From A to B

I like to travel. I’m not even talking about traveling great distances, seeing old monuments, or finding new horizons. I just like to move. Forward. From point A to point B. To me, there are few things more satisfying than having somewhere to go and having all the time in the world to make the trip. The gratification stems from feeling my progress literally move beneath my feet and having the time to enjoy it. I am entertained by the constantly changing environment. The sights, sounds, smells, and people I encounter provoke random thoughts and questions. Sometimes point B is yet to be determined, such as an aimless walk or drive that passes the time on a free day. Or sometimes, such as in this case, point B is simply a place that I’d rather be, with Tegan in her apartment.

As I leave point A, I am greeted outside my building by a waiting yellow cab, its top light prominently lit, its engine softly humming. No need for a personal chariot tonight. I’m in no rush and short on cash anyway. But who will take him up on his offer? Where will they go? How much will they tip? I wonder if his cab smells funny. He is talking on his cell phone. Drivers are on the phone all the time. What the hell do drivers talk about? Are they talking to other cab drivers? I carry on.

It just finished raining. Night has fallen. The watery sidewalk and streets glisten with reflections of the streetlamps and headlights. The scene looks just like those paintings that glamorize this very moment. What was that artist’s name? Tegan would know. I think he’s from Chicago. I wish I could afford his work. They were so pretty in the art gallery on Michigan Avenue. The shiny sidewalk dumps into the Redline entrance at State and Polk. There is a man (at least I think it's a man) coming up the underground stairs with an opened umbrella, forcing me to twist around him. Little premature, huh buddy? Dick.

The train rolls to the crowded platform as soon as I get downstairs. This rare occurrence is utterly delightful. Almost like having a cab waiting for me when I leave my apartment. I wonder if he’s picked a fare up yet. My luck doubles when over the loudspeaker, the conductor announces that this train is late and will run express from Lake to Fullerton. Perfect. I sift through the crowded train car and find an open area near the emergency exit. I lean against the wall and start reading The Economist when an odd looking hipster in skinny jeans gestures if he can have the open seat in front of me. I nod. He sits. I sneeze. He says, “Bless you.” Was that for the open seat or the sneeze? “Thanks.” I look out the window as we screech past the Division stop. I catch a man’s impatient face that distinctly says, “what the fuck?”

It’s drizzling again by the time I get off at Belmont. My pace hurries as the city passes by me. Damn that pizza joint smells good. What is that girl studying in Starbucks? I freaking hate slow walkers. Jack’s looks pretty full tonight. Tegan and I have been meaning to eat there. That man really needs to fix his muffler. Would I have laughed if that kid fell in that giant puddle? As I turn onto Tegan’s street there are three guys having an animated conversation. “Bro, I’m tellin’ you. I’ve had parties with like 100s of people, bro, and never seen a fight break out. Seriously, dude.” I wonder if anyone was seriously injured. Does that guy know he sounds like a total douche bag?

I finally approach Tegan’s apartment building. There’s a white cab sitting outside her high-rise, his light off, waiting for his called fare. He’s talking on his cell phone. Is he talking to my friend from before? That would be awesome. I head inside and call her apartment. The line is dead. Why do I always have to do this twice? The second try goes through, and she buzzes me in. I find an elevator waiting for me.

Tegan and I have a running joke that whenever we go to a new city I look at her and say, “Tegan, look! People live here!” While my astonishment is somewhat embellished, I am truly fascinated by the common practice of visiting a place that people call home. I come into their city as they go about their daily lives and get to borrow their existence for a day or weekend or even an entire week. Then when I leave to go home, they’ll still be there, doing what they do. As if nothing ever happened. I felt a similar sensation tonight. I left my apartment and went out into my own busy city. With every person I saw along the way, I got to, at least for a moment, share in a slice of their lives. If they were paying attention, they shared in a slice of mine.

Ding! I step off the elevator and knock on the door incessantly to tease Tegan. She opens and smiles. God I love her.

“Hey babe, how was the trip?”

*Tegan did remember. Michael Cheney.

Grammas & Grampas

We sometimes talk about grandparents like they’re baseball trading cards.

“How many do you have left?”

“I have three, but one of them is not exactly in mint condition.”

“Oh I’m sorry. I only have one left, but it’s looking great considering it’s from 1927.”

