On The Road (Never) Again

I read an article last week that stated 4 out of 10 Americans had made the drive from one coast of the country to the other. Another 4 out of 10 hoped they never have to.

As someone who has done the drive let me just say three simple words, "Hello, American Airlines?"

My cross country tour happened years ago, but the painful memories are as fresh as yesterday's dirty dishes. (Why do teenage girls have such a hard time understanding the concept of loading a dishwasher?)

I had spent the summer between my junior and senior years of college here in sunny Southern California. When August rolled around I naturally had to return to Syracuse for one more year of "education." I thought it would be novel to see the flyover states and go back via America's highways. I quickly planted an index card to that effect on the UCLA Ride Board.

A week later I got a call from Mitch Feinstein, a neurotic teaching assistant who was looking for a companion to share the driving and lodging costs on his way back to Brooklyn. I snapped up his offer, sight unseen. I even lied about my ability to drive a car with a manual transmission, both of which in retrospect turned out to be a bad idea.

The trip started pleasant enough. The small talk took us all the way to Utah, where the nerdy professor and I spent the first night at a campground, sleeping in a tent (to save money) at the Bryce Canyon National Park. I had every reason to believe the next seven days would be equally pleasing.

They were not.

On Day Two, somewhere in western Colorado, Mitch turned the wheel over to me. It was at this point that it became abundantly clear that I had never mastered the stick shift. Or the even tricker three-on-the-tree.

Mitch was not a happy camper. In fact he was a very whiny unhappy camper. The small talk became smaller. The gap in our musical tastes grew wider. And because neither of us wanted to listen to Jesus radio -- which is all you get in the middle of the country -- the silence in the car grew deeper. And tenser. Interrupted only by my habitual grinding of the gears or Mitch's girly pounding of the fists on the dashboard.

By Day Three, we didn't like each other.

By Day Four and little more than half the trip's mileage logged we couldn't stand each other.

Ten hour driving days turned into 14 hour marathons. And the scheduled 8 day trip turned into 6.

When Mitch dropped me off at my house he literally raced from the driver's seat, popped the trunk and unceremoniously dumped my duffel bag on the driveway. If he did say good bye it was muffled by the sound of the screeching tires as he muscled that Buick away as fast as possible.

I keep the memory of that miserable cross country trip in an easy-to-access part of my brain. Because when we're doing a family road trip and my daughters start their inevitable squabbling, it's good to remind myself that it could be a lot worse.

In fact, it was.

Kony Baloney

There's a short viral film that is making waves on the Internet. Something called Stop Kony. I'll be completely frank here and tell you I have not looked into it. I know there's some controversy brewing about context. Factual errors. And whether the film will actually help or not.

I'm not here to talk about any of that. March Madness and tax season are in full swing and I haven't had the time to see what all the buzz is about.

But I can tell you the buzz reached my house before it reached Facebook, Twitter, or even this new fakackta social media, Pinterest.

When I came home from work the other night, my two teenage daughters had already been showing the youtube video to my wife. They knew all the Kony details. They were emotionally moved by it. And they were fully vested in the story. And I can't stress this enough, this was before the film blew up on the Internet.

That's when it occurred to me that have I have been blessed.

Not only because I have two beautiful, healthy teenage daughters, but because as someone employed in the marketing/advertising/entertainment arena, I have my own personal trending detectors living right here under my roof.

Let's face it, the clock on the wall isn't going backwards. In fact, last weekend it jumped an hour ahead. Making me one hour closer to "who's the old guy writing our commercials?" (Or websites, or tweets, or Facebook/mobile applications)

But I try not to spend too much time thinking about that. I may not sport a porkpie hat, a nose earring or a sleeve full of tattoos, but I'm pretty confident I can out-idea, out-write and out-think, any of the kids that do.

Besides, I don't need any of those affectations of creativity, I have a secret research weapon (my girls) that enables me to stay on top of the ever-changing media landscape. In fact, when I finish this post, my oldest daughter has agreed to help me update my myspace page.

It's a dog's life

Seen the other night on television, a commercial for diet dog food. It might have even been this brand. The brand is of no consequence, the category however is.

We had a problem with our dog, Nellie, years ago. The vet told us she was in fine health. But because she is a lab mix, there's a good possibility she could develop hip problems further down the road. The best way to prevent that, have her lose a few pounds.

The vet didn't say how we should trim Nellie's weight, he just said it would be in her interest to do so. This being Southern California, we had many options, options which fuel the reputation of Los Angeles of being one enchilada short of a combo platter. 

We could have, for instance, paid a king's ransom and hired a canine personal trainer. It's like P90X for dogs. Or P630X in doggie time.

Cleansing seems to be a popular method of weight loss in trendy LA. And sure enough someone is pimping the cleansing technique for dogs.

