Tag Archives: downtown

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AIDS walk


marching down Market

It’s been a couple of years since we’ve done the St. Louis AIDS Walk.

Considering the nice weather, our dire need for exercise and a genuine desire to show support – we piled into the car and headed downtown.

Despite the Walk and a cardinals game, the parking gods smiled upon us and we got a spot on the street only a block away from the event.

Similar to the previous years, the pre-walk festivities always strike me as a little distracted and disjointed. Folks mill around Kiener Plaza aimlessly, information booths are set up and a string of folks in khaki shorts speak into the PA including the mayor of St. Louis.

My critiquing comes to a screeching halt once the walk begins and the street fills with people…. a LOT of people. Market street downtown becomes an living, lurching thing stretching over ten blocks. It’s a touching and uplifting show of support.

We found the contingent from the local bear club but didn’t linger. The grouping was all new guys and we only knew the president. Since going into nesting mode and moving to the suburbs, I guess we’ve estranged ourselves to the club. The new guys weren’t particularly interested in socializing either. So – we moseyed along and hooked up with a group from Chad’s work.

We bopped into the tourist trap mall downtown and poked around… It’s been years since I’ve been in one – but I have to confess – OH MY GOD – Brookstone HAS COOL STUFF.. We must have spent a good 30 minutes in there picking up every gadget and making mental Christmas list notes.

Hmm.. If I had a damn blog I could just do a post and laundry list the items from the store that tickled me the hardest so when the inevitable call comes from the in-laws asking “What the the hell does Jim want for Christmas” – we can point them to a nicely organized list, complete with catalog numbers).

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lofty thoughts

kickin back with darvocet

mojobear‘s day off – my Wednesday to solo in the office. “IN” the office indeed. I’ve been off-site all day, (and still working) – The PowerBook Rocks.

Jeanette, PR Spin-maven, long time colleague and adored friend has come back to St. Louis to have some surgery done. (She maintains two residences – a office / studio loft with her hubby’s company here and one in Los Angeles).

I ran some errands this morning and swung downtown to visit my convalescing comrade.

St. Louis’ downtown, though nothing like the wasteland it was back in the 70’s and early 80’s – is still somewhat spotty. Wealthy entrepreneurs have been buying up old buildings by the block and converting them into lofts. This is great and very chic in an early 90’s sort of way – but downtown’s gentrification is far from done. (For example – if you live downtown and want to buy a gallon of milk, you’ve got to drive 10 minutes to the outer city where there’s supermarkets).

J’s in the AD Brown Building, pet project and money pit for one of the city’s more eccentric, wealthy “men about town”. He sits on a lot of important museum boards, throws great parties – and can drink an Irishman under the table.)

The Brown Building, former home for the Brown Shoe Company, now shelters a dozen smaller companies – including a few photographers, a “bleeding edge” ad agency and a few creative boutiques.

I’ve gotten my share of peer pressure over the years to “come on down” and join the cosmo-cool-clan, but have resisted.

Deciding to go “laptop” was the beginning of a some serious changes in my attitude about work and life in general. It will be a while before all these changes gel and I can figure out where this is all going.

I hate our present office. Our first studio was a converted barbershop in the outer-city which we lovingly restored and decked out to our specs. (Corrugated metal walls, the whole nine yards). Two years later the landlady died and the family sold off the building and we were displaced. We found a new place to work right down the street in a rehabbed 4 family. White walls.. Drop Ceiling.. Fluorescent Lights. It’s terribly dull. Shortly thereafter airplanes crashed into buildings in New York and the rest of the bottom fell out of the economy and our business halved. We’ve been treading water ever since.

The idea of getting a tiny space in a big dirty building may be the change of pace we need. We carpool into the city anyway – and Chad’s work, (The Hard Rock Cafe), is right in the heart of downtown as well.

Lots to meditate about – but not blog about.