My high school girlfriend

If you know me, or follow this blog regularly—and if you do someone really should show you what a library looks like—you know once I get hold of a joke I like I hang on tight and ride it straight into the ground.

Now normally, after that last sentence, I'd follow it up with "Just like my high school girlfriend." It's my version of “That’s what she said” —an easy joke I've used numerous times in more posts than I can count. And I'm sure more posts than you wanted.

The good news is I'll be retiring that joke for awhile. The bad news is the reason why.

Yesterday I happened to be thinking about my actual high school girlfriend Sandy. She was never the one I referred to in the joke. In fact I never had a specific person in mind—it was just a funny line I could use over and over. And over.

Anyway, when I went to the Google to look up Sandy, what came up wasn't her Facebook profile or her Twitter account. The first thing I saw was her obituary. Turns out she passed away unexpectedly back in October. And even though I hadn't spoken with her in decades, it was still a gut punch that hit me like a ton of bricks.

I remember a few years after we broke up, we wound up getting together for a mini-reunion to catch up with each other's lives. What I found out was that Sandy had a very tough go of it in the years since I'd seen her. She'd had problems with drugs, which I knew she'd dabbled with in high school. She'd gotten married, but her husband was in prison for armed robbery, caught by undercover cops in the middle of a drug deal. And, while she was trying to figure her life out, she was back working at the same dead end data entry job for a car leasing company she'd had in high school.

According to the obituary, she moved to Florida in 2006, and had been working in the mortgage industry for Bank of America. Apparently she was a fairly high-ranking banking officer there. She’d also become a hardcore animal rights activist, and had eight dogs, a snake and an iguana—all of them rescues.

It was nice to read that in the years in between, Sandy seemed to have turned her life around and become an accomplished professional. I hope she was a happy one.

So again, I'm retiring the "high school girlfriend" joke for awhile. While it was never about her, now I can’t say it without thinking of her, even though I know she'd appreciate it. Hey, funny then, funny now.

Besides, that line's not the real joke. The real joke is thinking people who were once special to you will always be around. The punchline is they won't.

God bless you Sandy. You meant the world to me and you'll be in my heart forever. Rest in peace.

The best policy

The joke goes like this.

An 85-year old man decides to interview for a job with a tech company. The 24-year old HR person asks him, "What do you think is your biggest weakness?" The old man says, "I'd have to say I'm too honest." The HR person tells him, "I don't really think being honest is a weakness." The old man says, "I don't give a shit what you think."

It works for me on so many levels.

First and foremost is the unfrightened attitude. It's something I've been accused of having many times. Guilty as charged. And if you ask me, and you didn't, but if you did, there's too little of it in agencies these days.

A close writer friend of mine was in a meeting with her creative director. He had just finished some work, and said "I finally feel like I'm earning my paycheck." Without skipping a beat my friend said, "Well it's about God damn time."

He cracked up. Honesty camouflaged as a joke.

I've been freelance for a very long time, and one thing it does is knock the fear right out of you. Most fear in agencies is about getting fired or laid off. Here's the thing: it happens to everyone at some point. And if it happens, all it means is you showed up one day.

I don't have that fear. I've been out of work long periods of time, and I've been busier than hell for long periods of time. It all balances out. And if history has taught me anything, it's that I'll eventually land on my feet at another gig.

Or serving caramel macchiatos at The Daily Grind.

What I'm saying is don't keep it all inside. Speak your mind. Spit it out. Tell it like it is. Truth to power. Damn the torpedoes. The universe will reward you for it. You'll respect yourself for it. A grateful nation will thank you for it.

And if you wind up being the most honest person at the unemployment office, at least you'll have learned a valuable lesson.

Don't take advice from bloggers you don't know.

No joke

If you haven't seen the trailer for next years' Suicide Squad, have a gander at it here.

Besides looking awesome, and making people forget Will Smith starred in After Earth, the trailer reveals the next incarnation of the Joker, frighteningly played by Jared Leto.

I was never a Leto fan, and in fact he wasn't even on my radar until I saw his brilliant performance in Dallas Buyers Club (btw,I was among the first to call Oscars for McConaughey and Leto).

I was also a purist, of the belief no one could ever come close to Heath Ledger's embodiment of the Joker in The Dark Knight. At least right up until I heard Leto had been cast. The casting director deserves an Oscar for this one.

The look of joy and glee on Leto's face as he delivers his memorable, quotable and infinitely creepy line in the trailer gives me chills every time I watch it.

The line is "I'm not gonna kill you. I'm just gonna hurt you really, really bad."

Which, if you work in an agency, may have a slightly familiar ring to it.

Cheap laughs

If you know anything about me - and with over 655 posts I'd think you would by now - you know I'm an easy audience. I want to be entertained. I come to the show ready to laugh, willing to suspend disbelief.

