribe who see the world as a fixed quantity of energy between all living creatures. Every birth must therefore be endangered by a lack of death, and thus every death brings forth a NEW life keeping life complete. "what we take, we must replenish, It's only fair."

With the view on life and death, I feel there is a childbirth that is truly altruistic, and wholly meaningful. In order to keep the balance of life, to keep the world whole and spinning, there must be death, and there must be birth. We owe it to the world to continue to procreate, and in the same hand assist a love one in dying the best way we can. One could argue that this is an entitled decision, but I would respectfully disagree. I would say the choice for having a child is predicated upon the desire to keep the world spinning as it should. 

With that in mind, I believe that many people bare children for the wrong reason. They do it because it was an accident and feel some religious reason to keep it alive. They do it because its the societal norm, and they desire to fit in with people their same age, to share the experience. They do it to prove something, that they can raise a child into wealth and success. Comparatively, having a child for the wrong reason, is like a suicide. Maybe in the South African tribe, that is how a suicide is justified. I will have to look into it. 

I do not believe this post truly answered my friends question, but as always, I hope it has induced some thought while scrolling left to right.