Back to bed

I am many things. Funny. Good looking. Talented. Creative. Compassionate. Encouraging. Well read. Kind to children. Nice to the waitstaff. A catch as a husband. Someone who loves doing laundry. And loading a dishwasher. A good friend. A trusted confidante. An excellent driver. A great kisser. And definitely humble.

However one thing I am not now, nor have I ever been, is a morning person.

Mornings are just a cruel tease. Being a late night person, I rarely get to sleep before midnight or one in the morning. I say sleep in the loosest sense of the word. It's been years, literally, since I've slept eight hours straight through. I get up to pee. Or I startle awake from a dream. Sometimes I'm just restless and watch some TV at three in the morning to take the edge off (because nothing takes the edge off like skin care and exercise equipment infomercials). Occasionally my eighty-five pound German Shepherd launches himself up on the bed in the middle of the night.

That gets the old ticker going.

Oddly enough, one thing that never, and I do mean never, keeps me awake is work. I think it comes from so many years as a freelancer. But the second both feet are out of the office, I don't think about anything related to work until I have to be back the next morning.

And we know how I feel about mornings.

The point of all this, and there is one, is that right around the time the faintest sliver of sunlight starts to hit the pitch black night sky is the exact moment I actually manage to get myself back to the deep, still sleep I've been craving all night. It finally arrives just in time for sunrise. Ironically when I'm finally completely out, it's time to wake up.

There's no gradual, gentle, coming-up-from-the-bottom-of-the-pool kind of awakening for me. Because I know how deep asleep I am in the morning, the alarm has to be more than a light bell, chirping birds or a digital alarm. No, my iPhone alarm is Uptown Funk. It comes on loud, and it's a straight up jolt out of bed. In fact, I have to kiss myself I'm so pretty (see what I did there?).

So if you see me at work in the morning around nine, dragging myself around, looking somewhat foggy and I don't return your smile or your hello, don't ask how you're doing or what you're working on, please don't take it personally. I promise I will.

Sometime around eleven.

Goodbye John Hurt

British actor John Hurt died today of pancreatic cancer. In everything from Alien to The Elephant Man to three of the Harry Potter, his exceptional talent was on display in all its range and colors.

A few years ago I wrote this post—under the title of We Have Contact—about a lesser seen role of his that's always been one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy the clip of it.

The year isn't even a month old, and it's already claimed yet another one of the greats.

I'll miss John Hurt. He was one of those rare talents I always thought would be around forever. Fortunately all of his performances will.

The image many people have of John Hurt is of him thrashing around on the dining table of the space ship Nostromo with an alien bursting out of his chest.

Or maybe it's his grotesquely disfigured form in The Elephant Man, as he proclaims to Anthony Hopkins he is not an animal, he's a human being.

Younger moviegoers might know him as Mr. Olivander from the Harry Potter movies - including the next two of them.

But his one performance I think I enjoy most is one most people didn't see. His role as eccentric, reclusive, terminally ill billionaire industrialist S.R. Hadden in the Robert Zemeckis film Contact.

With a keen interest in space and extra-terrestrials, his character is compelling, creepy and brilliant all at the same time (not unlike a few creative directors I know).

I quote the line at the end of this scene all the time. Scares the hell out of my kids.

The plane truth

Hey pal, can you spare $371 million? I'll pay you back.

You're probably wondering what I want with that kind of green. I'm not gonna lie: I want my own plane, specifically a new Boeing 777.

Now I know what you're saying. Jeff you say, think of how many people we could feed with that kind of money. How many homes we could build. All the college tuitions it could pay for. Yeah yeah, sure sure. In case you haven't read a White House approved news source lately, this is the age of Trump (sorry, I just threw up a little when I typed that). And the new way we're making decisions is "What's in it for me?"

For $371 million, what's in it for me is my own plane.

