[“Mistakenly”, one of my all-time favorite cartoons, is appearing in my upcoming book etc.]
A few days ago, during my “Ten Questions With Mark O’Donnell”, we mentioned briefly his stint back at college, working at the great college humor paper, The Harvard Lampoon.
Soon after, my mother sent me the following email:
Don’t forget that your grandfather was also a member of the Harvard Lampoon in the ‘30s.
Their humor was probably a little different– it was an innocent time.
One project which Grampa and his friends carried off with aplomb — in order to write about it later in the Lampoon — was to ‘kidnap’ the Sacred Cod of Massachusetts- still there, by the way. They smuggled it out of the Mass. State House in a coffin, well-covered in lilies. In the days of Mayor Curley, no policeman would have done anything but bow his head with a reverential murmur. It also tells you something about the reign of Mayor Curley, that he set a ransom of a pint of beer and paid up to get the fish back.
As I said, it still hangs there today.
2nd after dinner story: To sell papers — it was the depression, remember — they kidnapped (the “K” word again?) — the Yale Bulldog — yes — a live dog — and took it home to Cambridge where they kept it (him) happy on a diet of hamburger and French fries. Before they gave it back in time for the 1933 Harvard-Yale game, they put his dinner on the foot of John Harvard’s statue– still there, in Harvard Yard — and photographed the good dog licking the foot of John Harvard. Needless to say, the pictures of the dog’s dinner greeted the Yalies when they arrived for the game. Sold a fair few Lampoons, too.
Love from your mother
Heh. I remember hearing those stories about Grandpa, growing up. I’d forgotten he was was with The Lampoon when he did it, though… Thanks, Mom! Rock on.
[The t-shirt design for tonight’s shindig etc.]
After a couple of weeks of back-and-forth between Stormhoek, our US importer and our local distributor, I am pleased to announce that Stormhoek is now available here in Alpine, Texas.
To celebrate I’m throwing a party tonight at Harry’s Tinaja, my regular local watering hole, at 8pm. There will be Stormhoek wine for the tastin’, cheese and crackers, plus my friend Israel has smoked up some awesome mango beef jerky for the occasion. I’ve also hired my favorite local band, The Doodlin’ Hogwallops to play live. [The Stormhoek billboard, currently leaning against the outside wall of Harry’s, right by the main road in town, where everybody can see it etc. Click on image to enlarge.]
Besides that, my buddy Loren Feldman is in town, wielding his video camera, so there should be plenty of footage uploaded online soon.
Re. the “Dream Big” t-shirt. Yes, that sentiment is printed on the back label of the Stormhoek bottle. It’s also a line that seems to resonate with people round these parts [Few people move to the middle-of-nowhere West Texas desert without some sort of alternative-lifestyle-dream-action going on, so there was a tangible alignment there.] As I’ve been saying for a while, “We’re into the same kind of things you’re into” works better as a marketing strategy than, “Here’s why you should buy our product.” [Harry, with the first cases arriving etc.]
Secondly, Re. Wine marketing: Usually, when an imported wine launches in the States, a familiar pattern emerges. Hire New York or SF restaurant for the evening. Organize wine tasting. Try to get the usual freeloaders, PR wannabe’s, and random warm bodies to attend. If a C-List celeb somehow turns up by some Miracle of God, become ecstatic. Send Press Release out to the usual suspects in the media. Watch Press Release be utterly disregarded by All & Sundry. Watch absolutely nothing happen afterwards. Witness the entire story disappearing into the dustbin of history within nanoseconds. And so on.
So we at Stormhoek decided to go in the exact opposite direction, as far away from the Usual Suspects as possible. “Hey, let’s launch in Alpine, Texas! Let’s see if we can get real West Texan cowboys to like South African wine! It’s totally insane! It’s totally futile! It’s totally wrong! Let’s do it anyway!”
Plus ca change…
[UPDATE: We’ll be streaming the party live. Check mine or Loren’s Twitter for updates.]
[Video courtesy of Loren Feldman.]
P.S. A “galley” is a rough edition of the book, that the publisher gives out to the media a couple of months before the publishing date, in order to spread the word. For example, a lot of the big magazines and papers like to get their galleys at least four months in advance etc.
[Click on image to enlarge etc.] [UPDATE– about 3 minutes later: Sorry, the twelve emails arrived quickly. Wow. No more galleys to give away, for now. Sorry.]
