The Shame Chronicles

I'm not a big Jennifer Coolidge fan. Perhaps because I haven't watched White Lotus. Or perhaps it's because every time I turn on the radio I have to listen to her hawking a credit card. Not even sure which one it is, but I do know they are a client of TBWA Chiat/Day, my beloved alma mater.

So I'll refrain from any criticism. 

Though I will gladly dish out kudos to the clever writer who, while hawking double cash back, sneaked by legal, slid under the nose of the client, and managed to get Jennifer to say, "I'm double dating, double dipping, double header, double whammy..."

There's enough sexual innuendo from Stifler's mom for two commercials.

Speaking of sexual innuendo, I was chatting with some old copywriters, old being 40 years and up. We were talking about the beginnings of our less than prestigious careers as professional word pimps and how we each had the option to foray into the lurid world of pornography.

I remembered the time that I was so desperate to escape Recruitment Advertising that I went for an interview as a Copy Editor at Hustler, in the big green curvy building near Wilshire and La Cienega. 

The money was good but the path, not so much. And as you might expect the inside of the building was distinctively shabby. Dirty carpets, thick clouds of cigarette smoke in the hallways, and employees who looked like they had been up all night fine tuning the Chester the Molester cartoons...

"Can Chester own a petting zoo?"

Thankfully, that went nowhere. That is until at my first real advertising agency job as a junior writer, one of the older staffers pulled me aside in the stat room with a proposal. Mind you, this was the late 80's and the not-so-immaculate conception of porn rentals.

"You've seen these boxes at video stores right? And the two to three paragraphs of copy they put on the back. Well somebody has to write that stuff. That somebody could be you. I'll give you $250 a pop if you're up for it."

That was the pitch. In hindsight, I'm sure he was clearing $500 a box and just farming it out to underpaid yet ambitious junior copywriters. He stopped giving me assignments after my first attempt, when I used the word throbbing three times in one sentence.

But the best tale belongs to one of my friends who was freelancing and had landed a gig at playboy.tv.

According to the brief and because they were being outflanked on the hardcore end of the spectrum, Playboy wanted to let their customers know that their signature soft core airbrushed beauties were now engaging in more "activities."

To accomplish said feat, my talented writer friend (Porn Name: Smoky Mountain) decided to fall back on a time tested advertising technique that still rules above all in the retail world -- The Sunburst. Placed strategically over the Naughty Parts.

To wit, he bravely submitted this and others which I cannot display on this family friendly blog:

He was promptly let go and didn't get paid.