Working but not working

I'm often accused of being the busiest freelancer in all of Los Angeles.

Whenever headhunters or creative service managers call, I frequently have to decline because I am booked elsewhere.

I enjoy being busy, namely because it puts food on my table and keeps the hungry Accounts Payable folks from the University of Washington off my ass. Putting a kid through college is expensive, fill up those 529 accounts you young parents.

But after 10 months of solid steady work through the bulk of 2014, I decided to take a little "me" time. I didn't do any smiling and dialing. I didn't alert folks of my availability. And I didn't work the network.

Fortunately, the phone cooperated.

Of course I am cursed with an unholy relationship with my computer.

So instead of doing what I should have done, I spent the better part of the last three weeks, waking up early, drinking copious amounts of coffee and clacking away on the keyboard like some harried cub Metro reporter on a midnight deadline.

I should have rewarded myself with some down time. Gone off in the car on a road trip. Played some golf. Or read some books at the beach, where, sorry East Coast friends, it is still balmy and in the high 80's.

I didn't do any of that. Perhaps because there have been three untimely passings from my Chiat/Day family. Three unmistakable reminders that our time here is short. And there are no guarantees. So, I've recommitted myself to write more -- with the hope of getting another book published. Due in large part to the various emails and feedback I get from you.

"I love your blog."

"I wake up and read R17 first thing in the morning."

"You're a sanctimonious self-righteous, self-obsessed pig. Keep up the good work."

The routine is not at all unpleasant.

I shit.
I shower.
I don't shave, my beard is surprisingly white for a 44 year old man and has given me the look of a young Walt Whitman.
I make fast work of my online chess opponents.
And then I rattle off 1000 to 1500 words a day.
About 258 of them are actually usable.

At the end of the day I like to get some exercise in and have been walking from my house to very popular Baldwin Hills Overlook Stairs. I spotted the sign (pictured above) at a vacant storefront off Jefferson. And you know me, I'm a sucker for a good cheap laugh.

From the ridiculous to the sublime, you also can't beat the views from the top of the hill.

I beg to differ

A few weeks ago, I mentioned the three sweetest words a freelancer can ever hear:

"The strategy changed."

Sweet, because if the strategy has changed it means the work is wrong. Not wrong because of anything I or the other creatives have done. Or didn't do. It's simply wrong because the client has changed their mind.

When you're on staff that can be pretty demoralizing. It means starting over. It means all that thinking, all that crappy pizza, all those football games missed because you spent the weekend in the office, was all for naught.

Same goes for a freelancer, but it also means getting paid twice.
And who doesn't like getting paid twice?

Naturally, if you're an agency president or CEO, you'd like clients to stop changing the strategy. But don't count on that happening anytime soon.

Strategies, like everything else in the corporate world, start at the bottom. They're jammed out by junior clients sitting down with junior planners and junior account executives. More often than not these are the same twenty somethings who, five years earlier, were all gathered at the same fraternity parties playing beer pong and doing keg stands.

There's a chance they'll get the strategy right but there's also a chance my hair will grow back or that I will be able to slip into my 32 inch waist dungarees.

While these juniors haven't had much real business world experience, they have learned the cardinal rule for conducting ad agency business in the year 2014:

"Don't be difficult."

No one likes a contrarian. I can speak from experience on that. Confrontation, even of the most constructive sort, has no place in today's conference rooms.

You want to be a boat rocker, a pot stirrer or even a pirate, you get yourself a job in chartered accountancy.

The key, and millions of fast risers on linked in.com can tell you, to maintaining a good client/agency relationship is to know when to say no -- never.

Pushing back and hashing things out until they make sense, well, those are the practices of dinosaurs. Moreover, they lead agencies down a dangerous path that can only lead to one thing, the dreaded Review.

Nope.

Better to nod your head, take copious notes, come back to the agency and tell the creatives exactly what the client wants. Then a week later, do it all over again.

Because the strategy always changes.

The process never does.

Merry Fuckin' Christmas

You Gentiles are crazy.

I wanted the use the word goyim but my wife insists that's not polite. She doesn't care for the title of today's piece either.

You should hear yourselves, particularly last week.

"Christ Almighty they're already starting with the X-mas ads."

"Didn't I just take down the damned Christmas lights?"

"Ho, ho, holy shit I'm not ready for this again "

Those are not verbatim quotes, but I think you'll agree there's a lot of hostility in the crisp early November air. Personally, I find it shocking. If my understanding is correct, Christmas is the most cherished holiday on the Christian calendar.

For the most part all this hostility is self-directed. That is, it's not coming from us, your older Hebraic brothers.

My people have learned how to deal with the obscene annual display of crass commercialism. We've developed our own rituals; skiing, traveling, movie-going and dining at hole in the wall Chinese restaurants, leaving us largely oblivious to your unsavory Savior birthday celebrations.

We've adapted. And if I may speak for the Tribe at large, we find it all so amusing. Particularly how the political correctness movement has given rise to the media-driven War on Christmas.

