It's all about the Overhead

Living on planes. Working on planes. I mean literally.
When you have attendants who not only recognize you but call you by name, well, I don't even know what to say about that, except I personally don't ask theirs...I don't need anymore friends, or acquaintances or people who are supposed to help me with air safety knowing my personal shit.
I'm also not a plane talker. I have my trash magazines (I don't get Life and Style or Star that's too trashy) but if it's a new Entertainment Weekly i'm in hot topic heaven. And O.K. i'll pick up the new O.K. but only because...fuck it...can't think of a good excuse.
Anyway, if I don't have work to catch up on it's all about the celebrity and entertainment magazines, so when Joe Big Butt with his white athletic socks, pulled allll the way up to his knee's and his orthopedic gym shoes and medium size 'Maui Wowee Tee Shirt' on his xxxxl size frame, asks to get by (i'm always, I mean ALWAYS, on the aisle) and then falls into his seat from a standing position and says, 'Howzitgoin'?" I'm hard pressed to come up with a decent answer.
I want to say, well, actually I don't want to say anything. I want to ignore him. But then I'm the ass-hole and if I've learned nothing else from my passive aggressive Southern friends I've learned that it doesn't hurt to respond, just be careful how you respond.
So I sigh, a little more loudly then I need to, make sure I'm making an exaggerated point of saving my place so I can safely get back to whether or not Mel Gibson's mistress is pregnant, look at Joe B.B. and say, 'Good.'
Now the old copywriter in me always inwardly laughs when I hear or say 'good'..you see good has no definition, it really doesn't mean anything...there's no qualifier in 'good'. There's no nothing in good. It's safe. It's non-committal and more importantly, it is not followed with another question from myself, like, 'you?', 'howyoudoin?', or 'sup?'
Nope, not a plane talker. Don't want to know you. Don't want to get to know you. Don't care if you know me.
Now I'm sure Ive missed many an opportunity to network, to make new business connections, or even to have the occasional affair, but I'm willing to risk it to be able to read all about Christian Bale and his on-set blow up in peace and to it's conclusion.
I'm usually (always) in First Class (2 million miles and growing) and thankfully most of my other seatmates are pretty much of the same mind, so the situation I describe above usually only happens when some once a year traveler bought a first class ticket outright (imagine) and he or she is not used to the real first class etiquette. No elitism, no snobbery...really!
First of all, it's all about the overhead space, because no one in first class checks luggage. So when Joe B.B. comes along, of course he's got what should have been checked luggage with him. I came with a one-suiter and my office in a bag, he comes with a steamer trunk. And because my one-suiter is flat and not taking up much vertical space, Joe B.B. feels absolutely no guilt at all about putting his huge suitcase on top of my one-suiter.
Now of course, this disrupts my reading because I see him coming and I know exactly what he's going to do. So, as he begins to hoist his Macy's special, 'one day only' sale luggage on top of mine, I jump up and yell, 'Wait!"
This usually will cause Joe B.B. to throw his back out because he was mid-hoist with a 40 pound bag.
"Let me take my ONE-SUITER out so you can put your trunk in and then I'll put my ONE-SUITER on top of your bag. I don't think the weight of my ONE-SUITER will hurt anything in your bag."
"Oh, o.k." My god do certain people not have a logic gene or what. Or they just don't quite think things through. It's like those dog-walkers who let their dogs come up on your lawn and poo and pee. Do they think our lawns are any different then theirs, impervious to ammonia and whatever other acids run through a dog's system? But that's another story
So my suits free now from wrinkles, I've settled back into my story on Jen Aniston and sure as shit, here comes Mr. 13F, loaded down and heading aft when he sights another vertical space in first class overhead and figures, 'hell, there won't be any room back there where the immigrants are...i'll put my bag here in first class on top of this ONE SUITER'.
Of course, the attendant who knows my name, says nothing. The other first class passenger didn't notice his one-suiter is being smashed in 1 million little wrinkles and I'm steaming...it just seems so unfair.
So, I poke the guy next to me. He gives a very dramatic sigh and exaggerates saving his place in him magazine and looks at me.
'Hey, guy back in Coach just put his suitcase on top of your one-suiter'.
'Yeah? Fuck that.' And he pushes the call button.
Hey, I think i just made a new friend in first class.