Or we could have opted for the Science Diet brand of dog food (pictured above) for the weight conscious canine. Science Diet, especially formulated to reduce dogs' body fat by 22% in six months.

We could have chosen any of those options. But being rational people with east coast roots and a nose for obnoxious pretention, we chose none of the above. 

We simply employed some psychology. And some simple discipline. 

We bought Nellie a smaller feeding dish so she wouldn't notice that we had cut her meals from 1 full cup of food to 3/4 of a cup. And we upped her exercise regimen. Meaning more walkies. Which she didn't seem to mind. If there's one thing dogs love, it's the opportunity to pee on top of another dog's pee and poop in other people's yards.

The program worked wonders. Within 6 months, Nellie dropped about 17 pounds. And she seemed happier. 

It was that easy. 

I wish I could drop 17 pounds using the same exact method. 

Though I don't think my neighbors would appreciate it.

Things Jews Don't Do, Pt 14

It's been a while since I've posted an entry in the Things Jews Don't Do Series. Not because I haven't been doing things most Jews typically don't do, because I have: I built an Ikea bed weeks ago and I hardwired some outdoor lighting for the garden.

But those activities felt more like Things Jews Occasionally Do. We have standards here at roundseventeen, albeit arbitrary ones.

Last week I found myself seeking the unique medical attention of Dr. Anthony Catipay, who works out of the steel-gated storefront pictured above. The store is located on Pico Blvd. in the shadow of the 405 freeway. It is so close to the 405, that in the very early hours of the morning, between 6:17 AM and 6:23 AM, this ersatz 'medical' office literally is in the shadows of the 405.

I went to see Dr. Catipay in order to 'manage the pain' brought on by my recently discovered heel spur, who I have named Hurty for those of you who follow this blog regularly.

Typically, when we Jews seek healthcare we abide by the unwritten mishpachah rule. Meaning we tend to seek out doctors and specialists with Jewish surnames, your Goldbergs, your Feldmans, your Silversteins. Chalk it up to our annoying clannishness.

We also tend to shop our doctors, and our dentists, and our lawyers by their addresses.

And most of those folks are found in Beverly Hills or the tonier neighborhoods of Santa Monica or West Los Angeles. Not shabby storefronts wedged between the Billingsly Steakhouse and the Sawtelle liquor store selling Courvosier for $13.99 a bottle.

So it was with a little trepidation that I walked into the 'office' with the blacked out windows and surveillance cameras. I was greeted by the 'nurse' and instructed to fill out a new patient questionnaire. I took a seat in the austere waiting area that felt very much like the DMV. No magazines. Cheap folding chairs lined up in rows of 5. And a musty smell like the place hadn't seen a whiff of ammonia in months.

I grabbed a clipboard and began answering the questions. Clearly, Dr. Catipay runs an efficient operation on a shoestring budget with no margin for niceties. I noticed the ball point pen had been double-chained to the clipboard. Probably to deter his clientele from running off with the goods. For all I know there could be a huge black market for 38 cent pens in this neighborhood.

After the formalities, the nurse led me back to the 'examination room'. This is when things got surreal. I was led through a hallway to the back of the store...uh... office. And was introduced to the 'doctor', a squat Filipino man with a thick tuft of jet black hair that was swirled over the front of his scalp. I was so engrossed by his combover that I almost didn't notice his unusual surroundings.

His office looked like it used to be the closet that housed the store's water heater. It was barely 5 feet wide and 8 feet long. When I walked in, the doctor was watching a soccer match on the TV he had hung above the medical files but below his doctor's degree. I didn't recognize the name of the university that gave Dr. Catipay his sheepskin, but in terms of medical schools this was the equivalent of the DeVry Institute.

The 'examination' did not last long. And apart from the introduction when he shook my hand, he at no time touched any part of my body. For which I was very grateful.

It was, by far, one of the strangest experiences, I have ever had.

Why subject myself to something like this, you may well ask?

There are 420 reasons.
And alleviating my 'chronic' pain was one of them.

Do Unto Others

You don't hear much about it now, but for years the Protestants and Catholics of Northern Ireland, that is the nationalists and the unionists, were at each other's throat. Although the conflict was tinged with politics, the battle lines were largely drawn according to religious affiliation.

Even here in the United States, denominations of Christianity do not always see eye to eye. In 1960, that discord prompted a very Catholic JFK to deliver a speech that distanced himself from the Papacy in order to win the hearts and minds of Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Baptists, Snake Handlers and the 100 other sects of Protestantism.

In the Middle East, as Americans are now discovering, there is a millineum-old rift between the Sunnis of Islam and the Shiites of Islam. This conflict often erupts in full blown wars, mosque bombings and yearly stampedes at the Hajj pilgrimage. The only thing that unites the Sunnis and Shiites is their mutual hatred of Sufis, Druze, and Ibadi, and other the smaller sects that are apparently, 'not Islam enough'.

