Arms on Fire

I love my job.

I love being able to say I love my job because I know there are very few people in the world who can.

Make no mistake, it has taken me a long time to reach this point in my career. But currently I make a decent living. I work in a great office in Santa Monica. There's an indoor pool in the building where I can swim at lunchtime. There's no politicking in the office. And most importantly, I work with a bunch of folks I've known and respected for a very long time.

And we laugh. A lot.

We also pull pranks on each other. In fact, if one of them reads this, I know it will be turned against me in some mean, but harmless, way. I'm OK with that because I relish the justification for a payback.

Of course having a job I love reminds me of the jobs I didn't love.
And here comes the explanation for the photo.

In between summers of my sophomore and junior years of college I started working in the kitchen at Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, NY. I could have put my restaurant experience to use and worked at one of the local eateries but because the hospital was run by the Catholic church and because the unions had some say in the working conditions, Good Sam was paying a dollar more an hour than the minimum wage. At $3.62/hour, I thought I had hit the jackpot.

I didn't.

The first day I showed up, I was given a locker, free use of all the hospital scrubs and a set of arm's length rubber gloves (not unlike the ones in the picture). Then I was told how the kitchen crew rotates responsibilities on a weekly basis. One week I'd be cooking. One week I'd be prepping. One week I'd be doing tray pass. But this week, I'd be scrubbing pots.

I was led to a an industrial sized sink. It was split in two. On the left side of the sink, the pots would soak in sudsy, very hot water. The right side of the sink was for the rinse water. But not just any rinse water. There was a heating element at the bottom of this sink, which was about 1/2 the size of a bathtub. The heating element was to be turned on at all times. And the water on the rinse side had to maintained at a scorching 190 degrees.

Moreover, one of the nuns would come around once an hour to enforce the rigid sanitation standards.

If you hadn't guessed, 190 degrees Fahrenheit is hot. Even through 1/4" thick vulcanized rubber gloves. I was soon to discover how hot, when one of the cooks started yelling for a sauté pan.

There were no clean pans on the rack. And the yelling got louder. There was a sauté pan sitting at the very bottom of the rinse sink but it was not within reach. And the yelling got even louder. So I did what any conscientious young college student would do, I gingerly reached down to snag the pan resting on the heating element. But the impatient cook did not stop yelling.

I was soon to join him in the yelling when my stubby short arms failed me and I leaned over even further into the cauldron of sterile pots. The scolding hot water crested the lip of the rubber gloves and ran down the length of my arms, stinging me from my pits to my fingertips.

What did it feel like? Like Cai Guo-Qiang's Borrowing Your Enemy's Arrows.

Suffice to say, it was good thing I was working in a hospital.

Is it 4:20 Already?

You might recognize this illustration. It's from the Kama Sutra Indian Sex Guide. As I have noted before, when I tease postings with racy pictures like this, my web traffic goes through the roof. (You can learn a lot from the NY Post.)

Of course I never do it gratuitously. And today is no exception.

A couple of weeks ago I chronicled my journey to "Dr." Catipay's office in West Los Angeles so I could obtain a card and legally purchase "alternative" "herbal" "medication." As someone with a lot of free time on my hand and an unusual sense of curiosity I decided to do some further investigation into "Dr." Catipay's background.

Turns out there's a good reason, actually several good reasons, why this man of medicine is now holed up in a former dry cleaning store on Pico Blvd.

In addition to posting the aforementioned Kama Sutra on the hospital bulletin board, he also posted an article about a man who killed his wife. Editorially adding, "This happens when wives talk too much. They never learn, they never stop. Why?"

I can understand management's displeasure with the former, but I'm a bit unclear on the latter.

Indiscretions like these might have sent "Dr." Catipay scurrying from the medical field into an alternative late-life career that required little or no skills. He could have become a copywriter or a Congressman. But the libidinous "Dr." was not about to go down without a fight.

He fortuitously combined his less than extensive knowledge of the human anatomy with California's growing liberalization of "herbal" "medication" and is now one of the busiest "doctors" on the westside.

You may have noticed my extensive use of quotation marks throughout this posting. Whenever I talk about this topic, particularly now that it is being seen through the filter of legitimate "medicine", I find myself laughing and needing to qualify every remark.

