The end justifies the mean

Even with the Tea Party and the Republicans, apparently mean spiritedness isn't as in vogue as it used to be.

Yesterday I did a post about Jonah Hill. I said I didn't think he was either funny or a good actor. And I might have made some slight reference to his former weight.

While I was writing it, apparently one thing I didn't take into consideration was his big, fat fan base.

More than any other post I've done, this one has resulted in my being deluged with all kinds of comments saying how mean spirited it was. How it was so unlike me. That it was a cheap shot. A side of me people hadn't seen before.

Let me say this in all sincerity: Don't you people have better things to worry about?

Here's the thing. If you've followed this blog at all, or even if you haven't, I make it pretty easy to navigate. You can tell what direction my posts are going from the get go (unlike M. Night Shyamalan's blog. His posts always have that surprise ending). One paragraph in, and the road ahead is perfectly clear.

Nonetheless, I can tell the outrage is genuine (something I find disturbing in it's own way, but still).

So first, let's all take a big cleansing breath. Innn...and out.

My suggestion would be this: if after reading the first paragraph you don't think you'll like the rest of the post, stop. Click to another page. Click the link at the top that says "Next blog." That was easy wasn't it? After all if you don't like what's on one TV channel, you change the channel. Maybe something you like will be on the first channel tomorrow.

Also, and I really mean this, don't shed too many tears for Jonah Hill. I'm pretty sure he doesn't read this blog, so his feelings are probably still intact. If his career ended today, he'd still have made more money than I'll ever make. He'll still weigh less than me, even though he used to weigh tons more than me (see what I did there?).

Jonah Hill will live to screw up another film. He'll be fine.

Now of course, the one thing all bloggers want more than readers is readers' comments. We love getting them and we love reading them, even the ones that don't agree with us. I don't want you to think I'm being dismissive or cavalier about the ones I've received regarding Jonah.

I'm sincerely concerned what my readers think. You're the reason I do this. That and the love.

The very last thing I'd want to do is upset or offend anyone.

The luckiest actor alive Part 1: Jonah Hill

Welcome to the first in a series of "luckiest actor alive" profiles, highlighting actors that ought to drop to their knees and thank God every day for studio executives who have even less taste than they have talent, and who for some inexplicable reason continue to give them work.

I decided to start with someone I think we can all agree on: Jonah Hill.

In what alternate universe is he funny? It's not because he's fat: there have been plenty of fat, funny guys. John Goodman. John Candy. Oliver Hardy. James Gandolfini (well, it was funny when he whacked Ralphie). Kevin James. Chris Farley. John Belushi.

I'm not going for the fat jokes. First, they're too easy. Second, I could stand to lose a few myself. And third, he's not fat anymore.

Well, he's not that fat.

He's still as grotesquely out of proportion as he was, only in a different way. Look at his upper torso. That tucked in shirt and jacket isn't fooling anyone. He's still plenty wide, only now he has thinner legs that presumably don't chafe nearly as much when he makes his midnight runs to the refrigerator (alright, maybe one fat joke).

Let's put it this way. I still wouldn't want to try to catching him when he flies over the bar and out of the coaster at Magic Mountain.

With the vibe he puts out, he needs to come out with a line of men's cologne.

Off-putting. By Jonah.

It wouldn't sell. No one wants to smell like a bad actor.

The good news is that people are already tired of how bad and unfunny he is. Even though there's less of him to see, a few more movies like Cyrus and Funny People and we'll be seeing a lot less of him.

Pretty soon he'll be doing more voice over work than on camera, just like his pal Seth Rogen.

Ooops. May have just spilled the beans on the next installment.

Closure. When will it end?

I'm going to tell you something and you're not going to like it.

But it's the truth.

And sometimes, like flu shots and Ryan Reynolds movies, the truth hurts.

Here it is: there's no such thing as closure. Not in the truest sense of the word.

Pardon my French, but it's a bullshit, new age-y word imposed on you by people who'd be more comfortable if you just "moved past" whatever pain it is you're in.

The tenth anniversary of 9/11 is upon us, and all around are talking heads reminding us about everything that should give us closure about it. The rebuilding at ground zero. The killing of Bin Laden. The resilience of survivors. The bravery of first responders in the way they've carried on since.

I can't tell if they want us to forget the images of that day or just feel better about them. Either way it seems obscene.

