Fill Up the Cup, Part 2

(Today is Part 2 from Fill Up The Cup, one of the many stories found in the book Round Seventeen and 1/2: The Names have Been Changed to Protect the Inefficient. You know, the book you didn't buy, but would love and read out loud to your friends. Do not proceed until you have read yesterday's post, Part 1 or it won't make any sense. Or maybe it will. What do I know?) 

From Beverly Hills, Greenberg drove a short 15 minutes to his office on Wilshire Blvd. He worked at one of the few remaining ad agencies that had not migrated west of Lincoln Blvd. They were an older, established shop with longstanding client relationships, relationships that had stood the test of time. And because they didn’t suffer the wild fluctuations of revenue experienced by other agencies, they rarely had to engage in cutbacks or staff layoffs.

Greenberg grabbed some coffee and settled in behind his desk, hoping the rest of his day would be more routine.

“You’re not going to believe this,” said Sean Smithwick, Greenberg’s management counterpart on the big Nestle account.

“What?” Greenberg shot back.

“They fired Anderson when they found out he was getting kickbacks from the printer. And they put in a new Chief Marketing Officer.”

“Who?” said Greenberg.

“Get this. Coughlin.”

“Who’s Coughlin?”

“You know Coughlin, the girl that used to book all of Anderson’s travel, do his timesheets and fill out his expense reports. Coughlin, his Executive Assistant.”

“You gotta be kidding me. She’s a CMO?”

“Who isn’t a CMO these days?” said Smithwick. Adding, “Better strap in, buddy. Gonna get hairy here for the next few months.”

Greenberg folded his arms over his desk and laid his head down for a much-needed rest.

A week later he and his wife were back in the offices of her gynecologist. The lady doctor mulled over the lab report. She did a line item check on every aspect of his manhood. And, as if to add to his agony, let him stew in silence as she carefully took notes and withheld his results. A second before he was about to explode…she cleared her throat.

“It seems the problem is not with you, Larry. Your boys are swimmers.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. Not too heavy, because he didn’t want his wife to notice. But inside, he was thrilled. If he could have high-fived his penis, he would have done so.

“In fact, and I’m wondering if there’s some kind of mistake here. Your sperm count is unusually high.”

Another high-five.

“Motility is…”

“Motility?” asked Larry.

“That’s the sperm’s ability to move. And yours is, again, unusually high, indicating raised levels of testosterone.”

Larry could not help grinning. Particularly as all these results seemed to annoy the lady doctor to no end.

“In fact, many of your sperm cells have extra long tails, which we don’t see that often.”

“Long tails are good?” asked a very inquisitive Larry.

“For impregnation purposes, long tails are excellent. Frankly, these tests results are not at all what I expected.”

If his wife had not been in the room, Larry would have taken little Lawrence out of his pants, laid it on the desk and not put it away until the doctor personally apologized. But his cell phone rang and there was an emergency back at the office that required his immediate attention.

“Before you go back to the office, I need you to stop by the Pico Robertson Lab for another sample,” said the doctor.

“Another sample? I thought you just said my boys weren’t the problem?”

“They’re not. Which means we have to step up to a modified in vitro procedure. And we’ll need to prepare your sperm for an injection.”

“But I have to get back to work.”

“You have some more important work to do first. Pico Robertson Lab. It’s near Doheny.”

Larry stopped at a newsstand. He wasn’t going to have a repeat of his previous unpleasant experience with the U.S. News & World Report. He was going in prepared for the worst. Overcompensating, Larry reached to the top of the rack and grabbed a copy of the filthiest hardcore magazine he could find, Slutty Sluts Get Their Slut On. On the cover, a handcuffed woman in red leather chaps was being force-fed a foot-long Polish sausage.

He wouldn’t need it.

The lab at Pico Robertson, in the heart of Little Jerusalem, was 180 degrees from the sterile surroundings in Beverly Hills. The nurse led him back to a room that looked unlike anything he had ever seen.

The walls were covered from floor to ceiling in black velour. The ceiling was covered with black velour. And the room was glowing with a purplish light from a small lava lamp tucked in the corner.

As he adjusted himself to the surreal, almost womb-like environment the nurse unveiled a credenza featuring a TV monitor, a VCR deck, and no less than 200 VHS tapes of the latest and greatest in porn offerings. The tapes had thoughtfully been arranged in alphabetical order and the selection covered everything from naughty threesomes to milfy MILFs.

The nurse smiled at Larry and left him to the business at hand.

He could hardly believe his good luck. He felt like a kid in a candy store. There was so much to choose from he didn’t know where to start. Then he reminded himself that porn was porn. So he went for the first title that struck his funny bone, Balling for Dollars.

It had some vague connection to bowling and was a clear indication the pornmakers in the San Fernando Valley were running out of ideas. Nevertheless, there were a few steamy scenes of women in bowling shirts briefly getting frisky with the pin-chasers working the machinery behind the alleys.

Upon completion of his duties Greenberg gave serious thought to taking a nap, waking up 20 minutes later and going at it for another round. He had his eye on another movie, In and Out of Africa. Why let all this black velour go to waste, he figured. Why not shock the doctor and fill the cup all the way to the top?

His phone rang. It was Smithwick.

“Where the hell are you? And what’s that moaning?”

“I’ll be there in 10 minutes.”

