Copywriterman: Do You Copy?

And now a little about me.

2010-10-02T13:44:00.000-07:00

I'm not the young hotshot guy with the book that makes you consider retirement. (Though it might make you think about taking a three-day vacation.)

I'm not the seasoned journeyman creative that's seen and done it all. (Though I've seen a lot in my day including a giant taco body slam a giant beer bottle in a wrestling ring.)

I'm not the ad geek that can quote Bernbach like scripture. (Though I've been known to spend many a night weak and weary pouring over random industry tomes.)

What I am is a writer with passion for storytelling and a massive chip on my shoulder. I've got something to prove and honestly, I probably always will.

I am not simply what I have done. Who I will be can't be known be looking at who I've been.

I am not predictable.

I am not stale.

And I am never, ever satisfied.

There's a perfect, golden, beautiful story that could be told for every brand. Sometimes the difference between brilliance and run-of-the-mill comes down to the smallest details. I want to tell those golden stories and I will dig as deep as I have to--through every tiny detail--to find them.

Most of the posts here are just rants--proof to myself that I can write more than 50 words at a time. You'll find my portfolio linked up there on the top left. Take a look around and sound off if something so inspires you.

Thanks,

William

Kingdom of the Spiders (from 2004)

2010-09-11T14:36:00.000-07:00

Last week was my first week at my new job and the experience of acclimating to my new gig took much out of me. I worked late on Thursday night and could barely manage to stay awake long enough to eat dinner. Immediately after scarfing down some semi-edible bachelor, chow I stumbled sluggishly into my bed.

When I got under the covers I immediately felt something odd. There was something —somethings—under there with me! I felt 6 furry creatures and instantly came to the obvious conclusion—there was a pack of Brazilian goliath tarantulas in my bed. I should let it be known that I have a touch of arachnophobia. I pretty much always think there are spiders in my bed, but never had I felt their furry spider parts on me.

Powered by a million horsepower of pure terror, I shot out of the bed and levitated about 3 feet in the air flailing my arms and legs violently at invisible attackers. In flight, I heard a voice screaming something like “Ohmigawdwathefawk!” and this terrified me even more until I realized it was my own. As soon as toe one hit the floor I started grabbing for anything solid enough smite giant, bed-dwelling arachnids. As I am something of a student of the martial arts, I was lucky enough to have situated my bed in the middle of a very respectable samurai arsenal. With ninja-like agility, I seized the nearest katana (for you rookies, that’s a big damn sword) and threw down my meanest-looking ninja stance.

By this time, my bed covers were undulating as the plate-sized monsters, who, with their cover blown, now prepared to leap from beneath the sheets and attach themselves to my face with Ridlyscottian cunning (it happens). I looked at the 32-inch blade in my hand and thought maybe I could benefit from some more firepower—something in the megaton range—but I realized that there was no time to pay the Russian black market a visit and I would have to face these beasts octomanos a mano. I readied myself to strike down upon the villains with great vengeance and furious anger and threw back the sheets fully expecting to meet my end, and fully prepared to do so fighting in accordance with the warrior’s code.

To my surprise, tossing back the covers revealed something totally unexpected. Looking up at me with what I read to be total feline confusion, lay 6 tiny kittens, their developing brains straining to comprehend why a large human was screaming at them while brandishing a 3-foot long knife.

Kittens! It had not occurred to me that my cat, who had given birth to 6 kittens a week before might stash her brood in my bed. I suppose she had not foreseen a brush with a Benny-Hannaesque demise when she put them there but she really should have known that baby kittens feel EXACTLY like giant Brazilian goliath tarantulas—I mean everybody knows that!

After I changed my underpants and took a dozen or so Valium®, I sat mamma cat down and explained to her that she should refrain from putting her kittens in places where I would least expect to find them as I watched a very scary movie about spiders when I was 7 and tend to react with extreme prejudice when small, furry things are placed in my bed without my consent.

I placed the ball of kittens back in her kitty cage, tucked them snuggly in and went to bed knowing that there was very little chance that any giant spiders would have used the chaos as a distraction to sneak attack me. I mean, what are the odds of that?

The next morning, I went to into my clothes hamper to retrieve a pair of socks. Instead of socks, I felt a writhing ball of fur. After levitating, screaming inaudible obscenities and again brandishing a weapon, I realized that my cat had stuffed her progeny in my hamper. It would appear that she doesn’t listen very well. She just pretends to understand, but I personally think she doesn’t even speak English. It’s a lot like going through the drive thru at Taco Bell really.

I am now accustomed to finding baby kittens in just about any dark and soft place from sock drawers to pant legs. I no longer grab for cutlery when I grab fuzz instead of linen. And that is what worries me. This might be just what the giant Brazilian goliath tarantulas want from me. This might be all part of their plan!

Damn you William Shatner, damn the Kingdom of the Spiders and double damn the Animal Planet!

The Great Lincoln Log Conspiracy.

2010-09-10T12:26:00.000-07:00

Every so often something happens that gives me a greater understanding of who I am and how I got that way. Something like that happened today. Today I discovered yet another source of my adult insecurities thanks to a client of ours here at [Redacted] that builds elevators and, as part of a clever ad campaign, we found ourselves attempting to construct Lincoln Log houses.

There's no need to explain the concept, though I am sure question marks are appearing over your head as you try to imagine why a grown man would be getting paid to set around and play with Lincoln Logs. Suffice to say that my job is much cooler than yours...or my employer couldn't find anything better to use me for.

John Loyd Wright: Epic Dick:

You'd think that, as a grown man of 35 years, my tiny log cabin building skills would have improved many fold since childhood. You, however, would be wrong. After a few minutes of construction two things became very clear to me: 1. I am about two points away from being autistic on the Lincoln Log IQ Test and 2. John Loyd Wright was a total dick and possibly guilty of felony conspiracy of the highest order.

