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The Junket (Kindle Single) by [Mike Albo]

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Mike Albo

The Junket (Kindle Single) Kindle Edition

by Mike Albo (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

29 ratings

3.5 on Goodreads

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From author and performer Mike Albo comes this hilarious, harrowing and totally fictional novella about a struggling freelance writer living in New York City named Mike Albo. He lands an enviable gig writing about shopping and fashion for the city’s major newspaper, but an ill-fated promotional junket gets Albo into hot water. He becomes a gossip item and finds himself caught in an acrimonious war between Old and New Media. Here's a gimlet-eyed account of the back-biting media scene, a glimpse into the inner workings of the fashion crowd, and a candid portrait of what it takes to survive as a writer in today’s chattering and watchful New York City.

"I was perilously close to exposing a secret underground economy of promotion: favors and junkets and banquets and gifts that keeps the city in motion, and keeps underpaid writers at work. Basically, I became the Silkwood of Swag."

Print length

41 pages
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Language

English
Publication date

August 2, 2011
File size

137 KB
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Mike Albo
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Writers are notoriously poor assessors of their own work. But in the case of The Junket, Mike Albo does a stand-up job. So what is The Junket? On the one hand, it's "a memoir with a fictional $3,000 sheer Thai silk veil lightly draped over it." On the other, it's about "the plight of the freelance writer in our compromised economy." Finally, it's about the author's "long-term relationship with the most exciting but unreliable boyfriend of all: New York City." Kudos to Albo for such a revealing take on his own work, but he left out a few things. In tracing the story of his fall from grace at a very high-profile and coyly euphemized "New York Paper," The Junket is also charming, charismatic, and very funny. Albo is an unapologetic artsy-fartsy type, resolved to make ends meet by writing a lot of shill for high-end products he can't afford. But when the culture of freebies that permeates his chosen field catches up with him, readers win out. Go ahead: laugh at his expense. --Jason Kirk

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B005FR8MF8
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 2, 2011
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 137 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 41 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #1,255,666 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #25 in Arts & Photography (Kindle Store)
- #49 in Kindle Singles: Arts & Photography
- #58 in Kindle Singles: Humor & Entertainment

Customer Reviews:
29 ratings

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Mike Albo

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Mike Albo is the author of HORNITO, considered one of the 50 Essential LGBT Works of Fiction by Flavorwire, and the cult humor classic THE UNDERMINER: The Best Friend Who Casually Destroys Your Life (written with Virginia Heffernan), and ANOTHER DIMENSION OF US. His other works include the Amazon Kindle Singles, THE JUNKET and SPERMHOOD: Diary of a Donor.

He has written for the The New Yorker, New York Magazine, GQ, Departures, W Magazine, TED, Elle Decor, Southern Living, AARP and numerous other magazines and websites. He has written a horoscope column, a love advice column and was the Critical Shopper columnist for the New York Times. He has performed nine solo shows and comedy shows across the US, Canada, UK and Europe. His solo shows include “Spermhood: Diary of a Donor” and “The Junket” which ran Off-Broadway at the Lynn Redgrave Theater in 2014. He is also a part of the long-running comedy trio, Unitard, and the legendary (in their own minds) dance collective, The Dazzle Dancers.

Selections of his performance work appear in Extreme Exposure: An Anthology Of Solo Performance Texts From The Twentieth Century (ed. by Jo Bonney).

He has been an emcee and host for many galas and benefits including organizations like La Mama, Yaddo and Visual AIDS. He was one of the original hosts of The Moth. He has been a live interviewer for The Hamptons Film Festival, the PEN World Literary Festival and Symphony Space. He has led panels and discussions on CBD, neuroscience and meditation, discussions about desire and anxiety with interfaith leaders, and many other events. His live interviews include Stevie Nicks, Rufus Wainwright, Masha Gesson, and Justin Vivian Bond.

Customer reviews

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3 star		13%
2 star		10%
1 star		18%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Hanging out and trying to hang on in the big city

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 8, 2011

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"The Junket" by Mike Albo seems to be a fictionalized account of a "freelance greasemonkey" New Yorker named Mike Albo who accepts some swag, jets off on a promotional junket to Jamaica and then gets outted for sloppy ethics by a media blogger and as a result loses his reporting gig at a big, big mainstream "New York Newspaper."

It's new media versus old and Albo (real or fictional) gets the heave-ho. And maybe rather than being a work of fiction, the whole thing happened just as it's presented. Or maybe the truth is somewhere in between.

In his account, Albo isn't whining or defending his breach of the "New York Newspaper's" ethics code. His story is in a way wistful, "Basically I became the Silkwood of Swag."

Reading his story is bemusing in the way Woody Allen used to bemuse "New Yorker" readers with his early stories. Albo also is bemusing in a way that is made more enjoyable by being less strident and somehow less biting than David Sedaris.

Besides being humorous and often down-right hilarious, Albo's plight is also revealing and heartfelt for being so self-effacingly honest. His personal ethos may be wanting but his pathos is genuine and genuinely appealing. He knows how to pull the reader in.

"Usually my bank account hovers around $227. I have no savings, no health insurance, no real job, no big commitments, and yesterday I found mouse droppings next to my laptop. I keep waiting for the money - the matching grant - for the constant fundraiser that is my non-profit writer life."