You see, it's not Jews who are insisting on the use of the more secular Happy Holidays in lieu of the more classic Merry Christmas. You want to put Santa and his red nosed reindeer on the roof of the White House, go for it. And we certainly have no desire to take the Christ out of Christmas.

In fact, we insist you put him back in. Strategically, it's good PR.

Jesus is often referred to as King of the Jews. Where was he born and raised, Bethlehem and Nazareth. Ipso facto, the King and his people lived, breathed and inhabited the land of Israel, a country so many these days are hell-bent on de-legitimizing.

So deck the halls with boughs of holly, whatever the hell that means. Break out the ugly sweaters. Get those antlers on the SUV. Tis the season to be jolly. Put a smile on your face.

It could be worse. Christmas could be a Jewish Holiday.

Think about that. You'd be eating pancakes made of flour and gritty sand to remind you of the wandering Mary and Joseph had to endure to find a suitable place to give birth.

Instead of gifts under a pine tree your ungrateful children would get small gold wrapped coins filled with frankincense and myrrh.

And every year you'd build a manger scene in your backyard. And your family would spend 12 miserable days in the manger. They'd eat bitter herbs (because we love our bitter herbs), sleep on mattresses made of hay and kvetch about the spotty wi-fi off your neighbor's inappropriately named network -- Scotty's House of Chubby Porn.

So cheer up and thank your lucky stars it's not Tu B'Shevat.

Kim Jung Fun Part Five

Lim Chung (far right) has difficult time keeping straight face as Dear Leader explains, “Yes, my refrigerator is running.”

The camera doesn't lie and sometimes the camera catches Kim's henchmen in awkward moments. 

These are the most telling photos and always merit my attention. I love the look on the face of the older man on the extreme right. It is fascinating in so many ways.

Speaking of faces, recently FaceBook has begun automatically tagging the pictures with the names of many of my Asian friends. I want to apologize in advance for that miscue.

I don't think you all look alike, but Facebook does.   

"I like this youtube thingie. Let’s watch this one, ‘Two Girls, One Cup."

Kim Jung Fun Part Four

"Yes, I said a 10 foot high chocolate waterfall in the master bedroom. Do you not see that I am holding the Big Pointy Stick of Instant Gratification?"

One of the odd things about daily jokes about Kim Jung Un (by the way, like Mohammar Quadaffi, there are many ways of spelling Kim's name, I picked this one at the very beginning before news channels selected the alternate Kim Jong Un, so I'm sticking with it) is I never know which ones will be popular and which ones won't.

This particular picture and caption never caught on. 

But, it's always been one of my favorites. 

So I'm posting it again. 
If you still don't like it, well, tough titties.

Here's another I like:

Kim Jung Un wants to conquer the USA, 
not only for our natural resources, but for our precious factories.

Kim Jung Fun Part Three

Guards escort a Kim Jung Un impersonator to prison. Authorities grew suspicious when the man declined dessert, adding, “I’m not hungry.”

This was one of the very early pictures. Believe it or not I'm having a difficult time choosing from the very extensive archives which dates back to April 2013. 

A sad reminder that I need to get out of the house more or take up a hobby.

In preparation for the eventual North American land assault, 

a young North Korean soldier trains on a tank simulator.

Kim Jung Fun Part Two

Taking advantage of the warm natural light at the Pyongyang fishery, Dear Leader eagerly shows off his new peacoat from J. Crew.

Know who else enjoys these Kim Jung Un photos?

My old boss, legendary advertising icon Lee Clow. This is quite flattering as Lee has made a living tossing out good ideas in favor of great ones. 

He's even gone so far as to "favorite" some of my Kim Jung Fun tweets on Twitter. If I could only get him to hit the ReTweet button instead, so that his 8 gazillion followers would see it, I might be able to swing a book deal.

I like to imagine Lee strolling over to his computer, sipping his coffee, clicking on my tumblr page, smiling and thinking to himself…

"Oooo, I wonder what kind of funny stuff Brian has posted today."



Here's another from the archive:

Health Inspector asks Dear Leader to refrain from stuffing crackers in his pocket. And assures him there will be free samples after the tour.

Kim Jung Fun Week

Last month, we hit an all time high in web traffic, more than 11,789 page hits/visits/eyeballs coming to RoundSeventeen.  I can never make sense of of Internet jargon. 

I only know that more people are stopping by. And that faintest hint of validation is all I need.

To celebrate this new benchmark, we're kicking off with another Theme Week. 

As some of you might know, I maintain two blogs. 

RoundSeventeen and Kim Jung Fun. I would promote the Kim Jung Fun blog on social media but Facebook hasn't worked out the html interface thingamajig and every time I try to put up a link it shows up as spam.

This week I've decided to reach into the archives and pull some of my favorite jabs at the child king of North Korea and republish them here for your amusement. 

Sure it would be nice to build up a following for the Kim Jung Fun tumblr blog, but I'm doing this for more selfish reasons. You see I've been working on some other writing projects (more on that at a later date) and it's taking a lot of my time and energy. 