Allow me to explain. Check out the pictures of what you are suppose to be able to create from a can of Lincoln Logs. Looks simple. A child could do it, right? WRONG. A child could TRY to do it but they would inevitably fail.

Now why would somebody set children to up fail and crush their fragile little egos?

The Shadow of a Great Man:

Well, let's consider John Loyd Wright, the inventor of Lincoln Logs. I know, you are shocked to find out that Abe Lincoln did not invent the logs that carry his name. That's why you read this blog, for insights like that. You've probably never heard of John Wright, but you've hopefully heard of his dad, Frank Loyd Wright. Yep, John's dad was the most famous and revered architect in the history of people building things.

And his son, also an architect, is famous for creating a childrens' toy. Ouch! The story goes that John was inspired to create Lincoln Logs while watching the construction of his father's Imperial Hotel in Nagoya, Japan (a particularly Lincoln-Log-esque creation). So instead of being inspired to create a masterwork to rival that of dear old dad's, John was moved instead to create a can of notched wooden logs that would forever infuriate children and reduce their dreams of becoming successful architects to nothing more than a formless pile of notched wooden logs.

Or perhaps there is more to it.

Tiny Wooden Houses of Pain:

Some say (me) that John, disgruntled at his attempts to best dad in the edifice-construction department (call it an "edifice complex" if you can stand the sighs of disgust from anybody that hears you do so), decided to exact revenge upon children around the globe. Driven mad by the unrelenting pressure to escape his father's shadow (a story later made into an early horror film), he devised a cunning plan to subject kids to the same soul-crushing experience he had had growing up.

He created what seemed to be a fun toy that also inspired childrens' creativity. That was only on the surface.

The Missing Linc:

Lincoln Logs were actually carefully constructed to introduce children to the same crushing feelings of failure and inadequacy Wright felt as a child himself.

Doubt me? Try to build something (see my example) with Lincoln Logs. It starts out fun and happy times, but you soon run into Wright's devious diablo ex machina: there's only a few logs with three notches--far fewer than would be needed to frame a proper log-a-minium. Call it the tri-notch conundrum if you will...and you will.

Anybody who has built anything with Lincoln Logs knows that those three-notch pieces are the longest and are key to building anything larger than an outhouse. Many a brotherly fist-to-cuffs as broken out over the last three-notcher. It never fails, you get halfway through your construction of a lovely three bedroom Victorian and BAM, no more of the invaluable three-notch pieces to be found. If you want to keep going, you need a whole additional set of logs which dad won't buy you because he spent all his money on stripper and blow again. So you are left with either a half built log structure or a room full of tiny logs scattered in every direction.

Lincoln Logs and the Fall of Democracy:

You might think it is just a clever way to get you to buy more Lincoln Logs. No. That feeling of failure, the feeling of knowing your dreams will only go half fulfilled, echoes of a man whose life went the same way, a bitter bastard named John Wright.

And so one of the reasons I am such a cynical adult who no longer believes in hopes and/or dreams was revealed to me today as I tried to build a kick-ass tri-story Lincoln Log multiplex. Sure it started out well enough but it ended in crushing defeat, just like life itself.

Thanks John Loyd Wright for teaching millions of kids what they could expect in life and breeding cynicism and hopelessness. Considering the Lincoln Logs were marketed to affluent Americans in the 1940s and 1950s (ran TV commercials and only the rich possessed TVs at the time), perhaps the impact was even worse. Our current leaders were only rich little brats back then. Perhaps G.W. Bush or Karl Rove lost their sense of altruism and fair play after suffering repeated defeat on the field of play and vowed to one day exact their revenge upon the world as a whole.

And the cycle continued.

That seems plausible. I'm going with it. It's settled: John Loyd Wright and his confounded tri-wedge-shorted Lincoln Logs led to the depredation of the world as we know it.

Don't agree? Look at the epic FAIL below.

If I'd had a few more of those damned three-notchers, I could have built one of these:

Advair, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!

2010-09-05T09:14:00.000-07:00

Pneumonia, I have it. Why? A fit specimen such as myself, suffering a notorious granny-afflicting ailment?

Well, I recently moved back to Dallas from South Carolina and, in order to save money, my wife, Mrs. Copywriterman, suggested we move into her mother's house and save some money, buy all new furniture and get ahead on some bills.

As my mother-in-law resides elsewhere and the idea of getting a financial leg up sounded bully to me, I went along with the idea.

So, off to Dallas we went, leaving our old furniture behind and all. New place, new stuff, American dream, Waldensian utopia and so on.

What you don't know can hurt you as always. My wife neglected to tell me that her mom's house is a mold-infested, sewage-backing-up, little-house-on-some-damn-prairie throwback with all the comfort and charm (not to mention relative humidity and mold content) of a 14th century dungeon. The mold is so bad in fact that the only treatment is a nuking from orbit (only way to be sure).

It appears that living in such environs has been known to cause epic respiratory distress in mice and copywriters.

The more you know...

To cut to the chase, after wheezing like a asthmatic in a tornado made of dandelions for about a week, I went to the doctor and found out that I had an ear/sinus/every-damn-thing infection and walking pneumonia. As I prefer my lungs functioning above 30%, I agreed to a myriad of shots, pills and to inhale something called Advair thrice daily.

Problem solved, right? Medical science saves the day. Marathons for me mere days later. I mean, Advair is a steroid and steroids give you super powers. My lungs should be strong like bull, right? Right?

No. Not so much.

Advair® (fluticasone and salmetero) has some mind-blowingly ironic side effects. Remember, you take it to help with bronchial ailments, i.e. to breath farking better.

Here are the listed side effects with my particular ones in bold:

Upper respiratory tract infections, such as the common cold -- in up to 27 percent of people
Headaches -- up to 21 percent (Does passing out from lack of oxygen and hitting your head count?
A sore throat -- up to 13 percent
Bronchitis -- up to 8 percent
Coughing -- up to 6 percent
Nausea and vomiting -- up to 6 percent. (Gee, too bad I missed that one)

Sorry, BRONCHITIS? UPPER RESPIRATORY INFECTIONS? Whisky Tango Foxtrot?! You mean the exact things you take Advair to treat? You mean it will help me breathe farking worse? Gee thanks for that.

