8-06-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #170 (Yuppie Culture in NYC, going beyond style. . .)

8-06-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #170 (Yuppie Culture in NYC, beyond style. . .)

Looking back, it would seem that yuppie fashion wasn’t meant to be sexy because that might threaten the balance of power and the status quo because, as a wise person was known to say, “Women have half the money is this world, and all the pussy.” Translated: if sex is power, and money is a given, the sex can be withheld as a bartering chip (a la Lysistrata) -- so sex IS the true power.

But, Power (with a capital P) always was and is sexy and so, the powerful players in the yuppie world didn’t have to dress sexily, no sirree. At times I’d look at outfits some of the women in offices wore and thought them quite deplorable. . . but then again, there will always be those who can’t help but choose unflattering clothes. Their talents are to be found elsewhere, in other ways. . . so who am I to talk?

I always strove to dress in very classic, unexciting ways, with preppy blouses or sweaters, jackets, skirts and shoes. . . I really liked a pair of 2-inch heeled loafers that I had, and classic black pumps with no more than 1 ½ or 2-inch heels. My hair was always in some sort of medium-length pageboy, as I feel most comfortable with hair that’s non-attention getting. Maybe it was because I had to get work in places where they needed people to not stand out and look sort of bland. Sure, I can play that part: bland girl in a glam office.

But then again, even though these palaces of power were well heeled, places where I worked weren’t in glamour fields: they were mostly investment firms (Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs), some architecture offices, and the large pharmaceutical firm, Bristol Myers-Squibb. I worked uptown and down, but preferred downtown.

The World Trade Centers -- and World Financial Center -- were cool places to be working in the ‘80’s. In the proximity of Wall Street and all that downtown Manhattan history, I couldn’t help but feel the excitement in the streets and on the subway.

But the things I had to do in most of these offices were so easy I used to laugh, inwardly, that they paid me to work. . . 

8-05-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #169 (Yuppie Culture in NYC, So let’s talk style). . .

Yes indeed, in Working Girl, yuppie style was explained and exhibited very well. . . from the running shoes that girls wore to work then changed into sexy heels at the office to the conservative jewelry, pearls and little tank watches and little gold hoops (hate to admit it but I am partial to that kind of subtle, ladylike jewelry. . . could it be the closet yuppie in me?).

Hairstyles were generally conservative, with excellent cuts, subtly coiffed unless you were one of the “working classes,” where a more extreme female or male hairstyle was tolerated. A true yuppie had short hair if a man, and very manageable hair, if female -- and frequently trimmed by expert, well paid, hairdressers.

Women wore shoulder padded suits and dresses, just like in the 1940’s, when fashion decreed that women could look more formidable, as they actually were given a little more power to achieve, just like in the 1980’s. Some of the suits looked downright mannish, in fact, kinda dowdy. The lines were boxy, not form fitting, and blouses resembled shirts, all buttoned down with little tie-like decorations.

Heels were kind of clunky and toes were squared or round-toed. . . but spikey high heels were also around, let’s not kid ourselves. I had a beautiful purple silk pants suit that I loved, and lots of black skirts. Sweaters weren’t so popular, but jackets and blazers were often worn.

For the men, conservative suits and starched shirts with semi-wide ties were worn, black or brown shiny lace-up wing tip shoes de rigeur. Unusual shirt colors like pink and lavender weren’t yet popular, with white being the uniform, mostly. Later on in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s, dark blue shirts became the rage (and they look very nice, in general).

And even though this was all happening, I would wear my beret proudly on my head whenever the temperature dipped below 50. . . and a nice scarf around my neck. I have always had a thing for vintage silk scarves, like my mom.

Oh -- and red lipstick. Definitely red lipstick. So the eighties and yuppie fashion wasn’t ALL that bad. . . just looks dated, now.

8-04-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #168 (Yuppie Culture in NYC, Where will it all end for me, already?). . .

