Jane Genova: Speechwriter - Ghostwriter

Seton Hill, Greensburg, PA 1966-67: A Tale of Two Roommates

"You were there to get a degree.  I was there, needy and looking for everything, anything."

After a three-hour conversation last night with college roommate from senior year at Seton Hill, Greensburg, Pennsylvania, a mystery got solved. 

She - let's call her Rose - went through that then woman's Roman Catholic College, went on to a job, marriage, immigrating to the left coast, opening and, after many years, losing a business with her husband, surviving comfortably the Great Recession, and migrating back to western Pennsylvania - smoothly, w/o a nervous breakdown or more, and sans drama.

I did nothing smoothly, had a whooper of a breakdown in 1970 and 2003, and created or attracted plenty of drama. 

The difference, we figured out, is that she wasn't looking for anything, ever.  Instead she saw what was there, took advantage of opportunity, and pushed back on mean people.  Me?  I assumed institutions filled with folks in their own transitions, grabbing at their own goals, and more often stuck could guide me, love me, make me love myself.  Didn't find that, of course.

"But how could it have been different, less a disaster, less painful to you at another college."

That's what call-her-Rose asked.  The answer was so obvious.  The players would have been a more interesting set at, say Rutgers in my home state of New Jersey or Harvard Law, where I got in the mid 1980s.  To me - and remember I am writer who sucks in others's experiences - the show would have been worth it. 

And that's exactly what has happened, post-2003 meltdown.  I struggled to need less from the world and find more through my observations and skills as a writer.  I tumbled into the world of hyper successful on the Gold Coast of Connecticut and Manhattan.  The result has been my first novel "The Fat Guy From Greenwich," to be published early winter.  Here are the first two chapters Download FGFGchapters1,2.  These characters were worth the agita.

I choose my poison better today.  That's made the pain a writer's gold mine.

Writers & Demon Alcohol

Have you've known an influential writer who hasn't battled Demon Alcohol [DA]?  Unlikely.  The two seem to go together like W.B. Yates's concept of the interrelation between the dancer and the dance.

That battle seemed to have been lost by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Truman Capote, and Ludwig van Beethoven as a composer [see Chapter 4 in "Manic Depression and Creativity" by D. Jablow Hershman and Julian Lieb. ]

It was won by Stephen King, Dominick Dunne, and, it seems, me.  Today is yet another anniversary for me as a Friend of Bill [FOB].

What have I learned that gives me an edge in outfoxing DA?  Plenty.

Most of the lessons came indirectly, from other FOBs, usually ones just starting out.  One canary-yellow chap when he came into the rooms returned to the pink of health within four months.  He remains in the pick of health.  Observing him and talking with him I came to adopt the Don't Care mindset.  I really don't care which prospects turn me down.  It's an opportunity to reverse-engineering my pitch and do better next time.  I don't care about what folks in the past are thinking and saying about me.  After all, if they're wasting time on a screwup like me, they're probably not growing as quickly as they need to in this complex world.  I don't care about money.  That started out when I took my vow of poverty on the same day that I entered the rooms.

Another lesson I learned is that I can unplug from that awful entity reality [which even T.S. Eliot admitted was pretty heavy stuff] w/o getting a load on.  There's renting a car and running away [usually to the ocean] for as long as it takes to reset.  There's getting an extension on a client deadline and working on my own stuff.  There's not moving from the couch and taking in all the crime TV shows, new and repeats.

Third, I learned the power of a good night's sleep.  Research shows that it really does reconfigure our mental state.  It might even help us solve creative problems.  Yeah, sleep on the decision to return to DA before you do the deed.

How am I celebrating my anniversary? Doing nothin'.  I smoothly reset a client deadline.  After doing nothin' I am heading to the movie theatre by Yale and watching films until the place shuts down.

NYU Suicides: A Sense of Place

In America the land of the restless many don't like to reflect on a sense of place.  Yet, it exists and could even be hardwired into human beings.  The emotional pull is as powerful as the euphoric thinking of a former drunk.  For this reason, New York University might have to blow up the library that has hosted so many suicides, including today's.  To the confused, depressed, perhaps psychotic, it has become the place to die.

With age, I have come to honor place. Increasingly my fellow baby boomers lament that in their hometowns or the streets of their alma maters buildings have been torn down. The Horror.  Parts of their past were imprinted in those bricks or wood.  That past is no longer retrievable through sight, touch, and smell.

