Encore post: Non-essential personnel

There’s been a great deal of discussion about essential and non-essential workers these past ten months. In the middle of a devastating pandemic, we quickly found out who we absolutely needed and who we could live without.

And the surprises weren’t all that surprising.

The people we take for granted day in and day out—grocery checkers and stockers, delivery people. Obviously the frontline medical heroes. The under siege postal workers (buy stamps). People who keep security and infrastructure going. As well as a long list of others.

And hey, you'll never guess who wasn’t considered essential. Give up? I hate for you to hear it this way but it's people who work in advertising agencies. I know, I’m as shocked as you are.

But here's something we know deep down in those places we don't talk about: the harsh reality is that was true even before the pandemic. And it’ll be true after.

Truth can be such a cruel mistress.

Come to find out in a non-existent survey not conducted by Gallop, that in the time of Covid, turns out people across every demographic—including some that haven’t even been segmented yet—actually set priorities about what's essential and what isn't.

While people are busy worrying whether a cough is just a cough or whether it's a debilitating virus that's going to have them fighting for their lives in the ER, oddly enough they don’t consider banner ads, screen takeovers, wild postings, commercials of any kind (with the exception of those two Match.com Satan ads), radio spots repeating the phone number three times, bus shelters, outdoor, paid social, email, direct response tchotchkes (no I didn't look up the spelling, yes it's correct), online surveys, YouTube pre-rolls, theater ads that piss you off before the movie (remember movies?), product placement in those movies, brochures, endcaps, welcome kits and more essential.

Even more non-essential? People who create them.

But fear not fellow agency people. Remember that many great artists aren't appreciated in their own time. Eventually this too shall pass, and people will come out of the plague culture and discover they hold a deep appreciation and fond nostalgia for all the ads they saw that began with "These are challenging times..." and ended with "We're in this together."

Someday the world at large will see the sense in theoretically normal-thinking adults putting their health and the health of loved ones at risk to bring them commercials that involved people breaking into dance for no reason, running footage, bite and smiles and people who aren't doctors but play one on television.

You know, the same as usual except now the people in them wear masks.

I've heard the arguments: we're keeping the economy going during a bad time. Bringing information people would have no. other. way. of getting. Setting an example by being at work, etc.

I got news for you. Essentially, you're kidding yourself.

Coming attractions

With everything going on in the world, you may not have noticed this hasn't been what anyone would call a productive year blogpost wise for me. I suppose one could speculate on the reasons for that.

You might chalk it up to pandemic malaise.

Or being too exhausted and thought out after spending my day writing for a leading cybersecurity company.

Maybe it was the sense a lot of ground I was going to cover had been covered. I mean how many posts about Springsteen, Breaking Bad and ad agency idiocy can one person read, let alone write.

It might've been that with incredibly entertaining, thoughful, hilarious, well-written blogs like Rich Siegel's Round Seventeen, and Jeff Eaker's Kingdom of Failure readily available on the interwebs, I didn't feel the need to keep throwing my URL in the ring.

But I finally figured out the reason. And it was right there in front of me the whole time.

As Will Patton said to Griffin Dunne in After Hours— "lack of discipline."

Not saying it was a total lack of discipline. Problem was it was the exact same amount I apply to my new year's resolutions to diet, exercise, get through my ever rising tower of unread books, clean the garage and, did I mention my diet?

You see where I'm going.

But like disco and eating at Five Guys, that's all behind me now.

I've gotten my second wind, and here at Rotation and Balance headquarters we're going to be ramping up the line.

Normally I don't like to tip my hand, show my cards, spill the beans or whatever the fuck that saying is. But because you may recall I've made this promise once or twice before here, I wanted to give you a little sneak preview of the topics that will be coming up in the next couple weeks for your reading and time-wasting pleasure.

There will be a fine piece on how I recently came out to my car one morning only to find out it'd been broken into and ransacked.

I'll have a little rant about LAX and all the joy that implies.

You can look forward to reading what a monumental prick Matthew Perry is (could he be any more of an asshole?).

