The best job I ever had was working at Wired Magazine before it was bought out by Condé-Naste and began sucking the corporate cock and pandering to its advertisers.

Sorry if that sounds like bitter, hippy shit, but I don’t think I was alone in my vituperations. Around the end of 1996/early 1997, there was a mass exodus from that company — 95% of the people who started that magazine left after the second failed IPO.

I (rightly) saw the buyout as a harbinger that might be a new trend in San Francisco politics, so I got the hell out of California altogether and came to New Orleans.

But while it lasted, it was the best job. The work itself was dull — I was doing accounting stuff mostly. But the people and the atmosphere made it a magical place to come to every day.

My ex-boss Indra is an old friend. Besides being a mean number-cruncher, she is also a fire-breather, a member of a Butoh dancing troupe, and was at that time a fabulous slut. You can well imagine that working with her was always an experience.

The people with whom I worked the closest were Kallistí and my old friend Micha-Pooh-Pooh-Kitten-Butt, for piss sakes! And the fabulous, Fagalupugus, Brian Gainey. And the Trans-Atlantic Princess, Julia. And the Cholito-Queen, Eduardo. My god! These people! Sparkling gems, the lot. I am in touch with all of them, and have moved across the country from point to point with some of them.

We were a Gang. A Gang of Fabulousness.

In the Olden Days of Wired, the company ran on a rather original and ground-breaking set of simple heuristics. And it didn’t just look good on paper. That’s how it actually worked.

We would have evenings where we would work until 3am, blasting go-go music and gorging ourselves on pizza. Such a night would be followed by a Play-Day, where we would spend most of the day in South Park across the street, drinking hot chai and swinging on the swings, or reclining on the “Smoking Veranda” (read: fire escape) and blowing bubbles down 3rd St.

Many American companies have what’s called “Dress Down Friday” (shudder). Wired’s answer to that was “Formal Friday,” where people would come to work in tuxedos and ball gowns.

Brian and I came in to work several times in drag.

The CTO used to spam his mailing list with URL’s of caprophagists and other disgusting sexual deviants.

(Did you know the word “grogan” is a term for a turd that one plans to consume? i.e. “I went to the public toilet and was elated to find a nice, long, crunchy grogan floating in the soup…” Learning can be FUN!)

Kallistí, in turn, spammed her work mailing list with pictures of decapitations.

While I managed to compile one of the most hilarious anthologies of email correspondence with Melusine, who worked across town at the time. (I later turned our email into a book as a gift, “My Lunch Is Dark.”)

Jessica, the gorgeous, cat-like office manager sat behind Jeannie, aka “Tootie.” Jessica ran the intranet web pages for anyone on our LAN. One day I suggested she use her quick-cam and set up a page that refreshed itself every five minutes and call it the “Back Of Jeannie’s Head Cam.” Which she did. And everyone in the company was eagerly tuning into what Jeannie was up to that day.

“Hey! Jeannie’s typing at her computer!” “Hey! I wonder what Jeannie’s getting out of her drawer!” “Hey! Jeannie’s LEFT! Where could she be? Did she go to the bathroom? I’m gonna go check!”

Somehow this went on all day before Jeannie caught on. She ended the game by turning around and flippin’ da bird to the camera, at which point there were numerous howls from all over the office.

It was a magical, magical place.

Such silliness by such an immense group of creative people cannot but create a brilliant publication.

Then things started falling to shit. Assessment Managerial Types were brought in at triple-salary to poke noses in everyone’s business. People became dissatisfied. I know my own workload suffered for the abrupt chill in atmosphere.

Micha-Kitten was taken away from us and moved across the building, working under the watchful eye of a woman we called “Skeletor.”

My last couple of weeks there were bitter. I still loved my friends and co-workers, but the place had become oppressive and much of the glitter was Hoovered away.

Jessica the office manager was likewise disheartened by what she saw. Seemed like every day, another founding personality was packing up his or her desk and running for the hills.

This was right about the time that Nintendo 64 got on the market. It was out in Japan long before America, and of course Wired had one in their media room with the Japanese version of Mario64.

Jessica and I would spend entire days, locked in the media room, playing Mario64. Laughing. Eyes glazed, staring at the screen. There are 120 stars to gather in that game. We were adamant about collecting them all. This took weeks.

Eventually, we completed the game. And something broke. When there was no more locking myself in the media room with Jessica to play Mario, there was no longer any reason to be there.

Years later, I bought a Nintendo and Mario64 cartridge. I am not a big game player, but I will sit down at this one from time to time when I’m feeling nostalgic.

Having collected the 120 stars, and thus having completed the game (Mario64-as-metaphor) I thought, “I think I’ll move to Boston or Montréal or London,” as I started planning the logistics of yet another x-country move.

Kallistí and Micha-Pooh said, “Oh, we’re moving too. To New Orleans. You should come visit when you’re passing through.”

I thought about that the rest of the day and eventually gave my rejoinder, “I think I can do one better than just a visit.”

A month later we were bouncing across Texas in an immense truck with a cat and a bird in the back, leaving Wired, San Francisco, California behind forever.

Well, forever for me anyway. Kallistí is there now, working at another company that sounds like it’s kinda old-school Wired. I was on her company’s chat room today and a lot of memories came flooding back.

Memories like the day I started at Wired, and I saw Indra write on the petty cash journal, “$65—Shitload of Sangría,” and I thought, heyyyy! This place is Ohhh-Kayyyy…

…memories of ducking out of work for a couple hours in the afternoon to go to the Drift-Inn around the corner for some cocktails with Tootie or Jessica or Micha-Butt, then stumbling blindly back into work and continuing on with duties…

…memories of Terrance putting on the soundtrack to “Grease 2” and doing the Michele Pfeiffer “Cool Rider” dance while Fred-Astairing over office chairs and desks and upsetting the circulation department…

…memories of Jonathan, the cute tech guy coming down to flirt with Kallistí, and sticking a pen up her nose, and Kallistí giggling like a mad little thing, “Oh my god, I think he likes me!”…

…and speaking of doing terrible things to Kallistí’s face, this memory still makes me laugh…

…memories of the day the grey parrot “GrisGris” finally deigned to take a sunflower seed from my hand…

…and of course memories of having crushes on every single man or woman there, including Jane Metcalf, the Courtney-Coxish birdlike president who never got my name right…

Right after the mass exodus, someone bought up the domain tired.com to use as a mailing list to recent ship-jumpers. A bitch-forum, really. And how we did bitch, for the longest time — for the destruction of something so pure and wonderful as old-skool Wired was something to be mourned.

We were going to make t-shirts at one point. (I don’t know if we ever did.) Here are some designs I submitted to the list:

 
The tired.com mailing list is still alive. It’s been years since the bitchiness has died down. Now it’s more a “Hey, does anyone know where so-n-so is these days?” or “Hey, I’m looking for a programmer for such-n-such project, any takers?”

And while I frequently just delete these emails unopened (New Orleans being somewhat out of the San Francisco loop), I do like to see the names of these amazing people still popping up in my life.

I’m long over my bitterness. What happened to Wired is simply the way of the world. But I will always treasure my time there.

All good things must come to an end.

Check out the Marquis’ Crush o’ the week! Due to her boss discovering her diary (BUSTED!) she has had to password protect it. Username: Partygirl Password: Bitch (all case sensitive.) Feel sneaky yet?