Note: the all about gallery is now permanently closed. please do not send any contributions. Thank you for your kind words and contributions. It's all about closure.
Back in the days of X Magazine, I would periodically think up purposely dumb ideas and pitch them to Mark, just to be annoying. One of my most annoying pitches concerned a book I have called All About Tipping. It's a guide to how much one should tip service people in different cities.
I proposed a series of Photoshop-altered covers, based on that book. The first would still be called All About Tipping -- but the illustration would depict a cow-tipping in progress. (Those of you in the prairie states -- as well as those of you who have seen Heathers -- know what this is: sneaking up on a sleeping cow and tipping it over).
Mark HATED the idea.
Perfect.
So I kept pitching. At some point in every phone conversation, I would work in another pitch: All About Tripping (drug paraphernalia on the cover), All About Tripping (vacation getaways), All About Shipping, All About -- well, just about anything. Mark never failed to be irritated by these terrible ideas.
The first time we met in person was for the ill-fated Great Lucky Art Car Cross-Country Santa Trip. After we had to abandon Lucky, some of Mark's friends came and rescued us. (Mark, having taken ill, had taken the train home.) In the course of a middle-of-the-night meal at a Chicago grease joint, I told Mark's friends about "All About."
When I got home, Mark e-mailed me, sarcastically thanking me for spreading the All About disease. Apparently, his friends were now taking every opportunity to torment him with their own examples. But surprisingly, Mark got used to it after a while. "All About [x]" became kind of a Macro. Especially if "[x]" rhymed with "tipping." When I found other books whose titles began with All About, I'd send them along to Mark.
One day, Mark said he wanted to start an All About section of Cardhouse.
I thought he was putting me on.
But he wasn't -- click the arrows & see for yourself.
-- deuce