There'll be a tribute to my friend and former boss Amy who passed away recently (#fuckcancer).

And, just in time for the holiday season, I'll have my musings on my experience giving the wife not one, but two Cameo videos from some of her favorite actors.

Those are just a few on the list, but there are many more to come.

So like shoulder pads, floral wallpaper and patchwork denim, I'm back.

Besides, if I'm writing I won't be eating. So there's hope for that diet resolution yet.

Playing chicken

I’ll admit I was a little late to the party on the whole spicy chicken sandwich thang. Oh sure, thanks to my son who’s been willing to make runs to downtown L.A. during the pandemic, I’ve been introduced to the overheated pleasure of Howlin’ Ray’s Nashville Hot Chicken, which, for those of you keeping score really brought the craze home.

Now I like spicy food, always have always will. But like anything in life, it's a matter of degrees. And there's only so much spicy my sensitive yet larger stomach will tolerate. Before you go ahead and make the fat jokes, let me just remind you that like my Lexus, I’m built for comfort, not speed.

Anyway as you can see from the chart on the left, at Howlin’ Ray’s sandwich heat runs the gamut from none to can’t touch this.

So I decided to try the mild, which is the starter sandwich. And I loved it. The problem is my kid couldn’t be running to DTLA nearly as often as I wanted to have a spicy chicken sandwich.

Enter Avid, my friend and 2004 runner up for the bronze in curling. On his Instagram feed, in a rare break from the dog pictures, he posted the sandwich you see above, which happens to look startingly similar to Howlin’ Ray’s. So I asked him where it was and he told me about the Cluck Kitchen in Irvine.

Now Irvine is a much easier drive than DTLA. And if you know anything about me, you know I’m all about easy.

While there ain’t nothing like the real thing, come to find out Cluck Chicken is pretty close. They have the same spice range as HR, and their sandwiches taste uncannily similar.

But if oversized, dragon-breath hot sandwiches aren't enought to fill you up, Cluck Kitchen also has some mighty tasty sides to go along with it. Things like fried pickles, vinegar slaw and, my personal favorite, bacon potato salad.

Yet one more dish proving my timeless theory that bacon makes everything better.

The other thing Cluck Kitchen has is a snappy little hashtag. It's what we in the ad biz like to call "on brand."

It begins

First of all, happy new year, and congratulations for surviving—in a very literal sense—what’s sure to be the worst year in everyone’s life. I think I speak for all of us when I say I’m glad we made it, and there’s definitely nowhere to go but up.

Unless of course Cadet Bone Spurs has a(nother) Giuliani-size brain fart and decides to burn the house down on his way out. And out he will go, no matter how many calls he makes to Georgia.

Of course, despite the fact we’re still going to be using masks as a fashion statement, keeping our distance and washing our hands like Howard Hughes for the foreseeable future, there are a lot of things to look forward to in the coming year.

In just a Scaramucci and five days we’ll have a new sane, decent, smart and compassionate president. I don’t agree on all policy with him, but he’s already a breath of fresh sanity.

We’ll also have the first female, Black/Indian vice-president. I’m even more excited about Kamala because she was my first choice for the top job in the primary. My dream ticket was Harris/Buttigieg. It may still wind up being that. No one's getting any younger if you get my continental drift.

Dr. Fauci is staying on, and he’ll have a new president who believes in science, listens to and respects what he says, and will be a partner in finally bringing this horrible pandemic chapter to a close. As well as the run on bleach and hypodermic needles.

The vaccine. Just give it to me in the left arm like the flu shot. I never like waiting in line, but I’m more than willing to make an exception.

And as I’ve done so many times before, I buried the lead. The other thing you’ll have to look forward to, and you know you will, is another year of stimulating, insightful, side-spitting, far too long posts on Rotation and Balance. Now at the risk of sounding like the blogger who cried wolf, this year is actually positioned to be a stellar one in number of posts, if not in quality of writing. You can’t have everything.

Besides, who do you think I am. Round Seventeen?

The deep end

It’s always worse when it happens to someone you know.

