I experienced a little change of pace on Friday.

After doing 2 news stories and updating the tour dates page, Alex– this Austrailian guy a few cubicles away who seems pretty busy all of the time– came over and told me about GR’s upcoming Israeli issue. He asked if I could do some research on some top Israeli restaurants and venues in New York and Los Angeles, and everywhere in between. Email contacts, he said, were essential.

So I started a spreadsheet and found a plethora of restaurants which served Israeli food, as requested. I proceeded to call the numbers the restaurants’ websites provided, and that’s when all hell broke loose.

The first place had no email address, apparently. I thought that was a bit strange. The second told me they’d have the manager call me back in an hour. Considering all I wanted was an email address, I thought that strange as well. This guy from one restaurant interrupted my self-introduction with a “Thank you BYE” and hung up on me, leaving me a bit miffed, while this woman from another restaurant just kept repeating the word “NO” over and over again.

“No? No as in you don’t have an email address or no as in you don’t want to be featured in our magazine?” I asked the woman.

“NO. NONONONO. NO!” The woman said before hanging up on me.

The aforementioned manager called me back after an hour, as promised, and asked me a few questions about GR and where it was located, what it was about, etc. He said his restaurant had New York’s best falafel and was really nice about everything, so I hope his place makes it into the magazine.

I emailed the finished spreadsheet to Alex, vowing to treat telemarketers with more empathy in the future.

Nothing new today– did three news stories, one of which I saved to be posted tomorrow regarding Central Park’s SummerStage event. In between doing this stuff, I worked on updating tour dates, lots and lots of tour dates. I’m still having problems making my news story pictures square to not waste space, but I guess it’s just my computer or my idea of what makes a square picture…square. A rather short day, but my GR week isn’t over yet, so I shall keep you updated.

Did two news stories– one on Gilberto Gil’s North American tour and the other on Les Mystere Des Voix Bulgares’…North American tour.

Then I received two pieces to post in the live review section. The first, a review on Grupo Corpo, looked awfully familiar, and upon some site browsing, I realized that I had posted it in the News Section the week prior, as per request. The second was a piece on Paul Simon; the email included pics to choose from. Posting a live review is something that was rather new to me, but it wasn’t much different from posting a regular news item, only the picture is shaped differently and a name goes in the byline, etc.

And I sent out another package, this time just one issue to this guy in London. Pretty easy, standard stuff.

The issue which included my latest Spotlight and CD reviews has already been sent to the printers, so hopefully, all will turn out well. I can’t wait ’til it comes out!

Started off today editing CD reviews for our next issue. Mainly look for spelling errors– and I found none, and so my blue Bic pen resignedly agreed to have his cap put back on.

Typed up two news stories, then followed up on the task I was working on last week– events going on nationwide to celebrate Israel’s 60th birthday. One post was to have solely Washington D.C. events; another was to have events from everywhere else. A condensed version is set to appear in the next issue. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to finish all these tasks, but I sent Tad what I had– a polished up and updated version of what I started out with last Thursday.

By the time I was done it was past 5 but I still felt inclined to polish things further. But Bill said “Don’t stress” so I stopped stressing and took my leave.