Once upon a time, a very long time ago, well, maybe not all THAT long, but still, considering I’m now ‘middle aged,’ you do the math.  When I was in college, I spent a semester in NYC interning for Rolling Stone Magazine.  There were lots of cool, and not so cool things about that gig.  I was surrounded by people who took things in life way too seriously.  Their haircuts, their weekend activities, their summer plans, their art, their writing.

One of my intern buddies was Juan Thompson, Hunter Thompson’s son.  He was quiet and serious, but not as serious as most of the rest of the crew.  I remember him asking me how disciplined I was about ‘my writing.’  Having never really thought about it, I kind of just shrugged and said, “Oh, pretty disciplined I guess, you?’  He just looked down, shook his head, and said, ‘not disciplined at all.’  He explained that he couldn’t wait for his internship to be over, so he could take a cruise with his mother and her boyfriend, who was his age, and his girlfriend, who was his mother’s age.  See what I mean about intense, quirky, and serious?  No one more so than the editor in chief, Jann Wenner, or the art director, who’s name I don’t recall, I only remember thinking he looked exactly like David Byrne of the Talking Heads.

I worked in the photo department, reporting directly to a woman named Clementine Black, who preferred to go by Pinkie, thus making her name Pinkie Black.  She had the palest skin I’d ever seen, with the palest red hair, and the biggest, palest blue eyes.  She was married to the art director of the New York Times magazine, and they left town on the weekends, needing a house sitter, which ended up being me.  I had no problem hanging out in their Chelsea apartment, looking after their beloved cat named Mighty Mouse.  Pinkie knew more about emerging trends than anyone I’d ever known, and gave me heaps of vintage clothing, which I wore for years.

The best thing about the internship was the freebies we got for events all over town.  It was easy as pie to go to screenings, openings, or the David Letterman show.  Which brings me to the point of this entry.  Does David still do his top ten list?  Cuz I have mine here, only it’s not comedy, it’s just a list of words I’ve come up with that I think have been way too played out in ‘2008.’ 

For what it’s worth - the ten words I think I could hear less of in the the New Year—

1. green
2. sustainable
3. economy
4. carbon footprint (two words)
5. pressure
6. layoffs
7. buy outs (two more words)
8. market share (two words)
9. recession
10. economy (saying it again)

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