I also realize that I owe you (at least the faithful readers) a follow up story on my subsequent trip to the "pharmacy" otherwise known as a dispensary. Where, under the knowledgeable guidance of a tattooed "pharmacist" with yard-long dreadlocks, I filled my "prescription". Two grams of with something called ATF -- Alaska Thunder Funk.

I've been meaning to write up that story but keep forgetting to do it.
The "medicine" must be working.

The Motown Blues

You've probably seen this line before.

Clint Eastwood breathed life into it at this year's Super Bowl, in a Chrysler commercial that made all the headlines. And the folks at Wieden/Kennedy, the ad agency for Chrysler, have been pimping it for more than a year now. What you don't know is that now famous tagline, which is being merchandised on T-shirts, coffee mugs, backpacks, etc., almost belonged to Chevrolet, not Chrysler.

Wait. What?

The year was 2009. My art director partner, Laura Sweet (a wonderful ex-CD who blogs here and is available for freelance) and I were doing work for Publicis in Seattle. They were in the process of courting Chevrolet and pulling the account away from Campbell Ewald.

The effort was all hands on deck. And for a $600 million account one can understand why. There were weekends, late nights and fast, fast turnarounds. But Laura and I were all too willing to ride the freelance gravy train. Those were heady, well-paid days. And Publicis reaped the rewards. They won the account and celebrated accordingly. (Sadly, the victory didn't last long as months later, the account was yanked and handed to GS&P, but that's a different story.)

At one point in the transition, Laura and I were asked to do a tagline exploration. The goal was to rebrand Chevrolet and give people a reason to believe in American-built cars were as good as the ones being exported from Germany and Japan.

Well, you guessed it, one of the lines we submitted was: Chevrolet. Imported from Detroit.

For reasons that elude me, the Creative Director rejected the line. I don't hold it against him. When you look at 1000 possible tag lines they often blur together and become meaningless. Maybe he thought the line was a bit of an overpromise. It doesn't matter because a tagline is only as good as the work that surrounds it.

I'm not sure what work we would have done around that particular line. I am sure I never would have arrived at that signature piece of music that is now on every Chrysler commercial. I like the music, it feels gritty and urban and Detroit, and it sure sticks in your head, it's just not in my repertoire. Which tells me I need to expand my repertoire.

In the end this story gets filed under the 100 Monkey Phenomena.

In the U.S. there are about 20-30 different car brands. Those brands are handled by different ad agencies. Each agency has about 10-15 creative people coming with ideas for the brand. Writers and art directors, working night and day, saying the same thing about the same cars, everyday of every week of every month of every year. So, in accordance with the theory obviously there's going to be some duplication.

The way I see it, I'm one of 450 monkeys.
I just happened to get snakebit by one of them.

I'm Outtahere

There was a great piece published by the SF Egoist recently. It's written by an art director, usually not a good sign, but in this case it's the exception.

The author, Mr. Linds, offers his unique perspective on life in advertising and the unusual demands it made on his now cancer-shortened life.

Thankfully, I'm in excellent health and therefore cannot muster the depth and insight of Mr. Lind. However I did spend many of my years working at Chiat/Day when it earned its moniker Chiat/Day/Night and have my own opinions on the matter of burning the midnight oil.

I simply didn't do it.

I worked late on occasion, sometimes until 7 or 7:30. And I came in on the weekends for new business pitches, particularly when Lee and Bob were there. But by and large I went home at a decent hour and spent time with my family -- though I'm sure there were times my wife and my daughters wished I had stayed the office.

Did this impede my career progress?

Probably.

But truth be told I had no interest in palling around with upper management at 10 PM just for the sake of appearing like a good company man. And to be completely honest, I never developed the acquired taste for Kool Aid.

I prefer to believe that my slow advancement was due more to my opinionated opinions and the unfiltered expression of those opinions. In fact, I'm sure there were times many of my colleagues wished I had gone home earlier.

But wait, there's more. You see, I also happen to be a big believer in The Law of Diminishing Returns.

Working late never increased the probability of coming up with the big idea. It reduced it.