I’ve got twelve galley copies of my upcoming book, “Ignore Everybody”, to give away. Here’s the deal:
1. You have to have been active on Twitter for at least three months.
2. You have to have been following me on Twitter for at least one month.
3. You need to send me an email with the word, “Galley” in the subject header. In your email I need your your name, your shipping address, and your Twitter ID.
4. The email you send needs to be, in some way, interesting, amusing, or both.
5. I’ll mail a galley to the first twelve folk whose email fits this criteria.
6. Thanks for everything!
[UPDATE @:] Even though I closed down the competition after 3 minutes, I still got about 100 e-mails after from people, trying their luck. Rock on.
If you’ve spent a lot of time around the New York literary party circuit in the last couple of decades, chances are you would’ve run into a very old friend of mine, the author and playwrite, Mark O'Donnell.
I met Mark at summer camp back when I was a kid. He was a camp councilor. Back then he was attending Harvard, where he and his twin brother, Steve, were heavily involved in the Harvard Lampoon, the great, old college humor magazine that spawned offshoots like National Lampoon, Spy Magazine and The Onion.
Mark's specialty at camp was writing skits, which he'd get the kids to perform around th campfire. And damn, they were good. Funny and smart as hell. I still remember how much fun they were to put on. I still remember how much people loved them, both old and young.
Fast forward ten years. I'm in college at UT Austin, though now I'm now back up East in Boston for a week, visiting family. I'm in the offices of the Harvard Lampoon, just hanging around the campus. The Lampoon was HQ'd in this really curious little building, that was donated to the college by William Randolph Hearst. Talking to the young president of the Lampoon and some other student staffers, I ask if they knew of Mark and Steve. Very much so, it turns out. Though they graduated a decade before, their names were still very much revered by folks there. I was told that Mark was off writing novels and plays, and Steve was now working as head writer for David Letterman. Both were living in New York.
So a few days later I phoned up the NBC Letterman office, asked for Steve, got put through, introduced myself, told him who I was and that I was looking for Mark etc. We talked for a bit, Steve gave me Mark's number, I called him up, we talked for a whie, the next time I was in New York we hooked up and hung out; we've been friends ever since. Ten Questions For Mark O'Donnell 1. After years of struggling as a classic New York humorist, you finally landed your first really big hit: Co-writer of "Hairspray, The Musical", based on the John Waters film. The play won you a Tony Award, it now tours the world and has been made into a movie with John Travolta. I remember writing to congratulating you, and you wrote back, "And Hairspray is like only one per cent of what I'm proud of." Perhaps, but it's still pretty impressive stuff nonetheless. I also know you are still living in the same apartment you had when you first moved to New York in the late 1970s. Has your life really changed that much since Hairspray conquered the world?
It hasn’t changed at all, except I now have some security for my free-lancer old age. I’m certainly not famous, except to my friends. When I walked the red carpet at the Tony Awards, photographers kept asking me to get out of the way. Except one Japanese paparazzo, who said, “Over here, Mr. Dennehy!” He thought I was Brian Dennehy. 2. For the benefit of gapingvoid readers, let’s talk about the remaining 99% percent of your work. What else have you done that you’re proud of?
I joke that I’m obscure in many fields, but I am proud that I’ve published poetry, cartoons, plays, novels, essays and songs, even if I’m not well known as any one of those things. The diversity has been fulfilling. That Knopf and The New Yorker and Playwrights Horizons, the best in their respective arenas, have sponsored me — It makes me feel good, even if it’s our little secret. 3. I remember when your book, Vertigo Park came out. Basically, it was a collection of short humor pieces. One piece I remember in particular, “Marred Bliss”, actually got me to laugh out loud, something that rarely happens when I’m reading. It’s perhaps one of the top ten funniest things I have ever read in my life. Once you told me “Marred Bliss” was your “Party Trick”. Care to elaborate?
Basically, it’s characters talking in revealing Freudian slips: “I heard you were engorged, and I just slopped by to pave my regrets.” “Where is the strong, stabled man I’m taking to be altered?” It’s very funny, but only for ten minutes. It would get wearying after that.That’s why I call it a parlor trick. Also, it’s probably my most produced play, brief as it is. 4. You were also one of the first contributors to SPY, the famous satirical magazine. What was that like to work for, back in the early days?
