Robert Cabell, our NYC Uberchic for Jan 2008 | Ask a New Yorker

January 1, 2008

Ask a New Yorker: Tell us a little about yourself?

Bob: I’m a Manhattan megalomaniac, meaning I do way too many things well, which makes people depressed, angry or confused.

Ask a New Yorker: How long have you lived in Manhattan?

Bob: Thirty years.

Ask a New Yorker: Tell us about some of the things you do so well?

Bob: I didn’t say “so” well. I said “well”. I’ve been paid for everything and arrested for nothing, which means I’ve been a union director, chorographer, dancer, singer, actor, set designer, costumer and a producer, all on union contracts. All this before I was 25.

Ask a New Yorker: Shit. That’s a lot of living, a lot of doing. That’s a lotta, lotta…Let’s break it down. Focus. What should we focus on in all those accomplishments?

Bob: I don’t think you need to focus. I think you need to talk about being a classic Manhattanite, people with big dreams from small cities who come to Manhattan to see those dreams to come true. The longer you’re here, the more dreams you have. Part of being a megalomaniac is being fearless. I decided I wanted to be an actor and seven days later , after leaving Oregon, I drove to Florida and had a union contract and was a professional actor. I had a national tour and started working. Because I was fearless, I decided I wanted to stop acting and be a writer or do computers. I wound up being…we’re talking Wang, early eighties when Wang was the big thing as far as wordprocessing and computers, a major contractor in Wang for the entertainment industry. Clients that included NBC, Columbia Pitures, HBO, Time Life Magazines (back then) and Spelling Entertainment. First, I researched and found out that in the entertaining industry, what kind of computers they were using. Computers were new then. So was the concept that you could type on something and it remembers it and you don’t have to retype it again’. I want to learn that. I had taken a couple years off because I had made enough money from being an actor to move to Manhattan and to live for a couple of years without having to work. The money was running out and I was writing. So I figured out if I can write and then save it, and then rewrite without retyping everything…I want to learn how to do that. So I took a two day course on Wang and called every temp agency in town and told them I had been doing it for a year and a half. I told them I was working nights and wanted to switch to days. But I wouldn’t work for minimum wage and I wouldn’t be bothered with testing ; but if they need a really good Wang person, to give me a call. Three weeks later this woman called me panicking that she needed a Wang expert at W.R. Grace immediately. If I could just go down there we would take care of the paper work later and please be here in a half an hour. So I walked into W.R. Grace, which owns Herman’s, Modell’s…so I went up to the 43rd floor and walked into a Fellini style board room, which was the entire width of the building, filled with all these people. I was 26. They introduced me as the Wang expert. It turned out that it was the first day the system was up and there was only one other person in the room that knew anything. It was a guy from Wang and he was leaving. So I thought to myself, ‘holy shit’ and I sat myself down at the table and we started talking. After 10 minutes I realized no one there knew anything about the system and how to use it, or what it did. So I stood up and said, “Excuse me, but you all are just wasting my time and your time. So why don’t you tell me what you want, get out of my way, let me set something up and when I ‘m done will look at it and make some changes”. They looked at me and said, “Fine’”and left. As soon as they walked out the door I picked up the phone and called the school and said, “help”. By the end of the day, between the phone and me, I had done something that worked. Three months latter I was hired away from W.R.Grace by this new company called HBO to set up their computer systems.

Ask a New Yorker: Sorry I have never heard of Wang but have heard of HBO, that’s a hell of a story. Where do I go from here?

Bob: New York, like I said, is about people who come from all over the world with big dreams. And if you have the balls to match your dreams, you can make them come true. My motto is: Exceed people’s expectations. And I’ve been able to jump from career to career by doing that. I went from HBO to Time Life magazines, People magazines. I started out working with Michael Fuchs and a woman named Mary Hornickle who had just left Barbra Walters, who I helped set up the program data base and strategies for launching the seasons for HBO. Also I spent five years as a contractor calculating their bonuses. Then I left that and worked with Spelling International for 3 years. I worked for the New York Post because I felt I wanted to be a journalist and wound up being a journalist, and then was with Shout magazine as one of their founding editors for entertainment. I worked for Columbia Pictures setting up the data base for their new product when they started doing this thing called videos?. I’m an old fart. When I started with computers they still had the magnetic cards that you slipped into them like it was a type writer onto the magnetic card and then pulled it back out. So I’ve been around for a long time.

Ask a New Yorker: Next….

Bob: The basic thing is, the old adage,’ Baffle them with bullshit and dazzle them with the slight of hand’…by doing my day job with computers, for which I had two days training, I was able to work with all these glamorous companies like Faberge and Spelling, The New York Post, NBC. I would carry around, as a hungry writer, a disc and write on my lunch hour my plays and write my books and my music. So eventually I was able to make a living off of being a journalist and I’ve had 8 plays produced, musicals. I have two albums out there. I just did my first novel. I did a book on humor with Joey Adams while I was working with The New York Post. So now I’m spending more time doing novels and documentaries. I’m going to Africa in January shooting a documentary with Tsidii Le Loka,who was Rafiki, the narrator in the Lion King . Also, I just signed a contract for three of my plays being translated into German. So I’m going to Germany in the Fall for two of those plays to be part of the casting process.

Ask a New Yorker: And recently you finished a book and are currently receiving great reviews!

Bob: Well I just finished another new book, which I’m also doing the illustrations for….the book that is just out, that is getting lots of amazing reviews (it just got another great review in the Connecticut Post), is The Hair Raising Adventures of Jayms Blonde, about a hair dresser turned hero, saving the planet from bad hair and bad air. That’s my new passion, Blonde body builders with blow dryers.

Ask a New Yorker: Wow, you have a lot on your plate. Cheers to all your projects in the New Year.

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