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/

Neck

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Taboo_Tattoos

I met Jimmy at a bar down on Stone Street with the company receptionist from the small Jewish family business I worked for, during my last long-term office job. She was busy burning through the new people, places, and things that she could at this McDojo we signed with, which gave me the relative peace of having a training experience of my very own, without parenting her through it. She remains one of the most disturbed women I've ever met through other people's companies, following a typical pattern of hiring that's based on the myth that other mentally ill/disabled people make the odd family members stick out less, which never really works. Who builds businesses based on the backs of a bunch of sick people? Not really good ones, like the workflows I design as I was taught, through an impressive list of industry mentors.

So, chaining their rabid Israeli girl with the weird yellow hair to a front desk, watching her explode into deranged fireworks day after day, really didn't mean much to me. Who cares? I had the actual business of books to work on with my contacts and clients. I was an almost totally self-sufficient business within a business, which the best creative contractors can pull off in their sleep, under the false duress of other people's manias. I kept a strict schedule that would automatically cut out anyone who couldn't hack it, which meant most of their resident amateur weirdos ran out of the door in horror of our actual labors, and they were forced to hire real publishing executives with genuine credentials from big league New York publishing, like me.

Their fried dyed mess of a doggie was honing in on me gradually though, because she could feel me pull away as easily as if she was just another generically fucked-up Long Islander, and she was that. Most of her work friends were gone, like her supposed "best friend" who was fired and then group-texted a bunch of us while we were working that she might just off herself, which sent her high school buddy running back to see me. "Oh, Becky always does that." Huh...not in my world. What gives? I trained her not to interrupt my day with her trivial madness, seeing as we all drew a paycheck from my continued successful contact at Barnes & Noble, the largest book retailer in the country. No me + no work = no money. Even she could figure that out with her more corrupt cronies at the office who preferred email hacking over the small in-house network to actually working. Ew!

Spying on me occupied their free time, and even in that strange game, I had them hooked through my online comments on well-known media sites that caused a ruckus throughout the place. Haha! I LOVE corporate espionage! It's fun! After that, she had to step up her game at infiltrating my life with an ever more aggressive and open series of mind games that don't work on genius talents who create paychecks for them through their book sales. Sorryy....She awkwardly asked me to sign up for karate lessons at a cheap intro price one afternoon while I walked past the front desk, after I created another successful distance she could practically taste in her mouth, because she knew I quit smoking through their email readings and my Internet surfing; I was actively looking online for fitness programs, like fencing with an epee or foil (http://fencersclub.org/). Yuck!

Her brother was actively engaged in martial arts training, which cinched the deal for her as a coward. She couldn't walk down the block unless she was looped off secretive hits taken in the company bathroom from a big blue bottle of mouthwash. After an initial observation session with one of their instructors (I won that assessment, too, BTW. I know, I know...sigh...again), we signed up for the program and it was going great. She soon learned that I didn't need athletics to tame a raging case of violent bipolar addictive disorder with markedly psychotic features like she did, so she picked up on a lonely fat girl desperate for a friendly face in our aggressive fight training classes. She began sweeping into class at the last minute to avoid talking to me on the mat, and then developed a ridiculous crush on a kid who was 19 and a brown belt instructor at the time.

Once again, I had no problem backing away from her, which once again backfired on her evil machinations, because the good-looking Puerto Rican kid from Spanish Harlem promptly announced his crush on "women in their 30s" made loudly in front of the both of us that drove her mad with envy, though Lord knows why, except she also has OCD. She used me as a lure to attract him into conversation that failed miserably, because she had absolutely nothing to say. Frothing at the mouth in anger, she told me to stay away from him as she tried her hand at 21st Century "cougaring", a sport she was bested at by a better-looking Spanish girl with a design degree and a great job with a famous cosmetics manufacturer doing package design for major retailers. Ohhh...that must have hurt badly!

As she went down in flames, her very last draw for a high-status female friendship were post-workout drinks with me, just like the after-work soirees she first invited me to without much success either, because crazy bitch games don't mean shit to me. And that's when I met Jimmy, a short good-looking Irish-American kid from Brooklyn working FDNY/limo driving. As soon as I bit into one of my first hot wings at the bar, I could sense him working a circuit around the joint, circling the place, looking for attractive pickings, and as soon as I looked up from my hot wing, he looked right at me. Ooops. Uh, this should go over badly. I quickly told her discreetly that he was coming over to hit on me, as a warning to her fragile ego. She immediately perked up during his harmless flirtations, doing a bunch of weird moves that baffled him, until he and I finally turned to each other for a real honest talk, the kind that only genuine New York city kids have with one another.

We knew the same Brooklyn neighborhoods, and sweet guy that he was, it was more than enough. He was like a lot of guys I grew up with, and he knew that. No harm, no foul. She made a quick plan to leave me alone with him as part of her punishment to me for turning away from her while she talked with his less-attractive friend, but as one co-worker had already observed in his email to me (hi Scooter!), my genetic attractions weren't my fault, nor his. She left me alone to whatever the fates had in store for me, which in this case meant hand-holding back to his parked SUV, and a nice drop-off at my Park Slope townhome with my little bag of drugstore products (like organic panti-liners) left in his truck by accident.

