Tag Archives: Shaun Brennan

This is Going to Hurt

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I took a trip to corporate last week and tracked down The Hippie. I interviewed this guy a couple of months ago and apparently people really took to him. (Here’s the post.) Due to his intense popularity in the mortgage and Woodstock crowd, and due to the fact that the dude is ca-razy, he’ll be a regular from here on out.

This Hurts Me More Than You

An Interview with Envoy Mortgage’s very own Hippie, Shaun Brennan

Just the Assistant: Hey Shaun! Okay, the last time we spoke, you had just landed a gig promoting some tambourine player’s album. Is that still going on? Did you promote the album?

[JTA Note: Yes, Shaun is a mortgage banker (a really good one – seriously). And yes, he has other “side jobs”.]

Hippie Shaun: Yes! That’s going really well.

JTA: Did you ever figure out how to promote his work? What did you do?

Shaun: Well he’s already really popular, so –

JTA (spit flying out of mouth due to intense laughter): Yeah, I listen to him like all the time! (wipes spit off Shaun’s desk)

Shaun (annoyed): He’s popular in the music crowd.

JTA: He probably is. I only listen to NPR, so I wouldn’t know either way.  

Shaun: Well anyway, I have a plan for how to make him go platinum.

JTA: No way! Let’s hear it.  

Shaun: So I’ve got about 150 people who I’d call close friends. I plan to convince each of them to buy 150 copies of this album.

JTA:  Well that makes total sense. I know when I like a band, I’m all the time buying like 150 copies of their album. Same with books. I buy twelve of each book I like.

Shaun: Exactly! Because who wants to listen to the same copy of an album? No, you listen to one copy, and then throw it out and listen to the next one.

JTA: Totally! (Pauses for drama) Let’s hope the tambourine player doesn’t read my blog. Okay Shaun, other than that, how are you?

Shaun: Oh man, I’m good. Going on vacation tomorrow –

JTA: What? Where?

Shaun: Playa De Carmen. It’s The Circle of Excellence Trip.

[JTA Note: The Circle of Excellence is this stupid trip Envoy Mortgage hosts each year for its top mortgage bankers. Envoy Mortgage has, for five years in a row now, denied me access to this trip despite repeated pleas and pitches on my part to attend as the official blogger.]

JTA (squinting): That’s awesome! So awesome that Envoy is letting you go on this trip. This trip that I have tried to attend for five years. Really, it’s so awesome.

Shaun (shifting in chair): Should be fun.

JTA: So listen, when you go on trips like this, do you get trashed and dance on the tables?

Shaun (pausing and looking at a spot on the wall while pondering his reply): I –

JTA: Dude! You paused for way too long. Like, you totally weren’t just saying “no way – not me!”

Shaun (smiling): Let’s put it this way. I like to have fun. And I also really like to dance, but not always on tables. Sometimes on tables though.

JTA: You’re crazy! You know this interview is to make people want to send you business, right?

Shaun (totally not caring if I send him business): It reminds me of this one time –

(Shaun’s phone rings)

JTA: Go ahead.

Shaun: Nah, it’s just a buddy of mine.

JTA:  Oh my gosh then please answer. I’ve got to hear this.

[JTA Note: I’m not kidding, y’all. I wrote down what I heard him say verbatim…]

Shaun: Hey man…You still raising chickens?…You still bringing me some eggs?…Okay we’re doing a slumber party for Black Angels show, right?… I want to hire you pretty soon. I need a couple websites…Could be ten days, could be ten years… I need to know soon and am planning our Galveston trip around that…Alright man…Peace.

JTA: Do you say “peace” when you hang up with clients?

Shaun: Sometimes accidentally.

JTA: Hey, speaking of mixing your hippie friends with clients, I have this great business idea for you. Why don’t  you tell all your hundreds of hippie friends, “Hey! I can get you home loans!” I don’t understand why you don’t mix the two lives.

Marketing

Shaun: Hippies usually have terrible credit. But I actually have done six or seven loans for musicians, and those guys have no idea about finance.

JTA: Ha! They’re all, “Uh, I made twenty bucks last night playing the drums on the street. Does that count?”

Shaun: But I don’t promote this business in that crowd. I have another business I market to that group.

JTA: Oh no. What is it, Shaun?

Shaun: It’s my record label.

JTA: Of course you’d have a record label. Of course.

Shaun (nodding, like it’s a totally normal thing to have a record label): Called Splice of Life Productions.

JTA: Do you like animals?

Shaun: I have a cat. I don’t like the idea of owning animals though. I watched this PETA documentary and I really got what they were saying, about not domesticating animals. Animals should be free. But I already had the cat before watching the documentary.

JTA (laughing hysterically at the joke I’m about to make. Holds hand in the position of holding and shooting a shotgun): Boom!

Shaun (laughing with me and holding his hand like he’s shooting a pistol sideways like they do in gangs): This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you, Fluffy!

JTA (laughing even more hysterically but not having another joke to top this with): Oh man that’s hilarious. Hey listen, I have something to show  you. You’re going to love this. (proudly handing Shaun my phone)

Baking soda

I’m washing my hair with baking soda now! I’m so hippie!

Shaun (studying picture): Oh yeah! You could have gone organic, but whatever…

JTA: You shut your mouth, Shaun Brennan. I’m saving the world here. Okay, listen, man…we have a lot more to talk about, but I’ve got to wrap this up because there is only so much someone will read of a mortgage blog. So you get back to your loans, and we’ll pick this back up later this week.

