Friday, March 31, 2006

Creativity and Structure DNA just won't splice

A month's worth of work came down to the end of this week. And though it came in like a lion, it's going out like a lamb. 3 clients, 3 campaigns to finish. The first, for an electronics store, the smallest client, went without a hitch, easy greasy and we're done. He liked everything. Yay!
Thursday looked like it was going to be OK. But I walk in and immediately my computer's not working. So Kim, our IT guy (Korean guy, hence the girl name) tried it out. It freezes on me all the time. What do I do? Restart my computer. What does Kim do? He says fuck it and gets me a new computer. That freezes too so I end up working at another person's station who's out on a shoot in Canada. (I'm still here at her desk by the way. Kim's not in yet, and she's not gonna be back till Monday.) So I spent the day running back and forth in case my phone was ringing. Then of course the color printer goes down. Which wouldn't be too bad if the black and white one hadn't broken down two days before. So now every time I print I run across the office to the other color printer to get my stuff. And with about 30 revisions to scripts, 30 more of storyboards and key frames, I think I burned off my free dinner last night. So that's when we started working on the cat food, and it's... still... going... on! Revision upon revision that had to be rushed to FedEx to get it to them next day. Our account guy ran like the wind from the printer to the drop point in minutes flat.
In an of itself, still pretty normal for work but it kept us from getting the main attraction done and for the fact that my girlfriend is going to be out of town all weekend (our only time together usually) so she decided to picnic it with me at my desk with our take out beef and chicken teryaki. She got to meet my boss and coworkers which was nice but all I did was run around getting a kiss and a hug every 10 minutes as I left her be in my cube, or rather the absent co-worker's cube, as she ate, checked email, chatted, everything but spend time with me. The only good thing is that now I guess she understands a little bit better how the ad world, though creative, will never get its act together. We do our shit and the account people try and keep it together, but we always end up with broken comptuers, broken printers, and broken elevators, at 1AM in the morning. (More on the elevator later.) I swear I felt like it was hell week in ad school again, printing, reprinting, running around, getting 3 word conversations in with people. So after the dust settled and the gf went off to go dancing downtown I could work on Goya.
Our first presentation to the client for Goya was supposed to be to today (I'll get back to supposed later). So we didn't get to start working on it really till 8pm. And by 1 in the morning, after the jokes were finished, the boss had left, and the eye holes were shrinking, I had to catch my 1:08 train. But the ad gods said no, that wasn't going to happen either, because after just taking the elevator to get my fleece I pushed the button and waited. And I waited, and I waited, and then I waited some more. I pushed the up button, still nothing. 15 minutes went by. I had missed my last train home. Fortunately our HR woman, who stays late for reasons I'll never understand, got the super of the building to turn back ON the elevators. Let me repeat, turn back ON the elevators. For some reason at 1 AM someone decided to save a little electricity and turn off the elevators. The lights stayed on, the networks were working (unlike earlier in the day). So my nice account lady Tanya got me a voucher for a car service for my hour ride home in the burbs. I got into bed around 3 and got up around 7 to get into my fancy pants for the presentation today. And now I'm sitting here with the camel's back broken because the meeting has been postponed due to a sickness from one of the seniors at Goya.
I'm looking forward to enjoying this sun that's now out. I'm looking forward to the long lunch I'm gonna take in it. I'm looking forward to the half a weekend I'm expecting to have to get re-ready for the new presentation, which by the way is only an introductory meeting to prepare for the big boys which were supposed to come on Tuesday which I guess now will be pushed back too. I guess I'd better go fancy pants shopping.

Have a great first real weekend of spring everybody!

PS - boss just came by, we're off from work around noon today, yay! Time to catch up on The Shield and sleep!

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

United behind boycotting this film

This weekend I went to see The Inside Man with my brother at the movies. Not one of Spike's best movies and Clive Owen, though great can't do American for shit. But that's all just a side note. During the previews I saw a trailer for United93 which is a dramatic telling of what happened on 9/11 to United flight 93. Not one of the planes that flew into the twin towers, not the one that hit the Pentagon, but the other one that seemed to have been foiled by the passengers on board. The movie looks like it's just an as complete as possible telling of that morning, the flight, and as many different perspectives as possible. I'm sure they'll try and be as tastefull as possible and there's a link to a memorial fund but...

