The Land of "The Happy People"

Like my infamous composure and great passions, my happiness is deep and profound. You would think that's a blessing, until you meet the opposite of contentment in the form of a depressed psychotic who hates you for, uh, being "pretty". Yeah, that's it! All of my life, my ability to "right" myself like a boat that was in danger of capsizing has been noticed, studied from a distance, and just as often, despised. Having a healthy brain is a very difficult thing to describe to someone afflicted with many serious ailments, so as a result, I simply took on more work than humanly possible to make up for the difference in abilities present in myself that are so lacking in the people around me. 

During the first work week I had at yet another job with a workflow that was rife with incompetence, I was met with derision, nasty quips, and prolonged looks of anger thrown in my general direction, because unlike fictional movies and t.v. shows, the heroine of every drama is the often the least liked person in the room. "How are you doing all this?!", an incredulous publisher asked me in front of some douchebag production manager who was drowning in his own anger that'd been set to a slow simmer for many years. I hoisted up a company coffee cup in salute "With this," and then I deconstructed the next problem that was mine to solve for them through art, design, and production.

Genius is fun from afar, but not when you're always the only person in the room with all the answers, with real solutions that don't offer shelter to the mad and hopelessly addicted, because it exposes them overmuch in their shoddy thinking. Most people I worked for absolutely hated their jobs, but they felt that they needed money for healthcare and housing, which, in this century, is being reclassified as "Disability". Really, they didn't need money for much. These were not the kinds of people who can actually enjoy traveling, or really good music, or excellent gourmet food, because they simply do not have the type of brains to appreciate such things in life, which makes the concept of "upward mobility" a bit of a joke for them, unfortunately.

It was like the exact opposite of the old saying, except it was beer tastes on a champagne budget, and this was publishing, a supposedly "highbrow" endeavor for the wealthy WASPy trust fund set, made of those less inclined to strike Wall Street gold. And then I showed up. It was the same as anywhere else, for me. Sigh...yeah, I know. I don't fit in here. Right? Right! But, then, why are you so happy? You mean besides the brilliant and beautiful thing? Uh, not much, I guess! What to say? You work for me, even though it's not  "supposed" to be that way because of (pick one): age, sex, status, looks, etc. There was always a reason for my oppression at the hands of the less gifted.

In a fascinating twist, the most literary people on the planet never figured out "why", when it had been published to such great acclaim so long ago, so perhaps it's time for a reprint. I'm happy because it is a part of who I am, blessed to be alive on G-ds Green Earth, and the receiver of His Greatest Gifts. That's why. How's Monday working out for you, office grunts of the world? I'll bet it's just as bad as all the other weeks you've ever had, and I'm not there to blame, which is too bad. The right to pursue happiness is every American's right in this world we live in. Avail yourself of it. Live well, like we do. Bonjour, Acadies!

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie (1847)

• Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie Part the First - I
• Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie Part the First - II
• Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie Part the First - III

In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pré
Lay in the fruitful valley.  Vast meadows stretched to the
eastward,
Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without
number.
Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with labor
incessant,
Shut out the turbulent tides; but at stated seasons the
flood-gates
Opened, and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er the meadows.
West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards and
cornfields
Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain; and away to the
northward
Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the mountains
Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty Atlantic
Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er from their station
Descended.
There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian village.
Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and of
hemlock,
Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign of the
Henries.
Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows; and gables
projecting
Over the basement below protected and shaded the doorway.
There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when brightly the
sunset
Lighted the village street, and gilded the vanes on the chimneys,
Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles
Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the golden
Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles within doors
Mingled their sound with the whir of the wheels and the songs of
the maidens.
Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and the children
Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended to bless them.
Reverend walked he among them; and up rose matrons and maidens,
Hailing his slow approach with words of affectionate welcome.
Then came the laborers home from the field, and serenely the sun
sank
Down to his rest, and twilight prevailed.  Anon from the belfry
Softly the Angelus sounded, and over the roofs of the village
Columns of pale blue smoke, like clouds of incense ascending,
Rose from a hundred hearths, the homes of peace and contentment.
Thus dwelt together in love these simple Acadian farmers,--
Dwelt in the love of God and of man.  Alike were they free from
Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice of
republics.
Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their windows;
But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of their
owners;
There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abundance.
Somewhat apart from the village, and nearer the Basin of Minas,
Benedict Bellefontaine, the wealthiest farmer of Grand-Pré,
Dwelt on his goodly acres; and with him, directing his household,
Gentle Evangeline lived, his child, and the pride of the village.
Stalworth and stately in form was the man of seventy winters;
Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with snow-flakes;
White as the snow were his locks, and his cheeks as brown as the
oak-leaves.
Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers.
Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the
wayside,
Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade of her
tresses!
Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed in the
meadows.
When in the harvest heat she bore to the reapers at noontide
Flagons of home-brewed ale, ah! fair in sooth was the maiden.
Fairer was she when, on Sunday morn, while the bell from its
turret
Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the priest with his hyssop
Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings upon them,
Down the long street she passed, with her chaplet of beads and
her missal,
Wearing her Norman cap and her kirtle of blue, and the ear-rings,
Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as an heirloom,
Handed down from mother to child, through long generations.
But a celestial brightness--a more ethereal beauty--
Shone on her face and encircled her form, when, after confession,
Homeward serenely she walked with God's benediction upon her.
When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite
music.

