Are men really that stupid?

This is a question to the universe. How does simply saying that a product is manly or masculine magically make it so? You know, those ads that make arbitrary claims that an obviously gender-neutral product is “for men” or that it somehow makes the user more masculine. Like the ad for that new Dr. Pepper rip of Coke Zero (I forget what it’s called, but the ads are all, ‘Grr, dudes and explosions!’) — so, come on, men. I want to know:

Is there any reason why one can full of water and high fructose corn syrup is more manly than any other can of carbonated sugar sludge?

Do women decide whether or not to have sex with you based on the brand of shampoo that you use?

If I put a black and silver label on a product that your girlfriend uses, does that make it a different product?

Will your testosterone levels increase if you eat a compressed stick of monkey meat, preservatives and concentrated sodium instead of a plate of chopped vegetables?

See, I know that intellectually, most men would say, no, what a fucking ridiculous set of propositions. Yet I also know when an ad says basically the same thing, a lot of the time, it actually works. I don’t understand why it’s so easy to alter public perception with transparent messages that defy basic logic.

Last week, we sold a spot on a particularly difficult brief. I can’t go into detail, obviously, but I’ll say that a lot of careful thought went into figuring out how to present what the client wanted to say in a way that was factual, entertaining, true to the brand, relevant to the target market and didn’t feel “too addy.” So who knows, maybe I’m just jealous of people who only have to think of ways to say “Attention dudes with dirty hipster beards: chicks will have sex with you if you buy our product.”

A splash of color

I recently started a new blog (Dandy Vintage Ads) and I designed the icon and masthead using a 1949 Jantzen ad, which you can see in better detail at the blog. I loved the artwork but wanted something in color.

I got a lot of practice colorizing in photshop when I built my website. One of the things that inspired me for the site (aside from the unsubtle nod to Edward Gorey) was when our instructor said, "Don't use cliche things--like, if you're a writer, don't use a pencil or pen for your logo." And I decided that I'd use as many of these cliches as possible and put a dark twist on them. A typewriter falling on a cat, a mouse trapped in a prison made of pencils and an unseen writer who, rather than using a single feather as a quill, writes with an entire bird. But let's be honest. I'm not a great illustrator, and when it all came together, the result was just plain whimsical. Here's an example:

The top layer is the illustration.

Then the color goes on the layer below.

And together, we get this.

Same basic idea with the illustrated Jantzen ad.

The bubbles go on their own layer because they need more opacity.

In full color.

And complete with the background.

10 reasons to hate me.

I suppose I sat on this for way too long because all blogs, at their heart, are based on a secret yearning to be liked. But don't think for a second that this is "10 reasons why I vainly believe that others are jealous of me" or "10 flaws I admit to in job interviews because I can somehow turn them around to show myself in a good light" or "10 reasons why conservatives/christians/republicans/whoever hate me and all other people who disagree with them."

I read the book after I've seen the movie.
The last novel I read is one of my favorite movies ever and it took me about 10 years to get around to reading the book. It was kind of a letdown.

I will cut you off.
On the road, I mean. If my turn signal could talk, it wouldn't say, "Pardon me, I'm terribly sorry but if you'd be so kind, I'd like to move in that direction, whenever you see fit to let me in." It says, "All right, fucker, hit your brakes because I am going to be in that lane within 5 seconds whether you like it or not."

I'm not afraid of confrontation.
There actually is a middle ground between liking it and fearing it. Yes, confrontation sucks but sometimes it’s necessary. I don’t understand passive aggressive people who huff around at their own emotional expense when a problem could be solved by dealing with it directly.

I don't like dogs.
I mean, except for your dog, obviously. Even if I haven't met your dog, I bet you have like the one dog that's so cool, I can make an exception.

I don't respect your religion.
Except for yours, obviously. I'm sure you picked the right one.

I've never been to middle America.
Not even Chicago. Not even to change planes on the way to the west coast. All your cliches about snotty northeastern liberal elite being out of touch with middle America: consider them validated.

