Karl Gude

“Excuse me. I was told to ask you where I should take these?” I displayed my new-employee forms to Larry DeSantis, the portly, cigar-chomping deputy photo editor of the late great wire service United Press International.*

“Who da f–k are you?” he asked through clenched teeth with a thick New York accent.

“I’m…your new art director, ” I answered, scared of him.

“Glad they tell me things around here” Larry growled. And then he pulled out a pair of scissors and chopped my new tie in half.

Shortly after my mother’s death I had ditched our dairy farm in Vermont and arrived in New York City ready to invade the art world with a frightening portfolio of okay drawings (one was on a bar napkin), a new suit bought in Montpelier with money I had obtained from selling my pickup truck and a name and number scribbled on a slip of brown shopping-bag paper. The number belonged to Frank Taggart (related to Dagny?), the art director of the children’s book illustrator, Jim Arnosky, who lived on the farm next to mine. Jim raised goats, children and my crazy hopes. That phone number was my courage, my best friend, my weapon, my most precious possession and mostly, my greatest fear.

“Mr. Taggart?” (heart pounding) “You don’t know me, but…Tomorrow? 3 o’clock? I’ll be there, sir. Thank you”

If Santa Claus had an alter-ego and lived in Manhattan, he would be Frank. He shook my wet palm and, a short time later, out of pure, sweet charity, asked gently “Can you do paste-ups and mechanicals?” “Of course! For sure.” I claimed with confidence. “Okay, then, I have a few weeks’ work for you, but that’s all I can do.” I ran home kicking up my heels. Along the way I stopped and bought a book called “How To Do Paste-Ups and Mechanicals.”

I survived my weeks at Frank’s without so much as a “Fraud! Fraud!” and just before being cast into the street a designer there, Barbara Berasi, set me on a path that would change my life forever. (I wouldn’t see Barbara again for 18 years, when I started working for Newsweek and, coincidentally, she was there.) She handed me a slip of paper with the phone number (courage, friend, weapon) of a man from a company whose name I knew from my newspaper, UPI. I didn’t know it then, but this man would become one of the most powerful human forces I had ever experienced. If Frank was the sweetest person on the planet, Ted Majeski, UPI’s notorious picture editor, was by far the fiercest.

If Captain Bligh had an alter ego and lived in Manhattan…

In his 60s with a 1940s Brylcreem haircut, Ted’s eyes were hard, his manner gruff, his body massive, and I mean huge. He spoke to me through his cigar during the interview as he snapped, “You’ve got no art schooling, your last job was dairy farming?” “Yessir,” I replied, agreeing that it was nuts. I began to gather my things. “Okay, look,” he said, “you’ve got three months to screw up, then you’re out.”

Huh?

Incredibly, at 23, I was hired as the graphics director of a major wire service overseeing a staff of three and serving hundreds of newspapers, and I had no idea what that meant.

And so, Monday morning, my first day, I wore a tie. “What the hell did you do that for?” I screamed at Larry after he put the scissors down. He howled back “Let me ask you sumpthin, Mr. Art Director. What makes you think you can wear that tie with that shirt?” His finger jabbed at both of them. I stared at the discarded foreskin of my tie in the waste paper basket and felt castrated. As welcome-wagon Larry walked away I hated him and I was too scared of Ted to go see him about it. UPI was not looking so good.

Ted was the boss from hell. He never backed down, was not one to praise others or to thank them. During our years together I felt that I had kicked some serious Associated Press butt with some great graphics on major stories, but I never heard boo from Ted. My struggle for his approval was epic and I worked hard, hard enough that it made me a better news artist than I would have been otherwise.

My frustration was colossal. One morning after pulling an all-nighter I picked up my whole drawing table and threw it at a guy. I hadn’t intended to, it just happened as I was standing up to walk away. The table, my rapidographs, phone, lamp and T-square all cleared the cubicle wall. My little tantrum got me sent to Ted’s office. Coolly, he said, “Don’t take it out on someone else when you’re mad at me. Now get back to work.”

But, something else happened during my eight years at UPI. Through all this hardship, I grew as an artist and I matured as a person, and I learned some things about human nature. I couldn’t hate Larry for long. It turned out that behind the cigar and the gruffness this native of Queens had a heart as big as the globe in the lobby of the Daily News building on 42nd St. where UPI was based.

Larry cut off my tie, I later realized as I got to know him, because he liked me, though he’d never admit it. He once said. “If I don’t pick on ya, THEN you better start worryin!” He was a hell of a picture editor, too.

Mercifully, I lost my fear of Ted. Once I watched him standing his ground with an editor, who was getting pretty hot under the collar, and Ted winked at me, as though I knew it was just a ruse, our little secret. News to me. He was married to Marie, someone nice, who confided to me that Ted had a strong paternal side and, incredibly, he viewed me as a son, someone he felt comfortable being himself around, someone who didn’t threaten him, someone he could ask (order?) to move his furniture. “But he’ll never admit it, and don’t tell him I told you.” she said. Again, news to me.

Sometimes, he exposed his gentler side, a bit. When I’d help him out with a project at his home he’d talk to me from his crushed barcalounger about things like his past and his daughter. He fed me and gave me free theater tickets and invited me to his beach house. He even hooked me up with his niece (not my type). And I liked it.

Years later, when I heard that Ted had died, I was surprised by my sadness. I think an unearned gift from a Santa is always appreciated, but the hard-earned gifts wrenched from a Bligh can ultimately have a greater value.

* http://www.downhold.org/lowry/worldbook.html