Charles
liked to brag to us, in between his flagrant bouts of work avoidance,
that he was a complete burnout because of the 70s and the disco scene in
New York City back then. Of course, it didn't hurt his existential
angst that he was also a complete asshole to the entire company, but
that didn't seem to deflate his overwrought sense of self at all. I'd
never met someone so arrogant with so little skill before, because I
never saw him actually design anything. Nothing. Not one book cover. It
was fascinating to me. Not that it stopped him from taking credit for
other people's designs made under his "direction", which was such a
fucking joke compared to our grueling schedules and after-hours work
that we began a more honest and realistic process of each designer
claiming credit for his or her own work.
He
never talked to me about books, computers, design, technology, or
publishing, except if it was to order me to help him through another
horrible crise, in staged scenes with tons of sighing and nasty
looks made from his inert position behind his desk. Oh, and he liked my
handsome new boyfriend Dave, so he thought up a way to take pictures of
him by using a potential book cover design about Jewish people with us
as the romantic couple in some test shots, but after just one cursory
glance, the design was immediately killed because Dave and I are so
obviously goyim, even in profile, just like his dip-shit test
Polaroid of us taken in the office one afternoon. Before his budget was
completely cut-off, though, he made me take the train to some far-out
Brooklyn photographer's fancy brick studio in the middle of a work day
for yet another test shoot. I was just happy to get the fuck out of the
office for a little while.
He
was also one of the most grossly incompetent people in power I'd ever
worked with, which naturally led us to question his position of
authority at the company. How? How the fuck had this even happened? The
"higher-ups" at the house gave us a string of excuses, like he had a lot
of work experience, and that he'd been bounced from every single work
department we have in publishing, which didn't make us feel any better
about him, especially because we were all working class kids busting ass
in a too-expensive city not designed for us. It was like the city had
become a gay stage set for rich white out-of-towners, which we clung to
as more favorable than the nightmarish 70s and crack-fueled 80s. Of
course, Charles had loved that time period the best!
He'd
sweep through the office with his air of superiority, stopping by our
desks only to share more of his greatness with us, like his rank of
Buddhist priest (get the fuck out!), or his splitting headache that
required pills from the nurse's office, or his clogged sinuses that were
the result of poor drainage because of his, ahem, compromised nasal
passages. Okay...whatever. It didn't take with me as even a casual
recreational drug reference, because during my supposedly "hippie" days
at O-Town that were greatly exaggerated by my much more productively
"high" group of friends (I worked too much, went to classes, and got
tired in the evenings or nursed bad hangovers from too much drink in
secret), I actually got a real education.
So, Charles, had to gear up for another wittily dropped bon mot that seemed cool and casual, le tres chic.
The next time he had a diva fit of "the vapors" in the office during
actual work hours, waving around a gauzy, thin, brightly-colored hankie
while dancing around to George Michael (hint, HINT), he dramatically
paused by my studio desk to declare the same poor nasal passages with
the clear sign of a finger held against the side of his nose. OH! You
were..in the mob? That's what it used to mean here in the city. Tsk!
Nooo, Marie. Sigh...I was so dreadfully dull and uncool to talk to. "I
have a 'Teflon' septum!" Okay, wait a minute, are you telling me that
you have an artificial bridge in your nose? The conversation only became
more baffling to me with his continued explanations that he thought
were so subtle.
Finally,
he gave it up to me in a normal voice that was his alone, and not the
affected soprano he usually trilled around us airily. "No! I had a
deviated septum that I 'burned through' completely that had to be
replaced." Jesus! I didn't realize allergies could be that bad! That
actually happens...huh. No! Marie! His shoulder sagged as the hot
pompous air deflated right the fuck out of him, only to be squared again
while he quipped at me that "children" today were soooo ignorant. "I
did a lot of 'coke" during the seventies!" Oh! Aha! I had inadvertently
caused one of the biggest douchebags ever to work in publishing to
declare loudly, out in the open, that he was a washed-up addict, right
in front of a bunch of rabid designers who hated him with the passion of
a thousand burning suns. My day was finally done.
Of
course, the bitch that replaced him was even more insufferable, but at
least we had our jobs and cover designs back. And one less "former"
manager of "The Village People", but only during their really early days
on the club scene, like wayyyy before their peak Studio 54 days, so if
you look him up, you won't find him in the liner notes credited as their
manager because he worked for free back then, just for the love of
music. Sigh...he was so naive back then. Uh huh, of course not. Why
would there be an actual documented work history for him to have that we
could verify and see? We had all the ammo against him that we needed
for his ousting, and that was before the hot pants-wearing gay boy
messenger service became a regular thing for him. Thanks, Charles! You
finally did me a real "solid".
for Orlando, Florida - June 2016