I always ask what the base of the soup is.
Look, I am not eating beef broth. If a cow has even looked at that soup, I don’t want it.

I laugh at your emo breakdowns.
I’m not going to ask what’s wrong. I’m not going to send you virtual hugs. No matter how justified your sulking or your emotionally raw outburst is, I think it’s hilarious that you choose to broadcast it over a social network, and I’m on the other side of the computer laughing about it.

I'm cool with turning smokers into second class citizens.
I fully support any affirmative statement or resolution containing the words "smoking", "public" and "ban."

I don't think your kids are special.
I've created lots of things and impressed myself thoroughly with them. The difference is that later on, I have the luxury of admitting to myself that maybe it's not so great. Now I know a story I wrote in 2002 isn’t going to start cutting itself if I say, “What the fuck was I thinking? You suck.” So I won't begrudge you thinking those sticky-fingered little demons are exceptionally smart, unique, talented and destined for greatness--but they probably aren’t.

Live from Hartford

Oh the wonders of technology. After a long absence of blogging, I find myself trapped on greyhound bus (heading back to New York, where I've now been living for 4 long weeks) and a full one hour and thirty-seven minutes into the bus ride, eavesdropping, naturally, on a loud conversation this guy and girl have been having for approximately one hour and thirty-six minutes.

From what I've gleaned, they are acquaintances who coincidentally ran into each other on the bus, and she is the fake friend or possibly roommate of a girl who apparently dated him. I know this mainly because this other girl has been the focus of their conversation shit-talking for the ENTIRE BUS RIDE THUS FAR. Originally I started to think, How unnaturally obsessed with this chick are you two? but upon further consideration, I think that the girl is much, much more obsessed and keeps steering the conversation back toward the topic of this other girl. It became hard not to notice because the girl they're talking about has the same name as me, and really my name, my ringtone, and the clinking of candy hitting a dish are all sounds that cut through all background noise and command my attention.

(My ears have become so discerning that I actually heard my phone ringing when I was listening to the song Kashmir... and my ringtone was also Kashmir) But, eh, non sequitur aside, I figure I've known at least the follow types of people, in no particular order: nutbars, crazy-but-lovable, toxic manipulative bitches, cokeheads, potheads, alcoholics, closet cases, crazies in a scary way, flighty hippies, over-achievers, slackers, goths, trannies, aging punks, Red Sox fans, art school students, and actors. Just to name a few. And this chick that they just wasted 90 minutes of their lives gossiping about, disparaging and reminiscing about, didn't even sound very interesting. She can be overdramatic and jealous at times and she's a bit sheltered, and the most genius fit of irony, apparently she's too judgmental as well.

But the reason I made that laundry list of 'types' I've known, personally, is that in the often fascinating cast of characters that I've encountered, I don't think I have anything approaching 90 minutes' worth of conversation about a single person.

Mediocre hacks live forever

I only just recently started to check out Bill Hicks. If you know who that is, I’m sure I don’t need to invite you to congratulate yourself and skip over the part where I explain that he was an edgy comedian who died in the early ‘90s when he was just 32 years old. In fact, the title of the entry was the most sadly ironic thing he ever said, “Mediocre hacks live forever and pollute the earth with their existence, while brilliant geniuses die way too early.”


For some reason, this seemed the most fitting image I had on hand for the post title...

I think in the ‘80s all you needed to earn your edgy comedian badge was to say fuck a lot and talk about blow jobs, or alternately, make a thoughtful and pointed comment about the absurdity of religion. But while watching this guy in the context of The Edgiest Comedians of the 1980s, I thought it was clear that he had depth and insight that could be dressed up in the style of the era, but could easily transcend it as well.

