Untruths and Consequences

"I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout."

When Jonathan Swift wrote "A Modest Proposal", there was no missing his satirical intent.  He was, after all, suggesting that the British prepare, cook and consume fattened up Irish babies to help alleviate poverty and hunger on the Emerald Isle. As Swift was an Irishman living in London,  it wasn't hard to determine where his sympathies lay. There was no way a sane adult could take that modest proposal literally. But we live in a time when readers are not quite as swift. And satire has taken a troubling turn, as stories like this turn up in social media:

11 Year Old Boy Scout Defeats Santorum in Supermarket Debate.

Scalia Says Marriage Views Not Affected by Lifelong Fear of Gays.

Republicans Introduce Bill to Abolish FEMA.

Usually, these links are followed up by a half dozen comments, all expressing righteous indignation. And then comes comment #7. "Isn't that satire?"

It's gotten really hard to tell. It's seems like today's satirists get their kicks out of punking people, as opposed to making them think. Meanwhile, we're becoming distressingly naive. In Colbert's early days, I worked with a woman who refused to watch Steve's show because he was just "too right wing". This was right after his brilliant and ballsy Bush roast at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner. So, I made the nice lady watch Colbert's unforgettable shiska-bobbing of W, and she figured it out. Now, I realize my friend sets a high bar for gullibility. But then, look at some of the things people in this country fervently believe:

• Bush and Cheney intentionally ignored 9/11 intelligence and 'let' it happen.

• Obama, aka the Anti Christ, was born in Kenya and has a fake birth certificate.

• Obama wants to take people's guns away and establish a Marxist State.

• The Illuminati, wherever-they-at-ti, (they're everywhere) are secretly running the world.

People are less educated, more polarized and extremely anxious about the future. That makes them more willing to believe rumors about the evil other side, especially when the yarn has a ring of truthiness and is passed on by a friend. It doesn't help that attention spans keep shrinking and investigative journalism is devolving into a quaint artifact of the newspaper age. We're getting our news in TV sound bites and short, typo-ridden mashups. The cyber stew swims with rumors, spin and gotcha-satire, all of which can be propagated on the Internet at the speed of light. Naturally, political social media specialists are learning to milk the conspiracy theories while keeping their hands clean.

Stealth satire. Unscrupulous political operatives. An emasculated media. A gullible, apathetic, disillusioned and bitterly divided public. It's a dangerous, disharmonic convergence.

I recently read a story in Daily Kos called The Onion Calls It Quits. Here's how Will Tracy, the Onion's Editor-In-Chief explains it:
"It used to be that political satire was easy. All one had to do was find the absurd buried beneath the surface of a given story and employ satire to highlight that absurdity. To shine a light on it. Now? Now you have headlines showing up in mainstream publications like "Kansas Republican Actually Opposes the Poor Buying More Food" and "Conservatives Less Likely to Buy Energy Efficient Bulbs if Labeled as Environmentally Friendly." The absurdity of conservatives in this country has completely destroyed our business."

Perhaps Mr. Tracy is right. Perhaps truth has become so strange that it's put satire out of business. Unless, of course, the Daily Kos article was supposed to be satire. Guess I better read the comments.

O is for Old: An Abecedary of Middle Age

A is for Aches and pains. At least that's what you think – at first. You must have slept funny, thrown something out, overdone your workout. Eventually it hits you that when the yoga teacher asks about everybody's 'tweakies' at the beginning of class, you always have something to report. Because A, as it turns out, is for arthritis.

B is for Belly. There's a reason they call it 'middle' age. The same reason you can't see your toes in the shower. And it's not just a matter of going up a size. You need to worry about things like your BMI, the color of your fat deposits and whether you're an apple or a pear. If you're a woman, you may dimly remember a time when b was for bikini. Fortunately, it still stands for bakery.

C is for Crankiness. C is also for crow's feet, cellulite, cholesterol and colonoscopies, all of which can lead to more crankiness. Even if you're a disgustingly healthy bike-riding vegan, you're not immune. (If I had to eat faux cheese and drink nut milk, I'd be hella cranky).  In order to minimize symptoms of crankiness, try to avoid air travel, phone-bots, the Apple store and remote controls with 67 buttons.

D is for Diet. If you know what's good for you, you're eating a mediterranean diet – grains, olive oil, fish... It's easy. Just eat like a pre-fiscal crisis Greek peasant. You can go Greek or you can go the way of the twinky.

E is for Erectile dysfunction. That's medi-speak for impotence and pharma-speak for rising profits. Physicians refer to ED as a canary in a coal mine because that dysfunctional dirty birdie is often the first sign of heart disease and diabetes.

F is for for Feet. And you thought you could walk all over them for years without suffering any consequences. Get ready for fallen arches, neuromas, plantar fasciitis and the dreaded hammer toe, proof that even if your toes are permanently crossed, there's no guarantee luck will come your way. (Ladies, toe cleavage is only sexy to a foot fetishist: No one wants to see your gnarly piggies. Just be happy you never had to wear the kind of fuck-me shoes young women favor today. By the time they're your age, their feet will be a freak show.)