And of course they all hate the Jews.

Of course, we Jews are not exempt from this theologic illogic. Just two months ago a group of Hasedim in Israel spat on and cursed an 8-year old girl, and harassed her for "dressing like a whore."

If you see an 8-year old girl and your thoughts turn to paid sexual intercourse, I would suggest the problem is more in your head and less than her choice of school attire.

Religion as a whole leaves me baffled. It is devoid of any reason or scientific proof. But inter-religious fighting, well that's even more absurd. Particularly when the differences between sects are so picayune.

It's as if you and I were to believe in the tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. We not only believe in this fantasy, we have taken the story as the guiding principle for our journey through life. We believe in the evil queen and her abiding vanity. We believe in the eternal innocence of Snow White. We even genuflect at the same magic transmorphic mirror.

Our shared belief in the Snow White tale is so fevered we are willing to collectively let it cloud our thinking on politics, morality, sexuality, even the way we raise our children.

However, one seemingly-minor point separates us.

You choose to call the fourth dwarf Sleepy and I, because of something some old goatherder said 800 years ago, choose to call him Drowsy.

Therefore, I must kill you.

N*gg@, Sil vous plait.

My daughter and I have a rule, when she is driving -- that is when she is behind the wheel and I'm behind in my Valium refills -- the radio is turned off. I want her focused on the road, the traffic and most importantly, the cars ominously parked less than a yard away to my immediate right.

In return, when I'm driving I let her pick the radio station of her choice. Here's a hint, they all suck.

It seems all her favorite radio stations share the same playlist of 20 crappy songs I wish I had never heard. Somewhere along the way I have failed as a parent. My buddy Paul has a daughter one year younger than my oldest. Not only does she play guitar, she has an appreciation for real music including the Kinks, the Stones, Lou Reed, Led Zeppelin, etc.

My daughter's taste -- that is both my daughters -- lean towards Jay Z and Kanye, regarded as poet laureates in the hip hop world. And I can see why. Let's examine some of the writing prowess demonstrated in their recent hit, N*gg@s in Paris.

(I was going to write out the word without the dingbats but I was afraid it was going to be offensive. Frankly I don't see how changing an 'i' to a '*' or an 'a' to a '@' puts me in the safe zone. In the end, it's the same word, whether I spoke it, wrote it, or hid it like some scared kindergardner.)

Even if I did spell out the word it couldn't be more offensive than this:

These other n*gg@s is lyin,
actin' like the summer ain't mine
I got that bitch in my home,
You know how many bitches I own.

Misogyny is hardly new. Lots of writers speak poorly of women. Bukowski took misogyny to new heights. And he too wrote about alcohol. Though I think Hank would show a great disdain for Cristal champagne, this duo's drink of choice. Of course Bukowski never mastered the tricky mix of misogyny and McDonald's fast food:

And show me why you deserve to have it all
That shit cray,
ain't it Jay?
What she order, fish filet?


And it takes a special kind of artiste, with mad rhyming skills, to artfully craft a song that delicately balances misogyny, McDonald's fast food and bad iconic 90's TV:

Prince Williams ain't do it right if you ask me,
Cause I was him, I would have married Mary Kate
and Ashley

That's some ballin'.

The National Academy of Music is working hard to establish a Songwriter's Hall of Fame. As of this time, the museum only exists online but has already inducted Lennon and McCartney, Simon and Garfunkel, Bacharach and King.

I think you'll agree, and I don't think it's premature in any sense of the word, that the Academy set aside some shelf space for the hugely talented team that brought us N*gg@s in Paris.

Oh No, Another Story About Butt Plugs

This is Kevin Brann, a 41-year old man from Hobe Sound, Florida. He was recently arrested for DUI, an infraction that happens way too much in this country. His circumstances merit special attention, but we'll get to that a little later.

While in college, I roomed with a couple of newspaper reporters from the Syracuse Post Standard. I was enrolled in the Newhouse School of Journalism and it appeared I was headed for a career writing newspaper articles. Like my roommates.

The problem was these guys lived like paupers. They never had a dime to their name, they drove old shitty cars, they ate a lot of top ramen, and they dressed like homeless men who happened to have some proximity to a laundromat.

The other problem was that for the life of me I couldn't pass the mandatory Journalism school typing test. I breezed through college, stoned most of the four years. Who am I kidding? I was stoned ALL four years. Nevertheless writing stories, whether for journalism class or creative writing class, was never a problem. But when it came to time to bang away on the IBM Selectric II,  well hunting and pecking and laughing did not always produce winning results.

There was no way I could meet the 25 words per minute requirement.

