CPK WTF

The California Pizza Kitchen I knew and loved is no more. It was acquired about three years ago by private equity firm Golden Gate Capital.

Sounds appetizing doesn't it?

Originally, CPK was the poor mans answer to Wolfgang Puck's legendary Spago restaurant, which ushered in the era of individual pizzas.

At the beginning, CPK felt upscale even though it was reasonable price wise. There were linen napkins. The waitstaff work black slacks, white buttoned up shirts and black ties. Somewhere down the road they changed to black shirts as well, which made it even more ritzy-ish.

And of course, there was the food.

It's hard to imagine now, but at the time their Original BBQ Chicken Pizza was all the rage. Plus they offered an original selection with toppings no one had thought to throw on a pizza before. California Club pizza (essentially a BLT on pizza dough). Hamburger pizza. Thai pizza. They had those and more - something for every taste.

I can't even count the number of meals, meetings, dates and family dinners I've had there over the years. And because they were a quality chain, from my first meal at the original restaurant on Beverly Drive, to the one in the Mirage in Vegas, to the one on Geary St. in San Francisco, I always looked forward to my meal and knew I was going to enjoy it.

But of course, as my high school girlfriend told me on our final date, there's a last time for everything.

Since Golden Gate Capital acquired them, everything has gone downhill except the prices. The uniforms are now open-collar checked or brightly colored shirts and jeans. It feels more like a Texas Roadhouse than a CPK. It's only a matter of time before there's sawdust on the floor and a mechanical bull.

And under the heading of fix it when it's not broken, they've changed the crust of the pizza to something considerably less tasty. They've taken many of my favorite items off the menu - Roast Garlic Shrimp pizza, I'll never forget you.

They've also done a little Three-Card Monte with the names of some menu items. What was their spectacular Original Chopped Salad is now called the Italian Chopped. And the BBQ Chicken Chopped now has "The Original" in front of the name.

One change I'll admit to liking is the bread, now a more Italian look, taste and presentation.

But the bread isn't enough to justify the ridiculous prices they now charge for a decidedly lower brow, too casual experience. With a family of four, ordering the very minimum we can get by with and no drinks (water for everyone), we're hard pressed to get out for under $60 before tip.

Fortunately, the new owners realized one thing missing from the old CPK was a manifesto - that precise group of words to let the dining public know their philosophy about what California stands for, what it means and why they needed to rework the menu into something really special.

Manifestos are something I happen to have some experience with. I've written my fair share of them, and since Apple have yet to encounter a client that doesn't want one.

Reading theirs, it's apparent to me the words, sentiment and their take on California are as authentic as the notion they won't unload the chain in a heartbeat for the right price.

It's complicated

I don't know any parent who hasn't wanted to write a letter like the one shown here. Especially if they've tried to help their kids with math homework.

The Common Core curriculum is a ridiculously complicated, long-way-around to solving even the simplest of math problems. A point which this father - with his degree in Electronics Engineering - so succinctly points out.

But this example of going from A to B by first going from A to Z then back again is representative of a much bigger problem.

We over complicate everything.

From our relationships (which are complicated enough) to deciding which Mocha Grande Chocolate Iced Half-Caf Vanilla Latte we're going to have at Starbucks.

On second thought, make it a frappuccino.

While no business runs as simply as it could, nobody (with the possible exception of the public school system and the federal government) is more guilty of complicating things more than they need to be than ad agencies (I can't quantify that statement - go with me on this).

In the name of "process", agencies have several layers of people who are paid for one thing and one thing only: to complicate the work. They over think, over analyze, over test, over route, over question, over accentuate, over react, over compensate, over control, over exaggerate, over dramatize and over inform every assignment they come in contact with.

My friend Rich Siegel at Round Seventeen has another dirty word for it: Collaboration.

But by doing all that, they usually also overlook the fact that by the time they're done with it, no one will want to watch, read or listen to it.

Anyone who's suffered the slings and arrows in an agency creative department knows it should be easier. Instead of ten page briefs (Hello? They're called "briefs") they should be one. Instead of several bullet points that need to be crammed into the work, it should be one. Instead of twenty people around a conference room table for every kick-off meeting...well, don't get me started on meetings.

Life is demanding enough without complicating it more than it has to be. Sometimes the simplest answer is the best one.

I hope I haven't left out any of the points I wanted to make in this post.

Maybe I'll run it by a few more people just to make sure.

Disappearing act

Disappearing hasn't always been just for jumbo jets.

In 1983, there was this little film called Eddie and The Cruisers. Michael Paré played Eddie Wilson, a 1960's rocker who died tragically in a car crash. Or did he? Eddie's body was never recovered. The tapes for Eddie's second album, considered by his record company to be too dark to release, also disappeared that night with Eddie.