Kiki's Delivery Service

As far as experiences go, nothing quite beats a native New Yorker in business. Like I've written, we meet all kinds here, as every kind of human (and their artifacts) currently living on planet earth is within our bounds. We have the United Nations (diplomatic immunities gladly exploited, especially when it comes to free parking in the city: http://www.un.org/en/index.html), plus every type of scholar, and that's just the folks from the rest of the world. For most Americans, New York City represents the top tier of excellence for art and design, academics and scholarship, trade and big business. We are the world's capital, known here as "The Empire State" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_name_%22Empire_State%22): the thriving heart of culture and commerce as it intersects with humanity.

Quite a heady build-up, isn't it? More than a million people have passed through before giving up, seriously smitten and then bitten by the bite of the biggest apple society has to offer. Mick Jagger famously wrote about watching out for the maggots, because Central Park is dangerous, and so are the tranny hookers carrying sharp blades. I saw a cable t.v. show about Amish youth looking to break from their cultural isolation, with one girl's infamous statement that she felt she could die just trying to cross a street here, because it happens every single day in Gotham. It was a good vibe for her to pick up on right away.

I'm sometimes awed by the size of it, as almost inhuman in scale, until I feel the rhythm of it pulse through my veins, and I'm hooked once again on the jazz that it thrums to, with its subway rumbling that shakes the sidewalk above, and the passing bright yellow colors of the cabs as punctuation marks to the greatest city on earth. But then I feel it in my blood, and the quick patter of feet on the pavement reminds me that I walked these streets first, as I disappear underground to an entire netherworld of trains that you'd be lost within, behind a plume of steam that streams out of the potholes in wintertime.

So it was for me at work, too, as I endured the gross hipness of Americans from out-of-town who tried so hard to be "cool" like me that it hurt, and sometimes it physically did, like it did with one gay creative director and his infamously public fetishes. As a house, we had art directors who did their own mechanicals and production work, but not "Charles". He airily dropped a bunch of illustrations in pieces onto my desk when I was a production assistant, so I could do his work, which didn't wash with my boss at all. She ordered me to kick it back to him for proper mounting on a board with tissues and overlays and color values marked up, because we still did some hand-work in the 90s for printers, as digital layouts took over in a gradual process. 

I knew he'd use the opportunity to be a bitch to me, because of my underling status as an apprentice, so I craftily recruited my friend (a well-known and respected cover designer), to tell him the truth while I stood by. We avoided a typically nasty scene from him that day (he often denigrated you for not knowing how to do his job, because he was cripplingly insecure), as he customarily dropped it on his assistant's desk to finish, without giving her any credit. Back then, any art director or creative director could take all of your design work and get credit for it on the book's cover credits (if there even were any on it at all), or for any award shows your cover art might be submitted to. 

It was yet another layer of sublimation of our egos into the work itself, but for a lot of spoiled American kids, this diversion of attention from themselves took getting used to, and Charles "LaRue" was typical for his pampered Baby Boomer set. He told us a bunch of wildly gay stories that I think he mistakenly thought would shock a room full of city kids and art school attendees. Unfortunately for him, he was a few generations too late for us. Our editors took 3-5 martini lunches on the company's dime that they didn't return from, while their managing editors got high in the bathrooms occasionally, as we went to see movies mid-afternoon during the industry's summer slump. 

Production people were practically having their in-vitro lesbian babies right in front of us during our weekly meetings, while "out" grandpa's proudly sported their pink triangle buttons as later-in-life queers. Sorry, pops. Guess you got passed by? But Charles didn't stop there. When we ignored his airy comings-and-going as part of his bitchy ways, he upped the ante further with his showy antics, and that was in-between the rantings and ravings of the crazy butch design director who famously made out with her lesbian lover at the annual Christmas party we had the Toy Center, sporting a pair of bright red suspenders to go with her mustache and crew cut. Uh huh...well-played, sir.

So, Charles staged an ever-increasing series of events to get himself fired, because he was still contractually-obliged to show up to this dreadful job that included: a yearly clothing allowance, free car service rides to-and-from work whenever he wanted them, huge photography budgets for cover direction that he still blew because he isn't a real artist or designer (oops), and then there was his special little messenger service. By now, our publishing house was so queer that the gayest editor in town started an imprint called "Stonewall Books" to support the community's need for over-dramatics and hysteric storytelling, and this was "pre-Charles".