Frankly to maintain my low standards on both would require me to abuse opiates and caffeine. And I'm not about to start abusing caffeine.

Here's one from a long time ago:

North Korea launches missile; lands on other side of North Korea.

The Boondoggle of all Boondoggles -- Homestore Part 6

It appears my 5 part series on Homestore has turned into a 6-parter. I apologize.

Having traversed the country and shot all the various homes, we still needed one more crazy house to complete the series. The research was exhaustive. My partner, John Shirley, vowed that we would finish this project in style and combed the Internet for outrageous homes in Hawaii.

My dogged persistence must have rubbed off on him. Because he found us our last house.


September 19, 1999 -- Waipio Valley, Hawaii

After a silky smooth direct flight to the Big Island, we board a van, pinch ourselves and head to our hotel, the swanky Mauna Kea. I've been to Kauai, Maui and Oahu many times. We love it. But there is nothing quite as amazing as being in an expensive Hawaiian resort on the company dime.

Somebody (Chiat/Day and Homestore) was paying me to be here for a week!

"Yeah, hello Room Service, I'd like a pitcher of the papaya juice."

"The small one or the big one?"

"The $48 one."

"Excellent sir, and how many glasses will you need? 4? 6?"

"Oh no, just the one."

The following morning, we drive to the other side of the island, exit the van and enter a monster 4x4 truck, the only vehicle powerful enough to make the treacherous descent down the narrow mountain road into the Waipio Valley.

Crossing taro patches and knee-high streams we criss cross 6 miles into the rainforest where we meet Linda Beech, a 73 year old former TV actress who owns the Waipio Valley Tree House.

Along the path of this incredible journey we had met many characters, one crazier than the next. But Linda was crazy interesting. She had a PhD. in Philosophy, had travelled the world extensively, was a regular actress in a Japanese sitcom and exhibited the kind of fortitude you just don't expect from a septuagenarian.

I could not possibly do Linda Beech, the 1900-foot waterfall in the backyard or the entire experience, any justice.

But this snippet might.


Epilogue 1

Months after completing the film, we find ourselves in Park City, UT for the Sundance Film Festival. Hollywood assholes are crawling the streets, making deals and shmoozing. We, on the other hand, the Chiat/Day crew have the slopes to ourselves and are living the good life. The movie premieres to excellent reviews and the grateful Homestore client reciprocates by staging a private party at one of Park City's most exclusive restaurants.

It is here that we -- a team of less than a dozen -- drink more than $2000 worth of Cabernet Sauvignon.


Epilogue 2

While the film makes its way through art house theaters across the country, the commercials remain unseen. There is no money in the budget for media, we are told. And now it becomes painfully clear why. As mentioned at the very beginning of this series, Stuart and his gaggle of unethical Yes Men, have been syphoning money away from the company and into their very own personal bank accounts.

And what money there is, turns out to be ill-gotten.

Once again, the Fickle Finger of Fate has intervened and dropped a turd in my career punchbowl. The commercials, which were years in the making, were only seen in a few test markets. And never given the exposure they deserved. You can see most of them online or in my portfolio if you're so inclined.

But the truth is we got so much more than a few clever TV spots for our reel.

We witnessed the Shakespearean rise and fall of a company and its pigheaded founder, who is due to be released from Federal prison some time in 2015.

We had the opportunity to travel across the country, meet fascinating people and make a film that merited two thumbs up from Roger Ebert and The Other Guy.

And we came away with a story, of an adventure few in advertising can rival.

I'd give anything to do it all over again.

"We're not in Kansas anymore." "Thank God." -- Homestore Part Five

August 15, 1999 -- Topeka, Kansas

The Atlas E 65 Series was the first ICBM developed and deployed in the United States. Built at the height of the Cold War, the Atlas was 100 times more powerful than the atomic bomb exploded over Nagasaki. During the 1960's the Atlas missiles, launched by satellite relay, were hidden underground in silos scattered throughout the heartland of America.

After the Cold war, the missiles were decommissioned and the sites were auctioned off to adventurous homeowners.

Including Ed and Diane Peden, who turned an abandoned 7 story underground silo into their home.

The Missile Home was our fourth installment for Home Movie; the previous three have been discussed earlier this week.

As a fan of history and someone who has taken great interest in the conflicts of the 19th century, I was extremely excited about visiting this now-vacated missile silo. It was odd to think that at one time several high ranking Soviet officers had targeted this are for destruction in a possible pre-emptive first strike.

Had the Russians visited the place they would scrapped those plans and said to hell with them, anyone who wants to live in Topeka has already been damned by the devil.

And by that, I mean it was HOT.

I grew up in Upstate New York and knew of all kinds of heat and humidity. But Topeka, Kansas, in the middle of summer, on a windy day, was something unto its own. This was God's own convection pizza oven.

Frankly, I expected the surrounding fields of wheat to burst into spontaneous combustion.

The only relief was to get out of the searing wind. And the only way to do that was to get in the elevator with our host, Mr. Peden and go underground.

