zuit alors!

Zuit alors! Paris Match is sending a photographer to chronicle the-taking-of-Hank-Greenberg-to-the-streets. Starting later today a correspondent from The Observer is going to follow me around for a day or two. My cousin saw me on 20/20, I think.

Manomanoman, I feel like Britney Spears. Every time I get out of a car somebody's trying to shoot my underwear.

Back to The Observer for a moment. This has been one of my favorite New York papers since waaaay back. I worked for a company called Van Vechten and Associates in the mid 80s. It was definitely a formative experience on a number of levels. Anyway, during my first stay with VVA (I had two, neither of which ended nicely) I inhabited what I believe I am fair in saying was the nicest office that I, or anybody I know, has ever had. It was on the second floor of a townhouse on East 64th. Ten foot windows looked across 64th at snooty hotel Plaza Athenee. 14 foot ceilings, a fireplace, a fishtank. Carolina Herrera lived upstairs. I ate lunch at a restaurant around the corner on Madison called, I think, Le Relais. They had the most extraordinary cold lentils appetizer. Lord, I can still taste it.

Once, crossing the street on the way to those very lentils, I found myself staring at Vanna White and Regis Philbin coming the other way. Reege and I exchanged the same knowing glance that one sometimes finds with the big cats in the jungle. It's amazing that any work ever got done.

And directly next door to this bastion of nonesense? The offices of The Observer.

So I'm a long-time fan, and every time I find myself on their pages it makes me smile in ways that the New York Times can't quite match.