10:46:33 PM    sro home /

For an extended period during the early 90's, I worked for a Celebrity Clothing Designer. CCD had become well known for her "youthful, witty take" on women's sportswear and had even managed to win a Big Fashion Award, aided by her photogenic appearance and Plucky Story.

I first met her at a dinner party I attended with my Satanic Ex-Boyfriend. SEB worked in the Interior Design Industry and made a regular habit of hob-nobbing with the mucky-mucks of the business and so I found myself at some Brit Queen's fabulous little pied-a-terre being all Trophy Wife in front of his friends. It so happened CCD was also a guest with her (then) husband. Frankly, I'd never heard of her and while I found her charmingly animate, thought little of it.

Time marched on and I exorcised myself from that relationship while CCD simultainiously whipped her career into a Big Deal. The Fashion Biz in NYC is relatively incestuous, the only trait of the Glam Image the Media sells that might actually be true. I had a friend who had trumpeted her work at a Young Woman's Fashion Magazine and eventually came to work for CCD. I was offered a job managing her retail store in Manhattan's SoHo.

The distance - not far enough - from the mid-town showroom and Evil Headquarters meant I only saw CCD on rare occassions. Sometimes she came by the store on her way home, usually around the time we were getting ready to close and leave. These impromptu visits were her way of checking up and dumping all her neuroses and insecurities on us before she conveniently went off to her dashing existence.

I was not as giddy over her presence as everyone else always was. I had no problem saying what I thought about some of the clothes (fuggin-ugly) and the people I had to deal with from Headquarters (Vicious Cunts). She misread my thin patience as Gay Wit and seemed to enjoy plodding through everything in the store. Clothes I'd naively thought she'd seen before (since her name was on the label inside) became Philosophical Fodder before she'd throw them in a bag to add to her already substantial wardrobe.

A few times she came during the day for a Television Interview. I was often a part of these PR Wildings. CCD may have been pretty but usually had little constructive to add to any discussion. As with her business, she had no real talent save that of surrounding herself with Talented People and taking all the credit. I was a prop, "Big Gay Guy Who Runs My Woman's Store" and no person should ever have to do that job again.

Because the store was the main money-making arm of the company, I talked alot with the Chief Financial Officer who has the distinction of being the Gayest Man I've Ever Met. He was married with children yet had the personality of a Crack Whore Transvestite She-Beast and his mission in life revolved around committing crimes against humanity. We were not, to put it mildly, friends and I rubbed my chummy rapport with CCD in his face every opportunity I got.

CCD's "personal assistant" actually was a Crack Whore She-Beast, an effite cocaine-hungry fag who conspired with the CFO to make my life a living hell. If I'd had to work with them at Evil Headquarters, I wouldn't have lasted as long as I did. I kept my visits there few and far between and was only needed around the time of the Shows in the Spring and Fall.

The Fashion Business is, unsurprisingly, like any other business in that results are a combination of many things, talent being the least of them. Behind the name and image are dozens of people and if the designer is successful or popular it means the people who work for them are clever and talented. I never heard CCD have an original idea or create any Fashion Milestones but the showroom orbits around the idea that her words were Manna from Heaven. I was often called to her showroom before the debut of the New Season and sucked of any advice I could offer from my SoHo perch.

The spring and fall shows are the Nupitals of the Industry and like weddings consume huge amounts of effort and money for ten minutes of show. However with shows you're never sure if the groom is planning to stay for the honeymoon or leave right after the ceremony to publish a dismissive assessment in a well read newspaper. There's also where the guests sit, the music and the dozen Glamazon bridesmaids being paid thousands of dollars to walk back and forth.

One season it so happened another CCD had his show shortly before ours and my job was to meet the models in a limo after his show and ferry them to hair and make-up for hers. Despite being two in the afternoon on a Thursday, I was also told to bring two bottles of champagne to amuse the Troops. Not knowing what terrors I'd be facing, I talked my friend M. into accompanying me and the two of us hopped in the limo to shuttle the girls across town.

I was even given a cellphone (which was rare and staggeringly expensive at the time) which gave me a direct link to CWShe-B Assistant who was counting off minutes in my ear like we were launching a Space Shuttle. We got to the address at the appointed time and waited. And waited and waited.

Eventually, spurned by the high-pitched screeching I was enduring over the phone, I went to find them. No show, no models, no way. Eventually we were informed we'd been given the wrong address and by the time we reached the right one, they'd already arrived on their own having done the logical thing and just taken cabs.

I had a limo, a cellphone and two bottles of Vieve Cliquoé and I heard at the party later the show was a smashing success. The next day the Times called it "derivative and uninspired" and had I not been nursing a hangover, I might have agreed.

9:41:39 PM    sro home /

Dear Bloggy,

Is there any way to make money blogging?

- Poor and Swimming In Bills

Dear Poor,

At least you're swimming, the rest of us are pulling a Shelly Winters and dog-paddling our fat ass around in the Sinking Ship.

After extensive research, I'm sad to report the General Consensus is no, blogging is something one does for the sheer joy of seeing the unique and fascinating dribble you call thinking committed to the Internet where it can have an overdue and forgotten death. There are, however, a few money-making scams you can pull which may just cover your Maybelline costs.

1. Beg. There's a new breed of vagrant hitting the webwaves and they're not afraid to plead their case to the public. If you've found yourself completely void of self-respect and pioneer initiative, this may be the route for you. Stick a Paypal Link somewhere and explain how hard it is to buy Prada after you got fired from your job at the Video Store and see who bites.

2. Sell personal objects. Personally I find it hard to touch my own laundry unless I'm garbed in a Protective Suit but there are plenty of lonely, socially inept ugly people more than willing to shell out a few bucks for some Used Undies. True, there's the added cost of packaging to figure in but here's a good chance to rid yourself of those Fanny-Packs you thought were cute ten years ago.

3. Offer a service. Be original, there's lots you can do without having to leave Fifi and that bag of Doritos you have sutured to your mouth. Offer to click repeatedly on some Dudley Dulldrom's Political Puke and knock up his ratings a few notches. It'll put some Smoke Money in your purse and give his Mother a break.

Bloggy believes in Purity of Purpose here at Blog U. and I refuse to compromise my Internet Integrity by being concerned with Selling Out. If you've more interested in the Financial FastTrack, you'd be better off putting those Greg Louganis Gams to work on Sunset Boulevard.

Rich in Spirit - B.

4:42:59 PM    sro home /

2:27:47 PM    sro home /