We made tentative plans for his returning them to me one evening after my work was done, ringing him on my cellphone from the Chelsea corner near my office, but it didn't work out. He was already out on a fare that wasn't near my subway stop in Manhattan. Oh, well. That was fine by me: the lad was far too young for me and besides, he'd never been to the real country of Ireland, just the commercial one he designed in his head that made for easy marketing in New York City, as part of the local color. Besides, as a master artist, taste means a lot to me and his quickly-rendered shamrock tat left much to be desired, as did it's placement in the middle of the back of his neck that he showed to me after shots. No thanks, mate. Sláinte to ya for the safe ride home, though. You were a sweet kid to me that night. Ta!

Times Square

After I graduated mid-session from art school, a few of my friends made their way to my aunts' apartment in Kensington for cheap rent, some sanity, and a crash pad while they began their own art and design careers. It served us well. I began my apprenticeship in publishing for an annual salary of just $11,500 in 1993, and rates have not gone up much. A recent stint in an lowbrow indie house had interns who began full-time work at a wage of just $20,000, doing just what we did back then: sharing small apartments in the city by tripling and quadrupling up, such is the way of our chosen vocation.

We split the monthly maintenance fee of just $400.00 because if we didn't, we wouldn't be able to eat food or pursue our various vocations. There was Lisa, an old housemate from RISD who worked at a sweater manufacturer, Ed, who worked for MTV studios, and then, after he left, an old friend from Oneonta who was in love with me stayed and wouldn't leave, working first as a waiter before beginning his carpentry apprenticeship under my support.

Lisa and Ed were both terrified and enthralled with New York City. At first, neither had understood my time at their tony white tower design school. Ed came from a wealthy family who catered to his every need, and Lisa learned to sew and make clothes under her mothers' wing. They both had it much, much easier than me, so my slow start fooled them into thinking they had a superiority that quickly evaporated in the Big Apple. Oh. Tough city kid from the craziest, hardest place on the planet. Yep, kids. Welcome to the Capital of the World! They started connecting with exactly where my true grit came from, and it greatly discomfited them. My seemingly junior status as a student began to cast itself into what it actually was: a working class kid who attended an upstate New York teacher's college for basic liberal arts studies at the age of 17, per my parent's orders.

Nowadays, students can co-jointly enroll at Brown and RISD for liberal arts and specialized design studies, which is basically what I did on my own back then, anyway. If I hadn't diverged paths to their white castle, I would have gone on to F.I.T. in the city for my senior year, after spending three at Oneonta. It was called a "3:1 Program", meaning I would have earned two degrees in just four quick years: a Bachelor's in studio arts and an Associate's degree in Advertising Design, but my dad's business sprouted and profited, thus allowing me to change tracks with his approval, which I did, because that was the deal we struck up, one dark, lonely, rainy upstate night in the rain, a young me talking to him on a payphone. Oh. It was really like that. I simply hadn't had money at the time.

In my hometown they began rapidly putting the pieces of my puzzle together, and they didn't like. Not one bit. There was no "spoiled rich girl" routine, no bullshit phony act, no pouty foot-stomping that needed appeasing, just the brutal reality of my daily work and commuting grind on a shoestring salary, though in true competitive envy, they did try to sabotage me still, even after school, which exactly what my mentor at RISD told me would happen with supposed "art school stars". I began disappearing with grace into my habitat, and they couldn't swim on their own in my environment, and I knew it. School begins now, kids!

They had toted along all of their false preconceived ideas about my town, too, mostly petty generic stuff like tourist traps and bad food. I gave them the real deal every day, served up warm, and they hated it, choosing time and again for the phony thing over authenticity. Kids love dream worlds and fake fantasies, and this was no different. Ed drew other people's ideas during the day, and Lisa ran errands for other designers. She never successfully drew a single sketch that was approved or made on the production floor. She learned to get out sooner rather than later, which she did. They both did, running to points out west in sunny Southern Cali, a fool's paradise if ever there was, which they pitched and promoted to the hilt, just like they had bragged about "making it" in New York City on me and my father's dime with money, rent, and resources that they have never paid me for in full, to this very day that I write to you on a humble public library computer.

It was a huge slice of humble pie for them. No one cared about their fancy degrees! And why would they? At my publishing house, Yalies and Harvard grads were everywhere, littering each floor of the Flatiron with trust funds in their back pockets, in case they failed. And then, the truth finally struck them, because I read it all over their faces: I played the game hard, with no safety net. It was just me, running on my juice. Oh. Another bad realization for them, again, like <ooooff> a soft punch to the gut. Yep, they are indeed catching onto to our fair Gotham. That's the level, yo. Cue song, begin scene: "This is how we do it!"