With him onboard, the growing gay contingent at our happily growing house went haywire. It was too much competition for us to openly support, and the hanging-on posers in the workflow didn't help. He had to go, and we all knew that, but girlfriend did throw some fireworks around first, like the delusional queen he is. One afternoon, I noticed a buff-looking Italian-type queer (think Freddy Mercury) walk out of his office, but I just figured he was there for Charles. Closed-doors didn't even work with us anymore either, because half of the design department kids had sex after hours on the couch in his office, like we assumed he did in the middle of the day. Eh?

It actually took the noticing of my art director friend for me to register more than shock, and that was only because he stopped by to talk to Charles, lingering around my desk for the wait while his door was closed in a private meeting. Divas...sigh...Out breezed past us a short tan man with the shortest pair of cut-off jeans I'd ever seen, tight enough to showcase his bulge. I thought he was just a boyfriend, but no. No, it was far weirder than that, because my designer friend had to finally break the truth to me: Charles didn't use our company messenger service in the mailroom that we had on staff for such purposes. No, girlfriend was so queer that he had to have his very own GAY MESSENGER SERVICE. "Yeah", Henry told me laughing, "last week the same gay guy walked by me wearing these tight red spandex hot pants, like the kind people wore in discos during the 70s!" Damn, son. I missed that one! Must have been at a meeting instead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiki_%28gathering%29

Stigma

Having been the target of significant harassment all of my life, it's no surprise to me when I encounter it out in the larger world. Towards the end of my public service in other people's privately-held companies, I came to expect a certain timeline that I folded into my performance as I went about my day. During my time at one large textbook publisher, the very hallway in front of my office space became known as The Illuminator's Hallway, as employee after employee recognized that the letters "Master Illuminator" might as well be engraved above the doorway leading to it. And, no, " La Lohard" celeb who likes to stalk chicks: that was not a holy fountain to bless yourself with, at the company entrance. Dumb bitch. Nice act, though. You play a drunk wandering into the wrong building while "vaping" really well!

After awhile, it became a rather quiet, and (dare I say it?) quite pleasant place to work towards the end of my tenure there, in sharp contrast to before, like I was being used as a dishwasher for the insane. It forever secured my fame with the native English-speaking crowd, both here and "across the pond", which was part of the point: letting the Brits overseas know that we still have a solidly strong foot in the game. Nothing to front about here. I've also worked in some of the most illegally toxic office environments that a modern city like New York has to offer, without being fully prosecuted right underneath my nose (avoiding my participation in your affairs, eh?), although I expect the dust from those lawsuits to have been settled by now. 

I considered it my patriotic duty to monitor adherence to the law by whistle-blowing in the most intelligent manner that's ever been recorded in those offices, by which I mean this: evil don't win ever against me, ever. I might let a bitch hiss under her breath in my direction—if I'm really busy—but rest assured, retribution will always be mine, as the fate of His Most Righteous in gloriously-done battle. I don't lose fights either unless, of course, you rigged it by cheating (like a punk-ass beyotch), in which case any match you thought you won is null-and-void in my record book and everyone else's. 

I was dropped into disordered, predominantly homosexual offices so I could fight my way through them, which I did, with every single facet of my existence coming under fire. The crazy bitch who lead that charge? Yeah, you should know that Diana cried "Foul!" like a bitch on Day One, after stealing a glance at my very first rough layouts over the company server, and that was some small-time German publisher of common ephemera. Feel me? I hurt her so fucking bad, that she used as excuses: 1) her mental illnesses 2) the fact that her tiny little "bi" bitch (who cheated on her husband with her, while still married) needed the money from her job for law school, so they could strong-arm us into accepting legal deals that do not benefit the majority of our population, 3) that her daddy was an abusive drunk who left her and her mom early on, hence the damage (boohoo: her mom is a Methodist minister somewhere in Dallas), and finally, 4) the "poor dyke" card. 

She threatened lawsuits towards the middle and end of my tenure, too, because she just couldn't hang in there with it, and once again, one very fucked-up small family business that's an exercise in pride and the human ego fired an employee quickly on the heels of my departure, in case I cooked up any winning employment lawsuits that they rightly deserved, and got served with in my absence. I ain't got time for no court, y'all. I got work to do. And so, when I was dropped into another fucked-up small family business (this time, Jews from New York), I expected the teeth and claws of the insane to come out quickly. 

By now, I'd rightly earned a reputation as a woman not to be trifled with, so it was mostly pissant shit I could ignore in the face of my bigger workflow that earns. It took a few years for them to run the clock with me, thinking that they were sucking me dry of my "good" designs that were deliberately rejected by their Observant manager that they placed at B&N to do so, so they could milk my brilliant cover designs in my absence from their company hard drive (Hi, there!). It didn't work, because I was already famous, but it was a nice try. Nice try! 

After that, they let their rabid Israeli bitch of a secretary loose on me (so they thought), and I took her down, too (after also embarrassing her at MMA, because the bitch tapped out on a bland white belt for rank-ass beginners at a bullshit school for office tools), while using her bad shit to fuel the anger that put my work over-the-top, because no one uses me without my approval. Ever. Feeling "randy" now, boys? No?! Huh...silence finally reigns. Again.

