Song and dance

There's a joke I like to use whenever someone mentions they've injured their ankle, knee, foot or that they've had a hip replacement. My usual reply is, "So I guess the Riverdance audition is off." In case you're not familiar with Riverdance, here's why it's funny:

In reality—a place I rarely visit—these dancers are highly skilled, precision artists and athletes who have devoted the necessary time and practice into perfecting their joyous art.

This is not something we have in common.

I bring this up because my beautiful daughter is getting married in exactly a month. And while that means a festive celebration, a new family, a great son-in-law, a lifetime of happiness for my baby girl, and a canyon-like dip in my retirement savings, it also means something a bit more frightening to me: the father-daughter dance.

If you've ever been to a wedding, you're famiiar with the tradition. Either after the newlywed couple's first dance, or when I'm done delivering my brilliant, quotable, side-splittingly hilarious yet tearfully poignant toast (post to follow), there will be the father-daughter dance.

The first step (see what I did there?) was to choose the song. This is one of the few choices I actually get to make. I spent several nights watching and listening to father-daughter wedding dance songs on YouTube, crying my eyes out. Seriously, I was a mess. I know what you're thinking, but let's see you listen to this, or this, or this and this and see how you do tough guy.

After being overruled on Highway To Hell (you know the joke: The fact there’s a Stairway To Heaven and a Highway To Hell should tell you who’s expecting more traffic), I finally landed on a song with some history and meaning to me and my girly. I know you want to know what it is, but I'm not going to reveal it here. Like my hilarious toast to the couple—have I mentioned that before?—some things need to remain a surprise.

The actual dance is the really scary part. To make sure we're properly prepared, my daughter and I have decided to take some dance lessons at Arthur Murray Dance Studios. Ironically, there's one within walking distance from the house.

Walking I know how to do.

We had our first lesson yesterday, and it went quite well. Back step, side step, rock back, spin - yeah, I know the lingo. The instructors and personnel are lovely, supportive and encouraging. Obviously they're well aware of how nervous their students are. Especially the first time ones.

What I found to be the worst part of the experience was being surrounded by mirrors. Not the small, narrow full-length dressing mirrors you'd have in the corner of your bedroom.

Or the funhouse kind I like that make me look tall, thin and lanky (which coincidentally are the ones I have in my bedroom).

No, these dance studio mirrors were other ones. The ones that make me feel like reference material for Brendan Fraser.

I suppose the right way to think of the mirrors is as additional inspiration to get closer to dancing shape as the date sneaks up on me.

And although we've already got the song and the basic steps to the dance we're going to do, there are always additional little flairs and moves I'm thinking about adding at the last minute to spice it up a bit. You know, make it more memorable.

Not to tip my hand, or tap my toe, too much, but I'm thinking a little something like this:

Lesson learned

This isn't going to be a funny post tonight (I know, why is this post different from any other post?). But for some reason a particular incident has been on my mind and I can't stop thinking about it.

Years ago, I worked at an agency which shall go nameless. Y&R. There was an art director I worked with there who I never clicked with, nor she with me. Her creative sensibilities were completely different from mine, and it made for a lot of disagreement. Nonetheless, during the occasional times we worked together, we managed to forge ahead and get it done.

I'd never describe us as friends, even though she did ask me to write her wedding invitation because she thought I was talented and funny (some truths can't be denied). I wouldn't say I was glad to do it for her, but I was pleased she liked what I came up with.

It was a cool relationship at best, and only got cooler when I was assigned another art director—one of my favorites to work with and a great friend to this day—and she was going to supervise the project.

Here's where my memory gets a bit like an oil company executive at a senate hearing. I can't recall the exact circumstances, but for some reason she didn't like what my art director partner was doing and decided she wanted to get him fired.

I would have none of it.

After several attempts by her to get rid of my partner, I unloaded and read her the riot act. I did it loudly, in the middle of the department, and at length. It was not my finest hour, but in the heat of the moment, lines clearly drawn, loyalties clearly defined, I was unable to stop. I was a bully in the worst, most unprofessional way. To her credit, she kept her cool and listened to my angry ranting until I was done.

Needless to say we didn't work together after that, and my partner never got fired. Surprisingly, neither did I.

Years later, after I'd left the agency, I heard she was battling cancer. A few years ago, she lost her battle.

I was invited to her memorial service by several people, but I didn't go. It wouldn't have been right or honest given the nature of our relationship.

As I think back on it, she didn't deserve any of my angry antics. Not because she became ill, but because she was a human being.

I believe so much in the golden rule, and I'm embarrassed and shamed by my complete abandonment of it during that encounter. If I could go back and do it differently, I would in a heartbeat. If she were around, I'd tell her I'm sorry, and I had no right to treat her like I did.

But she's not.

What I can do now is pray her two children grow up healthy, with their loving father and nothing but beautiful memories of their mother who was taken too soon.

Sadly, I'm in a position now where I do get to have the last word. So here it is. I'm sorry I treated you that way. You didn't deserve it. And if it's any small consolation, I'm a better person as a result of it and it's a lesson I'll always carry with me.

Rest in peace.

Paper trail

My pal Rich Siegel over at Round Seventeen put up a post today that got me thinking, nostalgically, about the non-advertising jobs I’ve had.

It’s a long list.

I won't take you through them all, although delivery boy for Leo's Flowers and driver for Bob Hope's best friend did have their post-worthy moments. Another time.

For today, under the heading of “What were you thinking?!” jobs, one of my first was a paperboy for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. If that name isn't familiar, it's because the Herald doesn't exist anymore and hasn't for a long time. It was a great newspaper, from a bygone time when L.A. was a two paper town.