I work in ad agencies. I suspend disbelief every day.

Like a great ad, humor should be simple, uncluttered. You should get it instantly. A joke doesn't have to be complex to be appreciated. And it shouldn't have to be explained. That goes for one-liners as well as stories.

Here's an example: what do you call a bear with no teeth? A gummy bear. Funny isn't the point, especially with that joke. The point is you got it immediately.

Let's try a story.

Saul and Maury are walking past a church when they see a sign in the window that reads "Become a Christian. 20 minutes. Will pay $10." Saul says to Maury, "I'm gonna do it. You wanna come with me?" Maury says, "No, I'll wait for you here." So Saul goes in the church, and Maury hangs around waiting for him. 20 minutes later, Saul comes out. Maury runs up to him and says, "So? Did you get your $10?" And Saul says, "Is that all you people think about?"

That joke right there is the reason I want to audition for the road company of this.

For me, there's nothing as entertaining as watching someone who really knows how to tell/sell a joke. It's what keeps Comedy Central in business. It's the reason comedy clubs with names like Giggles, Guffaws and Mr. Chuckles dot the landscape. It's why a lot of first dates become second dates.

It's also a personal barometer. With the endless meeting after meeting I have to be in every day at work, the way I judge whether they've been a successful (is there such a thing as a successful meeting?) is if I've been able to get the biggest laugh during the course of it. I know what you're thinking. But it's not so much an attention-getting maneuver as a survival tactic. While I'm thinking of something funny to say, it means I'm not listening to whatever they're droning on about. And there'll be another meeting in an hour to review what was said in this one, so I'm not missing anything.

Anyway, look at the time. You guys have been a great crowd, so I'm gonna to leave you with one more.

Murray and Sarah are going to the zoo. They're walking around looking at the animals, and they come to the monkey cage. A monkey comes up to them, and he's making all kinds of faces and gestures. Sarah says, "He's cute. Give him a peanut." Murray says, "No, they're expensive." Sarah says, "Give him a peanut!" So Murray reaches in the bag and tosses him a peanut. The monkey looks at it, sticks it up his ass, takes it out, then eats it. Sarah says, "I have never seen anything like that! What is wrong with this monkey? Give him another peanut, he's not gonna do that again." So Murray throws another peanut in and the monkey does the exact same thing. Sarah says, "You know, there's something wrong with this monkey. I'm gonna go to the zookeeper." So she goes to the zookeeper and tells him all about it. He listens, then he says to her, "Listen ma'am, it's really not a problem. About two weeks ago, that monkey accidentally swallowed a peach pit. Ever since then, he checks everything for size."

Goodnight everybody! Tip your waitress.

P.S. Actually wanted to end this post on a raunchier joke, but the wife reminded me this is a family blog. When you see me, ask me to tell it to you.

The weight is over

I've written a few weight related posts on here. Like this one. And this one. Or this one. Maybe this one.

I know what you're thinking, because I'm thinking the same thing. "Why doesn't he get off his fat ass (literally) and just lose the weight and quit talking about it?"

Okay. That's what I'll do.

I'll do it because I'm tired. I'm tired of the running joke I have with my daughter every time we see a morbidly obese person (the joke is "Look it's my new best friend." because by comparison, well, you get the idea). I'm tired of the other joke which is "I have to ask him where he gets his shirts." Tired of the vast wardrobe choices I have between my remaining two pairs of jeans that fit. Shopping knowing nothing is going to fit? Really tired of it. I'll do it because I'm tired of reading about my copywriter friends like Rich doing things like this.

Most of all I'm tired of being tired from carting all this lard around.

Hey, you know what I'm not tired of? That joke about Oprah sitting "around the house." Still gets me every time.

I think about organizations like Fat & Proud and Fat Liberation and the propaganda they spread about how you can live a happy life if you're overweight, and still be just as healthy as if you weren't. I imagine it's easier to spread that philosophy than lose the weight. A low-fat spread if you will (I know, but it was right there).

It would be easier to believe their company line if it wasn't being drown out by their hearts screaming bloody murder and their scales yelling at them to make it stop.

By the way, just for the record, I'm not grossly overweight. But I do need to lose a significant amount. The problem, besides constantly shoving food down my piehole, is that I can carry a lot of weight and not look like I'm carrying as much as I am.

But it's a numbers game. And I know the numbers.

So, once again, I'm writing a post about losing weight. The difference this time is I'm on it. This year, unlike too many years past, I'm not waiting for New Year's to make the resolution. I'm putting it out there for the world and my friends to see, and hopefully hold me to.

Weight gain is a slippery slope, and I don't want to wind up like Orson Welles in his later years, weighing over four hundred pounds and dressing in black all the time.

Although I wouldn't mind knowing where he got his shirts.