Greenberg drove back to the office along Pico Blvd. where the sidewalks were teeming with large Orthodox Jewish families. Many of the moms were pushing strollers. Behind the strollers there were often gaggles of little girls in long dresses and skinny little boys sporting thick black wool coats and exposed tzitzits. This backward lot of 19^th Century holdouts seemed to be fruitful. They were certainly multiplying. Why, he wondered, were he and Mrs. Greenberg unable to make another Greenberg?

“Coughlin’s on a rampage.” said Smithwick. “She wants to know why our Coffee-Mate flavored creamers are not selling in the Midwest and the Northwest territories.”

“They’re not selling because they taste like shit. And they’re expensive. And people are buying their coffee in coffee shops,” Greenberg offered.

“You want to tell her that? Or you want to run home and pack a bag? Because we’re on a plane tonight for a whirlwind tour of the regional offices,” said Smithwick.

“Tonight?”

“Hello, Boise.”

(Coming up tomorrow on Fill Up the Cup, Part 3, Sperm Can Fly?)

Fill Up The Cup Part 1

(Usually, or at least for the last 6 years, I have taken this time --between Xmas and New Year's--to recharge the batteries and let the reader of RoundSeventeen fend for himself. Or herself. By that I mean I've lazily reprinted posts from the past. But this week I'm doing something different. I've selected a story from the book that you haven't purchased and plan to excerpt it for your reading pleasure. It's my gift to you. It's also my hope that you will be sufficiently enticed to visit the amazon page and plunk down 13 fuckin' dollars. Is that too much to ask?)

“There may be a problem with your sperm.”

This was not the diagnosis Greenberg wanted to hear. He and Mrs. Greenberg had been trying to make a baby for the past two and a half years, since 1995. There were messy ovulation kits. Calendars. Vaginal thermometers. The tiny bathroom in their 3^rd floor condominium could barely contain all the over-the-counter fertility paraphernalia.

And yet, for all their efforts, including the obligatory early morning schtupp, they had nothing to show for it. It was all a swing and a miss.

Mrs. Greenberg checked out fine. Her fallopian tubes were fallopianing. Her eggs were good, fertile eggs. And her plumbing system got the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

Her lady doctor, who had called for the couple to come in for a joint consultation, pointed the finger at Larry Greenberg. More accurately she pointed the finger towards the region below his belt.

His first trip to a gynecologist went exactly as he thought it might.

If two and a half years of fruitless fornicating didn’t make Greenberg self conscious about his virility, the accusatory sneer of his wife’s (clearly) lesbian doctor surely did. She handed him a business card and instructed him to set up an appointment right away.

“Let’s see what’s going on down there.”

Again she pointed to the area below his belt.

“Or, what’s not going on down there.”

Greenberg knew of the sperm banks discreetly located throughout the Westside of Los Angeles, but he had never been to one. When he first moved to California and took a room as a boarder at a UCLA fraternity house, he met some of the brothers who made a living at the local “whack shack.”

They never studied. They never worked. They drank beer and smoked pot. And had plenty of money to fuel their pastime. All they had to do was walk down Gayley Ave., past the Chabad House, engage in some hand-to-gland combat and collect a check. They invited Greenberg to accompany them on one of their masturbatory sojourns, but he preferred to earn his money the old fashioned way – slaving as a dishwasher at the local Straw Hat Pizza.

Now, 15 years later, against all odds, he found himself in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Medical Services Laboratory. As he filled out the bundle of paperwork attached to the clipboard, his mind wandered.

The rational side of his brain knew that behind the locked doors he would not find a harem of short-skirted, leggy nurses ready to assist him with the precious extraction.

On the other hand, he was in Beverly Hills, a city known to indulge its residents, and suspected the lab had gone to extraordinary lengths to provide a comfortable, even posh, environment that would yield the maximum payload.

He envisioned plush, microfiber couches in a secure dimly lit room. A room endowed with the world’s widest selection of pornographic stimuli. He even pictured a sleek, Japanese-designed custom electronic sleeve that would offer personalized, hands-free collection. The Tugatron 7000™.

All very conceivable for a sperm collection center located in one of the world’s richest zip codes.

But Greenberg was wrong on all counts. Nurse Ratchet -- he decided that was her name the second he saw her -- came to the reception area and called out his name.

“Laaaaary. Laaaarrrry Greenberg.”

She led him back behind a wall of clear acrylic that had the appearance and thickness of bulletproof glass. They zigzagged down a hallway lined with paintings, the kind of paintings you would only find in a medical laboratory hallway. The nurse opened the door to what looked to be a regular bathroom, an oversized regular bathroom with no special accommodations, with the exception of a tubular stainless steel handrail built to comply with the state’s code for the handicapped.

“Wash and dry your hands thoroughly. Then, get it all in the cup.”

“Wait, this must be a mistake,” he thought.

“And no lubricant. None,” she said before shutting the door behind her.

The room was exceedingly bright. The fluorescent light ricocheted off the cinder block walls. Dimensionally, it was not that far off from the standard two-person jail cell one might find at Folsom or San Quentin. There was nothing but a sink, a toilet, an all-aluminum table chair and a long narrow table that spanned the length of the tiny room.

Atop the table, there were three magazines.

