Showing posts with label RoundSeventeen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RoundSeventeen. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 13, 2025

Legacy? That's just crazy talk.

You know those crossover episodes on TV, where one show starts a story and then the characters crossover to another entirely different show to finish it?

Mork & Mindy and Laverne & Shirley. Cheers and St. Elsewhere. Chicago Fire and Chicago P.D. The Simpsons and Family Guy. You get the idea. That’s kinda sorta what RotationandBalance is doing today with the finely written and humorous beyond reason RoundSeventeen.

Over breakfast this past weekend, Rich Siegel and I had a frank, heartfelt, bagel-fueled discussion about work we’ve done over the years. What it all means in the big picture. How it will shape our respective legacies.

I’m going to digress for a second, but stay with me. There was an episode of the first Bob Newhart Show, the one where he played psychologist Bob Hartley (kids, ask your parents). Bob starts to question his profession, thinking he’s wasted the last twenty years of his life, so he visits his teacher and mentor Dr. Albert played by Keenan Wynn (kids, ask your parents) for some reassurance.

This is what Dr. Albert tells him: “I’ve studied psychology for the last forty-five years, and come to one conclusion. It’s all a crock.”

Pretty much where we landed.

In the list of art that’s defined narrative structure, such as the works of Shakespeare, epic poems like Homer’s The Iliad and The Odessey that shaped storytelling as we know it, War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy’s sweeping novel of history, philosophy, and the human condition, works that have and will stand the test of time for generations to come, that little banner ad you’re already writing your acceptance speech for will be forgotten faster than you can say “No one cares.”

At breakfast, Rich and I shared what we thought was some of the worst work each of us has done. Sadly there was a lot to choose from.

But just because our print ads won’t be framed and sitting on the shelf next to the works of Shakespeare doesn’t mean there aren’t a few of them we still like.

We both went to our old, black, heavy, dusty portfolios we used to drag around to interviews (kids, ask your parents), rumaged through the expensive and heavily laminated work of yesteryear and dug some of them out.

In no particular order, these are mine. Some are clients you've heard of, some are clients that don't exist any more, and there may be one in there that never ran but I like enough to show.

Whatever the case, one thing holds true for all of them: you’ll forget about them almost as fast as you read them. But they're not awful and I'm not embarassed by them.

But because ads, not just ours but everyones, have a shorter life span than a mayfly (kids, ask your parents), do us a favor.

Live in the moment.

Monday, March 31, 2025

Nothing to see here

Here we go again. I find myself staring at this blank screen, waiting for inspiration to strike. Or perhaps a gentle nudge from the universe that says, “Hey, try writing about this.” But no such luck. And here I am. Again. Writing about having nothing to write about.

After a couple thousand or so blogposts, I have to ask the question: have I officially emptied the well? Have I said everything I need to say? Have all the words been used up? Do I need to start communicating exclusively in interpretive dance? (Don’t tempt me—I will do it and it won’t be pretty).

Truth be told, the world continues to provide plenty of material. The problem is, none of it is particularly funny these days.

We’ve got Cadet Bone Spurs speedrunning the destruction of democracy. The Constitution? Holding on by a thread. Institutional norms? Shredded, torched, and fed to whatever lives in the basement at Mar-a-Lago.

Meanwhile, my attempts at humor feel like bringing a water pistol to a four-alarm fire.

So, here I am, once again writing about how I have nothing to write about. I’ve done it before (here), and I’ll do it again. (See? I’m already repeating myself.)

While I wait for either inspiration or full-blown existential despair to light a fire under me, allow me to direct you to some wordsmiths who do have something to say: Rich Siegel over at RoundSeventeen and Jeff Eaker at Kingdom of Failure. Both are far more talented, far funnier, and quite possibly better-looking than me.

Okay, I’m joking about that last one. And maybe one of the other two. After all, no one’s under oath here.

Is there really nothing left to say? Or, more importantly, how many more times can I get away with writing a blogpost about having nothing to write about.

Stay tuned. Hopefully it won’t be for nothing.