Celebrity Wet Dream

I know a lot of people have their opinion on celebrity and what it means. How important is it?
God, i wish I could be them.
No, actually you probably don't.
I was brought up on the movies. Barbara Stanwyck, Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Cyd Charisse, Joan Fontaine, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Mickey Rooney, John Wayne, Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn...and then as I got older a new cadre of celebs filled my life, Jane Fonda, Sally Field, Robert Redford, Julie Andrews (who, to my amazement and grand joy, become a quasi bud later on in my life), Elizabeth Taylor, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh (Psycho, the best), Lee Remick, Warren Beatty, Shirley MacClain, Natalie Wood...
The Oscar telecast was a ritual. Homemade french fries, grease drained on ripped-open paper bags, lots of salt, and lots of star gazing. My mother had been a National Enquirer, Photoplay, and Star reader from the very beginning so I got the real scoop on all the Hollywood movie stars as they paraded up to get their award or tried to hide their disappointment as the camera caught them not getting their award.
"Elizabeth Taylor is such a whore."
"Rock Hudson is a he-she you know."
"They say Barbara Stanwyck sleeps with both men and women." Did that make her a she/he/she?
Always observing that celebrity. Always envious of it in a way. Wishing for it. Who knew that I would enjoy my own form of celebrity back in the 80's and then more recently, when at Target.
I don't know how many remember a little magazine show called PM Magazine..it started right at the time as Entertainment Tonight. PM was more a regional show, each major market had its own PM Magazine and ET was National. As you can see, by the one that survived, which was the better strategy.
Nonetheless, from 1980 to 1984, I was part of a two man team called The Movie Goers, and we would review movies once a week. One movie, once a week. Because both my partner and I were deeply embedded in improvisational theater at the time, we would also produce a themed segment around the movie...a little, four minute sketch.
During the course of the show we were exposed to celebrity in a couple of different ways, our own and being in the company of others.
We had done the show for a few months, when I began noticing changed behavior in those around me. Maggie was a baby then, and we'd be out eating or shopping, whatever, and I would notice people staring, and whispering, and yes, pointing. Jan and I would ask each other, 'Do you think they recognize me from t.v.?" After about six months on the show, past the point when I wasn't asking any longer if they recognized me, people got a bit bolder. Total strangers. "Aren't you a movie goer?" Yes, I am." "You guys are great." "Hey , thanks." "Is this your little girl, hey honey, look it that..a little mini-movie goer. Isn't she adorable? Can I hold her?"
No fucking way. Of course, I didn't say that, but we would find ourselves more then once, whisking Maggie away before some rheumy stranger could grab her up, just because he or she felt they had the right to because they thought they knew me because they had seen me on t.v.
This gave me a pretty good base for appropriate behavior for when I found myself on the other side of the fence and dealing with real celebrity in my role at Target or when interviewing various stars for the movies we critiqued on PM.
After a couple years on PM, these perfect strangers practically became family. They were entitled to know everything about you, they were perfectly rational about what their perceptions were of you, and felt no compunction in interrupting a dinner, rolling down a car window ("HEY! HEY MOVIE-GOER? YEAH, ME! ROLL DOWN YOUR WINDOW! YEAH, HEY ARE YOU ONE OF THE MOVIE-GOERS?"), or swooping down on one of your kids like a long-lost Aunt or Uncle with, "She's adorable. Wonder if she'll take after her movie-goer daddy? Do you have any more. How often do you and your wife have sex?"
Not really, but I know it was the next question.
Keep in mind, a regional show, couple hundred thousand viewers, big fish in a very small pond. At the time, I couldn't imagine if that were reversed.
Once in awhile a movie review would take us to New York or L.A. for a press junket, where we got to experience the other side of the coin.
The first movie we pressed for was a little Tom Hanks ditty called Splash. Brian Grazier produced, Little Opie directed (Ron Howard). They would string each of the reporters into a hotel suite, each being occupied by one of the stars. In the case of Tom Hanks he was with Ron Howard (he was just coming off of Bosom Buddies and was a newbie) Daryl Hannah was with Brian Grazier (I think she might have been fucking him...just my opinion), and John Candy was, well, with himself. As we went into Hanks room you could see the deer in the headlights look and the deepest need to be liked (you like me, you really, really like me), and I resolved right then to not make myself too familiar, or to pretend like we were long lost buddies or that his first born should be mine.
It actually was a very civil conversation, short but civil. I talked more about Bosom Buddies, which Jan and I loved, which I shared with him. He seemed to relax, especially when I brought up the fact that he's now becoming 'known' and how had that affected his personal life, blah, blah, blah. He was very honest, forthright, and human. Ron Howard, the same. He said very little, but here are these two guys, just prior to developing a personal world-wide platform of recognition and status, and they just wanted to let us little nobodies know how scary it was.
