Monthly Archives: January 2006

I Against I

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A pretty decent day. I almost wrote ‘good’ but let’s not get too ahead of ourselves here. I moseyed on in this morning, feeling alright. It was bagel and muffin and fresh fruit day. I knew I’d be sated. And I was also invited to a farewell lunch for a woman who was leaving the firm to become a nurse. Quite noble, that Danielle Tane. She’s really a sweet, good person.

After a few bagels, a muffin and some fresh fruit, I went over to a restaurant, Tao on 58th Street. A very hip restaurant, and eleven cool people that I’m associated with. I used to work with these people but they had spun off into a separate venture from the nut jobs I work for. And they are doing quite well. Lunch was great and alcohol free, which was fine by me. I certainly would not want to have a few drinks and then go back to that place.

And it was all on someone else’s dime. It’s even better when it’s someone I actually like and get along with. Went back to work and noticed an usually large amount of bagels and muffins that were going to waste. If no one was going to eat them, then they’d be thrown out.

So, as I’ve done in the past, I got some zip lock bags, and packed up about 10 bags of muffins and bagels. Then I got the Ipod and walked to St. Bart’s for their food kitchen. I do this every now and then. It would be such a waste with so many people going hungry and these essences of capitalism that I work for just letting food get thrown out. It’s also a good excuse to get away from the office.

The city was looking pretty good around 3PM today. Somewhat sunny, or rather, not as cloudy. Interpret at will.

Had a nice talk with a coworker from IT who is seriously considering giving up computer technology and becoming a doctor. Is this a theme? Good people that I work with, leaving this Babylon and becoming doctors and nurses? How does this bode for my future?

Oh I really don’t think I’d be suited for a life in the fields of medicine. I’m too much of a hypochondriac I think. I enjoy reading articles by Oliver Sacks in The New Yorker. He also wrote the book, ‘Awakenings’ which became a movie with Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams. He also wrote, ‘The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat’ about how people start to misidentify things they see everyday. Fun, huh?

I love his articles and they usually involve impairments of people’s minds. Neurological afflictions. Totally engrossing. So much so, that I start to think I have the thing that he’s talking about. And then there’s the media saturation of various ailments and pandemics that rage on.

A career in medicine? No, I don’t think so. I also don’t have the patience. But what could I do instead of whatever it is I’m doing now? The first step is to identify that you are doing something. I am presently writing this. I don’t want to paste my resume here anyhow.

I met Bill after work and walked to the Path, smoking our cigars. We walked past the skating rink in Bryant Park. We both agree that skating is not for us. Too cold, and ankle bending. Now he’s in bed, where I’ll join him after I read my new Mojo magazine, a monthly treasure.

My Boy Lollipop

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It’s not easy being the smartest person in the room and I say that with utmost humility. And that’s all I have to say about that. See? Me smart.

The rain falls down on this humdrum town, this town has dragged you down. I am so trying not to write about the place where I work. So I’ll write about Pink Bunnies and Lollipops.

Pink Bunnies and Lollipops was the name of the second publication of OIC. OIC was a magazine that my friends and I tried putting together in the 1980’s. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Rand and I were the principals of the magazine, with input from various friends and supporters.

Nights spent red eyed from lack of sleep and as well as cannabis. Two friends, Steve Saporito and Charlie Charas interviewed Mark E. Smith from the Fall. Martha Keavney interviewed her alter ego Bill Wynant in Dunkin Donuts in Hoboken. There were poems, photos, and art. Fun stuff.

Rand and I flew to San Francisco to try to sell it there. For some reason we thought it would catch on, on the west coast. We wandered around various bookstores and discovered a lack of interest. We went to the Anarchist bookstore and found them to have too many rules to follow in order for them to even consider us.

I suppose we were like National Lampoon, Mad Magazine, Cat Fancy and a definite precursor to Sassy. We had an open door policy, meaning that we would publish anyone that submitted anything.

The first issue was glossy. Geri Fallo, new to Hoboken then was working for a printer in Bergen County and assured us she could print it all for free after a print job for the Village Voice. We’d simply use whatever was available after the Voice was done with it.

The idea of free printing appealed to us. Geri snuck a notice that we would publish most anything in the back page of the Voice. Surprisingly, very few people submitted anything.

Then Geri gave us the bill. Turns out Geri’s idea of ‘free’ was not the same as our idea of ‘free’. We balked. She had them in the trunk of her car. We argued. We got the issues and Geri eventually became the Culture Czar of Hoboken some years later.

We decided to make our next issue, ‘Pink Bunnies and Lollipops’, a Xerox issue. Geri and her promises were out of the picture. Someone had access to a copier. Not just any copier, a color copier.

Martha Keavney, Lois DiLivio, Jane Scarpantoni and a whole host of others contributed. It didn’t sell, because we just gave them away. More art, a surrealist parlor game called ‘the Exquisite Corpse’, and poetry.

That was followed by ‘Mommy, May I?’ The cover featured Ronald Reagan asking Mommy Nancy is he could push the button. We lost steam and ambition and readers, if we had any to begin with.

It was a fun time for most everyone concerned. I suppose this blog is a continuation of that. Some pictures, some jokes, some ranting. Not enough clip art, no poetry.

Sort of an intelligent design, no?