So, when I hear bullshit justifications about undoing the "stigma" associated with mental illness, I know that the perpetrator of such a farce is also mentally ill (and afraid of exposure), because healthy people know the real cost of untreated psychosis in this society and worldwide. It doesn't wash with us, anymore, because we know better. But, we will take your Hollywood money and funnel it through special "committees" designed to bilk you out of your ill-gotten gains by using your immorally psychotic power to bankrupt the rest of us.

If you think this mama is dumb enough to accept your sob stories after my history of abuse at the hands of the chronically sick, as wars beaten and won by me (and publicly witnessed), you are worse off than you originally thought. Go back to your doctor, stat! We will protect our land, we will protect our children, and we will protect this land that is built of the "pursuit of happiness"; not your vanity, nor your ego, or your pride, and certainly not your cowardice, or your fears about your diseases. It ends today, because the rights of the healthy take precedence over the rights of the chronically-ill abuser. Together we rise, not fall. Your fears, my dear public, are well-justified. Drunks kill people. Guns kill people. And crazy people kill people. You will solve brain disorders, and you start will start that process today. Go!

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/news/science-news/2008/mental-disorders-cost-society-billions-in-unearned-income.shtml

Footprints

It's no secret among creative communities that envy is the biggest obstacle in any of our workflows; in other words, our toughest problems are human. I can design anything I want to, for any type of budget, using any kind of tool, in any language you want, but how does that help you if you're uneducated, illiterate, learning-impaired, or brain disordered? It doesn't, does it? 

Hence, the literary world has almost always been comprised of top-tier intellectuals, because it isn't fun (or fair) to make us describe the same text, layout, or picture to you again, when our job is to make art that soars above the heads of those who come after us, sometimes by a millennium or two. We address special needs in the books designed for the people who tend to them, but books for the blind is a rare genre, indeed. When was the last time you met a Braille-reading typesetter? 

Audio books fare far better with the vision-impaired market anyway, because who has time to learn Braille, especially if you began life sighted? You see images in your head, and that's what creative content is really about: your imagination. No one else can do that for you. You have to supply that. I suppose that's why artists and designers are treated with such extreme prejudice and suspicion in any type of company: it must be threatening to talk with someone who knows (comparatively) all the answers, but that's the point. Our higher education is your knowledge base to tap into. Being angry at superior intelligence defeats the whole point behind hiring creative genius.

And so, it was no surprise to me that I worked with a quiet old Jewish man at the end of his career who still carried a huge chip on his shoulder from that big promotion he was denied many years ago by the major leagues. Why? He told us many times (when he wanted to scare or intimidate us into silence) that he didn't need anymore money. Okay....but we do. How does your point of view on the subject matter? It was totally irrelevant. Either keep the company going or don't. His employees would simply go to work elsewhere. It was a baffling bad strategy that highlighted his lack of abilities the big companies must have noted as quickly as I did the first harrowing week in his employ.

Of course, the old man's very first employees were rejects who never really worked for the big league companies, as a skeleton crew comprised of typical industry cast-offs, and a bigger bunch of pompously pretentious art fag "wanna-be's" I've never met. One of his "lifers" (Hi, "Scooter"!) was a glorified salesman/paralegal who worked boring contracts for us, and the other some lazy idiot fired almost immediately by a bigger brand-name publisher, not that I thought higher of larger publishing companies, anyway. I was better than the nut-cases working for abusive bosses who practically tossed people out the window by ignoring their pathologies for mere profit, because compulsive crazies do the grunt labor better left to machines than humans with fully-functioning brains.

His oldest "hires" were those two nut cases strange enough to work out of his home with him, as his nut-job family wandered in-and-out all day long. What kind of legitimate person does that? No one with a reputation to protect or their good name, like, say, me. By the time I came on-board his company, he realized that he needed real talent to work with B&N; not the crazy hangers-on from his daughter's bullshit screenwriting class for tacky no-talents at the local "Learning Annex" location. The two biggest douchebags who gave me the most condescending attitude right away were the exact same two dicks who were so desperate for validation, that they worked for almost no salary in some crazy old Jewish guy's apartment.

I'm not talking about building computers in your parents garage, or publishing original works through the public library's Internet access, either. Those two douches couldn't pen a novel if their lives depended on it, but they could be immoral enough to profit from the works of others. It made them constantly irate, especially when heavy-hitters like me and my production manager created a profit-producing workflow without their input. Ever hear the sound of teeth grinding? That's it. They did the mental version of gnashing teeth every single day. 

