Paul LaRosa/Here is New York

Is "The Office" an exaggeration? Maybe not...

"The Office" -- the NBC comedy -- makes me uncomfortable. I watch it and generally enjoy it but not like I enjoyed "Seinfeld." Michael Scott is too stupid. He makes me cringe. It's all I can do not to change channels. No one could be that nutty in real-life, could they?

Well, I'm here to report that actual offices are every bit as crazy, if not more so. I've been collecting real-life office tales and emails from people I know and present them here. All are absolutely true but the names of people and companies have to be omitted to protect the idiotic.

Just this morning, a friend forwarded me this email sent out by a company drone:

Subject: FYI -Ball Point Pens- Blue (Retractable)
Hi All,
You'll find them in our supply closet along with our other pens.

Now that's breaking news!

Another friend missed a meeting and received this facetious though true email informing her of what took place:

Subject: Meeting Minutes

9:42: I take one of the chocolate chip cookies on the conference table. XXX looks disappointed and remarks that she wanted that one. I tell her there are others in a nearby bag. She laments that everyone takes her too seriously and curtly advises me to "lighten up."
9:56: We briefly discuss the dress code. XXXX implores us to read the policy and keep in mind that "the seasons are changing."
10:12: XXXX announces that she would like to begin an employee walking club. Sometimes she walks to FDR Drive, other times to Houston. She enjoys walking. Sometimes she even stops at a firehouse. She suggests that employees be issued pedometers to help them track the distances they cover.
10:21: XXXX shares details about the upcoming benefit. Although she isn't sure how many people in our department will be allowed into the event, she says, firmly, "We should dress like we might, one day, be able to shop at Saks Fifth Avenue."

I could go on and on. A close relative told me that a female co-worker gave her a Christmas card advising, "Merry Christmas to you and all your lovers...." even though she knows this relative is in a committed relationship. The same woman walks around kissing and touching the bellies of pregnant co-workers without asking....although I guess asking if you could kiss someone's belly would get an immediate turn-down so why bother?

This relative works in an office where an obese supervisor inhales any and all food that happens to be left out in the open. Workers began putting hot sauce and pepper on the cookies but it didn't matter. The obese fellow ate them. Finally, they put out a plastic chocolate pretzel. The guy took a bite but threw it out because it "tasted funny."

The same guy later PRINTED OUT 200 pages of pornography and left it in the printer for all to see!!! Now who prints out pornography???!!! Not even Michael Scott would do that.

Oh Andre, no you didn't!

It was one thing for Andre Agassi to admit he once used crystal meth. That I could forgive. But now he's gone and admitted wearing a wig during the 1990's. Now that, Andre, I cannot forgive.  Especially when you blame your fear of losing your hairpiece on your French Open loss in 1990 (see photo left of Agassi's really bad hair day). Andre, you're setting back the bald movement decades with this admission. (continue reading...)

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Behind the gun door....

The other day, I needed to pick up a gun so of course I traveled down to the ultra chic neighborhood of SoHo, not far from the lower Broadway outlet of Bloomingdale's.

This was surprising on several levels. First, that I even needed a gun. I did not need a real gun, of course, just one that looked real enough for a television production. I went in search of something that shot blanks. (continue reading....)

What would Don Draper do?

With my new book"Seven Days of Rage" coming out Tuesday, September 15^th,  the same day as Dan Brown's follow-up to "The DaVinci Code," I knew I had a marketing problem. So I thought to myself, what would Don Draper do? So, at least in my dreams, I went to see dapper Don of AMC's "Mad Men" fame.

Draper ushered me into his office at Sterling, Cooper, and walked over to his bar.

"What are you drinking?" he asked.

"It's 10 in the morning, Don." (continue reading...)

Happy Father's Day Dad...

This is a photo of my father when he was 18 years old, after he was drafted out of high school to fight for the U.S. Army during World War II. So young, probably so scared, but...it was one of the highlights of his life. He spoke of it often and...(continue reading)

No extraneous trash & he means it!!

New Yorkers are particular about their trash -- especially when it comes to other people. Eighth Street in Park Slope, between 7th and 8th Avenues, is one of the prettiest blocks in NYC. Nearly every brownstone has a lovely display of flowers and plants. But then you get to the end of the block and, if there was a Soup Nazi, then this guy is the Trash Nazi...
(continue reading)

Sonia Sotomayor....from "my Bronx"

I read all the newspaper stories today about Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, and while they all mentioned her Catholic School education at Cardinal Spellman High School, not one mentioned that — for the EIGHT years before that — she attended Blessed Sacrament School on Beach Avenue. So did I — at the same time.

