Friday, April 15, 2005
Dear friends,
My darling boy and I are on my way to Philadelphia to spend the weekend with my folks. It was my intention to take advantage of what would have been a quiet afternoon in the office to share my Tales of Pop Music Love with you, for last night, I went to see Erasure at Irving Plaza. I danced, I sang, I screamed like a cheerleader when Andy Bell sang "Blue Savannah" while wearing nothing but blue-sequinned briefs and brandishing giant pink maribou fans, and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven when Vince Clarke did the "Fab Five Freddy said everything's fly" rap on their cover of "Rapture." I sang along to "Victim of Love" and "A Little Respect" and "Ship of Fools" and "Stop!" and their cover of "Solsbury Hill" and "Oh, L'Amour" and the show closer, "Sometimes," for which they turned on the gold stagelights and flooded us all with honey-colored light.
I am trying to remember as much as I can of how this made me feel, because today my fellow LuthorCorp peoples and I learned that the vice-president of our group, the man who recruited me into the company, who was my sales rep when I worked in purchasing at Big Cosmetics Co., who I've known longer than anyone else in this industry, and who is, bar none, the best person I have or ever will worked for, has resigned. His last day is Monday. I don't even want to think of what the office will be like when he is not here.
It is an odd note on which to say happy weekend, dear friends, but...happy weekend, dear friends. See you Sunday.
Posted by
Bakerina at 05:03 PM in
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Oh, that is SO totally cool that you saw Erasure. (And yeah, sorry about the boss) But that is SO TOTALLY COOL. (I am such a geek.) I did a quick google search, and lo and behold they’ll be in Boston on June 3 and it’s not sold out. Thank you Bakerina!
oh, bakerina. i have to tell my erasure story: when i was a freshman in high school, i went to see them at the bill graham civic in san francisco. finding a friend to go with me was impossible, literally none of my friends had ever heard of erasure (this is what happens when all your friends are preppy snobby rich girls in the suburbs in the mid-nineties, i guess), so i went with my mom, and we had so. much. fun. andy bell is a god. glad to hear you had fun, but how could you not, at an erasure concert?
Ms. Baker. I know this one. O, do I know this one. It happened to me several times, as a matter of fact. It seems like the end of the world, I know, but it isn’t. I don’t mean that harshly, but I look back at it now and I wonder at how much investment I had in those situations and wonder how that happened. Once, just after I moved to New York, my publishing company got multinationalized and I was terrified I would go. I didn’t; my boss did. Another, earlier time, just after I had gotten out of art school, my magazine publisher boss, my dream boss, came into the office one afternoon and said “I’m out.” I was in shock. But it happens. You will cope. (You might even, like I did, make the ex-Boss into a friend on the outside, who knows?) But it will all be fine. I know it doesn’t seem that way, but it will.
(And I don’t even know what (who?) Erasure is. But my therapist is named Andy Bell. He’s not god, though.)
Three years ago, my boss/mentor/surrogate mommy retired. She is a decent and caring soul, through and through; one who struggled as much for our well-being as for the health of the organization. When I was a classroom teacher, she recognized my potential to be a trainer of teachers and a school reform consultant—she hired me, nurtured me, supported me, planned with me, and let me cry on her when my boyfriend dumped me and my mother died. She’s still a treasured friend and because she works for our national organization, I have dinner with her at conferences and see her at professional parties.
But it’s not the same.
The person who replaced her has none of her qualities. None. She’s an angry, threatened person whose first response is always negative when approached about virtually anything. As a result, however, I’ve learned a great deal about how to stand up on my hind legs, bark back, and advocate for myself. Not to be nauseatingly bright-sided or anything—or even overly Machiavellian—it’s just that given time, almost any situation can be turned to your advantage.
Especially in your case. With your brilliance, talent, and guts, you will certainly spin silk out of whatever dross comes your way.
But did you go to Johnny Rockets, on South Street?
Good you saw erasure! That should explain a lot!
Mi dispiace, ma, a mio parere, si sono errati. Dobbiamo discutere. Scrivere a me in PM, ti parla.
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Oh, that is SO totally cool that you saw Erasure. (And yeah, sorry about the boss) But that is SO TOTALLY COOL. (I am such a geek.) I did a quick google search, and lo and behold they’ll be in Boston on June 3 and it’s not sold out. Thank you Bakerina!