9/29/09

Ah, The Good Old Days of Being Drunk At The New York Times and NBC

Back in the 'olden' days at NBC News, (don't you dare say ten years ago) there used to be a bar on the corner of 30 Rock... right at at sixth avenue and 49th street. In the bar there was a phone line that ran down from the NBC News New York Bureau right to the watering hole... so, say, if there were some sort of drug sting, or riot, or whatever, the phone would ring, and the most sober person in the room would answer the phone to determine what news was happening and how it would be covered. That bar was closed decades ago. Today, my friends, that bar is now a Magnolia Cupcake shop. Now, I like cupcakes as much as anyone else, but I sure wish I worked at NBC during those days.

Apparently, people were equally sauced up at the New York Times.

In this video from bigthink.com, author Gay Talese describes the liquor-drenched newsrooms of The Times in the sixties—where men passed out on typewriters, and no one was quite sure just how the paper actually got out.

Can we bring those days back?

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I'm a Journalist and standup comic. I create and appear in television and web media. I've been seen on NBC, MSNBC, United Airlines in flight TV. (and some other more unusual fodder, including a 'how-to' video where I teach people how to wrap glassware for moving...I mean, really - it's essentially rolling glasses in paper... you can't make that stuff up!) I own more than two hundred cookbooks, but use the same five all the time, and even those are often abandoned in favor of epicurious.com. I design art and interiors for both friends and actual clients. I've spoken to Major Universities and NYC corporations about media and publicity. I am embarassed by many of the songs on my IPOD, and can't resist a Nacho flavored Slim Jim. I drink up to eight diet cokes a day.