In the movie, set in 1983 with flashbacks, a reporter is doing a documentary about Eddie's disappearance. I won't tell you how the movie ends, but if you look at the poster for the sequel it pretty much gives it away.

I guess just the fact there's a sequel gives it away. Sorry about that.

Anyway, one reason I liked the movie was because of the music. Eddie and the Cruisers had an anthemic sound, with songs that often featured a solo by his black saxophone player and sung by Eddie with his raspy sounding voice.

I know, so hard to imagine I'd like a sound like that.

The music was actually sung by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band, a New Jersey band who started out at The Stone Pony the same time as this other New Jersey band I write about once in awhile.

What this little film did manage to capture was the romance of rock 'n roll, the hopefulness of it, the anger of it and the sense of something lost.

Today, Eddie and the Cruisers would probably be touring C venues with a different guy they called Eddie as the lead singer.

But rock 'n roll never forgets. The dream lives on, and so does....oh crap. Almost gave it away again.

Don't say journey unless you mean it

Not long ago, I wrote a post about the phrase "The new normal." I complained (surprise!) about the extreme overuse of that phrase, as well as a few others.

What I've noticed lately is that a lot of people have adopted yet another phrase to either describe the circumstances they're going through, alleviate the pain those circumstances are causing or just admit without admitting that they've let go of the reins and it's out of their control completely.

"It's a journey."

I remember years ago when Thirtysomething (a truly heinous show) was on. I was talking about it with my friend Josh, and he had a great line. I was saying what a bunch of whiners all the characters on the show were - which they were (ad people, go figure). He said, "What they call problems, our parents used to call life."

I think the same thing applies here. The new agey-ness of the word "journey" is just camouflage for a more colloquial term: "shit happens."

Don't get the wrong idea about this pet peeve of mine. I'm in favor of anything that makes it easier on people to get through tough times. Life gets more and more demanding, bad things happen. And if couching each event as a "journey" helps give you comfort or perspective, then have at it. But it really doesn't apply to everything. Really. It doesn't.

I think when it does apply, it's easy to recognize. For example my close personal friend and one time office wife Janice MacLeod decided to give up her life here, travel the world and start a new life of her own shaping. She eventually moved to Paris, met a butcher from Poland, married him, started a business that makes her happier than advertising ever did or could, and wrote a bestselling book about it.

That my friends is a journey.

Every time I hear someone use the word, it sounds like they're surprised at the "journey" they're on.

It's as if they have a naivety about what can happen in life - a lack of situational awareness about how random the world can actually be sometimes.

As anyone who's been around a few years and experienced a certain measure of life will tell you, the road we're all traveling on is not straight and smooth for anyones journey. Anyone. It never has been.

I suppose that comes as a surprise to some people.

Which always comes as a surprise to me.

Doesn't make scents

As any dog owner will tell you, the picture to the left is of an unfortunate necessity if you're ever planning on taking Rags out of the house.

I refer of course to poop bags.

Now, this isn't the first time I've mentioned poop bags. I also alluded to them in this post.

But it's time to, um, dig deep and discuss them in more detail.

If you know anything about me - and really, can anyone know anything about anyone? - you know I'm not a perfume-y kind of guy. I use unscented deodorant. My clothes are washed in unscented Tide detergent. And I don't ever wear men's cologne, at least not since Calvin Klein One went to $69 an ounce (Purity. Unity. Sensuality.).

But I believe if there's one thing that should be strongly scented, it's poop bags. Granted, no matter what bag you use it's a losing battle. Even the unscented bags wind up with a scent, although it's definitely not the scent of choice. And the scented ones always wind up giving up the fight because they aren't scented enough to completely cover the scent they need to.

But at least they try. I file it - figuratively - under "better than nothing."

We can put a man on the moon, the government can listen to every call ever made and I can turn a Zip Lock bag upside down and nothing spills out. Is it too much to ask for a poop bag to completely mask the unpleasant fragrance of a healthy diet and a job well done?

It's my hope somewhere scientists are working on this.

And without getting too detailed, while they're at it, if they could look into shaping the bags like gloves it would make doing our, um, duty as owners a lot easier.

Half calf

Okay, so this was scary.

To the untrained eye, it looked like I was sleeping on the couch last Thursday afternoon. But actually I was, um, letting my subconscious work on a slew of ideas that would bring me fame and fortune. As that was happening, suddenly I was jolted awake by a piercingly sharp pain in my lower left calf. It wasn't an ongoing pain, just one sharp stab.

When I took a look at my leg, my calf was slightly swollen and larger than my right one.

So I thought if there's any place that'll know what this is it's the interwebs. What I learned was there may actually be a little too much information available online.