That might be an exaggeration, but grandparents are a fact of life. All of us have four biological grandparents. Divorce, separation, and remarriage might change who gets together for the holidays, but the structure of our ancestry is absolute. The other absolute is that our grandparents will eventually fade away throughout our lifetimes. Sometimes this happens before we even get to meet them. I only have one left, my Gramma Rose, but I’ve been fortunate enough to have personal memories with all four.

My Grampa Walter, on my Dad’s side, was the first one to pass. I don’t have many memories of him, but I recall that while he was a very stern man, almost cold, there was a definite grandfatherly love beneath the surface. This duality is perfectly visualized in my distinct memory of him giving me a small travel alarm clock. On the one hand, there is the unfeeling certitude of that clock ticking away, evoking his strict German heritage. On the other, there is the image of a busy Thanksgiving gathering, and tucked away in the corner an old man, quietly bending down and giving a gift to his young grandson.

When I think of my Gramma Dorothy, again on my Dad’s side, I immediately think of garbage. When we visited, my sisters and I used to argue over who got to throw her trash-filled, Jewel-Osco bags down her condo’s garbage shoot. Living in the suburbs, we didn’t often get to experience that odd pleasure of hearing trash clumsily fall to its demise. What I really remember her for, though, is her deep seeded need to give. When she came with us to Arlington Race Track every Mother’s day, she gave away every winning ticket. She was naturally selfless. The world might have had its Mother Theresa, but I had my Gramma.

My Mom’s dad, Grampa John, had the exact opposite dynamic of my Grampa Walter. He radiated warmth and love like no person I’ve met, but I always had a sneaking suspicion that inside he was tough as nails. In my mind, his hearty laugh never quite meshed with his dungeon-like workshop below their house, which more resembled the lair of a workaholic foreman than my gentle Grampa. My favorite story about him, long before I was born, was that he mailed my Gramma an engagement ring while he was in the service during WWII. In the midst of all the fear and violence, all he could think about was loving my Gramma.

That brings us to my lone living grandparent, Gramma Rose, my Mom’s mom. She constantly reminds me of all the trouble I used to give her when she used to babysit. I think my mischief stemmed from the fact that as kids, we view our grandparents as slower, quieter and therefore less scary versions of our parents. She just didn’t intimidate me. But I’ll always remember Gramma for her aversion to profanity (even “shut up” was a no-no) and her caustic wit. Even now, as she’s slowly withering away on a hospital bed in her apartment, she won’t let you get away with anything. When visiting with me last week, Tegan nicely asked if it was too warm in her place. She whispered, “I’m always hot. I’m hot stuff.”

I don’t know how much longer my Gramma is going to last. Not even the doctors know at this point. I also don’t know how I’m going to react to it. But judging by my previous experience, it won’t be painful. I didn’t cry when we lost any of my grandparents. Maybe some were younger than others, but the sadness is different than the sharp, confused pain associated with a tragic accident or an unreasonable disease. It’s a sense of understood loss, coupled with warm and happy stories told when the family comes together to say goodbye. With so many things that can end a life, we celebrate a grandparent’s achievement in avoiding them for as long as they did.

I’ve heard before that losing a parent is a harsh awakening because it reminds you that you’re up to bat. You’re next in line. Both my parents have probably felt this grim feeling. But in reality, aren’t we all up to bat? Even the newest addition to our family, my cousin’s new baby Jack, by the very fact that he is alive, has a timeline. Every beginning has an end. Our only hope and prayer is that our timeline is long, prosperous, and happy. And when we get to the end we have loved ones with us to make it less painful.

A few years ago, my Dad sent me some very old pictures of my Grampa Walter when he was about my age. I recently went through them with Tegan to show her some family history. She was stunned at how much I look like my grandfather. This made me realize something. Pictures can be lost in the attic. And memories can fade away. But if we ever need a reminder of our ancestors, all we need to do is look in the mirror and remember that we came from somewhere.

