I didn't even know it was sick

It's not easy trying to eat healthy. Even though I maintain that bagels, cream cheese, chocolate and oatmeal cookies represent the four basic food groups, people say I have to try harder.

But what works against me on that is the protein portion of our program. Virtually every meat product in Lazy Acres or Whole Foods says "uncured" on the label.

Intellectually I know that's a good thing when it comes to meat. It means it's not loaded with sodium nitrates. Actually even if they were they aren't. The amount of nitrates to preserve meats is minimal - it's the idea of it that's so huge. (If only this weren't a family blog I could type the joke I'm thinking right now.)

And while we're on the idea of things, let's talk about the power of words. Specifically, the word "uncured." Don't like it. It conjures up images of cows or pigs at their least flattering - as opposed to the flattering pictures you usually see.

Plus, my taste isn't that refined when it comes to, let's say, bacon. All I know is the uncured meats go bad in a week, and the cured ones expire around the next appearance of Halley's comet.

I'll stick with the cured meats. I like knowing my refrigerator will go bad before the meat does.

Seeing red

There's good news and there's bad news.

The good news is that for the past week, and the next couple coming up, I'm working in Santa Monica. I lived here for almost 20 years, and the city feels like home to me. I can see the ocean from my office, the sunsets are stunning and I know the shortcuts when I need to get where I'm going.

The bad news is those shortcuts don't do jack for me at quittin' time.

See that red cross going from where the 10 freeway starts to where it intersects with the 405? That's what I have to navigate every night to get out of the west side, and then crawl the rest of the way home to Long Beach.

As I've said many times here, I grew up on the mean streets of west L.A., north of Wilshire. And I don't want to become one of those guys that starts a lot of sentences with "back then", but back then this was a precision driving town. People knew how to maneuver. They knew how to go with the flow.

Which is hard to do if the flow's not going.

It's also gotten a lot more crowded since I was a kid. I blame it on the Rose Parade.

Every January, at the same time the rest of the country is digging out from fifteen feet of snow, playing hopscotch over downed power lines and holding on to lamp posts so they don't blow away, they're also watching the Kiwanis Club float celebrating "Togetherness Through Diversity" and the Davis High School Marching Band on television, and seeing the clear, beautiful and often warm sunny January days we get to enjoy here.

So everyone watching sells their house and moves here. The majority of them from the east coast. The thing about the east coast is they actually have public transportation that works, so many times the car they're driving here is their first one.

Which is no news to you if you've ever been on the 405 at rush hour.

Remembering Paul

I’ve thought about this post even before my great friend Paul Decker died Tuesday. Truth be told, I’ve been thinking about it since Kitty – his wife, and the love of Paul’s life – sent me an email saying how ill Paul was.

I knew Paul only had one kidney, was down a gall bladder and had been a smoker far longer than he should’ve been. He’d had some health issues over the years. I immediately sent all the good thoughts and prayers I could their way. I offered to fly to Portland and help out for as long as needed, but Paul was too weak for visitors.

In my mind’s eye, this post was going to be a cohesive story about my longtime relationship with Paul, complete with a beginning, middle and sad, sad end. But as I sit here writing, hard as I try, I can’t seem to conjure up that kind of structure.

I’ve never been much for structure. Ask anyone I work with.

All that comes to me are mental snapshots, a highlight reel I know will fall short of giving a full picture of Paul because he was such an original. He was, as their friend Carla Clemen’s said in tribute, “one of God’s masterpieces.”

But incomplete as the memories may be, I’m going to share them. Because for me, any story involving Paul is inherently a great one.

Here are a few things I remember.

Paul spoke slowly. I’d often be in conversations with him where he’d pause to think about what he was going to say next, and then I’d start talking. And then he’d continue. Paul always thought before he spoke, making sure the words as well as the details conveyed exactly what he wanted. Not only was it refreshing, it was an education in how to listen as well as how to tell a story.