What the symptoms were shaking out to looked like DVT, or Deep Vein Thrombosis. That's a blood clot deep in an interior vein in the leg. The problem with that is the clot can break up, and go to the brain or heart causing a stroke.

I'm not a hypochondriac. I'll sit with a pounding headache for hours before I resort to taking something for it. Most of the time, I just tough it out. However, clot, swelling, stroke? Not so much. But instead of racing to the ER like I probably should've done, I waited until Friday morning when I went to my doctor's office.

Because I needed to see my doctor, naturally he was on vacation. So instead I met with his physician's assistant, who come to find out was awesome and probably more involved than my doctor would've been.

She took a look at my legs - and I do have fabulous legs so I'm used to this - and agreed it was swollen for no apparent reason. She sent me to have an ultrasound of my calf. She said if they saw a clot, they would immediately send me to the ER and start me on anticoagulant meds to stop further clotting. If they didn't see a clot they'd send me home.

The technician was great in that way someone is when you know they've seen this a million times before. She took about a thousand images like the one you see here. Now technically, the technician isn't allowed to tell me the results. A doctor has to read the images, write a report and then send it to my doctor.

But after the ultrasound was done, and I asked her if it was a boy or a girl (BAM! Thank you. I'll be here all week.), she looked at me and said, "You're free to go home." She waited a second, then said, "Do you understand? You're free to go home."

Relieved, I thanked her, put my pants on and went home. Another thing I'm used to.

However, all weekend long, my calf would swell up, then I'd take Aleve and ice it, and the swelling would go back down. But because I hadn't heard the official ultrasound verdict from my doctor, I felt like a ticking bomb.

So first thing this morning, I went back to the physician's assistant. She showed me the report that said everything was fine, and we decided I'd probably injured my calf on something and didn't remember. Her prescription was continue the Aleve and ice for five days, and give it about three weeks to heal completely.

And if anything changes we'll reevaluate the situation. But she doesn't think it will.

Me being me, I spent most of the weekend worrying and telling my wife over and over how to spot a stroke (something everyone should know). My kids had a track meet and a jazz concert this weekend, so I put on a brave face even though all I could think about was how disappointed they were going to be by the inheritance.

But thankfully, it looks like they won't have to worry about it for a long while.

So now, I'm fit and ready to get back to what I was doing when this all started.

After all, it's a very comfortable couch.

Three class acts

You know all those problems, big and small in our lives? The ones we bitch and moan about. The ones that are so inconvenient.

Here's a little something to put them in perspective.

I have always been on team Letterman. I find his combination of intelligence, humor and compassion unique to late night television. Plus he made Paris Hilton cry, so what's not to love?

This past week his class and tact was yet again on display during an interview with quadruple amputee veteran, and double arm transplant recipient Brendan Marrocco. The respect Dave has for this young man's courage, persistence and remarkable attitude given the circumstances is tangible.

And Brendan, along with the doctor who headed up his surgical team, are nothing short of inspiring.

When I see an interview like this, I realize how very little I have to complain about in life.

It probably won't stop me from doing it, but it will make me think before I do.

Telling the difference

Quick, can you tell the difference between these two images? If you can, thanks to your keen powers of observation and discernment, you may not be suited for a job in advertising.

In the agency world, persuasion is the name of the game. There's the obvious job description of persuading consumers they need whatever it is you're hawking. Tacos. Cars. Insurance. Computers. Adult diapers. Cruises. Cereal. Cellular device. Web provider. Hemorrhoid ointment (two creepy words in the same sentence).

And while that effort sometimes hits and sometime misses, some of the people who have the job of persuading themselves a campaign is really good, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, almost always succeed.

Here's how it usually goes. The Emperor wants to show off his new clothes - which are invisible to those too stupid to see them - in a parade. People in the crowd all see he has no clothes on, yet no one will tell him for fear of repercussions.

If you read the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, you know there's a little boy in the crowd who doesn't go along with the pretense and shouts out, "He isn't wearing any clothes!"

In advertising, the little boy gets fired. Or promoted.

Sometimes it's hard to tell.

Remembering Gary

Gary May first came into our lives to solve a problem.

The people who sold us our house were, shall we say, not exactly forthcoming about a few things that were wrong with it. One of which was the ongoing water damage in the back room.

Apparently our yard sloped down towards the house - as did the patio towards the patio door. When it rained or was watered for any period of time, the back room soaked in all the water. The rest of the water came in under the patio door. And because the back room had been added on years ago, it was on a cement slab foundation. If the cracks in the corners of the windows hadn't been painted over, we would've known immediately that the water was undermining the foundation. It was a disaster waiting to happen.

We went to arbitration against the sellers, and won ten thousand dollars from them to make the needed repairs. The only thing we had to figure out was what we were going to do, and who we'd get to do it.