I suppose this should come as no surprise. Prozac increases risk of suicide. Heart attack meds increase risk of heart attacks.

Dear pharmaceutical companies: YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG. Please revisit the concept of curing ailments at length. Hire, I dunno, some qualified medical personnel, maybe even some doctors, to help sort this all out for you.

Or maybe they are out to kill us all and things are going swimmingly. More concerning to though, maybe my wife is trying to kill me!
She's probably got some superhero-sized immunity to whatever manner of fonchy, microbial malfeasance haunts our house. It could be. She does watch a whole lot of CSI of late.

Surely not.

[cough]

Err....hopefully not.

2010-09-01T08:37:00.000-07:00

[From May 1999]

It was 20 minutes after 9 when the drug began to take hold. I had arrived at my desk early and feeling sluggish from the previous night's revelry. I had gotten into that black demon coffee earlier than usual and had consumed two maybe three cups before anyone else had showed up.

I had gone too far this time.   I didnt feel anything after the first cup so I had another. After the second, time began to lose meaning. It could have been an hour later that I came back for another hit or it could have been only moments. I couldnt be sure. What I was sure of was that things were getting weird all around me and I was going to have a hard time keeping it together.  I remember thinking that I felt a bit lightheaded. And suddenly there was a strange buzzing sound above me like the sound of some great beast of a wasp swooping down on me like a helpless grasshopper. I looked up and realized that I could actually hear the florescent bulbs humming above me. This is not good, I thought.
 "What's not good?" said Dan, the portly technophile in the next cubicle. Shocked, I whirled around and fixed a terrible glare on the boy. "What are talking about, man?" I said. "You just said This is not good," he smirked.   Oh god! He could hear what I was thinking or did I say it out loud? I retreated back to my computer screen and attempted to forget about Dan's possible 6th sense as best I could. But things were no better on my screen. It seemed to be undulating to the rhythm of my pulse. Soon the whole room seemed to be keeping the same time.  

 Ye Gods! How long could I keep it together? How long would it be before I started parading up and down the isles ranting about Jesus, damnation and dogs and cats living in sin like some crazed evangelist at the end of a two-week-long meth binge?!

The caffeine was right on top of me now. I was at the peak of the trip and I had a 10:00 meeting coming up fast. Maybe I could just sit quietly and ride it out. Yes, surely I could make it. I just needed some time to get it together.  At that moment, as if sent by a cruel and ill-humored god, someone tapped me on the shoulder. I cannot describe to you the FEAR I felt when I spun around and found myself looking up at my boss and his enormous, floating head. All I could see was his huge head. It seemed detached from the body and everything else in the room faded out as he spoke."William, we need to get together about the ad in USA Today," said the disembodied head. I heard myself say something like, "You can never be too sure about those kind things. Best to use dynamite or maybe ammonium nitrate." I had no idea what that meant but I was fairly sure I had just said it to my now-confused boss's floating head.   "Hahaha!" chuckled the head. Thank God I was always strange enough that such odd behavior would be viewed as a joke that he didnt get or some counter-culture code referring to some obscure movie he had never seen. I was lucky but how long would that last? It was 9:55 and I had 5 minutes to evolve back into my previous upright form.   Maybe everything would be OK if I just explained myself. Then perhaps I could rest easy. Surely they would understand my low tolerance for caffeine was the cause for this temporary madness and not the result of the abuse of every chemical known to civilized man since 1452.

On second thought, I'd better ride it out. The fiends would never get me. I just had to find a safe place. I thought back to my early school days of "stop drop and roll" and crawled under my desk for refuge. I'd have to ride it out here. "Buy the ticket take the ride," as they say.   But was I really safe? A pair of large feet came my way and stopped at the entrance to my cube. This could be bad, I thought. Maybe I could leap out and subdue this interloper before anyone was the wiser. I had seem it done in movies.  
 Decisions. Decisions. Decisions.

DDB Brasil, WTF!

2009-09-03T12:56:00.001-07:00

Can't express in words how much I hate this ad, so I will present this artist rendering of my reaction to first seeing it:
Read all about the fallout here.

Woody FAIL

2009-03-29T15:49:00.000-07:00

How much fail could a "Woody" fail if a Woody could... oh, just check out this rare 2002 Geo Woody Tracker abomination:

Just check out this craftsmanship:

That's right. House paint, HOUSE PAINT.

The Carol of the Christmas Pickle (2008)

2008-12-15T10:03:00.000-08:00

Looking back, spending about hundred hours trapped in a dank dungeon playing with pickles is a little absurd but when you see the results...

...it's actually really absurd. Check out all that went into making the above masterwork possible here.

Next up:

Crash Vinyl needs more of something...

2008-08-12T11:54:00.000-07:00

But what? (Behold, the most useful Website evar.)


	Make your own at MoreCowbell.dj

The Madness of Father Bill

2008-08-08T13:46:00.000-07:00

Since my dad can't muster the gumption to set up a proper blog, here is a repost of his latest bad craziness. Warning: Reading this in its entirety may cause cranial cancer, mild to severe head implosion and, rarely, rifts in the space-time continuum.

Introduction (Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.)

Modern Pedants proclaim that all the great mysteries in this world have been discovered and explained, all that’s left is some fine tuning here and there. But one of the most mysterious of these mysteries is also one of the most obvious. While it’s assumed that the roundness of objects is well understood, our current knowledge barely scratches the surface.

Why is it that writing that originated near the equator is written from right to left while writing originating at higher latitudes goes from left to right? Why is it that a door with the knob on right on one side has the knob on the left on the other side? How come stars appear so small? Can a person who a straight shooter also talk in circles?