So I switched to broadcast journalism and fell into the much more lucrative world of advertising. The difference between newspaper reporting and writing ads: I still dress like a homeless man, but now I own the top of the line Kenmore KZ7000 Washer and Dryer with the automatic Sock Sorter.

So you see I have no regrets about my career path. But thanks to my friend Robert Chandler, I stumbled onto a piece of journalism that gave me pause. It is, if you haven't already guessed, the story of Kevin Brann, the man who according to the headline, "Rear-Ended A Car With A Sex Toy In His Ass."

A headline like that does not come along everyday. I can tell the writer, Rapheal Orlove, exercised a great deal of restraint when committing this story to type.  And for that he deserves our respect. But Orlove, and his editor, deserve a little something more.

Because with the addition of one little line, 9 somewhat minor words, the picture of Mr. Brann's arrest and his excruciating exercise in humiliation is complete, nuanced and utterly visceral:

He was wearing flip flops at the time.

Someone alert the Pulitzer committee.

Related to Monkees

Last week, we lost another celebrity. A celebrity from my childhood. This got me thinking about the Monkees. You see, Pete Torkleson, the drummer in this ill-fated faux band, is actually one of the branches on my family tree. Albeit through marriage.

Peter is my sister-in-law's brother-in-law. Throw in a divorce and 3,000 miles of geographical separation into the mix, and I have no problem admitting that I was never really a big fan of the band. They were, at least at the time, always seen as cheap knock-off kiddie version of the Beatles.

But my Monkees relationship doesn't end there.

Sometime in the 80's, my writing partner Jim and I managed to get a shot at working on, get this, The New Monkees. It was a terribly conceived remake of the original. Only it had less charm, less music and less humor. What it lacked in those arenas however, it more than made up for in hair products.

Neither Jim nor I remember much about the experience. We only knew that someone read something we had written and was willing to let us get a foot in the door.

Had we been smart we would have looked around that room -- that we now had a foot in -- and seen Hollywood for what it really was, a cesspool of money-grubbing hackmeisters without the slightest inclination towards smart, funny, or anything that bore even the slightest resemblance to good.

You could argue that's just years of frustration and rejection talking. And you might be right. So let's go to the youtube video that proves my point.

Weak Thinks

Maybe you caught this last week on the Colbert report. Or maybe you saw it on agencyspy.com, where one incredibly witty and succinct anonymous tipster sent it in.

If you haven't, take a few moments for some must see TV.
Particularly if you're in the ad biz.

Colbert masterfully skewers the concept of brand standards and the notion that a snacking cracker is anything more than a snacking cracker. It is, for those of you who have suffered at the hands of Planning, funny because it is true.

When I go to a party and tell people what I do for a living they often say, "Cool, coming up with ideas for commercials, that sounds like fun." And it is fun.

The hard part of my job is not coming up with the ideas or solutions, the hard part of my job is sitting with a dozen or so undereducated, overconfident "executives" who have no idea how to define the problem. The kind of folks who spew out this kind of marketingese.

I know for instance that if I were given the assignment to come up with ideas for Wheat Thins it would have very little to do with portraying Wheat Thins as "a connector of like-minded people, encouraging sharing" or as "a snack for anyone who is actively seeking experiences."

Human beings are, by definition, actively seeking experiences. When I wake up in the morning I actively seek the toilet for the urinating experience. Then I actively seek the shower for the cleansing experience. Then I actively seek the closet for the dressing experience. Do you see where this is going? It's a meaningless phrase.

Right now I am actively seeking a writing experience that will adequately vent my rage at this unabashed popcockery.

And yet somewhere, sometime, somebody committed that profound thinking to paper. And it was agreed upon by other addlebrained MBAs, whereupon it earned their blessing and found its way into the accepted brand standards.

The sad thing is I've sat in hundreds of meetings listening to this kind of nonsense. And until I hang up my copywriting cleats, I'll probably sit in a hundred more.

Years ago, probably about the same time I decided to a make it as a freelance writer and not as staff guy, one of the fuses on my bullshit meter went on the fritz. I never replaced that fuse.

I probably never will.

Fight Club

I love a good fight.

I think we all do. I'm pretty sure it has to do with the hard-wiring in the reptilian part of our brain. It's why I find myself unwittingly glued to TRU TV. Last week I didn't get up from the couch until I had watched The World's Dumbest Brawlers, all 23 episodes.

Years ago, I worked at BBDO with some of the funniest people in the Creative Department. A good Creative Department will have funny people. If I were ever a client and needed to pick an ad agency, I would stealthily walk the halls and listen for laughter. If there aren't people sharing jokes, pranking each other or telling funny stories, you have stumbled upon an un-creative Creative Department. Not a good recipe for effective advertising.

One particular team, I'll call them Greg and Denise, had a great chemistry about them. They would finish each other's sentences like old married couples. They also had a flair for the dramatic.

