Gabriel Thompson's Blog

For anyone looking for my homepage, I’ve moved it to gabrielthompson.org. Come over and check it out… 

The Huffington Post just published an article I wrote with Kimberly Freeman Brown, who is the executive director of American Rights at Work, a great labor policy and advocacy organization. It explores TV’s #1 new show (ever noticed how every new show is somehow “TV’s #1 new show”?), Undercover Boss. When I first heard about the show, I was slightly intrigued but mostly skeptical. The premise of the show is that the head of a large corporation becomes an “average” worker, if that average worker was constantly followed by a television crew.

The show is painfully bad, but also politically bad, which is what our piece, “Undercover Boss as Undercover Advertising,” explores. If you read it and like it, perhaps leave a little note. Otherwise HuffPo has a way of completely burying a piece beneath important blogs about naked celebrities.

Huffington Post:

“Undercover Boss as Undercover Advertising”

The Huffington Post just published an article I wrote with Kimberly Freeman Brown, who is the executive director of American Rights at Work, a great labor policy and advocacy organization. It explores TV's #1 new show (ever noticed how every new show is somehow "TV's #1 new show"?), Undercover Boss. When I first heard about the show, I was slightly intrigued but mostly skeptical. The premise of the show is that the head of a large corporation becomes an "average" worker, if that average...

Arizona is one of the most complicated states I've ever visited. In the fall of 2007 I was living with my wife in Tucson. For Thanksgiving we left Tucson and eighty degree weather for some time at the Grand Canyon. That night we slept in a tent on the rim of the Canyon for as long as we could stand it, braving sub-freezing temperatures in sweatpants and long sleeve shirts. Well before sunrise we finally retreated to the car, where in a very environmentally unsound fashion we idled the engine ...

A few weeks back, I did an interview for Asylum, which is AOL's men's lifestyle page and whose motto is "For All Mankind." If you're of the opposite sex and hoping for more information about what matters to men, according to Asylum it primarily consists of "humor, weird news, sex tips, fashion, dating, food and gadgets."

During a lunchtime break at work I biked over the Manhattan bridge to arrive at a Brooklyn bar to be interviewed, then headed back over the bridge, only slightly tipsy this t...

more about "Gabriel Thompson Works the Worst Jobs…", posted with vodpod

Last night was likely one of my final books events for awhile, held in Washington, D.C. at Busboys and Poets. Within a few weeks I'll be a father, which means…well, I still don't have too much of an idea of what that means. Based on conversations I've had with other new parents, it seems likely that this little boy might be making some demands on us. So I've stopped scheduling book events, in the unlikely event that a new baby could in some way infringe on my typical schedule of doing...

Last Sunday was the March for America, and I wrote up a piece that is in this week's Nation magazine. You can read it here: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100412/thompson

The NY Times also ran a great editorial, contrasting the March for America with the tea-party folks. It's at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/opinion/23tue4.html?ref=opinion

I'll be back in Washington, D.C. this weekend, speaking at Busboys & Poets (at their 5th Street Address, info below). The event is being co-sponsored...

Tens of thousands of immigrants and their allies (and maybe more) are heading to Washington, D.C. to march for comprehensive immigration reform this Sunday. When I was in San Jose for my book tour, I happened to join a prayer vigil for reform–expecting perhaps 50-100 people. Instead, the group that organized the action, People Acting in Community Together, turned out nearly 700 folks. It was amazing, and got me thinking about how there might be tons of really effective organizing–and really motivated leaders–that are just below the media’s radar.

I wrote a piece about the San Jose event, and the lead up to the march this Sunday, for The Nation. The article, “Immigrants to Obama: It’s Time,” is at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100405/thompson.

Also, I’m happy to report that a Spanish press has expressed interest in publishing Working in the Shadows. This is absolutely wonderful; one of my disappointments with There’s No Jose Here is that it never got translated, so many of the people I wrote about couldn’t actually read it. It’s still early and nothing has been finalized, but I’m excited about the prospect of sending dozens of Spanish copies to all the people I met during the year.

Okay, that’s it for now. Hope everyone is well, and maybe I’ll bump into a few of you in D.C. on Sunday…

Tens of thousands of immigrants and their allies (and maybe more) are heading to Washington, D.C. to march for comprehensive immigration reform this Sunday. When I was in San Jose for my book tour, I happened to join a prayer vigil for reform–expecting perhaps 50-100 people. Instead, the group that organized the action, People Acting in Community Together, turned out nearly 700 folks. It was amazing, and got me thinking about how there might be tons of really effective organizing–and really m...