Besides, unlike other creatives, I don't mosey in to work at 11 o'clock in the morning. I get in at a decent hour and I make with the funny right away. I don't spend a lot of time cavorting or chatting up it with other employees like it's high school. I put my considerable nose to the grindstone and keep it there until 5. Or 5:30, depending on my caffeine intake.

In the end, like Mr. Linds says, it's all just advertising. TV commercials, print ads, websites, and mobile apps, that are utterly disposable. I've never conflated advertising to be anything more than that. It's simply a way to put food on my family's table. Never to be confused with anything lasting or meaningful.

That, I'll save for my novel.

Which I plan to get back to as soon as I'm done writing some banner ads for a local colonics clinic.

The Affect Effect

During my senior year in college I tended bar at Sutter's Mill. The head bartender was a guy named Mike. He was a 6'5" tall skinny black guy who had a swagger about him that made him untouchable. That, and a crew of hulking bouncers who guarded the staff from the nightly melee.

But in retrospect Mike could have, and should have, been the target of much mockery.

You see, Mike wore a silly cowboy hat. A huge leather Stetson that looked like it had been retrieved from the 1870's. The hat was complemented by snakeskin boots. Mike wore the cowboy hat and cowboy boots everywhere he went. And in Syracuse, NY where the temperature can dip into the minus twenties, that's not always the most suitable attire.

It was odd, to say the least. And not because of his race. I know from my 11th grade history class there were plenty of black cowboys. But Mike was from Scarsdale, in Westchester county. On the spectrum of people who might be mistaken for a cowboy I was closer to the real deal than Mike. (My father regularly took me to Cherry Lane Stables to retrieve horse shit for our garden.)

It's clear that the cowboy hat and the cowboy boots were Mike's affectation, which the dictionary tells us is a habit, as of speech or dress, or behavior, adopted to give a false impression.

I live in Los Angeles now, a city consumed by affectations. And because of social media I am now privy to  the affectations of friends, family and former colleagues. They come in all shapes and sizes.

Tattoos.
Piercings.
Prized collections of antique salt and pepper shakers.

I don't have any of that. Basically I'm not out to impress anyone. In fact, the 600 or so entries in this blog that detail my shortcomings, my failures and my neuroses, seem to indicate I'm more interested in doing the opposite.

I know nothing of retro-cool 1950's era patio furniture.
I don't smoke a pipe or a hookah.
I don't collect clown paintings or glass eyeballs.
I'm not versed in the lore of the Rat Pack.
I didn't name my children after any weather phenomena or an obscure font or any 17th century poets.
(Hell, I barely know any famous poets and that's only because it's a popular category on Jeopardy)
I don't have a cat named Leica, because they make the best camera lenses.
I don't sleep on a bed frame carved from hand-selected Peruvian teak.
I don't drink bourbon that's been exclusively aged in artisan-crafted Hungarian oak barrels.
I don't buy my groceries from a co-op because they offer their employees full dental coverage and aroma therapies.
I don't drive a vintage car, wear vintage clothing or even own anything vintage. If I do own something vintage, it's only because I haven't thrown it out yet.

I simply am without any affectations. And living here in Southern California, that's quite rare.

Maybe having no affectations is my affectation?

He's Gonna Blow!

If you've been anywhere near the news last week you heard about Clayton Osbon, a great name for a serial killer if there ever was one. But Clayton didn't kill anyone, at least none that we know of. He was the JetBlue pilot that went off the rails and had to be subdued by an air marshall and several passengers.

If I had been aboard the plane and witnessed the Captain running down the aisle, jabbering on about Al Qaeda, the Apocalypse, and the meaninglessness of life, I think I would been reaching for the drink cart and snapping the tops off those tiny bottles of Jack Daniels.

While the notion of an airline captain intentionally plowing 200+ passengers into the dirt is pretty darn scary, the circumstances surrounding his outburst are actually a little scarier.

On a personal level that is.

You see, prior to his volcanic eruption, Captain Osbon was widely regarded as an industry model. He was a captain's captain. According to one reporter he helped write the guideline book for proper JetBlue pilot behavior. Many colleagues described him as a normal, in some instances, super normal.

