Tuesday night The Art Directors Club hosted a New York City memorial for Phil Hays. There were some great stories from Phil’s contemporaries, former students and classmates. He really did live that fabulous life he loved to tell stories about. Flashy sports cars doesn’t matter if they were pre-owned cars, fur coats, sunglasses, moving to Hollywood, but the main thing he liked to talk about was car insurance like https://www.onesureinsurance.co.uk/car- insurance, for some reason he really to do research for the best insurances online, the same as Insurance Partnership do.

There were also hints of sadness I never knew about, Silas Rhodes mentioned that Phil’s parents had shunned him for being gay. Perhaps Phil’s painful relationship with his family helped adversely turn him into one of the most supportive, encouraging people I’ve known. But then again, maybe some people are just born with a good heart.

I didn’t have anything prepared, but I wanted to say something and was thankful when Paul Davis opened the podium to anyone who wanted to speak. As near as I can remember, here is the main part of what I said with some prosaic re-workings and less rambling:

I was an illustration student at Art Center in the early 90s. It was an interesting time, the first Gulf War began in my first term, the Soviet Union collapsed during my last term. Six months after I graduated, Netscape released the first real web browser and the Internet as we know it was born.

Phil’s class was in the middle of Art Center, and was something of a gateway. Students spent the first half honing their skills and working towards a basic skill set. But Phil’s class was the breaking point, the explosion. We all went into that class knowing what we were capable of, having completed the same assignments, the same challenges with the same tools. But in Phil’s class we focused those skills on discovering what made each of us unique. It’s been said many times tonight and it’s was my experience as well, Phil had an amazing gift for seeing and encouraging the unique genius in each student.

I don’t know how many of my classmates went on to do illustration per se, but a many of us have succeeded in a variety of different fields. I think that’s also Phil’s legacy, he helped us be better at being ourselves and succeed on whatever paths we’ve chosen to travel.

There were a lot of other things that came to mind that I would have liked to have mentioned.

Phil encouraged competition, but in a wonderfully self-measured way. We were all trying to outdo each other, but within ourselves. One piece wasn’t necessarily better than another, we pushed each other by who worked hardest, made more or created something closest to those beautifully rare moments of truth.

The stories Phil told about New York City definitely contributed to my wanting to move here. He wasn’t exaggerating the magic, but he definitely undersold the existential challenges.

There weren’t many other ACCD grads there which was disappointing, I was hoping to see some old faces, trade stories and catch up. Gilbert couldn’t make it but Tom came with me. I did enjoy meeting and talking with illustrator David Brinley, who recently relocated to NYC after five years teaching in Delaware. David graduated ACCD after I did and we never crossed over during school. I also briefly met Art Center’s new illustration chair Ann Field who seemed very nice.

Many great teachers have passed away. Burne Hogarth, Richard Bunkall, Dwight Harmon and now Phil too. In life there are debts that can never be repaid, owing teachers is one of those debts. The only way to begin to pay back, is to pass on what we’ve learned.

Here are my earlier thoughts about Phil Hays.

On each anniversary I walk by Engine 28 and Ladder 11’s stationhouse . In 2001 they were my local FDNY company who would serenade the East Village with “Lowrider” blaring from the hook-and-ladder’s PA. They used to buy groceries at my supermarket.

Today I took Lila with me. We talked a lot, explaining how today was a sad anniversary instead of a happy one. She knows a little, as she puts it, “a building fell down and lots of firemen got hurt.”

Each year after their memorial mass a large group of firemen and their families gather near the station. Lila was asking why they were “all dressed up” in their formal uniforms. Soon enough the questions are going to get more difficult to answer. I told her that today was a special day for thanking firemen. I also thank the police, military, and Con-Ed who were busy restoring power the next day, if not sooner. And especially that one MTA bus driver who was driving his M14 bus up Avenue A after the towers fell, with a foot of debris on the bus’s roof.

This year I finally shook hands with and thanked one of the firemen in person, something I’ve been wanting to do for four years but never found the courage.

My voice broke. We both stood there quietly for a few seconds, looking down. I felt very small.

Dear Anonymous Neighbor with the crappy cordless phone,

You probably noticed a constant clicking sound on your new phone. That would be the 5-7 wireless networks freaking out because your crappy phone is flooding the spectrum. I’m sure you got a great deal on it and never thought about it again, people get attached to their cellphones, not crappy cordless phones. But your phone sucks. And it’s suckingness is inconveniencing a half dozen of your neighbors.

“Ok,” you say, “maybe all those wireless networks are causing trouble? Maybe they’re overlapping and turning the air to mud?”

I thought about that. Thing is, this never happens when normal people are at work or sleeping. I don’t have a normal schedule. I’m home during the days, some days working, others taking care of kids. And I’ve always been a night person, usually going to bed around 2am even though I need to be functional again at 8. And all those times, the early afternoons during naps, late at night when everyonen else is sleeping. Those times are wonderful. Flawless wifi.

Then you get home from work, get on your crappy cordless phone and wreck everything for everybody.

Perturbed, you try to blame my computer, “maybe it’s your crappy laptop.”