I met Paul at the first agency job I ever had, which was in the mailroom at Cunningham & Walsh. I remember they had built out a new studio and recording booth, and after work and on the occasional weekends Paul and I would go back there and do a radio show for our own amusement. I’d be talking about Bruce Springsteen (even then), and he’d be talking about baseball, asking me if I knew why Ted Williams was called “The Thumper.”

Since I mentioned Springsteen, I should also mention that at the time Paul couldn’t stand him. He thought he was a fake, a poser. I couldn’t convince him otherwise. I was never actually sure if he felt that way or if he was just having some fun with me because he knew I was such a hardcore fan. In fact, when Paul knew I couldn’t come to see Bruce in Portland last November, he decided to rub it in a little bit with this Facebook text:

The fact I was in the mailroom didn’t matter to Paul. He enjoyed people for who they were, not the position they held. And the fact this man, this writer, I admired so much treated me as an equal – which he continued to do after I became a copywriter – meant the world to me. Paul was the writer we all wanted to be. With a degree in English Literature from USC, he didn’t just make it up as he went. He knew what greatness looked and read like.

When Paul was going through his divorce, I was living in a two-bedroom apartment in Brentwood and my roommate had just moved out. Paul needed a place to stay, so I offered the extra bedroom and he moved in. I wish I could remember every conversation and story from back then, but sadly no.

I do remember at some point we decided we both could stand to be healthier, so every morning before work we’d walk about a mile and a half, stopping to have a donut at a place on San Vicente.

We saw the irony. We didn’t care.

One night during the time we were rooming together, I got into a horrendous car crash. I was thrown 20 ft. from the car, broke my arm and was knocked unconscious for over an hour. When I came to in Cedar’s ER, the person I had them call was Paul. He was the one who called my parents.

Paul gave me my first taste of real jazz. I remember one night he took me to the famous jazz club The Baked Potato in Studio City, where we saw the Dave Brubeck Trio. He explained – to the degree you can explain jazz – the music, the origin, the sound. He knew it all. At the end of the night, not only did I feel smarter, I felt more grown up.

While we’re on the subject of jazz, it should be noted that Paul and Kitty held their wedding at Harvelle’s, another legendary blues and jazz club in Santa Monica. I don’t ever remember seeing Paul happier than he was that day. If you know Kitty, you know there's no other way he could feel.

Always looking for ways to amuse himself, Paul came up with a game called Revenge. Basically it was where you’d challenge someone, and then you’d both run around in public with squirt guns filled with red water. Whoever shot the other person first won. That’s the explanation why I found myself chasing and being chased by Mal Sharpe all through Fox Hills Mall one night.

Just for the record, I lost. He snuck up behind me in front of a luggage store.

There was the legendary advertising brochure he did for Mammoth, Pervasive & Bland, a parody of large, dusty, non-creative, global shop that took pride in not using hackneyed phrases like “breakthrough” and “original”. The brochures became collector’s items in the biz because they only did a limited run. I’m proud to say I have one in mint condition.

Anyone who knew Paul well is also probably a customer of Modern Meats. I don’t think there’s anyone among us who didn’t look forward to the calendars, letters (suspiciously well written) and branded pens from Otto, president of Modern Meats. The note I wrote to Paul when I first found out he was ill was written with that very pen.

Here’s the truth of the matter: Paul isn’t gone when he dies. He’s gone when we die. It’d be impossible to have known him and not carry his spirit in your heart forever.

On the website where Kitty was posting updates about Paul, you have to log in with your I.D. and a password.

My password is ilovePaul.

Waiting

I'm in a bad way this evening.

I'm waiting on some inevitable news about my friend Paul, who just went into hospice care 1200 miles from where I am. Obviously the news when it comes will not be good, except in the sense that Paul will begin the next part of his journey free from the pain and suffering he's had to endure.

So tonight, no funny lines, snappy endings or snarky comments.