Here, he and his wife, spent thousands of dollars and thousands of man hours tearing out the ancient analog computers and military paraphernalia and replacing them with wicker furniture and LaZ-Boy recliners.

Surreal doesn't even begin to describe the experience. Feeling like you were buried alive is a much more accurate description. It was claustrophobic. It was dark. And it was dank.

I've come to understand the word dank has been appropriated by stoners and hipsters and has come to mean something of unusually high quality. But I am using the word dank in its original form, meaning clammy, unaired and musty.

As if that were not unpleasant enough, our hosts, who were very sweet Midwesterners, insisted we stay for one of the rituals they conducted every week in the basement (an odd term to use considering the whole house was a basement) -- The Eastern Kansas Peace Drum Circle.

I'm going to assume you know enough about me to ascertain my disposition towards drum circles.

And so it went.

Above ground, 130 degrees of whipping wind and scorching sun. Below ground, a modern day catacomb accompanied by the endless pounding of rhythm-less white people on bongo drums. Two sides of the coin otherwise known as Hell.

Side note: Topeka, Kansas is the home of the late Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church Fame. Is it any wonder why that man was so damn angry?


Coming up tomorrow, the dream of every copywriter and art director who have ever worked in advertising -- OPEN ON A TROPICAL ISLE IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC.

The Whirlwindy City -- Homestore Part Four

    

                
                                (homestore toilet paper…er, stock certificate)

Before we continue the fourth installment of the Home Movie travelogue, it should be noted that back at homestore.com headquarters the slimy executives were positively exuberant.

You see they had put out on IPO on homestore stock which opened at $21 dollars a share. In the following weeks, the price doubled, tripled and quadrupled. In fact, at its height the price went up to $140 a share, about seven times the original price.

We were to find out, later, that this was not because Stewart Wolff and his crack team of entrepreneurs were acute businessmen. Or even just damn lucky.

Turns out they were cooking the books.
"Homerunning", I believe is the appropriate white collar term.

Every deal, every barter, every transaction that involved homestore was recorded as revenue or income. They did this to fool the venture capital people to keep funding their house of cards. Consequently, this pumped up the stock price.

When rumors that the SEC was poking around, there was a huge company gathering at the Thousand Oaks Auditorium, where the faithful were assuaged by the WolffMan himself.

"Everything is good. We're profitable. And we're confident. Hold onto your company stock. Hell, buy more. We're going to be bigger than MicroSoft."

That's hard to do from the inside of 8 foot by 10 foot jail cell.

May 21, 1999 -- Palos Hills, IL

We arrive in Chicago about 7PM and check in to our hotel off Michigan Ave. It's my first time in the Windy City but I almost didn't see it. We were at a Westin and I had been upgraded to a junior suite on the 42nd floor.

Keep in mind this was a long time ago, when ad agencies recognized business travel for the sacrifice it was. And in return for giving up free time with friends and family, treated employees more like human beings and less like indentured servants.

It was there I encountered the Heavenly Bed™, Westin's branded bed, that quite frankly cannot be topped. I put my bags down and while admiring the floor-to-ceiling view of the lake, fell asleep and almost didn't make the trip with the production crew for a night on the town. And way too much deep dish pizza.

The following day, we load up the vans and head to Palos Hills, where we meet Ben Skora. Like Wild Bill, he marches to the beat of his own drummer. This, as Director Chris Smith often told us, is more important, much more important, than the house themselves.

Ben's house, which was all electric and featured Star Trek like doors, robotic mannequins and a potted plant that could turn into a potty, were all run of the mill gadgetry. To be honest, the craftsmanship was on the shabby side and his taste in furniture was less 1999 and more 1979.

Ben introduced us to Arok, a hand built life size robot. And we met his "friend" Darlene, an aspiring actress who was convinced that with the right headshot and one good break she could be the next Julia Roberts.

Sadly, her appearance in Home Movie was not that epiphany.

The highlight of the day happened at lunch time. While enjoying authentic Mexican-ish style fajitas in the backyard, Ben told us of the time when he and Arok were invited to judge the Miss Nude World Contest in Las Vegas.

He was itching to show us the pictures and went inside the house and came back with no less than 8 photo albums detailing the debauchery that took place at the old Riviera Hotel on the Vegas Strip.

I spent the remainder of the day poring over those photos. Through the magic of Polaroid I saw men in bell bottoms. I saw women who had never heard of the French or Brazilian wax. And I witnessed firsthand many of the astonishing things Miss Kentucky could do with balloon animals.


Coming up tomorrow -- the birthplace of the Westboro Baptist Church and an all expense paid trip to the swanky Mauna Kea.

On the Bayou -- Homestore Part Three

(Today's posting is dedicated to Rick Shambaugh, who left us way too suddenly last night. Rick was an editor at Chiat/Day and assisted on the homestore.com commercials. As well as countless others. He made us all look better than we were. His tireless work ethic was only surpassed by his easy, gentle nature. He will be missed.)