In other words, no one saw this coming. Not his friends. Not his family. Not even Clayton himself, who might have looked in the mirror and said to himself, "I'm feeling a little stressed maybe I need to get a puppy. Or go to one of those 'doctors' so I can purchase some calming 'herbal medications' legally."

But he didn't do that. And he snapped. Now it's all over youtube.

This has implications for all of us.
More importantly, it has implications for me.

While generally good natured and quick to a laugh, I have enough self awareness to realize I have a short fuse. I do not suffer foolishness or incompetence very well. I once got terminated from an ad agency not because my work wasn't creative or the clients weren't happy, I got booted from the premises because I had an inclination to intimidate planners and make certain account people cry.

There's a lot of crying in advertising.

I'm also ashamed to admit that once my on-the-job anger manifested itself physically.

This was a long time ago when I was working in the mailroom at Needham, Harper & Steers. Being a mailroom clerk is a crappy job. It's a lot of packing, shipping, schlepping and showing pained deference to every other employee at the agency. It wasn't the lowest rung on the ladder. It was the dirty floor the ladder was placed on.

And the pay sucked too. I believe I was making $800 a MONTH. My rent at the time was $400, so I had to take another job as a short order cook at a jazz nightclub in Santa Monica.

My typical day would start at 8:30 in the morning and wouldn't end until midnight. One night a waitress brought me an order for a roast beef sandwich 5 minutes after I had finished cleaning the kitchen and wrapped up all the perishables.

The open-air kitchen (meaning it was visible to customers) was closed, I told the waitress. She insisted I prepare the meal. I retorted by throwing a ceramic plate against the wall, which not only shattered into a thousand pieces but also shattered the quiet musical interlude by legendary smooth jazz pianist Michael Ruff. (Sadly this event was not captured on video so there is no need to listen to whole song, unless you like this kind of crap.)

Thankfully, those days are way behind me now. And I have this blog to help me vent. Perhaps Clayton, who will no longer be flying planes, should start a blog of his own. I even have a perfect title for him:

The Cabin Has Now Been Depressurized.

The Seder Nazi

Passover is coming up this week.

As I look over the past few years, I noticed I've always included an entry about Pesach on roundseventeen. And thought, stealing the jargon of the Haggadah, "why should this year be any different than all others?"

Actually, in the reading of past year's postings I cannot believe I've never made mention of our very own Seder Nazi.

Her name was Judy and she was a friend of a friend of my wife's family. Sadly, Judy passed away a few years ago, but she was always a welcome guest at our seder table. Not only because it was the right thing to do, but because having Judy at our Seder always produced unforced laughter.

Let me back the story up a bit and tell you that Judy was an intellectual. She taught art history or English literature at one of the local colleges. If I didn't make it a habit of getting soused on red wine to celebrate the freedom of my ancestors every year, I could probably be more specific about her field of expertise.

But I can't, so I won't.

Judy's acumen went way beyond academia. She was equally well-versed in the Hagaddah and the proper procedures of a well-conducted seder. Her somewhat humorless rigor stood in deep contrast to my family's nonchalance and always-present irreverence.

Sitting at the head of the table and not always knowing the proper recital of the plagues or the correct method for hiding the afikomen, I made it a point to always have Judy sit to my immediate left. The second I screwed up a blessing or commenced the ceremonial washing of the hands in the wrong order, Judy was always there to nudge me under the table and keep me from wandering from the script.

She was my mealtime Moses.

When delving into deep theologic waters it's always helpful to have an authority figure ready to right the ship. Though one time Judy did snap at my then six-year-old daughter who let the charoseths accidentally touch the beitzah.

I don't think any of us will forget that.

We miss you Judy. And just as we set out a kiddush cup full of wine for Elijah, we will set one out for you as well. But don't hold it against us if we don't make it all the way to page 29 in the Haggadah for the festive meal.

In fact, I predict we'll get as far page 21 before my oldest daughter, tired of the wisdom of Rabbi Eliazar and Rabbi Gamliel, will whine, "let my people eat." And then we will.

So shall it be written, so shall it be done.

Hired!!!

