The Small Armory of Work Pens

 

I started what I thought was a great job, where I hoped to stay a long time. It was in public relations at a large, prestigious firm. I had been at a public relations agency that had laid me off, and I wanted a stable environment. This was definitely a good career move.

I had moved into public relations from journalism. It was getting harder and harder to make a living in the world of journalism. I had seen my salary cut and hadn’t had a raise in years. With small children now at home, I needed something more lucrative, and public relations was an obvious move.

More than a decade later, I have an impressive resume of PR jobs and titles. My journalism background helped me with media relations—I had once been one of them, and I understood their pain. I used my

ear for news to help the clients and executives I worked with understand what to expect and how things would be portrayed. I missed journalism, but I enjoyed being involved in the news cycle in a significant way.

The latest job was promising. I would work with lots of smart people at the top of their field and build relationships with journalists. I showed up every day enthusiastic and willing to help. I followed up on every idea, took calls and meetings from every player and operative, and set about my best work every day. The people running the business liked what I did, and I got along well with everyone.

At some point, though, something shifted. I don’t know when exactly; it might have been shortly after a high profile executive mentioning the PR guy at his old company was great and asking if he could be brought over. It may have been after the holiday party, when people noticed that I didn’t drink, or that I networked too much—or not enough. But at some point, the managers of the public relations department decided I was no good. Every question or interaction was either a probing inquiry to uncover some unknown fault or else a quiet put down. Every call or meeting with the managers made me feel dirty afterwards. I needed more approvals to get things done, and my emails that needed approval sat in my boss’s inbox for weeks, sometimes more than a month. There were more hoops to jump through, and while I jumped through every single one, I couldn’t help but notice that this wasn’t asked of my colleagues. People running the business units I worked with had good things to say about me, but it didn’t matter. Everything was under a microscope and nothing was right.

Each day, the ax over my head felt a little closer.

One of my routines when working in an office is to walk around. As a PR person representing different business groups, it’s important to have face time, no matter how fleeting, with the people you represent. In past jobs, this paid dividends. Seeing my face reminds people of things that they need to tell me or send me. And I would often learn something new or meet someone I only knew from emails or conference calls.

On every floor of this company’s office, there are small photocopy and printer rooms that also house basic office supplies, including pens. Most of the pens are clear Bic Cristal Ball Point Pens, which are perfectly good pens. But nestled among these clear pens were Bic Round Stick Ballpoint Pens, which are solid colors with better look and usability; I like these much better. Finding one of these pens is a rare treat, and I wanted to do my work using only these pens.

So, when I was doing my daily walks around the office, I would look in these supply rooms to see if I could find the one Bic Round Stick Ballpoint Pen in the mass of Bic Cristal Ball Point Pens. It was a small joy that gave me something to look forward to in my day. I didn’t take too many—only what I would normally use or keep as backup pens. Having these pens made me a little more enthusiastic about my work.

Most writing is done by keyboard these days, but the act of writing helps generate ideas and ignites the mind in a way that keyboards do not. Writing longhand is creation and imagination at its most primal level. There is something in the heft of the pen, no matter how cheap or primitive, which is empowering in a way that hacking away at a keyboard will never be, though hack away at the keyboard we must. Maybe someday computer chips will read our thoughts and somehow commit our perverse imaginations into instant animated videos and storyboards, but so far the content that is powered by the latest in Artificial Intelligence looks fake and hackneyed. Maybe some of us are doomed to be the last remnants of a dead civilization—“My granddad still writes with a pen!”—then I will gladly be that old relic, still scribbling poems and story ideas on ancient paper, and be considered verboten for using products that killed trees. I’ll be that old monster. 

I continued to show up to work every day ready to work hard and get publicity for my employer. I generated lots of ideas that went unread and kept chasing award submissions that were being sat on by the supervisors. No one could accuse me of not doing my job. If they were still paying me, I was still working.

One Tuesday last summer, I got an email from my boss inviting me to have our regular weekly meeting in a conference room. My boss usually ignored our weekly meetings entirely without giving me the courtesy of a cancelation notice, so the sudden interest and use of a conference room meant only one thing: I was getting the ax. This was confirmed early the next morning when this calendar invite appeared in my email again, this time with an HR person included. I washed my coffee mug and packed up my things.

