Consumption Lounge: Live, Laugh, Love and Labor
Part I: a love letter addressing BDS, labor, ethical consumption and peace on earth during times of holiday madness
Hi everyone,
Happy “Jesus was a Palestinian” season! Oy vey! One of the biggest shopping days of the year is just around the corner, so I thought I’d do a little coffee talk and palate cleanser before a standard gift guide to discuss my views on labor, ethical consumption, and the BDS movement, which are all popular topics right now among the various liberal writers that you probably follow. You are also welcome to form your own opinions and as always, I encourage you to follow a diverse number of Jewish writers as many of us have very different perspectives—one of which will be on the podcast this week and whose work in using psychedelics as part of healing ancestral trauma is quite fascinating and insightful.
In case you missed it, Gen Z has been aggressively taking part in a holiday Starbucks boycott on behalf of BDS, the “boycott, divest, and sanction” movement whose approach of financially strangling the Israeli economy to draw attention to the Palestinian liberation movement includes a number of well-known corporations that you were probably not buying from anyway if you’re a conscientious shopper.
Ironically, Starbucks is not actually on the BDS list because it doesn’t have any presence in Israel nor does the Red Cup Rebellion page mention BDS because it appears to be more of a charter-based allyship founded as part of trade union support to co-opt the moment for the BDS movement. Mainly, the underlying connection appears to be addressing the ongoing media battle of “who is being censored more” regarding legitimate criticism of Israel vs. not actually addressing what actual antisemitism is during a conflict where no one is really listening to each other. If they did, they might have to admit that while both sides have their points, they are also both are a little full of it. Peace in the Middle East would be so much easier to achieve were that the case rather than what we’re dealing with: extremists serving everyone a quirky hot plate of trauma porn and liberal use of the block button on social media.
What they don’t know is that Starbucks has probably been financially prepared for a holiday season boycott from the past decade of outraged Christians taking to social for annual infractions like picking the wrong shade of red or using “happy holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas” to be inclusive. In fact, it probably helps them. Not making money offers an incentive to hold off on labor union negotiations as their employees strike until at least Q1, realizing they can just team up with Amazon to implement body scan technology that allows customers to passively order their coffee on an app, walk in and pick it up from an overworked barista at any Starbucks, just like the mobile-only shop on 59th Street. This allows Jeff Bezos to continue building his billions that he can use for expenses like paying legendary celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz to photograph his fiancee Lauren Sanchez dancing around an empty Amazon warehouse in West Texas in a ballroom gown, while consumers remain inconvenienced about considering where their coffee comes from or how it was made.
It’s hard not to be cynical when you recognize it IS, in fact, so much easier to go into a recognized name brand corporate chain than having to check social media from the last month to figure out which independent foodservice restaurants you’re actually welcome at anymore or “supposed” to support according to designated tastemakers.
Do I want to go into the indie coffee shop or restaurant to pay extra for the privilege of being reminded of human suffering, or can I also experience that by not buying not a cup of coffee and drinking it at home while scrolling through Instagram? Or, I could go into the indie coffee shop I always go into where I barely remember the person’s name let alone their feelings on politics and can regain my hope in humanity for five minutes because I can confidently assume the coffee shop is making ethical purchasing decisions reflected in the mark-up I’m paying and still tip them $1 regardless as I wish them a nice day because I was a barista, too, as I have been doing so for over two decades, while people complain about this on social media like it’s a brand new thing?
As far as I understand, the coffee I buy at my independent coffee shop is not being produced in Israel or Palestine, so I’m mainly concerned that their employees are being treated fairly than aware of their political stance, as if their own feelings are the only ones that exist on this planet and people from both sides aren’t suffering. For some people who can’t be tasked to think that hard and don’t have a lot of great local options, that benign coffeeshop is a Starbucks.
I can just hear the sad, stifled laughter from my former labor rights activist friends-turned-non-profit labor law suburban parents who all went dark from social media while secretly buying from the companies they hate because “What do you want from me? It’s easier.” Their ambitious young activist hearts have turned numb after years of working in the public sector, so they now rely on me as the “cool person” to shorthand what’s happening in the world for them, as though I have some magical connection to Gen Z because I am unattached and gracefully aging with a good skincare routine as they secretly wonder if their kids are going to eat Tide pods and worship Osama Bin Laden on TikTok.