Just prayers and love for someone who has meant the world to me for over 35 years. Someone I'm sure you'll know more about soon.

I know you don't know my friend. But send him your best thoughts and prayers anyway.

He could use them tonight.

Out of site out of mind

Maybe it's because I'm a copywriter. Or because I have too much free time on my hands. Or because GoDaddy is so damn cheap. But like every other person in advertising, during the course of the day, whether I want them to or not, names for websites seem to keep popping into my mind.

I don't know how many I've registered or how much I've spent to do it over the years, but I've only actually built out one of them - my own that showcases my work.

It's like people who buy a gym membership the first of January and then never use it. I'm pretty sure this is how GoDaddy and Register.com make most of their money.

Of course there are the ones I own like Creepfactor, Shut That Kid Up and Well Placed Blame that I'm still hoping to do something with. But this year, I decided to let go of some of my URL baggage and let a few names I own expire.

So if you've been itching to start a site called AdZombies or Bad Ad Agency, I know for a fact the domain names are available.

I'm in a much more optimistic place than when I registered Career Go Boom, so it's now there for the taking.

There was the gift registry site Here's What I Want a couple friends and I were going to start. Turns out we didn't want it.

My friend Stephanie Birditt had a site called Stephopotamus, and I thought it was fun. So on a whim I registered Jeffopotamus. Had no idea what I was going to do with that one, which explains why it's gone now.

A couple years ago, our annual trip to the Hotel Del Coronado had more than a few things go wrong, so I was going to go after them with Hotel Del Hell - a site where everyone who'd ever had anything go wrong during their stay could vent.

But then they comped me a night, a dinner and a cabana and I felt better.

I suppose I'll keep registering names that occur to me in the hope that one day I'll actually do something with them.

Meanwhile, I wonder if goingbacktowatchmoretv.com is taken.

Siegel called it

Back in October, my good friend Rich Siegel, who writes the not-to-be-missed blog Round Seventeen, did something he's never done before. No, he didn't take the account team to a group lunch. He didn't suggest reducing the broadcast budget so he could do more banner ads. And he didn't start complimenting the British planner with the knit cap for his insights.

What he did was post a movie review of the film The Master. It was a scathing, no-holds-barred, flat out attack as only Rich can write on what he thought was a deplorable film, not to mention a monumental waste of time.

Here's the thing I found out this afternoon: he was right.

Now normally I'd say that one should make up their own mind about about a movie. I've seen many movies that weren't well-reviewed - Meet Joe Black, Signs and Unbreakable come to mind - that wound up being very entertaining. In fact some of them have even shown up in my Guilty Pleasures posts, like the Final Destination series.

Since the Oscars - which mark the official end of nights Hollywood honors its own because no one else will - are rapidly approaching, I usually try to see as many of the nominated films as possible. So I decided to fire up my screener of The Master, and give it a go. After all, I'm a big fan of the two leads, Jacquin Phoenix and Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

Sometimes that's enough.

This time it wasn't.

I would've rather been the terrorists being tortured in Zero Dark Thirty, Lincoln being shot in the head, or Django being beaten than to have had the Les Miserables experience of sitting through The Master.

At least I didn't have to leave the house and it didn't cost me anything.

Except two and a half hours I'll never get back.

Park it

The downside of not working is I'm the one who gets to run the errands, which of course cuts into my Ellen and Judge Judy time. Thank you, I'm staying strong.

As I was running them today, they took me to an outdoor mall near my house I've been to a hundred times before. There's a Chipolte, Panda Express and Vons we shop at almost every other day (geez, do we have to feed those kids again?!).

But today, I had to run into Radio Shack (whole other post about that coming) to pick up a battery for the wife's digital kitchen scale. So I parked in a part of the lot I've never parked in, and noticed something I hadn't seen before.

There's a park in the parking lot.

Now, granted, it's not much of a park. With not much of a view. And not much of a sitting area. Still, I don't know how else you'd classify this tiny island in the middle of the lot.