You can't help but end up with a big heap of empathy for this guy who convinces us he is just trying to eke out a living by doing what he always wanted to do, which is to live in New York City and to write, and after twenty years of trying is not too sure he's ever going to succeed or even make much headway. "Instead of a stable life I am surviving off a trickling IV drip of my aspirations."

Albo wonders if it's time to think about breaking up with his exciting but unreliable boyfriend, which is the way he characterizes New York City. But then he wonders, finally, if in fact it's New York that is trying to break off the relationship with him. "How long am I supposed to believe I can `make it' here?"

You're going get to the end of his story and hope that he manages to work things out in his relationship with the Big Apple and hang on at least for awhile longer. We could all use a few more laughs from this guy.

11 people found this helpful

Helpful

Hilarious, Sly But Not Bitter Account of a Junket Gone Wrong and The NYC Writing Life

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 10, 2011

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Mike Albo would have every reason to be bitter - he agreed to go on a junket that is only very thinly veiled in this piece, that was covered extensively in NYC media sites, which resulted in his losing his column in the paper he refers to here as The New York Paper. Instead, he uses this essay as an opportunity to look back at his life as a writer in New York and the things he's had to do to make a living. What makes this such compelling reading is that Albo uses the humor he brought to The Underminer but he is as much the target of his sharp wit as anyone else, although his other targets certainly come under much-deserved scrutiny.

This particular junket's destination wasn't revealed until they reached their destination. Albo writes, "I wasn't so psyched to go to Jamaica, where gay people are maimed and killed and the prime minister made a special point to declare that LGTB rights would never be recognized, but on the plane the organizers got us all psyched. 'Can you believe it? I can't hear you! Jamiaca! Woooo!'"

He weaves in the story of the junket with his various jobs in Manhattan media, from working at "the Death Star for magazines but gayer" and learning not only how to cover high fashion, but how to covet it. Ultimately, this is a story that would make perfect reading for anyone considering writing as a profession, because Albo shows that even at the highest levels, at the pinnacle--and his description of not only what he did at The New York Paper but how it felt, as well as his continuing reverence, though not unreserved, for it, is one of the high points of this piece--it is still a struggle to survive.

Albo juxtaposes all the swag his colleagues received at various other magazines as well as his efforts to make the right decision about the junket with the outcome, in which The Paper first absolved him of wrongdoing, then changed its mind once it came under more minute scrutiny. But whether or not you agree with their decision, this piece has plenty of other merits, because Albo is not using it to settle a score or argue that he was in the right. In fact, he never points fingers, or this would read much differently and more as a way to settle a score than to explore why it is that he writes.

He concludes with a question about New York City that I think almost anyone who's lived here has been forced to ask themselves: is it worth it? "I have forgone something lasting to continue my long-term relationship with the most exciting but unreliable boyfriend of all--New York City. Maybe it's time to break up with it, to emancipate myself from the teasing, taunting, sexy metropolis that has kept me within its grip my entire adult life. But how do I break up with a city? How long am I supposed to believe I can 'make it' here? Or does none of it matter because it's all about advertising?" Once again, my biggest takeaway was how much Albo wants to write, and will go to whatever lengths he can to do it, not for the money per se, but for the expression. What you think that expression is worth is what's explored here, but I can safely say this essay is worth the $1.99.

And when you're done with it, I highly recommend my favorite piece of his: a tribute to a Katell Keinig concert that will wipe the idea of swag or writing about cravats right out of your mind, because it's so beautiful (in Sean Manning's anthology The Show I'll Never Forget).

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

M. Umbarger

First Single I've been disappointed in

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 19, 2011

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I was disappointed at how poorly this was written, and at how little it seemed to add to the saga. I didn't learn anything here I couldn't have read on the internet for free from other writers. But maybe I just didn't love the person writing it -- it's hard to feel sympathy for someone who gets fired after drunken Tweeting.

2 people found this helpful

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S. ONEILL

Compelling

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 10, 2011

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I had somehow missed the True Events on which this story was based, despite living in NYC at the time, but I found the plot easy to follow anyway.
Not recommended for anyone who didn't enjoy The Devil Wears Prada, though. Or The Emperor's Children. Or any similar books about hypocrisy and money swirling around New York.

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oldcaman

Story of a typical New Yori writer

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 11, 2016

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OK book. Not easy to survive in New York as a professional writer. Short trip to Jamaica does not help.

Being gay is completely irrelevant. Getting old is a more serious complication.

Not recommended, three stars.

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Top reviews from other countries

RioBravo

Absolutely hilarious (and sometimes a little heartbreaking).

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 7, 2019

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I'm a freelance copywriter who loathes consumerism; I frequently daydream about quitting for good. I found The Junket by accident whilst trawling through Amazon's Kindle Singles. I read the excerpt, laughed my ass off, and then hit the buy button. Seriously worth your dollars. Albo's writing here reminds me of some of John Waters' funniest essays (Crackpot etc). Spot on observations about the freelance writer's life, surviving the big smoke when broke, and the culture of back patting, backstabbing and freebies one receives (or doesn't) when working in the industry. Thanks for making me belly laugh, Mike -- right after I spent a hellish day penning copy about cheap Chinese mirrors filled with illuminated LED lights.

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