Hi, I’m Josh. I hope you like my cartoons and my writing! Please feel free to contact me any time, at hyman.joshua.s@gmail.com. I’d love to hear your feedback.
PRETTY DETAILED BIO: Josh was born in Chinatown, Manhattan; lived in Brooklyn, New York until he was seven years old, and then his family moved to Port Washington, Long Island, New York, where he grew up. He dabbled in writing as a kid, but constant struggles with anxiety meant that almost every project was unfinished. He did write a lot of fun computer programs as a kid, none of which he has the patience to rewrite today, but which he loves to talk about.
Josh attended Nassau Community College and got involved with the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), where he learned grassroots organizing and served on NYPIRG’s statewide Board of Directors. At age 20, Josh went to SUNY Geneseo for two years, then pretended to do online classes through Herkimer Community College while working at a Verizon Wireless call center. Before withdrawing from Geneseo, he became President of the SUNY Student Assembly, representing 500,000 students to the SUNY Board of Trustees and the state legislature. He used his position to persuade the State of New York to kick in its legal share of Community College funding for the first time in years, and to stop some pretty horrific right-wing proposals from become SUNY policy.
At age 23, Josh had nothing to do but work at Starbucks, so he followed a very nice girl to Washington, DC, where, of course, things didn’t work out. He got a job there with Grassroots Campaigns, Inc., and he moved with the job up to Boston, where he worked on the 2006 Congressional elections for MoveOn.org and started dating another girl. He and the other girl started working for Barack Obama in the summer of 2007 in New Hampshire. Josh got sniped by a blogger from the John Edwards campaign, who made up a quote, ascribed it to Josh and posted it on a website, causing him to be fired from the Obama campaign only one month into his job, an event about which he is unapologetically bitter to this day. He made some money working for other candidates in Northern Louisiana and outside Chicago, where, after a six-month exile, he agreed to work in Washington State for Obama for free; his wonderful Washington State boss agreed to give him a stipend instead.
Thereafter, he and the girl criscrossed the country working on late primary races, and eventually Josh wound up outside Detroit working on the general election in ’08. He returned after the election, and lived in and around the city until October of 2011, by which time he and the other girl had broken up, and he was with Rima, his partner. Josh loves Detroit, and he wants to go back and live there. He worked for a few local candidates and for a better mass-transit system. He also started working for Buffalo Wild Wings, and did a stint in Pennsylvania on the 2010 Congressional elections.
In October 2011, Josh moved to Burlington, started working for Kaplan Test Prep as an SAT instructor, and has kept waiting tables while he commutes every week to Montreal, Quebec to see Rima. He is going back to school soon to get his bachelor’s degree in linguistics. He wants to learn French and to get a job in Montreal, at least as long as Rima’s there for her PhD (Montreal is a frustrating place in many ways, and neither Josh nor Rima want to settle down there). So far, he’s got “Bonjour,” “Excuse moi,” and “Au revoir” down cold. If you can help, please contact him at hyman.joshua.s@gmail.com.