Most of the staff avoided them. They were windbags who preferred sucking each other off, in meetings rife with odd head-games over the making of any real art, which suited us just fine. They were nobodies, and they acted like they knew that already. They were "easy come, easy go". And they did: first, one was fired for physically assaulting the old man in a meeting, then the next for a lack of available funds, because they siphoned cash to various family members before their "seniority" that was bragged about. Without constantly sucking the talent from their betters, they became snarling vicious losers in our absence, bringing the company down brick-by-brick from the crazy old man's final incompetence, and that was this: his inability to see through his overly emotion connections to the friends and family who were the sickness that tore his businesses apart.

The very first month that I did a favor for their production manger of a dead classics series (feeding off the souls of writers they would never be) told me everything about them that I needed to know, besides their widely telegraphed disdain that existed around every office corner I turned. That big douchebag for their classics series threw down an easy layout his incompetent designer couldn't do on the ground of his office floor, to walk over it on the way back to his desk, thus leaving a big dirty footprint on the piece of paper that I would easily see, because he thought it would get to me somehow, except for this very prurient fact that the demented always seem to miss: that old layout can turn to dust, because the books I made are still for sale throughout the country, not to mention on the shelves of the book-buying American public printed with my name on them, and not his.

How's that for a "make it pretty" housewife decorator of a designer, Mark? Those were his actual words to me, as an already-famous art director and book designer that they didn't know because of their industry irrelevance, after flipping some minor layout from his dead imprint disdainfully across my desk for me to correct, because his designer was too stupid to keep up with a single female rock star like me. Besides, right after they "hit it" big with their classics series, B&N simply pillaged their idea in-house, creating an award-winning Classics series of their very own, thus cutting out the middle men forever. Thanks, Jo. Nice one!

One night I dreamed I was walking

Along the beach with the Lord

Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.

In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand

Sometimes there were two sets of footprints

Other times there was one set of footprints

This bothered me because I noticed that

During the low periods of my life when I was

Suffering from anguish, sorrow , or defeat

I could see only one set of footprints.

So I said to the Lord. "You promised me

Lord, that if I followed You,

You would walk with me always.

But I noticed that during the most trying periods

of my life there have only been

One set of prints in the sand.

"Why, when I have needed You most,

You have not been there for me?"

The Lord replied.

"The times when you have seen only one set of footprints

Is when I carried you."

http://h2ofootprints.wikia.com/wiki/Footprints_%28Poem%29 

Rabbit Rescue

Every year around Easter, the number of rabbit sales double and triple the closer we get to the holidays, as do the subsequent number of rescued rabbits needing adoption, as each generation of kids learn that keeping a rabbit is not like having a domesticated cat or dog, because those animals have been purposefully bred to live with us as our working companions or household pets. I learned a bit more about taking care of rabbits through an old work acquaintance I bumped into at one of our annual industry parties that used to be called the "Barge Bash", but as the price (and number of careless drunks) went up, we settled into publishing parties at the piers of South Street Seaport.

Jason was my apprentice at one time, though more accurately, we were assistants to the Senior Production Manager, and he was our new trainee. I showed him the ropes, because we had to give new hires at least a week (sometimes two, depending on notice) of overlap between employee shifts; that's how complex the manufacturing of books can be. It was all very civilized, given the politics at the time. I was the first scholar/artist to work in production, because my mentor was gifted enough to know that she needed to steer her ship through hand-done mechanicals to desktop publishing with some serious guidance that my generation of thinkers represented as a group.

We never had clean easy changes as a part of our lives, so becoming adept at "multi-tasking" was just another phrase for "staying alive" to us. We didn't have a say in any of it: not the language(s) we used, or the systems we had to learn just to earn a meager paycheck, nor the kinds of media we made...none of it was ours for the taking, or asking. Jason was really smart and cerebral. He fit in with the hardcore nerds a lot better than I did, and that was part of the problem for him, too. He fit in a little too good for it to be healthy. Within weeks of me leaving the lower floor for the art department upstairs (in continuation of my apprenticeship as a leader, not a follower), I began to hear stirrings in the weekly production meetings, some of them staffed by my friends.

He attached himself to a flamboyantly bisexual "art fag" called Mary Louise at the time, and for a sheltered fragile kid from Brooklyn who lived with his mom, she was a bit too much of an exotic out-of-towner for him, with her bright red lipstick and chain-smoking ennui that seemed feigned to me. She claimed that the violent sexual offender who climbed through her open bedroom window on one warm Southern night turned her to women in response, but given that she loved to lie (ahem "act") in front of a captive audience, it was all up for grabs, including her highly mannered persona that could just be a reflexively fearful response to our overwhelming native city. I didn't really buy into her act, though she was a firm part of our crowd.

He attached to her hard, though, falling in love at work way too quickly at his first real job. He got into some serious trouble at work, so badly that my former work mentor from production had to ask me some pointedly direct questions about his conduct with me (which was strictly professional though friendly, since he was my responsibility as a younger trainee), and for her, that was rare, because she was (and is) that good at reading people, just like me. Mary Louise threatened sexual harassment lawsuits and discrimination, with the gay card thrown in...it was a total mess. Jason landed in rehab, because after accosting her in the hallways and company stairwells, he took his act to the streets, haunting her neighborhood like a love-struck teenager, and that's when it really got scary.