I’d get the papers tossed off the truck in bundles in front of my house. Then I'd have to fold and rubber band them, put them in the giant canvas bags that hung and swung from the towering handlebars of my Schwinn Stingray, and try not to lose my balance as I went wobbling on wheels down the street delivering them.

The only thing worse than the daily paper was the Sunday Herald. Thick, filled with crappy ads someone wrote (who would want that job?), hard to fold and heavy to throw, I figured out early on why Sunday mornings were a time for prayer.

In all modesty, I have to say I did develop into a pretty good pitcher, chucking those papers dead center on to the Welcome mats of subscribers homes I rode past. If major league baseball had been scouting paperboys, things might've been different.

Back then, the way I got paid was to go and get it. There were no credit payments, PayPal or online payments. At the end of each month, I’d go door-to-door, my receipt book in hand, and try to collect payment for the month of papers my subscribers had already received.

See if you can figure out how many ways this was a bad idea.

Child knocking on doors at dinnertime? Child carrying money on him? Child arguing with adults about getting paid? Adults swearing at child about paying for the paper? Suffice it to say that even though I was making some change, the end of the month was not something I looked forward to.

Like the papers, the job eventually folded (see what I did there?). But I learned a lot about myself, a great lesson on how I felt about starting the day early, working hard and getting the job done.

It's a lesson I remember each and every day. When I get in at 10.

Music lesson

I'm sure you know the guy on the right. Here's a clue: he's Angelina Jolie's father, and he's also a National Treasure (see what I did there?).

If you said Jon Voight, you're correct.

And if you think the guy on the left looks like him, except with Michael Landon's hair, the reason is it's his brother James Wesley Voight, who goes by the stage name Chip Taylor.

You probably haven't heard of James Wesley. And unless you're a music fan you also may not be familiar with Chip Taylor. But you should be.

Chip has written a lot of songs, but is most well known for two of them. The first, surprisingly, is an empowering female anthem that was first made famous by Merrilee Rush, then later a huge hit for Juice Newton ("Hi Mrs. Newton, can Juice come out and play?).

It goes a little something like this:

The other song he wrote has been a rock classic since the minute he penned it. To this day, at keggers worldwide, for no apparent reason groups of drunk frat boys break out singing it. It's also been used to full comic effect in many films, like Major League where it wasn't just a song but was also the character's nickname.

WARNING: There's some rough language in the clip:

It was also one of the many (alright, two) number one with a bullet hits for The Troggs, along with this one.

In the mid-70's, Chip Taylor left music to become a professional gambler. At one point he was betting $10,000 a day on blackjack, and eventually was banned from Vegas casinos for card counting. In the early 90's he returned to music and performing.

I'll end this post by leaving you with Angelina Jolie's uncle performing his version of the song that made him a bazillion dollars over the years:

Highway to hell

I know what you're thinking. And no, this isn't a post about my career path in advertising.

In yet another example of good parenting, I was driving down the road yesterday. Sixty miles an hour, windows and sunroof open, and my 14-year old daughter at my side. My iPhone was blasting the quintessential rock'n roll / driving song, Highway to Hell.

Pure, unadulterated fun.

I joke about good parenting, but here's a lesson worth remembering: as you get older and life gets more and more demanding, there are so few moments of pure abandon and joy that when one comes along, especially one you can recreate on a regular basis, then by all means take it. And don't give a damn what anybody else thinks.

There will always be a world full of people trying to harsh your buzz. Don't let them.

If I wanted to take this line of thinking along it's logical path, there's probably another lesson in here about creating your own happiness and all, but even as I write that it sounds a little too new age for me to get into. Maybe I'll save it for another time, like after I watch an Oprah marathon and discuss it with my life coach (that was for you Mel).

Anyway, if I can give my kids one piece of advice tonight, it's this. As they do their homework, focus on their futures and try to make the world a better place, I hope they'll always remember to do the thing that can keep them going when they feel like they can't go any further, lift them up when they're as down as they can be and make everything seem like it's right in the world.

Rock on.

Saving me from myself

No doubt about it. Sometimes, more often than I'd care to admit, I'm my own worst enemy.

Fortunately I have friends, good friends, who don't hesitate to roll their eyes, shake their heads and take action to save me from my impulsive ways.

I worked for this creative director at Chiat years ago. The operative words in that sentence are "years ago." And he was a miserable person who made my life and everyone else's he came in contact with miserable. For some reason, this individual was taking up way too much brain space with me yesterday. So I did what I almost always do when that happens.

I wrote a scathing blog post about him that I thought revealed him for the monster he was (today I'm saying "was", because yesterday the thought never occurred to me that he may have changed in the years since we worked together).

But that's not the bad part. The bad part is I posted it.

Within moments, my friend Cameron rode up on his white horse in the form of an email that read, "Wow. This is how you make enemies. And you got a family and a mortgage."

Now if you know anything about me - and why wouldn't you by now - you know that making enemies isn't a particular concern of mine. This wasn't a creative director who held me in high regard anyway, if he held me in any regard at all.

Still, it was a venomous attack on someone who, deserving of it or not, shouldn't have ever been posted. It was me spending way too much time looking backwards instead of forwards.

Two more of my friends, Rich and Rob, also let me know they thought it made me look a lot worse than the person I was writing about. My friend Dale, while he thought it was good that I got it out and down on paper (screen), agreed with them.

So instead of doing what I should've done in the first place, which was not write it, I did the next best thing. I took the post down.

I was yelling at this person and tearing his head off online while criticizing that he used to do the same thing at work. I stooped to his level. Bad move - definitely not proud about it.

Anyway, a big thank you to Cameron, Rich, Rob and Dale for having my back, and good judgement, even if I didn't. Thanks to them I'm coming away from this having learned a valuable lesson.

Don't make enemies until the economy gets better.