I've flown commercially for too many years, and frankly, I'm tired of the massive inconvenience of it all. Getting to the airport early. Going through security, even with the TSA express line. Mechanical delays. Crew delays. And two words that should strike terror into the heart of anyone who travels by air: middle seat.

I didn't always want my own plane. However over the past couple years, I've been watching our dipshit president take-off and (unfortunately) land in his own badly painted, ugly jet. Also, the idea of a jumbo jet like Air Force One being fueled and ready to go anytime has always been appealing. But an aircraft doesn't have to be on that scale to trigger my desire for one. Drive to McCarren Airport from the Vegas strip, and you'll go past their private jet tarmac. As Springsteen sings in Cadillac Ranch, there they sit buddy just-a-gleamin' in the sun.

Private jets ready to go on a moment's notice. Or a whim.

I'm all too aware I could avoid the maintenance, cost and headaches of my own jet if I just took NetJet or other private jet sharing services. But I don't for the same reason I've never leased a car. If I'm going to be making a monthly payment on something, at the end I want to own it. (Note to self: check monthly payments on $371 million.)

I suppose there are lots of smaller, starter jets I could have for my first plane. But that would be settling. After all, they don't have a range of 8,700 nautical miles. They can't carry between 350-375 passengers. They don't have larger windows. Or twin-aisles.

You're probably wondering when I'd need to carry 375 people. Well, if you've seen my Facebook page, you know I have more than that many followers. With my brand new 777 they could follow me from the comfort of the coach section.

Buying the jet is the easy decision. There are plenty more to be made. What will the color palette be? Which designer will create the crew uniforms? Who will be the lucky chef who gets to prepare the five-star meals? I'll definitely need to take a few days and think these things through.

I'm not going to give myself a deadline for making the purchase. After all I know it'll take a little time to raise the money. But the second I have it, you'll be able to find me sitting in my favorite position.

Upright and locked.

The midnight hour

It sounds like something out of science fiction, but sadly it's not. The Doomsday Clock.

The DC is a symbolic clock face kept by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that has the joyful job of counting down the minutes to a worldwide catastrophe. Events like that can be caused by more things than anyone's comfortable with.

At the top of the list is global nuclear war, but ever since 2007, climate change is also up there.

Currently, the clock is set at three minutes to midnight, where it's been for the last couple years. That's alarmingly close, considering way back in 1991 it was set at seventeen minutes to midnight, the furthest it's ever been since its inception. That was because the US and USSR had signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), and in December of that year the Soviet Union was dissolved along with much of the threat.

But as Bob Dylan said, the times they are a changin'.

Nowadays (I'm bringing that word back), seems like every country regardless of size either has or is working on developing a device. The world's an increasingly dangerous place. Sure, you could get hit by a car crossing the street, but at least you wouldn't take the other three billion people with you.

But just for fun, let's say, hypothetically, between the Science and Security Board's last meeting to set the clock and their next one, we elected a temper-mentally, judgmentally, thin-skinned, ignorant, vindictive, arrogant, stupid, childish, unqualified individual for President. Someone who has no control over what comes out of his mouth, and complete control of the nuclear arsenal.

It's a scary thought, right?

In a scenario like that, it's fair to assume the scientists might tick the clock forward a minute or two, since a President like that would definitely be, without putting too much hyperbole on it, a threat to our very existence.

For all our sakes, let's hope the big hand on the clock stays where it is, or even pray for some development that allows it to move backwards a few minutes.

Because while the clock itself is metaphorical, the danger is very real.

The race is on

As of noon today, Donald Trump joined the President's Club. I know, I've been nauseous all day too. And as if that weren't enough to make you throw up like Mr. Creosote, this ignorant, unqualified, cesspool of a human being holds the fate of the entire world population in his tiny little baby hands.

Of course I speak of the nuclear codes. Boom.

This means that if someone tweets something he doesn't like, looks at him the wrong way, insults him somehow, his tiny little fuse (which came as a set with his hands) might go off. Then, with absolutely no checks or balances, he could launch a nuclear strike against them.