My Golden Years

• The first American to receive a monthly Social Security check was Ida May Fuller. She paid $24.75 into the system after three years of payroll taxes but received $22,888.92 between retirement at 65 and her death at 100 years old.
• Currently, two 56-year-olds with average earnings will pay about $140,000 in dedicated Medicare taxes over their lifetimes but will receive about $430,000 in benefits following retirement.
• Social Security is largely a pay-as-you-go system in which the current taxes of the working pay for the benefits for the retired. The system’s “support ratio,” which measures the number of people of working age over the number of people beyond retirement age, has decreased from 5.3 in 1970 to 4.6 in 2010 and is forecasted to fall to 2.6 by 2050.
• The life expectancy of 65-year-old males in the U.S. has improved by about 5 years since 1970, though people on average are retiring one year earlier.
• Spending on health care programs and Social Security is projected to grow from roughly 10% of GDP today to 16% of GDP by 2035. By comparison, spending on all of the federal government’s programs and activities, excluding interest on debt, has averaged 18.5% of GDP over the past 40 years.

There is a lot of data and research on our country’s entitlement programs, but these are some of the facts that have stood out. Considering my progressive mindset, I believe in the intent of these programs. But these facts paint a picture showing how they are systematically unsustainable and how, with the baby boomer generation moving into retirement, they could eventually bend and break this country’s bank. I don’t purport to know the answers to this highly complicated problem. Despite the theatrics of last week, I hope our government will eventually figure something out that extends beyond red vs. blue. Representative Paul Ryan’s 2012 budget proposal, while imperfect, is at least a clue that some people in congress are taking it seriously. But to me, this national discourse raises one very important question: who is responsible for my retirement?

In the agricultural age, there really was no “retirement.” You had as many kids as you could to help the family farm and worked in the fields until you dropped. With the advent of the industrial revolution, people moved to the cities and began working in factories. This was fine and dandy until 1929, when the Great Depression put 25% of the country out of work and washed out any savings. In response, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act in 1935, the most influential social safety net that changed the way people thought about their future. Retirement was now the government’s responsibility.

This mentality continued in the middle part of the century. As the U.S. economy boomed following WWII, the “American Dream” was born: a house, two cars, and a steady job. Auto manufacturers kept labor costs low by including in current benefits the assurance of a pension. Other manufacturers followed suit by offering these “defined-benefit” plans, in which retirement payouts are defined and legally promised. Responsibility was now put on employers as well. With President Lyndon Johnson’s signing of the Social Security Act of 1965, which included Medicare, we added to the government’s list of responsibilities the burden of retiree health care. As these programs are supported by current workers and tax payers, the looming liabilities they created were hidden by the bull markets of the 1980’s and 1990’s.

With the bursting of the tech bubble in 2000 and later the housing market in 2007, the assets backing the pension plans fell dramatically, exposing employers to considerable net liabilities. General Motors eventually claimed bankruptcy, in part due to the mammoth burden it owes to retired pensioners. As unemployment remains high and retirees live longer, there are fewer workers to support the outgoing pension and social security checks. For these reasons, most employers now offer “defined-contribution” plans like a 401(k), which offers matching contributions (~4% of salary, for example) but puts the investment decisions and, ultimately, the risk in the hands of the employee. Responsibility has now shifted back to the individual.

My first memory of any real savings beyond a piggy bank was a kid-targeted savings account at the local bank in Barrington. At the time, there was no internet banking. Or there might have been, but we didn’t have the internet yet. My sisters and I had these little blue ledger books that resembled a passport. Upon receiving money for birthdays and holidays or for any chores I did around the house, we would go to the bank and give the teller our books and a deposit slip. She would then use a special printer to mark the deposit and our resulting balance. While I understood that I was doing a good thing, whenever I got that book back with some lines added to it, I couldn’t help but feel I would have rather had a video game. At least the bank always had fresh cookies by the door.

The savings account grew at a pace one would expect for a 9 year old. That is, until my Grandpa died. My Gramma, who doesn’t drive, had to sell their car. The money was split up amongst my sisters and me, which resulted in a $3,000 increase to my account. Compared to my stash at the time and based upon my familiarity with money, this experience taught me three things: I was getting gypped on my birthday and Christmas, I was being grossly underpaid for my chores, and my Gramma was the richest woman in the world.