She was deeply rattled by it, because I asked her about his conduct, too. She shakily smoked a few cigs in the middle of the day just talking to me about recent events, and I could plainly see that this was no act; her hand shook lighting each cigarette in quick succession. He took to stalking her at the local cafe she went with her best friend and roommate in the Village, banging on the glass and mouthing "I love you" to her over and over through the window, as they sat inside. It was too much for him and her. Years later, after we met a party, I kept his card out of curiosity. I wanted to know about him, as one of the few trainees I had, and so I sent him an email to renew our acquaintance, which was gladly met.

He did indeed "make it", working as a professional Production Manager for a slick commercial packaging group, and I was satisfied with that. He was disabled after all, so I took care. We met for a dreadful "art fag" movie showing one warm evening downtown that horrified me, because the gay woman who made it was there for a tortuous "question-and-answer" period, and his was the very first hand to shoot up. I slouched a little in my seat, because the movie was terribly pretentious, as he asked inane questions about the sound recording and audio. I suppose he wanted to seem like an aficionado to impress me, which it didn't. Who cares about the background?!

But, as a disabled man, he clung to ephemera the way you and I might hold on to bread and water as the staff of life. I could see him at home, rocking back and forth obsessively over some soundtrack. It just fit his whole persona. Besides, he could afford to have such eccentricities, because he still lived with his mom in Brooklyn and he was in his 30s, which told me all I needed to know about his illness. He seemed stable enough, but that could all change at any time with the wrong combination of elements. So, we talked about rabbits waiting on the line to see this art film showing, and that's when he showed me some cute pictures of his pet rabbits.

He was a bit nervous about leaving them alone, sometimes even hiring a pet caregiver when he went away on business trips or the odd concert that kept him away from home for a day or two. He was the ultimate fan. We didn't connect romantically, so he asked me if he could "put me on the back burner", which I knew was language he picked up from his therapist giving him permission to see other women, and I was just fine with that. I liked him like I like all my friends: not like that. We'd see a few local shows around, but that was before I went bust during the last economic recession. He tried to pull me into his weird group of freelancers who worked completely backwards, and I quickly bailed out of their mutual business venture for the insane. No, thanks. I can belt-tighten some more, man, and that was it. Poof! He was gone from my life, after I got a small paycheck from him.

I was happy that he was grounded through his rabbits, and his album collection of odd music, because given the depth of his illnesses, he was doing phenomenally well, and I didn't want to see that disturbed in any way. We took it as far as holding hands, as he tried to comfort me about my "bad luck" in a rigged game I was destined to lose, with his arm companionably around my shoulders in a warmly affectionate gesture. He was off to another hipster show in Brooklyn that I passed on, but not before he gave me a kiss on the cheek full of well-wishes. He couldn't help me out. No, it was never that for me, but we had this: a beautiful sunny day in our beloved Brooklyn, walking around as if we had no cares in the world, because at the time, we didn't.

We had the company of each other, our full lives, pets, romances that came and went, and one of us went in for a voluntary vasectomy when he reached 30, after going through a full psychological screening for readiness. When I asked him why, he told me that he always knew he didn't want kids, and maybe it had something to do with his father dying from cancer when he was just a baby? I enjoyed the deliberately vague response, so I tentatively offered the actual truth as a bait for him to open up: perhaps you're afraid of passing on your DNA and your mental illness to a child you'd be hard-pressed to parent well? Hmm...interesting theory. "Yeah, maybe." I knew right then that he knew I knew without saying it to him, because I knew it a lonnng time ago, Jay. Good luck with those adorable bunny rabbits, tho. You deserve every happiness that there is out there in the real world, kid.

For Jason

http://www.rabbitcare.org/

Chameleon

http://wiki.waveborn.com/becoming-so-good-they-can-t-ignore-you

Competitive media companies tend to be bitchy hot-spots for gossip, as employees fight it out among themselves for the most coveted positions within a house according to their appropriate levels, or not, as the case may be. You think some of the books you read are freaky? You should meet some of the people who make them....shudder. Bookish types tend to be somewhat anti-social: think of a mad scientist who just HAS TO clean every beaker in the the lab twice or thrice to guard against invisible alien...er, germs, and you're there.

Many well-read people are simply addicts with a bent for technical and highly repetitive labor clothed in sheep's garb, but take away their main "jones", and they're like any other addict; snarling nasty vicious beasts. I love reading as much as the next professional publisher, but take it away from me and I know I won't freak out, miss it as I may, because I'm in such a phase right now when it's more important for me to produce work through writing than being your passive audience.

It's the same thing for most well-trained artists who go through different phases of productivity based on many factors that include time, money, inclination, location; same as any other field, with the exception that there is no one to pass the buck to, which makes for much more difficult productive periods than the average "joe", but such is life. Because we create content long before the public has access to it, our companies (and lives) are filled with intrigue and possibility which, in the wrong hands, makes for a potent cocktail that people not born to the work can't handle.

