This is a chapter from my new book, Life Begins At Incorporation, which I am releasing in light of TIME’s trolling ass cover story on lazy, entitled Millenials. I don’t live with my parents and will not “save us all.”
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“How come all we do is talk about money?” — Richie Rich
The Great Recession officially ended in 2009. How’s everybody doing? Did you need help uncorking the champagne?
Unless you are a one-percenter who followed an errant link on Twitter, you probably aren’t ordering Cristal for the table.
Our economy has been slowly gaining ground since we bottomed out in the 2008 job-pocalypse. That oughta be good for people, right? But, turns out 121 percent of income gains made in the recovery went to the top one percent of the country’s earners. I’m not sure how you can capture more than 100% of something. It sounds kind of greedy to me. An economist at Berkeley got to that number when figuring in the fact that incomes for most everyone else have dropped. Wages are down, household incomes are down, but don’t worry, these are the job creators were talking about. If you don’t have an employment scenario figured out just yet, wait a few minutes. I’m sure some rich guy needs someone to give his shoe-shine 121 percent of their effort.
Jobs, jobs, jobs! They’re everywhere. The problem with all this job-creation is the new jobs are all worse than our previous jobs, which, to be honest weren’t all that rad in the first place. Some jobs, they don’t even pay money, which is still a thing you need some of to live.
My mother spent the recession in multiple jobs, the most recent of which paid federal minimum wage. $7.25, baby! This is the reason why, when I hear well-paid pundits say that no one except high school kids work for minimum wage, I want to fly to their home, poop on their doorstep, and set it on fire.
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Fuck yeah, feminists!: whoistorule: i hate unpaid internships so fucking much unpaid...
i hate unpaid internships so fucking much
- unpaid internships exploit college graduates, most of whom have exorbitant student loans, into working 30-40 hours weeks for no pay
- at which time they start owing massive amounts of interest on their student loans
- they often don’t…
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Millenials Aren’t Lazy: They’re Fucked
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McRib is Back by Jonathan Devis
His teacher told him to take art more seriously… and here is his rebuttal on his final project.
Brilliance. Don’t ever let an art teacher tell you what you need to do to be an “artist”. That’s up to you. This kid fucking rules.
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Here Are Idiot Celebrities Talking Out Of Their Asses About Punk At Last Night’s Met Gala
Last night, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York hosted the 2013 Met Gala. This year’s theme was “Punk: From Chaos To Couture.” For many celebrities, this was the first time they had used the word “punk” in a sentence that wasn’t “Have my assistant get me Daft Punk tickets.” It was also an excuse for them to spend $10,000 to spike their hair up and play punk dress up for a night. When interviewed, they all sounded like total shitheads talking out of their asses. Here’s what some of them had to say in these actual quotes from the red carpet…
“Of the two women who star in TWO BROKE GIRLS, which one should we invite to the red carpet?”
“The one who hasn’t gone on record citing punk rock as an influence to their style, of course! Y’know, the blonde one!”
Meanwhile, Kat Dennings is hanging out with Neil Gaiman and other people who actually listened to and understood punk rock and is having the time of her life NOT putting on airs to impress…well, no-one. Gotta love stuff like this.
(And this is coming from a guy who has a Black Flag tattoo on his arm, but goes crazy for Ermenegildo Zegna! Oh if only I could afford such luxury apparel on my meagre punk rock salary, but hey-ho, that’s what I get for actually following a lifestyle, instead of trying to imitate one for the sake of a few cameras and a red carpet.)
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The Numbers - Most Profitable Movies, Based on Return on Investment
Lots of interesting numbers over at, uh, The Numbers.
(via @tedhope)
They’re mostly indie flicks made on-the-cheap. Neat!
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(Source: doll1024, via malpertuis)
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Pardon the language, but I never understood that requirement.
Five years experience? If you’re trained in a special area of … anything, you’ll need to spend five years working professionally right out the gate to get the job you want.
Which is strange because you can’t get that job that would qualify as experience without five years of experience.
Which is strange because you can’t get that job that would qualify as experience without five years of experience.
Which is strange because you can’t get that job that would qualify as experience without five years of experience.
Which is strange because you can’t get that job that would qualify as experience without five years of experience.
I’m repeating myself on purpose because it seems that if you want a job you really want that you are more than qualified for skills-wise, you’re going to have to work for at least 10 years somewhere else, if you’re lucky to get THAT job. Most companies tend to hire folks within the company anyway who are already familiar with the ins and outs of the company.