Shaun: Peace.

Okay readers, please come back on Thursday because Shaun ended up telling me about this horrible hobby he has that you all really need to hear about. Until then, I’m off to cuddle with my non-PETA cat, Harold, and Shaun’s off to shoot out a few home loans (and possibly his cat).

The Hippies

. Interviews . , ,

Envoy Mortgage has its very own real life hippie…

So I told y’all that last week I went to the corporate office to snoop about and sucker the new team into loving me, right? While there, I met this hippie loan officer named Shaun whom I briefly introduced you to.

In order to allow you at least five minutes of shopping left before Christmas, I’m not going to write out the entire interview because Shaun talked for ninety minutes, and at one point he was literally talking about the marine life in Galveston and I was like, “Dude. Just stop. I’m not writing about squids.” But I do want to give you a glimpse of this guy because he’s fascinating.

Free Range Beef and Free Range Thoughts

An interview with Envoy Mortgage Loan Officer/Hippie Shaun Brennan

Just the Assistant: So Shaun, you work for Ty, right? Are you afraid of Ty?

[Background on Ty here.)

Hippie Shaun: No, but the first time I met Ty he was in a fight. We went to rival high schools in Pasadena and at a party one night Ty got in a fight with two guys and won.

JTA: Stop it right there. I don’t believe you one bit. Nobody gets in a fight with two guys at once and wins. That’s just on TV. Or, you’re romanticizing high school, because in my high school, fights lasted like twelve seconds.

Hippie Shaun (nodding): It’s true. He fought two guys and won and one of the guys was named Bubba.

JTA (shaking my head because I still don’t believe him): How did he beat up two guys? Why were they fighting?

Hippie Shaun: He punched one and pushed him, then punched the other guy and ran out of the garage. It was all just because Ty was from another school.

JTA (slaps Shaun’s desk): Were you in high school in the fifties? What were y’all, the Outsiders? Did you get in a fist fight, too?

Hippie Shaun: Yeah. Everybody did! That was just what Pasadena was like. But I’m a more peaceful person now. I like to shop at thrift stores and listen to music and promote musicians.

JTA: What? You’re like a hippy? You’d love my mom. She only shops at Goodwill.

Hippie Shaun: I’m kind of a hippie.

JTA: I bet you didn’t vaccinate your kids, did you?

Hippie Shaun: Well, we did have two all natural home births with the help of a midwife. My wife went entirely without medication and I helped deliver both of my children.

JTA (delighted): What!? That’s awesome! Your kids are going to live to be, like, a hundred I bet. Now, tell me about the music stuff.

[Just the Assistant Note: This is the part where Shaun made me watch his hippie videos.]

Tambourine Man

Hippie Shaun: So I’m in charge of distribution for this guy.

JTA: Like you have to make sure his CDs are sold? How are you going to do that?

Hippie Shaun: I don’t know yet!

JTA: You’re in trouble! You better start asking your borrowers to buy this guy’s CD!

Hippie Shaun (laughing possibly at my joke or possibly from the vibrations from the earth that only he can feel): I get along with a lot of different people. I once did a loan for a district attorney, and later I was at a concert with a friend who was, a, um, he had some run-ins with the law –

JTA: Hey, it’s cool Shaun. I come from a family of criminals myself.

Hippie Shaun: Okay good. Well my friend and I bumped into the DA at the concert, and it turns out the DA had convicted my friend a few years earlier. I like having my feet on both sides of the railroad track.

[JTA Note: Though Shaun has friends in the pen, he’s a total love-peace-earth guy himself and refrains from illegal activity.]

Shaun Day and Night

JTA: So do you like to travel?

Hippie Shaun: Yeah, I do. I go to Big Sur every year. But, actually, don’t write about that.

JTA: I can’t write that you go to Big Sur?

Hippie Shaun: I don’t want everybody to know about Big Sur.

JTA (choking on my water): DUDE, how many readers do you think I have? Like, this mass of people is going to start flocking to Big Sur because I mentioned it in my mortgage blog? Ha! Oh that’s good stuff, man. Oh, and I know I’m suppose to know this, but what is Big Sur?

Hippie Shaun (not entirely appreciating my mocking): It’s this 150 mile long land mass. I go and camp, hike, hang out. People go to get lost and found.

JTA: Okay well from now on how about you not talk about stuff you don’t want me to write about because it makes my job kind of tricky.

Hippie Shaun: Okay, well I also want to be a standup comedian for a year. It’s on my bucket list.

JTA: You want to be a standup comedian?

Hippie Shaun: Yep. I used to have loads of material, but it was in a backpack and the backpack was stolen on the beach (along with my wedding ring). And now there’s this other comedian who uses jokes just like I wrote and I think he stole my backpack.

JTA: I’m sure he did, Shaun. People are all the time stealing ideas from the hippies. Now, I’m going to go, and you get back to talking about mortgages/toiling in your organic soil/loving the earth, okay?

Okay y’all, stay tuned for more on Shaun because I am totally not finished with this guy. I may stop writing about anyone else at all and just focus on him and Galveston marine life and music that involves lots of tambourines. Well, maybe not the marine life, but definitely the tambourines.

Happy Wednesday, readers!