They didn’t put a lot of thought into the design of this room. Nor did they seem to consider its rather unique function. But at least they had the foresight to provide something in the way of visual stimulation.

Suddenly there was the roar of a toilet flush from the bathroom on the other side of the cinder blocks.

Greenberg looked at the three magazine covers spaced evenly across the long table.

The Economist

U.S. News & World Report

Harvard Business Review

One part of Larry Greenberg wanted to scream. The other, more sensible part of Larry knew that screaming would draw unwarranted attention and in effect say, “I can’t make babies. Something is going on with my little men. So now I’m in a refurbished janitor’s closet where they want me to dry hump myself into a little plastic cup!”

He didn’t want to do that.

He locked the door. And then he threw the deadbolt into place. The last thing he needed was some overly inquisitive lab technician with a corridor key to accidentally walk in on him while he was flying solo.

He yanked about a dozen and a half paper towels from the dispenser above the sink, crumpled them up, wet them down, and stuffed them in the crevice between the bottom of the door and the floor stop. His mind raced with ugly possibilities. Somebody could be walking in the hallway, drop their car keys or a quarter, bend over to pick it up, peer through the crack under the door and spot Greenberg solus in flagrante delecto.

Not only could that happen, the way the morning was transpiring, Greenberg fully expected it to happen.

Acting out of extreme precaution, he pushed the featherweight aluminum chair against the back of the door. Greenberg would often tell people, “If he was in for a dime he was in for a dollar.” And on the issue of self-pleasuring privacy in a public setting, he was in for a buck seventy-five.

Before the mission began he took one last meticulous look at the cinder block wall. He slowly and carefully scanned the wall with the palm of his hand, delicately searching for any pinholes, where a hidden camera with a full battery and ample memory could be placed.

What if, again his mind raced, the Beverly Hills Medical Lab was an elaborate front? Maybe they were secretly selling footage of their patients masturbating? Could be an entire underground operation. Perhaps supplying the filthy tapes to fetishists in Cambodia? Or Laos?

Laos always seemed to Greenberg to be a place where old men, tired of the jungle, the red sticky mud, the constant monsoonal rain, and the day in/day out consumption of boiled monkey liver and rice, would entertain the notion of watching affluent and unsuspecting Americans jerking off behind closed doors.

Satisfied that the room was clean, it was time to get down to business.

Greenberg picked up the U.S. News & World Report. It was the magazine with the least written and the most photographic material. He threw it on the floor in front of him, undid the buckle of his pants and squatted on the cold aluminum chair.

In a feat of flexibility he did not know he had, Greenberg spread his legs wide, so that he could keep one foot solidly on the wall and the other wedged into the doorway, in case the lock, the deadbolt and the forest of wet crumpled paper towels did not suffice.

He fiddled through the pages hoping to find a picture of Madonna or Princess Diana, or some up-and-coming actress of the time, but could only find a spread on Queen Elizabeth. And an in-depth interview with Hillary Clinton.

Her Royal Highness was sporting a pink dress that bared the bottom half of her 70-year-old gams. The First Lady was wearing one of her signature pantsuits. Out of respect for the crown, Greenberg went with the younger lass from Arkansas.

A full 30 minutes later, the tug of war was over. Later, he joked he spent more ‘sexy time’ with Hilary Clinton than he had ever done with his own wife.

He gingerly screwed the cap on the plastic cup and placed it in the pass-thru vault, per the instructions of Nurse Ratchet. He double-checked the label on the cup. If some medical assistant were to make a mistake, he’d have to repeat the most humiliating, most joyless experience he’d ever had with his penis.

As he exited the clinic he drew his baseball cap tight across his brow in the hope no one would recognize him. The last thing he wanted was to run into a friend or a colleague and engage in some street side chitchat, particularly when he was sporting that telltale face that screams, “I just masturbated into a plastic cup.”

(Coming up tomorrow, Fill Up the Cup, Part 2, Balling For Dollars)

As the year draws to a close

We've reached that point in the year where I have officially run out of gas. I simply don't have the energy to work up a good rant. Or I'm too hungover from last night's binge of Maker's 46 to throw down today.

Nevertheless I have an obligation, albeit a self-imposed one, to deliver on some funny.

So today, I'm turning to the kids.

As I've mentioned before I'm a sucker for click bait. Last week while checking out an article entitled "Wait Til You See The Booty's On These Mommys" I stumbled across a link to "Hilarious Drawings by Kids." You're just two clicks away from seeing the entire collection, but for now and to close out 2015, I've curated my favorites.

Bobby is only 18 months old  but has already mastered spelling. It won't be long before young Robert is pulled over to the side of the road and asked to spout all 26 letters.

In reverse order.

Young Tiffany wants to follow in her mother's high-heeled footsteps. Mom is a rainmaker and seems to be entertaining many men who look like Odell Beckham.

If you do visit the Buzzfeed collection of hilarious kid drawings, you're going to see a lot of cocks. More cocks than you'd ever want to see. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Tiffany, it appears, had two of her drawings selected.

And finally there's this from stubborn Ralph who is very self aware for a 5 year old.

(I hope you all have a Merry Christmas. And thank you for stopping by. Tune in next week for a special surprise that requires no writing on my part.)

I'm flying solo

If you came here for a review of the new Star Wars movie or some other gushing fanboy drivel about the over-hyped sci-fi franchise, you came to the wrong place.

