faulker009

I spent today with one of my closest friends and one of my oldest friends as my 13-year old daughter and I hung out with my old college roommate. I have known him for, gasp, 26 years now, following our initial encounter at freshman orientation. We have shared many of life's greatest moments together from sporting events to Bruce Springsteen concerts to just watching TV. When it comes to the friends department, I have been truly blessed. And in this time of unemployment, I have certainly found out who my true friends really are. We both ended up going into the TV business -- I chose sports, he chose entertainment. I worked as a staff employee for 25 years, while he has been a huge success in the freelance world. In our business, staff usually means you come to work, do your job, come back tomorrow, rinse and repeat. As a freelancer, it usually means treat every day like it is your last (because it might be), work your rear end off, project ends, time to find another job. T...

I am officially running for Father of the Week. I realize it is a long shot, and I know the week is not over, but I feel like I’ve done my part to at least be under consideration for the award. Of course, I have my good friend unemployment to thank for giving me this great opportunity and a boat load of free time. The week began on Monday with Field Day. Field Day is the official name for “kids get a day out of the classroom to play a bunch of games in a local park.” It always comes at the end of the year and ours included a BBQ, jumpy castle, pickup soccer games, softball, lacrosse and a whole lot of quality gossip time. My daughter and her friends seemed to enjoy the last part more than anything. She took full advantage of the break to hang out with her buddies, but we did sneak in a four-on-four flag football game before lunch. There were probably more than 200 students there, representing sixth, seventh and eighth grades. The sixth graders occupied most of the field, playing every ...

When it comes to sports, I’ll put my knowledge and passion up against anyone. Well, almost anyone. I worked at ESPN for seven years and there are literally hundreds of people working there who have forgotten more about sports than I will ever know. But I’ll still say I’m ahead of the curve. Except when it comes to lacrosse. That’s one game I know VERY little about. A couple of weeks ago, I got a call from a fraternity brother who said he was coming to town for a national college lacrosse tournament. And he was bringing his 19-year old son. Who was playing in the event. Wow do I feel old. My fraternity brother has a son old enough to be in a fraternity. What’s next, my daughter is going to high school. Oh wait, that’s next year.  Ouch. So I headed up to the event, where the top schools from all over the country were here to determine the national champs. If you’ve never seen the game of lacrosse, it’s kind of like if soccer, hockey, rugby, football and basketball had a baby. We watc...

I have always enjoyed a party. Except for my first party of course, which came eight days into life. (If you don’t know what I am referring to, check Seinfeld’s episode five, season five.  Ouch.) Back to the party. I like birthday parties, engagement parties, fraternity parties. I even like the resolve of the Libertarian Party. Today I was invited to a high school graduation party. Well, actually I was not invited to the party, but our band was. In case you are new to my world, as a 43-year old unemployed guy, I was asked to sing in a band with three 40+ year old employed guys. After my very successful singing career in college, I had no choice but to accept.   Two weeks ago, we launched this new career at a block party. Fortunately at our golden age, we were able to remember most of the five songs we played two weeks ago, so today we played the same five songs. When the 20+ minute show was over, it was time to mingle backstage with the groupies. Well actually, there was no ba...

In the Ballad of a Thin Man, the great poet from Minnesota, Robert Zimmerman said that “something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is.” I know he wasn’t talking about me, but those words describe how I’m feeling at the moment. Not in a bad way either. Since joining the unemployed fraternity more than 18 months ago, I’ve experienced more ups and downs than the New York Stock Exchange. I can't really pinpoint why I’m feeling bullish at the moment other than to say, I'm feeling some kind of buzz and thankfully it’s not my vibrating cell phone. It could be because in the last few days, I have spoken with a couple of former colleagues about working on some new projects with them. But that’s really nothing new. Talk is something we have done a lot of in the last year. Maybe what makes this different is that these new talks seem to have had a lot more to them than just, “wouldn’t it be cool if _____.” This time, we’ve put our thoughts on paper. This time, we’ve deve...

It’s amazing what you can learn at the batting cage. You can learn how to keep your hands back. You can learn how to keep your head in. You can also learn all about psychology. More on that in a moment. A few days ago, my eleven year old son and I went to the batting cage to work on his swing. It took him about one pitch to get frustrated. Ok, maybe three. That’s how I knew he was my son. When I was his age, I had the maturity of... an eleven-year old.    So watching his temper kick in feels like I’m watching an old black and white movie get re-made into color. But this time I’m a supporting actor instead of the star. God rest the souls of the wooden tennis rackets that lost their innocent lives about 32 years ago by being slammed into the concrete by an immature child. Come to think of it, I was A LOT worse than he is. After ten rounds in the cage -- which included me walking away, him yelling at me, me trying hard (and somehow succeeding) to not yell at him, me walking back,...

This year my wife decided that she wanted a Weedwacker from Costco as her Mother’s Day present. And who am I to argue. Any dummy can get that done and I definitely qualify. So I made the trip over to the grown up version of Disneyland. I immediately put something in my shopping cart, as I always do, and headed back to the free samples. Note to you Costco rookies:  As long as you have something in your cart, it doesn’t look like you are just there for the free food. Of course, the eleven empty wrappers inside my cart, next to the package of 72 rolls of toilet paper may have told a different story. Hey, can you blame me? Within minutes, I hit all of the food groups -- taquitos, egg rolls, chicken cutlets, cheese and crackers, sourdough bread and coconut pie. It’s the best meal plan since college.  Buy an annual $100 membership and eat a free meal everyday. Just make sure you wear a different mask every time so the vendors don’t recognize you. Anywhoo... Once the snackin was done...

Ladies and Gentlemen, THE CLEARANCE RACK. To paraphrase the great Dennis DeYoung, tonight’s the night we made history. Tonight was the debut of our new band, The Clearance Rack. Considering where I bought our matching button-down polka-dotted cowboy shirts, all a size too small by the way, it felt like the perfect name for our group. If you don’t count the choir at my synagogue growing up, this is only the second band I’ve ever been part of and the first since my Junior year of college. 23 years ago!!! In case you missed the article in Rolling Stone magazine (or my recent blog), we’ve been a band for all of two weeks. Short story shorter -- the father of one of my daughter’s friends and his two neighbors loved the video game Rock Band so much, they decided to start their own real band. Minus a singer. Yada yada yada. I guess you know the rest. Our first gig was tonight at their annual block party -- their 10th annual block party. Little did I know when I signed up, but this shindig is ...

Dear Mr. So and So, Thanks you for expressing an interest in the (fill-in-the-blank) position.  While it is never an easy decision, we have decided to consider other candidates whose qualifications more closely matched the needs of this position. Again, thank you for taking the time to pursue this opportunity.  We encourage you to visit our website to explore additional opportunities with our company. Best wishes in your career. Sincerely, Company X That was the exact letter that I received two days ago, on my daughter’s birthday, no less. Talk about blowing out the candles. Unfortunately that is not the first time I have received that exact letter. This was the fifth or sixth time I have applied for a job with that massive company and the response is always the same. A form letter paraphrasing the immortal words of the great 20th century poet Vince Neil -- “don’t go away mad, just go away.” For whatever reason, I really thought this time was going to be different. Not only wa...