Let it be known that I—even as a Jew!—come from a labor family. My father was part of the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers (IBEW, or as he says, “I believe in easy work”) before becoming a truck driver. He was not rich and worked very long, hard jobs that physically destroyed him and still felt he made an honest living, that many young people would probably consider to be a laughable salary. He rolled his eyes when I told him I wanted to go to art school and said the military could pay for it “since I’m such a feminist,” and that his financial obligation to me was over as soon as I turned 18 and I should become a nurse instead.
My extended family consists of people who work in foodservice, as teachers in underfunded public schools, in healthcare and advocacy for marginalized people in the public sector. Before my mom was completely debilitated by schizophrenia, she worked for CDC during the height of the AIDS crisis with patients. I had a tremendous amount of respect for labor rights growing up with a single working mother breaking the glass ceiling.
My great-grandmother was wheeled out to a Woolsworth in Philadelphia to protest against the store which was racially discriminating against hiring black people in a black neighborhood. And I, personally, have spent many, many years working various shit service jobs across many industries until I was finally in a position to consult from a business perspective, where I learned pretty quickly that just because you work in a service job or are part of a union doesn’t mean you’re a good or hard-working person, and that unions can also be run by sexist, racist, homophobes, too.
Yet you still fight for these peoples’ rights because equality is not a quid-pro-quo thing even if you might not “do lunch.” I know about labor. But might as well lay my cards down, which happen to include more than “the Holocaust card” that many of you seem to think I am “playing” (by the way, downplaying or denying the atrocities of the Holocaust is categorically antisemitic).
That said, I also don’t like a lot of my family members. In fact, I’m not on speaking terms with either of my parents. So, if you think I have more loyalty to genetics over the importance of human rights, I’m pretty disappointed that would be your impression (also, antisemitic!: “Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations”).
With that in mind, it’s kind of funny to me that labor has become such a popular topic because it’s almost always being discussed among young Marxists who all seem to have trust funds and come from stable middle to upper-middle class homes that they all feel guilty about. Their idea of labor is most often the job they worked one summer scooping ice cream or serving coffee in college while getting their expensive liberal arts degrees that they did not pay for before entering white collar America, where they learned that yes, even wealthier people than them could skate by in life while they picked up the slack—certainly a strong basis for developing an interest in writing about labor topics rather than doing them, then being surprised they still don’t make very much money being labor writers unless working for a custom publication for a trade union organization.
I discovered this as participated in labor union work in college to banning the use of indigenous appropriation, imagery, and mockery on school sports teams and get university decision makers to hold Coca-Cola accountable for assisting paramilitaries torturing and murdering their factory workers in 2009 by divesting in their multi-million dollar contracts. I showed up thinking I was doing something good for humanity as a working class person while also getting sucked into conversations with some of the most arrogant, bloated intellectuals checking this box off the list of their DC ambitions with very little direct connection to the people they spoke of. Personally, I’ve found that it’s more effective to just work for corporate America where you can actually accomplish something useful in terms of ethical decision making within businesses that will never be destroyed, but that’s just me.
I guess this is what BDS is trying to accomplish as a strategy to garner awareness for the conflict, in theory, except we didn’t go around harassing people about it and BDS only cares about one issue: Israel. They don’t really seem that concerned about the actual labor part, or accuracy for that matter, unless it underscores their extremely undefined stance on the future of Palestine beyond “Israel is bad.” Because realistically, the exports we’re dealing with from either country are minimal at best, and the people participating in BDS seem to be doing so out of emotional desperation to have some impact as anti-war pacifists and not particularly interested in scratching beneath the surface.
Which brings me back: Why am I not supporting this feel-good sounding activism battle cry unless I am a “genocide loving tankie immune to 50 million dead babies” or whatever someone is going to scream at me on social media while claiming they’re not antisemitic? The short of it is: words and actions matter.