John Candy was hysterical. Off the grid funny and couldn't have given a shit about us.
Moving on to Target, again, both sides of the coin, one side, me in front of the camera, spewing out key messages to Matt, Katie, Mayor Bloomberg, the New York Times or Wall Street Journal, or sidling up with Pink and Sela Ward (huge crush) to promote a concert and pop up store supporting Breast Cancer Awareness month, or George Clooney, helping us to promote the LA Film Festival (now FIND...Film Independent blah blah) with a Target Award Show for outstanding Independent Film Maker. Yep, I said George Clooney. It's amazing how one can rationalize when one needs to. If you're giving out an award for outstanding work in independent film and George Clooney is available, then George Clooney becomes the best fucking independent filmmaker in the world. Hey, the year after we gave it to Charleze Theron. Go figure.
But the Celebrity Wet Dream of all celebrity wet dreams has to be the Night Before event. It takes place the night before the Academy Awards, which means that just about every star in the world is in Beverly Hills that night. Dreamworks and Katzenberg and Variety put it on and its for the Television and Motion Picture Fund. There are very few sponsors and no press is allowed (except Variety of course). The first year a colleague and I went really by accident. We had gotten the tickets through our media agency and even they weren't going to go with us but ended up being there, which was a good thing, because we ended up being a sponsor through my tenure at Target, just because of our experience that first night.
Because there is no press, it would be harder to name a celebrity who wasn't there, then the one's who were. We sat at the bar and one by one they'd walk by: Steven Speilberg, Clint Eastwood, Jamie Foxx, Oprah Winfrey, Sally Field, Tom Hanks (20 years after Splash and there I am with TH...once we sponsored the event and I met him more personally, I recalled the press junket for Splash. We had a laugh or two over that), Jack Black, Jude Law, Goldie Hawn, Alec Baldwin, Will Smith, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston (in fact, all the Friends), the list, as they say, went on and on.
And we weren't just gawkers either. Like I said, very few sponsors, but the ones that were there gave shit away and whether you were Faye Dunaway or Harvey Weinstein, we all stood in line and waited for our free stuff. Nike gave out free shoes, you picked the color, the style and gave them your size and you were given your shoes at the end of the night. The stars went crazy for those shoes.
As we became sponsors and had our own cabana in which to shill the latest Target Designer and their goods, it became a contest as to whose stuff was the best and whose line was the longest, with Hollywood's biggest names. We usually won. Isaac Mizrahi pajama's, six different styles to choose from, men and women's. Thomas O'Brien. Cocktail glasses and various party favors. All stuffed into a big old, custom-designed bag to carry it all home.
With Target its all about branding, so the cooler the branded bag and the graft that went in it, the bigger mentions in variety and ancillary press we got out of it, as well as being cemented all the more in the hearts and minds of the stars. Target's version of reputation management by a network of top-line celebrity influencers.
Also, as sponsors, we were able to enjoy a pre-party cocktail party hosted by the committee heads where we rubbed shoulders with the likes of Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, Tom Cruise, George Clooney, Will Smith, Jimmy Smits, Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson...again, the list goes on and on. The stars would circulate the room, driven by their publicists to where each sponsor was pre-stationed with it's celeb's of CEO's and top executives (or whomever could connive an invitation within the corporation), so pictures could be taken. Celebrity wet dream with a happy ending!
The first time Janet, my wife, came to the event, she more or less ended up in the periphery of the photo taking. She was with the 'working' guy, so we would have our pictures taken later, or not at all, since our relationship with the celebs was more organic and friendly (we weren't considered the suits) and we had to maneuver the publicists, and eventually, the stars to our execs, so, in essence the Target worker bees and the celebs were both 'working' the room.
However, the piece de resistance, was watching and listening as I saw Brad Pitt approaching Jan, who, trying to be invisible, as is her want, hovered near the patio doors, slamming liquor.
He walked up to her, reached out his hand and said, "Hi, I'm Brad Pitt." She hesitated and said, "I know who you are." Then she reached out her hand, took his and said, "Hi, I'm Jan Remington." and without a pause he said, "And now I know who you are."
Think that's what celebrity really boils down to, no matter which side of the coin you're on and no matter what kind of celebrity you own, (keep in mind, to your five year old, you're the biggest celebrity in the room) and that's to know who each other is.
Just knowing each other's name sometime qualifies both participants to enjoy some moment of celebrity.
But don't stop there. That's how we really become stars.

