Inspired by Nancy’s comment, here’s an email I sent 18 Jul 1993:
While in New York last week, I found out about Broadway on Broadway, a 100th anniversary celebration or some such thing, essentially a bunch of free numbers from all the top Broadway shows, hosted by Lynn Redgrave, Martin Short, Mickey Rooney and so on.
Daniel and I arranged to meet the heretofore unseen Wes at Penn station and headed out to Times Square. We just get out of the station, and we see the Partridge Family bus heading right for us. Weird. We point and look, and they wave us to come on board. We look at each other, figger what the hell and get on board.
“7 die in bizarre Partridge Family Death Cult slaying” is going through my head, but no, it turns out to be a promo for “Nick at Night” who is now showing the Partridge Family. They ask us to pick up cardboard cut out heads of the Partridge Family characters and wave them out the window. The bus is playing really loud PF songs: “I think I love you” “Come on Get happy” over and over and over.
We ended up driving ALL over the damn city. Sticking our heads out the windows and waving, yelling, having the cardboard heads dance around. The people from Nick were these cynical “too cool” media young types, they wouldn’t talk to us, they brought their friends on for a few blocks, they also wouldn’t talk to us, they just smoked and looked “cool” while occasionally waving out the window. The three of us were totally into it, having “evil twin Reuben Kincaid” battles with one set of heads, waving at strangers, cataloguing their reactions (hilarity, confusion, amusement, refusal to look at us (very NY), refusal to acknowledge that it was funny, refusal to wave back). On and on.
We headed to where Robert Redford was directing a film, all the PAs were quite amused, holding up their walkie-talkies for coworkers to hear. Taking photos of the bus. Redford would NOT come out. It turns out he was just behind some truck. We saw his back when we drove away.
The Nick people eventually got off the bus, to go do lunch or meetings. They left us on the bus. The driver kept driving and we just took over. Once the cynical nasty types got off, we really were unfettered and not intimidated. And we talked to everyone! Got smiles, laughter from so many people.
Earlier when stopping for gas the media types went and conferred and shmoozed, and acted cool. People came up to the bus and asked questions. We answered them. What channel? Is this the REAL bus? What time is it on? and so on.
We told some people we were the New Partridge Family. One character said he thought there should be a black guy on the show and “auditioned” by doing Gary Coleman impressions, too funny.
We saw a woman wearing a Mondrian-print dress and I broke up Daniel by saying “Hey! She’s wearing our BUS!”
We probably were on the bus for 2 hours, touring most of the city, seeing hundreds of people, making most of them laugh. I would have killed for a video camera to catch reactions, most reminiscent of those Letterman sequences when he takes the camera out on the streets…
And we missed Broadway on Broadway and NONE of us cared…
Steve
Cisco and Apple were in a dispute over the ownership of the iPhone name. There was news that a deal fell through right around the time of the announcement. One might assume this is Cisco raising the stakes a bit, trying to push Apple to make it all go away. Because this is certainly confusing the issue.
We’re located near the Pacific Ocean, where Highway 1 scoots along past small towns like ours, and then zips long a crazy road known as Devil’s Slide, with a mountain to the east and a cliff edge to the left. A tunnel is being built (after decades of controversy and planning) but most of the progress is hidden by the mountain itself. Not to mention that as you drive along at breakneck speed, it behooves you not to peer too closely at whatever is not the road itself.
So what are they building in there? Well, Caltrans, in a remarkable display of transparency, has photographers who document the work as it progresses. The pictures are really amazing, showing the people, the process, and the previously hidden environment. For some these are simply your usual construction photos, but for people who drive by there every day, waiting for the tunnel to open (2011 or something) and have little sense of the work behind the scenes, this is a really wonderful peek. There are tons and tons of pictures to browse, and I’ve nicked a few, below.
On the street, near Market St. in San Francisco. Construction worker (with an extremely personalized hard hat, thick with stickers) carrying a bottle of Lipton Iced Green Tea, a product that is stereotypically opposite from the drinker. A few blocks further and I see an older man who’s odd fashion sense meant he was either foreign or homeless (or both) with a cheap pink fake-leather iPod case around his neck (with iPod), as if he was given the setup by a 13-year old girl. A block further I approach a cluster of people standing in front of some building on Market having a smoke break. They are all fairly young and relatively well-dressed, perhaps it’s some sort of continuing education or something, but as I pass by I see in their midst is a big clergy dude complete with rope-belt-and-brown-robes. As I enter my parking lot, I hear a noise as something hits the ground. “Sir, Sir!” voices call. As I turn I realize it’s something I’ve dropped and they are calling to tell me. I walk towards the item to retrieve it, but before I can get there a man of 70 (not with the “sir” group) scampers over and bends over to pick it up, and hands it to me so I don’t have to get it!
It was a fun ten minutes, filled with many surprises, confounded expectations, juxtapositions, and cultural collisions.
Booking the hotel for our event at the IASummit I found this rough edge on the confirmation screen.
Circled in red, about halfway down. “Need copy.” Yes, you do still need the copy there. Sad that you launched this with the memo-to-self still intact. It’s smart to use a different tool for marking up content, lest the markup gets confused with the content itself. Proofreading can catch some of those mistakes, but not all of them. And here, we the end-user get a small reminder of the hands at work behind the scenes.