G is for Gut feelings. Not the figurative kind you get when your old boss is replaced by a 25 year old or your daughter brings home a guy with neck tattoos. The literal kind you get from eating fried foods, pizza, Chinese takeout, barbecue, and pretty much anything else that tastes even remotely good. (If you've never heard of GERD, there's still time to order the large fries.)

H is for Hypertension (also known as high blood pressure). Risk factors include age, family history, certain chronic conditions, lack of exercise, obesity, teenagers and waiting for the COMCAST man.

I is for Invisibility. If you are a 45+,  female and not Oprah, you might as well be wearing Harry Potter's magic cloak. The only people who can see you are your kids when they want money, your husband when he wants food and your boss when he suddenly realizes he could hire two kids for what he's paying little old you. Otherwise, you're invisible, so feel free to have another cupcake, wrap yourself up in a cozy mint green snuggy and catch up on the latest episode of GLEE.

J is for Joints. Not the fun kind from the old days. The kind you have to replace after fifty some years of arduous activities like walking from the couch to the refrigerator. Orthopedists can now fit you with a prosthetic hip, knee, shoulder, ankle, wrist, finger or toe. Me, I'm holding out for the full body replacement. Just hope my hot new bod will work with my tired old mug.

K is for Knees. (See Joints) Be knice to your knees if you know what's good for you. All those step classes you took in the knineties come back to haunt you in your fifties.

L is for 'Letting Yourself Go". Sadly, you're not going anywhere good like Paris or Ipanema. You're going, colloquially speaking, to Hell. Too much gin, not enough gym, life with a capital L. (Maybe L should be for Life.)

M is for Menopause. I am not gonna talk about it because everyone else is. A quarter century after becoming the first generation to give birth, Boomerettes are now the first generation to go through menopause. Or at least to write about it ad-nauseum. I prefer how they dealt with 'the change' in my mother's generation. Grin, bear it, and carry a fan.

N is for Nose hairs, a mostly male concern. Ditto, ear hair, which grows in inverse proportion to the hair on your head.  Ladies, stop gloating and go take a close look at your chin.

O is for Osteoporosis, revenge of the solidly built woman. Fine boned skinny ladies tend to be at risk, especially if they are Asian or Caucasian, like Sally Field. Poor Sally. Those bird bones may have kept her aloft as a flying nun, but now she has to take Boniva so her skeleton won't snap.

P is for Prostate and Prolapse. Don't ask or I'll have to tell you about Pessaries and Penile Prostheses.

Q is for questions to ask your doctor. Here's why the doc's always running late: Doctor Discussion Guides. Pharmaceutical companies love them. Making sure people 'talk to their doctor' helps them stay on the FDA's good side while nudging folks into asking their physicians if Doznothingatol XR could be right for them. So keep leafing through that 6 month old issue of People, because the guy ahead of you needs to ask the doc if Lotsasyde FX could be right for him.

R is for Ranting which is comorbid with crankiness. There are so many things to rant about. Bicyclists who ride two or three across so your car can't pass them. Congressional inertia. Back fat. Smartphones. Stupid people.  And of course, medical bills.

S is for Sex. I'm all for it myself. If you're still kicking and still getting your kicks, good for you, however ancient ye may be.

T is for Tinnitus. Yes, Boomer boy, this is what you get for spending your musical youth standing next to the speakers. Who needs more cowbell when your ears ring all the time?

U is for uvula. What could possibly go wrong with my uvula, you ask? Not much. In fact, chances are it's the only part of your body that still looks as good as ever. Probably because all it does is hang out. Cherish your uvula. It won't give you any trouble, no one cares if it sags, and it comes in handy in Words With Friends when you're stuck with a couple of U's.

V is for Vision and I don't mean wisdom, perspective or creativity. Nuh-uh. Bifocals. Trifocals. Complaining about out-of-focus movie subtitles when the real issue is your out-of-focus eyeballs. Dislocating your shoulder trying to read a menu. Realizing that you miss seeing with the naked eye more than you miss looking good naked.

W is for Work, as in getting work done. No, not as in staying late at the office. Work as in face lifts, nasal sculpting, chinplants, dermabrasion, tummy tucks, lip plumping and boob jobs. When you hear someone is "getting some work done" and you don't know for a fact that the recession ate their retirement, it means they're having plastic surgery. Feeling bitter 'cause you can't afford face-freshening? Try this. The first time you see Penny Plastic post-surgery, say nothing. Not "you look great", not "did you do something different to your hair?" Not a word. Just carry on as though your old friend hadn't morphed into Joan Rivers overnight. It will drive her nuts. If she announces that she's had work done, smile and respond "Really? I can't tell." This will send her into a schizophrenic state, bouncing between relief that you can't tell and wondering why she bothered. Karma's a bitch, and apparently, so are you.

X is for Xylophone. It's been that way since before you learned to read.The reason you can remember that is, your long-term memory is still good. It's the short-term memory that's going.

Y is for Yoga. Don't you feel better already? OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOmmmmmmmmmm.

Z  is for Z. Maybe you're a man getting up 6 times a night to pee. Or a woman with night sweats. Or a middle aged human of either gender with leg cramps, sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome. Regardless, you can forget about zzzzs. Z is about as much sleep as you can count on.

Sorry it's been so long.