Spherical Relativity:

It is generally believed that spherical objects are well understood and conceptually simple. We've been taught that a sphere can be fully described as "the set of all points in three-dimensional space (R³) which are at distance r from a fixed point of that space, where r is a positive real number called the radius of the sphere. Thus, in three dimensions, a mathematical sphere is considered to be a two-dimensional spherical surface embedded in three-dimensional space, rather than the volume contained within it (which mathematicians would instead describe as a ball). The fixed point is called the center and is not part of the sphere itself. (Wikipedia)" This, however, only describes a sphere at rest.

When a sphere is not moving then all points are exactly equal and there is nothing to distinguish any one point on the surface of the sphere from any other. While this is the normal state of spheres we generally encounter on earth, there's more to the story. If a sphere acquires spin it simultaneously acquires an axis which will include poles. Every point on the surface of a spinning sphere can be plotted by its angle from the nearest pole (the latitude of that point). Any point at an angle of 90 degrees from either pole will lie on the sphere's equator. On earth latitude is calculated from the equator since the axis is tilted 23.5 degrees from the plane of its orbit. Pretty boring stuff.

Notice though that just adding spin to a sphere changes everything. A sphere at rest has no reference points; every place is just like every other. A sphere with spin now has poles, an equator and latitudes. This spin also introduces the phenomenon of a period of rotation so that one complete rotation can be determined by observing a point in relation to some other point beyond the sphere. We now have both location and time to specify any point of the surface of a sphere. It's at this point that an especially strange phenomenon becomes apparent.

This phenomenon has been aggressively ignored over the centuries since it introduces all manner of bizarre and unwelcome paradoxes. If this phenomenon were to be taught in public schools the social and political upheaval certain to follow would surely render civilization impossible. Being indifferent to the confusion of future generations, I will explain this phenomenon here. If you are secure in your knowledge of the nature of Nature, read no further.

The Law of Smallness:

On earth latitude is measured from the equator. As one moves away from the equator toward either pole, the angle from the equator is the latitude. Notice in the drawing (from the writings of the Medieval Astrologer, Ethelburt Maloderus in his Fragnopolitic Exegesis, Volume 6) that a right triangle drawn from the equator to the point where the latitude intersects the circumference of the sphere yields a circle of less circumference than that at the equator.

As the angle of the latitude increases, the circumference of the circle at that latitude decreases. This smaller circle describes a proportionally smaller area at that latitude. The second part of the Maloderus drawing shows that the time for a complete rotation is likewise truncated with increasing latitude. This is beyond merely interesting.

Since units of measurements of length remain the same at all latitudes, it follows that they must also get smaller. A mile at the equator is 5280 feet and is 1/24000 of the circumference at the equator. That same mile at any other latitude will be less yet will still be 5280 feet which means the a mile is actually shorter. An inch, a foot, a yard and a mile shrink as one moves away from the equator.

A mile at 22.5 degrees from the equator will actually be 25% shorter than at the equator. At 45 degrees, 50% shorter, at 67.5 degrees it will be 75% shorter and at the pole it will shrink to a one dimensional point. A person who is six feet tall at the equator will be less than three feet tall in Paris France. Since everything shrinks at the same rate and to the same degree, there is no way to detect the change by any comparison to anything else at that latitude. A person walking either toward or away from the equator will gain or lose height at the at the same rate as his (or her) surroundings so the change is never noticed.

Before the advent of fast transport, this phenomenon had no noticeable effects since people would grow or shrink at a rate too slow to be noticed. When travel began to exceed 60 miles per hour (a mile a minute) those traveling due north or south began to discern unpleasant side effects. Those going toward the equator began to feel lightheaded and confused as their bodies expanded, those going way from the equator felt the compression caused by shrinkage and became irritable. With air travel these effects became even more noticeable.

NASA discovered the only way to launch people into space at escape velocity (24000 miles an hour) was to launch the spacecraft either east or west, never north or south. At the speed necessary to attain escape velocity any trajectory away from an east-west line would either crush astronauts going away from the equator or cause them to expand until they exploded if heading toward the equator.

The Russians, being at higher latitudes, had smaller brains and were therefore unable to figure this out. They would launch their spacecraft due south (there's not much room in Russia to go north). When the spacecraft was recovered they discovered that the cosmonauts had turned into raspberry jam. They blamed the CIA for years until they finally discovered their error by listening to Sesame Street on Radio Free Europe.

Even now aircraft do not fly directly north or south since people going away from the equator get progressively dumber while those flying toward the equator get lazier. Only those flights to places that no one cares about will risk a rapid change of latitude. People flying to either pole are the most severely affected since they will shrink to a singularity once reaching the pole. Most of these people will simply implode which is why the last 40 miles or so before reaching the pole, they will switch to dogsleds for the final approach.

Pictured above: Symposium of the Learned Deniers
Asembled in 1223 in Tours France
to suppress the discoveries of Ethelburt Maloderus as anathema to
correct misunderstanding. Pictured below: Schroedinger's cat, Fozzy, after fully comprehending the magnitude of crazy in this post.

Notice also in the Maloderus map that the length of an hour at the equator is greater than at the higher latitudes. A 24 hour day at the equator is only 12 hours in Hrvaska Croatia which means the Hrvaskanians only work a 4 hour day. This may explain why nothing much gets done there. It's even worse in Moscow where the day is only about 8 hours long and probably explains why the Soviet system never worked very well. A the poles there's no time to get anything done so everything is just frozen in both time and place.

The latitude where these affects of latitudinal discontinuity are least disruptive is within a few degrees of 35°. At this latitude the adverse intellectual displacments are at the minimum possible value. It is no accident that the Institute for Creative Cosmology and Hair Design is locate at precisely 35° North and 97° West in the Acme Generic Research Mall (Where the best ideas are always on sale).

Editor's note: I don't think it is possible to accurately explain in words (or furious hand gesturing) the confusing wrought upon my helpless child mind on any of the unfortunate occasions I asked my father for simple explanations on matters relating to the physical (read: actual) world. I am pretty sure this article explain a lot about me, but I'm now too confused to figure out exactly what.