Denise had a convertible and would often drive with the top down. On their many trips to the edit facilities in Santa Monica they would often find themselves in bumper to bumper traffic on Wilshire Blvd. This is where they would stage their semi-scripted, teetering-on-homicidal marital spats.

There was yelling, cursing, frothing at the mouth. It was street performance art. Only they didn't do it for coins or the hope that somebody would recognize their thespian potential. They simply did it to get a rise. And to see the looks on people's faces as they drove away. Often giggling themselves silly.

My wife and I don't fight a lot, but we're lucky enough to have neighbors that do.

Behind my house there's a 45-year old bi-polar man who likes to use power tools at all hours of the night. He lives with his mother. Not actually in the house with her, but in the garage which I assume has been turned into some adequate living quarters. Nevertheless their dysfunctional lives do come into contact and that contact often produces friction.

But unlike my friends Greg and Denise, the fireworks here are real. Naturally when the show gets going we turn off all electronic equipment, open all the windows and tune in to the always entertaining conflagration.

Last week produced the best gem.

Apparently mom was headed to Phoenix to visit a friend or a relative, sometimes the thick cypress trees make it hard to catch all the details. But she was going to Phoenix from Burbank. And she was on Southwest Airlines.

That's when in the heat of the battle, the emotionally and geographically-challenged son let loose with, "I hate you bitch. I hope your plane crashes into the ocean."

You can't write stuff like that.

The Terrible Threes

Hard to believe, but today marks the third anniversary for roundseventeen. According to the Internet, leather is the appropriate gift for the third anniversary, which ought to explain the picture.

I also know from experience that when I post a picture like the one to the left, traffic soars above the daily average. Which says more about you than it does about me.

It is hard to believe I started this blog three years ago following my birthday and the epiphany that I'm not doing enough writing.

Oh I write all day for a living, mostly about horsepower, zero calorie sodas, investment banking, and easy-to-prepare microwavable foodstuffs. The same crap a thousand other copywriters are writing about.

And if I'm being brutally honest (when am I not?) it's not really writing. It's more about taking some pre-digested copy points, realigning some verb noun agreements and sprucing it all up with a well-chosen adverb or adjective.

It's not something a well-trained monkey couldn't do. And if you've spent anytime inside an ad agency you know that metaphor has not been stretched.

I needed to do something more expressive. Like my friend Laurenne, who recently introduced me to the concept of vagina prolapse. She writes a lot about her vagina. I would too, but I don't have one.

I could write about my penis but Twitter with its 140-character limit is probably a better forum for that --see, I beat you to that easy joke. Besides I just started a new column about my heel spur yesterday and I think two anatomically-based essays would get a little repetitive.

All this talk about penii and vaginas has made me lose focus.

Oh yes. So here we are at another milestone. And the natural inclination to start asking milestone-like questions. For instance, how much longer do I plan to continue this narcissistic exercise? Three years later and I still don't have an answer. We're now 608 posts deep into this little venture. And that's not counting the dozen or so entries I have deleted when I realized I was straying into legally dangerous waters involving libel, slander and bestiality.

In the last three years, I have seen other friends just give out on their blogs. I've seen others publicly complain about their own personal writing blocks. Or apologize for the warmed-over content or even the sporadic posting. I have done none of that. It makes a certain presumption of importance that frankly I'm not willing to make.

The truth is I don't know when I'll stop writing this blog. I only know that even if I wanted to stop, I couldn't.

And I suppose that's a good sign.

Conversations with Hurty, Part 1

Hurty Speaks. The Little Voice Inside My Foot.


Last week I discovered I have a heel spur. I leaked the news on Facebook and received many snide comments from friends. They suggested, wrongly, that my new appendage was the result of my brief experimentation with vegetarianism.

What these ill-informed carnivores don't understand is that a heel spur is the years-long result of bone calcification exacerbated by undue stress from physical activity. I suspect it might have a little to do with my 25 years of running plus my recent bouts with cardio plyometrics.

That's the explanation given to me by my new expensive foot doctor. But I suspect something greater may be afoot.

It's said that after a certain amount of years on this earth a man begins to accumulate something called wisdom. Until this point, wisdom has eluded me. But perhaps, it is now on the horizon. Or at least ground level with the horizon.

I believe, and mind you I have no evidence to support this, that my bony heel spur is nothing less than my alter ego. It is the incarnation and naturally-calcified outgrowth of my moral and ethical compass. It is my newly found conscience. And I have named it Hurty.

Hurty is eager to speak his mind and was willing to sit down with me.


RS: According to Dr. Gurnick, as heel spurs go you are quite large, meaning you've been around for awhile, why did you decide to make yourself known now?