I don't usually do postings on Sunday.  I like to hold off my efforts until Monday when I can properly promote my blog and get maximum traffic by disrupting people while they are at work.

But today's news is so big I cannot keep it on ice.

After nearly eight successful years as a freelancer, I have decided to hang up my mercenary cleats and rejoin the ranks of the steadily employed and dental insurance carrying class. That's right, I'm going staff.

Why you may ask?

I've been courted by David Murphy, who was President of the Y&R office in Irvine where I spent 2 &1/2 years running the Jaguar Account. David is now Partner and President of Barrie, D'Rozario and Murphy, the 47th largest ad agency in the Twin Cities region. This is a great opportunity to collaborate with my former boss.

Certainly my move to Minnesota will not be anywhere near as lucrative as my free-wheeling freelance days. But David assures me that my standard of living will not suffer. I will be paid in Minneapolis money, which apparently is different than Los Angeles money. The disparity is so overwhelming, I can literally purchase a 4-bedroom, 3 & 1/2 bath lakeview home on 2 acres for less than $7,000.

And while the accounts in the state of 10,000 lakes are not as high profile as some of the recent work I've been doing on Acura, Vizio and the G4 Network, I have been promised autonomy on two of the agency's primo clients: Pete's Parkas and the Minnesota Ice Fishing Tourism Council.

I don't know much about ice fishing but it involves dropping a string.
In a hole.
On a lake.
How hard can that be?

But what clinched the deal was something far more intangible. A chance to fulfill the dream of every creative. Or anybody who has ever toiled in an ad agency. The opportunity to see my name on the door. You see, recently David and his partners took the opportunity to generously recognize the collective contributions of every employee by changing the name of the agency.

BD'M will now be known as BD'MHSRLCZNUKGWQUPDEFJVOTHWICYSTEFMGLPBAH.

I know that is a mouthful, but how refreshing is it that the agency principals want to acknowledge the people who push the rock up the hill every day of the week. And make it possible for the guys at the top to drive their gold-trimmed Maybachs.

Of course I was little concerned that my hiring came after the initial name change had been announced and all the logos and stationery had already been printed. Now an additional S for Siegel will have to be added. I'm somewhat familiar with production costs and I know this new addendum could cost upwards of $50,000, particularly when you consider envelopes, notepads, coffee mugs, invoices, accounts payable forms, time sheets, etc., etc.

But once again David reassured me, "Don't worry about it, Rich. I got a guy in Minnetonka that'll do it all for 38 bucks."

Resting in Peace

I just learned how to do a screen grab off my iPhone so I could share this recent text from my all-too-sassy 14 year old. 

Abby asks where I'd like to be cremated. An unusual question for any child to pose to a parent but I like to think we are unusually frank and open around the Siegel household and that this type of curiosity is sign of a healthy father daughter relationship. 

Of course the rest of the conversation was consumed with the distribution of wealth in the case of my premature departure. Abby has her eyes on the flat-screen TV, the 27 inch iMac and my 2007 Lexus with the failing timing belt, which I assured her would be fixed as soon as possible.

You may look down your nose at this covetous behavior but rest assured that in accordance with the terms of my will none of these assets will be transferred to her until she attains her four year college degree and gets a steady job. And just for good measure I threw in an additional amendment requiring one year service in the Peace Corps.

Tikkun Olam, dammit.

The more curious of you might be wondering about the location of Upper Grays Meadow. It's just west of Independence, CA., where we have been camping for the last 10 years. I hadn't given much thought to my eternal resting spot, but now that Abby has brought it up, it's sort of a no-brainer.

There's Hillside Memorial nestled between the 405 freeway and the Fox Hills Mall, where I could take my place near Jack Benny, Hank Greenberg and Moe Howard :

Or I could have my ashes scattered about the lush meadow grounds cooled by the Onion Valley River in the Eastern Sierras:

Fire up the oven, Abby.

We need to do more research

I recently read that the CEO of Hewlett Packard was going to consolidate several business units including the printer division and the PC unit. "The plan is to have their line of business more readily integrated so they approach customers together with unified product offerings", so says Tom Bradley, EVP of Personal Systems Group.