Palin Shooped

2008-08-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

Charlie White...very bad man.

2008-07-09T15:04:00.000-07:00

Blog-to-Shame Correlary

2008-06-11T11:55:00.000-07:00

Something to keep in mind.

Hillary and Adventures in Not Taking a Hint.

2008-05-12T14:54:00.000-07:00

Hillary's superdelegate lead is gone, gone, gone. When will she take the hint?

Hotdog Abomination.

2008-05-12T06:48:00.000-07:00

There's no better way to bring down the apocalypse on us all than to use science to tamper with the natural order of things. Apparently 7-Eleven hasn't seen 28 Days Later, The Mist, The Andromeda Strain et every zombie/end of the world movie ever. If they had, they'd never have created this unholy abomination to all that isn't unholy.

Cheese filled hot dogs. The act of securing and applying cheese to our hot dogs is too much for us. We needed a solution and science came through once again. What's more, it appears that this is part of 7-11's move towards fresh foods. No, I did not make this up. Apparently these things are "fresh", so they must insert the cheese right on the spot. Mmmm, tasty.

This was all foretold in a certain work of prophetic wonders. I suggest you check it out.

Be sure to get your electrolytes. You need those for...stuff.

New Copywriterman Inc. World Headquarters

2008-04-17T14:47:00.000-07:00

Copywriterman World Headquarters has relocated. Mote implementation and machine gun turret construction right on schedule. We expect the station to be fully operational soon.

CWH (as we call it) is located within a Dallas berg called Highland Park. This is not a land accustomed to betattooed bald men roaming the streets unescorted or in any other capacity than lawn-care specialist. I expect to be either arrested or lynched within the month.

Allow me to illuminate you as to the ultra-white-bread-conservative mindset of my hood and origins of my very reasonable and rational fears. The median family income in Highland Park is well over 300k. That is many times more than the GDP of The Copywriterman. That's 8 times more than the median income of the average Texan. I should add that rich people scare me. People with that type of money pay people to digest their food, drive cars that run on baby seals and look upon lesser lifeforms with scorn. People like that make people like me disappear and have all mention or memory us wiped out so it is as if we never were. Basically, that type of money turns you into either Pharaoh (as played by Yule Brenner) or Dr. No.

There is evidence to be considered. A story ran in the local paper announcing that the first black family had moved into the neighborhood...this was in 2004. Oddly, the story can't be found online anymore. It was a big deal. It ran on the front page. It was like an The Onion article sans sense of irony.

Here's a story about the first black person ever considered for membership of the local country club. There's also the long-standing history of Highland Park cops pulling people over for DWB (Driving While Black). It's a pretty open practice. Everybody knows they do it and, as the people that pay their salaries are the most powerful people in Dallas, nobody can do a thing about it. Racism is fine if you can afford it.

What I personally fear is getting hit with the dreaded DWBAT (Driving While Bald And Tattooed), which I believe they treat as a violent felony.

If I find myself faced with this situation, my plan is to fall down, curl up into the fetal position and cry. Cops feast on tears, it's like crack to them. Once their incapacitated in the throes sadistic ecstasy, I'll make my escape back to CWH and to the protection of my gun turrets and trip wires. Well, that is if the code inspector approves. He did seem a little shocked by my proposal. I admit, it is an ambitious project.
Quadanium Shield. You damn right. Not easy to find a retailer that carries it, but you really can't build a proper parameter defense system without it.

Gitmo Out of Team Building.

2008-04-15T06:53:00.000-07:00

Team Building: The Power of Stupid People in Groups

Team building exercises are the stuff of nightmares and comedy skits. The boss calls the troops together (usually on a weekend to "leverage" the overall suckiness of the event) and conducts some "turn-key", ready-made exercise that usually involves falling off something into the waiting arms of your newly-energized "team members."

During the 1980's, corporate America fell in love with gung-ho, morale building gimmicks and a cottage industry of motivational speakers and weekend programs that covered everything from paintball wars to blind-folded driv ing. We can thank the Japanese and our obsessive fear that they would conquer America via the clever use of compact cars and home stereo equipment. Suffice to say we should have quickly learned what millions of YouTube viewers have long known; what works for the Japanese, comes off as just plain stupid and/or illegal when we do it. But corporate America is a different world. What most people would never even consider doing or tolerating, becomes the norm.

Waterboarding: Xtreme Motivation for Xtreme Results(tm)

And so Prosper Inc. decided recently to take things up a notch or two by waterboarding employees in an effort to improve lagging sales.

If I could make the following quote up, I would be in Hollywood doing blow off something right now:

You saw how hard Chad fought for air right there. I want you to go back inside and fight that hard to make sales.

While I am sure Chad was about as motivated as he could have been whilst upside-down having water poured over his face, I doubt that type of life-or-drowning motivation can be expected during his next cold call.

Predictably, Prosper Inc. was shocked, SHOCKED, I say to find out people might find this type of activity shocking and that people might then look upon them with scorn. Again, if I could make up quotes like this next one from the company's lawyer, I'd be a very rich man:

We’re not the mean waterboarding company that people think we are.

Well, you waterboarded an employee, you are a company and depriving people of oxygen while simulating the whole drowning experience is pretty fucking mean . I don't see too much to debate here. The company, when questioned about the incident, did put up a very strong defense that basically boiled down to, "This wouldn't even be a big deal if the CIA hadn't done it at GITMO."

Ah, true that. People would be waterboarding each other at parties, there would be home waterboarding kits--it would be fun for everybody. Even so, I doubt you would have thought of it on your own either and you would not have ever heard of it if it had not been the topic of global outrage based on the fact that it violated some pesky rules about not farking torturing POWs. And it should also be noted that the company had subjected salespeople to only the passing-humiliation of an egg toss during their last event.