NO FUCKING WAY!

It's too soon. It's too soon. It's too soon. Hollywood is a profit hungry machine. When that Arnold Schwarzenneger movie was about to come out about terrorism they didn't junk it or hold off, they moved the release date down only a matter of months and poof, there was Arny, going after terrorists. And that was that bad cause it wasn't blatant, it wasn't made with 9/11 in mind. This movie is. They're site makes it all as serious as possible, you can go to all the different locations in America that had to do with that morning and see who did what when. This isn't a documentary, this is a money making film created to squeeze the cash right out of our bleeding hearts.

I can't help but think of the guerilla advertising that I, my friends, colleagues, et al. do. We take an idea and create a world around it, make it serious so it's as real as possible, and in the end, it's all to sell some paper towels or a car. But that's all for entertainment's sake based on selling a product. I created a whole story about a woman being so fat she got stuck in her house and sued Domino sugar because of it. All for entertainment's and Domino's sake to sell some sugar packets. And there's lots of stuff like this.

But in the end, it's sugar. It's not about one of the most important, emotionally jarring, life/world changing events in my or anyone around's lifetime. We're not ready, decency cannot allow this crap to be shown. Please join me and boycot this movie. And wait till it's 2066 to show some piece of crap action movie with Josh Hartnett's, Ben Affleck's, and Cate Beckensale's grandkids in the starring roles.

Check it out for yourself at flight93.net. Incidentally united93.com is a site for a Brit football team.

Friday, March 24, 2006

All the news that's fit to blog

Morning all. It's a grey, spring, Friday morning and snow showers are on the way for the weekend.

In global news, if any of you have heard of this new book Cobra II out on shelves now, it's a detailed account of the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom (replace Freedom with pun connoting how horribly it's gone here). The gist of it is that as soon as we went in to Iraq Rummy and all the generals were either seeing or had been told that this was going to be an insurgent battle. The army was escaping and blending in with their weapons. It turns out Sadaam had planned for the army to return as an insurgency. But all the while he never thought we'd actually attack and didn't take measures to escape until we hit Bagdad. He really was only worried about Iran and Israel. He had to fake his neighbors into thinking he had WMDs and never once thought that irony of not having them but lying he did would turn into an American invasion. The crossroads was upon Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Instead of stepping up the number of troops in order to quell the looming insurgency, he, like his boss, doesn't like to admit any form of defeat and stuck to his original plan of 200,000 troops thereby dooming Iraq and indeed all of us to these past three years of chaos that is now organizing itself into civil war. But Bush, in his latest press conference, vehemently thinks he still needs his Rummy and no resignation (two were given during his first term) will be accepted.
I guess I'd just like to take this opportunity to talk to anyone who thought Bush was bad but Kerry would most definitely be worse. I agree on many levels that Kerry is an idiot. He can't not be boring. He makes Gore's civic lessons look exciting. And he picks the Alito nomination to the supreme court to stand and filibuster while he's skiing in, where else, Davos Switzerland. Granted, he wouldn't shoot any one in the face by accident, but Kerry had a lot of miss steps. But look at Bush. Look at what his steadfastness, or rather stubbornness is getting us. And look at Bush's team. His inner circle. With Kerry in, they would have been gone too. And in would have come fresh blood. One thing we always say about Bush is that he's the devil you know. But why do we also chose devils we know over those we don't? Does anyone really think Harriet Meirs, Katrina, Rita, Iraq, etc... would have been treated this badly under a Kerry administration? Come on! Even Bush's tax cuts don't fully take effect until 2008 so we wouldn't have had higher taxes. I used to say a few years ago if Bush is re-elected he'll go down as a good president because he'll have the second term opportunity to clean up his mess (back when I thought Iraq was still winable). And if he wasn't reelected all his bafoonery would be revealed. Turns out it's the opposite. Another terms is giving the Bush administration the finals nails into its own coffin. And a single term would have put all Bush's deficits and fumblings into the hands of Kerry or whoever to clean up, being the responsible but poorly received president. I guess we have more to think about when elections come up again.