April 16, 1999 -- Lac De Allemands, LA

Last night, we arrived in New Orleans to film the second installment of Home Movie. Today we are heading south and west to the deep Bayou to meet Wild Bill Tregle, who lives on a custom built house boat in the middle of German Lake (Lac de Allemands).

I have only known two Wild Bills in my life. And have found that if you insist people address you by the name Wild Bill you'd had better live up to the moniker.

Louisiana Wild Bill certainly did.

I should also mention that as I write this I am listening to the haunting title sequence from True Detective. I can think of no other music that better sets the stage for our adventure in this massive swamp the Mississippi built.

WB is larger than life.

Of course we knew that from the research tape we had seen months earlier. During that interview atop his ramshackle home/boat, Bill was answering questions and eating fried chicken -- he ate a lot of fried chicken. To punctuate one of his pithy, homegrown retorts he casually flung the half eaten drumstick over his shoulder and into the murky waters where it was snapped up by a waiting alligator.

That's when we knew we had to have WB for our film.

Bill doesn't live exclusively on the houseboat. He spends considerable time at his sister's house along the shore. It's here that we set up base camp for the three days of filming. And it's here Bill shows us how he earns his keep -- hunting alligators and selling the heads to alligator-head needing tourists.

In the killing shed there were thousands of these alligator melons and they gave off a miserable odor that was one part formaldehyde and one part Clorox bleach.

Bill explained how he and his buddy would get out on the lake in the early morning hours, snag an unwitting gator in a rope snare, and drag the poor bastard close to the stainless steel low-slung boat. Then Bill would take out his trusty 44 and blast a hole in the gator's skull, right between the eyes.

Later, they would patch up the hole with spackling compound and paint it dark green. And replace the eyes with black marbles.

Barry Bumpkin and Tina Tourist from Akron, Ohio would never be the wiser.

Next to the shed, was Zam's Restaurant and Curios Emporium.

I spent hours going through this fascinating collection of oddities curated from the deepest corners of Creole Country. I almost purchased some incredibly insensitive memorabilia that I found interesting simply because it was so politically incorrect.

But following a phone call with my wife, decided against it, when she rightly said, "You're not bringing n*gg*r toothpaste or any of that Southern racist shit into the house." In retrospect it's just as offensive as people who collect swastikas and various Nazi memorabilia.

When lunchtime came, we were directed towards the restaurant, where we would be eating with the snaggle-toothed locals. It's probably wrong, and maybe lazy, of me to use a cliche like snaggle-toothed, but no other words seem to pack as much pungent truth.

We entered through the rear of the restaurant and mistakenly got a first hand look at the kitchen where our food was being prepared. There wasn't a hair net in sight. And the chefs, er…cooks, were all smoking cigarettes and drinking beer.

I happened to glance at the fryer and the hot black oil looked as if it had been drained directly from the underbelly of a 67 Chevy Impala -- the one on cinder blocks covered in Spanish moss under the cypress tree.

But damn, if that wasn't the best tasting fried chicken I ever had in my life. I was so pleasantly surprised, I ventured beyond my comfort zone and sampled the alligator. Which, not surprisingly, tasted like chicken. Really good Louisiana fried chicken.

Sadly, Bill passed away last year. I wish I had the chance to meet him again. He was a one-in-a-million character.

While digging around the internet, I found Wild Bill appeared in some print advertising for Southern Comfort. It was classic gallows humor with the kind of acerbic headline I wish I had written.

Coming up tomorrow, a trip to Chicago and an interview with one of the judges from the Miss World Nude Contest.

Welcome to the Cathouse -- Homestore Part Two

In 1998, Chiat/Day was running on all cylinders.

The prior year, we were named Agency of the Year. We were winning awards on all our accounts: Taco Bell, Apple, Playstation, Levis and ABC. The economy was booming and dotcoms were handing us their business without reviews.

Including homestore.com -- a real estate listing website.

Rumor had it they had a $100 million budget. And we were told the CEO, a karate-chopping engineer-turned-entrepreneur, was going to be the next Bill Gates.

Who told us? He did.

To say CEO Stuart Wolff (Federal Penitentiary Prisoner #41978, more on that later) was full of himself would be an understatement akin to calling the Titanic a boat, or the Hindenburg a big balloon.

Of course when somebody holds out a carrot as big as Stuart's you learn to shut up, grin and start planning the boondoggles.

After a few rounds of strategically-correct, but uninspired work, we presented a campaign that appealed to Stuart's oversized ego. The idea was to film unique people living in unique houses. The commercials would all be shot documentary style and were tied to the line:

There's a dream home for everyone. What's yours?

To his credit, Stuart saw the effort as having great potential. So much so that he reasoned, "before we shoot the spots, let's figure out how to make commercials people will pay to see."

Great, I thought, I have two toddlers at home trying to figure out how to use a toilet and this bozo wants us to figure out how to change the entire interruptive advertising paradigm.

And so the storyboards sat on the shelf.

Unproduced for many, many months.

And in those many, many months, we (John Shirley and I) came to blows with the new upper management at Chiat who had abandoned the old credo of fighting for good work and were more interested in fighting for good revenue.

