OTAS, you found it

I’m not sure what it is. Perhaps some sort of bizarre mid-life crisis, complete boredom, or the realization that the pleasure I get out of life is pretty much going to be though “stuff”, or maybe something less profound. Nonetheless, my friends note a fairly substantial updating in the things in my life.

It probably started out this year with basic cable, or probably an iPod, and then it was upgraded to having a premium channel, HBO, and now Showtime. This gradually led itself to the purchase of digital radio. And with the departure of a hard-core Manhattan job where I was on-call 24/7 with something more civilized, I realized I had no well-functioning computer in my house (they took it back): I bought a laptop. And with digital technology, a bought large (by my standards) flat screen TV over the weekend. I even bought a Razor phone some time back.

One would think I were listening to Howard Stern, watching The Sopranos, and watching Planet Earth in HD and walking down Madison Ave with earplus in and listening to The Chemical Brothers. Nope.

I’ve basically purchased satellite radio to listen to music – much over 100 years old – from the Metropolitan Opera’s new station; tuned into nothing more than Rome and The Tudors, a show about people that lived between 400 to 2000 years ago; wanted to watch performances of opera on PBS and CUNY, and listen to more skipping during my daily jog.

However late, the message to me was clear: The world has moved on and you have not! When the stogy, old world of opera moves into areas I cannot access, I am – as my friends call me – a luddite.

Let the world note that I am on the main line.

So it’s been my first couple of weeks at the new job. Having come from the rather hard-core collections and call center world (that’s no joke) things are different. My third week, I walk into the elevator and hear two people talking:

“What are you wearing? Burberry. Very nice. Thank you.

And what seemed like niceties really were insults. I realized this when the person wearing the Burberry left.

“Ugh. Who wears Burberry? They are one of those designers like Chanel, where you can immediately tell. Always the same drab plaid, the same beige. ”

The person making the comment got off on the “Merchandising” floor, which is where the buyers reside. I’ve learning how the fashion industry now works.

You see, we sell self-esteem. Buyers pretty much plan out what the new colors, looks, and styles are going to be, often years in advance. Their job is to change the perception of what’s hip and what’s not. This is how fashion can change from, say, bellbottoms to stone-washed to whatever the hell you want to call the jeans we are wearing these days. Ideally this would change every season (this fall, I’ve heard, the new color is going to be silver).

The fashion magazines and high-end retailers call the shots. Fame is gotten through distribution in them, and you’ve pretty much got “The Devil Wears Prada” all over the place.

I’m adjusting to this new environment, and to a new lifestyle. I don’t work late (yet), I never bring my work home with me (yet), and, for the most part, my new boss is something of a neurotic bitch, but I can deal with her (So far).

With this spring came a lot of new things. And a marvelous spring it was. Here are some shots of Central Park, which I’ve been running in daily now and this spring seems grander then ever.





(Met in the background)



(Random place near the East Side)