I don’t have that account anymore. Instead I have a 401(k), a Roth IRA, a Certificate of Deposit, a brokerage account, and a savings account. These are admittedly more complicated than those humble beginnings in Barrington, but the underlying purpose is the same: to live below my means. My parents instilled in me from an early age the crucial importance of saving for the future, whether it’s for a major purchase, specific event, emergency, or simply to use in my golden years. That money I saved as a kid and Gramma’s car money is sitting somewhere, and I will happily use it towards business school in the fall or maybe someday an engagement ring. Much better choices than a video game.

Now, I don’t know what is going to happen with Social Security or Medicare or any of the other federal entitlement programs. Social Security is called the political “third-rail” for a reason. Any efforts to mess with it and you’ll be zapped out of a job by voters. It’s tough to ask people to give up the better end of a deal. I for one hope that my benefits are cut or the retirement age is raised so that the system is brought into saner pastures. If not, then my problems (and my children’s) will far outweigh what my Social Security checks amount to every month. But one thing is certainly clear: my retirement is my responsibility.

That is, unless Gramma has any Ferraris I don’t know about.

Deadly Sin

“Don't waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself.” – Mary Schmich, “Everybody’s Free (to wear sunscreen)”

I’ve heard that a real sign of maturity is the ability to be truly happy for others. If that’s true, then I have some growing up to do.

This past Wednesday, a former swimmer from the University of Wisconsin and native of Evanston, IL named Anders had a show premier on Comedy Central that he co-created and stars in. The premier for “Workaholics” has been a long time coming after years of hard work and dedication to his and his friends’ internet comedy group Mail Order Comedy. Their hilarious on-line sketches (I’m a huge fan) caught the eye of Comedy Central producers, and after several delays the show finally premiered last night to positive reviews.

I advertised their show to all my friends. I enjoyed all the commercials on TV and buzz on Facebook. I paraded the Red Eye newspaper around the office to show everyone their picture on the front page. I felt a sense of pride in knowing that I know Anders personally. I watched the show with my girlfriend and her sister and enjoyed it immensely. It was downright funny.

But, as this blog is aiming for brutal honesty, I have to say that their premier has not been an entirely joyous occasion for me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I wanted them to outright fail, but internally I was responding to their success with negativity. A sense of harassing jealousy or envy that has been difficult to shake.

Regrettably, this is not the first time I’ve reacted this way to the success of friends or acquaintances specifically involved in theater, acting, or comedy. I’ve had friends get roles in major motion pictures (Road to Perdition), TV shows (Law & Order, Gossip Girls), or theater productions in Chicago and NYC. Each time I felt a sense of frustration with their advancements in their career.

And these are not enemies. These are good people who have treated me well, and some of them I would even call friends. In this case specifically, Anders has always been friendly with me the few times I’ve met him and even took the time to read my screenplay two years ago and give me insightful and helpful notes. While my tinge of jealousy simultaneously comes with a sense of heavy guilt, I’m not absolved from my nasty thoughts.

Life would be so much more enjoyable if I could truly be 100% happy for others. Imagine: every time someone finds success, my happiness goes up without a smidgen of jealousy or guilt. While I try to live that way, I have not figured out how to do it successfully. I really don’t know why.

Maybe it’s because the reason for some people’s success is not visibly explicit. I don’t get jealous of LeBron James or Tom Brady or Albert Pujols. I wasn’t born 6’8”, 250lbs, with the vertical leap of an antelope. It would be ridiculous of me to look at them and berate myself for not doing what they do. But guys like Mark Zuckerberg, John Mayer, or James Franco are successful too. I’m more similar to them than to Payton Manning. I don’t mean to diminish their genius or skills, but where are my talents? Why can’t I see them?

Maybe it’s because I have been competitive my whole life. I swam competitively for 17 years. In swimming, I raced against other people in the pool at the same time, everyone trying to get to the wall first. But competition went beyond the actual races. By going for top times in the country, or by trying to break long-standing records, I raced against people I had never met. Their recorded times were the ghosts of their accomplishments, and it was customary to be in competition with strangers. In real life, that starts to border on insanity.

Maybe it’s because I feel like I could actually succeed in acting or comedy. You could show me the most successful doctor, lawyer, or engineer and I would probably be very happy for them. Not only do I have no desire to fulfill jobs, but also I know I wouldn’t be successful in them. I’m not wired for it. But I enjoyed acting when I did it. I enjoyed stand-up when I tried it. And I saw glimmers of success in those roles. Maybe I’m delusional, but maybe I’m right.