Just a thought...

Bad economy. Bad environment. Bad juju all around.
Target has gotten rid of the 'upscale discounter' moniker for a long time now. I'm thinking maybe it's time they jump on the survival train...in fact become the engine of that train.
Target already has most of everything anyone can need to survive these less then optimal times..except maybe a location to stretch out, do a little yoga or work up a sweat with some pilates.
There was a Time article month or so ago about 'survival' stores. It occurred to me that Target is the quintessential survival store. Target's still riding on their 'cool' factor. Why not update that cool with an adjunct survivor store brand. Make it hip to save money. Make it cool to take better care of yourself. Make it more then o.k. to look out for someone else beside yourself and become a working member of the community. Survival will always be in season.
It just makes what Target has said all along that much more pertinent. Expect more. Pay less. Just tweak that with 'expect more of yourself to take care of yourself and others'..let's face it, when we come out of this crisis if we go back to getting the big cars, the McMansions, the second and third homes, the designer duds and drugs then all we've gone through, all we've lost will have been for naught. We need to level the playing field.
Target has always been the great leveler. They're the common denominator no matter which side of the economic fence you're on.
Product: bikes, consumables with a provenance to major market areas, solar products, sewing (o.k. arts and crafts), rainwater barrels (fuck they already tried wind power), power generators, canning supplies, recyclable clothing (hemp anyone?), compost supplies...
Or experiences that help you cope: educational and financial advice, yoga seminars, entertainment on a dime. They're already branching into this area with the most recent ad campaigns on 'More' and on the new t.v. commercials around achieving more for less or at least redefining a major, big lifestyle event into a less expensive, more doable one.
Simon Graj, CEO of Graj+Gutuvsen is already developing the concept.
French based Carrefour is building 'hypermarkets' (supertargets?) where customers buy food and get their computers fixed.
I know it's not all that simple to simply 'tweak' a brand. If fact, you probably shouldn't. The brand is the brand. It just strikes me that Target is a store that is already there...so think of it as readdressing the ball.
So when the economy soars again, and we're all sucked into predatory lending and have taken the Madovs of the world up the ass one more time, let Target be that consistent, steady eddie, who helped us Survive by setting the example that you don't have to spend a lot to live a lot.