As if that weren't scary enough, Trump decided to raise the stakes by saying more countries should go nuclear. The more the better. With complete ignorance of policy, protocol, precedent, strategy or capability, Trump encouraged a nuclear arms race with the same tone you'd use to get people to join in a game of tag—except in this game you don't want to be it. This casual, uninformed attitude can't help but beg the question Tom Lehrer is asking in the above video.

Anyway, it's a done deal now. As I write this, Trump is at one of three inaugural balls he's attending tonight with his mail-order bride Melania, enjoying their first dance to the tune of Sinatra's "My Way."

While the rest of us are left with "Gimme Shelter."

Annie was wrong

I don't know if you've heard, but tomorrow is the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States.

Unfortunately, much to the dismay of most of the civilized world, and over half and rising of voters here in America, it seems that in this election cycle, in what can only be described as a freak accident, Donald Trump will be sworn in to the highest, most powerful office in the world.

Let that sink in for a minute.

Tomorrow. That's when it all happens. I'm sorry, I want so much to share her optimism and believe Annie when she says the sun'll come out tomorrow. But I just can't find any reason to. In my heart I believe, as I imagine does every person burdened with conscious and a sense of right and wrong, that the sun won't come out tomorrow.

In fact, just the opposite.

I believe we're going to be plunged into an era of political and dictatorial darkness, where all the progress made over the last fifty or so years—certainly the last eight—will be reversed by the most mentally, intellectually, experientially, temperamentally, judgmentally and morally unqualified person to ever hold the office, along with his band of equally corrupt billionaire friends.

It's a con inside a sham inside a fraud.

The idea by his supporters that this narcissistic, money-grubbing, self-centered, thin-skinned, selfish, crass, tasteless, indecent, disgusting, offensive billionaire has any concern for them is the greatest trick of all time. But then you know what they say:

So while the sun may not come out tomorrow, protesters around the world will. I plan to join them, to be part of the resistance to the ugliness that already is the Trump administration.

With any luck, the next four years that start tomorrow will only seem like a couple months at best. And if we're really lucky, and congress and reasonable Republicans come to their senses, maybe that's all it will be.

That's when the sun'll come out again.

Bombs away

It doesn't take much to figure out what the incoming administration's foreign policy will be.

Speak loudly, in incomplete sentences that make no sense, repeat words like "tremendously" and "bigly" several times, make it sound like total gibberish and carry a big stick.

If you can lift it with those tiny baby hands.

It's clear that with this dipshit elect we're stuck with, whoever looks at us the wrong way, or tweets something he doesn't like is going to get what's coming to them. There's nothing subtle about it. It's right there in the open, almost mob-like in its approach.

"Hey Angela Merkel, noticed you didn't agree with me on Paris climate change agreement. You know, Germany's a nice country. Be a shame somethin' happened to it."

He's a humorless, thin-skinned bully and a thug. And his sons Uday and Qusay are no better.

What I find interesting is way back in 1972, whether it was a premonition, prediction or some other word that starts with a "P", Randy Newman called it. Forty-five years ago he basically laid out in song what the dipshit elect's foreign policy is going to look like.

Back then it was a funny, harmless, politically astute song with a catchy melody that had anyone who heard it singing along on the first listen.

I've seen Randy Newman many times over the years, everywhere from the Troubadour to Royce Hall at UCLA. I've always loved him, and it's still a great song.

It's just not so funny anymore.

Enjoy the ride

If you only had seven days to live, what would you be doing right now? No really, I'm asking.

We're one week away from having the most mentally, intellectually, temperamentally, morally and experientially unqualified person inaugurated as President of the United States.

As you know, besides the big plane, freeway closings, a 24/7 kitchen and great seats at the Kennedy Center (well, maybe not this time), one of the perks of the job is he's the keeper of the nuclear codes, and can launch those suckers anytime he wants at anyone he wants completely unchecked.

He doesn't need congressional approval.