Everybody likes a surprise, but generally surprises don't involve torture and, when they do, teams aren't built so much as lawsuits and international incidents. But how could this even happen? Would Chad Hudgens, the aforementioned victim, have brutally cock punched his torturers if he were off the clock? You bet. But, at work, we all seem to forget we are individuals with rights, one of which happens to be to cock bunch somebody HARD if they ever even consider attempting to subject us to any form of torture. Actually, we should be well with in our rights to cock punch anybody who subjects us to team building exercises of any sort, but one thing at a time.

What? No Cock Punches?

Granted, the victim didn't see it coming as he was/is a total asshat and thought waterboarding had "something to do with water skiing," but even idiots deserve better (that is unless they are running a country and order waterboarding, then, bottoms up, biatches).

If being paid to do something isn't enough motivation for your people to get it done, you're hiring the wrong people. As Socrates once said, "You can polish poo all you like and it will still be poo." So unless you're going to let your employees light stuff on fire and blow stuff up
which is awesome motivation to do anything, STFU and GBTW, people!

Chad did, however, find the technique effective getting people to say something/anything true or otherwise to make it stop, "I would’ve told them whatever they wanted me to tell them."

I dunno, how about telling them, "Fuck off, you crazy bastards. Come here so I might cock punch you with extreme prejudice and then light you on fire." Or something along those lines. Chad better get one hell of a letter of recommendation for his next job. Perhaps his new skills might be helpful in his future endeavors as well.

Skills include: Not dying when having gallons of water poured in face for 20 seconds or more.
Weaknesses include: Not beating ever-loving-hell out of bosses who poured water in face for 20 seconds or more.

So, at least he has that going for him.

Note: Any team-building event that results in this quote or any quote containing any of the included phrases, "Throwing pies at them, feeding them baby food, making them wear diapers and swatting their buttocks" warrants violence to our about the groin area and/or one epic lawsuit. Read more here.

For something so hideous (or a motivational video nature, whole other topic), click here. Be warned, this could tear a hole in your soul.

Protein Slam: Nice Package.

2008-04-03T11:20:00.000-07:00

In researching energy products for a client, I came upon Protein Slam. Basically it's a protein + workout recovery supplement drink you just "slam" down like a shot. It's packaged in a plastic test tube which, I presume, is to denote it's super-scientifically formulated technology made in a lab by people familiar with test tubes and such.

Fine. Very clever, but my coworkers keep hinting that these fine people might have overlooked one barrier to adoption. I have no idea though what that might be, but they are all snickering like prepubescent boys for some reason.

Well, something about that just looks wrong to me. I can't quite place it. They say you should shake it up, so...

OH! WHAT THE...! I get it now. They clearly might be onto something around here. Me thinks that macho bodybuilder types might feel a tad insecure chugging one of these down at the gym. It could be that they were targeting the always illusive junior-high-boys-who-want-to-buy-penis-shaped-energy-drinks-as-gag-gifts-for-their-friends market. If so, kudos on that. I believe the market has been cornered.

If not, maybe these guys should get together with the people down at iBeat for a steel cage deathmatch to once and for all decide ultimate marketing shenanigan supremacy.

Ludicrous Quantums of Advertising Awesomeness Ahead.

2008-04-03T07:02:00.000-07:00

So what's that, you say? Can't really tell you yet, but it's going to pretty awesome. You don't know what it is, but you saw it here first. How cool are you?

iBeat Blaxx? Really?

2008-01-29T13:15:00.000-08:00

Oh, there have been some real winners, but this is the granddaddy of all marketing faux pauxes...s..es.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the iBeat Blaxx for the win.

Clearly designed for shockingly-white white people by shockingly-white white people.

I can't imagine the meeting that lead to this one...but let's try:

"OK, we're getting ready to launch our newest iBeat iPod ripoff and it's black. Ideas?"

"Call it 'Black' so people will know what color it is.

"Good idea but let's think outside of the box, Jennings. Think hip, what are kids into these days?"

"Those rappers, they are all into like to misspelling stuff."

"Great idea, Smithers, fo shizzy. Let's call it 'Blaxx.' It sounds dangerous AND it has TWO x's in it like porn and kids love porn. Get these things to market STAT."

"What about focus groups? Or maybe we should just say the entire name of our product a couple times aloud just to see what it sounds like."

"Jennings, you're fired. Everybody else; hookers and blow, my office in 15."

And so the iBeat Blaxx was born.

Here’s a letter from the fine folks over at Gizmodo to Ibeat. iBeat responded by saying they were shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, to discover that people find the name a wee bit offensive.

Would You Like Fries with that "D"

2007-12-07T06:31:00.000-08:00

And we wonder why we've become a nation of bloated sacks.

In what can only be described as a stroke (pun) of marketing genius, McDonald's has started promoting Happy Meals on kid's report cards. Who could possibly foresee the negative press that might ensue from marketing high-fat foods to kids?

It's not like we have obesity problem in this country or anything. That sound you hear is the wheezing of millions of portly prepubescent progeny pounding down their third cheeseburger before the bell rings.

Fun with MENSA Contest

2007-11-07T07:09:00.000-08:00

Every year, MENSA puts forth a contest to make up new and amusing words.

Here are my entries...even though I am not in MENSA...clearly:

Pastard: Somebody who was formerly not a very nice guy at all. Not to be confused with a Rastard, which, of course, is a rude Jamaican.

Twangster: Member of an alleged organized-crime syndicate from the South. These harmless criminals are generally responsible for crimes against livestock and/or fashion.

Pornado: The result of a twister hitting an adult bookstore. This is a very rare occurrence but highly anticipated…for research purposes.

Exfrapolate: The act of pouring out one’s coffee. Exfrapolating onto your lap can result in a condition known as testifrying.

Punkin: Your cousin with the nose ring.
Plumpkin: A relative in need of exercise.

Barigami: The act of repeatedly folding a removed beer label or bev nap. Folding a napkin into the shape of a rose is an example of barigami but not an example of an appropriate anniversary present.