Apparently, back in the day, the word closure had value. That's why all the pundits, journalists, shrinks and new age authors bought boxes of it at the height of the closure market. But it's easy to see the word's lost it's value, and now they want to unload it as fast as they can.

Truth is it hasn't been worth anything since the Kennedy assassination (by the way, still waiting for closure on that).

It seems cynical to say, but we don't really get over anything. Anything that matters.

Which is okay in my book (well, more of an outline really), because there are some things we shouldn't get over.

Collective tragedies like 9/11, the shuttle explosion, Katrina and the murder of (pick a name). To apply the word closure to these events, to say we've come to terms with them, is absurd. To even imply it means we've diminished our capacity to be shocked and moved by them.

Here's another example. On a more personal note, both my parents are dead. They've been dead a long time. In fact, I just checked a few minutes ago - still dead. They're going to be dead for the rest of the time I'm alive. If you've ever lost a loved one, and I hope you haven't because it just sucks, you know the idea of closure is fiction in its purest form. It never goes away. It gets better, more bearable over time, but it's never really gone.

Remember that boy or girl who broke your heart? Your pet you had to put down? Losing your grandmother's wedding ring? Failing your final? Crashing the car? Still stings doesn't it. It should. That's the point.

Just because you finish a chapter in your life doesn't mean you can't hold or revisit the book every once in awhile.

This whole concept of closure betrays a society that places an unreasonable amount of importance on "getting past it" and "getting on with it." You hear phrases like "get over it" and "put it behind you" an awful lot, always from people who aren't looking out for your well-being, but who are uncomfortable around your sadness.

No matter how small the incident or how long the time, we don't handle displays of grief well. We're uncomfortable around it. It makes us feel weak.

What it really should make us feel is human.

The client your client could smell like

No one's more cynical about advertising than people who create it. We're like comedians sitting at the bar in back of the the Comedy Store while the other acts are on, daring you to make us laugh.

But when a creative team manages to run the gauntlet of junior account executives, account supervisors, the management supervisor, the acd, the gcd, the ecd and actually get their awesome idea made, it's an inspiration to everyone trying to do the same thing.

You earn our loyalty and appreciation. You took a renegade "what if?" idea, hopped the fence and escaped the compound. You won the lottery by getting it produced and at the same time raising the bar for the rest of us.

You understand you either get busy living or get busy dying (yes, I went Shawshank on you).

Whenever a spot breaks through creatively and culturally, it instantly becomes the example clients point to and say, "Where's MY (insert Apple/BMW/Old Spice/Other great spot) commercial? Why can't you guys do one of those?"

Here's why.

It's because of you. Your lack of vision and aversion to risk. Your fear of failure intertwined with your ego. Your overall cowardice and inherent stupidity that makes you think you're protecting your job when you're guaranteeing your expiration date.

I believe deep down you really want a spot that smells like Old Spice. The problem is you'll only approve ones that smell like Olive Garden.

The great ideas, like great clients, aren't bound by rules. And lest you get the wrong idea, I know and believe there are incredibly visionary, unfrightened and bold clients out there. I've worked with some of them. And I see the work others approve.

They're clients who not only want the Apple spot, they embody the philosophy of it.

Did I have an idea I loved shot down? I'm not saying I did, but I'm not saying I didn't. Anyway, it's just the mood I'm in tonight. From the cleaning lady on three to the client's wife to a creative director who won't let it out the door, there are a million ways for an idea to die.

So let me apologize for the rant. And the lecture. So uncharacteristic, I know. Maybe it's time to lighten the mood with a little comic relief from the spot your spot could be.

The Perfect Storm

Looking east

Looking west

Not usually one to post about the weather, but I must admit the way the sky looked on my block at sunset yesterday has brought out my inner Al Roker (yes, all of you who thought I was actually a bald, black man with glasses were right).

As you can see, the contrast between clear skies to the east, and the gathering, nuclear-glow looking storm to the west was quite spectacular. It was hard to tell whether to break out the deck chairs or the lead shields.

While the family and I were having dinner on our patio, it started to rain. Warm weather, crisp, fresh rain.

Not only the perfect storm. The perfect dessert.

My unlikely friend Mel

My friend Mel - short for Melissa - had the can tied to her at Yahoo this week, along with the rest of her department. I felt a literal pang of sympathy when I heard about it. Everyone in advertising has been through it and we all know what it feels like.

If you get laid off in advertising all it means is you showed up.