Hurty: That's a trick question, right? I've been at you for years. Remember that Plantar Fascitis in 2008, just before you ran the LA Marathon. That was me. But you decided to ignore me and foolishly walk it off. Maybe if you spent time less time angsting about the color of your stools and more time listening to your body we wouldn't be having this conversation.


RS: So maybe the P90X and the Insanity programs were not a good idea?


Hurty: It was a great idea. For the Beachbody corporation. Not for you. Did you really think that after shelling out 250 bucks for a bunch of DVDs you were going to get washboard abs? 


RS: But I worked hard and ate all the right foods...


Hurty: You could go on an all spinach diet and do 1000 Burpees a day, you're still not going to get six-pack abs. In fact there hasn't been a Siegel with six-pack abs since...I'm checking the Mormon genealogical database and I'm sorry to say there's never been a Siegel with six-pack abs.


RS: I brought you on the blog today because I thought you'd have some spiritual guidance and life course correction for me. I mean isn't that the job of an alter ego? Instead, you've chosen to berate and ridicule me. What's the deal?


Hurty: What's the deal, Fatty? It's coming up on noon. Time for my feeding. Break out the Vicoden.

Wish I had thought of that

Years ago, when I had disposable income and didn't have children, I thought it would be a good idea to buy land in the high desert, somewhere near Mojave. The prices were right. For $10,000 -- the cost of a Mitt Romney bet -- you could lay claim to 20 acres of unprime, unfertile, unreachable scrub.

I was talked out of this venture by my wife and my uncle who said it was fool's gold.

Today I picked up the Los Angeles times and read how solar energy companies are paying top dollar for the same ugly, unusable acreage I did not buy. Seems they need the land for the exact reasons why nobody in their right mind would own it. It's nowhere near any people. It's hot as hell. And until recently, it was dirt cheap. In other words, it's a perfect place for them to install energy-producing solar panels.

This story about unrealized dreams could end right here.
With a good asskicking to myself.

But it doesn't, because last week a friend posted a trailer for a new movie starring Bill Murray's brother Joel. I had worked with Joel years ago and used him as the voiceover for our El Pollo Loco campaign. His new movie is called God Bless America and it was written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait.

The movie centers arounds a man who discovers he is terminally ill. Angry at his lot in life, he decides to take his vengeance out on those people he deems unfit for oxygen.

Sound familiar? It should as I began this year's with a posting about the exact same thing entitled, People We Need to Kill.

The movie is set for an early April release. And though it is extremely dark and won't be everyone's cup of tea, I do believe it vents a widely held sentiment and will make all those involved a ton of money. My recurring thoughts on this matter and this blog will not.

There's a lesson in all this.

It's about ideas. And taking action on those ideas. And not giving in to doubt or procrastination. I'll get around to spelling out what that lesson is after the Syracuse/Rutgers basketball game which is set to tipoff in two minutes.

Where the elite meet to not eat meat

By the time you start reading this I will be 4 days into my 7 day meatless experiment. That's right I'm going vegetarian (Vegetarian -- a Native American word for lousy hunter).

This is not easy for me as I am, by all accounts, a 'meat and potatoes' kind of man. Actually, since I tried to cut back on carbs, you can keep your potatoes and simply give me more meat.

I live for salmon filets, chicken breasts and a good thick NY steak. That is until last Friday night, when in the middle of a late night edit session, my partner Puja, an Indian woman of the highest caste, suggested I try eliminating meat to help in my ever going battle with excess weight.

This seemed like a good idea. Particularly since I'd been reading interviews with Tony Horton, of P90X fame, who claimed he had to stop being a vegetarian because he had trouble keeping weight on. I should be so afflicted.

How's it going you may ask.

Well, you don't come here to see me spill my guts, at least not in the literal sense, so I'll spare you the gastronomic details. But I will say I do feel lighter. There's extra pep in my step. And I'm even sleeping better.

But being a vegetarian is hard. Not the eating part, that's easy. The shopping part, that's where it gets difficult. And going to a restaurant is even more difficult.

Turkey burger, that's vegetarian, right?

I want to sit next to the Osmonds

I can't speak for African Americans and the charge that they whip out the race card too fast and too easily. I do know that non-African Americans making that accusation have no idea what life is like in the skin of a person of color.

They should therefore shut their pieholes.

The same holds true for those who say Jews claim anti-semitism at the slightest provocation.

We're a little more than 50 years removed from Auschwitz, Dachau, and Buchenwald. I suspect if your tribe of people had survived such horrors you'd be a tad sensitive and trigger happy as well.

It's one of the reasons why I donate to and signed up with the Simon Weisenthal Center. In fact, when I registered with the organization I thought it would be funny to have my name stand out amongst all the Weinbergs, Feldmans and Silversteins, so I made myself the head of a fictional organization:

I can't imagine what the mailman thinks when he brings me the seemingly biweekly pleas for donations.

