God Damn Emerson Bolen

Like my previous post, this letter also appeared in a Sunday edition of the Chicago Tribune. It is in response to Rachel Unterman’s letter, which appeared the previous Sunday.

As conservative Stepford Wives do, Bolen either reduces complex issues to simplistic, black-and-white conclusions, applies stereotypes without a shred of evidence or just plain gets it wrong.

Nowhere in Ms. Unterman’s letter does she indicate she is opposed to the military, capitalism, the government, or say society owes her anything. And where does she state she is too good to take a temporary job?

In the edition of the Tribune I received, Ms. Unterman said she has frequently worked two or three part-time jobs simultaneously to make ends meet. It's probably just me, but that seems very different from feeling you're too good to take a temporary job.

But why let facts get in the way of a blind, inaccurate, anti-democracy, elitist hissy fit?

Remarkably, Bolen did get a few things right. Rachel Unterman lives at home, is a liberal and is frustrated.

Only someone as willfully and spectacularly ignorant as Emerson Bolen wouldn’t be.


“This is in response to “Why I occupy” (Voice of the People, Oct. 30), by letter writer Rachel Unterman, which took up many paragraphs.

I can sum it up in one paragraph:

You occupy because you are anti-military, anti-capitalism, anti-government, feel that society owes you something, are well-educated and unemployed but too good to take a temporary job, still living at home, frustrated, bored and yep, liberal.”

Emerson Bolen
River Forest, Illinois

God Bless Rachel Unterman

This letter appeared in last Sunday's Chicago Tribune.

For those of you slumped in front of yet-another episode of 'Keeping Up With the Kardashians', it crystalizes why the Occupy Wall Street protests are so vital.

This movement represents ninety-nine percent of us, yet I have never heard such widespread criticism. Such petty whining. So many sideline editorialists opining about what the movement should be doing.

These protests are years overdue. We absolutely need to clog the streets of every city in the United States. We absolutely need to kick and scream and fight and yell until the vermin entrusted to represent us actually begins to do so.

And they won't without a hard shove from the electorate, which is us. You and me.

Rachel says it far-better than I.


"I occupy because corporations are not people, and money is not the same thing as free speech.

I occupy because I believe in united citizens, not Citizens United.

I occupy because our military is spending billions of dollars to occupy foreign countries while jobs, infrastructure and the economy suffer at home.

I occupy because my generation should have opposed these wars in greater numbers and with greater outrage to start with.

I occupy because I am tired of going to the polls and trying to decide which politician is least likely to attempt to sell a Senate seat to the highest bidder.

I occupy because I am tired of seeing executives of failed companies receiving bonuses while their employees are laid off without severance.

I occupy because I believe in the First Amendment and the civil liberties it grants us.

I occupy because the system is not broken but relies on this kind of active participation to remain strong.

I occupy because it is exciting to see democracy working.

I occupy because after seven years combined of undergraduate and graduate studies, I have student loan debt but not the gainful employment necessary to pay it down.

I occupy because I have been underemployed since finishing school, often working two or three part-time jobs to try to make ends meet.

I occupy because I have spent half of this year unemployed altogether, through no fault of my own. I occupy because the unemployed cannot afford to be invisible statistics any longer.

I occupy because the alternative is sitting in my parents' basement writing cover letters that won't even be rejected, just ignored.

I occupy because if it weren't for the safety net my parents have provided, I would be sitting on a street corner all day asking for a different kind of change.

I occupy because my dreams have been deferred, and it was only a matter of time before they would explode."

Rachel Unterman
Chicago, Illinois

Cain Is Able?

Herman Cain is a black Republican, and at last glance a presidential hopeful. If there’s a more bankrupt example of humanity than the black Republican (credo: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em) I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting them.

I will, however, extend him credit for knowing which side his (white) bread is buttered on.

In Mr. Cain’s most-recent attack of oral flatulence, he advised America’s unemployed (specifically, the Occupy Wall Street protesters) not to blame Wall Street for their joblessness.