I've been dealing with a lot of shit.

Flip

Like this blog? I have another one. Don't like this blog? Like I said, I have another one. It's less snotty and more meditative. Check it out.

An Ad Wench and her Pet Peeves

Hello, Marketeers! It's time for another ad-blog. This one practically wrote itself. Someone on Linked In started a thread about pet peeves and I just couldn't help myself.  I spewed.

THOSE KRAZY KREATIVES

• The Account vs. Creative dynamic. 

So passé, so  old school, so unnecessary. Unless, of course, your shop is totally account driven.

• Art directors who will do anything if "it looks cool."
Me: Why are five words in the headline red? Him: Because it looks cool. Me: but you're emphasizing AND THIS IS THE. Him: Well write me a new headline with four words I can highlight in the same place. Me: Bite me.


• Creatives who think they're too good to do small, unglamorous jobs.
Shit work is good for you.  Now get over yourself and go write me a BRC and three emails.


• People who can't make their deadlines. 
It's a deadline-driven business. You have 60 seconds to get that through your thick skull.


• Art directors who don't sweat the type.  
Just because you didn't come up in the paste up days doesn't mean your kerning gets to suck.

• Writers who confuse sex jokes with concepts.

Unless you're selling vibrators, save it for the locker room. Any idiot can make a sex joke. If I had a dollar for every dick joke I've made in my life, I'd be dictating this to my personal secretary while getting my toenails painted by my in-home aesthetician. (Full disclosure, no raincoat: I worked on an erectile dysfunction drug account for three years).

• Writers who can write headlines but suck at body copy and don't think it matters.


• Project managers who underestimate everybody's time.
I know copy is just content to you, but some of us still try to craft it.


• Proofers who are too busy rewriting your copy to notice the glaring typo in the headline.

 NO SLACK FOR SLACKERS
• People who come in late every day, take two-hour lunches, and leave early. 
Everybody sees, everybody knows, and everybody resents the hell out of you. 


• Fakers who hang out at the office late so they can look like they're busy.

• Mommies and Daddies who leave at 5, no matter what. 

A single and childless art director raised my consciousness on this one back when I had wee ones myself. If you must leave early, email the work to yourself, tell the boss you're working at home, and get the job done after you've tucked in the rug rats. And if there's a new business pitch, come in on the weekend just like everybody else. On the flip side, if you manage people with young children, and they promise they'll finish the job at home, what's it to you as long as it gets done? 

SEEDY CDs
• Creative Directors who hoard the good jobs, take credit for other people's work or always pick their own concept. 
Like the guy I worked for years ago in the Midwest who did all the TV so he could spend the entire Winter in LA. Nice tan, asshole.

• CDs who don't know when to stop.
For some reason, this type tends to revise everything at 2 a.m. 8 hours before the pitch. Hey, Goldilocks, it's just right, right freaking now. Now leave it the hell alone before you turn it into porridge. 

• CDs who make everybody work all weekend and just pop in for a half hour on their way to the gym.


•CDs and other managerial types who won't stand up for their staff.

NO-ACCOUNT AEs

• Account people who function as order takers. 
"Sure, we can combine the heads from campaigns A and B and use the visuals from campaign C. Of course you can have it in 24 hours. Now what kind of dressing do you want on your salad?"


•AEs who treat creatives like crazy kids.


• AEs who can't write a brief.


• Territorial types who feel threatened if the client starts to bond with the creatives.

TURKEYS, TURDS AND TOOLS
• Creatives who put someone else's work on their site.
No, you can't justify it because you resized the ad five times.  If it wasn't your concept or design in the first place, it's cheating. 


• Managers who agree to impossible deadlines.
Not only are you abusing the staff, you're training the client to think we can pull creative out of our happy place in less time than it takes to fry an egg.


• Anyone who flat out lies.
 I was once in a large client meaning meeting in which the agency President told the client our new account planner had been quietly working on his business behind the scenes for over a year. Unfortunately, the client read The Business Journal, in which the planner's hiring had just been announced.


• Manipulative phonies.
Sure, tell me I did a great job on a specific project. But don't come into my office and start the conversation with "you're so wonderful." Translation: you want something, it's due yesterday and I'm working all weekend.


• Agencies that enter work in award shows without crediting a creative who left the shop. 
Better to have everyone know someone talented left your agency than demonstrate the douche-baggery that drove them out the door.

LEGGO YOUR EGO
• Creatives who take themselves too seriously.
Your work, you should take seriously. Yourself, you need to get over.
It's only advertising, people. Slightly less disposable than Kleenex. 


• Flattery junkies
You know the place is going political when all the biggest slackers and sleezeballs in the agency are chillin' in the new boss' office instead of sitting at their desks pretending to work.


• 45 year olds who talk down to junior creatives 
You never know when you'll get put out to pasture. That tattooed little twit could end up being your boss. If you ever work again.

•25-year olds who don't understand protocol and hierarchy and complain about their boss to HIS boss
That clueless technophobic geezer IS your boss. The only time it's OK to go over his head is if you're being sexually harassed. Even then, start with HR.

STRATEGECTOMIES
• Strategy? What's that?
 Do your research, know your target, and get the client on board. Because ultimately, when the work doesn't work, you're gonna get blamed.

