I get Misty

I like shopping at Bristol Farms. After all, why pay discount prices at regular markets when you can pay three times as much at Bristol. Besides, you never know who you'll run into. Like the time four years ago when I ran into Misty May-Treanor.

Come to find out, Misty is a neighbor of mine who lives just a few blocks away. On the family's annual trip to the Hotel Del Coronado in 2008, we'd spent most of the evenings watching Misty and her volleyball partner Kerri Walsh in Beijing, spiking and acing their way to Olympic gold.

Watching her then, it never occurred to me that she shops at the market just like regular people.

I had the good fortune of chatting with her at the checkout counter. I told her how much we'd enjoyed watching her win while we were on vacation, and asked her what it was like in Beijing. She was extremely approachable, genuinely giving of her time. And, dare I say it, downright chatty. She was telling me about how she had to get ready for an appearance on "Ellen" later on that afternoon.

I was asking her about her medal, and because she had it with her for her talk show appearance, much to my surprise she popped the question to me: she asked if I wanted to see it.

The medal itself is heavier than you think, and even more impressive in person. I told Misty I knew she was tired of being asked, but if she wouldn't mind could I take a picture of her with it. Her answer is above.

The other thing is Misty drives the same car as mine (or she did at the time), only in a different color. We're kindred Lexus spirits.

I said goodbye and thanked her for her time.

We're not on vacation yet, but you can bet we'll still be watching her and Kerri go for the gold in London this year.

It's what neighbors do for each other.

Quittin' time

Since I started in the business, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people trying to get out. More than ever, people are dreaming of a way - screenplay, starting a business, moving away and the ever popular winning lotto. They all have one of two never-truer-than-now rallying cries: “The business isn’t what it used to be.” or “It’s not fun anymore.”

Despite the fact both are true, fewer people actually leave than would like to.

The reason’s simple: it’s the pure joy of creating work. The collaboration working with a partner who sees the execution of an idea exactly the way you do. The unparalleled fun of shepherding an idea through the agency. The unadulterated joy of doing work that can at times be both artistic and effective, and at the end of the day is always appreciated by clients, account people and the public alike.

Nah, I’m just messing with you. It’s the money.

I was talking with an art director friend of mine at lunch today about our day rates, and the fact the work we do isn’t exactly breaking rocks. Then we talked about people who do real jobs, like police, firemen, nurses, teachers, military personnel. It’s awfully unfair we get paid what we do, and they get paid so little for doing real work that actually impacts lives on a daily basis.

Yet it is what it is. Supply and demand. Free market. Yada yada yada.

Of course, inequity in job salaries is nothing new. On Facebook, people love showing their righteous indignation by asking why CEO’s of a corporation should make more than people on its assembly line. Here’s the answer: it takes a different set of skills to run a company than it does to work on the line. It’s not hard to figure out.

In a perfect world, it’d be great if things were more equitable. And we’ve tried through legislation to even the playing field. But good intentions can backfire. For example, raising the minimum wage. Each time the minimum wage goes up, mostly unskilled labor enjoys a hike in pay. Don’t get me wrong: I think more money is always a good thing no matter what your position. Unless you’re one of the employees laid off as a result of it

If a small business owner has to increase pay for three of his minimum wage employees, his costs go up - he has to cover them somehow. The choices are few: raise consumer prices, which always leads to fewer consumers, or let one of his three employees go so he can give the other two the minimum wage hike.

Of course now, the other two will be earning it since they’ll be doing the work of three people.

I suppose the idea of mandatory minimum wage increases is easier for people to accept than performance based ones, using criteria like merit and value to the company as guidelines. It sounds so quaint even as I type it.

But I digress. Where was I?

Oh, right, I was getting out of advertising.

Just as soon as I can afford it.

Crazy control

Just when I said I didn't feel strongly enough about anything to post for awhile, this happens.

I didn't hear about the shootings at the midnight show of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado until this morning. My first thought was about the horror and sadness the victims and their families have been exposed to in this tragedy.

My second thought was that my son had gone to a midnight show last night, and thank God it didn't happen here. Of course the sad truth about that thought is it can happen anywhere. Unfortunately, crazy doesn't pay much attention to state borders or jurisdictions.

It knows how to travel when it needs to.

I won't try and make sense of it - there'll be pundits galore all over cable news tonight doing that.

I do know it wasn't the movie's fault. Warner Bros. has cancelled the Paris premiere, and pulled some of the advertising for the film indefinitely. Two things I believe they shouldn't have done.

For all the talk there's going to be about gun control, for me, here's the bottom line: more gun control laws wouldn't have helped. Colorado, like most states, already has a number of them on the books. But when crazy wants a gun, crazy gets a gun. You can argue a background check and waiting period might've prevented this, but crazy is also skilled at not looking crazy when it needs to. Ever see the neighbor interviews?

