Making a Difference As some of you may know, I wrote a memoir with Marchon's former CEO, the late Al Berg about his career and the history of his company. Well, it's published and is available in paperback, e-book, Kindle and Nook formats. You can find it here: www.outskirtspress.com/making_a_difference. If you do choose to read it I hope you'll give me your feedback. Thanks.

The End of Something

It's sometimes amazing how a small,seemingly insignificant incident can bestow upon the participants an illuminating lesson.

Case in point, nearly a decade ago, when my business partner and friend, Shawn Mery, was living with his family in the Mainline Philadelphia area, I was invited to join them for dinner one when while I was in the area working on a project. When I got to their house, probably around 7:30pm or so, I found Shawn's (then)seven-year-old son crying and blubbering as though he'd just lost his best friend.

"What's the matter?" I asked, as Shawn tried to console him. "He's really upset..."

"Oh, he was watching a Yankees game and it just finished," he said. "He gets that way whenever the Yankees are over. He can never get enough."

It seemed to me like an easily remediable problem. "Why don't you just get him one of those Yankees highlight videos," I suggested. "I'm sure he doesn't care about the game as much as watching the players play...he can watch the Yankees all day long."

"I could do that," Shawn offered, and paused. "But then how we would he ever learn that all things eventually end?"

The Father we Never Found

I number of years ago, I was sitting in the stands at the (old) Yankee stadium, third base side, with my good friend from early childhood, David Champa, who is an avid Yankees fan. It was a lovely, warm spring afternoon with the players stretching and sprinting on the green field while fans began to sprinkle in. The game was still about an hour away.

A few rows below us, a young father sat beside his little boy, enjoying the spectacle of the players preparing themselves for the task at hand. The dad watched in rapt attention as, no doubt, many of his contemporary heroes performed right before him. He kept pointing to various players and leaning in to explain to his small son their relative importance. The little boy sat excitedly (obviously his first baseball game), his cap tipped up and large baseball glove at the ready in his right hand. It was very pleasant--even peaceful--to watch them.

Suddenly, a large wasp began to hover around the little boy's head, as though looking for a particularly juicy victim. The wasp buzzed back and forth, then landed on the boy's hat as if to tease onlookers, then took to the air again. The boy and his dad continued in their reverie. Finally, the wasp with some deliberateness landed on the boy's shoulder and began to creep up toward his bare neck.

I instinctively motioned forward in hopes of shooing the wasp away. With concern and frustration I waved my hands back and forth in an attempt to get the wasp, though several yards below us. It was impossible to shout from our distance above them, so the waving and gesturing was the best I could do.

The moment felt like an eternity, and then the dad did an amazing thing--he put his right arm around the boy with a simple, sweet affection and the wasp flew off. It was as though the forces of evil were repelled by the forces of love (although I do know better than that).

I was unaware that David was watching the little drama, too. As I felt a small shudder of relief that the boy was spared the wasp's sting, he leaned over to me and said, "Now you know how God must feel..."

The Old Man Couldn't See

NOTE: Each year, the world famous Harry’s American
Bar & Grill of Venice, Italy petitions would-be authors all over the globe to take part in a unique writing competition, in which contestants must “produce one good page of bad Ernest Hemingway.” In other words, write a page of hokey prose in the style of the bar’s most famous patron. The creator of the best page of “bad Hemingway”wins fifteen minutes of fame, dazzling prizes, and a trip to Venice to eat and drink at Harry’s as Hemingway himself once did. Sounds good to me.
Herewith, your humble blogger, seeking to kill two birds with one stone,
submits his entry for your consideration:


He wasn’t really an old man, though he had begun to think of himself as old
or more precisely aged. He had lived a good, good life by mixing a little skill with a touch of charm and a bit of luck to make it good. But now he watched the candle
light flicker and cast dancing shadows over faces and dinner plates and glasses filled with red Chianti, tall shadows that stirred in him memories of those many carefree nights at Harry’s American Bar & Grill when his eyesight was better, and he came to understand that his luck had finally turned sour. He was forty-three years old.

“Does it hurt much, darling?” she said.
She reached across the red checkered table cloth to touch his hand with her
long, lacquered fingertips. The dim candle light made her face look dark and
somber.

“The marvelous thing is that it’s painless,” he said. “That’s how you really when it starts."