Anyway, it was interesting to me for two reasons: first, now there might be freelance work at Yahoo (see what I did there?). And second, sympathizing with Mel for this or any other reason isn't something I would've ever pictured myself doing not that long ago.

I always read my close, personal friend Janice's blog. I noticed on virtually every post she'd get a comment from someone named Mel, who I'd never heard of and she'd never mentioned despite the fact she was my office wife at Y&R. Come to find out Mel was a friend she used to work with.

Anyway, Mel would constantly leave comments on Janice's posts. Comments I'd often disagree with. Comments I'd almost always be compelled to comment on, usually in that subtle and tactful way anyone who knows me has come to expect. (btw, still waiting for that "unsend" button.)

Suffice to say it wasn't always the most positive or friendly feedback.

Eventually this back and forth got so heated, the three of us decided to meet for dinner so we could each see who was behind the comments. Needless to say, I approached the dinner cautiously (insert joke about me "approaching food cautiously for the first time in my life" here).

Long story short - although I have a feeling it may be too late for that - is that we all had a great dinner and Mel and I hugged it out.

Now I read her blog regularly, and we're pals online, through the occasional email and probably in real life if and when our paths cross again.

It's amazing what you can discover about a person once you give yourself and them a chance. Since I've gotten to know Mel a bit I see how many great things she has to offer.

In fact, there are two things in particular I really like about her: how often she reads my blog, and how often she comments on it.

Ironic ain't it.

It's showering money

There are shower people and there are bath people. For the most part, all of us here at the Ponderosa are shower people. That's because not only is it easy to take a shower, it's easy to take a shower for granted.

Right up until something goes wrong.

Back in June my wife opened a door to a closet in the back of the house that we don't use very often. When she did, not only was she hit with a musty, mildewy smell, she also stepped onto a soaking wet carpet that made a very unpleasant squishing sound. She yelled to me down the hall, "Do you know where this water is coming from?" I replied, "Narnia?"

Sometimes she doesn't think I'm so funny.

Now I'm no stranger to household flooding. I've had experience with it before. Which is why I was able to figure out the problem was the shower in my son's bathroom on the other side of the closet wall.

I immediately leapt into action to fix the problem by grabbing the one indispensable tool every Jew is a master at. The telephone.

I called the plumber.

It didn't take long for him to figure out it was a cracked shower pan. And judging by the damage, it'd been cracked for a long while (I told you we don't use that closet often).

So the first order of business was to dry out everything back there: the walls, the items in the closet and the carpet. The good news is I found out there are people for that.

The Servpro team stormed our house like the beaches at Normandy, and came in with four giant fans that sounded like a 747 taking off, plus three giant dehumidifiers. We had to close off the back part of the house for four days while all of them ran 24/7.

That is until the circuits blew.

Our house was built in 1949, and the wiring has always been a little sketchy. If we run the washer, dryer and dishwasher at the same time the circuit blows. Sure, we could rewire the place so the electrical load is more evenly distributed. But where's the fun in that?

Besides, resetting the circuits is one thing I actually know how to do.

The next thing was to call my insurance company and have a very long, unrewarding conversation with my agent. Here's the funny part: if this had been a sudden accident - like a pipe bursting and flooding the place - we would've been covered. But since this was a cracked shower pan, they wouldn't cover the repair, although they would cover the water damage.

So I was happy about that, at least until I found out how much our deductible is.

Seems in my attempt to be a shrewd negotiator, and let State Farm know exactly who they were dealing with, I tried to save a few bucks on my homeowner's policy. Somewhere along the line I said okay to a $5,000 deductible. Which is not a bad thing if you have $50,000 in damage. We weren't even close.

Also turns out there are two ways to replace a shower pan. The cheap way, and the right way, which as you'd expect costs considerably more.

Guess which one we went for?
Of course when you're involved in any kind of big home project, one thing inevitably leads to another. Since we're also replacing the tile floor, we had to take out the vanity - the cabinet and sink - to get to the tile underneath. If there was a cheap and wrong way to do it, that's how the former owners of this house did it. The vanity is no exception. When the contractor went to remove it, it literally crumbled.

So last night the family and I had a romantic evening at Lowe's plumbing and bathroom section, picking out a new vanity. And moving ever closer to our deductible.

Anyway, enough about this. Suffice it to say at the end of it all, my son will have an awesome, newly tiled bathroom with an updated vanity. And he'll be able to enjoy his newly subway tiled, leak-proof shower.

The same shower it turns out I'm going to take a bath on.