Sunday Miscellany

I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.
Samuel Johnson (1709–84), author

Saturday I met Bitch Ph.D. She had a barbeque that turned out very nice even as we stood under the eves drinking fizzy pink wine (which was very good), to avoid the rain, we eventually moved in doors and in the background heard the pouring rain. I felt very comfortable around her and Mr. B. as well as her other blogging friends including Kathleen from Planned Obsolescence. It was an interesting and nice evening and just as the conversation was getting even better, I had to return home, since wife and I had different schedules all day Saturday and we wanted to share a bit of the evening together. A public thank you to Dr. and Mr. B.

Much to my disadvantage, I had never read Planned Obsolescence prior to meeting Kathleen last night, and the first post that I read in memoriam literati was about a piece about Gore Vidal’s new book, “Point to Point Navigation, A Memoir,” which I purchased about a month ago specifically to blog about, but I didn’t. I encourage you to visit P.O. to read a rebuttal to Vidal’s essay "…My Backstory.”

My Gore Vidal story is that when I worked at a public relations agency, I had a client who was looking for financial backers for an online music site, prior to iTunes. He was staying at a high-end hotel in Santa Monica, maybe it was Shutters, I don’t honestly remember. The client and his friend were from Texas, I would not be exaggerating to say they were racist. One time I had to take them off the speakerphone and tell him he could not talk that way and we'd have to drop them as a client if it continued, but that is another story. We were meeting them for a game of golf and they asked if I knew who Gore Vidal was. I said yes, but didn’t offer anything more.

*He doesn’t believe in God, the client said in horror. The client continued, we didn’t know who he was and we were telling him about our site and thinking he might be a potential investor. We closed the bar and he suggested we go to our room to continue the discussion. The client felt like they were propositioned by the author and they immediately asked him to leave. Once I was finished laughing, I explained to them who the author was and that I had recently paid to hear him speak because I enjoyed reading his essays and hearing him talk. They couldn't believe anyone would pay to hear him speak. I can't believe they never heard of him.

*I don't use quote marks because this is not vebatim, just memory now.