• Executions that don't speak to the target because the CD thought they were cool
I once worked for a guy who always managed to turn everything into a sex joke - redickto absurdium. I called him on it at one point and remarked that a headline was off strategy. He smiled smugly and responded, "Then we'll change the strategy." 


•Viral Videos that have nothing to do with what you are selling.  
Great. It went viral. Just like monkey pox, hysterically laughing babies and the toilet-flushing cat. You're only a genius if that somehow translates to sales.

• People who think the words "social media" are magic and don't consider the target's behavior. Watch out for those self-styled "Social Media Experts" selling their wares on Linked In. Most of them are just rebranding themselves.

• Company presidents who do spec work for the same prospect for months thinking they are going to get the account. 
I worked for a small agency that went under that way. The prospect kept dissing their agency of record and having us do "just one more test - we'll pay you for it." $300,000 worth of work later, they hadn't paid a dime. As it turned out, the prospect's agency-of-record had put all their work on hold because of outstanding invoices. He was spreading the debt around and had two other agencies on the hook. Nobody ever got paid.


• Creatives who don't understand the power of research and whine about attending focus groups.
Read the research. If you're lucky enough to go to focus groups (which are sadly going out of style thanks to online survey tools), take notes! There's no better way to learn how to talk to your target in their own language. Come presentation time, you can refer back to the research to justify your out-there concepts.

STUPID HUMAN TRICKS

• People who are afraid to push back.
Wimpy CDs,  mopey creatives, subservient AEs and other invertebrates.


• People who push back automatically. 
By all means, if you disagree, say so. But make your case. If you can't explain, logically and coherently, why you disagree, then STFU. Unless, of course, you're the client, in which case you get to say things like "I don't know why I don't like it. I just don't like it. But don't worry, I'll know what I like when I see it." 


• Adboys of all ages who think going out of town is an excuse to act like a pig. 
Who do you think you are, the Secret Service? The Mad Men days are over, you're going to get an STD and we've all met your wife, you friggin' creepazoid.


• People who keep beating the dead horse when there's nothing left but bones.


•Sexists, bigots and religious freaks who expound on their beliefs in the work place. 
Praise the Lord on your own time. And no, I don't think your jokes about women, gays, Jews and Black people are even remotely amusing, you  fascist f*@k.  


• People who pad their time sheets.
And that includes freelancers. Word to the wise, any manager worth her salt knows how long the job takes.


• Brainstorming sessions.  
This is where great concepts go to die. My advice: Give them just enough so they think you know something, but keep your best ideas to yourself. You can explore and develop them later, when your brain is clear and the brainstorm has passed.


• Big Mouths
Just because it's juicy doesn't mean you should share. I know this from bitter experience, because I used to have a big mouth myself. Which is how I managed to bite myself in the ass. Never again.
And if someone tells you something in confidence, respect that. It's called being a mensch.


• Sociopaths
No, they are not all criminals. The smart ones have good jobs and find discrete, passive aggressive ways to screw people, because they can. Read The Sociopath Next Door. Trendy business books come and go, but sociopaths are always with us. The most effective ones position themselves as straight shooters and regular guys/gals, which will totally scramble your shit detector. Beware of women named Theresa: One of them is a sociopath.

CORPORATE BUZZKILLS
• Crap pro bono. 
There are two reasons to do pro-bono: It's a great cause and you can do great work.  The fact that the CEO's-wife's-college-roommate's-husband's-sister's-cleaning-lady is starting a business and wants free creative is irrelevant unless she's willing to stand aside and let creative have a good time.


• Proprietary strategic systems.
It's a ladder! It's a triangle! It's a matrix! It's a venn diagram! Every agency has one, but really, all they are doing is visually organizing strategic information. After all, account planners and account executives change jobs all the time. They don't have to draw the same pictures to reach the same conclusions.


• Tolerating substance abuse. 
One official warning - that's what HR is for. Otherwise, you're just another enabler. I worked at a now-defunct midwest agency with a fall-down drunk VP AE. No matter how much he screwed up, management kept him on. His presence allowed them to rationalize away their own, slightly more functional alcoholism.

• The banquet table work set-up. 
Line up all the creatives around a long table, out in the open, with no privacy or personal space even though half of us have ADD. No wonder noise-suppressing ear phones are all the rage.


•Typos in produced work. 
Hire a proofer to check your damn website, people! Proofers are a necessary expense.

• The office basketball court.
Try writing technical web copy in an open set up while a ball goes thump thump thump in the background. 


• Bonding through bowling
As much as people might love their coworkers, the odds of everyone wanting to bowl, white water raft or share a Navajo sweat lodge are remote. Especially if you make it mandatory that we all take the afternoon off and half of us have to work 'til 10 pm to make up for it. 

Good Mitt Hunting

"I don't line up with the NRA." Mitt Romney as a candidate for the Massachusetts Senate, 1994

"I'm not a big-game hunter. I've made that very clear. I've always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will." Mitt Romney at a Republican fundraiser, 2006

"Romney doesn't look like anybody who hangs out at any of the places I might hunt." Steve Johnson, Teamsters organizer.