When I returned to Bay Street in downtown Jersey City, New Jersey, I experienced a sense of panic.  The "school building" which had been next to the tenement at 227 Bay where I had grown up was gone.  A parking lot was there. 

Sociology and psychology doctoral students at NYU have their dissertation topic handed to them in spaces designated to die in.

GDP 3.5% Growth 3Q: Darwinian Reflections

It is good news.  The GDP grew in 3Q 3.5%. 

It is good news because my business has, like the "Night of the Living Dead," been jumping out of nowhere on all fronts.  It's grabbing me by the throat, cutting into my lazy routines of reading for self-improvement, gossiping, and shifting credit card balances to lower interest cards for hefty transfer fees.  Yeah, it's even, well scary. 

A FOB [Friend of Bill], I even brought to the rooms my angst about what to do with the revenue, the tax implications, and if I should get a dog.  Meanwhile my first novel "The Fat Guy From Greenwich" will be published early winter. Here are the first few chapters Download FGFGchapters1,2.  That could mean significant royalties.

I know there are jobless out there and, The Horror, homeless.  But I can't put that on my emotional radar screen.  Not now.  Not ever, unless some policy think tank hires me for contract ghostwriting.  The world of making a buck has turned Darwinian.  It's that binary: I make a living/I don't make a living.  If the latter occurs, my three animal companions Jason, Carlotta [who are tight] and Point Pleasant don't get their Fancy Feast. 

I got the epiphany in 2002: Change or Die.  I changed.  It was brutal. Download Geezerguts.  But I got on the other side of all that.  Others will have to too.  Or die. RIP. 

Jewish Lite - Hunger for Community

There will never be the deep Jewish identity that was the ethos of "Annie Hall."  Too old-world ethnic.  And we all have had with every aspect of Woody Allen. 

But Jewish Lite, the best of what Jewish culture offers, is taking over, at least among us educated somewhat alienated types.  Not that we will convert to the Jewish religion like Ivanka Trump. 

It's more that we hunger for its sense of community, taking care of its own, candor, and that wonderful Yiddish dialect.  We want to know more about the beliefs and lifestyle of the Jewish.  We want to adopt some of their practices, maybe even bringing back the fasting we did as former Roman Catholics.  We want some universal rules, as long as they're not from the RC hierarchy.  We want the comfort foods and the big dinners that aren't conducted like dinner parties. 

So, yes, as I advised a client last night, there is a goy market for Jewish Everything.  Maybe even a sort of nickname.  Call me Rebbecca Blackstone.

For long long legs, you bet I would trade off 20 points of IQ

For females who are going to make it big in any field, be it British Royalty or Manhattan media, legs matter.  They trump pedigree, high IQ, even talent.  Think Princess Di.  Think the former head of the now-dead business glossy PORTFOLIO JoAnne Lipman. 

My very successful younger sister Anne Murga has great legs, only they're not long.  She often laments that, as do most shrewd women.  My legs are not only not long but not equipped with those finely contoured calf muscles [see them on Alicia on "The Good Wife."]  You bet, I would trade off 20 points or more of my supposed genius IQ for 10 more inches of leg.   That would bring me to 5'10" - plus, with those new 6-inch or more heels I might finally have The Towering Look of Success.

Yet, poor little long-leg girl Lipman rants about the way of the leg world in THE NEW YORK TIMES.  That rant is deconstructed by Foster Kamer in Gawker.

Lipman might be doing a Hail Mary Pass in hopes of a comeback.  Nothing wrong with that.  What is wrong is the content:  It's stale and presented with an arrogant old-media tone.

Bruce Wasserstein: Dead at 61 - What will happen to NEW YORK MAGAZINE

The Wasserstein family were a talented group.  But the members haven't been gifted with a long life.  Bruce Wasserstein, famous investment banker and owner of NEW YORK Magazine, died at age 61.  It's suspected it might have been heart trouble.  He had lost a lot of weight, probably to help his health.  His sister Wendy died not too long ago of cancer.  He took care of the child she had later in life.

Though the creative and business sides of NEW YORK Magazine are stunned and sad, they are likely also concerned what will happen to the publication and their jobs.  The streets of Manhattan are filled with unemployed magazine and newspaper staff.  VOGUE, it's reported, had just let go of six employees.