An ever-changing list of Blathering One-liners

1. The Brand needs to be bigger than its owner.

2. Hot, buttered toast is everything.

3. Regard others concerns as much as your own. No need for hierarchy.

4. To hell with regret. Own it! Move on.

5. If you're going to smoke, smoke Bensen and Hedges. The red box. Not the green.

6. Leave well enough alone, never.

7. Always poke the bear, just don't break the skin.

8. Re-read Ayn Rand's, 'Atlas Shrugged', which will totally negate #3.

Minors Possessed

I've only been arrested once. For minor's in possession. April 4th, 1968, the night of the day Martin Luther King was killed.
We were young (not yet 21 obviously), pissed off, and like any righteous punk 20 year old, we decided to retaliate by getting drunk. A case of PBR's and a bottle of Sloe Gin (oh my god, i do not throw up, ever! One of the three times I did power barf was after drinking a pint of sloe gin, straight...I've haven't been able to suck on a Luden's cherry cough drop ever since then).
F Lot is a very distant parking lot on the Michigan State Campus. Linda Campbell, who tried to steal Jan's then boyfriend, Glen Champaigne..and his name isn't important, I just think it's a cool name, for a very uncool dude...had a car, parked in F Lot.
So the six of us: me, Jan, Cindy, Brian (the fly), Linda and Bob trudged across the back acreage behind Wilson and Wonders dorms, across the railroad tracks (which is where I upchucked the Sloe Gin a few weeks earlier) carrying our case of beer, our sloe gin, our cigarettes and mighty heavy hearts at the news of the day.
Six of us in a car, three in front, three in back, case of beer under the feet of the back seat folk.
Pop a lid, down the beer, throw the can out the window (very windy night, just before littering became a crime, but what the hell, Martin Luther King was dead, talk about crime)and before long there was this boat of a car with about a dozen cans of empties blowing on the asphalt, back and forth, back and forth, it almost sounded like a fucking wind chime.
Then I noticed a car pull in front of our car. Very strange place to park? Did I mention we were now drunk? How did they expect us to get out?
No problem when we want to leave we'll just back out...except there was a car behind us too. What the fuck?! That's when the red and blues started going.
Then we realized that they were campus police and they were blocking us in on purpose (did I mention we were drunk)?
Suddenly everyone in the car seemed very concerned about hiding the beer that hadn't been drunk and as for those that were open, well we just dumped them on the floor boards and started putting them under the seats.
DID I MENTION ABOUT THE EMPTIES BLOWING IN THE WIND OUTSIDE THE CAR, AND THAT WE WERE DRUNK?
Nothing much made sense after that. It was Linda's car and she kept saying 'but I'm 21 tomorrow. My birthday's tomorrow.' And the cop (and i use the term loosely, half of these guys were Campus fucking police, some of them were probably in some our classes...they were like Play School police) said back to her, 'well, then lucky for you we caught you tonight or we'd also bust you for aiding and abetting.' Aiding and abetting beer? Wow, cool man.
And then I remember thinking I'd pull the MLK card. "Hey man, we were just bummed because of Martin Luther King. Can't you understand. It's just such a bummer."
Which was the wrong thing to say, because that's exactly why the campus and city police were patrolling the lots and streets, to squelch any uprisings or revolutions or black power movements (not a black face among us), and what these little play police didn't understand is that in a short six months or so we would be facing them, on the streets and in marches and with tear gas and flower power as weapons, but for now it was all about the beer.
Silly.
Packed into the two police cars. Jan and Cindy and I got to ride in the one with lights. The whole thing was strangely calming, surreal. Maybe it was because Martin had just been gunned down, and this was so insignificant in comparison. Maybe because we had enough of a buzz on, we were somewhat numb to the consequences.
And oh yes, there were going to be consequences dammit! Fingerprinted. That was odd. And then each of us sitting with our own play police being interviewed. What were we doing out so late? What did we have in mind after we were finished with the beer we had? Who bought the beer for us? Did we have any alias's? Hmmm, let's see. None of us are alcoholics and we tend to drink later in the day. Buying some more beer. A guy standing outside the liquor store. Pollack. Fly. Rembo...and then I think we stopped because we were cracking up and the play police were getting mad because we were not taking their play uniforms and play questions seriously.
"o.k. kids, you can go. We'll send you your court date in a week."
Kids? This from a guy who was more then likely carrying his own fake i.d.
Yep, my first brush with the law, unless you count in high school when a group of us got caught trespassing on the grounds of Maybury Sanitarium, but that's another story.
No, this was our first real brush with being arrested and all.
What followed was my being Vice President of the Student Mobilization Committee. Organizing anti-war protests and marches on city capitals, not the least of which the Moratorium to End the War in Viet-nam. Getting gassed. Having a car drive into the middle of a march on the capitol of East Lansing, right in front of us, and take out a mom and her kid in a stroller. Many protests and many pictures later and finding out that I was one of the lucky ones to hit Nixon's FBI and CIA watch list. They had my name, my rank and picture.
But getting arrested. Only once. For drinking beer before I was 21. Go figure.

Obama, Acid, Camaro's and D.C.