Misery likes company

I was in New York all Thanksgiving Week. A very busy week for Thanks and Giving, the holiday campaign for St.Jude Children's Research Hospital. Jan was able to come in the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. We were having Thanksgiving lunch with the patients and their families and then Thanksgiving with Maggie and Dennis and Jake and Dennis's family.
Just a little context for a moment of epiphany, delivered by a crazy person no less.
Day after Thanksgiving. Friday. Jan and I sleep in, get our shit together and head out of the apartment around 11:00 a.m. for late breakfast.
We walk up the stairs to the sidewalk, make a left to head to Montague Street, and this dread-locked black dude, little wild in the eye, little wacko in his whole vibe, walks towards us and I immediately put on my "I belong here. You are not going to enter my world" look.
I can already hear him muttering and I know he's talking at us. Now Jan is not aware of this at all. It's almost like this dude has got some kind of special signal that's just playing in my head. For my ears only.
And I really can't hear or understand what he's saying, but as he rushes by us I can pick out words like 'you misearable...' 'dontchya...' 'what the fuck'. But before I can even register whether I should be offended or afraid or..anything, he's gone and I convince myself it was all in my head, he wasn't talking to or at me, but was merely a typical New York street dude with a lot to say to no one in particular.
Cut to:
Next day, Saturday, night really..feeling kind of lousy, so I ditch out of maggie's before anyone else so I can get home get some sleep since I have to be up early. I'm walking down Henry Street towards the apartment and this same guy is walking down a side street toward me. Now I don't really recognize the man, but as he get close to me he says, to me, and this time there's no mistaking he's talking to me, "Still as miserable as ever, huh?" Then he walks by on down the street.
I kinda laugh, more like choke, and exclaim something and then realize he wasn't waiting for an answer. He was just making an observation. Apparently, the second one in two days.
I think back to the earlier encounter. He was talking to me. And he did seem angry. Angry, because I was being perceived as being 'miserable'.
And I had to think, what does my face say to any Joe blow on the street? That I'm miserable? That I'm unhappy? Not that I should walk around with a silly, half ass grin on my puss, but for a slightly whacko stranger to observe enough within the span of seconds, at least enough to make a very verbal judgement about me, did give me pause.
Oh sure, there was part of me that wanted to run after the guy and say, 'Fuck you man. Who the fuck do you think you are to call me miserable? You don't look like you live the life of a glass half full kind of existence yourself, man."
But then I realized maybe he was right. I wasn't particularly sad or miserable or malcontent on either of the two occassions we ran into each other, but there must have been something on my face that elicited the same response, thirty-six hours apart?
Or maybe he was just crazy. Either way I find myself now, very randomly, checking myself out. What's my face doing? Am I smiling? Am I frowning? Are my shoulders tense? Am I scowling?
The last time I did this little internal exercise that manifested itself by my face and body language acting out the various emotions on my face and body, I was in the subway. And then it struck me. I had become one of those street dudes. Just for that moment. All it would take is for me to ask the person sitting next to me, "Am I smiling? Do I look happy?" for me to be zero degree's of separation from my dread-locked brother on Henry Street.
Keep smiling!