You can read more about it here. 

Or you can stay awake for a more personal anecdote about HP here. 

Years ago, my partner and I were asked to fly up to San Francisco on a weekly basis to help the Saatchi and Saatchi office with the HP printer account. The client was threatening to leave and to take their $3 million budget with them. Naturally this was cause for panic. And we were sent in to rescue this showcase piece of business.

In the annals of advertising (an appropriate phrase if there ever was one) computer printer advertising is about as exciting as watching ink dry. There are no core human truths. Or brand essences at play here. It's all about feeds and speeds. It's about sheet tray capacity. And the merits of 560 dpi vs. 720 dpi. 

In other words, the stuff of dreams.

Of course, none of this stopped the genii at HP from throwing, literally throwing, millions of dollars at the marketing efforts. As mentioned in the snoozy article (referenced above), HP had set up all kinds of independent silos to handle the hundreds and hundreds of different product lines. The silo handling the printer division was spearheaded, and I use that word lightly, by 5 or 6 women. I mention that not as any indictment of gender but only because it is pertinent to the story.

Truth is, over the course of my career, I have found women to be more astute than their male marketing counterparts.

So why is the XX chromosome count important here? Well, it turns the HP marketing ladies were all about egalitarianism. None of them, and I can't remember a single name - which is probably for the better, could make a decision about choosing one ad over another. It was left to the whimsy of the focus groups. 

And boy did these women love their focus groups.

For a single page ad that appeared in the inky back pages of Copy Center Digest or The IT Gazette, we would traipse across the country, with stops in Miami, Chicago, New York and San Francisco. I guess if you lived in Boise, Idaho, as these women did, you'd find every excuse in the world to get the hell out as well.

You could admire the professionalism of these ladies. But it didn't take long to discover the real reason for the intensive "nationwide research." Turned out we logged thousands of miles and countless complimentary continental breakfasts because the HP Printer Marketing Committee had a fondness for shoe shopping. 

I'm sure you could never get the Sr. VP Brand Management Director/Laserjets or the Group Management District Supervisor/Inkjets, or even the EVP Strategic Innovation Planning/OfficeJet, to admit to such, but I know from standing at the luggage carousel at O'Hare Airport exactly what was going on. 

It was all an elaborate corporate-funded shopping ruse. And it became painfully apparently after one exhausting focus group produced the following Freudian slip:

Agency Account Exec.: So which one should we move forward with?

Jr. Brand Manager/Tri-Color Ink Cartridges: I like the open-toed Guisseppe Zanottis. 

The S-Word

I never steer way from controversy here at roundseventeen. Maybe I'm too old to worry about the consequences. I like to think it stems from my belief that frank, honest discussion is the best way to get past our differences.  The truth probably lays somewhere in between.

If I find something funny I'm going to write about it.

Yesterday, I went on about a word not often heard these days, "Kike". Today I'm reaching back in time. And in space. To Jerome Ave. in the South Bronx. To talk about a different racial epithet. One that was sadly used way too often by my immigrant grandparents.

The word is Schvartze.

According to the urban dictionary, it is nowhere near as derogatory as the N-word and therefore I don't have to go all third grade on you and say, the s-word. Plus, if you didn't grow up within earshot of Yiddish, you'd have no idea what I was talking about.

The literal translation of the word schvartze is black.

General Schwarzkopf's name literally means black head. I don't know if this stems from a family problem with acne, I just know that's what his name means. Arnold Schvarzenegger is a compound of two German words, schvartz meaning black and...oh, let's just leave it at that.

I'm happy to say that my grandparents unenlightened use of racial epithets stopped at 174th Street and Walton Ave. My parents understood the transitive law of bigotry. That people who see and treat African Americans, or any other ethnicity, with less respect and understanding will easily transpose those feelings toward Jews.

And so words like schvartze and the n-word were never used in my house.

If I could fiddle with the time and space continuum one more time, I'd love to bring back my grandfather just to hear his thoughts on our black president.

Chances are he'd blurt out something like, "the President is a Chocolate?"

Oy.