First, there is literally no position I could take right now that would not piss off everyone. It will never be enough for many liberal and conservative Jews unless I say exactly what they want me to; and the pro-Palestinian contingent has about the same level of cannot-be-reasoned-with contempt and vitriol as anti-choicers, even when you bring receipts. They want you to “justify” the bombings, and even when you say, “Yeah, I don’t feel great about that. Were you one of the people celebrating on October 7?” you still become a vessel for unhinged rage, even as a non-citizen with no direct influence being called to speak on behalf of everyone else in a country you’ve been to once and have some pretty complicated feelings about it (note: placing blame and responsibility of the Israeli government on all Jews is definitely antisemitic, by the way). I don’t know, it just feels inherently hypocritical to me.
If you are Jewish and criticize your own people, not everyone is going to agree, but you certainly don’t want some outsider goysplaining it. When it comes to Israel, more than half of the people ignorantly running their mouths are doing it with such levels of conviction that often does more harm than good to create extra work that may never be undone. Including the people who are outright antisemitic and claiming they’re not, or simply unapologetic about it at all. Unfortunately, many of those people have a much larger platform and louder voice than I do, and I am not motivated to accumulate even more trolls than I already have since October 7.
Saying, “Oh, most people aren’t antisemitic” and pretending like it isn’t real when it’s actually happening is about as unhelpful as telling someone who is concerned about being stalked that it’s all OK because 100 other people aren’t stalking you—even after you were already stalked and raped twice (True story! Actually happened to someone I know. I wonder if they’d care as much after learning she’s Jewish or call her an “oppressor” and tell her to think about everyone else like the Jewish people experience every time they express grief about a situation where people were raped, tortured, murdered, and kidnapped then questioned if any of it really happened).
I understand the impetus to join the BDS movement at a time when you feel like you want to do something and can’t. I can also see where it can feel like when someone does not automatically hop onto your campaign, they lack empathy and aren’t on your side. At the same time, the small businesses and restaurants that have decided to latch onto this extremely complex and painful moment—including writing inflammatory and insensitive posts on social media—are essentially destroying the very same struggling community centers that should be bringing people together.
The BDS movement is so steadfast in its position to sanction Israel through capitalistic punishment that it also fails to uplift any unifying bipartisan approach towards peace—as though people haven’t been working towards peace for years before this happened. It also effectively kills any potential for people to better understand each other to let go of the past and move forward, thus maintaining a firm grip on the cycle of hatred and violence.
Deciding that your independent bookstore is going to boldly come out in support of BDS on the anniversary of Kristallnacht (!!) while claiming you’re not antisemitic as a preemptive defense strategy to shut down criticism, for example, could be categorized as an act of “unintentional antisemitism.” Doubling down to ignore that criticism and questions about what participating in BDS as an independent bookseller means for Jewish and Israeli authors while liking comments from people aligned to your tunnel vision moves into willful antisemitism territory. It’s akin to saying “I’m not a racist but.” Just because you say that you’re not a racist doesn’t mean you’re not being one.
Going through the trouble to say that antisemitism is bad as part of an anti-war coalition of musicians expressing sympathy for Palestine while somehow including the guy who claimed that dressing up in a Nazi caricature costume wasn’t done in “antisemitic intent” isn’t exactly a show of good faith. When a neutral eyebrow is raised to address this without disparaging Palestinians and the first comment is, “Do you really think this is important compared to X number of dead babies as part of 75 years of colonialism, apartheid, and genocide?” the answer is: Yes, actually. Because if you don’t see a problem in prioritizing the safety, inclusion and visibility of virtue signaling antisemites as part of your strategic coalition allegedly against antisemitism, it does seems a little disingenuous and incongruent with your message, which explains how people ignore and justify when Jews are murdered.
“Among the restaurants on the list is South Philadelphia’s Essen Bakery. Owner Tova du Plessis is Jewish but not Israeli. The coalition says it is targeting her because of an Instagram post she wrote on Oct. 9: “I stand by Israel’s right to exist, to be a home for all Jewish people, to defend herself.””
It’s so weird because I don’t go around telling people not to eat at Palestinian restaurants or interrogate them about if their support of Palestine means the money is going straight to Hamas. In fact, I’d be more inclined to send people there for support if some of these chefs didn’t have such a hostile, fundamental hatred of Israel that no amount of table sharing will fix.