"He was always such a nice guy." "He was quiet but friendly." "He used to wave and smile when I saw him."

He bought the guns in his possession legally - in compliance with all the gun laws - from local gun shops. He purchased the ammunition legally off the internet. You simply cannot close all the loopholes.

For my pals against the death penalty, this is why you're wrong. He may plead crazy, but he was lucid enough to put on bullet-proof armor and buy tear gas first. There's no reason for this monster to be walking the earth. Hopefully it won't be years before the courts come to this obvious conclusion.

And while I'm on the subject, I think there should be a special category of execution for crimes as horrendous as this. In the same way that labeling something a "hate crime" makes one murder subject to a harsher penalty than the other, I think by creating a separate category of crime we could execute these abominations in the way they deserve to go.

And it isn't peacefully with an I.V. line in their arm.

All I keep thinking about, besides the victims, is the parents. As if there aren't enough reminders in the day you can't protect your children from everything evil in the world.

In the aftermath, all we can do is hug our kids, let them go to the movies and teach them that even though bad things happen, life goes on. Teach them fearful is not a way to live. That's what crazy wants. Don't give it to him.

And for as long as you can, hold the people in Colorado affected by this tragedy in your hearts, thoughts and prayers.

They're going to need it.

UPDATE: TDKR director Christopher Nolan's statement on the shooting:

"Speaking on behalf of the cast and crew of "The Dark Knight Rises", I would like to express our profound sorrow at the senseless tragedy that has befallen the entire Aurora community. I would not presume to know anything about the victims of the shooting but that they were there last night to watch a movie. I believe movies are one of the great American art forms and the shared experience of watching a story unfold on screen is an important and joyful pastime. The movie theatre is my home, and the idea that someone would violate that innocent and hopeful place in such an unbearably savage way is devastating to me. Nothing any of us can say could ever adequately express our feelings for the innocent victims of this appalling crime, but our thoughts are with them and their families."

For now

Not that anyone's noticed - and really, if you have then you're concentrating on the wrong things in life - but I haven't posted anything here in a couple weeks.

The reason, surprisingly enough, isn't laziness. Or lack of time. It's much simpler than that.

I haven't felt strongly enough about anything to go on a tear about it. Not that there haven't been things to feel strongly about - I'm just not feelin' it.

Plus, being the freelancer I am, the time off from the responsibility of coming up with something every day is very liberating. Doing nothing gives me more time to do nothing. What can I say? It's a skill.

So in the meantime, if you want to fill the empty void in your soul and spend some quality time with another clever, insightful, extremely well-written blog, please to enjoy my pal Rich Siegel's musings over at Round Seventeen. For a while now, Rich and I have had a friendly competition to see who could put up more blog posts in a year. Despite an early lead at the beginning of the year, I knew I was nowhere near as prolific as he is. It's official Rich (as if it wasn't before) - you win.

This isn't goodbye. It's just "I don't feel like doing it." for now.

I'll be back eventually. Probably after I'm rested, refreshed and tanned from our annual trip to the Hotel Del Coronado.

So mark your calendars for the end of August, and have yourself a fine what's left of summer.

Don't forget to write. I won't.

Telling right from wrong

There's a way of judging work many creatives share. Let me explain it in the simplest way I know how: if the account people don't like it, it must be good.

This may seem like a contrarian way to evaluate work, but more often than not it's more accurate than the Hadron Collider (timely reference: you're welcome). And it's been especially on the money with my most recent gig.

Working in the glamorous world of direct (which my pal Janice so succinctly calls "a legacy of garbage"), my partner and I developed several emails and direct mail pieces for the client. When we presented to the deciders at the agency, the ones they absolutely hated were the ones we loved. To their credit, they presented them to the client, although I believe just as straw dogs to sell against.

You know how this story ends.

The client loved the ones we did. And now the account people are tripping over themselves saying how great they were, and implying they were their choices the whole time.

If you're doing work that doesn't scare or make anyone nervous, no matter what media form it takes, it's not worth doing.

It'll always be an uphill battle. But if you can get it in front of the client, more often than not they'll help you win it.

Sub sandwich

Meanwhile, in today's news, Iran claims their missiles can strike 35 U.S. bases within minutes should Iran come under attack.

Yeah yeah. Sure sure.

Once again Iran's leadership is banging the drum loudly for their own people's benefit so they'll support the military buildup. And since the missiles can hit targets 900 miles away, and Israel's border is only 600, this kind of rhetoric plays well to the anti-semetic, effigy-burning, American flag-stomping crowds.

But what Iran's military knows all too well, even if they're conveniently forgetting to mention it to their people, is that U.S. nuclear submarines, like the Ohio-class sub shown here, surround Iran on all sides. See, their 900-mile range missile I mentioned is their most advanced. One of our regular ones has a range of 2,000 miles.

