Entertainment Coordinators

I just got back from my hometown, Buff, which was a very solid trip. Lots of hangin out, lots of people. Actually Diggs, Jared, Trice and MyNeva came home that weekend too. So the crowds were thick.

I might manage a blog on the trip home, but this is really an intro to my ode to the Entertainment Coordinators. We're rarely apprciated, so I'm proppin the people who made my life fun when no one else would.

************
First, my current situation.

Looks like I got a good group here in the suburban bureaus of Tampa/St. Pete. At full strength we’re probably about 12 deep. And an eclectic mix too. Ivy leaguers, artistic-types, partiers, smarmy wise-guys – good group. But there’s a problem, outside of one semi-pushy person, no one really steps up to coordinate the hanging-out. That’s a huge role, the Entertainment Coordinator. The fun workplaces have one, the lames one lack one. It’s really important for my current crew of 20-something journalists to have an Entertainment Coordinator because most of us live in Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties…so, in essence, we’re all we got. Thus far, I’ve been to a spot named The Cove which is located in the middle of a trailer park and and a spot called Scores, which sux not because it’s lame, but because it’s not lame enough. Really lame spots always have that lil bit of character that Yankees like myself find either charming, odd or comical. This spot was a non-descript lame…but the company was great, so it sufficed. Still, we gotta start getting to Tampa at some point and that’ll take an Entertainment Coordinator. Who’s gonna fill those sizeable shoes?

It’ll probably end up being me, which is a first for me in the workplace. Back before I left Buff, I was my crews’ Entertainment Coordinator. Trips to Toronto, Vince’ll handle that. Tailgating before a Bills’ game? Vince’ll buy the tix, food and coordinate schedules. It’s the same with some of my other sets of friends. Time for the fellas to leave the girlfriends and wives at the crib and hit Philly? Vince’ll get the email string going, kop the telly rooms and plan a skeleton itinerary. My niggas in DC? Oh please. How I wish they’d set stuff up sometimes. But it was usually me, finding a night we were all free, choosing a spot, etc.

I didn’t and don’t mind much though. Usually, Entertainment Coordinators end up coordinating entertainment, because we’re entertainment gluttons. ECs are also, usually, the person in a particular crew that communicates crew members the most. You know? Leroy basically does Leroy, so when it comes to gathering 6-10 people to go get some drinks at a lounge, he’s not a good look as an EC, since he probably doesn’t even know Karen’s email address and probably didn’t program her number into his phone.

Being the EC is a hard job. And often, it’s a thankless job. Especially if you have ingrates for friends that fish for faults with restaurants you choose or hit you with this exchange..

“Aw man, we gotta go to Wally-Wally’s again? Can’t we go somewhere else for once?”
“OK, where. We’re always open to suggestions.”
“I don’t know. I’m just sayin…”

I hate that. It makes me and other ECs feel like wives who slave over the stove to cook a dinner, only to have a husband say, “chicken again?! I mean, I like chicken parmesian, but we just had chicken vegetable soup last month! Can’t we switch it up!”

Which is why, as a veteran EC for many groups, I was always appreciative of my work-place ECs. I’ve never had to fulfill that role before, because others handled those responsibilities so admirably. I could just show up places whenever I was told to show up. Let me take a second to remember my ECs (in chronological order).

JEREMY BETRAND, 2001-2003 – AF&PA, Washington, DC
This is my dude. I still struggle to understand just how it’s possible for this yutz to be a husband and new-father (although I’m sure he’s great at both). I used to call him Johnny Bravo because he reminded me of Johnny Bravo. He was an alpha male. The type of kat to go get WD-40 to fix a co-workers squeaky door-hinge.

He was a forester from Philly via Canada and he was incredibly loyal to the forest industry he worked for. Our organization was the trade association for the paper and forest industries, so we were often at odds with environmental groups and “tree-huggers”. JB hated tree-huggers because he thought they were ignorant rebel-rousers, confused kids of priviledge that latched onto a coause they were blatantly misinformed of. So he would do hilarious things like confront Greenpeace members on L Street and start grilling them with environmental trivia. When we would go in our bosses corner office and look out her windows onto 19th Street and see “environmentalist”, JB’s neck would turn red with anger. Then he’d disappear and seconds later we’d see him across the street engaging one of the “tree-huggers”. He may very well be the most priceless co-worker of all time, thus far.

And his stock was even more valuable because he was the association-wide EC. If we were gonna drink a couple bottles of wine in the office during an 11-day preceeding a big meeting, JB was sending the email and going to kop the wine. And he was the 7th and 8th floor conduit too.

As with most offices, there was an unwritten pecking order. The important department lived on the 8th floor with the Pres, Vice Pres and Legal Counsel. The bastard departments “slummed” on the 7th floor. JB interned on the 8th floor when he first got there though, so he bridged the gap. Happy hour at Sign O’ the Whale – only if JB set it up. If everyone was preparing to leave Mackey’s after happy-hour, JB was the one that would suggest the Black Rooster…and then pound Irish Car Bomb shots with me as his fiancé swcowled in the seat next to him.