Our neighbors across the street were having their driveway redone, so we sauntered over and asked their contractor if he wouldn't mind coming by and seeing what he thought could be done to solve the problem.

That contractor was Gary May.

It was the first of many times over the years we'd have Gary solve problems around the house for us.

Gary wasn't just a masonry guy. He was an artist disguised as a masonry guy. I used to love watching and listening to him and my wife collaborate on a vision for whatever project he was working on. This big, booming, gentle giant of a man, discussing what would look right. What would feel right for us and the property.

There were times when we'd ask Gary what he was going to do, and he just said, "I'll figure something out. You'll like it." He always did. And we always did.

With Gary, it was easy to say the three most dangerous words you can say to a contractor: "While you're here..." Because it was so easy to trust and love the work Gary did, we just always wanted him to do more. And if it meant we had to wait because his schedule was busy, then we waited.

Gary became family over the years. He came with his granddaughter to my daughter's birthday parties. He'd stop by to show off the work he'd done on our house to potential clients because he was so proud of it. Even when he wasn't there, he was. Whenever an issue would come up we'd always say, "Let's talk to Gary about it.

Gary was there from the time my children were born. He watched them grow up, and would always ask about them and comment about what great people they were becoming.

And as much as it pains me, I'm just going to say it: Gary was my dog's favorite person on the planet. Gary had known Max since he was a puppy and loved him just as long. And it was mutual. Max would virtually come out of his skin, barking, jumping, tail wagging at a 100 miles an hour the minute he heard Gary's van coming up the street.

Gary would ask, "Why is he like this when I'm here?"

The same reason we all were excited to see him. He loved him.

The running joke in our house about Gary was that almost no matter what work he was doing, the price was $3200. Didn't matter if it was outside, inside, front yard, side yard, back yard, $3200 just was what it always worked out to.

Gary was also a man of faith. He'd been through a lot in his life. He'd lost a lot of family. He'd gotten into trouble with drugs, and was clean and in NA for 44 years. He lived his life as an example to others of what was possible. Which was everything. Because to anyone who knew him, there was nothing he couldn't accomplish.

When we re-landscaped our backyard, my wife wanted these cement squares with aggregate - the crushed, colored glass and gravel you see in it. Gary sent her to a store that sold the glass, and she picked out exactly what she wanted. He custom made the squares, and included the one heart-shaped piece of glass my wife wanted to be prominent.

We call it Gary's heart, even though it's far too small.

When his wife called and told us of his passing, it was as if a giant had fallen.

I guess that is what happened.

Whenever Gary would be working at the house and I had to go to work, he'd always say, "See you later Jeff. Write something great today."

His wife Cindy said that Gary's with God now, probably making him a giant cement column. I have no doubt that's true.

And I know exactly how much he's charging him.

Negotiate this

In advertising, as in most businesses, there comes that magical time in the interview where they ask you how much you're looking for salary wise. And before answering, you ask them how much they have for the position.

And the game is afoot.

I've never liked negotiating for money. It's not that I'm not good at it (Jewish, hello?), but time and time again it's just frustrating how stupid the things being said on the other side of the table are.

Here are two of my favorites.

They ask what I'm looking for and I tell them. Then they say, "Well, we're paying our current writer $50,000 less than that." To which I say, "Then keep your current writer. I'm sure s/he's great. But if you want me, you're going to have to pony up." Or something to that effect.

Sometimes you have to point out the obvious to them: that whatever anyone else makes has absolutely nothing to do with what you're being paid or your value to the company.

Which brings me to the next moronic statement I've heard many, many times in my, um, career (chuckling cause I said career).

This usually happens once I've had a job for a while where I've performed exceptionally, done great campaigns, have happy clients, been responsible for increased sales, gotten glowing reviews from my bosses, etc. The discussion of increasing my salary begins, and it's met with "Well, if I do that for you then I'd have to do it for everyone."

Hold on cowboy, let's think about that for a minute.

First of all, no, you don't have to do it for everyone. Unless of course you're letting everyone know what everyone makes. In which case then you might have to do it for everyone.

Also, if you have to do it for everyone, does that include that creative director that does nothing all day but look busy while he's actually playing Angry Birds on his iPad? Because if it does, I don't need to work nearly as hard or smart as I do if you have to give the same increase to everyone just because I asked about it.

Salary negotiations are about one thing and one thing only. The number you'll be happy with. And if the people you're negotiating with don't think you're worth that number, then they're not worth your time. It's a lesson that takes a while to learn.

Like buying a house or a car, you have to be prepared to walk away if you don't get the deal you want. It's not always an easy thing to do.

But it's considerably more rewarding than selling yourself short.