“Oh, Nick!” she said. She held back a small sob. He had run with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, and had fished for marlin off the coast of Cuba and had studied war in Italy. Here in New York City he studied a restaurant menu and continuously rubbed his eyes. It was the menu for Luigi’Trattoria and the Italian food was described in long, elegant Italian phrases many referring to the fricassee of small animals.

He loved dago food and especially loved Luigi’s place, which was small and
intimate and inviting and one of those places that strikes you as the perfect place to write a love sonnet or hatch a conspiracy. But he did not like the menu with itsfine, black print and this caused him to rub his eyes.

“Darling, I’d be happy to read the selections to you, “she said.

“No, no,” he said. He stretched his arms as far as they would reach, past the
bread basket and jug of Chianti, nearly into her plate. Still the print on the menu
swirled before his eyes and he squinted to try to bring it into focus. “I think I’ve just got it.”

“Signore Nick,” said Luigi, “you’re holding the menu upside down.”
He had known Luigi briefly during the war in Italy when the two had been
ambulance drivers together. They were about to become friends back then but for
the assault of cannon that put his ambulance out of commission and put him in the hospital to nurse a bum leg. He had almost forgotten about Luigi until he walked into the Trattoria late one evening for a drink. Seeing each other, the two
immediately embraced and Luigi kissed him on both cheeks.

“You cannot read a menu upside down,” Luigi said. He took the menu from
his hands and turned it right side up.

“Oh, Nick,” she said, and the small sob caught again in her throat. “It’s true,
your eyes are going bad.”

“Not bad, really, kid,” he said offhandedly. “Just tired, I’m tired is all. It’s
what the French call Les Yeux Fatigue.”

“It worries me, Nick,” she said, “it worries me to see you this way.” Tears
welled in her eyes and dropped--plunk, plunk, plunk--onto the empty plate.

Luigi drew up a chair and joined them. He smoothed the ends of his long mustache with thumb and forefinger. “There is no need to worry,” he said. “It is a
condition, a simple condition of the eyes that comes with age, Signore.”


“Can it be...corrected?” he said. “Yes, Signore, si...it can be corrected easily,” Luigi said. “My cousin, Gianni, he is an optometrist. He is very good at correcting this condition.” Luigi reached into the small pocket of his red vest and drew out a calling card. “He is located here, in New York, not far from my restaurant.”

“An oculist, ‘eh,” he said, and squinted at the card in his hand.
“They call them optometrists now,” Luigi said. He stood up from the table
and bowed slightly and wished them both a good dinner.
“You won’t be disappointed,” he said.

“Darling, this will be so exciting,” she said. Her voice now was filled with
anticipation and some small delight and as the steaming food came and she
continued speaking her anticipation and delight became greater. “We’ll select a
wonderful pair of spectacles for you. Possibly one of those tiny, little pair made of
fine wire or possibly something in tortoise.”
-
“Yes, possibly,” he said. He scooped a large portion of steaming spaghetti into his bowl. He breathed deeply with relief. “Possibly a pair of tortoise spectacles would work out nicely.”

They ate and drank that night as they had not done for many nights before.

As the meal came to an end, Luigi joined them once more and they laughed and
joked and told stories of Italy and then Luigi broke out the grappa and coffee and
they concluded the evening in a fine way.

Tomorrow they would go to Gianni, the optometrist, and he would correct the condition with a pair of good spectacles and all the tears would be gone. And
tonight they would leave Luigi’s and walk home in the rain. (Originally published in February, 1996)

The Genius of Playboy

Playboy magazine was born just a few months before I was, and ultimately became a large part of my adolescence. In 1966, when I was twelve years old, Playboy was my pubescent companion--occupying a good amount of my leisure time.

Now lest you think that this entry will be nothing more than a the salacious recollections of a 57-year-old man, please remain calm. Yes, Playboy represented sex to us before we really knew what sex was. But I became captivated by the magazine itself.

Playboy was a groundbreaking example of what the magazine industry could be. It was a visual and intellectual playground, with a distinct personality, distinct point of view, a name and a face. Those last two qualities were provided by its creator, Hugh Marsten Hefner, a brilliant publisher who knew how to get his audience to become one with his product. At a time when magazines were as bland as skim milk and as general as typing paper, Playboy invented lifestyle publishing. That the lifestyle was built on fantasy was beside the point. Playboy made its (male) reader feel special, feel like he was part of a great, national fraternity that set him above the masses in some way.

Apart and aside from the pictures of naked women, the magazine achieved this end through its content. It featured leading authors in the tradition of Esquire in its heyday, and fabulous, thoughtful journalism. I learned more about American culture reading the Playboy Interview (generally a 5,000 word opus) than I did in social studies.