Storegasm: The elation felt when discovering a really good sale or your favorite vintage label on the rack…often followed by a good smoke.

Morownic: A person who is under the illusion that their large collection of material possessions gives them an elevated level of sophistication and/or makes them more attractive. Also see: Morown

Cellibate: One who abstains from purchasing a cell phone. Such people are particularly hard to find when they owe you money or you need help moving.

Conposer: A person who swears they knew the band before they were cool. Strangely, these same people are almost never seen at shows featuring new acts.

Pimpkin: A tricked-out gourd with ground effects, spinners and 15” woofers.

Braining: An attempt to impress by using an endless string of irrelevant facts and incorrectly used big words. He’s totally braining that hottie at the end of the bar.

T-shart: Airbrushing or applying some original design to your favorite piece of vintage clothing…either for personal use or in an effort to make a living as a
t-shartist.

Mencil: A tool supposedly used by guys to write directions or phone messages. So rare is the Mencil that you may go your whole life without ever seeing one.

Pestosterone: The chemical imbalance that causes annoying barflies to think they may actually score a date with your girlfriend…or you…or both of you.

Greatest Weapon Ever Designed.

2007-10-26T19:18:00.000-07:00

[Image from Fark.com]

When the zombies come for us --and they will-- you simply MUST have one of those around. Personally, I hope it will be those Night-of-the-Living-Dead kind and not those new turbo-charged-Jessie-Owens-on-meth ones showing up in movies these days. I do not recall requesting a turbo zombie upgrade. That's like spiders that can fly or something. I mean, isn't it bad enough as it is?

Click here to begin your preparations for the impending zombie holocaust. That is unless you want to have your skull treated like a Tootsie Roll Pop with your brain as the chewy center to be eaten by the undead. Whatever floats your boat.

Ah, I love Halloween.

Halo: The Movie

2007-10-23T18:41:00.000-07:00

Weta studios has been hard at work ramping up for a full-length feature film based on the game HALO. You remember Weta from their work with Peter Jackson on the Lord of the Rings trilogy. You remember HALO from the reason your girlfriend left you. Put these two things together and you can of course imagine the swirling vortex of awesome that would ensue.

Now add Peter Jackson in as the producer and you’ve got a movie that will just plain rock your face off.

Check out the Halo footage here.

Acclaimed commercial director, Neil Blomkamp is directing the shorts and is set to direct the feature if it makes it to production. Here's a video he directed. . It features a girl with loads of tatts driving an M1-A1 tank through downtown streets while wearing a half-shirt. This guy clearly knows awesome when he sees it.

(That’s a real, live person in the back in the image above. IT SHOULD BE ME!!!)

As you can see Weta, Jackson and co. are moving ahead at full speed sans studio funding. Jackson could probably fund this project (and buy NATO) with his loose change after cleaning house with the LOTR films. But why should he have to?

Let me just say right now that if no studio comes forward to front the cash for this after green-lighting such titles as Bratz and I Know Who Killed Me, there should be a congressional investigation.

In other news, Ewe Bol will be releasing his latest STUDIO-FUNDED film, Bloodrayne 2 soon which will feature a bunch of cowboy vampires. That’s right, cowboy vampires. I repeat again, cowboy vampires.

Cowboy vampires.

[[UPDATE]]

The movie is off for now for some damn reason. It appears the studios and Jackson and co. can't agree on the budget. Clearly there is only one thing to do here; kill Ewe Bol. Makes sense to me.

iPWND

2007-10-21T17:38:00.000-07:00

That sound you hear? It’s the sweet sound of millions of smug iPhone owners crying out at once. Why? Well, Apple dropped the pain on them by dropping the price of the iPhone only months after its release that’s why. Ouch. What a pants kick.

Basically Apple is being forced to think like any company in a crowded marketplace and must adjust pricing to be competitive. Can it be? Apple? Wow.

Well, fanboys, you can still rush out and get the newest iPods (after waiting in line for days) and then flash them around like your new red badge of cool. But we’ll just have to see who laughs last from now on!

Luckily for Applephiles, help is on the way.

Ok, so I’m jealous. Sue me.

A Day in the Life of a Copywriter

2007-08-28T09:59:00.000-07:00

Read this as the cynical piece of fiction it is. I love all God's creatures on both sides of the ad biz. That's right; AEs are people too!

[From 2002]

Been up since 5:30 and 9:30 seems a lot like 3:00 except that it isn't blessed with the same proximity to 5 in the PM. By this time, I have already worked out and fallen asleep at my desk twice on average -a full day by any standard. Of course, once I get lulled into this routine, I will be assailed by some beastly workload for two weeks and nary see the sun. There really is little attention paid to the idea of pacing in the ad biz. Copywriters are either bored or near manic.

Luckily, I take prison-grade meds so I really only ever get up to “moderately concerned.” That's like DEFCON 3 or 2.75 in this industry.   At this point, I think of my dad, the programmer of something called “UNIX”. He is probably typing a never-ending stream of lines of enigmatic gibberish like "body,td,a,p,.h{font-family:arial,sans-serif;}"   What is that crap? And why is there a smiley face at the end of it? What does the "family" unit have to do with Google.com? Looks like the Pythagorean theorem exploded or something.   Anyway, at least when I type my three hundredth variation of "More [insert benefit], Less [insert a cost or expense], I know what I typed is English and so will a wide range of people outside the weezing-porn-mongering-basement-dwelling-computer-programming community. I am communicating and that is a start.

  Side note: One could make a good living as a copywriter creating taglines by the "more of x = less of y" formula. The true sign of a hack is the old "more this/less that" line. Or even the dreaded super stealth reversal "Get [Insert: receive, desire and so on], Pay Less. You can mix it up too with something like "All the [Something good], none of the [Something bad].   My boss missed class that day it would appear. Then again, maybe they don't touch upon that high-minded type of thing at East Central Agriculture and Figuring College....I know it was something like that.... Never lived or worked outside of this area. Ouch! What an awful fate. But, is not my lot to wonder why but simply to do and die. If I were meant to do really good work, I would have been born with talent anyway.   