The acrimony was palpable.
And it became our undoing.
But through sheer determination and a pit bull unwillingness to give in to those without a creative bone in their body, we prevailed.

In a bit of creative ju-jitsu, we wouldn't shoot 6 TV commercials. We would shoot a feature film, a documentary from which 6 commercials would be extracted. Stuart loved the plan. No one had ever done something like that before and more importantly, he saw the venture as a way to get his picture on the cover of Forbes Magazine.

Let's go shoot a movie.

February 28, 1999 -- San Diego, CA

We arrive at the home of Bob Walker and Frances Mooney.

The couple have no children, but are precociously proud "parents" of 41 cats. Although it felt like there were 141.

The house has been built and customized for the cats. Everywhere you looked there were scratching posts, catwalks and litter boxes. There also these red balls filled with catnip strewn about the home which was less of a home and more of a pastel-painted funhouse.

I don't know what catnip is or does -- and frankly I don't want to -- I only know that the air inside the house is so thick with dander, cat hair and tchotschkes that I can't breath and must retire to the driveway for oxygen.

An infelicitous start to our film.

Frances shows us how she "talks" to the cats. And Bob shows us some of the new cat furniture he is building in the garage. His enthusiasm is both fascinating and unnatural. It is at this point, that I decide there's only one thing I like less than cats, Cat People.


Coming up: our inauspicious shoot in San Diego is followed by a raucous trip to New Orleans.

Let's make a movie -- Homestore Part One

I've been thinking about obituaries lately.

Perhaps because we just said our goodbyes to my mother-in-law. And perhaps because I'm scheduled to go to a memorial for a colleague who tragically passed in a car accident a few months ago.

I knew her casually and had the pleasure of working with her on the ABC campaign, years ago. She worked on the voluminous ads done to promote individual shows and evenings. I'm hoping the one I've yanked from the files was hers.

And if it wasn't, it is now.

What I will say about Sheri, and I'm sure this will be mentioned at the service, is she had a great laugh. An infectious laugh. A glowing infectious laugh that continues to echo. If she was in the room or anywhere in the vicinity, you can be sure someone was going to try and say something that would make her laugh. It was that sweet.

Not a bad memory to leave behind.

And so, as any self-respecting narcissist would, I started thinking about my obituary. Even though I'm only 44 and not planning to go anywhere soon.

A few weeks ago, a young copywriter, who is quiet by nature, came up to me at the coffee machine.

"Hey, you're the guy that did that ABC campaign, right? We loved that stuff. Our professors at ad school used to bring that up all the time."

Which roughly translates to:

"…And now you're here writing crappy dealer retail ads, man what happened to you? You big fucking loser!"

Well, I don't want my professional legacy to be a campaign that was, on one hand incredibly good to me, but on the other was too simple, too easy, and frankly, too one dimensional.

As my friend George often points out, for work to have worth it must have a degree of difficulty. It requires sweat, persistence and a vision that remains untainted by the inhabitants of the Nincompoop Forest.

For me, and my partner John Shirley, that was our work for Homestore.com and the production of the documentary, Home Movie.

A Sisyphean effort if there ever was one.

For years the Director of the film, Chris Smith, would tell me that I needed to write a book about the Homestore story. It was so indicative of the dotcom bust and had all the elements of a great novel, including the tale of the CEO who is now serving time in a Federal Penitentiary for embezzling millions of dollars.

I'm not sure how many of you know the sweet pleasure of seeing a former douchebag client wearing an orange jumpsuit and doing the perp walk, but I do.

The truth is, I would love to write that book. The other truth is I don't have the notes, the facts or the memories of everything that transpired to do it any justice.

But I do have enough for a 5-Day Series, a travelogue if you will, of the journey that took us from the crooked corporate headquarters in Thousand Oaks to a rustic treehouse nestled in the rainforest of the Waipeo Valley to the tony town of Park City, Utah where we celebrated the wrap of the film as only abused ad agency people with an unlimited budget could…

"Waiter, can you please bring us a ninth bottle of that $200 Opus One. Oh hell, make it an even 10."

Coming up tomorrow, our first stop on a cross country tour -- a cathouse in San Diego.

I don't like Fridays.

I hadn't planned on writing a post today; normally I take Fridays off.

However, I received a special request from my friend Mike Folino, who for some unknown reason believed some R17 digital ink written for my loyal 8 readers would garner attention for a project he just finished.

I'm always happy to help a friend, despite my well-honed online persona as a grumpy miscreant. And so I encourage you to visit this website and help spread the word about these touching films. They're about 15 minutes each and they might change the way you look at the world.

Now before you start dashing off an email asking me to promote your sister-in-law's Pickles and Blintzes Deli or your new mobile app that reloads parking meters via your smartphone, you should know this about Mike Folino.

He is a former colleague of mine from Team One Advertising.

Like almost every other writer or art director that worked there, he has gone on to great success as a Chief Creative Officer or Executive Creative Director.