(continue reading at www.paullarosa.com/blog)

Up Hayes!

My wife always laughs when she hears that "Up Hayes and all its loyal men" was the rallying cry of my high school in NYC but there you have it. The school in question is Cardinal Hayes High School on the Grand Concourse up in the Bronx and it's been in the news this week, not in a good way.

It seems the principal was fired for having inappropriate photos of naked men on a computer he used. But I say 'whatever' to that -- one guy can't tarnish the reputation of this great school that has been educating kids in NYC for the past 40 years or more. One paragraph in the NY Times story caught my attention. Here it is:

"The dismissal, reported in The New York Post on Wednesday, deeply shook morale at the school, which prides itself on upholding strict codes of discipline and ethics, and sees its mission as plucking boys from struggling city neighborhoods and shaping them into ambitious young men. Among the school’s alumni, who refer to themselves as “Hayes Men,” are Regis Philbin, Martin Scorses and the novelist Don DeLillo. George Carlin, the comedian, lasted three semesters at Cardinal Hayes before getting kicked out."

Even George Carlin is proud of the school and he was kicked out! But that line about "plucking boys from struggling city neighborhoods and shaping them into ambitious young men" well, that's me too. I was in a fog before going to Hayes but it made me realize I could write fairly well. I won every creative writing contest I entered when I was there, and it's largely why I've been a writer all my life.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Hayes so, despite its current troubles, I hope anyone who is thinking of sending their child there or contributing to the school, does not change his or her mind. It's worth it, believe me.

John Lennon's "cafe" closes...

It's always sad to see a piece of old NYC fade away but doubly sad for me -- a huge Beatles fan -- when the part of NYC that's closing has to do with the days when John Lennon lived in the Dakota Apartments. Everyone knows what happened back in 1980 to end his days in NYC and I was there all night long that fateful night outside the Dakota with hundreds of Beatles fans who were singing "All We Need Is Love" and "Give Peace a Chance."

Back then, I was a reporter for the Daily News. No one assigned me to spend the night there. No one had to. I simply heard of Lennon's death from a friend shortly after it happened and sped to the scene. The next day, I wrote one of the lead story's for the paper's now-defunct afternoon edition. I always thought it would be the biggest story I would ever cover but then of course came 9/11.

Today (Sunday, February 24th) was the last day Cafe La Fortuna will be open. Lennon and Yoko logged a lot of time at the cafe, so much so that the owner gave Yoko the garden table used by Lennon. Those were the days when John and Yoko walked the Upper West Side and Central Park with abandon and we all know how that turned out. It's sad to see it go....a victim of NYC's ever-spiralling high rents.

Why I don't buy new cars....

I've had a fair number of cars in my life but I've only bought one brand spanking new car from a dealership -- a burgandy Toyota Camry back in the early 90s. It was stolen three times and maybe that's what put me off ever buying a new car again in NYC. Here's the story of what happened each time it was stolen:

  #1. The first time it was stolen was a Friday. I was just getting used to it not being there when, on Monday, three days after it was stolen off a Brooklyn street, the thief left me a voice mail. "Yo Paul," he said, "your car is over on Nostrand between XXX and XXX street."

Hmmm....I thought. This is a setup if I've ever heard one. I'm was sure the thief would be ready to jump me if I ventured anywhere near that street. But I did anyway. I made a car service driver swear he would not leave until I was safely in my car and had started it. He agreed. We drove down Nostrand and there was my car! I got out and looked up and down the street. No muggers ready to swoop down. The door was open so I got in the driver's seat and immediately noticed there was no ignition but there was a screwdriver lying on the passenger seat. Hey, I grew up in the Bronx -- I know how to start a car with a screwdriver. I just stuck the thing into the hole where the ignition had been, and voila! It started. I waved to the car service driver and peeled out. Later, I realized that "my thief" had put 3,000 miles on the car that weekend. I guess he figured it was cheaper than renting from Avis.

#2. Again the car was stolen from outside my Brooklyn co-op but this time a cop called me a few days later. "You're lucky," he said. "We busted a chopshop last night and your car was on line to be taken apart but we got to it before anything happened." He told me the tow pound where I could pick it up. That was the best experience I had with the car being stolen.

