What is an MFA good for? Really? I mean, seriously.

People sometimes ask me,

Robbo Jobbo,

(they call me “Robbo Jobbo”)

Robbo Jobbo, what is it like, exactly, to be the most misunderstood genius of the millennial generation?

And my answer is always the same.

First, I say, the hardest part is that a lot of the people who ask me this don’t know how to spell “millennial.” They leave out an L or an N.

I tell them to use the maximum number of both L and N when they spell it.

That sometimes results in them spelling it “millenniall.”

But it’s the “misunderstood genius” part that really gets me going. And I want to say up front that in my daily life—when I’m brushing my teeth, bleaching my toothbrush, and using my toothbrush for things it was never intended for—I don’t feel like a genius. I feel like a perfectly understood genius.

Because it’s not like I’m not surrounded by people who are handing me money and whispering in my ear that the money’s only to be used for garage doors. It’s not like there isn’t a bear in the wild that has my name and thinks of my face when it comes out of hibernation every spring. It’s not like that bear isn’t going to eat me, if he can only get his hands on a phone book and a working firearm.

Why is no one willing to admit all the things that I understand? Like that writing used to be so good, but now it is not so good, and it’s everybody else’s fault that I think that?

Why is that bear looking at me that way?

What was it that commencement speaker said, so long ago?