As if 70 million fellow Americans who still think a nazi-lovin’, race-baitin’, woman-hatin’, name-callin’, orange face-paintin’, con-runnin’, daughter-lustin’, rumor-spreadin', handicapped-mockin’, TV-watchin’, conspiracy theory-spoutin’, covid-ignorin’, dictator-lovin’, baby-handed traitor should be the leader of the free world weren’t enough, come to find out one of them happens to be a friend of mine.

Someone I’ve worked with.

Someone I’ve worked for.

Someone I respect. Strike that. Respected.

I’ve known him almost nine years and in that time we’ve had meals together, fought for great work together and had My Dinner With Andre-esque conversations about things that matter. Although we didn’t get together often, when we did we’d enjoy each other’s company immensely.

One of the things I always liked about him was he never took anything at face value. He always made it a point to take the deep dive, looking into the rest of the story to find out where the truth lived. But going by his Facebook feed the last few months, the truth is just a distant memory. And his deep-diving, fact-finding days are long gone.

The only diving he’s doing now is off the deep end into the cold, cruel, dirty water on the edge of town in Trumpland. I don’t’ even recognize him.

His FB feed is filled with conspiracy theories about the virus (It’s a hoax! The death rate is less than the flu!) and memes about how awful Democrats are, that of course are blatant projections of all the corruption and criminal activity going on in the GOP from the top down. There's no shortage of ramblings about how they're taking away our freedom asking us to wear masks, and a lot of "Mommy I don't wanna! I don't wanna!". And of course, the obligatory "alternative facts" charts showing the crisis isn't as bad as it's being made out to be.

Most surprising are the undisguised racial slur memes against the Vice-President elect. It would all be worth serious discussion if the posts, as crass and ugly as some of them are, were from reliable sources. The ones I've seen are from Breibart, Fox state news, OAN and other extreme right outlets. Apparently serious discussion isn't what he's looking for.

I'll be the first to admit I post quotes, memes and articles that are anti-Trump and anti-Republican. But they're based in fact, sourced reliably, factually accurate and often quite hystically funny, even when they're snarky—which they often are. You're welcome.

He's also posted responses to the many comments he gets about how off base and crazy he is, and his replies usually boil down to "..if we're really friends we can disagree like adults." Well, maybe on some subjects, but not when things like racism and cruelty aren't dealbreakers for him.

So I'm grieving. I'm sad for who he's become, and the friend I've lost. I've never engaged with him on Facebook because he's clearly too far dug in. And by dug in I mean gone. Besides, I've never liked FB fights.

I'll always be a friend to the person he was. I just can't be one to the person he is.

Maskmaker Maskmaker

So I don't know about you, but since the COVID-19 pandemic has been hitting its stride, I've been alternating between devouring every bit of news about it that I can, and going days without letting myself hear a word. The second choice is the more relaxing one.

Anyway, today's been a news on day. And as a result, I've been spending a lot of time watching YouTube videos on how to make a mask—excuse me, face covering—at home without having to actually sew one.

Not that I couldn't. A couple years ago I took a sewing class with my friend Cassie, and while I never completed the apron we were making, I did learn enough to stitch up the sides of a mask. It's just that I don't want to, because I'm all about easy. I'd much prefer to have someone make one for me.

So that's the origin story of this reworked version of Matchmaker from Fiddler On The Roof.

In case you're not familiar with the song, here's the video. And once you can't get it out of your head, you'll be ready to sing the new lyrics to it below.

Meanwhile, I'll be looking to repurpose my Elvis bandana into a rockin' mask.

Maskmaker maskmaker make me a mask

Find one for me, that is your task

Maskmaker maskmaker start sewing for me

And make me the perfect mask

Maskmaker maskmaker I’ll bring the cloth

You do your work, I’ll drink some broth

Make me a mask for I’m longing to be

The envy of all I see

For papa, make it safe and effective

For mama, make it pretty and tight

For me well, I wouldn’t holler

In fact I would wear it all day and night

Maskmaker maskmaker make me a mask

Find one for me, that is your task

Day after day I don’t go out alone

So make me a mask all my own

The silver lining

Ask anyone who knows me, and they'll tell you that besides being hilariously funny, unreasonably talented, brutally handsome and, what's the word...oh yeah, humble, they'd also say I've never exactly been one to look at the glass as half full.