#3. My kids were young and we parked outside the Propect Park Carousel on Flatbush Avenue. On the way inside, my wife mentioned that our son had left his favorite blanket in the car. "Don't worry," I said, "They won't steal the blanket. They'll take the whole car." You guessed it! I swear we came out 20 minutes later and the car was gone but this time it was even worse because so was my son's blanket without which he would cry constantly. About a week later, I got a call from a junkyard. My car was totaled. Nothing left. "Can I see it?" I asked. They said okay and I went down to the yard where my car indeed was totaled. No tires, no hood, dents all over, smashed windows. But I opened the back door and there was my son's blanket. "Yes," I cried, smiling from ear to ear. The junkyard owner looked at me and said, "We don't usually get that kind of reaction."

I bet.

Anyway, so whenever my son, who now can drive, asks me why I don't buy a new car, I tell him that it would just be a jinx. Besides, I like my 11-year-old car with the word "Fuck" scratched into the driver's side door. It kind of says "NYC" to me.

(I'm not kidding about that door. It came courtesy of an irate driver who thought my wife had parked too close to his car. I leave it there because I kind of like it. Cars don't do so well in NYC.)

Love this front page...

If you don't live in NYC, you don't get headlines like this.

Great front page, great photo....inspired!! Now that's a rear ending!! (double click to see full size, if you dare)

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The cult of luck...

I've been thinking a lot about the football Giants this week but who in NYC hasn't, right? It was a fantastic Super Bowl, and even though I'm a Jet fan, I can appreciate what the Giants did to the Patriots. But really, wasn't their victory attributable to luck -- a lot of luck?

Sure Eli Manning, after escaping the clutches of two Patriots, threw a bullet in the direction of David Tyree but that catch was pure luck. I don't care what anyone says. Tyree may have all the skill in the world but on that one play, he got lucky, catching that ball on his head the way he did. You cannot convince me otherwise.

Furthermore, I do not believe that luck is the residue of design. Nope, I think luck is dumb but what you make of it can be smart. Should you ever find yourself in the lucky position the Giants found themselves in, you had better do what they did and score a touchdown.

I guess what I'm getting at is that a lot of life, as far as I'm concerned, is about getting lucky at the right time. Whenever anyone asks me what I want for my kids, I answer that I hope they're lucky. More than happiness, more than love, more than anything really. Because if they're lucky, everything will fall into place.

A lot of people will just not attribute good fortune to luck, prefering instead luck's alter ego -- hard work. That's because people like to feel that getting ahead in their careers is something they can achieve on their own. Luck, on the other hand, is out of our control. But all the hard work in the world won't get you where you want to go without a smidgen of luck. It's just that some of us are willing to admit that while other won't.

Woody Allen will admit it. His movie "Match Point" is all about luck. The opening shot of the ball going over the tennis net -- or not -- is of course the motif for the entire film. Later, when Scarlett Johansson's lover kills her and gets away with it, it's clear that he does so because he's lucky. 

Audrey Hepburn is another. I picked up a book about the actress the other day and here's what she had to say about her charmed life: "How shall I sum up my life? I think I've been particularly lucky." 

Right. So count me in the cult of lucky. I acknowledge it and know I've been a beneficiary.

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I have issues...

and one of them has to do with customer service in NYC. Maybe I'm a magnet for bad service but I doubt it. Here's what happened to me last week and, though it sounds dire in print, I came away laughing through the whole thing because it was simply ridiculous.

I was filling a prescription for an antibiotic, and like I always do, I went to my local neighborhood pharmacy on 7th Avenue in Park Slope. Even though I could have gone to any one of 100 major drug stores chains that surround this poor little store, I remain loyal and generally feel virtuous about it. I drop my prescription off at 3 and the woman behind the counter tells me it'll be ready in 30 minutes. They have all my information on file. Two hours later, I show up and the pharmacist, a guy named John who was very into disco in its heyday, tells me my drug prescription information is no good and do I have the new card? Nope, I tell him but I'll pay for it out of pocket. Fifty bucks. Okay, I say. He says it'll be ready in ten minutes.

I was upset it wasn't ready as they'd promised but I used the time to go home and call the drug prescription company to get the new updated information for the new year. I called John and gave it to him and he said, yes, it worked. Come back in ten minutes.

"Listen John, I hate to complain but two hours ago, one of your gals told me it would be ready in 1/2 hour. What gives?"

His response was pure New YOrk. "You're pissed at me?" he said. "I should be pissed at you. Your card didn't work."

"But I didn't know that. You should have called me to tell me."

"I have to call you? What are you kidding? We don't have time to call people. You know how many customers I have? Paison, come on, what's wrong with you?"