It was wonderful, because my old Lampoon friend, Kurt Andersen, was the editor, so there was no “fear of teacher.” It was like a secret treehouse. He generously published a lot of my cartoons when other places weren’t biting, and when SPY became the capital of Hip, it was fun to go to its black-tie parties. 5. About a decade ago, I was living in New York when your novel, “Let Nothing You Dismay” came out. I remember hearing you being interviewed on New York Public Radio about it. One of those “Hey, I know that guy” moments. I really enjoyed the book. Though I’m straight, I remember really identifying with the main character, a gay, thirtysomething Manhattan guy whose life, shall we say, is going nowhere fast. The book chronicles his adventures during New York Christmas Holidays Party Season. He’s a guy who wants the same warm-and-fuzzy stuff we all do, but all he seems to have to show for his years living in “The Greatest City In The World” is underemployment, loneliness and alienation. You’re gay yourself, and as I’ve known you for a while, I did see some autobiography embedded in the story, however I didn’t see this book as “gay fiction”. There was something to it that captured the quintessential New York experience that transcends sex or sexuality– the high emotional price you pay for living there. You’ve lived in New York for over three decades, and I’m guessing, like all New Yorkers, you will have had plenty of painful, personal experiences similar to the main character. Was writing this book your way of working through those experiences?
GETTING OVER HOMER was my personal working-through-heartbreak novel. LET NOTHING YOU DISMAY is sheer imaginative speculation: the hero is five two, and I’m six two in height. I got the idea one Christmas season, when I went to two radically different parties in one day — an off-Broadway theatre’s, which had potato chips and wine in a box, and FORBES Magazine’s party, which had a live orchestra, tuxedoed waiters with hot hors d’oeuvres, and a glittering buffet. I thought you could paint a picture of all mankind in just a few strokes if you did it right. Also, the main character, because he’s short, aspires to higher things. 6. I remember meeting your twin brother, Steve, when he came up to the summer camp in New Hampshire to visit you for a few days. I remember seeing him wearing a tweed jacket, tie and slacks, and thinking, “Why is Mark all dressed up?” You guys were extremely identical in the twin department. And then yes, soon after you both graduated from Harvard and got jobs writing funny stuff for a living. Steve had his first big break writing for David Letterman [before that he wrote funny lines for a greeting card company]. Though you both have had nothing but love and mutual respect for each other over the years, your career took longer than Steve’s to reach the big time. Was that difficult for you, or did it not really matter?
We’ve never been competitors, we’re colleagues. His success is mine and vice versa. Does one doctor resent it when another doctor saves a life? Actually, it’s been up and down for us both, so no one’s ever “ahead.” We each believe in the other’s funniness, so the outside world’s response is beside the point. 7. Your humor, cartoons, and poetry have appeared in The New Yorker, Spy, Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times Magazine, you’ve published books, and your plays have been produced both on and off Broadway. I know you had a brief stint writing TV for Saturday Night Live, but if I were to sum up your oeuvre in three words, it would be “The Printed Page”. Your bother, however, opted for television, not just with Letterman, but also folk like Chris Rock and Seinfeld. I’m guessing you’re talented enough to have also gone down that road, had it appealed to you. But I’m guessing it didn’t. Thoughts?
I did write for SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, and wrote assorted scripts that never got made. I’m a bit more bookish, I guess. Steve has thrived in TV, whereas I preferred books and plays. I joke that he’s the world’s most artistic comic and I’m the world’s most comic artist. 8. Wen you first started getting your name around New York, the world wide web didn’t exist. And now it does, very much so. Has the web affected your career? Has it made it harder? Easier? How has the world changed, from the perspective of the industry you’re in?
I’m techno-tarded, so the Web or whatever hardly affects me. The HAIRSPRAY screenplay had to be filed as an online attached document, that was, to me, a challenge. I expect I’ll have to handle it eventually. 9. This story really tickled me: After the success of Hairspray, you’re were working on a new John Waters musical, “CryBaby”, based on his film. A few months ago I sent you a note, telling you about how my “How To Be Creative” manifesto was going to be published as a book. I had no idea if you had yet come across it, at that point. And you wrote back, “One of our actors was browsing your website as we rehearsed CRYBABY, and was impressed I knew you. Qui peut savoir?” It seems to me, that when something you make gets successful [My most conservative estimate of how many people have read HTBC so far: Two million], it really takes on a life of its own. The author pretty much ceases to matter. You’ve got the author, you’ve got the piece of work, and suddenly you’ve got his THIRD THING that the work becomes, after it’s been seen and digested by enough people. Since Hairspray’s success, have you noticed this phenomenon?
Well, there’s a lot of HAIRSPRAY merchandise — Bloomingdale’s even did a fashion line — and high school kids everywhhere sing the score, but it was a collaboration between six people, and John Waters is the ultimate progenitor. I don’t take it personally, as you can with your strip. It’s how people introduce me now, though.