Especially if it's full of an infectious agent that's shutting down Italy and making lines at Trader Joe's even more unbearable than usual.

But here's the bright side, and I can't help but smile about it. I was under the impression my beautiful, intelligent, talented and wickedly funny daughter who just left this past Tuesday to head back to school in Iowa (don't get me started) wouldn't be returning to a city with over 5000 people in it until the end of May.

Funny what a difference a couple days make. She's coming back home this weekend.

Unless you have stock in toilet paper, bottled water, Cold-Eeze or surgical masks, it's understandably been hard to find any good coming out of the coronavirus pandemic. But from where I sit—in my house, bingeing Succession and eating old-fashioned chicken salad from Gelson's—I think a lot of good will come of it.

For starters, because of the new normal, families will be forced to spend family time together. With it not being safe to go out into the world, parents and kids will rediscover the art of talking to each other around the dinner table. Or just all being at the dinner table at the same time. Perhaps there will be precious times when it's screens down, and the joy of playing board games and cards will be rekindled. And maybe, just maybe, they'll do some household chores if for no other reason than it's something to do. I can dream can't I?

I also believe kindness and a sense of unity will start to wash over people. Look at me being all optimistic. But there's no getting around the fact this virus doesn't discriminate—it's looking for you no matter who you are. So instead of tearing down each other, now we all have a common enemy to direct our attention at. Well, ok, a second common enemy if you get my drift.

Then there's the traffic. The streets of Laredo are empty now, so when we do have to venture out it'll be much smoother sailing than if everyone were going into the office. Not that I want to do a lot of driving around, because that would waste gas and then I'd have to touch the gas pump to fill up. I could use the squeegee paper towels they have, but that might be awkward. Unless they have Purell at the pump. Hmmmm, I'll get back to you on this one.

I may have digressed here.

The point is while I'm sad about the reason, I'm happy about the fact my girl is coming home for summer. I know there are lots of movies we didn't get to watch when she was out here last week on spring break, so I'm sure we'll catch up on a few.

As long as they're not Outbreak, Contagion or Andromeda Strain.

Quarantine Canteen

When life hands you easily transmittable viral diseases that could potentially be pandemic and destroy life on earth as we know it, make lemonade. Alright, so that's not actually the saying but you get the gist.

Unless you've been hiding under a rock—and if you have been you're probably wondering where all the Republicans went (hint: they're in the senate)—you know there's a new threat in town. And its name is Coronavirus (Rap name: COVID-19).

Don't get the wrong idea: I don't want to minimize the impact of this very real outbreak. All of us should be reading and following precautions the CDC is suggesting:

Washing your hands like you're Howard Hughes.

Not touching our faces or anyone else's.

Fist and elbow bumping instead of shaking hands.

Using it as an excuse to stay home and binge shows on Netflix.

Sure the Coronavirus is going to be serious and alter our daily routine in ways we can't even imagine yet. It's the first pandemic for most of us. And you know what they say, you never forget your first. Still, I don't think it's all bad news. The way I look at it, one man's pandemic armageddon is another man's money-making opportunity.

Because there just aren't enough Rainforest Cafe's, Planet Hollywood's and Hard Rock Cafe's, I'm thinking what the world needs more of than anything else right now is a Coronavirus themed restaurant.

Presenting my idea for a pop-up called the Quarantine Canteen.

Hear me out. Much like the Breaking Bad Experience pop-up in L.A. a few months ago, the waitstaff will serve you in hazmat suits. If you order a shot at the bar, it'll be poured from a syringe. The only available beers will be Corona Extra, Corona Light, Corona Familiar and Corona Premier. Every booth will have a thick, plastic curtain to separate your party from the other diners. And TV's throughout the restaurant will be playing ER, Grey's Anatomy and General Hospital.

I don't have all the details yet, but I'll keep working on it. Just as soon as I shake this cough.