I offered no apologies and made no excuses and walked out an unemployed but free man, with my head held high and about half a dozen choice pens in my bag.

Pens last longer than they used to. We don’t write as much in longhand these days. It’s easier for me to type and my penmanship is terrible. Still, I fill notepads with drafts of poems and ideas for stories, random ideas and reminders. I still feel naked and unprepared without two pens in my pocket whenever I leave the house. I prefer ballpoint click pens for travel because they’re easier to use one-handed and there’s no cap to lose.

The pens from my former job are the go-to pens in my home at the moment to write poems and ideas; I have them stuck in the spirals of my notebooks, like arrows in a quiver. They are a trophy of my time in the corporate world that proves, if only to myself, that I have come through with my spirit intact. Each poem, each oddball joke or strange idea that I jot down, is a small victory.

I am financially poor and still struggling, but have a much richer life. I am doing more writing and enjoying my days much more.

These pens will eventually run out, but the exodus from an unhealthy environment will pay dividends.

But first, on to gainful employment.

America Is Always Worth Celebrating

 Independence Day in these United States should be a stupendous and excessive explosion of red, white, and blue, with fireworks lighting the sky and masses of people celebrating America with the fervor to put a Roman bacchanal to shame.

This year’s Independence Day, our 250^th (apparently "semiquincentennial," "quarter-millennial," and even "bisesquicentennial" are all acceptable terms) —finds a more subdued mood as we approach this celebration.

The mood of the country is grim. Our politics are bitterly divided and many find it hard to separate the love of their country with the approval of their government. But don’t let the current state of affairs step on your celebration of America.

Hating the government does not diminish the spirit of America. Hating the government IS the spirit of America. Apple pie is as American as hating your government.

Rejecting the politicization of our Independence Day celebration is not a sign of America’s decline; it’s a sign that the rebellious patriotic spirit that created America still lives and endures. It is American as hell to detest pompous self-aggrandizement wrapped in the flag.

Theodore Roosevelt expressed this sentiment in 1918, “PATRIOTISM means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country.”  He put this notion into even stronger terms later the same year, “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” 

America has always been politically divided. Even during the American Revolution, which has been described as America’s first civil war, many Americans remained loyal to Britain – Benjamin Franklin’s own son William was the royal governor of New Jersey and fled the U.S. for England toward the end of the Revolution.

Today’s political divisions are vast and won’t be healed overnight, but our country has shown its resilience through much worse than our current state. We survived a real Civil War that killed more than half a million people. We survived rebellions, terror attacks, pandemics, natural disasters, and economic depressions.

No matter what your political leanings, you’re right to be dissatisfied with the state of our government and disgusted with the people ruling it (yes, both sides!). But the people in positions of power are not the nation itself. The low quality of our political leadership doesn’t make America less great, it reflects the growing disconnect between the people and those who govern them.

This Independence Day, fly your American flags proudly. We are descended from rogues and scoundrels who defeated an empire and built a nation that eventually forged an empire of its own.

A nation is not made great by the iconography of its most powerful, but the perseverance of its people.  America remains a land of promise and possibility. That is worth celebrating every day. 

Stopping by Buc-ee’s at 3 a.m.

It was the early hours of a Sunday morning, and I was traveling with my band, Blackout Shoppers. We had played the Anarchy at the Arcade Festival at Super Rad Arcade Bar in Lynchburg, Virginia, and shared the stage with some amazing bands. It was great fun, but we had a long drive home and wanted to make it to a hotel to get some sleep.

Cruising along, I saw the sign of a beaver looming large over the highway, a bright beacon of road trip joy.

“Have any of you guys been to a Buc-ee’s yet?” I asked the rest of the band.

They had not.

“That changes tonight.”

I had visited a Buc-ee’s in South Carolina on a road trip to Georgia and back with my daughters. The chain has built a reputation as a bastion of largesse and Americana; I was not disappointed. We bought stuffed toys of Buc-ee the Beaver, the institution’s mascot, for my girls’ younger cousins, bought gas, and helped ourselves to a bag from a floor-to-ceiling wall of beef jerky. I made a point to stop by again on our return journey to New York.