He was so important to my AF&PA fun factor. Most of the youngsters in DC couldn’t always afford to live in DC, so we lived in suburban Maryland and Virginia…so hanging out was exactly frequent, and even less frequent for me since I had religious meetings twice/week. But JB ensured we got together every now and then. A 1st ballot EC Hall of Famer.


NANCY YANG, summer of 2004 – Atlanta Journal Constitution

We had a fairly big intern class at the AJC for the summer of 2004. About 12 of us. Good people. But we were all scattered all over the place, in a new city, so we didn’t get together much. I already had a hefty camp of friends in Atl, so I was good. But you definitely wanna get to know your fellow interns because you’re supposed to carry those relationships with you throughout your career. Unfortunately, the only time I talked to my class was when we’d get together Tues afternoons for meetings. And I missed many of those since I was out reporting. But we always had Nancy. Sweet little Nancy.

Nancy was a little Asian gal from Minneapolis – my mother’s hometown. Very sweet, very sociable and the type of person intent on not letting a summer pass without getting to know her peers. So every so often we’d get emails from Nancy.

“Anyone up for a lunch to celebrate our first month of interning?”
“Who’s up to go blah-blah-blah at Lake Yadayada?”
“OK guys, we gotta have a farewell intern dinner. How bout we meet at Yakyakyak around 6p.”
I got such a kick out of her. But we needed that. I was staying in Stone Mountain, dead broke and entertained by my own crew. Several interns attended Atlanta-based Emory, others weren’t exactly the most social people on the planet. If it weren’t for Lil Yang, we’d have left Atlanta as strangers.

My favorite Nancy-outing was the Pontoon party we had. We bbq’d, drove the boat all over the place and acted like young people (even though I was olde enough to be their fathers). It made me say, “Yes!”

Nancy Yang, Entertainment Coordinator – invaluable.

THE WASHINGTON POST COPY DESK, 2003-2005, DC

Copy desks are a diiferent animal. For the non-journalist readers (which makes up the majority of my readers), copy desks get all the stories that reporters write and they fact-check it, edit it for grammatical and spelling erros, give the stories headlines, assign photos, etc. They basically take the stories and make a newspaper out of it. Essential and underappreciated gig.

Well, the Post sports copy desk is one of the nations best copy desk regardless of what section your talking about. And they’re typical copy and layout editors. They’re smarmy, sarcastic, judgmental, cynical jerks. Its hard not to love em. Their disposition aren’t unwarranted though. They handle tons of copy within minutes, on deadline, often from lackadaisical, hacks. Sometimes they get angry. Especially when many of them wirk until 1 or 2am Fri-Sun. No weekends.

Anyways, by the time a shift was over, they needed to unwind – me too, since my recreation-life was negligible during those two years. So, as with most copy desks, they had neighborhood haunts they frequented.

And Mitch was usually the cat to coordinate...or maybe he was just the compassionate soul that always told me what was going down. Sometimes it’d be Timberlake’s. Timberlake’s was on Connecticut toward the end of DuPont Circle. Post reporters and editors have been going there for decades, especially those in the sports department. They had a bartender there too. He was from Persia and was usually bash-faced drunk by the time the crew arrived around 1. but he was character. He acted like Val Kilmer on that one episode of Entourage. And he was consistently kissing my male co-workers on the cheek.

The other spot we’d hit was Fox-n-Hounds. A legendary DC bar, known for the strong drinks. They’d give you a lil 6-oz bottle of tonic, coke, sprite, whatever – fill your cup up with alchohol and then you’d mix as you see fit.

At each spot we’d get hooked up royally – usually charged for just one drink, no matter if you’d had seven.

RICK MAESE, first half of 2005, Orlando Sentinel
Naked eyes may say that Rick was the best EC I’ve had out of my co-workers. But maybe not. He was definitely the most prodigious. I mean, a week rarely went by without Rick organizing a 10-man outing. But Rick sort of had it easy. All the young people at the Sentinel lived downtown and were ready and willing to hang out. At my previous gigs, you had people spread all over the metro area.

But Rick was still the man, because he recognized he had a troupe of youngsters ready to hang and he took the initiative to pull it all together.

“Tanqs at 11.” That’d be all he’d say on the message. Then I’d show up and 12 people would be there. He was that dude. You gotta know a lot of people to be an EC. If Rick's circle of friends was small, he'd have failed miserably at that role. In fact, many of the young Sentinel reporters are friends, indirectly, because of Rick. In effect, they know each other through Rick, sort of. he was a vital dude. In fact, I wonder if they've had one of these 10-man outings since he bounced to Baltimore. I wonder if anyone stepped up to fill that role.. But who? Kyle loves a dolo mission. Dubs is cool chilling with his girlfriend and leaving soon anyways. Carter is married. RJ dances with a beer bottle over his head like a halo. I mean, really, who's it gonna be?

*****************
I really hope I won't be fulfilling the EC role here at the Times. I don't mind corralling my childhood friends or setting up a reunion for all my boys living in other cities. I can handle that. But I need a respite and having a work EC is such a priviledge.

So everyone, take a moment one of these days a give your EC a hug. shoot them an email saying thanks after they spend an afternoon emailing 15 people back-n-forth juggling schedules and spitballing destinations.

Cheers JB. Cheers Nancy. Cheers copy-desk. Cheers Rick. You were a classy bunch.