Maybe it’s because I never gave acting a real shot. I’m not jealous of Michael Phelps. I devoted my life to swimming and walked away content with my accomplishments. I wasn’t the best swimmer in the world, but I know it wasn’t for lack of trying. Acting and comedy have always been a side project, an endeavor of spare time. Maybe my jealousy comes not from witnessing others’ successes but their courage. Some of my friends are struggling their best in the industry and I look upon their efforts with envy. Their attempts make me look cowardly.

Maybe it’s because I feel like a sellout. A life in finance is something that I enjoy, am good at, and am paid well for. And I believe that a level of financial security is a worthy goal. To be able to travel when and where I like. To have a good home to raise a family. To be able to send my children to college without a morsel of difficulty. To be comfortable. But doesn’t that sound like a justification for taking the easy route?

Maybe it’s because I’ve been brainwashed by the celebrity culture. We love our celebrities. It seems that you’re only really deemed successful in this country if you’re rich, famous, and on the red carpet. While I know there are extremes of this mentality (I do not define the cast of Jersey Shore as successful) there is a certain stamp of approval on someone’s success when it’s on the big screen. “They’ve made it” implies I haven’t.

Maybe it’s because I’m not strong enough to believe my own definition of success. I used to get upset by my old swim coach because it seemed that all he celebrated was the success of his best swimmers. In my mind, a personal best by the fastest and slowest swimmers on the team are equal accomplishments. Human development cannot be measured on a single scale. But in reality, it’s more fun to watch the superstars.

Maybe it’s because I got too much support throughout my life. You would think that the need for recognition would originate in a life devoid of encouragement. But I have been lovingly supported. Ever since I was little I had people telling me how successful I was going to be. I was going to win this award or be on TV or in the movies. I heard it so much I started to believe it. Now my expectations are so high I can’t help but feel like I’m failing.

Maybe it’s because I’m self-centered and arrogant and a little lost. Look at what’s going on in the world: earthquakes, violence, poverty, hunger, disease. And all I’m worrying about is myself, lazily filling up my helpless, nagging emptiness with jealousy and envy. I constantly search for greener pastures. It’s pathetic and doesn’t help anyone.

Maybe I just simply have some growing up to do. When I talk to my parents about success, they seem to have such a grasp on the important things in life. They have the crystal clear view of hindsight. They’ve had the joy of having kids and are comfortable and willing to enjoy their life as they’ve made it. I once told my boss that as a kid all I wanted was either an Oscar or Olympic Gold Medal and without them I feel unaccomplished. He said, “Tommy, there are a lot of gold medals in life.”

Maybe I’m too idealistic. I believe that all of us are destined to achieve greatness, but it’s up to us to make it happen. While I am happy in what I’m doing, I can’t help but feel there’s something else that I’m supposed to be doing. It seems like others have it figured out and I’m left behind.

Maybe I’m just kind of an asshole. To be pained by the success or take pleasure in the failure of others, even remotely, is just a petty and dickish way to live my life.

Or maybe……I’m just human.

I don’t know. It’s probably somewhere in between.

The "WE" in "Web-Logging"

Over a cup of Caribou coffee at Denver International Airport this past weekend, I was pitching to Tegan an idea to write about for this blog. I was in the middle of brainstorming when she politely interrupted me to ask, “What do you think is the point of writing?” Admittedly, my immediate reaction was one of defense, as if she was insinuating that my idea was not worth writing about and questioning my ability to write at all. In hindsight that reaction was a little extreme, because, for a writer, she was asking a very pertinent question: Why write? Or, more specifically, why blog?

Now, I’m relatively new to the blogging community. Not just because this is only my fourth post, but also because I simply haven’t spent much time searching out and reading many blogs. When reading on the internet, I primarily stick to the NYTimes, WSJ, ESPN, the Economist and Bloomberg. I sometimes venture to the Huffington Post for more entertainment purposes. While one could argue that the opinionated columnists within these news sources write similarly to a blogger, their words are usually also published in print and subject to slightly more scrutiny. So it’s not exactly the same.