Atlantic Terminal Brooklyn Target -part 2

It's the same culture. Red and Khaki. It's the same store. Atlantic Terminal. Brooklyn. Different story, same week-end. It's still Christmas but this time it's my daughter Maggie who had the the story to tell.
This one's all about the thin line between real and fake. Between real silver that costs an arm and a leg, and fake silver that cost Target prices, practically nothing. It's really about the Target brand, Expect More. Pay Less. They even do a sketch about it on SNL ( a really bad one), but it does capture the mania, the hysteria of the Brooklyn store. They don't expect so much there, they just want to pay less and they want to make as much noise about it as possible.
Lines!
Fast.Fun.Friendly. It has a few dictates. One, the Rule of Two.
If there are ever any more then two people in line, they're supposed to open a new line so that the guest doesn't have to waste their time by waiting in line. I picture the Brooklyn Target store and I just giggle at the thought.
Lines.
I use the term very, very loosely. I have this image, that if everyone, seething and screaming and struggling to find a line at the Brooklyn store weren't wearing clothes, then we'd be straight out of a scene of Caligula. But because we are clothed and not having sex, instead of being in a movie we're just in the cluster fuck of all cluster fucks, waiting in line at the Brooklyn Target store at Christmas time yet.
Those who have read the previous blog on 'Jennifer' now will know why everyone was so desperate to try and pay for their goods at the Electronics counter, that is, until they met Jennifer.
And what's so funny, if it weren't so pathetic is the Red and khaki army think they're helping by trying to organize everyone.
One day I saw them corralling guests like cattle in a pen, right between the Isaac racks and the shopping cart escalator. Really, we were herded and then one by one, depending on our own personal brand and by brand I mean race, (white people were definitely not shown preference, and hey, isn't it about time?) we were allowed to leave the pen and go stand in line at one of the registers.
And then I realized what they were doing, as I finally escaped the pen and queued up behind a Brooklyn guest who truly had the biggest ass I've ever seen. They were abiding by the rule of two. Each line, had its requisite two and a half guests. However, cue mooing, I glanced over my shoulder and saw this invisible corral holding back throngs of guests, wild-eyed, spitting and spewing to be released to a line, any line, controlled by a very smug Red and Khaki army. Rule of two, Brooklyn style.
But that's not the story. This story is Maggie's. She's was purchasing some plastic silverware for a party or the like. Target has this pretty cool plastic silverware (I'm sure all the Marts have it, but we don't, can't, won't shop at those places. That's bad!)
She didn't have the corral experience but she had just come down the escalator. Some Target stores have two floors and those stores have an escalator with a runway next to them for your shopping cart. A shopping cart escalator. And people in Brooklyn think this is an amusement ride. Like the man who's cart was so full that as he rode up the escalator next to his loot he had to practically lay over the cart full of goods just so they wouldn't fall back and crush everyone. And then we have both been witness to the cart escalator stopping dead.
Picture it. Betty Bag a Donuts. Brooklyn style. Fifteen hundred children, fourteen hundred and ninty two screaming, the rest just drooling snot from some orafice. And...the escalator stops. Not the people escalator. The cart escalator. The woman with the kids, keeps riding up while her cart load stays in stasis half way between the first and second floor. They get to the top, everyone does, and they huddle at the exit point of where the carts are supposed to be delivered to them, and they stare like pod-people. No one does anything.
The man who was draped over his cart-full is slowly ripped away from his goods as he keeps going and the cart does not. A whole layer goes skidding to the frozen track. He keeps going. Becomes a pod person at the top of the escalator. This mini-throng of guests are soon joined by Red Shirts and Khaki pants and skirts. To help? Nope. Just to stand there with lugubrious expressions of dismay. We've abandoned more carts on that escalator, Maggie and me. We've never joined the pod people. I have wanted to slap the face of the of the Red and Khaki's and scream, "For Gods Sakes! Do something. You're a Target team member for the Christ Sake!"
Anyway, back to the faux silver plastic wear. Maggie takes her fake prize to the checkout counter and her cashier, Lakeesha, is singing. I don't mean just humming and waiting for the next guest to step up. I mean singing, out loud and very proud of herself. She's singing Alicia Key's, "No One."
She eyes Maggie. "I just want you close. Where you can stay forever. You and me together through the days and nights." Maggie looks around. Is she coming on to me? And then realizes, nope, she's not singing to anyone in particular but is very aware that everyone can hear her.
" I don't worry cause everything's gonna be alright. NO ONE! NO OOOOOONE. Can get in the way of what I'm feeling." Really loud now. " NO ONE. NO ONE. CAN GET IN THE WAY I FEEL FOR YOU...FOR YOUUUUUUU."
As Maggie gets there, Lakeesha points somewhere behind Maggie.
"You see my baby's daddee?" Maggie looks behind her. There is a guy at the next check out, or is it the guy corraling carts? "Thas my baby's dadeeee. He's so cute!" Neither of the two Maggie spotted were even close to cute, but Baby Mama sure did think one of em was.
Then Lakeesha sees the plastic silverware made to look like real silver. She looks at Maggie in happy surprise. "Look at these! Are these...shit..these aren't real! They're plastic...been MADE to look real!"
Maggie nods, smiling. Sweet Jesus!
Lakeesha continues in wonderment and speed rapping, "I'm gonna git my momma these for Christmas! She'll be like, 'baby, you gots me real silverware!' and I'll be like, 'no momma, I gots you plastic silverware thats made to look real."
She turns to the cashier on the other side of potential Baby Daddy.
"Sure as shit looks real donit? Yep, that's whats I'm gonna do. Get my momma some real fake silverware for Christmas." Then to anyone who would listen. "These made to look real." Then to Maggie. "Sure's hope you din't take the last ones."

NOWHERE. NOWHERE. NOWHERE. LIKE THE ATLANTIC TERMINAL BROOKLYN STORE. (sung to the tune of No One)

Twelve Things You Don't Know About Men

1. We pee in the shower, usually and often. The drain, however, must be in perfect working order, because, if not, it grosses us out too.
2. We notice good looking guys. Not a gay thing (if you're straight). Just an envy thing.
3. We're obsessed with our hair. Gotta keep it as long as possible. Or shave it.
4. We would like, just once, for someone to buy us flowers on Valentine's Day.
5. Some of us sit down to pee. Ten years ago I thought it was an abomination. Now it just takes a load off. Much cleaner. Time to think.
6. It bothers us that hair starts growing out of every orifice around the age of forty; mostly the ears, on the tip of the nose,the nostrils and the back. Once you start tweezing and pulling and cutting, you're trapped. It's true. It grows back bigger, blacker and more.
7. We are more vain then women.
8. The only reason women think we hold our looks longer (you do don't you?) is because we don't, as a rule, wear make-up. We're always like this, not so much contrast. Not that there's a big contrast when you take your make-up off. Oh, never mind!
9. Size does matter.
10. Men, as a rule, are expert spitters, horkers and gobbers. We can get the most up, aim it the best, and never hit anyone else with our backwash. That is, if you're a real man.
11. 85% of all men cannot piss if they haven't started yet when another guy walks up to the urinal next to them, nor can they if they are the one walking up next to another guy at a urinal. Pee anxiety. The open troughs at stadiums are the worst.
12. We have fantasy's just like you, we just act on them more.