I simply found a good pun and couldn't resist using the topical ploy.

There was a little voice inside my head telling me not to, but I ignored that little voice and most others when it comes to telling me what I should or should not write.

This goes a long way to explain why I am still living in Culver City, why I drive an 8-year old car, why I am struggling to put two kids through college and why I spend my weekends creating banner ads or knocking out social media ideas for the local mattress store.

Or, if I may quote my student evaluation from my 3rd grade teacher:

"Rich does not like being told what to do. And he eats too many Ding Dongs and Yodels."

Recently I was reading a HuffPo article written by a colleague who is funnier, thinner and has more hair than me. He was a copywriter but left the ad world a long time ago to pursue a career in TV writing. That was a path I always thought I'd find myself on.

This former copywriter, let's call him Ryan for those of you who like to solve mysteries, details his 20+ year journey through the TV world. As you might expect there were stops and starts and ups and downs and lots and lots of network notes.

"This could be funnier."

"Can't say that."

"The character is too dark. Can he have a lisp and a pet canary?"

If you think that makes no sense consider who is writing these network notes -- Network People. Executives, development people, political opportunists who by and large have never, ever written or created anything in their entire overpaid, self-important careers.

And yet that is de rigueur in the world of television and movie making. Frankly, I'm surprised that disgruntled postal workers were never supplanted by disgruntled sitcom writers.

Surely, you say, there are similar situations in the ad world. And of course, you'd be correct. But here's the difference. A TV script or a movie screenplay entails days, weeks and sometimes months of thinking. Remove one thread and the whole thing can fall apart.

A commercial is much more disposable. Kill one joke and I can replace it with another. Hell, I've got a million of them. Somewhere on this hard drive.

Perhaps it's why I enjoyed writing my book of short stories without the aid of literary agent, a publisher, an editor or even a proofreader.

"Yes, I could omit the story about my masturbatory adventures at Southern California's whack shacks in order to produce a baby, but I don't want to and it stays in."

And it's why, after close to seven years I am still plugging away at this inconsequential blog. I enjoy having the freedom to say, think and write whatever the fuck I want. It's the most satisfying job in my entire career.

I just wish it came with proper dental care.

Your Yule Tide Log Video

By now many of you have gotten soused at the company Christmas party.

Media companies have showered you with their year end swagger.

And your supervisor has given you the well-worn speech about why there are no bonuses and the attendant "belt-tightening", "sagging economy" and the "fractured disintermediated landscape yielding unpredictable revenue streams."

But you're probably thinking to yourself it's not really Christmas until Siegel rolls out another December yarn about the age old Caganer.

As a refresher, the Caganer, or Shitter for our non-Hispanic friends, is a staple character in any Nativity Scene; as important as Mary, the virginal mother, Joseph, the cuckolded husband and Old Man in Robe #2, the mysterious bearer of Myhr.

If you look closely at many official nativity scenes you will see the Shitter standing just outside the hut, or the manger, or whatever that half-assed lean-two is called.

While the Baby Jesus is being born, the Shitter is also busy with a delivery of his own. He drops a coiled Lincoln Log onto the land signifying that the Saviour has arrived. And, that the heavy mutton and potato soup he ate for lunch has successfully completed its digestive journey.

I mean no offense by any of this. I'm simply regurgitating -- for lack of a better word -- the tale of the Caganer as I understand it from my scholarly Wikipedia research.

The 25 foot high Caganer pictured above makes regular annual appearances at a mall in Northern Spain.

Not to be outdone, residents of another town deep in Catalonia, have painted a 40 foot high Caganer of their own. Loop it and it can be your own yule tide log video.

There's also been a clever nativity scene meme floating around the Internet. As you might have guessed, the Caganer or even any allusion to the Caganer was sadly omitted.

That is, until now.

Let's build this thing.

I'm contemplating a small construction project around the house.

More specifically, I'd like to build a fence around my two monstrously huge air conditioning units which now sit on the driveway and take up as much space as a 1966 Simca.

Of course pouring concrete has never been one of my strong suits. The last time I did it was under the watchful eye of my father who, too cheap to hire skilled workers, had my brother and I do all the hard labor under threat of immediate eviction. Or having to watch our shows on the Black and White TV.

Anyway, back to my new a/c units which would not fit in the state of Rhode Island.

I quickly abandoned the fence idea in favor of a nicely constructed slatted box that I could easily place over the ugly oversized condensers.

In my mind the box, sturdily built from dark Brazilian mahogany could also double as a patio table, thereby amortizing the cost for the ridiculously expensive wood.

I saw myself in the garage squaring off beautifully hand selected 4X4 knot-free posts. Measuring and mitering precision cut 1X1 angle supports. Then carefully and meticulously screwing in the imported slats with my newly purchased Lithium battery portable hand drill with extra torque for those hard to reach places.

My wife, who has borne witness to many examples of my past handiwork, had another idea. She went to the computer and dragged out a file of pictures I had compiled of Russian construction failures.

"This," she said, "is why you're not going anywhere near this project"

"Hello, Angie's List?"

Me and mister, mister Jones

It'd be easy to pile on the hatewagon and do a scathing post about the Coiffed One. But frankly, like Mr. Trump's scalp, there's not a lot of uncovered territory.