And so, like every other "idea" they had about my town, they brought New Year's Eve to the table for me to enlighten them about, and I tried, dear readers, I really did, but like most disillusioned kids, they insisted on seeing it for themselves. Sigh. Oh, good, just what every tired and broke single "parent" like me needs: Times Square on New Year's Eve! And, just like I spelled it out for them, like I type it out word for word for you to recount with me, each and every scary bad thing that could happen did. You know, because I can read minds and shit, like some fucking t.v. psychic. It's magic!

We climbed the subway stars to a smoky Hell right out of any Hollywood movie, complete with terrifying cops in full riot gear, with battle regalia like huge Uzi guns, weapons Ed drew in his boyish cartoons but had never seen in person, because people like me shield him from it. Tear gas completed the hellish effect, casting a greenish haze everywhere that made shapes appear suddenly out of nowhere, drunk people careening and screaming and puking and stumbling, packing themselves into the square like rats. They clung to me, shaky and almost in tears, as I guided them through the insanely packed streets, delivering them safely to a party with, yep, more out-of-touch RISD kids. Wow! "Guys, it was just like Marie said!" My words spoken to them in the warmth and safety of my family's Brooklyn apartment were now finally made real to them through the conjuring that every good parents already knows; that of experience.

They cut ties with me eventually by turning on me, in recognition of my greater gifts that they could no longer pretend did not exist like they had done back at school, and like any embarrassed kid always does, they did it by withholding "thank you" to my face, knowing that I deserved for it my many services and kindnesses, instead choosing to hurt me with their feigned indifference, but isn't that always the way it is with children? They were beautiful and very young to me, then; spoiled and ungrateful, yes, as they lashed out at me in fright and anger because my ferocious home town was ill-suited to them like I knew it would be, but if you could see my face as I write this right now, you parents in my audience already know what you'd see: a softness that comes from empathy, compassion, understanding, and a mother's undying devotion to the very people she gave shelter to, and I wouldn't change a thing.

Amen to you, during this holiday week. Beware the many bugaboos that may be lurking behind a darkened street corner.   

'Tis the season for such things, my dears.

The Gift

Early morning delivery.

On Christmas Eve Day, I opened the door early morning to what I first thought was a Christmas present, then I thought it was a freebie sample that I ordered online, but when I bent down to pick it up, I saw the label. Oh. It's from a small indie publisher that I designed for in the past, a rich kid imprint paid for by his also-rich daddy, a guy who cashed out by selling his imprint years ago. They probably use the son's company as a tax shelter for the earnings from that sale, which renders their product indifferent, like so many widgets that exist only to serve their obscured financial purpose, not worth the paper they're printed on. And so the gift was actually my own work mailed back to me in bound book form, certainly not a new experience for me. How...well, not a gift.

I quickly took a look at the work I did for them on the cheap, unsurprised by its' poor quality. One book had been case stamped on the spine incorrectly (upside down, actually; a major production error that's a firing offense in major league houses), which I noticed by removing the jacket I designed, because I always inspect books for their quality. The other book contains some inane drivel about an arrogant British wanker who hates the yoga retreat he's attending, and (surprise, surprise), probably has epiphanies later on down the road, read: further along in the book. Ho hum. A real pager turner, not worth my time. It's not exactly prize-winning stuff, but that's the whole point; they position themselves deliberately on the bottom of the pile, to mine the marketing niche as low-end producers, probably wanting to escape notice so The Tax Man doesn't come a-calling. Huh. I know that game, too.

It's embarrassing, but people do this kind of stuff ALL the time. Every day, actually. They take a real vocation and turn it to shit, then piss and moan about the cost, which is exactly what they did to me when I worked for them. It was beneath me, and by them time they shamefacedly told me they were flat broke, (the first and only time their "publisher" deigned to speak to me in person), and besides, like, they could totally use my desk space for one of his six or seven pretty boy "assistants" (nudge, nudge, wink, wink), I think they thought they were lashing out at me for being a major talent who stooped to their level for shekels because they had me in a vulnerable position financially, which is about as far from the truth as we are from the sun; another light that will forever fail to reach them, because they just don't get it on every level, and that includes way existentially, man.

As they continue to play their petty games with one another at their inept labors today, I couldn't help but reflect on my time there, in the early morning light, Christmas Eve morning, looking at these books that could have been so beautiful, and I thought that when they had the real deal right beneath their gazes, they refused to see true worth. They took the hefty gifts I gave them, and they turned their backs on them, because they know they aren't worth the price of the ticket. I thought about how sad that was for them, but that they were no longer my flock to tend to. They are now someone else's poor problem.

I wish you peace on this 26th day in December during our continued Christmas season, as we recall the journey of The Three Magi who came bearing gifts for our Lord and Savior, a baby born lowly in a manger, because His parents were turned away from the inn at Bethlehem, and Amen for that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Magi.

More cheap, shoddy goods, just in time for Christmas! How thoughtful.