10. As your long-time fanboy, it’s really gratifying for me to see your work FINALLY getting the recognition it deserves. But as we both learned the hard way, “It don’t come easy”. Knowing what you know now, what advice would you have given yourself, years ago, when you first moved to New York as a young, aspiring writer just out of college?
Basically, don’t look down. I didn’t realize that the odds are against the struggling artist, but I assume talent, patience and work will vindicate those meant for whatever the dream may be.
And, as Yeats suggests, “Be secret and exult.” Take joy in what you do, even if as yet it goes unseen. [The “Ten Questions” series archive is here.]
[Close-up of “DesertManhattan”. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
1. I started DesertManhattan in September [See initial post here]. I thought it would take me a couple of weeks. Now I’m thinking, if I get it done within six months, that’ll be pretty good going.
2. I don’t work on it that much. Maybe twice a week for a couple of hours. Usually I enter the studio when I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by other stuff. It serves as some sort of refuge for me, when I don’t want the other stuff to matter, at least for a while.
3. I’m in no hurry to get it finished. Maybe I’ll work on it for a couple of years. Maybe I’ll never finish it, but just keep on working on it forever– like a blog, a work in progress, a never-ending story. Just an idea.
4. DesertManahattan is not a work of art. It’s a cartoon. I’m not an artist. I’m a cartoonist. To me, the distinction is important.
5. I might sell DesertManahattan. I probably won’t. At least, not yet.
6. I like the Build-it-slowly-but-obsessively approach. It’s not the only way I like to work, but it certainly has its place.
7. Yes.
Like I said in my previous post, last week I signed off on the first “Bluetrain” prints. Loren Feldman was in Alpine at the time and filmed it. He writes about it and posts the video here. Thanks again to Loren for the kind words.
Since then, I am happy to report, all the prints have been produced. Now it’s just a question of getting them down from the printer’s shop in New York City down here in Alpine, Texas for me to sign. Then shipping them off to the people who ordered one.
We’re also getting the PayPal thing set up as we speak. It’s all going according to plan.
I am completely exhausted and jet-lagged from my trip to Brazil. I had a whale of a time. This weekend I plan to do little else other than sleep and vegetate, then get back on the ball, early Monday morning.
Thanks Again for all the support y’all have given me over the last couple of months. This new phase in my life has been intense and exciting. I have no idea where it’s going. I just know it’s currently running on all eight cylinders. Hope I can keep up the momentum. rock on.
[A cartoon I drew back in the mid-1990’s…] 1. January 18th. El Paso, Texas. 11am.
I’m headed for Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Drove from Alpine, Texas to El Paso last night. Spent the night in the airport Holiday Inn. Ate dinner at Rudy’s with Loren Feldman, who was in Alpine doing some video work with me. Plane leaves mid-afternoon. 2. Update: January 19th, Sao Paulo, Brazil. 6.30pm. Just got done giving a talk on “Social Objects” to some groovy cats at Citicorp Brazil.
This is my first visit to South America. Sao Paulo is the 4th largest city in the world, I am told. 18 million people or so. Kinda reminds me of a cross between Paris, Miami and LA, if you can imagine that.
Jetlag hasn’t been too bad. Slept a few hours earlier this afternoon. Giving a talk in front of 600 advertising & media types tomorrow. I’ve never been so well looked after on one of my foreign visits, before. 3. Update: January 19th.
Three days ago I signed off on the first “Bluetrain” prints. Loren Feldman was in Alpine at the time and filmed it. He writes about it and posts the video here. Thanks for the kind words, Loren. right back at’cha. 4. Update: January 19th, 11.30 pm. Sao Paulo, Brazil.
I’m back at the hotel. There’s some big party going on, by I opted for an early night instead.
Just got back from dinner with @jeffpaiva and his colleagues i.e the groovy cats who paid to fly me, business-class, out here.
We talked about the usual “where-advertising-meets-social-media” schpiel. To be honest, I don’t have any really huge insights you’ve not already heard before. As always, the hard part is not conceptual; the hard part is execution. You can riff on about “social objects” all you want; but unless you have a real live one you can play with, it’s all just a lot of useless theory.
The Brazilian advertising/marketing scene has the same problem as a lot of countries– a very out-there progressive creative community, juxtaposed against a very conservative business culture. That being said, with the rate that the Brazilian economy is growing, business will have to change, just in order to keep up.
The world has changed, and every year it gets more expensive to keep pretending that it hasn’t. Update: Slightly Later.