I could dive into the mountain of issues now running through the arts and literary world, but I’ll just note that when Ai Weiwei spoke out for being “silenced” after suggesting that the "sense of guilt around the persecution of the Jewish people had been transferred and held against the Arab world” and that “the Jewish community had a strong influence in the media, finance and culture in the US, and that America's $3 billion (£2.45 billion) annual military support to Israel meant the two countries had a "shared destiny," and was promptly canceled by the Lisson Gallery, he was obviously picked up a week later at a different venue and not detained for 12 hours about it like the Chinese government did in 2011. (Also, “Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions” is considered antisemitic).
Likewise, the “Dangerous Conflation” letter signed by 1,800 Jewish writers (wow, thanks for not calling me) that disavows how “any criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic”—something I actually agree with—and that doesn’t really address antisemitism that much was an act mostly prompted after the 92NY, or the Jewish-American cultural foundation FKA “Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association,” decided to postpone an event with author Viet Thanh Nguyen who had recently signed a letter calling for an end to Israel’s attacks on Gaza citing its identity as “a Jewish institution.”
I think it is entirely reasonable for a private Jewish cultural institution to prioritize the sensitivities and safe space for their Jewish constituents sitting shiva after a massacre while their families may be impacted just because a group of Western Jews decided they don’t care. More so, according to Nguyen’s event page, he seems to be doing pretty well speaking for himself as a keynote speaker and all this press he must have generated through all of this, so not exactly sure how he was silenced versus, say, Paul Kessler who is permanently silenced by being dead after getting hit in the head with a megaphone by a pro-Palestinian protestor that will undoubtedly get labeled a glorious martyr and among the legitimate acts of antisemitism not addressed in this letter. Personally, I’d feel a little weird going to another minority’s cultural institution to share my hot take on sensitive issues impacting their community that no one asked me about, but again, that’s just me, and I wouldn’t try to get backed by 1,800 people in their community about it.
You know what gives me more hope than screaming at people online and boycotting Jewish bakeries? The blended couple proudly Standing Together on the side of peace. Seeing Jewish and Arab women march for peace. The 600+ joint Israeli-Palestinian families reconciling in shared loss. The cross-border environmental activists collaborating to support economic investment in protecting Gaza’s waterways from waste sewage. (I have issues with Jewish Voices For Peace and will not be leveraging them for reasons I think Debbie from Roots Metals spent a tremendous amount of time researching to explain).
But you’ll never see this kind of balanced move towards unity and mutual understanding from BDS and their related allies, when we can just keep demonizing entire populations until they are completely eradicated—oh wait sorry, I hope I didn’t step on someone’s freedom fight to be antisemitic! I guess if you don’t want to be associated with antisemites, you should probably do a better job of separating yourselves rather than trying to downplay or erase actual threats of antisemitism as “hurt feelings.”
The FLA doesn’t receive even a shred of the lip service BDS gets even though they actually do something tangible to hold companies accountable for forced labor infractions happening all around the world in everyday products we buy. In their singular goal of bringing attention to Gaza with impunity, BDS unwittingly punishes the workers of a seltzer manufacturer that continued to offer managerial benefits to West Bank employees better than most American companies, including transportation, subsidized daily meals, medical aid, maternity leave, vacation and a pension plan—even after withdrawing from the West Bank as requested—presumably why the FLA doesn’t really address it as a labor issue. Of course, none of this matters because once Hamas decided to go on a massacre spree dragging Israel into a war that everyone hates being led by a president no one respects who compromised everyone, they’ve lost about 1/3 of their workforce that used to celebrate Hanukkah and Ramadan together.
Notably, the BDS list also targets the Ahava store in the Ein Gedi nature reserve—a place I have personally visited—situated within the confines of the Israel border outlined in the 1949 Armistice Agreement within the Masada National Park on the Western border of the Dead Sea. You can see Jordan from the shore. It has nothing to do with Gaza, which means, no, it’s not in “occupied territory” unless you consider Israel’s entire existence to be occupying land, which many of them do. I’m not exactly sure how boycotting a small Israeli skincare brand one knows about outside Israel unless you’re Israeli or Jewish helps Palestinians, versus, say boycotting the bulk of things most people consume that come from China, a place where over 1 million Uyghur Muslims are being held in open air prisons with forced, unpaid labor.