That distinguished list includes: Angelo, Schwartz, Levit, Monteiro, Crandall, Silver, Mazza, Hage, Kadin, Spiegel, Toyama, hell, even the guy who used to push the damn mail cart around became a CCO.

I am such a fucking loser.

The point is, Mike can do something for me.

He is extremely well connected. He produces great work, at a high level (these films and his spots for Visa come to mind) and there is the remote possibility he could throw me a bone in the future, you know should my stellar career writing banner ads for local mattress stores come to a grinding halt.

So please don't bombard me with requests.

I'm looking at you, ColonelLingus2013@hotmail.com.

Confessions of a Mercenary

I spent the majority of my career in advertising as a staff guy. Or as I often say, a chump.

When I was on the company payroll, I never cared for those carefree freelancers who would arrive at the last minute after all the legwork had been done and 16 rounds of work had been killed.

And it didn't help that they'd stroll into the office with their come-in-at-11 attitude. Or their I'm-shoving-out-at-4-and-there's-nothing-you-can-do-about-it end of day demeanor.

Who were these "happy" creatives and what business did they have with our business? I often thought.

You can chalk it up to being young, insecure and overly ambitious, but we staffers also regarded the hiring of freelancers as a not-so-subtle signal from upper management. They had lost confidence in our ability to come up with a creative solve and needed the high-priced professional gunslingers to come in and clean up our mess.

Or so, we thought.

But now I'm 44 and have been playing for the other team for more than 10 years. I have a whole other perspective on the matter. In fact, and I say this with no self-serving agenda whatsoever, I believe freelancers will be the ones who save our industry.

Here's why.

Freelancers are cheaper than staffers. They can telecommute. They require no real estate footprint. They demand no benefits. Think how much money is wasted on the false camaraderie of employee picnics, birthday cakes, and Secret Santas. This country would be back in the black if businesses, large and small, didn't have to reach into their pocket and shell out billions of dollars for supermarket cupcakes and bi-annual employee dental cleanings.

They're also cheaper because you only pay them when there is work to be done. These days that work can be sporadic. Clients are moving away from the AOR model and doing more project work. And that project work is often doled out as a "jump ball." Pitting one holding company agency against a sister agency.

It goes without saying if you find yourself in a jump ball situation, you want to deploy the "tallest, most athletic" creative team money can buy. Tall and athletic being a metaphor for bald and stocky, of course.

Also, freelancers are easier. There's no drama. No trauma. And no "Why do I always get the shitty assignments? Why don't you give this pharma project to Bill and Kathy, they're the ones that dropped the meat in the dirt on that new business pitch?"

Freelancers are happy to work on any project. From a mammoth Super Bowl spot to the continued evolution of the Crestor guy.

"The client wants Crestor Guy to be more three dimensional. With a more urgent call to action. Maybe even have him do some live tweeting." 

"Pffft, no problem," said the eager freelancer.

And finally there's this. Freelancers are more efficient.

You hand the brief to a freelance team, hold a gun up to their head and say you need to see something in a day and 24 hours later that freelance team will have a packet or a pdf of fresh new ideas. That's just the way it works.

Wham, bam, thank you Omnicom.

Then, on Friday afternoon, when the account team comes back from the presentation and announces all the work has died, the freelancers will be right there to pick up the slack. Ready to fire up the meter, work the weekend and charge double overtime. There's no pouting. Or grousing. Or venting via the comment section on AgencySpy.

Because to a freelancer there's only one phrase sweeter than "the strategy has changed."

"The check has cleared."

Dropping the hammer.

This is the living room of my house.

Some of you have been here, most of you have not.

The couch needs replacing, thanks to the abundant sunlight and the new sleeping habits of my dog. In the past we never let Nellie up on the furniture, but she's old now and probably on her last days, so we bit the bullet and acceded to her comfort.

We could probably use some new chairs and the hardwood floors need to be resurfaced. Those things can wait.

What couldn't wait was my new Dropcam.

As you can see from the watermark in the lower right hand corner, I now have 24/7/365 video surveillance of the inside of my house. To a control freak, like myself, this is Nirvana. You know, as much as nirvana can coincide with being in Culver City.

I'm sure you've heard of Dropcam, they are kind of relentless with the banner ads. They're made by the same company that revolutionized thermostats, Nest, which you can spot on the wall by the staircase.

The camera itself is tiny and unobtrusive. It has a very Apple-like aesthetic to it. It delivers an incredible 110 degree wide HD image. With astonishing digital zooming.

But unlike the video cameras I have mounted on the outside of my house which feed into a DVR hidden in the closet, the Dropcam sends all its data to the cloud.

In the event a burglar broke in and spotted the camera there is no way he could do anything about being caught on film. It's so delicious in its design I'm almost hoping someone tries to break in my house.

In fact, I've started to leave the windows open and all the doors unlocked. And I've left some shopping bags from Tiffany and Cartier out by the garbage cans.

Is the Dropcam without its faults?

Not exactly. You see my wife is not thrilled that I've turned our home into a Gestapo-style "police state." And questions my sanity with regards to security, among other things.