Kiking On

I like getting comments. I think most bloggers do. Getting a comment on something I've written means someone has not only taken the time to read what I wrote, they've taken the time to chime in. It means I've somehow struck a nerve. And I like touching nerves.

My wife likes it, too.

It lets her know that all this time I'm in my office, with the headphones on and the door closed, is not being wasted in lieu of more productive activities like taking out the garbage, straightening out the garage or even rearing the children.

Last week I got a very odd comment. It was in response to an entry I'd written over two years ago, entitled ZOG 101, a spirited tongue-in-cheek argument about the theory of Jewish World Domination. I have thoughtfully and in very un-Jewish fashion, generously linked it here for your convenience.

Here's the comment:

I was shocked to read such hateful speech from one of my readers as most of you are friends and family. And I seriously thought about simply deleting the comment. But then I reconsidered and decided the best way to combat anti-semitism is to air it out and let its own fractured logic and ignorance speak for itself. 

My favorite part of the comment is the sign off, where the anonymous and cowardly reader encourages me to "Kike on". While that phrase may be popular on stormfront.org or the vanguard news network, it's not something you hear everyday. I remember the first time I heard the term. 

I was 11 years old. And a dim-witted fellow named Mark Ghosio hurled that pejorative at me. Followed by a flurry of fisticuffs and a quick trip to the Principal's office. His parents and my parents were hauled in for a peacemaking conference. This did little good as my father pulled me aside and told me anytime that kid makes a remark like that, you have my permission to swing away. 

Needless to say, there were many more dust-ups with the Ghosio kid.  

The funny thing is you could show me a picture from my 5th grade class and chances I wouldn't remember 75% of the names. But you never forget the name of the first person to call you a Kike. 

March Gladness

It's Thursday morning and the NCAA madness that was started last week is about to kick into high gear again. Naturally I am thrilled because as of this writing my team, the Syracuse Orangemen, are still alive after thoroughly whipping Kansas State.

But I'm also happy for who is not still alive.

Allow me to explain.

Last summer I was hired to fly to Las Vegas and attend a high school basketball tournament featuring all the top recruits in the country. The players were being scouted by all the top Division One coaches. I was asked to interview each of the coaches for a short film being made on behalf of Coaches versus Cancer. As a huge college basketball fan, it was a true labor of love.

I met many of the top coaches who generously agreed to do a ten minute interview between games. And who wouldn't want to help in the collective battle against cancer?

 I'll give you a hint, he likes yellow ties.

On the second of our 14 hour filming days we were all dog tired, ready to wrap up the shoot and call it a day. Our producer however spotted Frank Haith, head coach of the Missouri Tigers. Even though we were all ready to head back to the hotel, Frank said he'd be willing to sit down with us. With one caveat. He wanted to watch a particular kid in the last of the day's scheduled games.

Sure, we thought, we could stick around for another two hours. What's one more game after we've watched about 138? 

We sat on the bleachers right next to Frank. Though we had no vested interest in the game we cheered for one team to put it away as quickly as possible so we could get on with the interview and call it a 16 hour day.

But with three minutes remaining in the game, Frank did the unthinkable. He got up from the bleachers and without so much as a nod to the producer and the crew the documentary, he simply left the building. 

Did I mention it was to fight Cancer? 

Thank you, Coach Haith for keeping us all there an extra two hours, racking up thousands of dollars in overage charges and contributing nothing towards the effort. It's all so appreciated.

Well last Friday, Lady Karma paid a visit to Omaha, Nebraska and turned the apple cart over for the heavily-favored Missouri Tigers. They were upset by the 15th seed Spartans of Norfolk State (I'm pretty sure it was the Men's team.) 

Of course, it wasn't an upset to me. In fact, it was the complete opposite.

Suck it Idi

Uganda was in the news last week. By now I'm sure you've heard all about KONY 2012. As well as the demise of the man who made the viral hit and the unravelling adventures of BONY 2012.

All this talk of Uganda brought me back to July 4, 1976.
I know I'm dating myself, but in this case there's no getting around it.

Many remember this date as our nation's bicentennial. In fact, I remember my high school buddies Jim and Bob had come over to my house with a case of Heineken to celebrate our nation's birth (the drinking age in NY State was 6 at the time). We were headed out to a fireworks show at Rockland Community College. But before we left the house, there were already fireworks going on upstairs.