Let me repeat those coupla disclaimers, first:

** News flash to loyal readers: not feelin’ my usual healthy self since my CA trip. . . did Jet Blue poison me with their plentiful fun snacks and ”superhealthy” Snack Up box? Hope not! Anyhoo, pardon the (temporary) disappearance. I’ll get back up to speed so hang on & fasten your seatbelts: it’s gonna be a bumpy ride (kinda). . . pickin’ up old memories for me ain’t all roses and chocolates. . .

*** PS - I could use another real good survival job right now: any ideas?

Yuppies on the screen: All right, other than the aforementioned Afterhours by Martin Scorcese, various Yuppie portrayals on the screen helped form the image that we formed and projected of that sometimes scurrilous sociological species: Yuppie.

All right, so there was Michael in The Big Chill.  In the movie, he was called cold and manipulative, and wasn’t very sexy. Played by Jeff Goldblum in thick eyeglasses, he was also a funny Jewish yuppie. Of course, yuppies came in all sizes, ethnicities, and religions. But, on re-watching The Big Chill, it seemed insipid and unsatisfying. Other than seeing a really young and skinny William Hurt, Glenn Close, and the whole rest of the cast (wow -- well, it WAS almost 30 years ago), and having an all right soundtrack, I don’t like it.

Another funny -- and sweet -- yuppie on the screen: Alex in the television show Family Ties, as played by Michael J. Fox. His yuppieism seemed a reactionary move to his liberal hippie-ish parents, who despaired of him ever earning back the soul he sold to the devil of commerce. . . or tried/wanted to sell it.

But of course the greatest yuppie fairy tale of all came with two strong female characters -- played by Sigourney Weaver and Melanie Griffith -- with one dreamy (at the time) romantic lead, a good guy played by Harrison Ford.

If you said Working Girl -- bingo! I’ve got to mention supporting actress Joan Cusack, too, and Alec Baldwin as the philandering Staten Island boyfriend of Melanie Griffith’s character. . . the movie’s premise, plot, characters, and music was all so well done I still kinda love it. . . “I’ve got a mind for business and a body for sin” is just one of the great lines. And how about, “. . . it’s not even lea-thuh!?”

Working Girl is a classic good yuppie/bad yuppie saga. . . and yuppie style was explained and exhibited very well. . .

8-02-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #166 (The Early Stirrings of Yuppie Culture in NYC, Where It All Started Pt. 4). . .

So. Thanks to my close personal Yuppie friend, Kris Skrinak, I was able to get into word processing as a temp. He'd invited me to join him at the Goldman Sachs office where he worked, afterhours, to try my hand at this program (on early PCs of course) called MultiMate. It was pretty primitive and involved a lot of F keys and shifting on the keyboard, etc. etc. A little laminated template on the keyboard was helpful because only if you used it all the time could you remember how to do everything necessary to create good looking, well formatted documents. I learned just enough to get my foot in the door and work jobs where I'd learn to do even more, on the job.

In the 1980s, when you worked in an office as an administrative assistant, we were called secretaries, still. And because I was on the road so much, I had to work, for years, as a temporary secretary (like the Paul McCartney song). My temp agency was called Accurate Temporaries (they're still around, on lower Broadway I think).  

Accurate had a little office in Two World Trade Center on the 21st floor. This was before the high security measures instituted after the first (in 1993?) and second, fatal, attacks on the World Trade Centers on 9/11/2001-- so getting around into almost any building was a breeze. Nobody was stopped on their way here and there -- we had so much more physical and mental freedom. Getting places was so much faster without all the mishigas of the security stops we experience post- 9/11, in 2012.

To get into Goldman Sachs after the workday, I thought, would be difficult -- but Kris figured it all out. I liked the scofflaw aspect of him having his boho writer-musician friend, me, come in and benefit from using the corporate equipment without their knowledge. I admired Kris for possibly putting his neck (and job) on the line to give me a helping hand. If I didn't learn word processing, I wouldn't be getting work in offices. I had to constantly learn and keep up with technology the whole time I did the part time office work gig.

