Memory Avenue

I was walking down Park Avenue in New York City last Thursday on a way to a meeting and soon found myself strolling down memory lane. 3 Park Avenue started to loom higher and higher as I walked toward 20^th street. It’s not the tallest building in the city by any measure, but the memory it holds for me was my first job in the big apple. The year was 1983 and it was a mailing list company. Of course it’s 2017 so I stopped to take a picture of the building and posted it to social media.

Time has flown since those early days. Did that first job help in my quest to become a magazine publisher years later? Did it lay some sort of foundation to my TV work? Then films? That of course is hard to tell, but I do believe every experience leads to another that builds to another. Some jobs we love and some we detest. At best we learn from the experience and move on. This first job was fine. It did teach me how mailing lists were sourced and sold.

The meeting I had was part of a larger goal of mine. Let’s just say that since I reactivated my SAG-AFTRA membership I’ve been looking into things.  But like so many I see on social media these days, I don’t broadcast every detail of my business activities until either a deal is done or it makes sense to do so. Seriously, why take the chance that a premature post could jeopardize a future opportunity (and don’t even get me started about those that take to social media complaining they didn’t get a part!)? Look none of us are perfect when it comes to social media. In the old days we would call our best friend and just rant on the phone, now it’s a quick post so the world can see…the world!

But while I was reflective of the past, I don’t live in it.  In those early days it was a literal production to get the word out on something. You had to hope that a radio station, newspaper or TV network picked up what you were pitching. Now you can broadcast live on social media. Indeed, it has democratized the world of promotion and is a godsend to the entertainment industry.

With Lois Elfman at Dos Caminos in New York City.

Would I have been able to reach around the world with First World, Evidence, Justice Is Mind or Serpentine: The Short Program with the budget I had? Never. But like the days before social/electronic media, you still need a message. You just can’t post “watch me” you need to give someone a reason to in the first place. In my early days of publishing, my press releases would be faxed, now they are electronic. But they are press releases with the same general substance of title, summary and body.  The adage some things don’t change is true. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

As for things not changing, a trip to New York wouldn’t be complete without meeting Lois Elfman, my former business partner, for dinner. It was over dinner twenty years ago when I mentioned to Lois my intention to start a figure skating magazine. Now decades later it’s other projects. My thanks to her again for the great article about Serpentine she wrote for the Ice Network and securing the film’s distribution on their VOD platform.

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