I guess that’s a good thing, but it makes a company more stagnant and complacent not to have fresh ideas from an outsider looking in.
This has been precisely the reason why I’m still working minimum wage jobs despite the fact I have a master’s degree. Having an education and a particular set of skills means nothing in a world where downsizing and reorganizing a company’s infrastructure is more acceptable than hiring young, new workers. (And I ain’t gettin any younger, neither.) I probably won’t get “that job” until I’m thirty, if I’m lucky.
Right. Time to get back to looking for plumbing apprenticeships.
(Source: hommequipense)
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I wish I knew Zachi Teleshia before I heard about his passing because at such a young age, he gets it.
He understood the power of comic books to somebody like him. Zachi was a fan of comics, loved them, grew inspiration from them, and wanted to make his own. And he did. He created and wrote his own comic series, Hero Up! all before the age of 10.
Then you see what Zachi has gone through. His birth mother murdered by his birth father was one thing. In 2008, he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a cancer that affects the bones. Zachi created a character as an alter-ego for himself, Venom-Transporter, the leader who could gain strength from any toxin.
From what I read about him, he seemed like a typical kid, a happy, fun-loving individual who loved to create and help out anybody that he could.
Zachi Telesha died on April 29, 2013 at the age of 12. He may have found inspiration in comics, but as a comics fan and creator, I’m finding a lot of inspiration in him.
Rest in comfort and peace, little man.
I know Zachi’s dad, Marc. We were friends in college, where he was first a student, then a student administrator. He and his wife Susie couldn’t have children of their own, so they adopted Zachi when he was, I think, around five or six years old. I lost touch with Marc and Susie over the years, but remember fondly the conversations Marc and I had about hardcore music, and sci-fi, and comic books.
The other day, I came across this image in my Facebook feed:
It happened after I returned from San Francisco, where I and my family had just buried my cousin Sandra. At thirty-three years old, she died giving birth to her son Nate, leaving behind her husband, sister, brother-in-law, niece, mother, father, and a slew of aunts, uncles, cousins, and close friends. (Not to mention San Francisco Giants fans the world over.)
What struck me most was that, instead of gloom, the funeral was a casual, light-hearted affair (though my family somehow never received the memo). Indeed, even her widowed husband gave his eulogy wearing flip-flops, jeans, and a wrinkled plaid shirt. Sure, there were tears, but the sadness was greatly outweighed by the laughter. It was a celebration of her life. It was a happy time. We all believed she was watching us from somewhere brilliant, and smiling, and laughing, and missing us dearly.
And yet, when we returned to Pennsylvania, I was still despondent. Sure, the world now had Nate and a loving family to care for him, but it was a dimmer world. I didn’t know Sandra terribly well, mostly due to geography and a significant age gap, but I nevertheless felt as though a light had gone out somewhere.
A few days later, the above image of Zachi came across my feed. Here, instead of sharing something bleak with the world, Marc decided to celebrate his son’s his half-birthday by honouring him with an uplifting and powerful image of Zachi pulling a superhero pose. It’s bright, and cheerful, and undoubtedly a perfect reflection of the type of person Zachi Telesha was. (And this I say without ever having met him.)
Two deaths within two weeks, and both treated not as grey ordeals, but as parties.
Oddly enough, I knew about HERO UP! without quite realizing who was behind it. I had no idea that I had such a connection to someone so brave and strong. Dealing with depression off-and-on as I have done for many years, I rarely look up from my own gloom—least of all my own privilege—to realize that there are people in, dare I say, “worse” conditions than I, who yet carry out their days with effortless joy. I haven’t finished a comic in almost a year, largely due to my negative attitude. Yet here is Zachi, a 12-year-old kid who battled cancer FOUR TIMES, penning a comic book that he could not only call his own, but hold in his hands, with as much vigour and enthusiasm for the craft as any seasoned professional.
So as far as I am concerned, Zachi Josiah Telesha is the single-most influential person I have ever been graced to encounter. I wish I had met him while he was still alive, but am grateful and humbled to know that he left an indelible impression on the world and the people around him. And besides, I can always know him through his comic book work.
Thanks for the comic, Zachi. May you soar through the clouds of Paradise.
(Final thoughts: Sandra’s son’s full name is Nathan Josiah Payne. I’m not sure quite what it means, sharing a middle name with Zachi, but it seems significant all the same.)