You do the math (hint: the math is we don't have to be anywhere near them to take them out seconds after they've made the piss-poor decision to launch).

I know, all this doomsday talk makes me nervous too. It's obvious the people of Iran are just as much at the mercy of bad decisions their leaders make as we are. I'd never want to test out the "our missiles are better than your missiles" theory. Ever.

But, having said that, if I'm being honest with myself (and you know how I hate doing that), I have to admit considering the recklessness, lies and irrationality Iran exhibits on an almost daily basis, I take comfort in the fact the U.S. has something besides homes underwater.

Clocked out

My pal Rich Siegel at Round Seventeen wrote a great post about the expectation of you working late if you work at Chiat. Which, if you've ever worked there, know is absolutely true.

But it's not only true of them.

Here's the thing: if I'd wanted to keep doctors hours, I would've been a doctor. Which would've made my parents very happy. Then, I wouldn't have had to explain what I do over and over to them. They never understood. Many times I don't either.

I didn't become a doctor for many reasons. One of which was that I didn't want to be on call at all hours of the night. I think it came right below "I'm not smart enough," "I'm not doing prostate exams," and "Who'd be stupid enough to have me as their doctor?"

I've been working on a major automotive client which shall go nameless - Toyota - that I've worked on before and enjoy.

Only this time I've been doing it through a small, virtual marketing agency that I've never worked at before. The experience has been something short of pleasant (except for the checks: that part's been very pleasant).

For some odd reason, this company is under the mistaken notion I'm on call 24/7, just waiting for their last minute copy changes. Which usually come after their last minute change in direction. The other night, I had no less than eight emails from them that arrived between 1 a.m. and 3:30 a.m.

I didn't read them until I woke up around 7 a.m. And I'm pretty sure if they'd taken a breath and thought about it, they'd have realized those emails didn't need to be sent in the middle of the night. No action was going to be taken on them (certainly not by me), and they could've gotten a good nights sleep (always thinking of others - it's my curse).

My friend Janice used to have this sign in her office:

I think I've found the Christmas card I'm sending to agencies this year.

Shower power

Okay, it's time to make some hot cocoa, cuddle up in the blanket, and settle in for a totally fictional story that would never happen in the real world. Never. Trust me.

Just for arguments sake, let's say there was this house. A 63-year old house. And once upon a time, not so very long ago, this house had all the pipes replaced with copper piping because of the promise that copper piping held.

High water pressure. The ability to run different showers at the same time. Hot water almost instantly.

But for some reason, the new pipes never quite delivered on the promise. So for years, the owners of the house just made do, suffering with low water pressure that barely cleaned the soap off their bodies. They were happy everywhere in the house. Except the showers.

Then, one day, the owners of that old house decided to call a plumber. They asked this plumber to snake all the drains and sinks, and see what he could do to increase the water pressure in the showers, and finally deliver on that long ago promise.

Well, this was a very smart plumber. He knew everything there was to know about pipes and water pressure. In fact he was so smart, he knew that all the new shower heads and hoses had water regulators in them. He also knew if those were removed, the water pressure would be like showering at one of the fancy hotels the family liked to go to, like The Venetian. The Hotel Del Coronado. Or The Fairmont.

Now the water regulators were there to restrict the flow of water to conserve it, because the city the house was in had had a drought for a long time. So really, it would've been wrong to remove them.

But that sneaky plumber removed them anyway, and didn't tell the owners of the house until he was done with the job. And even though the owners knew it was wrong, they sure liked the way the showers felt after he was done.

The promise of the copper pipes all those years ago had finally come true.

And the good news is even though they were using a little more water, now they didn't have to waste water while they waited almost ten minutes for it to get hot. Plus they don't have to stay in nearly as long to get clean. So it all evened out in the end.

And the whole family showered happily ever after.

Riding again with the 77th

Car thieves, kidnappers and prostitutes. No I'm not talking about ad agencies I've worked at. I'm talking about my second ride-along with the great professionals of the LAPD.

I've already written about my first ride-along experience here. But last Monday night, I had the privilege of being partnered with Sgt. Bland of the 77th Street Community Police Department. Located in the heart of South Central Los Angeles, it's a place officers gain the kind of experience in a very short time that they couldn't get at any other outpost.

I'd expected to ride with Sgt. Sandoz who I did my first ride-along with. But he was unexpectedly assigned Watch Commander for the night, and I wound up riding with the equally exceptional Sgt. Bland from 7p.m. to 4a.m.

We went to the parking lot to look for our assigned car, number 89140. Sgt. Bland handed me a spare set of keys to the car. I asked him what they were for, and he said, "In case you need them." I didn't ask anything else.

