Grady-cake
Yesterday (Friday, December 22) a Grady-cake was dispensed at the PT-gym and the mighty Mezz.
“Grady” is my old nickname at the mighty Mezz. Grady-cake was the name given by Editor Stevie Circh to the fabulous cakes my wife made that I brought to the mighty Mezz on occasion.
A Grady-cake was mostly a flat rectangular cake made from Pillsbury super-rich cake-mix (cue Pillsbury doughboy here: “Huh-huh!”); usually devil’s-food or yellow or sometimes white.
Linda would ladle on thick homemade chocolate frosting that was a massive chocolately sugar-hit; more-or-less my recipe.
People loved it at the mighty Mezz. A general e-mail would get sprayed around indicating Grady-cake was under the skylight; and the vipers would attack: “Umm, shu-gah!” I had to snag a piece early-on to make sure I got any.
“Toxic,” I used to call it.
The name “Grady” goes back to my earliest days of employment at the mighty Mezz, in paste-up.
The Chief Sports-Editor was Steve Bradley, long-gone, who used to go absolutely ballistic because you had followed his instructions.
We’d paste up a page per his instructions, and he’d return and tear it all up when it didn’t work; acting like it was all our fault (foult) and we were stupid boobs.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one this happened to. The hockey-dude used to kick his trashcans at the mere mention of the name “Bradley.”
Most difficult was the “agate-page,” the scorebox-page; called the “agate-page” because it was tiny agate font — eight columns instead of six.
Kenny Rush, now dead, the best paste-upper ever, usually put together the agate-page, and Bradley usually approved it without drama, because Kenny was doing it the Bradley way.
Sometimes I’d do it — I had picked up the priorities from Kenny (called “Golden-Boy”), but Bradley would get frustrated because I wasn’t Kenny.
In Bradley’s favor, he was working under iron-clad printing deadlines; 9:30 a.m. on weekdays.
The Sunday paper was even worse.
Sports got printed last, so had a 2 a.m. deadline. The entire Sports-section had to be put together in two hours.
And Kenny was off Saturday-nights; which meant I did the dreaded agate-page.
One night I got fed up. Bradley was being a jerk, so I faced him off, which totally threw him for a loop. Plus everyone was on my side.
Bradley’s reactive put-down was to name me “Grady,” since I apparently looked like the TV-character.
Even after Bradley left (for Gannett, years ago) the nickname “Grady” stuck.
Then even Stevie Circh left, but still the nickname stuck.
Marcy and the Webmaster tried to give me a new nickname, but that crashed. “Grady” it stayed.
During my long employment at the mighty Mezz, many Grady-cakes were delivered, along with Grady-pies (apple with Pillsbury pre-made crusts). Grady-pies were often delivered with the pi-sign carved in the top-crust as a vent.
My last Grady-cake was in February or March, after I had retired. None had been made since.
This most recent Grady-cake was in honor of my getting below 200 pounds.
First weighed by the Physical-Therapist last March (or April) I supposedly weighed 225. I think that’s a bit inflated — I probably had all my clothes on; i.e. no bootie-shorts — so maybe 220.
The first time it dropped below 200 was after the colonoscopy, so I thought the fasting might have contributed.
My weight climbed back up to 201, but then dropped to 198; and has stayed consistently below 200 for a week or so.
I had said to the PT when my weight got consistently below 200 I was making a cake; a vaunted Grady-cake of Messenger-tradition.
And that I would bring it first to the PT-gym, since their aerobic machines were the primary reason.
The Physical-Therapist’s 26th birthday was also last Saturday, so the cake was also for that, and I sang her happy-birthday too. She ate a piece and saved a piece: “toxic,” I said.
After the PT I went to the mighty Mezz. Not many of the dreaded ne’er-do-wells were left; only the so-called Hasidic-Jew, the Webmaster, Dreessen, and K-man. Marcy and Maloney are gone to Boston. The all-powerful Tim Belknap was there (he doesn’t eat Grady-cake), but Buchiere was out (off??????), and Allison is transferred to the MPN Pittsford-office. The only other persons I saw, that I knew, were Obit-Sally, Nano, Meredith and “Boss-man,” the Executive-Editor; who took me on long ago as an unpaid intern (“seems normal to me”).
