Tuesday, December 22, 2020

A good time was had by all.


Spotted December 18, 2020, a partial mini-reunion of the Team One Creative Department, circa 1995. Perhaps the most talented Creative Department I've ever worked with. 

For those keeping track, and for those too old to read the tiny 6 point type ("Goddamnit, where are my reading glasses? And are we out of of Metamucil again?"), there's (clockwise from upper left):

Jeff Spiegel

John Hage (doing his Jeffrey Toobin impersonation)

Neal Hughlett

Stan Toyama (who defies the space time continuum and refuses to age a day)

Greg Collins (Tennessee, now with 27% more Florida.)

Matt "Popeye Arms" Bogen

Mike Folino (World's Greatest Freelancer)

We don't do these get togethers nearly as often as we should. And when we do they always devolve into juvenile, neck-craning cackling and laughter. You'd swear you were sitting at a junior high school cafeteria with a bunch of dorks who just got high for the first time.

Want proof?

He's the same gang, only a bit larger, seated at a fancy schmancy restaurant in pre-Covid times.


I say fancy schmancy only because that's what a group of women seated next to us were expecting until one of them grabbed the hostess and said...

"Can you move us away from the loud assclowns? They refuse to stop laughing."

And then again from years before that.


Don't be fooled by the menus on the table. We never ate dinner. we drank it. At the sketchy and questionable Mexican restaurant that made the mistake of offering 3 dollar cocktails. This night went on for quite a while. 

Particularly after Stan started doing his impressions of Mr. Chikuma, the Chief Marketing Officer for Lexus automobiles whose command of the English language was limited to 40 words. 

Or less.

The work we did for Lexus at the time was, in the words of Mr. Chikuma...

"No Good!!!"

But the people doing the work and the camaraderie that it produced was, and continues to be...

"So good!!!!"




1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the memories Rich, and indeed what a time it was. On the Mr. Chikuma quote, you forgot the entire phrase; "No Good, Don't Like, Re-do!" And his "folding glasses", and if you were catching him on a good day, his hand down the front of his pants under the belt line where no one wanted to know what the hell was going on. Good times, difficult times, hilarious times. And we all survived and thrived beyond those hallowed days and the greatest, most prodigious group of creatives & Agency team mates I've ever had the pleasure to work with. Miss those days and all of the folks featured in your blog too. Cheers, David Minkin.

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