Like my previous ride-along, I fully expected the four words I'd hear most from Sgt. Bland would be, "Stay in the car." But also like before, he said I was riding as his partner and could get as close as I wanted with him to the action (with one exception).

Once the Jurassic Park-sized fortress doors from the garage of the 77th opened to let us out, the first call was a stolen van with five occupants. When we arrived, they were stopped on 76th Street, under a Harbor freeway overpass. I saw about 12 police cars with the officers out of them, standing behind their open car doors with guns drawn and aimed at the occupants coming out of the van to join the ones already on the ground, face down with arms and legs spread out as they'd been instructed.

The officers in the cars closest to the van had their shotguns drawn.

I asked Sgt. Bland why there was so much firepower for one stolen van. He said there were two reasons. First, while the officers could see five occupants, they didn't know if there were others hiding in the van and whether or not they were armed (or with what). Second was the message it sent. I asked what that was, and he told me, "You're not going to win."

It turned out there were five people in the van, and the only hidden occupant was a baby blue pit bull puppy.

There are a lot of pit bulls in South Central.

Next was a domestic violence call. When we arrived, the fire department was there as well. A woman had been pushed out of a truck, and was being treated at the scene and taken to the hospital. Her face had been badly banged up, her head was bandaged and she had blood all over her. It doesn't look anything like it does on television. We stayed until the paramedics took her away.

As we were driving off, we saw a gentleman stop his and car drop off a woman we believed to be a prostitute given the known prostitution activity in the area. He was driving down the street, except what he didn't know was that it was a dead end street.

Sgt. Bland had me run the plate on the patrol car's computer. What came up was all the information on the vehicle, as well as the owner, a Mr. Kang. Since the driver appeared to be a male Asian, we believed him to be the registered owner. We pulled around to the end of the street he'd have to come out of. When he did, we shone a light on him, and called out, "Mr. Kang. Go home Mr. Kang. Have a good night."

In case you didn't know, getting caught dropping off a prostitute by LAPD results in a very shocked expression. I thought I actually heard him pee his pants.

Oh Mr. Kang.

Next up was a liquor store robbery. We got there shortly after it happened. Two robbers had been able to gain access to the contents of a safe while they held the owner at gunpoint. The officers already at the scene had everything under control, so we left to continue patrolling the streets.

South Western and Figueroa are popular "tracks" for prostitutes. Every once in awhile we'd pull up to one, ask how she was doing and remind her to keep her eyes open and be safe. They'd say okay, then walk away quickly from the car. Nothing kills business more than talking to LAPD.

Back to the domestic violence call. When the officers followed up with the woman at the hospital, they learned who did it. It was a former relationship of hers. He had her in a truck, and when she asked him to stop so she could get out, he sped up then pushed her out into the alley.

Assault with a deadly weapon (ADW), kidnapping and domestic violence all in a matter of moments.

She told the officers where he lived, and that he kept a loaded shotgun at his front door.

We went back to the 77th, where Sgt. Bland and six other officers quickly planned a strategy for getting him. I could feel the atmosphere change and the tension ratchet up as they discussed where they'd be positioned around his house, and contingencies depending on how he reacted to the knock at the door.

A caravan of four police cars drove to his house. Remember earlier I said there was one call I couldn't get close to? This was it. I stayed in the car while the officers went to his door. From where I was positioned, I heard them knock on the door and tell him to come out. In that moment, for the first time all night, I was afraid because I didn't know what sound I was going to hear next.

Fortunately, the guy decided to not shoot it out, and was taken in without incident.

Turns out he was 5'8" and 140lbs. Seeing him escorted to the patrol car in front of me by two officers over 6' tall was pretty comical. One of them had the shotgun that was in his apartment, as well as another gun he kept in his bedroom.

And ladies, I understand he is single again. Just saying.

After that, we went back to the station. Sgt. Bland thanked me for keeping him safe out there (nice of him to say, but we both know it was the other way around).

Just like last time, each and every officer I met during the evening was exceptional. They have no idea what they're walking into from one call to the next. Yet they handle each one with professionalism, courtesy and a respect for the people they're dealing with regardless of their situation in life. It is inspiring to see, and reassuring to know.

The other thing that remains the same from my last ride-along is the resourcefulness of these officers given the limited resources due to budget cuts. These dedicated, overworked and underpaid officers are stretched almost to the breaking point.

But here's the secret: for them, there is no breaking point.

I said this in my last post, but I'll say it again: if you're so inclined, and you should be, sending a letter to Anthony Villaraigosa or Governor Brown asking them not to cut the budget where law enforcement is concerned can do nothing but help.

Once again, I want to give a huge thank you to Sgt. Bland and all the great people working at the 77th, not only for letting me have this incredible experience a second time, but for who they are and what they do each and every day for all of us.

Roger that.