And there, in a nutshell, lies the problem. If you want to be endorsed by the NRA, by golly, you better look the part. A room full of taxidermy and a venison-packed freezer would be a good start, but considering the Romneys have seven homes, it's a tad labor intensive.

How about getting gun racks for all five of Mitt's cars, plus Anne's two cadilacs? Nothing says gun like a gun rack, except, of course, an actual gun. But Mitt's in campaign mode and it's tough keeping up with the gun laws from one state to the next. In a concealed weapon state like Florida, he'd have to figure out a way to hide his rifle, say by taping it to his leg under his suit. Problem is, the gun has to be loaded, so you can whip it out at will. (You never know when a black kid might cross your path, packing skittles.) That creates a dilemma over which end of the rifle should be up, as in would you rather lose a toe or a testicle. (Let's not forget what happened to Plaxico Burress. Then again, Plaxico was wearing sweatpants, and I'm pretty sure Mitt doesn't even own a pair).

So, short of packing actual heat, what can Mitt do to boost his street cred as an NRA supporter and killer of varmints? Wear a hunting hat! No need to change out of the suit – the hat says it all. Plus, there are so many creative designs to choose from, Mitt's only sartorial quandary will be whether to match the hat to his tie or his socks.

The classic model, with earflaps. Flaps are very useful when pretending not to hear questions about your flip-flopping.


You know you're a redneck when... you wear a hat that says so. (A tattoo would be even better. Someplace that shows even if you're wearing Mormon underwear.)Don't forget to hand out venison jerky at the rallies.

Just the thing for campaigning south of the Mason Dixon line. You can wear it when the redneck one is in the wash. And make sure you keep it on, because nothing says Yankee like a $300 haircut.


Show those sissy lefties what a REAL man eats. Possum, squirrel, deer meat, raccoon and armadillo. Also useful for pandering to both the meat and porn lobbies.

I call this one The Night Stalker. My friend Bill thinks it's perfect for hunting with Dick Cheney. Human in the headlights!

Full camo. Perfect for traveling incognito, while playing the piccolo. Actually, that's a duck whistle. Are ducks considered "varmints"?

Fool camo. Just melt into the underbrush and make like a moose. (This only works in places where the trees are the right height). Just make sure you're not in Sarah Palin's neck of the woods when you wear this one.

Hey, there, Buck-Head! Can be custom-ordered with real diamonds to reflect your 1% status.


This versatile little number can take the Mrs. from the hunt to the hoedown. Dress it up or down, but first, dress the venison!

The family that slays together stays together. Give one of your little granddaughters this adorable toddler hunting hat and she just might forget that you killed Bambi.

Snapshot

This is what I look like right now except:

1. I am indoors and it's raining.

2. I am fully clothed.

3. My hair is silver instead of platinum.

4. I am not wearing a fuck-me shoe on my good foot.

5. I am not smiling.

6. I am not dead.

Badgered, Bothered and Bewildered

Help. I am being cyberstalked by Almart-Way.

Sorry, but like Voldemort, they must not be named. Otherwise, Google's spiders will see to it that I am hounded to within an inch of my virtual life. If you're not sure who I'm talking about, I suggest you go to translate.google.com and type in Pig Latin to English.

It all started when my cousin "liked" Almart-Way. All of a sudden, their ad, with her smiling countenance and tacit endorsement, started cropping up all over Facebook like tribbles taking over the Starship Enterprise. On my home page. On my friends' pages. On Words With Friends.

I have the usual liberal misgivings about Almart-Way. They won't let their employees unionize. They discriminate against women. They're a blight on the landscape. They undercut local small businesses. Rather than buy American and charge more, they subsidize child labor and 18-hour workdays overseas.

Unlike some of my fellow lefties, I am capable of holding two contradictory thoughts in my head at the same time. I get that Almart-Way performs a service by providing folks with inexpensive goods in a slow economy, by offering rural communities one-stop shopping and cheap prescriptions and by employing folks who might be otherwise unemployable. So I am not going to go all Marie Antoinette and suggest that financially strapped families waste time and gasoline scouring thrift shops and garage sales for second hand stuff rather than patronize their local Almart-Way. Nor am I going to recommend websites that disparage the Almart-Way clientele (condescending, exploitive and just plain mean). Still, I neither like, nor "like" Almart-Way. I am not their demo, I do not live near one of their megastores, and both my fridge and my family are too small to justify buying food in bulk.

Almart-Way's biggest competitor targets me too. I won't mention them by name either, save to say that their logo looks like a Lyme Disease rash. But here's the difference (besides better merch, better taste and far better advertising). When I nuked the Tarjay ad, it disappeared and never came back. Almart-Way, however, refuses to go away. Instead, their ads keep proliferating like baby Duggers. I have clicked Hide Story. I have clicked Hide All Stories. I have checked every "why" box from uninteresting to sexually explicit. I have repeatedly explained, in the other box, that I am on a tear because they refuse to back off. And still, Almart-Way's bland yellow logo smirks at me whenever I log on to Facebook.

They found the real estate, they're paying for it and they're taking over. And to hell with the little guy, or in this case, gal. It's the Almart Way.