Jan and I got to see the Obama inauguration. Not at home. Not in a bar. Not in person. But in departure gate 4a at JFK.
Just making the assumption that we would be arriving late into JFK on January 20, 2009, we thought we could still make it to the apartment by noon.
Northwest didn't disappoint. We arrived at the JFK gate at precisely 11:24. Way too late to make it to our t.v. in Brooklyn Heights.
So, we got off the plane, hiked down to a deserted (or so we thought) departure gate and joined five of our brothers and sisters to watch some tee-vee.
Three of those we joined were TSA security (boy, put them behind an x-ray machine and they're total dick's, put em in front of a monitor hung from the ceiling, watching our new president get sworn in...priceless) and the other two were custodians. Three men. Two women.
As the inauguration began to unfold we all bonded like, well, like brothers and sisters. Don't think that anyone deferred to us because we were the only white folk around. Uh..uh. Two of the gentlemen, sat...on their backs...showed us most of their underwear, and text messaged through most of the inauguration.
And don't think we felt at odds or ill at ease because...well...because we were the only white folk around. Nope. We sat on our asses, howled when Miss Thing praised Jesus, and got misty eyed when the other sister stood up with hands upraised as Chief Justice, John Roberts , screwed up the oath of office. Didn't matter. Still counted. In fact, it counted way before Obama actually mis-spoke those words.
The seven of us, for the next hour and a half, became that little community that Obama talked so much about. We were a microcosm of the 2 million person crowd that came to be part of something the likes of which we may not experience again in our lifetime. As a family, as a community, we all hooted and groaned and then laughed out loud as the little, evil weasel, Cheney, tried to channel FDR as he was pushed out in his wheelchair. For the God's sake! If truly there is a God, couldn't he have missed the ramp and pulled a header down the stairs.
We all marveled at those girls. And the life that was ahead of them. And we all gasped in unison as the camera's showed what Obama was seeing as he looked out over the masses.
So many people. They said 2 million.
And then I remembered a time back in 1969 when I was part of a crowd like that. We said a million. Nixon's cronies said maybe 250,000. We said screw you, it was a million or more you sleazy little bowl of fuck.
And then I realized there were so many parallels, as well as dichotomies between these two crowds.
January 20th and that crowd? They were a sea of hope and expectations.
November 15, 1969 we were a sea of frustration and protest. A stoned and angry band of brothers and sisters. But the love. Oh my God, the love.
It all began with a beaten up Camaro that Captain had. I don't know if he owned it, stole it, or borrowed it. Back in the day, it didn't really matter. We had a car and we were going to Washington, D.C. to protest the war in Vienam.
The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam. November 13th, 1969 we clambered into the Camaro, probably early sixties vintage: me, Jan, Cindy, Ace and Captain. Really, Jan, Cindy and myself were the only ones who escaped the 60's without an alias (unless you count the time we were arrested for minors in possession and the intake sarge asked Jan if she was known by any other names and she said Pollack).
There was Captain. And Ace. Spiney. Electric Lynne. Crazy Patty. Frog. The Fly. Downer. Jean Wean the Beauty Queen, (I'll have to tell you sometime about Jean and I hitching down to Florida and almost being abducted and killed outside a small town in Georgia), the list went on and on.
But this trip it was just Jan, Cindy, Captain, Ace and myself. No money except for a tank of gas to get there (leaving from East Lansing) and a tank of gas to get back. We were going to drive straight through. We had bologna and mustard sandwiches. Ripple. Chips. And drugs. And we knew we always had the kindness of other Hippies.
I think Captain started driving and, of course, he immediately dropped acid. Hey, he wasn't called Captain America for nothing.
Ace did too, just to keep him company. Cindy, Jan and me...I'm pretty sure we were more level headed and just got stoned. Somewhere in Pennsylvania we had to take over the driving. I don't remember much except Captain was crying and Ace left the car for awhile at a rest stop and joined another group that was, of course, also going to d.c. We got stuck in a traffic jam, in the interstate, and found Ace again. It was like a parking lot. But it was also a community.
You see, the cool part was the closer you got to D.C. the more crowded the highway became. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE was heading in the same direction. And as we would stop in the middle of the highway because there was nowhere else to go, we'd share food and pot and booze and stories. We were all there for the same reason.
Just like the inauguration. Those two million were there for the same reason.
I think that only happens a couple a times in as many generations. That common reasoning. That ultimate goal of making a difference.
The only difference between November 15th and January 20th, forty years later, was that, this last January, the difference had already been made. We had made that difference. Us, the majority. We didn't steal an election, like in 2000 or Swiftboat another one four years after that.
And as Jan and I sat in Departure Gate 4A, I thought back to forty years before when we had been together, except that time, it was to try and make a difference. The real change was yet to come.
Oh sure, we got pretty apathetic, not to much longer after that. Drugs took over a lot of the revolution, and when Rednecks from the South started growing their hair long then we pretty much knew the revolution was over.
Point being, Nixon was gone then. And Bush is gone now.
As we pulled into Washington d.c. on the night of November 14th, I'll never forget our eyes burning, and us all looking at each other and realizing we were being tear gassed. Cool. Well, let's say that the police/cops/pigs had driven a huge contingency of a mob right into the path of our car.
And I'll never forget sitting in Departure Gate 4a and watch a woman in her custodial uniform reaching for the ceiling and praising Jesus for bring us this man with the funny name.
I won't forget Jan and I ducking into a hotel to try and escape the tear gas, she and I slipping into the woman's room, in a stall and huddling there until the mob had passed us by.
And I won't forget being able to experience that same rush, of that same crowd frenzy (albeit through a t.v. screen) with the very same same woman. We've come a long way Pollack.
And so much further to go.

