Kingdom of Failure

The first thing I thought to myself was holy shit that woman can really curse. At first, I thought she was in a bad mood or had a horrible toothache. Tourette’s syndrome even crossed my mind. But after a few weeks, I realized this was just the way she talked.  Some people have a southern accent. Some people say pop instead of soda. And some people talk like an angry truck driver who spent 75 years in the Navy. She was tough as nails. And wanted to make damn sure every one of those fuckholes knew it. My six-year-old now knows that word thanks to this woman. It takes a village. I don’t think that having a potty mouth makes you a bad person. I, myself, certainly don’t shy away from colorful language. But this went beyond keeping it real. This was some sort of defense mechanism. It was a shield. A veneer. An overcompensation. Short men who behave this way are often said to have a Napoleon complex. Men who aren’t short and behave this way are often said to be Australian.   It was a...

I can’t think of too many jobs that require a writer to come up with as many ideas as quickly and as often as an advertising copywriter has to. I have written thousands of ads. Which means I’ve written thousands of stories. Hopefully, I needn’t tell anyone reading this that an ad is a story. Usually they’re no more than 30 seconds long. And these days sometimes they’re as short as six seconds. But no matter what, if it’s good, there’s a story in there somewhere. There are many tricks to how we do this. There are creative archetypes we follow. They do the same thing in movies. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets her back. Seen it a million times. Put a twist on it and boom you've got this summer's hottest romantic comedy. In advertising we do the same thing. Which helps. A little. The trick is finding a new way of telling an old story. So new that no one says that it reminds them of something they’ve seen a zillion times before.   That’s why creatives have so many old award...

I took a detour after Los Angeles because things had started to get a little dicey out there. And when you see the word dicey and Los Angeles in the same sentence, be sure to take the time to consider the infinite possibilities that particular combination could be alluding to.   The agency I was at wasn’t doing well. It would end up being shuttered a year or so later. Looking back, getting out early was probably the right thing to do. And doing the right thing occurs so rarely in my life that I hope you don’t mind if I pause to give myself a little pat on the back for it. Los Angeles is certainly not without its many, many charms. But it wasn’t for me. All the Lamborghinis started to kind of get to me. The bad plastic surgery. The organic micro-greens with heirloom polenta. The constant, never ending, relentless sunshine. You might think I’m joking but you can get reverse seasonal sunshine disorder. I’d wake up every day, the sun pouring in through my windows, and after a while all...

I was a real bratty little shit when I started in this business. I totally thought I was hot stuff and I wish I could go back in time and punch myself in the throat.   I started my first job as a junior copywriter at Leo Burnett in Chicago about six days after graduation. I went to the University of Texas and did the Texas Creative Program which was absolutely phenomenal. At the time, it was maybe the hottest creative program in the country. I got my whole book put together as an undergraduate and at our final review there were agency people with jobs to hand out. I was lucky. I got one. But as is the case for many, my path to the glamorous world of advertising was a circuitous one. When I went off to college I had absolutely no clue what I wanted to do. Totally zero idea. And as more and more of my friends declared their majors and set out on their paths to glory, the more  freaked out I got about having absolutely no inkling of what I wanted to do with my life. So in the abs...