Doesn't have to consult with anyone.

He doesn't even need a witness in the room when he turns the key, or presses the button, or puts his hand on the scanner, or pulls the string or whatever the fuck he does to make it happen.

What could possibly go wrong?

Put the codes together with a thin-skinned, temperamental, vengeful, eighth-grade bully like the one we somehow find ourselves with, and soon every day is going to feel like the fourth of July. Or at least the last one will.

Just want to remind everyone, especially the people who voted for him, that your candidate is someone who's asked several times why, if we have nuclear weapons, can't we use them. It was explained to him each time he asked, but he still kept asking.

I'm not a scientist, but I know for a fact all the people who put on their "I'm with stupid" t-shirts, shitkicker shoes and hopped in their pickups to drive to the polling place and vote for him will vaporize just as quickly as the rest of us.

Maybe faster if you take the moonshine into consideration.

But don't let any of that worry you. In fact, let me give you the same advice about the incoming administration I'd give you about the Matterhorn at Disneyland.

Enjoy the ride. It won't last long.

Soir Bleu

I've written here before about my love for Edward Hopper-esque paintings. But as Marvin Gaye would be the first to tell you, there ain't nothin' like the real thing.

There are so many Hopper portraits of lonely, isolated people unable to connect with themselves or anyone else, staring out windows or alone in a crowd at diners, it's hard to zone in on any one in particular (although for me, Nighthawks will always be the benchmark).

I'm not sure why I'm so drawn (SWIDT?) to these pictures, but I am.

Years ago the wife and I saw a Hopper exhibit at the Whitney in New York. It's one of the best exhibitions I've ever been to, and definitely my favorite (yes I look at other things besides comic book art).

Anyway, for some reason I was in a Hopper mood today, started going through his paintings and came across this one I'd forgotten about: Soir Bleu. Or as we say in English, Blue Night.

I don't know what to love about it first. The devastatingly sad and defeated clown (worked with him), as far from comical and funny as he could be. The far eastern lamps, swaying ever so slightly in the breeze. The eclectic cast of characters dining with and around the clown, including the man behind the post who looks suspiciously like Vincent Van Gogh.

Here is one of my favorite descriptions of what Hopper is trying to convey:

Soir Bleu is a vivid and monumental work painted in 1914, almost four years after Hopper's last sojourn in Paris. Its grand scale is an indication of how strong an impression Parisian life had made on the young Hopper.

At home in his New York studio, he created this melancholy allegory from reminiscences partly literary, partly art historical, and certainly personal. The artificiality of Soir Bleu is inevitable and intentional.

Hopper, as dramatist, has assembled a cast of characters and traditional types that play out timeless roles of courtship, solicitation, and tragic self-isolation. One of these characters is described in a preliminary drawing with a note, the shadowy isolated figure of the procurer seated alone at left. Hopper has also included a classically attired clown in white, a military officer in formal uniform, a bearded intellectual in a beret, perhaps an artist, and a well-dressed bourgeois couple. Standing beyond the balustrade, as though presiding over this mixed company, is a haughty beauty in gaudy maquillage, her painted face demanding attention in the brilliant glow of oriental lanterns in the cool blue night.

In Soir Bleu, we witness Hopper's early attempt to create, rather than merely record, a sophisticated, anti-sentimental allegory of adult city life. Back in America many years later, he would stage the masterpiece Nighthawks (1942) with all the worldly reality he sought in Soir Bleu but was too young to make emotionally convincing. However, this major early painting gives a clear indication of Hopper's enormous ambition for his art.

Now I realize no one comes to this blog for a discussion about the meaning of art, its nuances or relevance to the current culture. In fact I'm not sure why anyone comes to this blog at all. My guess is it's a combination of typing errors and glitchy routers.

Nonetheless, occasionally I like to take a break from writing snarky posts, agency bashing and random rambling and appreciate the inspiring, creative genius of true masters like Hopper.