Of Cows and Copywriters

My daughter recently took a cab with a rather nosy driver. He was a grandfatherly sort, too old to be seriously coming on to her, but he asked a lot of smarmy questions. DId she have a boyfriend? Why not? Didn't she want to get married? So to amuse herself and shut him up, my daughter responded, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"

That corny old saying came back to me recently as I hovered over a Linked In conversation in an advertising writer's group. A company of architecture and lighting experts was asking for name ideas for their business, and dozens of copywriters happily obliged, only too eager to out-do each other. The architecture-and-lighting-expert was crowd-sourcing his corporate identity, or at least a critical part of it, and saving himself some bucks, and my creative brethren were eager to be his chumps.

Whether one is roaming Linked In out of boredom or necessity, it's easy to get drawn in to playing ain't I clever. These are tough times for copywriters. Unless you're working for the man, or under 35, or made CD by age 40, or have a niche or long-term client base, you're probably screwed. Most of us have fragile egos and need the thrill of competition to feel good about ourselves. It's only natural for a writer who's been unemployed for a while to want to play, just so she can reassure herself that she's still got it. As for the writer who's making a grim if honest living writing mind-numbingly repetitive pharma websites, she's starved for variety. Naming a business sounds like big fun.

(Caveat - playing ain't I clever in the company of other writers is invigorating. Doing it in front of clients is usually a bad idea, Yes, you have a gift, but inspiration doesn't always flow like tap water. Some assignments are hard. Sometimes you get stuck. Why make clients think it's that easy? So they'll question your hours? So they'll want to pay you less because they now believe it only takes you a half an hour to write a 12 page brochure? It's OK to be entertaining and crack up your clients, but not by playing insta-headline. So put away the pen and cocktail napkin, for your own good.)

Back to the Linked In crowd-sourcer. I didn't directly call him out – a sleaze is a sleaze is a sleaze. I called my out my fellow copywriters instead, in the following post:

I don't get why everyone is blithely participating in crowd sourcing on what is basically a brand identity job which any and all of us would normally GET PAID FOR. Then we whine when clients ask us to take a pay cut, or give them a freebie. If you wanted to remodel your home office, would these "best lighting designers and architects" come over and do it for free? I think not. I would suggest that the moderators of this and similar groups weed out posts that trawl for free ideas. It devalues our work in a time when writers are already underappreciated and underpaid. Lets keep the pro bono for Taproot and good causes, NOT for legitimate businesses trying to cut corners. And by the way, if we were truly being professional here and doing an actual branding exercise, we would need to sit down with this person and ask him a lot of questions about his targeting, business plan, competition etc. and factor that into our thinking. It's not just about pulling a cute name out of our happy place.

I felt better after my rant. It also helped to scan the thread and notice that three or four others had made similar comments. But the majority of writers had submitted ideas, the best of which was arguably Beam, which covers both lighting and architecture in one efficient syllable. The architecture-and-lighting-expert suggested the group put it to a vote. When someone asked what he planned to pay the winner, he repeatedly ducked the question. At which point several writers felt their testicles begin to descend and warned that their ideas were "copyrighted". The architecture-and-lighting-expert made a vague, ungrammatical statement about negotiating some kind of compensation with the winner. Good luck collecting: The business is somewhere in South America.

So there you have it. A group of American copywriters, shooting from the hip to name a South American business they know nothing about, targeting a Spanish-speaking client base they have no information on, for a con artist they've never met and can't take to small claims court.

All I can say is moo.

A Very Scary Christmas

Roll over, Billy Bob. Meet the original Bad Santa. Krampus, abductor and consumer of small children.

Krampus is a demon from Alpine folklore in Austria and Switzerland. Now, these nations gave us sachertorte and Toblerone. Anschluss and neutrality. Klee and Klimt and Jung and Freud. One has to give their folklore its due. But this Krampus thing is horrifying. It has goat hooves and huge antelope-worthy horns growing out of its skull. Its dentition resembles that of the evil clown in the movie It, and its tongue would put Gene Simmons to shame. Krampus is a scary-ass demon who stalks your neighborhood wielding a birch switch and toting a giant murse, into which it crams naughty children to snack on later. If one craves this kind of symmetry, Krampus serves as a counterpoint to Santa, evil to good, dark to the light. How you behave during the year determines whether your December visitor will be a jolly old man or a devil from Hell.

Alpine children are exposed to Krampus at a young age through the yearly Krampuslauf - literally, Krampus Walk. Village folk, mostly strapping young guys, wear disturbingly realistic Krampus costumes and march down the streets, terrifying kids, teasing cute young women and smacking folks with their switches. In order to ensure that their Krampii are sufficiently impressive, some villages actually audition them and have a 6 foot height minimum. The Krampuslauf takes place around December 5th, St. Nicolas Day, and the parade usually includes a Santa or two. I'm going to have to add it to my bucket list.

Now, it seems Americans are discovering Krampus. Philadelphia just held its first Krampuslauf and similar parades are cropping up across the country. (If this is the beginning of an Alpine culture movement, may I suggest we bring back fondue. I'll also take a secret Swiss bank account, but I'm voting "No" on Lederhosen).