Directing peoples’ money away from Puma because of their support of Israeli football teams while pretending like the oil giants of Saudi Arabia that are set to host FIFA’s entire 2024 World Cup only one year after Qatar, the place known for some of the largest human rights violations in the world (plus funding the entire Al Jazeera media network), are not much bigger problems is also questionable about a “labor movement.” That said, I have no problem with BDS boycotting Sabra because their hummus is terrible and you’re better off making your own.
There are very few Palestinian members page to support on the Alliance for Middle Eastern Peace website, most likely because members from organizations like the Gaza Youth Committee were held hostage by Hamas for having a Zoom video call widely documented even in the New York Times. Having one-sided approach to Palestinian suffering is much easier than a bipartisan one promoting peace, which is why Israeli far-right extremists are about as guilty of interrupting Jewish-Arab unity events to delegitimize Palestinians as apologist leftists putting their fingers in their ears while saying “Lalalalalala can’t hear you” when Hamas vows to keep massacring and kidnapping Israelis for as long as it takes.
The lack of acknowledgment about this from Palestinian self-determination supporting, anti-settler Jews calling themselves as “anti-Zionists” who fail to see how meaningless the word Zionism is to antisemites that paint us all with the same broad and ugly stroke, coupled with the non-Jewish allies trying to figure out how to best discuss all of this without compromising everyone, are unwittingly strengthening bigots. Downplaying that doesn’t make it go away, if anything it actually makes it worse!
Every time I see a well-meaning bleeding heart bookstore or poetry foundation raise up the BDS flag on social media, I have to wonder exactly what they think they’re doing rather than just promote Palestinian and Israeli authors pushing for peace—especially when they ignored the massacre for a whole month and a half before finally needing to “break their silence.” Cool, day late and dollar short.
You won’t get this kind of critical assessment on TikTok, which is where many people seem to be getting their information from exclusively now that social media has successfully defunded and dismantled balanced reporting in the journalism industry. But you will get harassed incessantly if you use either trigger word for Palestine or Israel, and the places holding onto our last cry for literacy are playing right into it.
I can’t help but laugh at the suggestion from labor writers that all trade labor unions are these faultless humanitarian organizations with good intentions and a unified approach to addressing their own sexism and racism while virtue signaling an anti-war sign for BDS—even as nice and well-intentioned I’m sure some of their members are or how much I agree with them. Because it’s different when you’re dealing with a country being run by fundamental terrorists against an ultraconservative right wing government where concrete words and actions matter.
“Mind your own business” is the M.O. in New York that enables so many diverse people from around the world with different lived experiences and perspectives to try to co-exist in this completely overpriced shithole. “You good?” as a check-in is often all that needs to be understood as a concerned citizen about your neighbors, no matter who they are. I’m going to continue to stand up for people, even if other people won’t—be it seeing antisemitic signs and acts of violence at a pro-Palestinian march, or calling out a pro-Israel rally not only tolerating but inviting a hate mongering Christian Zionist like pastor John Hagee, who once said “God sent Hitler to cause the Holocaust, in order to lead to the creation of Israel and help fulfill biblical prophecy.” Neither of those things signal progress or freedom, and they should both be called out. These are not our allies.
I’m not going to blindly cosign everything pertaining to Israel/Jews as though we are all these hapless people demanding unwavering support for simply existing. I’m also not going to do the opposite: join a movement that does not prioritize peace, mutual understanding, or weeding out antisemites as part of their “no tolerance policy” against Islamophobes, racists, sexists, and bigots that relies on the use of confusing rhetoric shared by fundamentalist religious extremists. When I note this in conversations with very smart people about their double advocacy standards, they just avoid me. So there you have it.
When Osama bin Laden conspiracy theorists and Hitler sympathizers start mainstreaming, I think it’s OK to maybe reach across the table for a minute and find someone you can mostly agree with to get some common goals met. Activist groups used to teach about “calling in with love” rather than “calling out.” I don’t know what they’re teaching about antisemitism these days, but it seems like not very much. I would never go up to another minority and casually start grilling them on human rights infractions in their country of origin or ancestry because it’s pointless, racist, and rude AF, but that’s just me. Sorry I don’t have a direct line to Netanyahu as a lifestyle writer that wrote a travel book because of my DNA and am just taking everyone at their word about what you think I should be saying or doing.
