outfits, barely able to stifle their giggles, made a well-worn path to our door.
That extra attention John was accustomed to quickly extended to Michael and me once people realized our association. All I had to do was walk into the lobby with John once, and from then on I got a super-friendly “Hello, and how was your weekend?” from the security guard. Employees I didn’t recognize knew my name, and a couple of them even asked me to lunch. It reached the point where I was slightly paranoid about leaving the conference room, not sure what I would encounter on my way to grab a sandwich.
I also became somewhat spoiled—I wasn’t about to let preferential treatment go to waste. I needed only to drop my name and someone from IT would race down to fix our computers. If I requested a fax machine, corporate asked, “Do you need a black or white one?” If someone from Woman’s Day magazine asked for one, it could take months, if they got one at all.
Employees throughout the building came by to apply for openings at the new magazine. An art director at one of Hachette’s titles asked me out on a date when he dropped offhis portfolio. Although he was a little too old to be sporting a ponytail, I was psyched to go out with him—he was an insider and he was interested in me. He took me to Rodeo Bar, a Tex-Mex hangout with live music; we had a good time laughing over our common Italian heritage and gossiping about magazine publishing (my new profession!). During our second date, at a diner not too far from the office, he asked me about the position he’d applied for as George ’s creative director. Surprised he didn’t know that John had already filled it, I gave him the scoop. At the end of the meal, my portion of the bill—for a Greek salad and a Diet Coke—came to eight dollars, he informed me. What the hell? He asked me out and now he wants me to pay? I didn’t have any cash, and the diner was cash-only. But he had a solution for that. “There’s an ATM across the street. I’ll wait here,” he said.
My association with John was tricky—not everyone liked me just for me anymore. Ultimately, everyone wanted a connection to him, whether it was a job or just a sighting. Not long after we arrived at Hachette, a routine mention of John’s personal life wound up in the paper. The untrue gossip item, which had him partying at a strip club, prompted an immediate visit from someone in the corporate communications department, who was overexcited about the opportunity to insinuate herself into the situation.
“How are we commenting on this?” she asked in a serious tone.
Michael just looked at her as if she were crazy—and dumb. “We aren’t going to do anything,” he said dryly.
In that instant, Michael set the PR strategy for George . Itwas about promoting a magazine, not a person. He was not about to hand that responsibility over to a corporate flack. She exited the conference room, clearly upset, and held a grudge against us that only strengthened the insularity of our group as we closed ranks within that big company.
Although the core idea behind George was still hazy to curious onlookers and the general public, for the three of us, the mission was crystal clear: John and Michael were determined to get people interested in politics. To the outside world, John might have appeared apolitical, a dilettante coasting along on his looks and money, a “dreamboat adrift.” But in reality, John was ardently civic-minded. He wanted to bring disaffected young people into the democratic process by getting them hooked on the characters and behind-the-scenes stories of political life. According to him, those narratives were just as fascinating, horrifying, and inspiring as any gossip item or made-for-TV movie. Once people knew their congressman or mayor as well as they did the latest movie star, he reasoned, they would be more apt to care—and vote.
By the spring of 1995, George had moved out of the
That extra attention John was accustomed to quickly extended to Michael and me once people realized our association. All I had to do was walk into the lobby with John once, and from then on I got a super-friendly “Hello, and how was your weekend?” from the security guard. Employees I didn’t recognize knew my name, and a couple of them even asked me to lunch. It reached the point where I was slightly paranoid about leaving the conference room, not sure what I would encounter on my way to grab a sandwich.
I also became somewhat spoiled—I wasn’t about to let preferential treatment go to waste. I needed only to drop my name and someone from IT would race down to fix our computers. If I requested a fax machine, corporate asked, “Do you need a black or white one?” If someone from Woman’s Day magazine asked for one, it could take months, if they got one at all.
Employees throughout the building came by to apply for openings at the new magazine. An art director at one of Hachette’s titles asked me out on a date when he dropped offhis portfolio. Although he was a little too old to be sporting a ponytail, I was psyched to go out with him—he was an insider and he was interested in me. He took me to Rodeo Bar, a Tex-Mex hangout with live music; we had a good time laughing over our common Italian heritage and gossiping about magazine publishing (my new profession!). During our second date, at a diner not too far from the office, he asked me about the position he’d applied for as George ’s creative director. Surprised he didn’t know that John had already filled it, I gave him the scoop. At the end of the meal, my portion of the bill—for a Greek salad and a Diet Coke—came to eight dollars, he informed me. What the hell? He asked me out and now he wants me to pay? I didn’t have any cash, and the diner was cash-only. But he had a solution for that. “There’s an ATM across the street. I’ll wait here,” he said.
My association with John was tricky—not everyone liked me just for me anymore. Ultimately, everyone wanted a connection to him, whether it was a job or just a sighting. Not long after we arrived at Hachette, a routine mention of John’s personal life wound up in the paper. The untrue gossip item, which had him partying at a strip club, prompted an immediate visit from someone in the corporate communications department, who was overexcited about the opportunity to insinuate herself into the situation.
“How are we commenting on this?” she asked in a serious tone.
Michael just looked at her as if she were crazy—and dumb. “We aren’t going to do anything,” he said dryly.
In that instant, Michael set the PR strategy for George . Itwas about promoting a magazine, not a person. He was not about to hand that responsibility over to a corporate flack. She exited the conference room, clearly upset, and held a grudge against us that only strengthened the insularity of our group as we closed ranks within that big company.
Although the core idea behind George was still hazy to curious onlookers and the general public, for the three of us, the mission was crystal clear: John and Michael were determined to get people interested in politics. To the outside world, John might have appeared apolitical, a dilettante coasting along on his looks and money, a “dreamboat adrift.” But in reality, John was ardently civic-minded. He wanted to bring disaffected young people into the democratic process by getting them hooked on the characters and behind-the-scenes stories of political life. According to him, those narratives were just as fascinating, horrifying, and inspiring as any gossip item or made-for-TV movie. Once people knew their congressman or mayor as well as they did the latest movie star, he reasoned, they would be more apt to care—and vote.
By the spring of 1995, George had moved out of the
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