Unfortunately, Bill Hicks’ real legacy was largely reduced to “The Guy From Whom Denis Leary Stole His Entire Act.” I was watching some of these scathing YouTube videos that purport to prove it, and the people who are carrying this torch do both him and themselves no favors. For every moment of undeniable plagiarism, there are 6 moments of loose and probably coincidental parallels. Yes, both guys talk about smoking, and yes, Hicks did it first—Sam Kinison hated his ex-wife, does that mean all comedians who do ex-wife jokes are ripping him off? There are almost no original topics—and when you get on a topic, there are some obvious places to go. It’s something you see all the time in advertising when you come up with an idea, and a self-appointed member of the It’s Been Done Squad is like, Rawr, 5 years ago someone used a visual similar to that in China. Then you’re like, But the concept isn’t even close and this is for housewives in Michigan who don’t spend their nights studying Ads of the World and I’ve never fucking been to China!

But that said, using my probably more based in personal experience than I want to disclose analogy, Denis Leary had been to China. He knew Hicks and his act, and he did some jokes that, intentionally or not, were so uncannily similar that it just looks pathetic. Yet the people who harp on the broader coincidences are only watering down the claim that Denis Leary is a big thieving hack. The worse part of it is that these broader coincidences also make Hicks look less original—it’s easy to confuse the two, but being the first person to say something obvious is not the same as being original (And yes, you should definitely read into that and assume I’m talking about more than just comedy).

Still, the story is almost poetic in the way that it echoes the theme of ‘Mediocre hacks live forever,’ and it even ends on a sharp note—with the eerie coincidence that their friendship ended over Leary’s album No Cure for Cancer, shortly before Bill Hicks died of cancer. Details that only seem to have significance because he’s gone.

Because I do think Bill Hicks was original—it’s not something you can prove by highlighting his most easy-to-steal bits—but if he were still alive, he would have done what original people do. They move on and create something new. Something that’s harder to copy.

3 things I've learned

To be fair, I don't think there is a G in the word 'strength' when you say it in a southern accent.

The worst thing you can do when you work for someone who's afraid to take risks is to stop taking risks. When you substitute their judgment for your own, it's not 'the system' or the 'corporate structure' that's defeated your creativity. It's you.

If you live in blissful ignorance about the fact that no one wants to read what you write, it spares you a lot of worrying about the quality and effectiveness of your writing. The price you pay for not worrying is producing mediocre work that no one will read.

"Let's see your book" is a cop out. Maybe the world would be an infinitely better place if the value and importance of other people’s opinions were proportionate to the quality of their work, but that’s not reality and it never will be.

From all of us

The quality of greetings that my friends should expect to receive.

It comes with a dodgy look around, hidden in a manila folder, slipped onto your desk with a quick and whispered explanation and what awaits inside is a problem you don’t want to solve.

I hate when someone gives me a card to sign at the office. It’s not that I don’t wish you a happy birthday or good luck in your next job or solemn condolences for your loss. It’s not even the fact that all workplaces generally have people who don’t necessarily like each other and that having everyone sign the card will breed hypocrisy (okay, I know the way I phrased that sounds like that bothers me but I really don’t care).

No, it’s the fact that I’m always the last person to get the card. When you’re surrounded by writers of course everyone has to write their little blurb. Some use it as an excuse to be overly poetic, and even though you sort of laugh how over the top and lacking in self-awareness one has to be to do that … it sets a bar that, at least, says you have to write something original. By the time the last few people get the card, it’s like, you don’t want to repeat what someone else said. Even though there is a limit on how many ways you can half-heartedly convey certain sentiments. Plus when you get one of those cards, you read what everyone wrote and because you’ve been there, you have a good idea of the actual thought and feeling behind it.

If it were up to me, we'd all just sign our names.

Anti social networking

The important thing is not to feel anything out of the public eye.

I kind of, totally hate facebook. But I’m on there for a reason. And I don’t mean there’s a reason I go to the site, rather there’s a reason I don’t give in to any of my frequent whims to delete my account and never look back. Although ‘whim’ sounds a little too pleasant, it’s more like an anti-whim of disgust, not a whimsical whim of delight.