Truthfully, the amount of private DMs I get from other Jews who all say they’re too scared to be visible saying, “Actually this is bullshit” makes sense given the level of harassment we’ve gotten every single day since October 7. Even before the retaliations began, most people did not care, but didn’t expect to see the“believe all survivors” crowd act like that only applies if they’re not in Israel then act like victims when rightfully called out for that.
My version of peace is that there is no room for bigotry or discrimination of any kind in a progressive society that values peace, humanity, safety. equality, diversity, and inclusion. Period. That is the world I’d like to live in. If you want to have a personal spiritual relationship with whatever text of your choosing or not, you can do so as long as it doesn’t infringe on someone else. Unfortunately, that’s obviously not the case. If it was, they’d just be neighboring places with a lot of ancestral trauma but trying to move through it the best way they can rather than dealing with hostage negotiations and carpet bombings.
About a week ago, I went to new wing of the American Museum of Natural History where I saw the four planetarium shows (sadly, I had just missed sharks but elephants are coming next week). I grabbed a spelt chocolate chip cookie from Lost Bread Co. at the farmers market and was a little early, so I sat underneath a giant rotating planet Earth listening to a live narration showing this progression of dried rock of a planet becoming this inhabitable entity where all the water basins went dry.
You would think humanity would be a little more united as we face imminent climate change issues, yet here we are. We should all be fighting for clean water, lush vegetation, a thriving planet where people are nice to each other and act like adults. In many ways, we are fighting for the same things—some people care a little more than others and we’re all dead to each other now.
Most consumers are not ethical, conscious shoppers to begin with and many places in America are quite homogeneous and do not have plentiful choices. So, I want to be clear that when you get a recommendation here, I do my best to ensure that you’re supporting mostly small businesses with sustainable practices that make meaningful contributions to their communities and at-large—something I’ve always integrated in my work. And “BDS compliant businesses” just wouldn’t even be relevant here.
Human rights are fundamental to my understanding of Judaism and tikkun olam, and I still whole-heartedly support equality movements based on what they should stand for, even if some of them posted the most heinous and tone deaf graphics just days after innocent people were slaughtered before retaliation even happened. An apology and acknowledgment goes a long way, even if it took France 50 years to say, “You’re right, the Holocaust was bad.”
Anything can be technically be considered labor if you want to do the mental gymnastics, which is what many people do. If that’s your prerogative as a business to align with BDS, you are absolutely entitled to express that and feel that way. But your position on this matter is irrelevant to me as an informed consumer, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say there are a lot of people who care even less than I do. And I f you’re going to take that stance you better be doing the work to combat the inherent antisemitism attached because if not, what are you even fighting for?
I wish I could assure everyone with some grand answer about making it all stop, but I can’t because we’re talking about generations being impacted with no real strategy for what’s “next” that I have no control over. The best I can do is what I’ve always done: remind you of the good people doing cool things you can be part of, be realistic about the not-so-good stuff, encourage you to show up, and offer hope?
Speaking of, I got a notification about an hour ago from Substack that money from my account was deposited automatically into my bank account thanks to viewers just like you. My bank account is my safe space and my safe word. I love money a lot. It allows me to do things like pay my rent and feed myself, which usually incentivizes me to follow through with commitments such as this newsletter and podcast, which are so, so much work for so much hate mail. So, thank you to the people who pay because otherwise, I probably wouldn’t do it! Ironically, this is the kind of work that used to be a full-time job with benefits and co-workers that made you feel like you were all in it together even though everyone was still making dogshit, and now I’m like, “Please, sir, I want some more. Buy a subscription.” Am I just masochist being a writer or what?
Anyway, if you like this newsletter and podcast, money is just my favorite and I’d like to have more of it at all times. That’s how I know I’ll have made it as a writer: being able to afford Willem Dafoe’s writing shack in the back of his $1.3 million Hudson Valley home that’s currently listed on the market. Any reasonable amount of money preferably earned through my creative labor and a sense of self-satisfaction with a job well done would be just great, but I’m also working five other jobs to ensure that if one of them fucks me over I’ll still have my poly relationship with employment to catch me. Honestly, I feel like that’s the American dream. So, #payme until I finish writing the next great American novel and can write breezy letters from my Hudson Valley writer’s shack where I will seek hermetic solitude from now on.