The Grady-cake wasn’t entirely consumed. I ended up bringing a small amount home.
“Grady” is my old nickname at the mighty Mezz. Grady-cake was the name given by Editor Stevie Circh to the fabulous cakes my wife made that I brought to the mighty Mezz on occasion.
A Grady-cake was mostly a flat rectangular cake made from Pillsbury super-rich cake-mix (cue Pillsbury doughboy here: “Huh-huh!”); usually devil’s-food or yellow or sometimes white.
Linda would ladle on thick homemade chocolate frosting that was a massive chocolately sugar-hit; more-or-less my recipe.
People loved it at the mighty Mezz. A general e-mail would get sprayed around indicating Grady-cake was under the skylight; and the vipers would attack: “Umm, shu-gah!” I had to snag a piece early-on to make sure I got any.
“Toxic,” I used to call it.
The name “Grady” goes back to my earliest days of employment at the mighty Mezz, in paste-up.
The Chief Sports-Editor was Steve Bradley, long-gone, who used to go absolutely ballistic because you had followed his instructions.
We’d paste up a page per his instructions, and he’d return and tear it all up when it didn’t work; acting like it was all our fault (foult) and we were stupid boobs.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one this happened to. The hockey-dude used to kick his trashcans at the mere mention of the name “Bradley.”
Most difficult was the “agate-page,” the scorebox-page; called the “agate-page” because it was tiny agate font — eight columns instead of six.
Kenny Rush, now dead, the best paste-upper ever, usually put together the agate-page, and Bradley usually approved it without drama, because Kenny was doing it the Bradley way.
Sometimes I’d do it — I had picked up the priorities from Kenny (called “Golden-Boy”), but Bradley would get frustrated because I wasn’t Kenny.
In Bradley’s favor, he was working under iron-clad printing deadlines; 9:30 a.m. on weekdays.
The Sunday paper was even worse.
Sports got printed last, so had a 2 a.m. deadline. The entire Sports-section had to be put together in two hours.
And Kenny was off Saturday-nights; which meant I did the dreaded agate-page.
One night I got fed up. Bradley was being a jerk, so I faced him off, which totally threw him for a loop. Plus everyone was on my side.
Bradley’s reactive put-down was to name me “Grady,” since I apparently looked like the TV-character.
Even after Bradley left (for Gannett, years ago) the nickname “Grady” stuck.
Then even Stevie Circh left, but still the nickname stuck.
Marcy and the Webmaster tried to give me a new nickname, but that crashed. “Grady” it stayed.
During my long employment at the mighty Mezz, many Grady-cakes were delivered, along with Grady-pies (apple with Pillsbury pre-made crusts). Grady-pies were often delivered with the pi-sign carved in the top-crust as a vent.
My last Grady-cake was in February or March, after I had retired. None had been made since.
This most recent Grady-cake was in honor of my getting below 200 pounds.
First weighed by the Physical-Therapist last March (or April) I supposedly weighed 225. I think that’s a bit inflated — I probably had all my clothes on; i.e. no bootie-shorts — so maybe 220.
The first time it dropped below 200 was after the colonoscopy, so I thought the fasting might have contributed.
My weight climbed back up to 201, but then dropped to 198; and has stayed consistently below 200 for a week or so.
I had said to the PT when my weight got consistently below 200 I was making a cake; a vaunted Grady-cake of Messenger-tradition.
And that I would bring it first to the PT-gym, since their aerobic machines were the primary reason.
The Physical-Therapist’s 26th birthday was also last Saturday, so the cake was also for that, and I sang her happy-birthday too. She ate a piece and saved a piece: “toxic,” I said.
After the PT I went to the mighty Mezz. Not many of the dreaded ne’er-do-wells were left; only the so-called Hasidic-Jew, the Webmaster, Dreessen, and K-man. Marcy and Maloney are gone to Boston. The all-powerful Tim Belknap was there (he doesn’t eat Grady-cake), but Buchiere was out (off??????), and Allison is transferred to the MPN Pittsford-office. The only other persons I saw, that I knew, were Obit-Sally, Nano, Meredith and “Boss-man,” the Executive-Editor; who took me on long ago as an unpaid intern (“seems normal to me”).
The Grady-cake wasn’t entirely consumed. I ended up bringing a small amount home.
posted by BobbaLew at 9:47 AM
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