News had just come across the TV screen that Israeli commandos had successfully landed at Entebbe Airport, killed the Islamic hijackers of an Air France jet and escaped with 256 survivors. Mind you this was all before personal computers, GPS systems and instant messaging. This was an incredibly brave operation that required precision planning, lightening quick execution and a super human sense of bravado.

You could tell all three were present just in the way my father hooped and hollered for joy. Had my father been versed in Hebrew I'm sure he would have let out the Hebraic equivalent shout of "U...S...A". My father, usually given to fits of anger, was in rare joyous form.

My buddy Bob never understood my father's zeal for Israel and the IDF. And being a well-bred Protestant, always took delight in my self-deprecating Jewish humor. Never failing to join in with a Jewish zinger of his own. Fact is, Bob could have had a promising career as a copywriter.

But like I said he was always looking at Jewish life and Jewish culture from the point of view of an outsider. That is until his grandmother passed away and his father pulled him aside to reveal a little family secret that had been tucked away in a tallit and put in mothballs for a few generations.

Turns out Bob is actually 1/4 Jewish on his father's side.

This of course is a source of great laughter. It has given Bob license to tell Jew jokes. He now has a greater understanding of the importance of the Entebbe Rescue. And he expects gifts from his wife on Chanukah. Well, 2 of the 8 days at least.

Assemble the Firing Squad

It has been over a month since I've posted an entry in the People We Need to Kill Series. I was surprised as you are.

OK, maybe you weren't surprised. I don't want to presume that you pay this platform the kind of attention I do. Nevertheless, it does feel like that just yesterday that I unloaded a lifetime worth of angst and rage on somebody, but that's probably just me.

In any case, with a provocative title like People We Need To Kill, I have to be very careful with my selection of targets. The chosen quarry must be universally despised and worthy of a homicidal rant. And I think if you've ever watched The Learning Channel, you'd agree that the moms featured in Toddlers and Tiaras meet those qualifications.

If you haven't I invite you to sample this wonderful clip:

I don't want to heap all my scorn on this particular mom. They are, as a group, a clowder of potato-chip munching, belt-busting, drama queens who never got enough attention in high school and are now all too willing to revisit their frustrations and project their inadequacies on their unsuspecting and, in most cases, spectacularly untalented children.

Take June, the "mom" pictured above, for example. Her Toddlers and Tiaras episode aired last fall. It was one of the most watched shows in the history of T&T. Eager for another fix of media attention, CNN reported last week that June brought her 6-year old daughter to a college bar and had her dance on stage while crazed college students threw dollar bills at her.

When my daughter was 6 we still had her on a leash. For the record we never had her on a leash, but I think you see where I'm coming from.

Here's the irony. These pageant moms and the whole beauty pageant subculture with its emphasis on cheesy decor, faux stripper routines and anti-intellectualism, seem to be most popular in the South and the Rick Santorum states -- the people who are most opposed to abortion.

The same people who could most benefit from it.

Tomorrow's Young Guns

The St. Monica's Catholic High school mid-term progress reports are here. I know this is not much cause for excitement at your house but it's kind of a big deal around mine.

Looking over a plethora of B+'s and A-'s it's become apparent that my girls have the same scholastic gene for underachievement that I did.

If it weren't for their cynicism and their propensity to laugh at everything, they probably could be great students. Maybe I should just be thankful that they're not considerably-less-than-great students. Like the geometry student who handed in the test pictured above.

While that student did not fully grasp the Pythagorean Theory, he or she gets points in my book for penmanship and sarcasm. And might want to consider a future as an Advertising Copywriter. As should this bright young pupil...

Here's another Copywriter in the making...

This student certainly has a flair, albeit misguided, with words...

And this could be the next Neil French...

Of course not every student who cracks wise to a teacher is destined to become the world's next Steve Hayden. Some are less gifted with words and more inclined to visuals. They too show potential for a career in advertising, like this failed Physicist but promising young Art Director...

By the way if you are fan of these outrageous test answers, you can find a few hours of quality laughter right here.

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.