I see bound galleys at garage sales all the time, but it's one of the most unethical acts a publishing professional can do, because leaking a book early to the public deprives everyone in the work queue the right to earn off it as a property, the way that buying bootleg DVD's is serious intellectual theft, but catch any drunk at the bar on Friday night, and you've got a thief looking to score, hot to brag about his "already seen it" status to other junkies who use it as leverage, too. Why not just wait? I always liked waiting to see something, like being pleasantly surprised on Christmas morning, not that I need to have the element of mystery to enjoy anything. I'm happy with "spoilers" that deprive media junkies of their high, because I'm a mature adult who understands that there's tons of available content for just about any person out there in the world, and as such, I accept that I probably won't be able to get to all of it, so why try? Just relax, and enjoy it.

But, some people need dirty nasty secrets to hold over one another as bribes, just like assholes in a typical office do. We all know them: they're that shifty-eyed kid who sneaks onto your email behind your back, so he can develop some "strategy" to foil your genius without you knowing it, even though he (and every other person on the payroll) is utterly dependent on you for income, thus breeding the hatred that envy inspires. I dated a typical ad guru who knew all the tricks of the trade: hire brilliant but vulnerable people like, say, a single woman living paycheck-to-paycheck in the city, just one small check away from bankruptcy but famous anyway, even though you should, like, NEVER say it to her face or she'll, like, know it and stuff, and there goes secrecy as a strategy!

So, I know all the big personality types who peddle our wares, grudgingly as "no-talents" tend to be as a group, but also utterly dependent on us, and isn't that why they turn on us? It's a pretty easy formula to suss out, much like the reason the retarded bully in the playground hates everyone: simply because you're there, and because his father's a mean drunk, so they're set up to be that way. Anyway, during our brief time dating (most of which the ad guy spent in competition with the other man I was dating), he asked me a lot of leading questions about the "other man" disguised as "support" from the modern guy looking to "score" with a beautiful woman. After a quick while, it actually became a pseudo-gay relationship between the two of them through me. He also thought it was bitchy fun to "out" a well-known and highly respected actor to me, simply because I knew his work well and the women he's collaborated with creatively, like, say an infamous Broadway actress with very curly hair (thanks for not selling out "soul sister") who can pass for my doppelganger at times.

I was nonplussed because lots of people are gay, to which he became a little twitchy about it, "Oh, oh sorry...did you have  a 'crush' on him?" Uh, no...never really thought about it before. "Because if you did, I'm so sorry!" Yeah, no sweat, dude. Actually, we were in downtown Brooklyn on a warm day, and I was thinking about pizza at a "famous" place that's always crowded with tourists, and as a native New Yorker, I never fucking wait on lines for our food, like some gimmicky tourist trap meant to gouge the unsuspecting. I cook better than most people anyway! He seemed curiously let-down that I couldn't give a fuck about some artist's sex life, and why would I? What does it have to do with me? It's the same thing at work: why would I give a fuck about who sleeps with who, and when? I make the work, they sell it and give me the profits I earn through my own labor. It's a pretty effective formula for craftspeople that's worked since we thought of it many moons ago.

It did give me a lot insight into why people like him sell-out so quickly; it's the fear that the money will dry up, once we figure out who they really are, which isn't true for experts like myself. Like my mentors told me, do your job well and that's your security. You don't need all the bullshit. If you work hard, you'll succeed, and that's always been the case with me, because nothing beats hard work. Anyway, after he and I necessarily drifted apart because he couldn't figure out how to work with an open honest person like myself, I noticed that he drifted out west, after his ex-wife moved there with his one child, the same woman he loved/hated by alternately craving her sex and then cheating on her to get her attention, like a ten year-old in crafts class off of his Ritalin. Really? Skirt-cashing the very woman he despises? Oy....strange are the ways of the disordered classes.

Anyway, I'm counting on him cyber-stalking me today without telling me how much he loves my work (and that happens every day, too), so let me take this time to ease his mind: back in the day, we "the knowing public" also knew that Liberace was gay, as we did about Richard Chamberlain, George Michael, and the fabulously feminine Boy George, and you know what? We love their music and their art anyway, because as Steve Martin once famously said, all you have to do to be a master artist is work harder than anyone you know, and "be so good that they can't ignore you". Ain't that the truth? There...now it's out there. The truth is out there! See you on the flip side of life, kids, and all the other "minors" in my audience. I see you!

http://bit.ly/1SBWvgb

http://bit.ly/1SBWvgb 

Because I said I would.