Instead, I'd like to spend a few moments on this assclown.

His name is Alex Jones. You might not know of him, but millions of his fellow conspiracy theorists do.

We just marked the 3rd anniversary of the horrific mass shooting in Sandy Hook. And I recently came across an article about Alex Jones who shared his twisted theories about the killing of 20 schoolchildren that was allegedly faked in order to further the cause of gun control.

Despite the blood, the carnage and the unconscionable loss of innocent life, Mr. Jones insists it was all a False Flag -- a staged operation orchestrated by masterminds in the Federal Government. Let's just gloss over the fact that he believes there are masterminds in Washington, DC, the same people who gave us the incomprehensible tax code, can't manage the VA and spend billions of dollars for stealthy fighter jets that don't fly and are not stealthy.

By the way, according to Mr. Jones, the San Bernardino shootings, the Paris Massacre, the Boston Marathon bombing, the Ft. Hood murders, the multiple attacks in Mumbai, the London 7/7 tragedy, and even 9/11, were all False Flags.

Mr. Jones spouts his completely unsubstantiated theories on a syndicated radio show called Info Wars, a little ironic since nothing he claims is backed by any real information.

And yet he has his followers.

Thousands, if not millions, who dine on his diet of half truths, innuendo and veiled anti-Semitism. Listen long enough and you'll hear all about the Illuminati, the Rothschilds, the Trilateral Commission, the Bielderberg Conference, the New World Order, Mossad and the Free Masons.

How do I know about this?

I've made the mistake of tripping into his dark conspiratorial rabbit hole. And it's not very pretty. You could do a little investigating of your own. But it's nothing but a waste of energy and good Internet bandwidth.

You'd be better off watching skateboarders smack their nuts against handrails.

You're Invited

Today is not July 17th.

It's nowhere close to July 17th.

But as sure as the unwanted hair recently shaven from my ear will grow back at an astonishingly fast rate, I will receive a meeting invite for July17th.

The electronic meeting invite has become as ubiquitous as the 5 second pre-roll ad on every Youtube video.

Not long ago, I was contacted by a Creative Service Manager from an out of town agency. She had inquired about my availability, my outrageous day rate and my attitude towards travel and hotel preferences. If awarded the gig, I was told, I'd receive a letter of confirmation and would need to sign an NDA, a nondisclosure form for you laymen.

Before any of those formalities had been dealt with, I had already received a meeting invite.

And that was just the first.

Minutes later, the fastidious production coordinator (I guess they're not Traffic people anymore) had sent me another meeting invite. This one, for a day and a half later, was for a preliminary check in. Not a formal review, just a temperature check so the Associate Creative Directors knew we were headed in the right direction.

Two meeting invites and I hadn't even seen the brief yet.

Ding!

I'm alerted to check my mailbox again.

I thought it could have been from Patagonia. You buy one fleece pullover from these sons of bitches and then they don't leave you alone until you've seen their entire collection of fleece pajamas, fleece underwear and fleece tea cozies.

But it wasn't from Patagonia.

It was a third meeting invite!

Scheduled for the the same day as the Associate Creative Directors soft temperature check in. This meeting was for later in the day. With the regular creative directors. They wanted to make sure any course correction given by the ACDs, just 4 hours earlier, had been executed faithfully.

By this time you'd think the detail-oriented coordinator would have put away the calendar and moved on to Zappos or posted a few more selfies to her Instagram account, but you'd be wrong.

The three previous meeting invites were supplemented with three additional meeting invites, including a telephone call in conference call for 9pm on Sunday night, just 14 hours before the client "tissue" session on Monday morning.

Ding!

I have another email.

It's not from Patagonia. It's not another meeting invite. It's from the Creative Service Manager informing me the agency has given the assignment to an internal team and my services and my attendance for the six previously mentioned meetings will not be necessary.

Maybe I'll play some golf on July 17th.

Why I Sucked at Being a Creative Director, Part II

Can you feel it?

It's coming.

The much-anticipated Christmas/New Year's break. Or the period advertising people refer to as the most likely time I will get home before 9 o'clock and not get called in to work a weekend. Of course that can all change at the drop of an RFP.

Or if Johnny Client decides, after months of painstaking committee fucking, rewriting, tweaking, reshooting and re-editing…

"I'm not sure our new Super Bowl spot feels fresh and Disruptive™ as it did when I first signed off on it. Can you guys show me something new? On Dec. 26? Thanks."

The end of the year has also got me thinking. A moment for introspection. That's when I thought I would follow up on the most popular post ever written for Round Seventeen -- Why I Sucked at Being a Creative Director.

People like reading about my many faults and shortcomings. And they don't make any attempt to hide their glee. It's like an inverted schadenfreude, which is usually savored in private. In fact when I published the original post, I had "friends" offering to pile on.

"I'll tell you another reason, Siegel."

Thanks, but no thanks. I can handle this assignment on my own. Though I'm convinced my next book  would far exceed the sales of my current offering, if I just compiled a series of essays and titled it: Why I Suck At… 

Anyway, picking up where I left off.

7. I have a short fuse. There I said it. I won't take it back. And I won't go in search of any fuse-enhancement pills. Not only is my temper short, it's volatile. I do not suffer fools gladly. I can deal with  people who are sneaky, political, brilliant, drunk, or just perpetually drunk, but I have no stomach for people who are stupid. And sadly when you've sat in three hour long wardrobe meetings discussing the merits of a cardigan vs. a vested sweater, you know there's plenty of stupid to go around.