SCREAM

Children die. It's not fair. And it's not right. And they're not mine.
How awful is it to try and find some solice in the fact that your own children escaped dire diseases while they were children?
Someones kids have to get sick.
And not until you have friends who face that reality, or through the work you do when you get to know kids who don't make it, do you truly realize the toss of the ethereal dice that determines who gets lucky that particular day, that particular life.
And there is no way to really relate because when you find out someone lost a child or has had to endure the fight of their lives to stay alive, what eventually comes to mind is the bullet you dodged by not having had to face that issue with your own kids.
But you never stop worrying. You never relax. Maybe because you have come (that close) you continuously dread that phone call or knock on the door as your own kids get older.
Each day is a blessing without that kind of news.
And bless those who haven't been so fortunate.
I can't relate, not really. I can't put myself in what you're feeling or what you're going through. I can pretend to. I can try. But ultimately I'm too busy trying to keep that specter from my own door.
What I can do is tell you that in the absence of it being my own flesh and blood, I weep and pray and scream at the higher powers that it has to be yours.
We lost a little boy and a little girl in the last week. Not to God. I'm sure they're both cradled deeply in the recesses of her arms. No, we lost them to this life.
They're no longer here.
And after all, here is what we know for sure.
All together now:
SCREAM!

Red Carpet 101

I thought today, tonight really, being the evening of the Golden Globes, 09', it might be time to put down a few thoughts on the Red Carpet.
I've owned the Red Carpet in some cases, and other times, its owned me. But either way there is a mystique, an aura around the Red Carpet...until you've walked down or worked one, then, like anything else that becomes ordinary and pedestrian, it becomes merely work. But, not to be cynical or 'all that' about it, and with the hope that everyone gets to, at least once in their lifetimes, walk a red carpet, there are a few tricks that you should be aware of.
There are all kinds of Red Carpets, and in some cases, depending on the branding, blue carpets, green carpets and Bullseye carpets. The really big ones, Golden Globes, Independent Spirit Awards, Emmy's, and the Academy Awards. Then the smaller ones, the Night before the Academy Awards, Tribeca Film Festival, Rent's 10Year Anniversary, Tony Bennett's 80th Birthday, some designer opening in some small boutique in New York...the list goes on and on.
Big or small there is just one objective for the red carpet, get the celebrity's name and picture in front of as many people as possible. Then there's the trickle down effect: hawk a sponsorship endorsement and get the company's name in front of as many people as possible, where success is measured in media impressions and the person in charge (me) is officially a media whore.
The biggest Red Carpet I've done from just about any angle is the Golden Globes. The first time, a colleague and I were invited by one of the television studio's. The Golden Globes are always done at the Beverly Hills Hotel, an old dinosaur of a hotel owned for many years by Merv 'What Do You Mean I'm Gay' Griffin. Cars drop celebs and guests off at a back driveway really, where you go through security and metal detectors (the Red Carpet really starts there), where you then follow your own red brick road, turn a corner, and you are suddenly in the middle of chaos personified.
This can be a good thing. You can get easily lost in chaos and if you turn invisible you can spend a good amount of time shadowing the likes of Nicole Kidman or velcroing yourself to George Clooney, or stepping on the train of Halle Berry's dress.
But the first time you turn that corner, it hits you, all those times you sat in your living room, watching t.v. and seeing smaller patches of what you're now witnessing in grand panoramic vision, through the lense of this camera or that, but here it is live, wide-screen and about as high definition as you can get. My God the make-up. The horror. The horror.
To the left are the press, hundreds of press, both broadcast and print, with little signs that tell the stars and their publicists who's shouting at them; T.V. Guide, People, Entertainment Weekly, E, Access Hollywood, some podunk Westfield shopping guide, it seems like they're all there. Oh yeah, including the Hollywood Foreign Press. Keep in mind, the Golden Globes are put on by the Hollywood Foreign Press. The stars win their awards through the voting of the Hollywood Foreign Press. Korea, China, BBC, Outer and Inner Mongolia, they're all there.