And in local news. It's anniversary time! The 21st was my parents 30th anniversary since they met. Wonderful story that I've already blogged about, go check that one out. It's also my dad's dead dad's birthday (my grandpapi I never knew). He would have been 121 this year. I know! But the 23rd was also the anniversary of my parents first date, and coincidentally my AD's, Linda's, first date with her man. As we were having lunch with RB's BDH and Janny yesterday it occurred to us it was also a year since our dear Bacon Greese had left us in NY for the sun and surf of the west coast. We miss you RB! And The 12th was the first anniversary of my bro and his dear lady, Mary. How sweet a couple they are. Without knowing it, they gave each other the same gift, 5 hours at the same day spa.
And lo and behold, Ekta's back! She surprised me yesterday when my phone rang and it was her Ameican cell phone number and not some weird long Indian one. She took the plunge, she's back, she's freelancing and interviewing, and let's all welcome her to where she belongs, good old NYC!

That's the news lady's and gents. Goodnight and Good Luck. (I think I'm gonna have to come up with a more original sign off)

Friday, March 17, 2006

The difference between me and my partner and then the difference between men and women

I am typing this during a short lull at work waiting for a horrible client phone meeting to occur while my partner has just left for a ski weekend in Killington VT that she just won with her boyfriend. No, I'm not complaining, I'm happy for her. It's a great escape from St. Patricks Day since she doesn't really drink. More beer for us! So that's the difference between her and me right now.

But here's the weird thing I was reading about the difference between men and women. Apparently men speak on average about 7,000 words a day. We communicate to the world that much. But women, oh you women, you speak an average of 25,000 words a day. Three and a half times more than we do! And check around your blogs if you haven't noticed but we men are pretty rare. In fact there just me and the good ole Steve-O Tribune actively blogging on my list. The rest are gossip queens. Really, really funny and provocative gossip queens. Granted, most of you are copywriters (still a rarity to be a girl copywriter for those who don't know), but wow, we men are few and far between!

Which leads me to this evolutionarily freaky article I just read in the NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/14/health/14preg.html) which goes into that whole "men are hunters women are gatherers" thing and elaborates to a degree I didn't think was possible. Most of us have already learned (some of us the hard way) how women are looking for everything in one man and how men are looking for one thing in every woman. And it makes sense with the whole, "we make a million a day and you get one a month" scenario. But it seems our bodies have worked this out too because women express genes in their kids to not be extremely strong and healthy when they get out so mom still has resources left over to have more kids where as dad gives the baby genes to make sure it grows as healthy as possible because dad isn't waiting for kid #2 with the same lady. So both tactics help to get more of specifically your genes out into the world and not necessarily your partners. One of the things the female genes do (if they are able to act without interference) is cause the baby to be up to 25% smaller whereas the daddy genes, when allowed to work on their own make the baby that much bigger. Dad genes also have this neat little trick where the baby can send out a hormone that clogs arteries thereby increasing the mother's blood pressure. And increased blood pressure forces more nutrients down the umbilical chord. If a baby senses it's not getting enough, it does this naturally. If a baby does this too much the mother gets pre-eclampsia which happens in about 6% of pregnancies.

So I guess if we want to truly make this planet an equal opportunity habitat we're going to have to do some gene modification. Or I should just live with the fact that my buds and I just have less to say than the lassies at the other side of the bar and leave it at that.

Monday, March 13, 2006

It's 11:11, make a wish.

It's 11:11 in the PM at my agency and I'm working late again. My first presentation to an actual client is tomorrow and of course it's to our biggest one. Our $50 million behemouth. I worked till 1 AM last thursday for a friday presentation and then left at 5, after the work was done and nothing was left and people were saying they were leaving and I had to go with my girlfriend to her mothers for dinner so I was going not home to rest but to put on my chipper face and eat a home cooked meal and sit up straight. Which I did. And even got through watching the best of Eddie Murphy on SNL that I brought over upon request. And through the whirlwind that was the weekend of getting to Phily and back while being at my bosses beck and call I got through to today with 5 hours of sleep only to not be able to get home before 1 or maybe 2 and have to wake up at 6 for an 8:30 run through at the agency tomorrow morning. Yay!
I was going to write about how Bush is going to have the FDA ban a drug that can basically cure HPV because he thinks it will increase sexually pomiscuity regardless of the 5,000 lives a year it will save.
But sorry, I have work to do. Well, back to it!