Here are Mr. Cain’s words, verbatim:

Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself. It is not someone’s fault if they succeeded; it is someone’s fault if they failed.

You're a very wealthy man, aren't you Mr. Cain? But the wealthy don't spend their own money, do they? They spend other people's. Which is likely why you need to protect Wall Street. You need their money.

It's quite amusing (and not a little bit ironic) that despite all the Horatio Alger and rugged individualism, you need help.

I suppose that is my fault as well?

It's also abundantly clear that you have no problem embracing those who have systematically attempted to deny your people opportunity and equality every step of the way for decades.

Make no mistake, Mr. Cain. I know who my enemies are. And the scent of a dollar bill isn't going to make me forget.

I know why I am unemployed. I know why I believe that my life as a self-supporting American is over. It is you. And the unconscionable, whorish greed you represent.

God damn you.

More Campaign Slogans

I feel awful. While devising acidic campaign slogans for the underwhelming egotists who will soon be vying for the privilege of living in the White House, I left out the newest Republican challenger, Texas governor Rick Perry.

I have thought long and hard about one, since my aim is to provide equally assaultive and insulting slogans for all Presidential hopefuls.

So. For your amusement, I suggest this:

I'm that big Rick from Texas.

I would remind all campaign managers that yes, these are copyrighted.

: )

Positively Presidential

Underwhelmed by the prospective candidates for the 2012 presidential election, I set about creating slogans for their campaigns.

For Barack Obama it would be this: Republicans are people, too.

For Michele Bachmann, I have two. Number one: What have you got to lose? Number two: The President we deserve.

As always, comments are welcome.

I Almost Have a Job!

If the paucity of posts weren’t clue-enough, you should know: I found a job.

Not a full-time-with-benefits one mind you, for I am clearly unworthy of such extravagance. But I have found temporary work--with benefits (the exact nature of which escapes me at the moment).

Oh yeah. I’m being paid.

What I do was once the province of college graduates. I am a human resources benefits administrator. Yes, the finer points of health insurance, 401(k)s, pensions, payroll, COBRA, vacation and FMLA administration are being stuffed into me as rapidly as I can clear space on my internal hard drive.

Week five was completed Friday.

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I am. To have a forty hour paycheck for the first time in two years is the proverbial rain in the desert. But I am troubled.

Troubled by the degreed HR staffers who no longer have a job because their jobs have been outsourced to temporary workers like me. Troubled by a company that either doesn’t realize its raging hypocrisy as it speaks of the importance of commitment from its temporary workers or doesn’t care.

I am troubled by the ongoing conditions in a supposed first-world country in which highly-educated people make fifty and one-hundred mile commutes for a temporary paycheck while chasing a vague and nebulous chance at permanent employment.

As I suspect is true in many American offices circa 2011, the mood is grim.

Weary, stressed-out workers swallow hard and multi-task while working for stagnant wages as executive compensation rockets upward in an unbroken trajectory independent of company performance or economic conditions.

In the hour and a half it takes to negotiate the twenty-five mile trip to work, I realize I am uncomfortably close to a conundrum where I work merely to perpetuate my ability to get to work.

But then there is my resume. The official record of my contributions to corporate America.

If nothing else, this position will allow me to show recent experience. Which, if you haven’t looked for a job lately, is the mantra of our business class: only the employed (or recently-employed) need apply.

And would all of you ninety-niners please just go away? Or something?

But the days aren’t without mirth. The monumental tedium that results from eight hours of ‘What are the restrictions on withdrawals of after-tax contributions made to the DC plan after December 1, 1986?’ is an extraordinarily fertile breeding ground for humor.

I long to quote Dr. “Bones” McCoy from the original Star Trek and say “Dammit Jim! I’m a doctor—not a retirement specialist!” I struggle to resist publicly identifying the three types 401(k) distributions as hardship, regular and regular with cheese.

Or to inquire of our off-site facilitator “Does a 401(k) participant get a treat when they roll over?”