What also made Playboy special was that it was organic--it lived and breathed. A sociologist once pointed out that all great publications convey the idea of a metaphorical family; in the case of Playboy, Hefner was the father, the centerfold was the mother, the writers were the child-craftsmen and the advertisers were the child-clowns. And we, the readers, were the step-children, so wanting to be accepted as a genuine member of the family.

Hefner was (and is) a genius. I think, like Charles Foster Kane, time has passed him by. The great magazine appears to be a parody of itself now, although I've hardly more than glanced at an issue in years. Hefner himself looks like a doddering old fool when you see him on E! cavorting with 22-year-olds in his famous pajamas.

But there was something magical and exciting about his creation(s)--every issue, he brought you something of the expected and the surprising, the two most important ingredients for a successful publication.

I am, of course, far further down on the publishing food chain than Hefner was (is). But I take some small pride in integrating a little of his magic in the publishing that we do.

The Twilight Zone Moment

I was one of the fortunate few ("few" being a relative term) to have seen The Twilight Zone when it originally aired from 1959 to 1964. It aired on CBS on Friday nights at the late, late hour (for me) of 9pm EST. My Dad and I always watched it together and we always loved it--even though I would occasionally be so frightened by a particularly scary episode that I'd stay up the entire night (much to Dad's chagrin).

Back then, there really was such a thing as quality television. Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone's creator, came out of the "tele-drama as literature" generation that also produced Paddy Chayefsky and Dalton Trumbo. He proved that one could create a half-hour video "short story," with the elegance, rhythm and impact of the best short fiction. It's no surprise that some of the finest writers of the time--guys like Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison--were regular Twilight Zone contributors.

But what made The Twilight Zone truly special was how it would consistently surprise its audience with the unanticipated plot twist at every conclusion. Whether it was Burgess Meredith breaking his eyeglasses at the end of "Time Enough at Last," or the panicked face of the hapless hero in "To Serve Man," as he suddenly realizes he's going to be an alien's dinner, The Twilight Zone ending was always the show's defining moment.

I never miss a chance to watch The Twilight Zone when it pops up on TV (usually at odd hours of the early morning). But most importantly, at least in how I create products and services within my business, I always try to experience a "Twilight Zone Moment." In my creative process, I endeavor to reach a point where that sudden, unanticipated "left turn" happens, producing a much more unique and generally more valuable result.

Does the practice always work? Nope. But it makes thinking fun.

When Baseball was Amazin'

Around this time every year, as we contend with the snow and the cold here in the Great Northeast, I always warm my heart with the thought that pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training this week (and next). And I think back fondly to my favorite major league team of all time--the 1969 Mets.

Despite the problems they face both on and off the field now, the Mets of '69 were--for me, and I'm sure many others--a great heroes story, battling far more formidable foes with skill and dash and more than a little luck.

We had come upon the Mets because my Dad was an NY Giants fan, and the Mets of course take their DNA from the old Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers (if you look at the old photos of Christy Mathewson and John McGraw you'll notice that they wore what we now recognize as the Mets NY insignia). We were also from Long Island, and what better team to root for than the Long Island (okay, Queens) team? We certainly weren't going to the Bronx.

But of course as we all know the Mets were pretty much terrible for those first several years, when expansion teams were constructed with the cast-offs from the better, established franchises.

But 1969 was special! The saga captivated me throughout the entire summer (the way baseball is supposed to), and while the thought of a post-season appearance was not likely, even in August, we just know something magical was going to happen.

I'm not going to retell the story of the entire season--far more eloquent writers than I have done that many times over. But I do want to point out two things about that resonate with me even now, and which I apply in how I manage my business.

The Mets succeeded that season largely because they had great, young pitching and a lot of breaks. But they had these two qualities as well:

1. Everybody was a role player--there were no Marquee Players, just journeymen, each of whom knew his job and how that job made him part of a larger entity;

2. They didn't know they were supposed to fail, so they had no self-consciousness.

The second point has always been particularly meaningful to me because I remember reading an interview with Don Clendenon, the Mets' veteran first baseman, shortly after they won the Series. He was asked what he thought, as a vet player, made this team so special and Don said, "They're too young to realize that they're not supposed to win. And I wasn't gonna tell 'em... ."

Ours is a small business, but the folks who work here do so with passion, team cooperation and that feeling that anything is possible. And I'm not gonna tell 'em otherwise.