That would be plausible, but it’s not just my laptop. It’s also my wife’s and my neighbors (they asked me for help when their wireless network was having trouble). It’s also my Linksys WRT-54Gs. Yes, I have two, sometimes, specifically the times mentioned above, they work flawlessly. I’m using hacked firmware, which includes a frequency scanner. When you’re on the phone, every network in range is obliterated. You could sell that thing as a frequency jammer for five times what you paid for it.

“Aha! Hacked firmware, what do you expect.”

Uh huh, I guess you weren’t listening when I mentioned the other networks. Those include Apple hardware, whatever RCN sends out, other Linksys routers and a few miscellaneous devices I wasn’t able to identify. The hacked firmware also allows me to adjust wifi properties like beacon frequency. The beacon is probably what you’re hearing when you’re phone clicks. Tonight I’m setting the beacon on my router to something much smaller. I’m also turning the broadcast power up to eleven.

Cordially,

joe

Tuesday afternoon, the south facing wall of the building at 13th St and First Avenue buckled. A phalanx of NYFD trucks were onscene through the evening making sure the building wouldn’t collapse. I didn’t find out what happened until late this evening on my way back from the ECFCPUG get together. A construction crew was scaffolding the building while one police car stood by.

This corner is home to Mee Noodle Shop & Grill, an East Village institution. There were two handwritten signs posted about them being closed, their awnings were in a heap near the construction.

I’m somewhat heartsick about this. I’ve been eating at and ordering from Mee since probably sometime around 1998 (shortly after Ginsburg died) when Dave insisted I experience Chinese take out which didn’t suck. I know the waiters and the delivery men; the cashiers and cooks are all familiar and have been there for years. Those people all work as hard as I’ve ever seen anyone work. I’m worried about them and hope they’re able to absorb what will hopefully be a very short loss of income.

NYC Creative Director leaves clients and staff in NYC, moves to Kabul to help establish the first communication agency in the country since before the Taliban. Is she a sadist, uniquely qualified for the task, or simply and blindly optimistic?

On June 21 at 7 pm in The One Club Gallery, Sharoz Makarechi of Think Tank 3, recently back from the trenches, will share advertising stories from war-torn Afghanistan and discuss the value of ideas, cross media thinking, and creative communication campaigns in a society struggling to recover from over 25 years of war.

That would be my friend Sharoz. It’s hard to put into words how much I respect and admire her courage. I feel lucky to know such an exceptional person.

Update: Kabob!

Brooklyn Botanic Garden
The New York (Bronx) Botanical Garden

The New York Botanical Garden was founded by the the Torrey Botanical Club and Nathaniel Lord and Elizabeth Britton in 1891, though the history seems to be in dispute. The garden was primarily a scientific and educational catalog, “a place of agreeable public resort” was its secondary purpose. The Torrey Botanical Club also contributed to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Herbarium in 1897.

But I still have no idea why one is Botanical and the other Botanic.

I like to be on time, but the court seem to have built in a significant amount of time for people who aren’t. Roll call on day two wasn’t for 20 minutes after the set time. Men are overwhelmingly worse at arriving on time. Day one started with a insanely banal 30 minute Important Video with Ed Bradley! and Dianne Sawyer! filmed at least 10 years ago. I remembered this video from my third-previous jury call, probably 1995 or 96, the one where I read all 576 pages of Hesse’s Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game and was dismissed from a jury because I thought I’d met the defendant’s husband at a gallery opening in Orange County sometime around 1990. That was also the time I got to spend all of my wait time in a room at 60 Centre St., which is a far more inspired and inspiring building than the utilitarian box-world of 110 Centre St. 60 Centre is the building where they film Law & Order’s courtroom scenes.

The best day to be called seems to be Thursday. I’ve lucked into a Thursday call my last two summonses. Nothing ever seems to happen on Fridays and twice they’ve let the entire pool go home after two days. There were somewhere around four jury pools called on Thursday, none on Friday. We all sat around until 12:50pm, at which point they let everyone go with credit for two full days served and at least two years before our next summons.

If at all possible, get a seat in the main room. In the side rooms, you need to stand and go to the door every time there’s a call. In the main room, all I needed to do was take out my earphones for a minute whenever they spoke on the microphone. Far less disruptive. There were plugs along the wall, I was on time so I grabbed one up front.

The bathrooms are unpleasant, so I tried to drink as little as possible. One very strong coffee with sugar on my way out of the house held me until lunch. Chinatown is right behind the courts, and it would be a shame to eat anywhere else when that close. On Thursday I went to my favorite hole-in-the-ground Vietnamese place (it’s in a basement) for a light curry over rice, shrimp summer rolls and a Cafe su da (the strongest, best iced coffee I’ve ever had). All were excellent, I skipped the Phö because I was trying to keep liquid intake at a minimum.

When leaving the courthouse, always take the stairs if you are able. The elevators are overcrowded and slow. I’m fast, but without trying I made it down three floors before the elevator had finished loading (there’s a tv monitor showing elevator locations).

Don’t bring a cellphone with a camera. Security will make you check it at the front desk and the line to retrieve those phones looked to be a longer wait than my subway ride and walk home. I heard people complaining about the camera ban (people are always complaining, especially at jury duty), but that rule was in place long before cell phones had cameras.