And that's key: always keeping up with modern technology when you want to be useful. Again, I have to thank Kris S. for helping me get to the point where I could go to my temp agency and say to Denise at Accurate: "Yup, I know MultiMate -- I'm available to work for the next three weeks," and get work. Because from then on, it was all word processing -- typing into computers.

Don't recall the exact pay rate, but it was probably around $8 or $9 per hour in the mid '80's. . . and as my rent was between $300 and $400, it worked all right. Not great, but all right. . . . 

8-01-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #165 (The Early Stirrings of Yuppie Culture in NYC, Where It All Started Pt. 3). . .

** FLASH to loyal readers: I'm on the road again now so it's been difficult to keep up with the blogs, but here we are again!  I'll fire off another few & hope it'll keep you in good stead . . . **

Former Yippie leader, Jerry Rubin, morphed from being a '60's idealist to an '80's capitalist, starting a business networking group in 1982. Newspaper columnist Bob Greene wrote an article about Rubin and called it "From Yippie to Yuppie." Even in the pre-internet days, this, of course, did not escape our notice; Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman were very big in our eyes as radical type people who also wanted political change in the world.

The fact that the Yuppies as a rule weren't concerned about others who weren't just like them -- who weren't like the rich democrats who had a social conscience -- really irked us. Say what you will about the envy factor on our parts: we at least were working with a social conscience and cared about the have-nots. That whole trickle-down economic theory nonsense sounded ridiculous to us, and we really were hoping that there WOULD be a "New Generation" of people and leaders who cared about all of us, the Yuppies as well as the Poverty Jet Setters, the down-and-out and broken spirited who needed a little hand up as well as the others who already had it all. . . 

One of my yuppie friends who really did care about me was my boyfriend RIck's friend, Kris S. A Business major from King's College in PA (graduated '83), Kris moved to Manhattan with his girlfriend, MaryAnn (or moved with Rick, then MaryAnn joined him). 

Kris had the merriest soul, the best laugh, and a very lovely way with people. He was kind of silly at times, but young -- and one of three brothers: Kim, Kris, and Kyle. Of the three, he was the middle son, and the destined Yuppie. Kris didn't talk about it, but you could tell he was ambitious and wanted to make a mark on the world. He had a job at Goldman Sachs whom he called, "Golden Socks" with a peal of laughter. Sometimes Kris would meet us after work -- he worked in the downtown, Wall Street area. 

One night, we were talking about the newest thing in offices: word processing. The almighty IBM Selectric Typewriter was on its way OUT, forever. Kris said to me, "Lauren, we have computers and word processing at work. I could get you in afterhours* and you could learn it. . . want to?"

(Almost) always say yes! That's the way I live, so of course, I jumped at the chance to learn some MultiMAte on my own. Kris set up a few nights when he was working late, called me up, and invited me down to work on learning word processing so that I would be worth more to my temp agency. . .

* After Hours was also the title of a very funny 1985 Scorcese black comedy movie with Griffin Dunne as a young word processor in downtown Manhattan who went on a ridiculous but scary adventure one night, in Soho. . . almost like life imitating art for me because, except that I was a female, that movie could have been about a nutty night on the town that happened to me. . . 

7-31-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #164 (The Early Stirrings of Yuppie Culture in NYC, Where It All Started Pt. 2). . .

** FLASH to loyal readers: I'm on the road again now so it's been difficult to keep up with the blogs, but here we are again!  I'll fire off another few & hope it'll keep you in good stead . . . **

Well, the Yuppie explosion happened, around 1984. Living and working in NYC, being of that age, I definitely had some Yuppie friends -- who were "forgiven" their status and ambitions because they were nice, fun, helpful, generous people. My boyfriend at the time, Rick, had a couple of friends from PA who moved to NYC about the same time as he (early '80's) and they wanted to "make it" -- as the Washington Squares did -- and be successes.

