Ride The Wind Redux

It was around 1998-99 when, much to the amusement of my co-workers, I coined the phrase "Never drink and eBay". I used to get hammered and go onto the then-fledgling auction site and bid on shit like Charlie's Angels lunchboxes and A-Team remote contolled vans. I usually lost. But when I won and finally had to pay for the "B.J. and the Bear Tool Kit", I vowed to stop bidding. (I still have it as a reminder.) I should have bought their stock instead.

Now, before the internet, we used to use the term "D&D". (No, not Dungeons and Dragons, you geeks.) In this case, D&D stood for Drunk & Dial, where you would get hammered and then call your friends, and usually, even worse, your ex-girlfriends/boyfriends. And your bastard drunken friends would usually egg you on and encourage it so they could give you shit the next day. Then, eventually, with the advent of cell phones (still hate the fucking things!), D&D got worse. You could now call anyone from anywhere no matter how drunk you were no matter what time it was.

But this was all only the prelude to something much worse... D&E: Drunk and E-Mail.

As e-mail became more popular, I started hearing (and using) the phrase "Never D&E" more and more. No one wanted to go home and type out a drunken note for fear of regret. A phone call could be easily forgotten over time. An e-mail would be saved, remembered and preserved for eternity.

I was (and still am) a notorious D&D guy. However, as a computer illiterate, when it came to D&E, I was usually cool. Except for one time...

I got utterly bombed one night last year, came home and put on an old 1988 rock mix. In my drunken stupor I wanted to share my old high school memories with my fellow Marvel editors. So I wrote a three page letter to everyone I worked with that explained how my past exploits, influences, adventures and experiences all directly related to my current job in comics with them. Fortunately, if that's even the correct word to use in a situation like this, I was "sober" enough to realize they'd think I was crazy if I sent them the whole note. So I edited it down.

The following is the text I sent to my co-workers and bosses at Marvel that night. It was titled "Ride The Wind".

They still thought I was crazy. And to this day they have never let me live it down.

Ride the wind,
C.B.


-----Original Message-----
From: Cebulski, C.B.
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 3:41 AM
To: Buckley, Dan; Macchio, Ralph; Cadenhead, MacKenzie; Lowe, Nick;
Barber, John; Bogart, David; Quesada, Joe
Cc: Marts, Michael
Subject: Ride The Wind

I would love to.... but I'm riding the John...

I will try to make it in on Wednesday but may not be able to...


Watch out for baseball bats.

I'mmmmmmn sooooooooooooooooo soooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyy.....

This wasn't supposed to happen... eyes wide open... i've been hit....

87 seconds, two for the road...

Let's get haircuts and lose weight... or lose the wait... or lose the
hare...

I'm a neomaxiezoomdweebie.

Be cool about it, my comdrades-in-arms.

C.B.