Play Nice Nice…
Got that phrase from Marcia Cole of Amber.com years ago at an NABJ conference. My boss/mentor, Gary Dauphin was getting in a heated discussion with Gil Robertson, a panelist about the press & their relationship with sources, or something like that. It got to the point where Marcia was damn near a referee.
But they were just passionate journos who soon put their differences aside and enjoyed the rest of the conference. When we got back to Boston Marcia’s “nice, nice” phrase & her efforts to keep the peace stuck with me. She was much more seasoned than me and had presumably watched many a bridge burn before her eyes over less. Not that I’d ever been a war monger, but the deeper I got into the game the more I realized how important relationships were.
All four of our paths crossed more than a few times over the following years. Gil even had me as a panelist at one of his events for the youths at the Schaumburg in Harlem.
I was reminded of this when I got a call from an industry friend that was bitching about a mutual acquaintance. This guy is a straight up snake, and his reputation precedes him. But he has talent & has produced works worthy of respect, in the past. My friend and I are similar in that we believe in giving people chances, so we kind of dismissed all of the warnings as hate — because hate is real & must always be considered.
But fuck hate. We should’ve both heeded those warnings. We both had horrible experiences with dude, just as our people predicted we would. And while I’m all for playing nice, nice, it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t give anyone I knew fair warning before doing anything with this cat.
It’s a small world, so looks like the lust of folks who haven’t heard anything bad about this dude is shrinking. But it’s true. Playing nice, nice pays.
