Hey little bro, can we talk? Mom didn’t want me to say anything but after we visited your little table at the comic show this weekend we were all wondering: When are you getting a real job? This drawing hobby is great and all, but we’re concerned because there just doesn’t seem to be any money in it. Don’t you want to be, you know, successful?
We should probably have had this talk sooner, but I thought you’d just grow out of all of this one day. I blame myself for not seeing it and saying something. I could have stopped it when we were growing up and you were watching the Disney afternoon and Animaniacs well into your high school years. Then there was your Dragonball Z phase; I should have said something then. Jesus, those shirts you wore were ridiculous. Even last year the family should have sat you down. What kind of a 30-year-old man asks for the Justice League Unlimited DVD box set? I should have beaten your ass senseless until you dropped all of this a long time ago, but I love you. You’re my little bro.
Don’t get me wrong, we’re all proud of you. None of us can draw, or write, or whatever. You’ve always been the creative one. Remember that Christmas when you put on that show re-enacting SNL skits until I started throwing nuts at you and then you cried? Shit like that was always great, but it’s time to grow up.
You may not have noticed because your friends clearly don’t have jobs, but the world is passing you by. Did you see those great condos right next to the art gallery your show was at? You could live there if you wanted. You could bathe your dog right down the street, once you have enough money to buy a dog. Instead, you sling coffee all day and doodle in those notebooks, and all for what, so people you’ve never met on the internet can tell you how talented you are? Get over yourself. Do those people pay the bills?
Well of course you’ll have to do a job you hate. Isn’t that what we all do? You think I like staring at a screen all day, analyzing data and predicting financial trends? I dont, but I fucking LOVE coming home to my stainless steel appliances, playing Xbox on my 3D TV and going to Vegas on the weekends to fuck expensive hookers, gamble and dring until I black out. Doesn’t that sound awesome?
Let’s start with your resume. Maybe we can get you a job with a temp agency. A little office experience wouldn’t hurt. Then we just have to figure out a way to turn all of this writing and drawing you’ve been doing into a marketable skill. Let’s see… “creative problem solver” is a good phrase, and make sure to put down “accustomed to working under a deadline.” HR managers cream their pants over stuff like that. No way to hide your four years at RISD, though. Let’s hope they think it’s like a Globe College or a Rasmussen business school and not the Rhode Island School of Design.
Tell you what? I’ll drop this in front of our HR lady and we’ll see what we can do. She owes me a favor after she got me drunk at the Christmas party and cheated on her husband with me. Man, I’m never drinking Goldschlager again.
