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Language Rant – Business Edition

Sometimes people say things that others find irritating, I think that’s a pretty basic truism. At times I can get pretty annoyed myself, but with me it’s not so much the content of the commentary, but rather the choice of words. And I don’t mean cursing, I’m usually on fucking board with cursing. It’s when it so happens that all of a sudden people start using these hitherto unknown words to describe something; when just using what they did a few weeks before works just as well (or better); then I am baffled. I know this makes me sound old, a little stodgy perhaps. But I’ve been like this since at least my teens, and all this time I’ve always pondered, why doesn’t this stuff bother everybody else?

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Recognition (Overdue Perhaps?)

I’m proud of my short, aborted Hollywood career.  I don’t want to brag but I made a little money back then, you know, it was cool.   Added up it was probably like $1000 in earnings, but we’re talking 1981 dollars; and, adjusted for inflation I’d probably be sittin’ pretty if it was now!  In my day I got to rub elbows with luminaries like Michael Hershewe, who parlayed a guest starring performance on a Charlie’s Angels episode in 1980 into a starring role playing a kid named Todd on a sitcom called “American Dream” that was cancelled after 4 episodes.  But I simply knew him as Mike from 8th Grade cooking class.

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Clichéming

Last year I was happy as hell when I downloaded a free meme app on my iPhone.  I was even happier when I saw that it was easy to use.  My mind raced as I thought about the countless images I could appropriate to my own ends (which usually meant a movie scene and a snippet of dialogue to go with it). Read more

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The Ultimate Event

When I moved to New York I put everything I could fit in a blue trunk.  Naturally that meant my car, an old Oldsmobile beater, couldn’t go; I left it with my mom back in Miami Beach.  This is why, during my one month break from college (Pratt Institute puckishly called it ‘Winterim’) a year and half later mom offered to drop me off in front of the Miami Arena for a show.

My last 18 months in college, being in art school, and in New York; I strove to carve out an identity.  This path led me through the “good old days,” the Fifties and early Sixties and a stack of cassette tapes featuring Ol’ Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra (I, like most discerning listeners, favored the Capitol Years).  I played them in my dorm as an ironic counterpart to the whining sounds of The Smiths emanating from my roomie’s boombox.  It was “Louder than Bombs” vs. “A Swingin’ Affair.”  But my interest wasn’t ironic, I was really into this.

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You’re Welcome, Gerald

It takes the efforts of not only the famous, but also those of the not-so-famous to make the Hollywood machine really work.  The annals of filmdom are filled with many moments that today are unheralded, but at the time of production were vital to add coherence to the whole, whether it was a movie or a TV show.  Finding and closely analyzing these moments can even lead to a deeper understanding of the careers of those involved.  One such moment occurs at 17 minutes 10 seconds into episode two, season one, of the CBS series “Simon & Simon.”

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Polemic #1: Nobody Cares

OK, this one isn’t about long ago days in Hollywood or about growing up (finally) in New York.  This one is a little bitter, maybe even caustic.  It’s time to vent.  I vent because some people think they can make you care, and….despite their cloying efforts, you just don’t.

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Don’t Leave Me like This

I’m still sad.  One week past Labor Day weekend and I’m already jonesing for the next DragonCon.  DragonCon is the best fan-centered large sci-fi and fantasy convention there is.  Spread over 5 hotels in downtown Atlanta, cosplayers, goths, gamers, geeks, writers and watchers converge on the Thursday before Labor Day to stand in a registration line that nobody likes, but everybody seems to tolerate.

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NY Ephemera #2

Sometimes when you’re sitting on the subway train there’s nothing to do but stare at the ads.  Remember these ubiquitous ones from the 80’s, glossy yellow squares that said “Pregnant?  We can help!”?  I was an art student then and I collected them for kicks.  You used to be able to pry ads out of the subway cars, even the 24”X36” ones at shoulder level.  I’d find myself on the D or N Train about 1 o’clock in the morning, alone, and take what I could.  The only things that were secured were system maps.

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Requiem for Two Boots

Twenty years ago tonight I had my last drink ever at my favorite watering hole and hangout, Two Boots Restaurant and Bar in Brooklyn.  I was there (as if I ever needed an excuse) to attend the screening, the World Premiere, if you will, of a 90 minute long silent movie comedy called “The Schenectady Massacre.”  It was based on a real historic event, a 17th Century massacre at a fort in upstate New York.  It had been filmed on location back in February.

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The Great Debunker

“Hey dude, yeah you.  I see you or someone like you every morning on my way to work.  You’re the guy who impatiently blows by me on the road, you know, because I’m only going 10 miles over the posted limit.  Do you ever notice that I’m also the guy you see 5 traffic lights later, idling at a red, just on your right side?  I don’t know you, but you seem to display a clear misunderstanding of the principles of traffic flow.”

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