You might be concerned about the fact I'm attracted to paintings that leave me feeling melancholy, depressed and isolated. Don't be.

I work in advertising. I'm used to it.

850

Break out the champagne, drop the balloons and cue the DJ. This post right here you're feasting your eyes on is my 850th blogpost. Well, 850th published one.

Like all bloggers, I have a whole slew of drafts and false starts—over 70 of 'em—that, for one reason or another I didn't deem particularly post worthy. They have titles like "The creepy clown" "Jasper is enough" and "I'll have what he's having."

Maybe they were too long. Too short. Too bad. Too late. Too serious. Too light. Too revealing. Too sexy (always a problem). Too similar. Too repetitive. Too likely to get me sued. Too poorly written. I know what you're thinking: "I've been following you for a while. Since when is 'poorly written' a criteria?"

OK smartass. Let's talk about it after I see your 850 posts.

The point is at least I have some kind of filter. Occasionally though, shields are down, my judgement is off and something gets put up here that shouldn't be. But thankfully I have a support system of several other exceptional writer friends that let me know immediately when they think I've crossed a line and should take a post down. Sometimes they're gone before you even know they've been there.

The posts, not the writers.

The other thing is 850 may not be a big number to other, more prolific writers (which would be about all of them). But it's my number and I'm happy about it.

Any writer will tell you filling the page can be challenging. But I have a feeling I'm going to have plenty of things to write about for the next four years. Or with any luck, the next two.

In the meantime, stay tuned for 851. I don't know when it'll be here, but I hear it's going to be worth the wait.

De-Christmafied

Not so merry now, is it?

It's been twelve days since Christmas, and on the twelfth day my true love gave to me a house de-Christmafied. The wreaths are down, the ornaments have been boxed and put away until next year. And the tree has been kicked to the curb.

As I wrote about here a couple years ago, I've always had kind of a love/hate relationship with our Christmas tree. On one antler, I love the fun, hopeful and joyous spirit it brings to the house during the season.

On the other, I always see it taking the house down in flames.

I'm always sad to see the holidays end, but this time it was less of an ending and more an act of mercy. Our tree stopped drinking water about the third day we had it, and it was dry to the touch and slightly brown. Plus the needles had started to fall all over the place. And since Santa didn't bring me a new vacuum, I wasn't particularly excited about that development.

That's not our tree in the picture, but it may as well be. It's one of the many you'll see lining the curbs if you drive down my block today. All ghosts of Christmas past, they're waiting for the city trucks to come by tomorrow morning starting at 6:30 to pick them up.

There is of course still the matter of the lights that decorate the exterior of the house. The further away from Christmas we get, the fewer houses still have their lights on at night. We happen to be one of those houses. But the lights don't have a shelf life like the tree does, so they're always the final act in the de-Christmafying process.

So tomorrow, when the recycling truck driver takes the tree
Then gives his team a whistle
They'll fly past the homes like the down of a thistle
And I'm sure I'll hear him say as he drives until night
Merry Christmas to all, let's get this trash out of sight.

Organizational chart

It's always great when someone teaches you about something you didn't know. Like the time I was in a radio session with Tress MacNeille and she taught me the word "dirtnap." Which I always try to use whenever I can.

For example, "Looks like that campaign idea is taking the big dirtnap."

Anyway, my art director pal Kathryn and I were working on an assignment. She had a great idea, and to help me see what she was thinking she had us look at a website called Things Organized Neatly.

It was love at first landing page.

It's a web blog that's exactly what it says it is: from typewriters to car parts to crayons to movie props to sets of scissors to bicycle parts and more, all perfectly organized and displayed neatly.

I'm not a neat freak, but if I was doing a production of The Odd Couple I'd be Felix. A fatter, more Jewish Felix.

I have trouble breathing when things are too out of whack and unorganized. I like order, and knowing where everything is. The way I do that is I put things back where they belong every time. That way I don't have to send out a search party when I'm looking for my phone. Or my keys. Or my shoes.