My comrades wanted to buy beer, but as it was past midnight—technically Sunday morning—and would run afoul of Virginia’s blue laws, they were denied. I have not had any alcohol since early 2010, but I still hate these blue laws with a passion. My friends took it in stride; they still had beer and bourbon waiting for them in the truck.

We experienced the super clean Buc-ee’s bathrooms, which stand alone and set the standard for public restrooms; the rest of America has a long way to catch up.

At 3 a.m., Buc-ee’s is not the crowded madhouse during daylight hours. There is a camaraderie among people who are awake in those strange pre-dawn hours. Some are up early for work or in the middle of an overnight shift, others are on their way to a hotel after playing a crazy hardcore punk and metal show. There was a skeleton crew manning the place, but Buc-ee’s still ran with attentive precision. It lived up to the hype for my bandmates.

While Buc-ee’s has the bulk of its locations in Texas and has expanded into the Southeast, the chain may have plans for the Northeast. While traveling in Connecticut last summer, I saw a Buc-ee’s billboard on I-95 that informed drivers that the nearest Buc-ee’s was 700+ miles in the opposite direction. Would the company spend money on a billboard over one of the busiest highways in the country just to troll Northeasterners over not having Buc-ee’s? I contacted Buc-ee’s through its website to inquire of such designs. I have yet to hear back.

On my previous trips, I did not try the establishment’s famous brisket sandwich. In the spirit of early morning road trip adventure and punk rock excess, I splurged and emerged with another coffee and a brisket sandwich.

We stood outside, close to the bronze statue of Buc-ee the Beaver, a form of pagan idolatry befitting our gluttony in the early hours of the morning. I tore off pieces of my brisket sandwich and shared this feast with my bandmates. It was delicious. 

Second acts are American lives

 

“There are no second acts in American lives.”

—      F. Scott Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald scholars are rightly irked that the line about no second acts in American lives is often quoted by itself and attributed to “The Last Tycoon.” The line was first used in a 1932 essay titled “My Lost City,” which documents the resilience of New York in the aftermath of the stock market collapse that helped launch the Great Depression.

The original Fitzgerald quote from “My Lost City” is:

“I once thought that there were not second acts in American lives, but there was certainly to be a second act to New York’s boom days.”

Fitzgerald’s own life contradicted the idea that there are no opportunities for renewal in America.

He was preparing to dominate his own life’s second act when he died at the age of 44. And true to his 1932 essay, New York has shown its resilience multiple times and survived more crises and disasters in the decades since 1929.

Fitzgerald is one of the giants of American literature. While his writing celebrates the Jazz Age and the promise of American prosperity, it also pulls back the curtain on the dark side of the American dream. His most celebrated work, “The Great Gatsby,” is a great example of the ability to make a new life for yourself, but also the pitfalls and dangers of the heedless pursuit and indulgences of wealth.

Jay Gatsby’s material success is undermined by his need to be something he is not. He cannot accept that the material rewards of his life are not the trappings of noble lineage. In America, we don’t care who your father was. We care about what you can do now, not what someone in your family tree did 100 years ago. That’s the essence of the American experiment—be judged by what you do and where you are going, not where you came from.

America was founded on the premise of second acts. From New England’s pilgrims to the hardscrabble pioneers who settled the American West, our country is one big series of second acts and new beginnings. Second acts are as American as a bald eagle eating apple pie.

I find encouragement in this as I look for a new job. I have been out of work for several months and have cast a much wider net than in previous searches. I no longer feel the need to go back to the same industry or seek the same salary. I’m old enough that I can be honest with myself about the things I would like to do and prioritize things that will lead me to enjoy the everyday more than how things read on a resume. This is well beyond my second act, and I’ve lost count of the new beginnings I’ve had to carve out. But that’s no matter. It is never too late to start again or become something new.

This year, as the United States celebrates the 250^th anniversary of its founding, remember that our country was born from one of the bravest second acts in world history.

And remember that second acts are rewarding to the extent that they allow you to be who you really are, and not what others expect of you. Part of having a successful second act in life means not caring about what others think. Your life exists to make you and your loved ones happy.

Here’s to second acts in American lives—one of the things that makes America great.

