RIP Ric Ocasic

Ric Ocasic, leader of the Cars, died last night. That's sad, because for people like me he's still part of the New Wave of music of the 1970s and early 1980s. So I guess both he and I are old. RIP Mr. Cars. You brought a lot of joy to this world, so you did your share and more. Thank you. I did not know you. But I did meet you. 

My sister Pat, the woman who designed the MTV logo--with help from Frank Olinsky--designed a lot of albums, from Duran Duran to Billy Idol, to the Cars Greatest Hits. For the last one, Pat, who had been jealous of my sister Peg's legs her whole life, used Peg to sit on a car in sexy red high heels and photographed her from the knee down. What people don't know is that Peg was 40 at the time the photo--album cover--was taken. 

 It was my sister Pat's way of dealing with her lifelong jealousy of her younger sister (by two years). 

I ran into the Cars and a lot of others when Pat hired me to cater a party for the Gorman-Olinsky Manhattan Design company. I didn't have much money for it, so I made great food, but decided to serve it in small plastic pails, so that when the guests came in, everyone from Sting to the Cars to, I think, the B-52s, and The Talking Heads, they had to go garbage pails picking for the food. 

It turned out to be a wonderful success, and I went on to use the same idea for things like the Yul Brynner redo of The King and I Broadway opening. Brynner wasn't thrilled until he got the idea that the cast was dumpster diving for food. 

RIP Ric: I hope you have a fast trip to the next stage.