Back to the point at hand, which is….I should have one by now…Right! Day in the Life of a Copywriter! I knew I had a theme here.   So now it is about lunchtime. I will drive the three miles to my house bitching about traffic totally unaware of how silly that must sound to people in a real city. Once home, I will try to milk every second out of my obligatory 60 minutes of mid-day freedom. Then I will get back to work 15 minutes late. Nobody will care because everyone else will be about 30 minutes late getting back. 

 I should take some time here to define some terms.  “Late” is a term that conjures feelings of fear and dread in the hearts of the average cubicle-dwelling office stiff. Not so for the creative professional. “Late”, for us, simply means not on time and “on time” means what “30 minutes late” means to the office lackey. When creatives are late, nobody goes looking for us or writes us up. No, account “people” and other noncreative types just nod their heads and lament the fact that they can’t get a normal/mentally stable human to do our jobs…which they can’t.   All creatives ,by nature, are mentally unbalanced in some way or another. I am no exception. As I said, I take enough meds to sedate a silverback gorilla on a meth binge. Otherwise, I would surely have sent more than one account executive flying off this mortal coil and numerous pieces. It is our madness, however, that feeds our drive to create. You are basically stuck with us as we are. Don’t question it. Just understand that, though we do get paid to be smartasses and we rarely have to observe most company policies, we do, in fact, suffer for our art. The only reason you talk to us at all is because you can’t see in our minds. If you could, you would run screaming to the nearest church to be sure.

 Though all fairly dangerous, the most depraved and menacing of all creatives are the copywriters. Whoa unto he who attempts to tame one. Oft times you’ll find one of our number working covertly – wearing a tie to work and playing nice with the suits. Don’t be fooled, even the domesticated copywriter is debauched beyond redemption.   Our minds are filled with billions upon billions of obscure pop-culture references to be called up and inserted into our work to amuse only other copywriters. The things that make us laugh generally fall somewhere between slapstick and macabre.

When a group of copywriters is happened upon or overheard by a junior account executive, 9 times out of 10 the words “blasphemy” and “evil” are used by that AE later to recount the encounter. Salty, old-school copywriters often boast of the account managers he/she has sent into therapy as though he/she were gabbing about some woodland creature shot during the last weekend’s hunt to be have its head mounted on his/her wall. (A truce of sorts has been declared in recent years and a cold war has thus ensued.)

  It is not as though we view corporate types as the enemy (though sometimes we do and attempt to terminate them with extreme prejudice but only the ones who “have it coming”), we just find them amusing and enjoy confusing them. If sometimes one or two are permanently damaged, we apply the “eggs to make an omelet” metaphor and move on. After all, we are only being true to our nature. Would you fault a snake for eating a mouse?   It would appear that my day-in-the-life theme has degenerated into a glimpse-into-the-world-of-a-copywriter theme. That happens.

Another thing about copywriters; we cannot be expected to write more than 300 words without completely losing sight of the original idea. If you need somebody to write you a damn book, call an out-of-work journalism grad. They need the work and bad. We write four to five words at a time. As for grammar and punctuation, we have a proofing department for that.

  On the topic of other “writers”, let me say this, “Suck it.” If I had a dime for every time some “real” writer told me that what I do is the work of the man or that it was not writing at all, I’d put those dimes in a sack and beat the next out-work-author I met to death. I would not have to lug those dimes around long either. You can’t throw a rock without hitting a struggling “writer”. Unfortunately, you can’t go to a Starbuck’s without running into 20 of them writing about the cosmic significance of being hit by that rock either. Like roaches they are.

By the way, I make more than three newspaper writers put together and twice as much as the average freelance writer. While most writers languish in some crap job waiting tables while they talk about writing the next great-American novel, I am well paid and generally content with all things (because of the meds I can now afford) while I talk about writing the great-American novel.   Copywriting is a good gig all around but you are born into it. You can’t fake this kind of weirdness. The requisite disturbing family history and mild mental illness are not things you wish on people but it seems to be the formula for a good copywriter. If you want be a copywriter, you either are one already and just haven’t figured it out yet or you are headed for a brief period of humiliation and aggravation followed by a prompt change of careers. The Great Wind takes care of things that way.   

Now if I could only figure out what mix of nature and nurture spawns account executives, maybe I could nip that in the bud and save us all some headaches. Something tells me they would just come back stronger and less interesting. After all, that’s really what madness is – interesting. Who needs sane people anyway?

  Use your delusions for fun and profit. Start TODAY!

I Believe that Osam and Irag and Such As....

2007-08-01T06:54:00.000-07:00

I live in South Carolina. The letters “S” and “C” appear after my address. My license plate features the state’s name large enough to be read from 20 feet away.

I can’t express the pride I felt when Miss South Carolina tried to enlighten us as to why 1 in 5 kids can’t find THEIR OWN COUNTRY on a map. The question concerned me, but the answer just plain scared me.

South Africa? Osama? Iraq? I presume when her microprocessor shorted, it fused together a couple of canned answers and forced them out of her speaker box all at once.

Be warned, if you listen to her answer more than twice, there is a risk you will unlearn algebra, lose the ability to compose compound sentences and punch a kitten.

Of course this has become a Net favorite with more than 2 million views on YouTube thus far. Ouch. [NEWFLASH: YouTube views have just topped 8 MILLION!!]

And it gets worse/better. The spoofs are starting to roll in.

This Guy is Gewd.

2006-01-10T10:19:00.000-08:00

I believe I have learned something about snarkiness today; I clearly suck at it. I need more practice. Take a moment to check out Yahtzee as he does his thing while I go berate a wall for practice.

See more of his fine work at The Escapist.

Jack ass.

2005-04-21T12:25:00.000-07:00