To the right are occasional pods of cameras with steps leading up to the likes of Billy Bush, Ryan Seacrest, Joan Rivers (can I take a moment to tell you how conflicted I am about Joan Rivers? In person, she's a fright, as big as a garden gnome, so pulled and stitched that there is nothing real about her in the flesh, there is no flesh anymore, just collagened flubber for a face. YET! She's hysterical. Have you seen you stand up? Outrageous. She makes jokes about everything from her husband's suicide to 9/11. Just proves my point, everyone has their story, their 'acts'. It's just whenever I've seen her in person I have to stop myself from poking her to see if she's alive or just stuffed..o.k. back to entertainment t.v.), or Mary Hart...these are the major t.v. entertainment shows and they are up on the pecking order and they're the ones you see when you are watching television where some dip shit or other is asking 'who are you wearing', 'who are you fucking' or 'who are you?'.
And a large section to the right is the peanut gallery...the fans! All the little people, screaming the stars names, and reaching out their hands to be touched like some small Biafran child you see in those UN ads, reaching out for some food. They share the same facial expressions, a desperate need to fill something. I get the kid in Biafra, not so much the lady with her pink hair, fake nails and autograph book.
The other thing that hits you, the noise. Everyone is screaming someone's name. The press are screaming: Halle! George! Mel! Nicole! Tom! Brad! Jennifer! Doris (yes, even Doris Roberts gets her name yelled, bless her heart). And the publicists are crazed, angry, petulant people who drag these celebs from one camera to another and then up the stairs to the special press so they can publicize their designer or their nominated movie or t.v. role.
So the first time I turned that corner, I was scared shitless. Keep in mind, the Golden Globe's Red Carpet is about a football field length, one very long stretch that goes in front of the peanut gallery, a sharp left turn that goes about half as far again, and then a right turn, about the same distance, that ends up in the hotel lobby. I believe I got to that first left turn in about two minutes. Luckily, I had a great coach in the network executive, who grabbed me, and dragged me back to the beginning of the carpet. "You don't know if you'll ever be back for something like this.." (Did he know something I didn't?) " Just hang back, take your time, and make it last as long as you can."
I ended up at the Golden Globes five or six times, and ended up being that same coach for friends and co-workers who joined me in future years. Once I actually worked the GG's Red Carpet the year Target sponsored an after party, so that year doesn't count. I had to be on the carpet for the entire time, but I have to say I probably hold the record for lasting the Red Carpet the longest; one year an entire hour.
Keep in mind, you have security trying to push you along (that's when you become visible...'damn! I made eye contact') but we would just amble back towards the beginning and start over with a different group of stars. We became friends with publicists, even celebs who we had worked with in the past knew us, and we'd hang with them for awhile.
The trick though is to act like you belong there, hang in the background, hang behind very hot stars of the moment (they'll be in the most pictures and if you're behind them, so will you) and hang where the print media is shooting, not the broadcast media. Broadcast media you might end up in a shot for a fleeting moment and then once it's aired, you're done. Print publishes those photo's over and over again. So you if you end up in the background shot of Katherine Heigel in People magazine, that will play for a year and not always in People. Print is the money shot.
Just like Joan Rivers, I'm conflicted about the Red Carpet. The ones that I owned, felt more in control of, ended up being the best. I was the one being interviewed, I was the one getting out the sound bites and important (?) messages of the day.
The bigger Red Carpets, as an observer, as an outsider, not so much. That just ended up being boring and embarrassing.
I've said it before, as trite as it is, celebrities are people too. Except for the few filled with their own hubris and self-love, most don't want to be there either. It's a necessary evil. And when the time came to accept or send regrets to some award show or other, and I sent regrets with no regrets, I knew my Red Carpet days were pretty much over.
But everyone should walk the carpet at least once. And for God's sakes, if and when you do, and you see Joan Rivers...please poke her for me and see if she bitch-slaps you or if she just topples over and shatters into a million little pieces of silicone and plastic.
Over and out. The media whore.