Normally, I would have been beside myself with anger but his failure to grasp of the logic of the situation was so dumb that I couldn't help but laugh. Then, to compound everything, he began speaking Italian to me even though I do not speak Italian. I had no idea what he was talking about.

"John, come on," I said. "Honestly, how could I know my card wasn't good unless you called me?"

I thought this was such a clear line of reasoning that I could not fathom that he didn't see it immediately -- he was wrong and I was right. But no. And I swear this is what he said next. "Are you crazy?" he asked me. "Listen to yourself for one minute. Go throw yourself in the river. Come on!!"

He wasn't kidding and the fact that he wasn't kidding -- that he thought I was simply out of my mind -- made me laugh so hard that I had to hang up. Then I walked down to the store and picked up my prescription. Here's the sick part: believe it or not, I'd go to John's again and when I think about that, maybe I deserve the customer service that I get.

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My favorite sign in NYC....

You can find it out in Brooklyn along Eastern Parkway. Obviously someone has a sense of humor, I think. (Click on photo to make it larger.)

The power of comic books....

I came across an article in the NY Times today that reinforces everything I've long felt about comics and comic books. You can read the above link for yourself but, in a nutshell, the article and the educators quoted are beginning to think that reading comics is a good thing and can help kids not only learn to read but to enjoy it too.

I'm a prime example of that. Whenever someone asks my influences, I always say Superman and Spiderman comics....and I mean it. When I was a kid growing up in the housing projects of the Bronx, I buried myself in comic books. I was one of those geeks who even went to the newsstand early to meet the latest issues. It wasn't just Superman and Spiderman but also Classics Illustrated and a bunch more. (BTW, remember Classics Illustrated. Basically, they'd take the classics like say, The Count of Monte Cristo, and put it in comic book form. I loved reading those.)

Comic books got me interested in reading and what I found there kept me reading and inspired me. It was only years later -- after I became a newspaper reporter for the NY Daily News -- that I realized the connection between my career choice and those early comics. Both Clark Kent and Peter Parker worked at big city newspapers! My choice of the News was interesting because, if you'll recall, the newspaper Kent/Superman worked for had a giant globe on the roof. Well, the Daily News had a giant globe in the lobby that I looked at each and every day. Coincidence?

Now, I didn't get super powers except that those guys -- Kent and Parker -- when they weren't fighting crime, were more or less like me. Mild-mannered, unassuming but look at what they acheived. Subconsciously, I was sure I could do the same. I haven't lept any tall buildings lately but those comics and comic book heroes gave me hope...and when you have hope you have everything.

I couldn't have picked better heroes to emulate. Comics might not be the road to success for everyone but they worked for me.

Paul

Do you Google your own name?

I do and I'm not apologetic about it. I like/love to know what people are saying about me and check my own name a couple of times a week. Aside from reading about myself, I get a kick out of finding other people with my name (or I suppose I have their name...whatever, you know what I mean).

My favorite Paul LaRosa, aside from myself, is an opera singer who is said in one review to be "smooth and full of class." Wish that was my review. I've also found other "Pauls" who are real estate agents, investment bankers, competitive swimmers (especially fulfilling since I cannot swim) and on it goes.

I have to admit that a few years ago -- before my books were published -- if you checked my name, you learned of an evil Paul LaRosa who killed his wife Susan and himself. Yikes!! That happens to be my wife's name. The only way people knew it wasn't me is that my evil twin lived in another state and he killed himself while I am very much alive. These days, I never run across that guy so he must be way down in Googletown.

I'm not alone in checking my own name. A Pew Study came out last week that reported more than twice as many people check their names online now than did five years ago. So what are you waiting for? Google your own name and see what comes up.

Paul

More Scorsese....

The NY Daily News (my former employer) ran a column by Michael Daly today about how Martin Scorsese -- the pride of New York for many years, not just since he won his first Oscar -- is a graduate not only of Cardinal Hayes High School on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx but also of Old St. Patrick's grammar school on the lower East Side. My cousins, who grew up on the Bowery, also went there so I'm somewhat familiar with it. It's totally different from St. Patrick's Cathedral, the seat of New York Catholicism. Old St. Patrick's, just below Houston, is surrounded by a winding brick wall at least 200 years old and seemingly on the verge of collapsing. Interesting that Scorsese attended school there because the church has another filmic claim to fame. The climatic Baptism scene of "The Godfather" was shot on the churche's front steps. Congrats again Marty!