Being the shakedown city this is, I can only imagine this was some sort of contractual obligation between the mall developer and the city. As one of the conditions of approving the mall plans, the developer had to provide a park for nearby residents.

You can almost feel their joy from here.

Anyway, next time I want to get out for a bit, maybe I'll pack a picnic lunch and head over there. I don't think I'll be bothered by all the auto fumes coming at me from all directions.

I'm in advertising. I'm used to working places that like to inhale their own fumes.

The Pope In The Hat

It came by surprise
That cold rainy day
When the Pope said it was time
He was going away

We all sat stunned
As we gasped in surprise
But we knew he meant it
The Pope told no lies

What would people say?
What would they do?
Who will be the new Pope?
Will it be you?

And just as the news was sinking in
Suddenly all of them broke out in a wide, happy grin
One of them said, "Well would you look at that."
Standing at the door was The Pope In The Hat.

He said to us, "Why do you all look like that?"
"Is this what my resignation's begat?"
"I must say I'm surprised by the expressions I've found."
"I'm still the Pope, there should be smiles all around."

"I've been Pope all these years"
"I've served you all very well"
"And when I go I'll take with me"
"Many stories to tell"

Someone in the crowd started to speak
It got so quiet, not a peep, not a squeak
They said, "What of the scandals you leave behind?"
He said, "No one remembers, no one will mind."

The end of the month it will all start again
The process of choosing from some very good men.
They've devoted their lives to faith and belief
And it's their time to shine
And it's my time to leave

He paused for a minute, a small tear in his eye
Trying to think of a gentle way to say his goodbye
He said, "Despite what you may hear walking round this place"
"be brave, remember, stay strong in your faith."

Soon February 28th will come, and in a blink that will be that
He'll be history, The Pope In The Hat

Job search

Every year I find 100 reasons to hate my job. They come in the form of Fortune magazine's annual 100 Best Companies to Work For issue.

A list perennial, the number one company to work for this year was Google, with things like on-site medical, restaurant, masseuses and a slew of other benefits (noticeably absent was senior care for employees over 25).

The other ninety-nine companies have things like a paid week off to do public service work, weekly meetings with the CEO to talk about what's on their minds, and even Segways to ride from one end of the office to the other.

Some companies boast of the longevity of their employees - over 1,000 Mattel employees have been there 15 years or longer. It's a concept alien to most people in advertising, who change jobs more often than Taylor Swift changes boyfriends.

Speaking of advertising, they may have been there but I didn't notice any agencies on the list. Which seems unfair, because many of them seem to meet the flimsy criteria to get on it. For example, Chiat has a basketball court, restaurant, indoor park and pirate parking stickers. Take that Zappos.

Every year when the issue arrives, I always have the same thought: maybe I'll send out a few emails to the companies that look interesting and see if anyone notices. The problem is it's like trying to buy a Prius after gas hits four dollars - everyone wants to do it.

Alright, I don't know if that's the right analogy but you see where I'm going.

The bizarre thing is I've already worked for many of these companies on the agency side. I know I had a list for some of them, but it was a different list. And while they may have earned their place on it, they definitely wouldn't be bragging about it.

Anyway, I'll keep reading and see if I can find the company of my dreams.

Or at the very least one that offers a year-round "Say It With Cash" policy.

Big Yellow Taxi

As you know, every once in a while I get swept away in the music, swaying to the rhythm, tapping my toes and singing along to a song that both transports me to another place and is transformational in its very essence.

Nah, I'm just funnin' ya. I do this when I can't think of something to write.

So, like The Wind, Tracks Of My Tears, Walk Away Renee, Stand By Me and Secret Heart before it, Big Yellow Taxi joins this elite group as today's compare and contrast exercise.

First is the Counting Crows performing a cover version. Always difficult to do a cover of a song that was so big, but I think they acquit themselves admirably.