None of this is to say that I don’t find merit or value in blogging itself. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I adamantly read Roger Ebert’s blog, which beautifully ponders anything that flashes across his intellectual curiosity. I’ve read most, if not all, of his posts and find truth within each and every one of them. I thoroughly enjoy the blog Things White People Like, which lampoons the pompous pursuits of hipster yuppies. A good friend of mine from Wisconsin has made it his life’s passion to photograph and write about all types of foods at taylortakesataste.com. Tegan’s sister Amanda wrote a blog while she was working in France for 10 months so friends and family could check-in with her experiences. Just these four examples show how blogging can have a very wide range of focus, use, and audience.

My undefined hesitation in entering the blogging universe came to life in The Social Network. About mid-way through the movie, Mark Zuckerberg is confronting his ex-girlfriend Erica Albright while she’s getting drinks with her friends. In reference to his vicious posting about her on the internet she quips, “As if every thought that tumbles through your head was so clever it would be a crime for it not to be shared.” There is an arrogant presumption inherent to blogging that anyone, let alone an entire audience, really cares about what you’re writing. Prior to the internet, the fact that an author would have to be endorsed by an accredited publisher weeded out all the writing better suited for a personal, handwritten journal. Nowadays, emboldened by the anonymity and unlimited reach of the internet, there are countless “writers” out there putting words together that are less than worthy of my, or anyone else’s, time

So, blogging is both extremely valuable and utterly worthless. Much in the same spirit of its intended purpose, nothing boils this conundrum down better than Twitter. On the one hand, the application’s immediate and shared communication helps communities cope and respond to natural disasters; assists revolutionaries in gathering and shaping their government; and spreads news of the world’s events at the most personal level. On the other hand, Twitter feeds the narcissism of its commonplace and celebrity users who feel the need to disseminate the intricate minutiae of their daily activities, turning the website itself into comedians’ fodder. Anyone who has seen Conan’s YouTwitFace bit knows what I’m talking about.

What it comes down to is that blogging is a tool. A lot like a hammer. And I’m not going to go so far as saying it can be used to create and destroy, because I’m not contrasting to hateful writing intended to hurt. A properly used hammer can be used to build a beautiful and useful home. However, if the carpenter loses his focus and that hammerhead misses its target, he’s going to have a bloody, bruised, and/or broken thumb. Same goes for blogging. If you stray from your focus, you’re only going to end up hurting yourself and no one is going to want to look at the result.

So, why blog? What should I use this tool for and how should I go about it? My answers to Tegan’s questions center on honest introspection in the pursuit of universal truth. That’s a little lofty, but let me explain. I believe that all of us are connected in our hope that we’re not alone. If, through open and honest discussion, I can strip my experiences down to their elemental particles, then I might be able to strike a chord with an audience. The specifics will be mine and the mode will vary from post to post, but the underlying meaning will be communal.

To give an example, I am currently reading The Blind Side by Michael Lewis (one of my favorite authors). During my flight this past weekend, I got to the part when the Christian southerner Leigh Ann Tuohy is first interacting with her future adopted son and NFL star Michael Oher. She is taking him to his very poor and dangerous neighborhood to buy him some new clothes. Before getting out of the car, she turns to him and asks, “You’ll protect me right?” After barely uttering a full sentence the entire car ride, he confidently responds, “I got your back.” Now this story is about these two very specific people, who were strangers at the time. But I know what it’s like to feel protected by someone else, or to feel the desire to protect another human being. And Michael Lewis knew that the idea of protection and, more specifically, family is universally understood. All these things came together in my subconscious to make my hair stand on end and feel a rush of human connection.

But Tegan took my answer one step further. Good writing, and therefore good blogging, has to extend beyond a sense of inherent truth. I can’t just write about things that people already know or feel. I have to do it in a way that retains interest. Using my previous example, I was affected by Leigh Ann’s and Michael’s story because of the way it happened, but also because of the way Michael Lewis wrote about it. Nothing demonstrates this balancing act better than a successful comedian. A good comic is “saying what we’re all thinking.” But, mostly because of stand-up comedy’s on-the-fly delivery, most people fail to recognize that each joke was methodically rehearsed at countless comedy clubs. Every pause, inflection, or emphasis is there for a reason: to keep you listening and laughing.

So that’s the why: to use my personal experiences to find common ground. That exploration will be for your benefit and for mine. The challenge is to keep it interesting.

Wish me luck.