It's Time to Strap One On

I said not to long ago that we shouldn't be dismissive, that we shouldn't ignore what's going on in other people's lives..(what was that line that Glen Close, as the uber-permed, whacked out psycho said in Fatal Attraction, "I WON'T BE IGNORED"). So, o.k., she took it to the extreme.
So, I have seriously been trying to step outside of my own presence, just a bit, and am trying to be aware of what's going on with others; not in a humane, like I'm all that, bullshit kind of way, just more dipping my toe into the ethos and pathos of others realities.
And, I'm sorry but people, people, people, it is time to grow a pair, because what I've seen for the most part has been a lot of bitching, and whining, and malingering, and me, me, me-isms.
And amongst all this caterwauling, I look and listen to a good friend who is writing about her experience with a very personal, wrenching, life-altering experience that she and her family are dealing with, no not dealing, they are mastering with daily ritualized hope and fear and fight and stamina, and, oh yes, with a couple of good old fashion, fuck you's in there.
Or I watch kids on Thanksgiving Day who are fighting for their lives against cancer, who I am blessed and honored to even share the day and this meal of Thankfulness with, and they're all about seeing who can eat the most shrimp cocktail, those who have an appetite, or who can decorate the most gorgeous, inedible cookie you can imagine. It's all 'out there', nothing is hidden or cloaked in self-denial or self-pity. They're just kids, who are with their families, making waste of an excellent brunch line, and having a blast.
And then you have the other side of the coin.
When we let vanity take control. Or, even worse, hubris. When we think that we have all the answers and don't care to look outside our own personal experience, because, donchyaknow, we already have all the answers.
And usually the answer is derived from many of us just talking to ourselves. Blah! Blah! Blah! Just really white noise in our heads, but how self-important and know it all we can be.
It's bad enough when you control others to say what you need to hear to affirm your own reality, but when you start talking to yourself, with full conviction that what you're hearing yourself say is the truth, 100%, no exceptions, then that is the highest, really, lowest form of Hubris.
Until you've walked in the shoes of that sick kid, or a family dealing with a life-threatening situation, or at least kept yourself open to the maelstrom that surrounds those 'others' who are engaged in daily struggles of survival, you don't, you shouldn't, sweat the small stuff.
Bad hair days pale in comparison to 'no hair days'. The Freshman 20, or middle age pooch can't stand up to not eating for weeks on end because you're too sick. To thread or pluck? Doesn't make much difference when there's nothing to thread or pluck? And wasting one's breath to gossip and snipe or tear down? Please! Not when, just putting one foot in front of the other, is a mini-triumph.
So, I say, crack open that door of observation, of recognition of others trials and tribulations and by doing that minimalize and trivialize our own seemingly important frets and furies. It's probably not all that bad. Or as you've heard a million times before, someone always has it worse.
Strap one on. It's time.

