Author Archives: Martin Marks

There are times, during the summer months, when we board onto jitneys and pile into cars, our tote bags chocked to the brim with beach towels and swimsuits and flip-flops (and allergy medications, and highly SPF’ed sun-ointments), and soon — traffic allowing — find ourselves in exotic lands of Arcadian pastoralism and poolside cocktails and alarmingly large mosquitoes, with not an ambulance siren or swerving taxi cab or slow-walking gaggle of horizontally-flanked foreign-tourist-pedestrians-in-matching-backpacks to keep us agog. Read more at Esquire.

Source: Esquire

Macroware. Remember us? We’re the software corporation from long, long ago (i.e., the 1980s and ’90s) that brought you our ingenious Portholes Operating System, followed shortly thereafter by Portholes 2, Portholes 2.1, Portholes 3, Portholes 3.1, and Portholes DW (Doesn’t Work edition), which were all tremendously popular before a certain group of upstarts from a Cupertino-based software-company-that-shan’t-be-mentioned started cornering the market with devices that, quite frankly, looked like ridiculously large jelly beans. Well, we’re at it again, and this time, we have the tablet-like computer-thing that everybody’s talking about! Read more at Esquire.

Source: Esquire

That placid, be-chino’ed stretch of weekends between Memorial and Labor Days (some may call it summer) is finally upon us. In many ways, these months are all about simplicity and comfort, and the season officially starts for me in the simplest fashion, when I trek to American Apparel (despite knowing that look you’re giving me through the computer screen). Once there, I purchase a heaping stack of their white, crewneck, cotton t-shirts, to replace the bunch that were over-washed and over-worn, ripped, torn, and bleached, over the past year. The new ones will be used in the same way the old ones were: worn with a pair of jeans, or under a sweater, as to create that “I just threw on a t-shirt” look. Read more at Esquire.

Source: Esquire

With tax season finally drawing to a close, we enter that peculiar time of year when many a working man — especially those not in the writerly professions — receive some sort of reward from Uncle Sam for the onerous task of accounting financially for the past twelve months (i.e., we get a tax refund). In the past, a nice bottle of Barolo, a new pair of running shoes, perhaps even an iSomething might have tided us over for another fiscal year, while the rest of our gelt was squirreled away into low-yield savings accounts, if not a hollowed-out mattress. But as the economy thawed, and with the Dow hovering around the 13,000 mark, it’s time to consider loosening the death grip that previously held those purse strings. Once you’ve done that, the question quickly becomes: What should a stylish man do with that extra spot of money? Read more at Esquire.

Source: Esquire

FADE IN:

EXT. SAN DIEGO CITY COUNCIL, THE DISTANT FUTURE — DAY

We see a large, outdoor arena. The ANNOUNCER’s voice comes over the public-address system.

ANNOUNCER

Welcome to the first annual Anchorman Games, a competition we stole from a book we haven’t actually read, so there will be some liberties taken with names, places, and concepts herein. As you know, a boy and a girl have been selected from the 12 districts of some long-ago-forgotten land called North America. And San Diego. Funny how that works. Representing the San Diego district will be Anchorman Ron Burgundy and Anchorwoman Veronica Corningstone.

RON BURGUNDY, anchorman of yesteryear, and his trusty dog, BAXTER, appear at a podium. VERONICA CORNINGSTONE is at their side. Read more at Esquire.

Source: Esquire

Our Dear and Beloved Comrades!

Salutations to each of you! You might have heard yesterday’s news about our company, the great and munificent Face-Book! Early in the day, representatives from our business office met with the DJIA — along with the IMF, ICM, CAA, LOL, ROTFL, LMAO, and the New York Health & Racquet Club — and we all reached the same conclusion: The time has come, after eight long and arduous yet glorious years, for us to offer, publicly and initially, an Initial Public Offering, henceforth to be abbreviated SIW (Suck It, Winklevosses).

Some within the Face-Book family may bemoan such a decision. The naysayers, as naysayers so often do, may say nay. And they may bemoan, too, like the bemoaners. We are a Silicon Valley company, after all, located in humble, downtown Menlo Park. I, our all-knowing leader, wear New Balances. How could we possibly be worth so much? Read more at Esquire.

Source: Esquire