{"id":190,"date":"2013-01-16T13:34:15","date_gmt":"2013-01-16T13:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turneyduff2.dev\/2013\/01\/16\/first-taste-of-the-apple\/"},"modified":"2013-01-16T13:34:15","modified_gmt":"2013-01-16T13:34:15","slug":"first-taste-of-the-apple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/2013\/01\/16\/first-taste-of-the-apple\/","title":{"rendered":"First Taste of the Apple…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past year, every time my phone dings with an email, I wonder, Is it about the book? Is it<\/em> my agent? Is it my editor? What if it\u2019s from my publisher?<\/em> About a years ago I heard that same ding and I quickly checked. It was an email from my editor.
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\nPerhaps you\u2019ve heard this\u2026 A novelist is a failed short story writer\u2026 A short story writer is a failed poet\u2026<\/em> The reason my editor wrote those lines was because we were having  a minor tug of war over the length of the book. I didn\u2019t think I could tell my story in under 400 pages and he was thinking 250 might be plenty. He was more right than I was: shorter is better
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\nIt\u2019s interesting looking back, because now I have six or seven chapters that no one has ever seen, not even my agent. But I think creating them was a necessary part of my process. They just didn\u2019t fit in into the book\u2019s arc.  In losing those chapters I also lost some irony. For instance, the first chapter I wrote that\u2019s not in the book was about the summer of 1976 when I came to New York City for the first time. I was a towheaded 6-year-old from Cleveland with a doting mom and a strict father and three older sisters. The trip was an all-expenses-paid weekend for a safety poster contest that I\u2019d won. In a bid to win it all, I\u2019d drawn a picture of a kid standing on a bike and pasted a picture of Fonzi on it with the caption: \u201cThe Fonz Says Sit On It.\u201d
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\n
\n 
\nWhat struck me as I worked on that ultimately-to-be-discarded chapter was how my first experience in NYC as a kid was much like how I was treated on any given night as a buy side trader. Working on the buy side was like when the lifeguard blows the whistle at 4 p.m. every afternoon and yells \u201cfree swim.\u201d There were times when I was responsible for distributing $40 million in commissions. So that meant I had throngs of sell side guys courting me. We\u2019ve all heard stories of extravagant Wall Street entertaining: the private jets, the floor seats at the Garden and the exclusive golf courses. But that\u2019s only where it started for me. One broker offered to pay my monthly car garage expense; another wanted to establish an open tab for me at Mexican Radio, one of my favorite restaurants. But for shear determination, nothing beats the time a broker helped me remove a toilet from my Bleecker Street apartment. Never underestimate a sales trader on a 40% payout. He came over after work and helped me carry a ten year old toilet about three blocks over to the Bowery and then we ran as fast as we could to get away from the evidence. For the record – that’s worth about 500,000 shares the next trading session. These days I carry my own toilets, it builds character.
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\nHere\u2019s an excerpt from the first chapter (not in the book) I wrote…
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\nMy father leads our way to the baggage claim. I proudly wear my plastic wings compliments of the crew. My mother holds my hand, but excuses herself to smoke a cigarette when we get to our destination. Flocks of people perch and wait. The grand echoes from the baggage carrousel cue everyone\u2019s attention. I want to get on and ride it. During the flight I had two cups of Orange Crush. My lips and teeth are carroty in color and my body circulates with caffeine. \u201cDon\u2019t move,\u201d my father says as he tries to locate our luggage, and as he does my mom returns.<\/em>
\n 
\nA short time later, we\u2019re soaking up \u201cswank Manhattan\u201d \u2013 shades of things to come:
\n 
\nThe Plaza Hotel operates like Santa\u2019s workshop, organized chaos. White gloves and black and maroon outfits everywhere. The limo door opens. A uniformed man smiles and welcomes us. He instructs us to proceed to the front desk. A black man, wearing all white is opening up the trunk. I wonder why he\u2019s stealing our luggage.
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\nNo one seems to care; I keep my eye on him as we enter the front of the building.<\/em>
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\nI\u2019ll cut it off here. Other highlights to that chapter that is not in the book involve a blue leisure suit with a silk shirt and huge collars, a specially made cheeseburger at Mamma
\nLeone\u2019s, (not on the menu) and front row seats at the Magic Show staring Doug Henning — just your typical weekend for a 6-year-old on the buy side.
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\nIn addition to the trip, I also received a $500 savings bond for the safety poster contest. And ten years later I\u2019d cash it in to buy a moped. Everyone from Kennebunk probably knows the moped story, but if you<\/em> don\u2019t, maybe I\u2019ll share it later\u2026
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\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past year, every time my phone dings with an email, I wonder, Is it about the book? Is it my agent? Is it my editor? What if it\u2019s from my publisher? About a years ago I heard that same ding and I quickly checked. It was an email from my editor.   Perhaps … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-buy-side-book-blog"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/turneyduff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}