I get the naughtiness of subverting a family holiday. I realize folks like to push against the constraints of happy smiling earnest cornball Christmas. Some people have taken to celebrating the Seinfeldian holiday Festivus (Must say it: For the rest of us). Others are members of the Santarchy/Santacon movement, in which legions of Santas descend upon a town, swarm its watering holes and act like elves (and a few trolls) on a Christmas cookie sugar high. I was in San Francisco during Santacon and the streets were red with bar hopping Santas. They seemed mostly well behaved, but then it was only 6 pm.

Still, I question the need for Krampus. I can't speak for religious people, but I suspect the Satanic imagery doesn't jive with a holy night. I seem to recall that Jesus liked little children, and not in a stew pot way. I imagine he and Krampus wouldn't get along. I myself have two children (In fact, my now adult daughter sent me the Krampus article linked to above). I can tell you from personal experience that to kids younger than 5, realistic masks are scary even if your mommy puts one on right in front of you. Heck, I once had to leave a puppet show because my daughter couldn't handle the troll in The Billy Goats Gruff. The holidays are about family, and warmth, and love, and charity, and lights a-twinkle everywhere. For kids, at least those whose parents are employed, it's a magical time. Why ruin their mellow? It's bad enough that we need to tell young children about bad strangers, for their own good. Do we really want to have to reassure our little ones that Krampus won't eat them?

While a Krampuslauf provides a nifty excuse for young males to party and get devilish, there's a subtext to this Krampus business. In the article my daughter sent me, a distillation of a story on NPR, the reporter interviews a woman who plans to fashion herself a Krampus costume from dozens of rib bones and wear it to a Krampuslauf. And she's a middle aged mom, not a hard-partying, 22 year old bro. Like the other Krampus fans interviewed for the news story, she sees the creature as an antidote for the icky side of Christmas, the carols in October, shopping frenzies and excessive sentimentality.

I understand the urge to escape the relentless seasonal corniness, but I think there may also be a therapeutic aspect to this Krampus business. Maybe a hairy, long-horned devil is just what people need to combat their own holiday demons. Think about the folks for whom Thanksgiving and Christmas are dysfunction fests. Greek tragedies. Third-rate sitcoms. Overpopulated Sartrian Hells. Imagine you have to dig really deep to view certain relatives with empathy. Maybe you need to hit the egg nog before you can view them at all. And yet you feel bound to these people who make you crazy, and besides, they can't help themselves, and you're no prize yourself, and you have to get your holiday attitude on.

Krampus provides perspective. That blast of demonic anarchy is like a reset button that makes your family appear kinder, gentler and yes, less insane. And in this time of strange politics, environmental catastrophes, freakish weather, protests, revolutions, layoffs and economic instability, perhaps only the craziness of a Krampuslauf can make normal life look normal.

One man's first hand encounter with the Kramposse

Another Krampus victim speaks out


I admit she doesn't look too traumatized. Maybe she's a demon seed.


Two horny devils.


A white Christmas nightmare


"No, little girl, I did NOT star in Werner Herzog's remake of Nosferatu."


Primal Scream Therapy


Today, Krampuslauf, tomorrow, leather shorts and accordions.

The Name Game

Years ago, the first time I went freelance, I thought it might be fun to call my business iCopy. It said copywriter, it was military slang for "I get it" and making it one word with a lower case "i" seemed really cool. So cool that before I could get around to ordering business cards, Macintosh beat me to it and launched the iMac. I was disappointed, but I took it as a sign that iDontsuck.

This has happened to me more than once, and if you are a half-way decent copywriter, it will happen to you. That cool TV spot, great headline, or indelible tag your client rejected pops up in the mind of some other copywriter, somewhere. Their version gets produced, and all you can do is stew in your own bile – especially since that other person's take is usually lame compared to what you had in mind. But if you want to experience the Deja Thought Of phenomenon at it's worst, try naming something.

When I first got on the Internet a million years ago, I thought I could be curly@aol.com. No, I could not. I could be curly33. I ran into the same problem when I tried to name my other blog. There's a reason I defaulted to Eucalyptus Way. The blog was intended to chronicle a seasoned East Coast woman's adjustment to West Coast ways. I riffed on California, on midlife crises, on change itself. I explored every possibility. The truth is, it's easier to name your child than it is to name your blog. And that is a piece of cake compared to, say, naming a new line of intravenous fluids. Healthcare and IT are gigantic baptismal maws that suck up all the most evocative names – the ones that instantly create a vibe, evoke an attribute of the product or just plain sound cool.

Finally, you cobble together a list of names, some of which aren't half bad. You google them as you go along and eliminate any names that crop up in your same category. Of course, if you're naming something for the international market, you're just getting started. Does your name mean toe jam in Hebrew? Heartburn in Danish? Group sex in Farsi? (Do they have a word for that in Farsi? Maybe not. If there is, the religious police would give you a good lashing just for uttering it.) Eventually, you realize that your winning monicker is Swahili for fuck your mother and you're back to square one.

So you move on to combining syllables, and again, any halfway decent sounding non-word belongs to some IT or pharma company. It's enough to make you want to howl at the moon. Some people specialize in this – the naming, not the howling– although I suspect they have their moments of animal despair after nomenclating for twenty hours straight.