Then of course, the Joni Mitchell version. As the songwriter, Joni has the advantage coming into the game, but we'll see whether her vocal acrobatics can hold up for the long run. We'll be back after the break.

Oh, sorry. Still thinking about Super Bowl.

What the hell happened to Joe Pesci

You read a lot about how hard it is for women over 40 in Hollywood. And no doubt it is. It's a town and business that eats its young, which explains all the nipping and tucking going on.

But seriously, what the hell happened to Joe Pesci. He's looking like My Grandpa Vinny.

I know the realities and ravages of time, but I simply don't want to think of Pesci looking this old. In my mind's eye, he's still cousin Vinny. Joey in Raging Bull. Tommy in Goodfellas. Nicky in Casino.

I guess the beauty of film is that in a moment captured in time, he'll always be those guys no matter how old he is. And they'll always be as close as Netflix.

Looking at the glass half full - which if you know me is exactly the way I operate - I suppose his age and different look will now open up a range of new parts that wouldn't have been available to him earlier in his career.

Maybe Richard Gere and Tommy Lee Jones can give him some pointers about that.

Still, it's somewhat jarring. We all have different markers for time passing. Kids growing up, friends getting older. For me, one of the strongest is seeing an actor I haven't seen in awhile who's seemingly aged suddenly.

I say suddenly, because it's not as if I'm getting any older. I can't figure it out.

Mob seen

My kids occasionally go away for three-day weekends. I'm never sure exactly where they go - camp, retreat, rehab. Wherever the hell it is, I know I sign the check for it. Usually it's one of them at a time, but this past week the stars aligned just right and they were both gone at the same time, leaving my wife and I to our own devices for three days.

Naturally we took the opportunity to engage in some adult activity that's difficult to do when the kids are around.

We had a non-stop Sopranos-thon.

I don't know how long HBO has been showing reruns of The Sopranos, but I stumbled onto them last week. Monday through Friday afternoons, we record the shows. This weekend we caught up with all of them.

Not sure what season it is, but we're at the part involving Ralphie played by Joe Pantoliano (Joey Pants to his friends). I don't remember every detail from the first time around, but I do remember it doesn't end well for Ralphie. Also Christopher's wife Adriana has just found out that her new best friend is an FBI agent who's been taping her. I don't want to go into to much detail about how she reacts when she finds out, other than to say projectile vomiting is always a nice touch.

It's an absolute pleasure to see the nuance, subtlety, loyalty and savagery of Tony Soprano and family living by their own bent rules while confronting the same problems we all do.

It's "leave the gun, take the cannoli" television at its best.

Tuft luck

His face may not look familiar. However if you live in Southern California, his voice definitely is.

This is Larry Miller, president and CEO of Sit 'N Sleep Mattress Superstores.

You've no doubt heard his radio commercials where he argues with Ira, his "accountant", about discounting the mattresses (SPOILER ALERT: Ira's against it). At the end of every spot, Ira utters his signature line, "You're killing me Larry!", and Larry signs off with his signature line, "We'll beat any price or your mattress is freeeeeeee!"

It's not the kind of creative work I usually respond to in a positive manner. Having said that, I have a confession to make.

I recently bought a bed for my daughter from Sit 'N Sleep. And today, I went there again with my mother-in-law to help her buy one. I know what you're asking: why did I shop there if I don't respond to the kind of advertising they do? The answer is easy.

I saved a mattress full of money.

It's always a fine line when it comes to consumers who also happen to work in agency creative departments. Here's what I mean. Let's take airline print ads. The creative side of me wants to see a clever, unexpected and just plain great headline, poetic copy and a clean yet evocative visual. That would be on a normal day.

But if I happen to be flying from L.A. to NY that week, I don't give a sh#t about any of that. I just want to see $99 each way in really big type.

Art and commerce. Science and instinct. Save and spend. It's a constant tug of war.

But I'm pretty sure Larry isn't losing any sleep over it.