I must admit, I did feel some envy and regret that I wasn't able to also be a respected professional -- which of course those white collar professionals in the offices of power were -- and I wanted to have money, but on my terms. And sure, part of me would love to be rich because that would mean different kinds of worries. . . and very likely I'd feel more respected in life.

Respect is so important to me. . . I do feel I respect myself, and respect others. But when I don't feel it, my anger swells and the tears (privately) come. A lot of the "boho hipsters" that I hung with (including the Squares) had a grudging admiration for Yuppies, but wanted them to show us some respect, too. When we did a good show with a big crowd, or when we were nominated for a Grammy, we felt more universal respect. 

Back to Yuppies on Wikipedia:  "Author and political commentator Victor Davis Hanson has written:

Yuppism... is not definable entirely by income or class. Rather, it is a late-20th-century cultural phenomenon of self-absorbed young professionals, earning good pay, enjoying the cultural attractions of sophisticated urban life and thought, and generally out of touch with, indeed antithetical to, most of the challenges and concerns of a far less well-off and more parochial Middle America. For the yuppie male a well-paying job in law, finance, academia, or consulting in a cultural hub, hip fashion, cool appearance, studied poise, elite education, proper recreation and fitness, and general proximity to liberal-thinking elites, especially of the more rarefied sort in the arts, are the mark of a real man.^[5]"

7-30-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #163 (The Early Stirrings of Yuppie Culture in NYC, Where It All Started Pt. 1). . .

** FLASH to loyal readers: I'm on the road again now so it's been difficult to keep up with the blogs, but here we are again!  I'll fire off another few & hope it'll keep you in good stead . . . **

So, after a few weeks, we Squares got back home from the Beach Boys tour with added pride that we did well on a national tour -- even if it was a secondary market leg. Yah! Thanks again to that young agent who booked us on it. . . turned out when we signed with an agent the following year, however, it was with a middle aged agent out of Chicago who booked Koko Taylor, among other artists. . . respected acts, but blues. Tom Goodkind had his reasons for going with the agent he did, so we just went with it.

I wasn't always happy with decisions made for the band without my involvement/consent, but I guess real life isn't like school, and a democracy isn't necessarily what you get when you grow up and live "real life." But hey, I guess it could have been worse. . . I could have ended up workin' for "the man."  

The 1980's were an interesting time in the world. . . the time when "Yuppies" became prominent as a socio-cultural force to be reckoned with. Young Urban Professionals, or Young Upwardly Mobile Professionals, the Yuppies were people who we might have walked along the streets with, elbow to elbow, riding the same subways, day-dreaming some of the same dreams while straphanging to their day jobs. Yuppies seemed to run certain aspects of NYC, much to our rue. As much as we'd like to be invited to their parties to drink and eat for free and mingle for other reasons, our philosophies and ideologies were pretty much opposed -- as were our politics (us = lefties & them = rightwingers). 

Economically, Yuppies were the upper middle class or upper class white collar workers in their 20s and 30s. By age  40, it's all over, of course. . . but as we Squares were in our late 20s and early 30s, we sensed an interesting rivalry. To my way of thinking at the time, those who were Yuppies (or yupsters, as I'd quip) strove to have it all, not caring about how it affected others, or if they sold their souls for it. Politically, right wing Reagan Republicans ruled the Yuppie party, and we weren't having any of it (unless we could be liggers at the party).

From Wikipedia (Yuppie on Wikipedia):  "Yuppies are mocked for their conspicuous personal consumption and hunger for social status among their peers. Cornell University economist Robert H. Frank, author of Luxury Fever, has remarked, "When people were denouncing yuppies, they had considerably lower incomes than yuppies, so the things yuppies spent their money on seemed frivolous and unnecessary from their vantage point."^[4] Pro-skateboarder and businessman Tony Hawk has said that yuppies give "us visions of bright V-neck sweaters with collars underneath, and all that was vile in the eighties", and he has also remarked that a "bitchin’ tattoo cannot hide your inner desire to be Donald Trump."^[7]"