But these aren’t even my biggest temptations. Let me explain.

In our classrooms, we sit in individual, high-walled cubicles. As mentioned earlier, we take our instruction from an off-site source as we are monitored by on-site instruct—I mean facilitators. The off-site facilitator speaks to us from Texas via speaker phone.

When questions are asked over the speaker phone, they produce a stadium-like echo, which creates in me an irresistible urge to say things like “Upon further review, it has been determined that the offensive player had both feet down at the time of the catch. The call stands. Touchdown Chicago.”

Alas, I have not. Corporate America takes itself very seriously.

But as any temporary can tell you, dreams die hard.

The Twenty Year Rule

I am the newly-appointed Minister of Cultural Affairs for the State. I have decreed that no pop band or artist may record for more than twenty years.

Because of the power accorded me, this means there is no Bob Dylan after 1982. No Rolling Stones after 1984. No Bruce Springsteen after 1993. No U2 after 2000.

This also means Green Day has bid us farewell. That Pearl Jam is in the process. And that the Dave Matthews Band has just two years left.

This raises questions. Who would lose the greatest portion of their legacy? Does a band or artist even contribute to its legacy after twenty years? And whose career would end on the highest note?

What I’ve done below is list five artists each from the sixties, seventies and eighties, and placed their careers in the context of the twenty-year rule.

I list the artist, what would be their final album, some significant albums that never would have been as a result and the number of studio releases which followed their twentieth anniversary:


Bob Dylan
Shot of Love (1981)
Infidels, Oh Mercy, Time Out of Mind, Love and Theft
12

The Rolling Stones
Undercover (1983)
Bridges to Babylon
5

The Kinks
Word of Mouth (1984)
none
3

The Moody Blues
The Present (1983)
none
5

Neil Young
This Note’s for You (1988)
Freedom, Ragged Glory, Living With War, Chrome Dreams II
14

Aerosmith
Get a Grip (1993)
none
3

Bruce Springsteen
Human Touch, Lucky Town (1992)
none
6

Tom Petty
She’s the One (1996)
Mojo
4

Prince
Crystal Ball (1998)
Musicology
9

The Cure
Wild Mood Swings (1996)
none
3

U2
All That You Can’t Leave Behind (2000)
none
2

R.E.M.
Reveal (2001)
Around the Sun
3

Metallica
St. Anger (2003)
none
1

The Red Hot Chili Peppers
By the Way (2002)
none
1

Green Day
21st Century Breakdown (2009)
none
0


Granted, the third category (significant albums made after a band’s twentieth anniversary) is highly-subjective. But it’s my blog and I can do whatever I want. You are free to quibble with Around the Sun and Mojo until the recession is over for all I care.

Next, a couple of things become clear. One, very few bands or artists have released a career-defining album after their twentieth anniversary. Or even many good ones. And two, solo artists fare better than bands.

What does it say that Bridges to Babylon is the best Stones album of the past twenty-seven years? This from a band that once released Beggar’s Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street in a space of less than four years.

Or that U2 haven’t released a powerful album in over a decade? You could argue it’s been twice that for the Cure and Metallica. It might be more for Bruce. Prince has released one.

There’s a pattern here.

It’s interesting that soloists age better than bands. Fewer people equal fewer agendas. And fewer agendas mean less time wasted, which streamlines the creative process. However hard it may for a solo artist to find artistic inspiration twenty years down the road, it’s far-more difficult to get four or five people to even look for it at that point.

A band is marriage times five. Think about that.

Another thing. Even given the better odds for solo performers, the output of Dylan and Neil Young in their third and fourth decades is astonishing. They are rock and roll’s George Blanda. They are (if you’ll pardon the expression) musical freaks. Let’s face it. No one has a right to be making albums like Love and Theft two years away from being eligible for social security benefits.

It’s just not fair.

So you see, while my proposal may at first seem severe and even undemocratic, in the end it should be obvious that it couldn’t be more egalitarian.

Or is it?

Comments welcome.