Mind you, there have been many successful creative directors with short fuses, but they had redeeming qualities that I don't, like hair or nice shoes.

8. There's no me in Team. I know many people belong to the Congregation of Collaboration, I'm not one of them. There was a time, a better time, in advertising when I knew the names of all the great writers and art directors. I won't call them "rock stars" because I hate that delusional metaphor, but they were the heavily awarded individuals who had made a name for themselves by standing out from the crowd. If you've seen the credit list on any work lately you know credit nowadays belongs to the crowd. Assistant Associate Coordinators never enjoyed such limelight. In 2015, I didn't touch one assignment that wasn't also manhandled by half the creative department.

9. Lost my wind sock. I can read a room and can generally tell how and what to present. The industry, on the other hand, is thoroughly confounding. I always assumed clients want work that will make a splash, move the masses and create a recognizable spike in sales. That tells me to plant a flag, establish a unique tone of voice and execute it loudly on TV, in print and outdoor. But the well-informed creative director of today knows otherwise. As the Swedes on Happyish were fond of saying, "It's not about campaigns anymore." It's about getting Likes. Going viral. And to quote myself from a previous post, creating a "vast array of frivolous fuckwadian digital knick knacks™."

10. Ad ADD. In addition to my aforementioned short fuse, I have the even more crippling affliction of a short attention span. It's why it took me close to three years to write the book none of you bought. It's why I can't see a screenplay through from beginning to end. And it's why if a spot has reached the point of a 15th, 16th or 17th rewrite, I'll simply cave in and say, "have the client write it and I'll just polish up the turd."

There you have it, my Top Ten reasons on why I sucked at being a creative director. Could I write ten more? Of course I could. But then this thinly-veiled humblebrag would lose its disingenuous sheen of modesty.

Besides, it's getting a little long in the tooth and I just rummaged through the pantry and found some chocolate flavored Pop-Tarts with my name on it.

Merry Christmas.

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Turds

This is not my car.

This is my life.

Lashing Out

Two weeks ago, Ad Age published an article titled: 50 Best Places to Work in 2015. I'm happy to say, and not in the slightest pandering way, that I've collected paychecks from five of them: Deutsch, RPA, Sapient Nitro, Team One and M&C Saatchi.

Who says I don't know how to butter that bread?

All due respect to the editors at Ad Age, who received a complimentary copy of my new book but refused to give it any digital ink, I think you guys missed the boat.

You see, for my money, and I'm guessing for yours as well, I would have preferred an article about the 50 Worst Places to Work in 2015.

As a freelancer with a dozen years under my belt, plus another twenty as a staffer, I could easily rattle off a list of 50 dysfunctional, mismanaged, political hellholes. If I drank another cup of coffee I could run the number up to 75. But then I might never work again.

My daughters would have to drop out of college. And I'd be reduced to living out my remaining days on store-branded macaroni and cheese and generic vodka. No. I'm not going to bite the hand that feeds me Wild Caught Alaska King Salmon sold at Whole Foods for only $29.99/lbs.

I'm not.

But I am going to reprint some choice nuggets I found on glassdoor.com, my new favorite website. And I am going to whip out the magic cloak of anonymity and let you do your own guessing and detective work.

As many you might know, I have a pet peeve about working late or on the weekends and believe strongly in a proper work/life balance. Apparently I'm not alone in this regard. Here's a choice comment from the pages of Glassdoor:

"A lot of people actually sleep here because they don't have time to go home or because it's 5 AM when they are done and it would be too dangerous to drive."

Holy shit!
5AM!

At that hour of the morning I'm in bed, deep in REM sleep and dreaming of Eva Longoria and subliminal train rides through the Lincoln Tunnel.

Here's one of a similar nature, at a different agency.

"Politics get in the way of results. 100 hour work weeks are standard"

100 hours? There are only 168 hours in a week. And I need 43 of them just for blogging, swimming, watching Jeopardy, and fighting with my wife.

This reviewer pulled no punches.

"Management is a hodgepodge of incompetent egos. They try to look like some creative agency but never does any real work. It's all social media stuff and banners. The entire thing is a joke."

Ouch. Not only taking potshots at the agency but also landing a few blows on the fragile chin of digital advertising.

Finally, and perhaps to demonstrate our endless ability to bitch and moan about our chosen profession, there's this from a new employee who takes issue with his agency's unique parking procedures.

"Someone's already scratched my car and it's only been 30 days. This whole valet parking idea is good in theory, terrible in practice."

I could do this all day. And perhaps we will visit Glassdoor in the future for more curated anonymous reviews. But right now there are pressing issues at hand. It seems I have purchased the wrong type of plastic garbage bags and my wife wants to go a few rounds.

Wish me luck.

To the High Life

Last week it was announced that Kedric George, perhaps the last smart client in America, had decided to reach in the vault and rebroadcast several TV commercials from Miller's famed late 1990's High Life campaign.

If ever there was work I wish I had done, this campaign, including 50 commercials, would take the top spot.

This is advertising that doesn't feel like advertising.