One theme that kept on coming up over dinner: One unseen result of electing to take myself out of the marketing/social-media/consultant scene last year in order to concentrate more on my drawing is– it actually seems to have made my advice on the former far more valuable? Why? Because I’m not just ONE MORE consultant looking for a new corporate gig. I’m already busy doing other, unrelated stuff. As I’m fond of saying, the best way to get approval is not to need it.
This got me thinking about the “Hammer” post I wrote a few years ago.
Blogs are like hammers. They are tools for building stuff.
When you talk about building a house with a carpenter, you don’t mind him talking about his hammer for a while. Nobody minds indulging a craftsman, within reason.
“This hammer is great for this,” he’ll gush. “This hammer is great for that…”
So you think yes, hammers are good things, and indeed his hammer looks like a particularly fine example.
But eventually you’re going to interrupt his joyous ode to hammers. After a couple of minutes you’re going to abruptly change the subject:
“Cool. Now let’s talk about the ACTUAL HOUSE you’re going to build for me…”
And if the carpenter is any good, he won’t have any problem with that.
We live in interesting times… 4. Update: January 20th, 10.15am. Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Weird bit of live blogging going on right now. I´m at some Brazilian magazine being interviewed. They´ve asked me to blog something, while they film me on video camera for some TV show. So as I write this, I´m in the magazine office being filmed, with all these media and PR types standing in a circle around me, watching. All kinda surreal, but in a good way… 5. Update: 12.30pm.
Just arrived at Campus Party Brazil. 6,000 people, average age: 21. Vast seas of computer tables everywhere. My talk is at 2pm. My talk is going to be mostly about “Creativity”, with a bit of Social Object Theory and marketing 2.0 schpiel thrown in for good measure. 6. Update: 23rd January. Alpine, Texas.
Got home yesterday after a nine-hour flight Sao Paulo-DFW, then a connecting flight to El Paso. Great to be back in Texas again.
The talk at Party campus went well. That day I also did a ton of interviews for the Brazilian media. In the evening I attended a fabulous geek dinner with some of the Brazilian 2.0 peeps, a regular event they call “Nerds on Beer”.
I came away from Brazil thinking, “Man, there’s a lot of opportunity here.” One part of me is too tired and jet-lagged to think too hard about it. Another part of me sees a very dynamic country of a few hundred million people, with an economy growing at 10% per year. And I have a few ideas about what to do about it.
Thanks, Jeff, for bringing me out there. Hope I can get back there soon. I had a hell of a time.
[“Bluetrain”- the new gapingvoid print. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
So yeah, the Bluetrain print sold out, two weeks before it even goes to press. No, I never saw that coming. Wow.
Since I announced that it was sold out, I’ve gotten a lot of emails from people asking me please, please, please, if a spare one turns up, could they buy it from me?
Well, like I said before, I kept a small number aside for myself, but I really want to hang on to them. At the same time, I don’t like people being disappointed.
So I decided I’d sell ONE MORE from my private stash. But who to give it to? The guy who asked first? The guy who knew me the longest?
Not being able to make up my mind one way or the other about who to give it to, I just decided I’ll put it on eBay, and let people bid for it. I’ve already done well enough from this wonderfully insane adventure, so to keep the good karma coming, whatever it sells for, high or low, I’ll give the proceeds to charity.
I’ll let y’all know when it’s up. Thanks Again. Seriously.
[UPDATE:] As for the people who have already ordered a print; we’re going to press hopefully in the next few days. I’m really behind in my e-mail [I blame the Holiday Season, mostly], so I should be contacting y’all shortly. Thanks for your patience AND your support. Rock on.
Is it the 5th of January already?
Damn, I was enjoying goofing off…
I have so much crap to do, it’s off the scale…
Most days, I love my job. Today is not one of them. Arrgh…
[YouTube video…] [“DesertManahattan”. 4 x 8″. Ink, Acrylic and Pencil on Canvas etc…]
Progress on “DesertManhattan” has been slow these last few weeks– I’ve been busy with other projects, mostly the prints.
That being said, I’ve still able to occasionally sneak into the studio and work on it some more– usually late at night, when I’ve been having trouble sleeping.
It’s looking good. If I can get it done by March, I’ll be happy. Rock on.
This is a cartoon about the year, 1997. I drew it yesterday, sitting over at Harry’s Tinaja. More specifically, it’s about December, 1997, when I started drawing cartoons on the back of business cards– mostly in bars and coffee shops. You can read more of the backstory here.
What a crazy path it has been so far. Rock on.