Why We Wear Too-High Heels - A no-brainer

THE NEW YORK TIMES, NEW YORK Magazine and our relatives all are asking: Why do we women wear crazy shoes.  Well, for one thing they're in style.  Look at the current issue of VOGUE and W.  But more importantly, they make us appear tall or taller.  Tall, as well as tailored, is very in.  Petite is not.  In addition, they give a nice muscle bulge to the calf. 

Unfortunately, I can't navigate the world in the pencil-thin high-high heels.  For me it's always been the hooker platforms. 

But no matter what you can manage, you can purchase either in Wal-Mart for under $20. 

I have sinned: But, my enemies be assured I have also suffered

 I was good at that: Reading what my tormentors, at least those with conventional power, wanted.  They would stop brutalizing me and I would emerge their pet.  I did that quite nicely at my alma mater Seton Hill in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

In 1963, a few months before our President J.F. Kennedy was murdered, I blew into the mountains of western Pennsylvania fresh from the ghetto of Jersey City, New Jersey, first-gen college.  Predictably I was insecure, therefore outrageously high-profile.  Predictably, the nun powers-that-were came down on me hard.  The head of the English Department, which was the seat of my planned major, called me into her office and traumatized me for life [but I miraculously managed to undo that in cognitive behavioral therapy CBT in 2003 Download Geezerguts.] 

A smart street urchin, I got it that I better win over this enemy.  I did just that with a Falstaff persona.  Other English majors rightly resented my being the pet.  At the end of senior year they and majors in other departments in that small college voiced their rage in an edition of the underground newspaper "Penny Press."  We were called "Departmental Darlings."

Well, those enraged women - it was an all-women's institution with all the pre-feminism decorum like hats and gloves required - will be delighted to know:

• I recognize my sin against my fellow English majors, some of who did quite well as college professors, e.g. Geri Sesak Branca.

• I paid for that sin.  A high profile was a liability in my professional rise in the field of communications.  I learned that in 2003 when I learned plenty more I needed to know in CBT.  Among the lessons was: Only develop and maintain a high profile if paid well to be a designated celebrity.  Dominating the scene is hard work and everyone else really resents it.

From all my suffering has come, after years of publishing nonfiction, my first novel.  It is called "The Fat Guy From Greenwich."  Here is the first chapter Download FatGuyFromGreenwich.  It will be published in late fall or early winter.  Thanks to it, I was able to vomit up the last of The Horror of being bright, ambitious but not knowing how to be successful on my own terms.  Now I know.  How sweet it is.

Special thanks to my CBT shaman Amy C. Karnilowicz, LMFT, West Hartford, Connecticut, family.therapist@comcast.net, 860-216-5116.

 

Quinnipac Law Student Advertises Soul for $100K: Success Gen Implodes

This is just the beginning of the implosion of the Success Generation.  They planned their lives for that one goal.  And in a linear fashion:  The right schools, the right tutoring for standardized tests, the right courses, the right networks, the right internships/summer jobs, and the right persona. 

Pre-crash, that formula was effective.  New graduates of law school were offered, sometimes with a bit of an apology, the starting salary of $160,000, plus annual bonus potential.  New Masters in Business Administration could go to Wall Street for exponentially more.  And even us humanists could get good jobs in the media, even if they paid just a living wage.

Now, we know.  A fat guy in a baseball cap who flaunts his working-class background has achieved influence and power, along with considerable wealth. A young blonde who had lost every job until she discovered blogging has been courted and is being courted up by every establishment and alternative media outlet. 

And, simultaneously, a law student at Quinnipiac, just down the road from me, is advertising the sale of his soul for $100,000.  His prospects for getting any full-time law job with benefits are dismal.  He will have to compete aggressively for those temporary jobs reviewing documents at $45 an hour.  And he is deep in debt from student loans.  Those hearing about his pitch doubt if he will receive any offers, never mind a six-figure one. 

The kind of mindset he and the rest of the Success Generation have isn't productive in the new economy.   Commerce needs those who have the self-assurance and experience to pull off success out of nowhere, that is, not from known formulas.  Those who do those magic acts usually followed their heart and talents.  They wound up in space where they could trust their instincts and experiment with risk.  Most are not as wealthy as Michael Moore or as in-demand as Ana Marie Cox.  But they are employed or self-employed and at something they love.

Here is a morality tale of the players from boom times.  The novel is my first: "The Fat Guy From Greenwich."  It will be published late fall.  This is a complimentary look at the first chapter Download FatGuyFromGreenwich.

Mamas, don't let your sons and daughters sell their souls for the kind of success which no longer exists.