Snowbound NYC feels the filth of winter

 

The Northeastern U.S. has become accustomed to mild winters over the last decade. Prior to the latest snow blizzard that pummeled much of the country, online newsreels were commemorating the 30^th anniversary of the blizzard of 1996. Now we have a new milestone to mark in the history of the five boroughs’ struggles with snow.

The Northeastern U.S. had weeks of below-freezing temperatures immediately following an exceptionally large snowstorm. The usual melt that happens in the days after a storm hasn’t happened. I can’t remember any time in my life that so much snow sat around for so long afterwards.

While the roads may be cleared in theory, large snowbanks have turned two-lane streets into one-lane streets. Slippery snow and ice patches make driving in the city more dangerous than usual.

The sidewalks and crosswalks are in an even more dismal state. Plows push large quantities of snow into icy walls that solidify into chunky walls of hard-packed ice and snow.

The city’s Department of Sanitation continued to plow the same roads and did little or nothing about freeing up sidewalks, bus stops, and crosswalks. I recently stood behind a plow wall at a bus stop and watched a snow plow drop loads of salt on an already dry road while piles of filthy, frozen snow sat nearby untouched.

Even with the understanding that this was an unprecedented storm, the city’s response rates poorly. Long stretches of sidewalk, including those abutting public parks and city-run spaces, remain largely inaccessible weeks later, thin paths cut by the feet of harried pedestrians the only things working to clear any walking space.

Snow makes New York City look beautiful for about three hours. Snow in NYC quickly turns into a mosaic of street and sidewalk filth, collecting dog urine, car exhaust, and the varied effluvium that regularly pulses across our sidewalks and curbs. After several weeks, the hardened snowbanks sport a spattering of grotesque shame, rife with collected bacteria.

New York’s sidewalks and crosswalks, already a crowded place of give-and-take silent negotiations of movement, have become more challenging to navigate. Having a good pair of waterproof boots is paying big dividends, and I am trudging through frozen sidewalk tundra like an over-the-hill urban sherpa.

Warmer temperatures in the weeks ahead promise relief through melting snow, but city authorities should take stock of this storm and improve their response. In the meantime, New Yorkers are waiting for the Great Snow Melt of 2026.

Tear down these (excessive) paywalls

I attempted to watch Super Bowl LX on television this past Sunday. As I pay for several subscription services, I assumed that one of them would be able to show me the game, which was broadcast on a national network that one would be able to watch for free if you had a traditional or cable television.

As a Jets fan, I have absolutely no reason to watch postseason football, but I wanted to watch the Super Bowl to see the halftime show, which generated pointless and contrived garbage controversy, and to see if the game or commercials might be entertaining.

Last year, I was able to stream the Super Bowl so my daughters could catch a glimpse of Taylor Swift in the stands. I didn’t have to subscribe to anything new or pay a fee to see the game, and it worked out well. My girls got to see Taylor Swift and the game was interesting to watch by Super Bowl standards.

But it was not to be. I tried every service I could find that offered live streaming of the super bowl, but all I was able to access without a subscription were live feeds of people watching the game at a bar or in some kind of lounge area, or video-game approximations of the action on the field. Neither was the game.

To get the Super Bowl score during the game on The New York Times website, I’m blocked and told I need to upgrade my subscription to include The Athletic, a premium service because apparently the bespoke genius of The New York Times has found a way to give us the score of a football game that is premium and better than the masses of hoi polloi who long ago figured out how to do this.

This was especially sad to see The New York Times sink to these depths. The Times is one of the first websites I ever had a subscription to. Back when it was free, I signed up online and got a cool username and password for the Times website that still works to this day. It was a rite of passage in entering the digital age, and I was proud to begin my journey of consuming news online with the newspaper of record.

I gladly stained my hands and arms reading vociferously since my father introduced me to the Gray Lady when I was in middle school. Now I’m just another mark that the Times thinks it can squeeze for an extra subscription to get the score of a football game. ESPN’s web site had the score of the game without going through a paywall, but I would have just as soon given that web traffic to the Times.

I had to enjoy the Super Bowl vicariously through the news and social media posts of friends and family. As a large, national event, it goes against the populist American ethos for the Super Bowl to be shuttered behind multiple pay walls. I felt betrayed by the providers I already pay handsomely for access to the digital world, even if I was probably the better for it.