Recently, it was discovered that the Mormon Church has been posthumously baptizing dead Jews to clear their way into Mormon heaven. Naturally, this has upset the good folks at the Simon Weisenthal Center and many have got their non-magical undies in a bunch.

I would suggest their energy is being misplaced. Years ago, I worked at BBDO and one of our clients, Novell was headquartered in Provo, Utah. That necessitated many trips to The Beehive State. It's also where I met and became friends with my first Mormons. 

I don't understand their ban on caffeine and alcohol. I don't know much about their rituals and beliefs. And I'm sure I don't share their same somewhat narrow world view, but I did learn that Mormons have a special place in their hearts for Jews and indeed hold them in the highest regard. I distinctly remember one of my clients telling me that Mormons think of Jews as their older brothers. 

This always made our trips Provo quite pleasant. After all who wouldn't want to be treated like theologic royalty. Of course, I never let on that I was deeply secular and a card carrying atheist.

It never struck me as anti-semitic. If anything Mormons are pro-semitic.

If they would like to baptize me after I'm gone and say some mumbo jumbo over my name to secure my spot in the Beehive State in the Sky, I'm all for it. After all, on the topic of God and the hereafter, none of us have the answers. I could be totally wrong. And the Mormons could be totally right. So don't let me or the easily-upset folks from the Simon Weisenthal Center stop you. Baptize away. 

The way I see it, it's a good insurance policy. And what right-minded Jew wouldn't want supplemental insurance? Especially when the premiums are FREE.  

My Hot Tub Time Machine

It is two days past Valentine's day and I am in the doghouse because I failed to pay proper tribute to the love of my life -- my jacuzzi.

To add insult to injury I almost let an important anniversary slip by without notice. You see, it was 10 years ago today that I took delivery of the Tiger River Bengal Hot Tub. And my life has not been the same.

If you own a hot tub I don't need to tell you about its magical ability to melt away the minutiae of the day. I don't need to wax poetic about the spinning jets, the powerful foot massager or the available scented Eucalyptus oils that bring out the best of a cool winter night. If you own a hot tub I don't need to explain the reluctance to leave home or the inability to stay at a hotel without one.

If you don't own a hot tub (and one time I counted myself among you) I'm here to tell you, without any hope of securing any swag from the Tiger River company, that you need to buy one.

For years I dreamed  of my own personal spa in the backyard but my wife was not so willing. She claimed it was expensive and that after a while I wouldn't use it. She said she had seen way too many backyards with hot tubs that had fallen into disrepair and had become immovable eyesores. Her arguments held water.

That is until September, 2001. That's when I realized life was short. Too short not to own a hot tub. Thank you Mohammed Atta.

I did my research, shopped around and even built a redwood deck to accommodate my new toy (Another Thing Jews Don't Do.) That was ten years ago. Since then, there is rarely a night that I am not in my birthday suit soaking up the 104 degree water under the starry skies of Culver City.

I know I have a short fuse and can be borderline impatient. But I like to think the nightly ventures to the jacuzzi have calmed my fiery nerves and soothed my inner New Yorker. You might get an argument from my wife on that.

But I think she's happy she relented on this matter and would agree that a supposedly-mellower, if not delusional Rich Siegel with a hot tub, is better than one without.

Slap in the Face Dance

Recently House Republicans brought a bill to the floor that would require states to prohibit welfare recipients from spending their federal benefits in strip clubs, casinos and liquor stores.

I know many of my left-leaning friends have a knee jerk response to any Republican proposal and will reject this out of hand. And listening to the recent rhetoric and extremist social agenda put forth by the presidential candidates, I can understand why.

In many cases it appears Santorum, Romney and Gingrich have not been given the gene for human empathy. Ron Paul is the only candidate that talks the talk about smaller government and then proceeds to walk the walk. Too bad he's just shitbird crazy. And probably anti-semitic.

But here's where those who claim the right is intolerant have reason to take a good long look in the mirror.

You see not every idea that comes from the red state side of the aisle is a bad one. In fact, banning access to federal funds in strips clubs and casinos is a damn fine idea. I can't imagine anybody being against the ban. But if you feel it's wrong to place limitations on how federal aid money is spent I'd certainly love to hear your argument. I'll even start you out:

"I believe recipients of Federal tax dollars have a right to spend their money at Scores or the Spearmint Rhino because..."

Look, I work hard. You probably work hard as well. As I write this, I am in the 13th hour of a shooting day that will likely last until 3 AM, a 15-hour day. This is on top of the 14-hour day I put in yesterday. I'm not complaining. I love my work and consider myself fortunate to have an income.

But I don't feel so damn lucky that I'm willing to subsidize some lazy schmuck who would deny his family food, shelter and clothing so that he can sip on Jim Beam cocktails in the Champagne Room while Tiffany grinds his crotch and slowly extracts a bevy single dollar bills you and I so generously put in his pocket.