Over the years I've worked with just about every type of person on the planet; such is the range of my widely dispersed gifts that are given generously, in a city known for its cosmopolitan ways in the utmost. So welcoming are we (and sympathetic) to the world's woes, that our fair city has been vulnerable to attack after attack—in the name of freedom and liberty—but such is the price we pay for opening our hearts and our world to anyone who seeks peace from war-torn lands ravaged by societal woes like avarice, greed, hatred, and bias. It's no coincidence that the biggest gift from our French allies is a lady dressed in the robes of Ancient Greece, the first serious culture to live by laws; not as it applied to everyone, but it was the beginning of our shared longings for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I am not immune to suffering, which stands almost equal in strength (and often surpasses) the wealth of my gifts, which is not something I often talk about at length, because I encounter such great weaknesses and suffering as I go about my day that my own needs are pushed aside for another day, when (like any good mother) I have the time to cry in private while I nurse my own wounds alone, in some form of a solitary peace that's coupled with great longing. There's nothing quite like the pain of a mother's anguish, and because of the fractured and severely dysfunctional nature of my upbringing, it's sharpened my empathy and compassion to a fine point that's still surprising to me, so often am I perceived as just an average single white woman. But nothing could be further than the truth. Rough childhoods make for scrappy fighters who live very adult lives very early on, making me far more mature than most retirees I meet, and I've met many older seniors during my time here on earth.

It's in this capacity as a great listener—tolerant of hearing about the most violent extremes—that attracts the troubled to me in droves, most often the seriously mentally ill, which is also present in my immediate family. I grew up with it and survived it, which makes me sort of like a snake charmer to a sick person's demons. I've learned when not to take on the woes of the world, because like many Americans, I am also facing the most harsh state of bankrupt finances I've ever encountered in my life, and I officially entered the working world at age 15, which is evidenced in my long storied past with Social Security. I've also worked technically "off the books" much earlier than that (to escape those pesky child labor laws), something which I've referenced before, when I mentioned a worker's permit that I got from the principal of our elementary school at Chestnut Grove, so I could help my brothers with their paper routes.

My experiences, education, background, and natural prowess have shocked the most seasoned con artist, to the point that I felt driven to record such life stories here with you, the reader, so often am I accused of "making it up". It's unusual, and I know that, because I've seen the looks on countless faces, but the most interesting responses are from the sick people who think we are engaged in a lying contest about who can make up the greatest "fish tale", which is kind of innocent and sweet; it tickles a mother's fancy to be lied to by someone who is incompetent. It's mostly harmless gobbledygook, but one woman with BPD was honest enough to try and delve deeper with this walking talking encyclopedia (me) that somehow mysteriously showed up at her job one day, seemingly out of nowhere. No matter how many times we told her that I was a very advanced art director—widely known for my publishing expertise—she couldn't quite wrap her mind around it. It troubled her, and it also made me a magnet to her, like a shiny object she couldn't put down. I fascinated her, and she used me as a source of entertainment and engagement so she could check out of her disassociated reality for awhile.

Most often she was confused and foggy, especially when she went off her medication. She surveyed the office almost every day about something unrelated to books, like petty boy troubles or minor incidents with girlfriends that baffled her as a woman of 40+. It was as unbelievable to me as I was to her. How? She asked me a wide variety of questions that covered an enormous range of topics, but that's my job, just like it is in my family: to have the answer, and so I did. One day she asked me covertly about what it felt like to be me, a common thing for people with serious identity disorders. I must have felt like a Rubix Cube in human form to her, so many times did she ask me "Why this?" or "Why that?" I can recall one conversation like it was yesterday, so profound were (and are) the depth to her needs. What is being trustworthy and why did I seem to have it? She questioned the very nature of my authority over her and the other people in our office, so I broke it down like this: 1) Did she trust me? She said that she did. OK, great. 2) Why was that? She had a frown on her face. Oh. That was a much harder question, but like any gifted mom, I already knew the answer, so once I led her down the right road, I set her up to be receptive to the information when I gave it to her.

She trusted me because I made it that way. Oh! Right! She brightened up a bit, after I fed her the answer in bits. She, and the other employees, trusted me at my word because I laid down a pattern immediately upon the start of my employment there, like a background rhythm to all my business dealings: I said I would do something, and then I did it. I said it, then I did it, over and over again (providing proof when necessary), so that my honesty and integrity never really came into question or under fire, so quickly could I provide evidence of it. Their reliance on me was understood like a second nature, and it allowed me to serve them more easily, without argument or discord. My opinion was asked and the right answer was given, over and over, as many times as they needed it, in as many forms as I could provide.

Just as I am now under fire for having the audacity to become a publisher in one of the worst economies since "The Great Depression", by borrowing against the future of my own success. I will continue to provide you with the highest quality content I can give you, free of charge, because such is the fierceness that I attach to my vocation. And just like the pattern I establish everywhere I go, I made a promise to myself many years ago that I would give back as soon as I could, if I ever found myself in a position of power and authority, with as much as I had, until there was nothing left to give. So, that's what I will continue to do: publish however I can, for however long I can, despite the battles I face. Because I said I would.

www.becausisaidiwould.com