A few years back, I was working on a pharmaceutical account. They had contracted an internationally famous branding agency to name a new medication, and they shared the results with our agency. The list consisted of a bunch of seemingly random three syllable names. Except they weren't really random because each syllable had a rationale. Rationales not unlike these:
" We used the syllable "Tor" because it's strong, evokes Taurus the bull, and also the Nordic god Thor."
"Na". Sounds like no - subtext is eliminating or doing away with. Also the root of Navigate - good for a chronic condition. "
"Vel? It's soft, like velvet. The el sound is feminine, like the word Elle. Works well for a dermatology product.
To make matters more challenging, the name has to be stealthily persuasive because it can't sound like a claim to the company attorneys. That's why, to this day, there is no medicine called Siknomor.

Names 101

On no! It's Finnish for enema!

Think globally, check globally.

Detour Through the Land of Cosmo

Even as a nubile young thing, I never was a Cosmo Girl. The hair, the makeup, the analyzing men as though they were a different species. I couldn't relate. It seemed like so much work. (I admit, I did like clothes - still do). Anyway, that demo is behind me now. Today, I am the mother of a young woman just the right age for Cosmo Girlitude. Except she takes after me.

So imagine my surprise when a shiny, hot-pink Cosmo arrived in the mail, with my name on the address label. Adele adorned the cover, all plump and fetching, her leopard print frock offsetting the burnished gold of her locks. I briefly considered tossing the rag but changed my mind. Gift horse – dentition irrelevant. At least I'd get to read up on Adele.

I picked up the magazine and my eye went straight to "When He Shouldn't See You Naked." Some hack milked a whole article out of that. The answer is simple. Never. Guess they pay by the word. Oooops. The piece is actually about the eroticism of semi nudity (no, they don't mean naked but for your socks) and smoldering looks. Me, I have to decide whether to wear distance or reading glasses before I can smolder. But I will give Cosmo props for covering both sides of a story, because in the same issue as "When He Shouldn't See You Naked" they also published this:



To strip or not to strip. What's a girl to undo? In "Seduction Secrets French Women Know", we read "Part of maintaining mystery is holding back a bit during conversations. " But in "5 Reasons Raunchy Girls Are Winning," it says "Comeons don't have to be subtle. Telling a man you want to "climb him like a tree" will most likely lead to faster, more satisfying results than surreptitiously exposing a bra strap and hoping he'll notice." Again with the objective reporting. How is a girl supposed to know whether to go all Jane Austen or channel Lady Chatterley?

Oooooh, lets look at the ads. Like this one, for "Le Male", a men's fragrance by Jean Paul Gaultier. Now I ask you, what is the gay male readership of Cosmo? Because this ad ain't aimed at chicks, be they young, old, cosmopolitan or trailer park. That is one homoerotic confection, and the sailor hat is the cherry on the sundae.



If you're not convinced, I suggest you take a long, hard look at the bottle for "Le Male". Notice the striped tank on that ripped blue torso. Can't you just hear the house music pulsing?



Sorry, Vince. I just don't think my orthotics will fit. There's a reason they call those things "fuck me shoes". Because those shoes really could fuck a shoe-whore in countless ways. Bunions, callouses, neuromas – and that's if you don't trip, fall and break an ankle.

More editorial content: "Is Being Too Nice Holding You Back?" Uh, no. Because I am not too nice.


I skipped "Sh*t My Man Says." After nearly 30 years of marriage, mine doesn't talk much. It's hard to get a word in when you're married to me. When he says something, I promise I'll get back to you. OK, lets check out some of the other feature stories.
"What's Sexy Right Now."
"How to Crank up Your Kissability."
"Fire it up!"
"Five Sensual Massages to Do Together."
The common denominator here is setting the stage for romance. So labor-intensive. It's not easy being young and single. As an old married lady, all I have to do is cock my head and say "Hey, Honey, it's Friday!"

Common ground at last! I totally agree with Cosmo on this new porn stash trend. It makes Jude Law, Marc Anthony and Anthony Kiedis look really sleazy. Not that they needed much help achieving that vibe. A man sporting this kind of facial hair is making some sort of statement. Probably one of these four:
A: I am a total sleezeball
B: I am playing a total sleezeball in the remake of Boogie Nights
C: I wish someone would remake Boogie Nights so I could star in it as a total sleezeball
D: How else am I supposed to conceal my raging attack of mouth herpes?



Now, I am an advertising copywriter, and this cheap ploy would have occurred to me right away, BUT it ain't funny nowadays. People are broke and desperate and what would have been cute when the nation was living high on the hog feels like a low jab today.



And now to the cover story, Adele. Here are a few things Cosmo taught me about Adele. She got discovered on My Space by some enterprising label exec. She wrote and recorded the song Rolling in the Deep the morning after the break up of her first serious relationship. She's never told a guy she loved him. And she remains hopeful about her relationship future.

There is more knowledge to be gleaned from this article, but Adele is a force of nature and her mystique should be preserved. That voice tells you everything you need to know. Adele is impulsive, soulful, passionate, direct and open. She does not conform to the weight norms of the fashion industry and she does not care.

She is probably not a Cosmo Girl.

Footnotes:
NOT a Saturday Night Live skit.

Sole Survivor