Which means a conciliatory move is in order. Which means a trip to the furniture store for a new couch will probably be sooner than later.

Not a loaner, it's a loser

I'm driving a loaner car these days.

My 2007 Lexus had to go in for a lengthy service.

"The manifold gaskets' shot and we have to replace the upper knuckle joints and recalibrate the flick-flacks. The estimate says $600, but you and I both know it's more likely to be $1600."

At that point I was whisked off to the luxurious comfort of the customer lounge. A misnomer if there ever one. Car dealerships, even those in Beverly Hills, are my least favorite place to be.

I had been given loaner cars before. This time I was careful not to get stuck in an RX 350, the official Mom Mobile of West Los Angeles. Nor did I want the clunky CT 200. Last time I got one it had been driven by a hipster fond of smoking clove cigarettes in the car.

Moreover, I'm not a fan of hybrids.

For a week I found myself asking my wife, "is the car on or off?"

Maybe I should have spent more time listening in science class, but I still don't understand how electric cars are better for the planet than those that run on fossil fuels.

Charging a hybrid requires electricity and most of our electricity comes from burning coal. By the transitive law of conspicuous consumption haven't we just swapped one poison for another?

So before they stuck me in a car I didn't want to be stuck in, I specifically requested an IS 250. I like the look and feel of the IS. Plus it has shifting paddles on the steering wheel. I haven't mastered the paddles by any means, but it's all about the illusion of driving a sports car and not letting on about my advanced age of 44.

Fortunately, they had one available. A good one. With low miles and no hint of second hand clove. Of course, as I have often documented on this blog, not all goes as planned. This is another one for the Shit-That-Only-Happens-To-Me File.

If you look at the above picture, you'll see the car has a vanity license plate. I'm not a vanity license plate guy.

And certainly not a fan of this one.

I've been driving this for three days now, blissfully unaware that while I've been smiling at pretty women stopped at red lights, I've been piloting the automotive equivalent of the world's most embarrassing T-shirt…

Creativity is not dead.

I probably don't do enough of this here at RoundSeventeen, after all I am a hired gun and should grease the skids and kiss a little ass more often, but today I am going to sing the praises of a new TV campaign.

Namely, three commercials for Tomcat Mouse Repellant.

Generally speaking, the bar for creativity for products designed to kill pests and vermin is admittedly low. Years ago, we pitched and won the Ortho Bug B Gon account for BBDO. The roach and flea and ant jokes just wrote themselves.

Nevertheless, this effort from Barton Graf 9000, the most oddly named ad agency in America, is worthy of our attention.

In very meta terms, it is absurdist theater turned into absurdist theater.

The production value is purposefully low. The USP (unique selling propositions, for you laymen) are forcefully delivered upfront. And the writing is simply inspired.

In other words, it goes about its business the way 99% of ad agencies don't go about theirs.

I can count on one hand the number of bosses that would have let this kind of work out the door. And frankly can't think of a single CEO who would've given it the green light.

"It's cheesy"

"It's silly."

"All the characters are dead."

Yes. Yes. And yes.

You can find these little gems on YouTube. For your convenience, I've embedded my favorite.

Why, you may ask, is this my favorite?

It's simple really. In this weird scenario, you have one dead mouse swinging a pointy mace and killing another mouse, who it should be noted, is already dead.

If that's not Cannes Gold, I don't know what is.

The Lost Art of Underthinking

I was in a meeting about a month ago. Actually, it does me no good to pinpoint the date of this meeting because I was in the same meeting 2 months ago. Two years ago. 5 years ago. And 10 years ago.

You know the kind of meeting.

A dozen of the agency's top minds gathered to share their opinions, ply their office politics and grandstand on a do-little, utterly-disposable, completely-mindless piece of crap communication that will cost $581,327 in research, labor and man hours to produce. And return $27 in actual revenue.

I'm no Nobel-Prize winning economist Milton Friedman -- we had the Friedmans over for Pesach once and Roy Friedman drank all the Slivovitz and started dancing with the drapes -- but the numbers simply don't jive.

Is it any wonder why ad agencies can't make any money these days and demand employees put in 80 hour weeks while chained to the SuperDesk™.

The simplest down-and-dirty, get-it-out-the-door project has become a mental clusterfuck that makes the current Sunni/Shia/ISIS/Yazedi crises look like child's play.

And media fragmentation has only exacerbated the situation.

It may take a village to raise a child but it takes a battalion to put together a banner ad. A small army to  spit out an FSI. And a full-blown coalition to concept a simple TV spot.

Not since the last congressional caucus have I seen so many people accomplishing so little.

And yet the good folks in HR are still hiring more.

We don't need more.
We need less.

In fact we need less of everything.
Less people in the room.
Less input.
Less data.
Less client feedback.
Less testing.
Less tweaking.
Less pages in the deck.
Less Powerpoints.
Less layers.
Less top management.
Less circle backs, deep dives and base touching.
Less Devil advocates.

We need to do more with our gut.
Less with our brain.

And on that note.