If it's Tuesday it must be Malibu

It's Tuesday morning and I'm feeling nostalgic. I'm heading into the office and somehow wishing I weren't. Not that I'm not grateful for the gig, I am. But I remember a time when Tuesday mornings and the office were mutually exclusive.

I was working as Creative Director at Chiat/Day. My partner and I were left alone to run the ABC account the way we saw it. We never had to have the work cleared by a planner. Or an account director. Or even someone higher up on the creative food chain.

We had shoestring budgets, run and gun schedules and complete autonomy. We also had the trust of a client who would produce the work they found funny and kill the work they didn't find funny. It was that simple.

That type of creative freedom was rare, so we took advantage of it.

On Tuesday mornings we would schedule golf outings at the Malibu Country Club. We'd hit the links
at 8 AM and be back in the office after lunch. No one seemed to notice and no one seemed to care.

The foursome included myself, John Shirley, Jerry Gentile and Mark Fenske. Not the best quartet of golfers by any means. (OK, Gentile, as his name would indicate, was pretty good.) But what we lacked in golfing acuity we more than made up for in laughs. By the time the round was over, my shoulders and neck were always aching from the non-stop howling.

Best of all, the design of Malibu Country Club lent itself to our tomfoolery. The course is built into the hills of the Santa Monica mountains. The fairways are lined with desert scrub and thick, high chaparral. Out of bounds is truly out of bounds, with an abundance of scorpions and rattlesnakes. That never stopped Jerry from galloping into the brush and collecting as many lost balls as possible.

And those found balls were put to good use.

The 18th hole at Malibu sits atop a high hill. There is about 300 feet of elevation between the tee box and the green, some 400 yards away. So with the carts parked on the path, we all reached for our drivers. Somebody, I don't remember who, had a USGA non-approved driver made in Korea. The head of the golf club was about 1000 cc's and it looked like a small toaster oven.

And with that we tee'd off. Not aiming for the green. Or even the fairway. Not giving a damn about hooking or slicing. We simply gripped it and ripped it. Taking advantage of our Mt. Olympus-like setting and hitting those rescued balls as hard and as far as we possibly could.

We all looked forward to Fenske's monster swings. Mark stands about 6'3" and at the time weighed in about 250 lbs. A moose of a man, with the strength to match. His form was nowhere near perfect. And he possessed all the athletic grace of a drunken ice fisherman. But damn that boy could smack the dimples off a Titleist.

Once he drove the ball 350 yards, 150 of them were straight.

The ball landed on the green of the 7th hole.
The 7th hole of nearby Sherwood Country Club.

It's Crrrrap.

Seen at a goofy furniture store off La Brea Ave.

In case you can't make it out (because of my poor photographic skills) it's a lamp. But not just any lamp. It's  a $75 chandelier fashioned from some scrap metal, an assortment of safety pins and 38 old toilet paper rolls. That's right toilet paper rolls.

I'm no furniture aficionado. Nor am I particularly fond of abstract pop art. I don't share the unfathomable love of my colleagues for someone like Banksy. Or Skrillex. Or even Rothko. Like this post modern lighting fixture, it leaves me scratching my head.

Not that I fall into the unenlightened masses who at one time collected Thomas Kinkade.

If you were to draw a spectrum, I would probably fall somewhere in between.

Art is to me what pornography was to Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart who famously said, "I know it when I see it." Furniture falls into the same category, I know what I like (this artist for instance) and I know what I don't like.

The toilet paper roll chandelier that conjures up images of dirty bathrooms and the desperate search for fresh tissue, falls into the latter.

Just for fun, I was able to get the store owner to bring the price down to a reasonable price of $55. Then I told him I'd need to think it over and would return to his boutique after I dropped the kids off at the pool.

Muslims Rule

Dogs Rule?

Don't tell that to the residents of The Hague, the third largest city in the Netherlands. There, a local Muslim resident has proposed a law that criminalizes pet ownership and characterizes dog lovers as animal abusers.

You may be inclined to write this off as some crazy Islamist looking to stir things up and get on a soapbox spouting his extreme views and going on about global jihad.

But you'd be wrong.

This was put forth by Hasan Kucuk, a standing councilman at The Hague and an elected official representative of the Islam Democrats, who want to regulate pet ownership so as not to 'offend' Muslims.

I don't need to do a lot of editorializing here, suffice to say this is not an isolated incident.

In Lerida, Spain, the Muslim community demanded that dogs be banned from all forms of public transportation and any areas frequented by Muslims so as not to violate their religious freedom (to the complete exclusion of other people's religious freedoms.) When the city refused, there was a rash of dog poisonings.

I believe Mahatma Gandhi said it best, "the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

As for me, if having and loving a dog is wrong, I don't want to be right.