I may not like that voyeuristic blackhole, but it’s such a significant part of our culture that I have to understand it. The annoying part is that unlike my twitter and tumblr accounts, I can’t base my facebook account on something that interests or amuses me (in fact, I’m mostly able to enjoy twitter because my personal account is limited to people I’m genuinely interested in, while my considerably more popular non-personal account is all about a topic I’m personally--not professionally--interested in).

The first reason I hate facebook is that it entangles you with people you don’t even care about. I was looking recently at the “people you may know” and there were a few people listed who I thought I was friends with (bullshit facebook friends, I mean, not actual friends). But still there’s a twinge of rejection, and as I sat there thinking, Wait, wait, you assholes actually unfriended me? And I don’t know that, maybe I never added them. But I wondered, WHY DO I CARE? These are people who live in other parts of the country and I wouldn’t even call if I were visiting the towns where they live. And yet I let this annoying technology keep them in the periphery of my life when in reality, I should already be struggling to remember their names.

The second reason is the oversharing. It’s something we joke about as though it’s an unstoppable force, but the way that the entire concept of privacy is disappearing from our lives? That’s not an earthquake or a tidal wave, we are 100% responsible for it. But I understand, I don’t want to be the one who comments, “People you went to camp with when you were 11 don’t want to hear your emotionally raw breakdowns. You just made me uncomfortable.” I’m not even going to say the worst thing that someone on my friends’ list ever posted--I’ll just say it was a photo that was so inappropriate, honestly, it would make you uncomfortable just reading about it (that should establish that it wasn’t about nudity or even sexual in nature, right?).

140 characters of depth

Other than spamming people and spreading viruses, I think one of the more annoying things people do on twitter is trying to be incredibly profound and philosophical. It’s not profundity or philosophy that bother me but rather the act of awkwardly forcing it into a medium that you’re otherwise using for shameless self-promotion or to broadcast your margarita consumption.

With this in mind, the dumbest tweet I read in 2010 was:

The fastest way to succeed is to double your failure rate.

I am aware that in creative work, generally you will fail more than you succeed. A non-stupid way of saying what this tweeter was trying to say is that it's important not to be tormented by failures because fear of failure that can make us afraid to take risks and therefore less likely to create something spectacular..

"Fail spectacularly" is a very romantic idea with some logical problems. Namely because failure could mean that you suck or that you should learn from a huge mistake that you made. But I suppose most of humanity's greatest inventions and philosophies don't work in the hands of idiots, so I won't blame an otherwise useful concept like "Fail spectacularly" for that.

And yet whole point is, Be fearless and try more, you will have more failure and more success. Doubling your failure rate, my dear pseudo-philosopher, means failing more and succeeding less.


If my failure rate is 50% and I double it, then I’ll succeed at being a failure.

It's a fine line between annoying and interesting

I have to confess something. Whenever I see a trending topic of some obscure washed up celebrity, I must click through to find out why they're trending.

The following stories annoy me:
- Having a baby.
- Engaged/getting married.
- Plastic surgery.*
- New reality show.
- Whining about something (celebrity problem or normal person problem).
- Or trying to get attention for a cause.

Things that do not annoy me:
- Dead. Not that I'm hoping that they're dead, but I am convinced that the only reason anyone clicks through at all is the possibility that they're dead.
- Checking into rehab. I know a lot of people would probably put this on the above list, but I see that and I'm like, "Quick, someone get Dr Drew on the horn. Potential new cast member for Celebrity Rehab!"
- Arrested. The severity of the charge is irrelevant. Jaywalking? Drunk driving? Mass murder? It's all good but of course bonus points for bizarreness (Randy Quaid and wife, I am looking in your direction).
- Dramatic change in weight. Again, I don't want to give the impression that this is all about schadenfreude--most of us just add former classmates on facebook to satisfy that emotional need, anyway--but it's very interesting to see how weirdly their familiar celebrity heads and faces change after losing some weight. More interesting than finding out some has-been started packing on the pounds.

*Kenny Rogers excepted.