The site is also inspiring in it shows that anything with more than one component can be organized neatly. Music to my eyes.

I want to be clear. I'm not saying things should look sterile or unused. I don't want everything to feel like the couch wrapped in plastic at Grandma's house that no one can sit on.

I'm just saying if you're going to use something every day, make a point to put it back where it belongs. (Mike, Lori and Imke: you know the joke that goes here).

Because I'm a giver, tonight I thought I'd pass along the site for your perusal in case you appreciate things organized neatly as much as I do. Frankly, I could look at it all night long.

But I have to finish organizing my books by height. Right after I alphabetize them.

Go fish

This reminds me a little bit of Edvard Munch's famous painting, The Scream. Except, you know, with a fish.

The goldfish you're looking at above is Kenny. I don't know how long we've had him. All I know is I try to have as little as possible to do with him.

For starters, I'm a dog person not a fish person (or a bird person - saving that for another post). I also went through the fish faze (see what I did there?) when my kids were younger.

We had goldfish won at school fairs. A couple we picked up at the aquarium side of Petco. They lived in big bowls like Kenny. And if they lived long enough to grow larger, which a few of them did, we bought small aquariums with filters and little Diver Dan statues for them to swim through and around.

I was hoping that like Barney and the Wiggles, the kids would eventually outgrow goldfish. After all, they're older now and they don't seem that emotionally attached to him. But the second I mention getting rid of Kenny, I get a firm "No!" from everyone else in the house.

So Kenny swims to see another day.

I can't help feeling bad for him. I keep thinking he must be lonely, all by himself in that big jar. And depending what kind of cooking we're doing and how much of the kitchen counter we're using, his home can get relocated under a cabinet where it doesn't get much sunlight.

Apparently none of this seems to bother him. He just keeps swimming around his jar, recognizing me in my black t-shirt, and giving me those big wide eyes that say, "What's a fish gotta do to get fed around here?".

As predictable as I can be, I know the kind of jokes you're expecting right about now. How he never went to school. How I bought him for a fin. How he's been drinking all day, but it'd kill him to stop. I also had a few Nemo jokes, but I can't find them right now (I'll be here all week. Tip your waitress).

I'm sure at some point, like dozens of goldfish before him, we'll wind up relocating Kenny to a part of the room with more light and counter space.

Or the toilet.

Recommitting to recommitting

ROTATION AND BALANCE

                                    

                          ROUND SEVENTEEN

Every year I recommit to doing a better job with this blog. I don’t know why. It’s not like my nine readers are demanding any more from me in the way of quality. Besides, the truth is you can’t get blood from a stone. And after more than 900 posts, frankly this is as good as it gets.

I know. I’m as disappointed as you are.

Nonetheless, here we are at the start of a new year. Even though I believe most of the world only has seventeen days left as of this writing, I’m still going to recommit to recommitting. You can take that to the bank. Although don’t take it to Wells Fargo. They’ll just make you open additional accounts you don't want or need.

Anyway, I’m giving you my word every year from here on out, I’ll make a point of telling you how much better this blog will be. More consistent with postings. More topical with subjects. More entertaining because, let’s face it, when I want to I can bring the funny. I am recommitting to the idea that I will be prolific in the amount of recommitments I’ll be posting.

But let's not forget who we're dealing with. I'm not going to go crazy and be as prolific as say my pal Rich Siegel over at Round Seventeen. Although the stats for 2015 do not lie, and show that thanks to a deliberate effort on my part, I matched his blog post for post and in fact beat his numbers by a solid eight posts for that year. Although the electoral votes still aren’t in yet.

Don't pay no never mind to the numbers for the other years. It's a painful memory.

Besides, I think if committing is good, then recommitting is better. It reminds me year in and year out of the promise I’ve made, even if I have yet to keep it.

It’s not hard for me to recommit to writing more on here.

For one reason, I’m sure you’ve already recommitted to not reading it.