BLACK AND WHITE

There are people who deal in various shades of gray.
There are people who deal randomly.
There are people who don't deal at all.
And then, since I've been working in the South, I've discovered, there are people who deal only in the black and only in the white.
And, trust me, I don't mean racially.
I mean, "these are the rules" or "this is what I was told" or "so and so told me to jump exactly this high".
I mean BLACK and WHITE.
In an earlier blog I mentioned the over-functionality of the Southern culture. And now I'm discovering this black and white thing. In the beginning, I had divided the South into two camps: the very, very, very nice (that part of the population who over-functioned..'you don't need any stupid ole' directions to the airport, let me drive ya, and I'll hitch home'. O.k.
And then there's the very, very, very passive-aggressive nice (you thought i was going to say stupid didntchya? I was but I changed my mind), that kind of nice that you know they don't really mean.
It's just inbred in the culture. They've gotta say, 'honey' and 'yes, ma'ame' and 'no, sir' and 'bless your heart', but what they're really saying is 'don't fuck with me you summabitch, cause you're workin' on my last good nerve, and this is the way it's done and that's that.'
But there is a definite order to things and most everyone down here seems all wrapped up in the details of something or other. Rules. Process. The way things are done. And they don't mean to be mean (read: stupid) but they can't help it. That's just how they was brung up.
Today for instance: big, huge campaign breaking next week and we're launching it at the home base.
An entire week of all of us execs sending out daily emails, and volunteers greeting people at the door with cupcakes with branded frosting, and pens that shine the logo on the wall, and paper, lots and lots of paper, and TEE-SHIRTS..
Now most people go ape shit over free stuff. Back in the day when I was opening malls and stores and the such and we'd have branded shopping bags, I'd see women as old as 90, cold cock some other octogenarian to the ground to get their shopping bag, and some other 'Debbie Diamond up her Ass I'm so rich' come up and claim to have have three sick kids at home and could she have bags for them too...yeah, like her kids want a fucking shopping bag.
Not too mention celebrities. When we would have designer shit that we gave away at various functions (more on that in later blogs), but suffice to say, I don't care if you're Goldie or Oprah, you are getting your free shit.
O.k. back to the South and the TEE-SHIRTS.
"So only employees get the TEE-SHIRTS. You have to see their employee badge and then they can get a TEE-SHIRT. So we'll hand out the paper with all these announcements on them (useless) and you hand out the TEE-SHIRTS."
Now keep in mind that the TEE-SHIRTS, for TEE-SHIRTS, are pretty nice..cool branded color, cool design, rolled up and tied up with a branded colored ribbon. And all the sizes are in different marked boxes with huge L-XL-1XL-2XL-3XL-4XL-and yes, because we are in the South, 5XL and let me tell you, no one asked if there was a difference between men's and women's sizes, because let me tell you, there weren't.
O.k. Black and White.
Remember TEE-SHIRTS only for employees, everyone gets two pieces of paper.
People start coming in and this events Nazi with a sweet, yet blaring southern accent starts barking out her instructions to her first victims (keep in mind with that passive-aggressive tone to her voice too)
"Hey, Miss Vivian..here's your sheet on this and here's your sheet on that, and then show your badge to Mr. John over there and git yuuur TEE-SHIRT, kay sugah?"
Keep in mind i'm standing exactly two feet away from Miss Thang. So Miss Vivian of course, looks at me, who's badge is proudly displayed on her massive chest and pushes it in my face to prove she's an employee and says "Mr. John I think I'll take a 4XXL" and I think to myself, "Don't say it. Don't say it" and what comes out is, "Here's one just for you, and don't forget to wear it tomorrow." Whew! That was close.
And Miss Vivian leaves just in time for me to hear the Nazi Southern Belle, purr, "Are you a contractor"? And i swear to God, there was instant silence, like the guy had been asked, "Scuse me Sugah, you a leper?"
Well, the poor man WAS a contractor, and then Miss Thang says, "Oh, i'm so sorrrrry for you for that, but I can give you these two pieces of paper.." she looks at me, "But Mr. John, he does not get a TEE-SHIRT!"
Fuck! What am i supposed to do with that? Mr. Downhome kinda looks at me, ashamed like, and I shrug with "I'm sorry man, my hands are tied here, you're a contractor, you are bad!" He leaves dangling his two pieces of paper from trembling fingertips. I almost cried.
And then it occurs to me. I'm not an employee either. I'm a fucking contractor. I'm Miss Thang's boss, but I am a contractor.
"Hey! I shouldn't have a TEE-SHIRT. I'm a contractor."
"Haw! Haw! Haw!" she shrieked at me. "You're right. And if I had my way, you wouldn't git one neither...Haw! Haw! Haw!" Like she's just kidding. But we all know she's not kidding. She wants to rip my TEE-SHIRT right of my body. She hates me!
Black and White. And the only gray for many down here is that which is forced down their throat. They hate it, but they'll smile the whole time they stick in the shiv.

Take a Message to Garcia

Over-functionality is way over-rated.
Maybe it's because I now find myself in the South with my work with St.Jude
Children's Research Hospital, but a simple, "Can you give me directions to the airport?" inevitably ends with, " Why don't you follow me in your rental car, or better yet, why don't I drive with you, I'm sure someone at the Rental Car place can get me back? What time do you need to be there? Why do you get a rental car instead of the car service, then they could get you there? What airlines? Why? What? How? When?
"Never mind. I just map quested it."
Take a message to Garcia.
This story first came to my attention through a Copy Chief at Marshall Field's when I was Director of Creative Services.
The story takes place during the Spanish American War. Long story short, Spain invaded Cuba, blew up a US military ship, pissed off McKinley, who declared war on Spain, and needed to reach a certain General Calixto Garcia, a Cuban born Creole who was the leader of Cuban rebels. McKinley needed to get a message to Garcia so they could join forces against Spain. No one knew Garcia's exact location.
The task went to a Lieutenant Andrew Summers Rowan. All he was told was the message had to be given to Garcia and that he may be somewhere in the Eastern part of Cuba. Without one question, Rowan left to find Garcia. He delivered the message. Wham bam thank you ma'ame.
No, "Where is he? What does he look like? Who are his contacts? How do I get there? Does he need a ride to the airport after I find him?"
No questions, just got it done. Delivered the damn message to Garcia. P.S. We won the war!
When I first started at Marshall Field's my assistant gave me, rather forced upon me, the reputation of being a self-doer, or as she said, 'you're quite an independent guy aren't you?" According to her, I barely allowed her to answer my phone for me.
So I tried, I really did. I tried not to live by the rule of 'if you wanted it done right, I should do it myself'..but then the questions would start flowing: who, what, when, why...and truly, by the time I had answered any and all of those questions, I could have not only done it better, but a hell of a lot faster.
I ran my own company for ten years and didn't have an assistant or someone to do the calendaring and travel and detail work. I did it myself.
Now, don't think I didn't get used to that help after 15 years at Marshall Field's and Target but on any level we should all be working to take that message to Garcia. Just do it.
And, now, living by my own rule, when I want directions some place I just find out.
So, over-functionality for me, is just another example of someone covering their ass, of asking too many questions to make sure they're doing exactly what you could have done for yourself without the aggravation, to make sure that if something does go wrong they always have the caveat, "Well, you said...."
Call it initiative, self-starting, call it 'having a brain'. Call it whatever you want.
Just take the damn message to Garcia.