It's small.
Purposefully and brilliantly small.
There are no more than 7-8 cuts in each spot. And each vignette is born from the seemingly meaningless banality of life: running out of mayonnaise, lawn maintenance and dirty bowling balls.

These spots couldn't be smaller or less significant if they wanted to.

And that's what makes the work so authentic.
And genius.
Because Jeff Kling, the copywriter, and I'm sure he had help from his art director (s), mined these tiny micromoments and found truthful gold.

Though Jeff and I are connected via social media, I've never met him or had the pleasure of working with or for him. But should this post ever get back to him, he should know that I hold him in the highest regard.

If you've been a regular reader of RoundSeventeen you know that I rarely engage in flattery and often dish up a steady diet of mockery and disdain for the lost art of copywriting. So today's post is truly bucking a trend.

Similarly, I've never worked with the Director Errol Morris, who also deserves recognition for the pitch perfect casting, sets, locations and camera angles. And for briefly reviving the always-stylish Johnny Unitas buzz cut.

To say I am in awe of this body of work is an understatement. I'd be lying if I told you I never tried to emulate or take a similar approach with other assignments. But creating a singular tone of voice or planting a flag and adopting a distinguishable POV is just not something today's crop of CMOs have any interest in.

They're more interested in going viral.
Or as yesterday's post pointed out, racking up the Likes.

If you've got an hour or so to to kill, do yourself a favor and watch all 50 commercials. And crack open a six pack of beer while you're doing so.

But not Miller.
Troy Aikman may know football, but he doesn't know crap about beer.

Please like this

It's a favorite pastime of people 44 years and older to talk about the glory days of advertising.

The good old days. When briefs were brief. When check ins were scheduled by the week, not by the hour. And when account people sold the work and didn't messily inject themselves into the creating of the work.

Of course these kvetching sessions are always anecdotal. There's no actual hard evidence, archeological or otherwise, that this golden era of advertising ever existed.

Consequently...

"Ahhhhh, this business has changed," is as expected as the unhappy old man at a restaurant, "The soup is cold."

But last week, while foraging around on linkedin.com for my next gig, I came across the photo you see pictured above.

Maybe you don't have your reading glasses or your eyes are still bleary from working late last night and preparing the 289 page deck for the End of Year Sales Event, so allow me to restate the caption above the picture: Audience is Everything. Applause is the New Revenue!

That my friends is a game changer!

A clear indication that the Digital Revolution is over and the Tweeters, the Sharers and the Selfie-Takers have won.

You see in the old days, revenue was the new revenue.

We toiled, perhaps mistakenly, under the belief that as an advertising agency we were charged with increasing sales for our 15% commission-paying clients. We wrote long copy ads and crafted compelling TV commercials in order to make the cash register ring.

In return for that labor we traveled in business class, stayed at swanky hotels and made it a point to order the $38 room service breakfast.

"No, not the glass. Give me the whole pitcher of freshly-squeezed, pulp free orange juice. Thank you."

Those cash registers have been replaced by little plastic doohickies that can turn a smartphone into a money-accepting device, nevertheless I've been operating under the misguided belief that advertising  was always about increasing business for the people we were in business with.

Of course that kind of quaint thinking is so 20th century.

Now, it seems, clients are like that high school cheerleader who put on too much make-up and convinced her daddy to get her a boob job.

They just want to be liked.
Desperately liked.

It's not about moving merchandise off the shelf, it's about "shifting the emotional branding landscape."

Page hits are the new currency.

Units sold have been usurped by YouTube visits.

It's all so convoluted.

Just as bewildering as how a restaurant can charge $13 for a bowl of bad matzo ball soup.

You heard me

(Facebook has been reminding me of posts I shared in the past. They started reaching back a year. Then two. And now three. They showed me this beauty from back in 2012. I write so many posts I often forget what they're about. So I re-read this one and found it just as applicable today as it was three years ago. In other words. Nothing has changed. That's not exactly true is it? I wrote a book of short stories which none of you have bothered to purchase, thank you very much. So it's in that spirit of disappointed indignation, I'm skipping today's usual font of free funny and re-printing some shit from the past. Enjoy.)

I've been in advertising many, many years.

I know dozens of my contemporaries are looking for ways to get out. These are mostly staffers, working managerial positions and not having half the fun they used to.

I'm not looking for a way out, mostly because I like working the way I do.

As a mercenary. Sometimes actually going in to an office. Sometimes working from my house. But rarely meeting with planners, account people or clients. Or dealing with any of the mishigas that can instigate the fight or flight response.

In that respect, I'd like to work many, many more years in this crazy business.

Not to get a spot in the Super Bowl or create another award winning campaign, though that would be nice. Not to build my portfolio. I'm way past that. Not even to prove the remarkably obvious point that age and experience are more instrumental to an agency's success than free bagels, Friday afternoon keg parties or a creative department full of clueless hipsters in stingy brim fedora hats.

No.

I'd like to work in advertising so that one day, maybe, perhaps, with a little luck, on the off chance, with a sprinkle of serendipity, I might hear a client say:


"That's good, but it doesn't make me nervous. I want something that makes me feel nervous."


"I like the dog, but wouldn't it be better with a monkey?"


"I have a gut feeling about this, let's skip the focus groups."


"This feels like spoon-feeding. We shouldn't speak down to our customers."


"I like it, I don't care what my boss thinks."


"I know this should have a social media component, but let's save that money and put it into the production budget."


"Let's give it more white space."


"Now that the planner has left the room, can you tell me what he does?"


I could probably come up with 100 more of the quips, but the codeine based cough medicine I've been taking is making me sleepy.

Feel free to add your own.

Tis the Season

As a copywriter, it's my job to make you want things.

Maybe even things you don't even need.

Take the Cast Iron Giraffe Paper Roll Stand (pictured above) for example. I didn't write the copy for this one-of-kind-gift, found on Bitsandpieces.com, but I have spent considerable time going through the catalogue, marveling at the assortment of tshotchcockery that singlehandedly fuels the Chinese economy.

Think about it, for only $19.99 you could own this paper roll stand and have a "fun way to store your toilet paper." And who isn't looking for that?

The catalogue goes on to say…

"Our handcrafted giraffe paper holder is a whimsical and attractive accessory for storing and presenting your toilet paper or paper towels. The giraffe's long neck will deliver paper wherever you need it. Holds two rolls of toilet paper or one roll of paper towels. Decorative, functional and fun. Distressed brown finish. #40099"

They could have left it alone, but they took the time to distress the brown finish. That's some fine Taiwanese craftsmanship.

Maybe you didn't receive the bitsandpieces.com catalogue in the mail and you're hoping that Rich shares more of the premium gift ideas weeks before the sacred celebration of our Savior's birth. Well you are in luck my friend.

Next up on the RoundSeventeen Shopping Network…

It's Bessie the Cow Tree Hugger.

I don't know why you need to spend $29.99 on a cow to hug your tree. And if there was any clever word play going on, I couldn't for the life of me figure it out. But I do know if you're going to the trouble of getting a 6 inch long miniature cow garden sculpture for your yard, you definitely want one made from sturdy weather resistant polyresin -- the finest polyresin West of the Yangtse.

Maybe that's too static for your taste.

Say hello to Racing Grandma and Grandad.

This, according to the catalogue is "the oldest race there is." Simply wind up the Granny and pull back the Grandad and let the race begin. Ready…steady…slow! It's hysterical fun for the whole family. Let's not forget the good folks at bitsandpieces.com have thoughtfully included an online video to capture all the scintillating fun.

It's 360 degree, fully-integrated brand engagement. If they're smart, Granny and Grandpa will have an Instagram page, Live Twitter feeds and oodles of ongoing Snapchattery.

Finally, assuming you haven't had enough fun, there's this…

It's a tie.

It's a piano.

It's Both!

I don't go to too many holiday parties. And I've never been to one where some bon vivant was entertaining the crowd with moving renditions of Billy Joel classics on his Piano/Tie, but I guess it's early in the season and there's still hope.

Shlock Photos

There's this unwritten law in advertising that you never speak publicly about bad clients. You don't name names. And you don't burn bridges.

By and large I have abided by that law. I don't know if you know this but I recently wrote an entire book about my travails in advertising and though I alluded to some names, never crossed the line.

Today, I'm going to throw caution to the Santa Ana Winds and willingly break that law.

Why?

Because I'm 44 years old. I'm almost done paying for my daughter's college education. And like my disdain for the Open Office plan, there are just some things that need to be said.

Recently, I was in San Francisco. On the way to the airport we passed by the former corporate headquarters of Siebel Systems. I'd be shocked if any of you heard of Siebel, much less knew what they did.

Theirs was the world of CRM, Customer Relationship Management, and at the time they were masters of their domain. Their namesake, Tom Siebel (reportedly with a net worth $5 billion), ran a tight, tight ship.

Men wore suits. Women wore dresses. And the elevators were pumped with the wholesome G-rated music of the Beach Boys, Frankie Vallie and the Johnnie Mann Singers.

In other words, the perfect client for Chiat/Day, the pirates of the ad world, to be pitching. But pitch we did, ignoring the results of the chemistry check and that we were the Mentos in their 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke.

I'll spare you all the gory details. The pitched internal battles between the Planning Department and the Creative Department. The painful hours spent behind one way mirrored glass in focus group facilities. And the lost nights holed up at the Radisson SFO, conveniently located within 300 yards of Runway 25 Right. (Note to you kids reading: unless you're a Pilot or a Flight attendant, you never, ever stay at the airport hotel. Never.)

I'll spare you the gory details mostly because it's a blur. But here's the part -- as close to verbatim as humanly possible-- I do remember.

"First of all, I want to thank you for all the hard work you've brought us today," said Tom Siebel, the man with his name on the building. "It's all so beautifully packaged. The margins are straight. The pages clearly numbered. And it's all so very professional. Very good."

Very good.
He thinks the work is very good.

"However, I'm not so sure about the messaging."

Uh-oh.

"The words? I like some of the words. Not all of them. Some of them are good."

That's a few points for the copywriter.

"Not so sure about the pictures however."

Here it comes.

"Here at Siebel, we're in the business of business. So our ads should have some good business images."

At this point our account team was furiously taking notes.

"What about a woman taking an order over the phone? That's a good image. Or a man leaning over another man's shoulder and checking some work on a computer screen? Have you looked at that? Or what about two businessmen shaking hands as if they just completed a deal? That's a good image. Can you bring us back something like?"

We could.

Thankfully, we didn't.