THAT THING I SAW

That thing I saw.
That blandly hateful thing. No malice. No forethought.
Just dismissal.
That thing I saw, made me think twice.
It's amazing how easily we dismiss people (even animals for that matter). Not paying attention. Not in the moment, as they say. Not really seeing or hearing what is going on right now.
That's what I saw not too recently. It was done to me. And that was bad enough until I realized that I do the same thing, dozens of times a day. I have to say I used to be much more dismissive when I worked in my previous job.
It takes retiring from one job, where the most important decision is really not all that earth shattering, not really very relevant or 'important'. How often we sat around that board room table and said, "Hey, we're not curing cancer". And we'd all laugh and at least for a moment draw a little perspective out of that particular decision making moment. Talk around that same table always veered towards strategy or goals or objectives, something from the corporate sense of world, something, in the scheme of things, really not important.
It takes taking on a new job, one that deals with raising money for a cause, one that insists on making you aware of others moments in time.
It takes witnessing close friends' fighting and struggling with their child's terrible illness where they are forced into a very disturbing and painful 'now', a present moment, where strategy takes on a whole new meaning.
NOW... you are trying to cure cancer.
NOW... every decision is so important, and the ultimate decision doesn't always lie within your grasp or your control.
So being dismissive? It's not an option.
You don't get to dismiss me. Because I'm real.
And, more importantly, I don't get to dismiss you, no matter who you are. For all I know, you could be that friend fighting for their lives. Or that stranger, doing the same thing.
Except for that random, evil, uncaring socio-path (oh, and they're out there) I don't get to dismiss anyone or anything.
That's how I make each moment count.
That's how I see things more clearly.
That's how, the thing I saw, made me think twice.

Gotta love the Brooklyn Target store...

Target has a culture. I don't mean that in an elitist way, or a jingoistic way or any way...they do. Fast. Fun. and Friendly. Red shirts of some type (if you work in the store) and khaki pants or skirts of some type (if you work in the store).
Minneapolis has a huge contingency of Somali, many of whom work at Target. And I remember feeling almost Target national pride when the Somali women would keep to the red and khaki but instill their own culture to it; wrap around khaki skirts with elaborate tunic kind of red tops. I felt, hey, there they are, carrying some product to a Target shelf to keep it stocked (ha! as if) but they could just as well be carrying a load of laundry down to the river in their Target, culturally-correct, garb.
It seemed pretty consistent, the way Target team members handled themselves. They all seemed to buy into the fast, fun and friendly culture, and except for the big-butted, capri pant wearing, curler in the hair, Betty Bag of Donuts shopping the aisles, you pretty much saw a sea of red and khaki.
Until I got to the Atlantic Terminal store: oh, the red and khaki was still there. Couldn't get away from that, but fast, fun and friendly? Yes. But definitely their own version.
I always had certain expectations of New York and its people. This is the place where, especially in Brooklyn, seeing a film is an interactive experience. I sat in the top row of a Brooklyn theater one night watching a scary film (can't even remember the name) but it was scary. You know the rumors or urban myths about people in the theater talking back to the screen? Well, it's no myth. There were all kinds of " Oh no you din't". "Girl, you open that fuckin' door and you get what you deserve.." I don't mean sotto voce, I mean, screaming at the top of their lungs, and then giggling and then screaming some more and then series of 'fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck..she did NOT just open that door'.
Stuff like that. And when the enormous black woman, who was also alone and sitting next to me, grabbed my arm and then my hand, and gave me a look that said 'tough shit, I'm scared and you're the closest thing I have to protection' and then proceeded to pound on my arm everytime that woman DID open the door, well, then I knew, that the Brooklyn 'culture' was a whole different zoo of animals.
Cut to: Atlantic Terminal Target. Pre Christmas, a crazy time regardless. Buying something in Electronics. I know right away that I'm not in Kansas or Minnesota anymore when I ask a team member (Edward) if I get the Ipod Player here can I pay for it here? And he looked at me, real scared like, and turned and walked away. So I stood in line with about five other people.
I could see and hear the 'guest' first in line, asking a similar question...because as it turns out she had been standing in line for quite a long time only to be told by Saquista or Virgina (rhymes with Vagina) that she couldn't perform her transaction there because the product manager (Edward as it turns out) had told them they had to go to main checkout. The guest, being white, and not Jewish, did as she was told.
By the time I got up there, Saschachawatch, had just about had it. Every single one of the people in front of me had been told by Edward something very different then she was led to believe by the very same Edward. I reached her finally and asked the same question, Ipod player in hand: I merely started with, "I asked Edward...." and that's as far as I got. Edward happened to be walking down the main aisle and Javeeta caught him out of the corner of her eye.
"edward!" Seething, low but seething. "EDward". Little louder. Edward is having none of it. He keeps walking. "EDWArd". O.k. pretty loud now and I'm thinking I'm about to witness a whole new culture of Red and Khaki. "EDWARD. You muthuhfuckuh, donchyou be walking by like you din't hear me callin' you."
Oh my God! He's doing just that. Edward is pretending he doesn't hear Jack O Lantern and he's just about out of sight. I hold my breath.
"EDWARD! EDWARD! EDWARD! I'M JUST GOING TO KEEP ON SAYING IT UNTIL YOU COME BACK HERE MOTHERFUCKUH".
He's not coming back.
"EDWARD. EDWARD.EDWARD."
Now I have never heard a team member, anywhere, talk above a normal voice, "..may i help you find something"? But Bashika was not only screaming at the top of her lungs but was MF this and MF that..all the time wearing the Red and Khaki. And I thought well, you know what, this is the Brooklyn culture and instead of reporting her like some kind of Target nazi (yes, rumors of red kool-aid are true) I needed to embrace this version of Fast, Fun and Friendly. And then she was talking at me.
"You believe that mutherfucker"?
"No, no. I don't believe that fucker".
" I mean, i spos he tolt you you could pay for that here"?
"Nope. The fucker wouldn't even answer me."
" Moootheeerfuckker."
"Yepper."
"Tell you what honey, since that fuckuh won't answer me, I'm going to let you pay for that here."
"Thank you, ah...(I look at her team member name badge)..thanks Jennifer."
"yo welcm' baby."

Merry Fucking Christmas!

It's almost a cliche...

It's really almost a cliche...the Manhatten skyline from the Promenade in Brooklyn. You look at all those buildings, all those windows...all those buildings that are there now, and the two that once were there and are now gone.
All those windows, all those lights, all those lives. Windows, lights and lives present and now gone. Gone from the cliche, making what seems almost ordinary one minute, extraordinary the next with what is absent. Gone.

And while we're at the East River: I don't think there's anything more haunting, sadder and yet comforting than an old, abandoned pier. A pier that now has shrubs and grasses growing on it and long-ago used railroad tracks on it; tracks that end in the East River

another observation...

Why is everyone and everything so loud?
Why all the screaming heads on a stick? Why all the 'over-talkers'?
Either it's The View (give me a break, I stopped watching it when Rosie left, then occasionally when Whoopi came on, and now never since Elizabeth is introducing Sarah Pallin on her stump) and all their over-talking, and yelling and screaming or The Today Show where you can hear what Matt or Meredith are saying due to the caterwauling behind them on the Plaza or the conference room table where everything that anyone has to say is sooooo important that there is no listening only getting your useless point out on the table (usually to stink up the room anyway).
There's good noise. Like the sound of a garbage truck outside your Brooklyn Heights apartment at four in the morning. No kidding. There's something comforting about it, that anyone would be out on a New York street at 4 in the morning says something. You feel safe and you have a sense that someone is out there trying to move the rats around a bit...and the garbage cans banging back on to the curb somehow lulls you back to sleep anyway.
Or, another New York noise at 3 or 4 in the morning. I've been woken up three times now, twice by a heterosexual couple (don't think they were the same pair) and once by two guys. Doesn't matter about the sexual orientation because the jib of the conversation was the same and universal. "You mutherfucking dick head! You have no idea how much i love you you piece of shit." "No idea how much you love me cocksucker? You! You! Motherfuckingsonofabitchin' cunt...no one is going to ever love you more then I do, you fuckin' bowl of fuck"! (sounds of sobbing) " Hey baby...baby...baby..come-on." "Fuck you cocksucker..."
And so it goes up the street and back down the street, the decibel diminishing somethimes but never really getting quieter and somehow that interchange is such the fabric of New York that, again, it's lulling and soothing.
Alot more manageable then listening to Whoopie and Joy and Sherry (my god she's dumb) and Elizabeth over-talk for an hour.
Oh, and running water out of a faucet. That's another one. Up the wall.

I've been observing...

I've been observing some things over the last year. Really since I left Target and really have had the time to observe. Think. Breath.
Let it Unfold.
First of all, I travel a lot. I see a lot of things on planes. Granted it's from first class (oh shut-up. Do you know how many fucking miles i have to fly to be able to sit in first class)..anyway...I watched this woman once, and she had her three year old in his own seat (now that's entitled), and he had his head on her lap, sleeping. It was very tender and touching and sweet until i noticed little Johnny or Jimmy or Suede was drooling all over his mother's very expensive silk skirt. Thank god she didn't notice while I was watching because I'm sure I would have caught her eye , and mouthed, 'I know..I saw the whole thing happening' and then she would have flipped me off because I didn't warn her that Kingston was drooling all over her thousand dollar skirt, and it would have been my fault. It usually is. At least I always seem to find it necessary to take responsibility.
Then I thought: really observed: why hasn't anyone invented drool pads. You know they could be human versions of the canine pee pee pads, smaller and cuter with adorable little kid kind of drawings on them, or a more kid friendly version of a maxipad (a little wider) with the same adorable drawings on them. Your kid gets tired, you whip one out, put on that expensive pair of slacks, push his or her head into it and let him or her drool away...