The truth will set you free

Free from deductibles that is.

Remember a few posts ago when I was talking about the woman who hit my car, and how she was practicing revisionist history with regard to how the accident happened?

Well yesterday the issue of responsibility for the accident was resolved.

Here's how I think it went down.

The short story is she backed her Chevy Tahoe into the side of my Lexus. Her story was we collided and therefore were both responsible.

Not so fast there missy.

The problem and the beauty of facts is that they are the facts. And people who deal with this kind of situation day in and day out have a finely honed ability to see them clearly.

My field adjustor from Mercury, the field adjustor from her insurance company, my body shop rep and the photos of the damage all tell the same story: she hit me. I'd like to believe that her insurance company, after they stopped laughing at her story, told her the bottom line was that she backed into me in a parking lot, and she wasn't getting out of it.

So when my adjustor called yesterday to tell me the other party had taken responsibility - whether she wanted to or not - I was relieved.

It means I won't have to front the $500 deductible while the insurance companies duke it out. And I won't have the additional stress of worrying about it (not that I couldn't handle it - apparently stress to me is like the bottomless lemonade cup at Islands. Don't get me started).

Oddly enough, this whole incident didn't restore my faith in people.

But, as odd as it feels to say this, it does make me feel ever so slightly better about insurance companies.

How much is that Gold Pencil in the window?

It's no secret ad agencies like bright, shiny objects. Especially when they happen to arrive in the form of advertising awards.

Well, good news for everyone looking for something to fill up all that empty shelf space: it's awards show season.

That time of year when, without perspective, prejudice or any ability to be realistic about what work actually has a chance of being recognized, agencies frantically, desperately and with an overabundance of misplaced optimism round up almost all the ads they've done for the year and enter them.

A good friend of mine is the awards-entry wrangler at one of the largest shops in town. For years, this shop set the benchmark for creative work not just in L.A., but across the country and around the world. Sadly, for a variety of reasons - not the least of which is who used to oversee the creative and who oversees it now - this shop's glory days are at least 15 years gone. They've lost people, accounts and their reputation as a place where only greatness got out the door.

That not withstanding, this year they'll spend in the neighborhood of $200,000 on award show entries.

And yes, raises are still frozen.

Like creative work, and creatives themselves, not all awards shows are created equal. There are shows, like the One Show, that everyone wants to win. Clios are still nice to have, although their reputation has been permanently tarnished by a fiasco that happened years ago. There isn't a creative around who doesn't like to see his/her work in Communication Arts Advertising Annual. Addy Awards are regional and national - I wonder if the person who writes their copy selling the show itself is eligible? Effie awards are given for how effective the work has been. Account people love it when the agency wins those.

Here's the thing. Awards are like pizza: even when they're bad, they're still pretty good (I almost used another example but this is a family blog).

And with over, well over, 75 advertising award shows to enter, there's a lot of winning to be had. You just have to pick the proper...tier...of show to participate in.

Even though some of these shows feel like they'll go on forever when you attend them, they don't all go on indefinitely in real life. Southern California's Belding Awards and Northern California's original San Francisco Awards show are two examples.

The Beldings were scandalized years ago when a creative produced a commercial the client hadn't approved, bought time and ran it at midnight on a tv station in Palookaville, Nebraska so it would qualify, and then actually won a Belding for it. He was eventually exposed for the fraud, and it resulted in a complete overhaul of the Belding rules and requirements. The show ambled on for a few more years, then basically died because no one cared anymore.

The SFAS went away because Goodby was sweeping the show every year. It finally pissed "competing" agencies off so badly they didn't bother entering work in the show anymore.

No entry fees, no Buck Rogers.

Is it wise in these economic times to spend so much on award shows? I don't know. I do know that everyone - the teams doing the work, the creative director, the account people, the holding companies and especially the clients - love talking and pointing to their award-winning work. It does give one a sense of recognition and appreciation that's become a lost art at agencies.

The subject of the names that go on those entry forms are a whole other topic. I addressed it a little bit here, but I'll save the bigger rant about that for another post.

Instead I'll just wish everyone good luck. And if for some reason those judges can't see the brilliance in your ad, don't sweat it.

Awards shows are like buses. There'll be another one along any minute.

Bad Luck

At the risk of putting my hoof in my mouth, I'm going to take an unpopular position. I know it's unpopular because Facebook has been all a twitter about it (notice the subtle yet deliberate blending of two social networks in the same sentence).

I don't think HBO should have cancelled Luck. At least not for the reason they did.

Because three horses have had to be put down since the series began shooting at Santa Anita Racetrack, HBO decided to cancel the series. I don't think that's the real reason, but more on that in a minute.

It's unrelentingly heartbreaking that three horses died in the making of the show. But sad as it is, I'm pretty sure it wasn't the series that killed them. However you'd never know that if you've been online today.

Judging from the reaction on the interwebs, there seems to be a lot of agreement that Hollywood should never make a movie with horses in it again.

Goodbye Seabiscuit. So long Secretariat. I'll never forget you Black Beauty. You were a good friend Flicka.

War Horse? That's just crazy talk.

If that's going to be the policy going forward, it's also going to rule out westerns. And movies like Ben Hur. Maybe all those extras can pull the chariots instead.

I completely understand the emotion behind the anger. Everyone loves horses. My wife's family used to stable and breed thoroughbred race horses for years at their ranch in Northern California (important safety tip: never walk behind a thoroughbred). But the fact is it's not like the 40's and 50's when studios were using trip wires to make horses fall. In this latest incident, the horse got spooked while being walked back to the stable, reared up and fell over backwards injuring it's head and breaking it's neck. The first two suffered permanent leg injuries during racing scenes. Just like horses do sometimes in real races.

In those scenes the horses were being ridden by professional jockeys, not actors or production assistants. And the entire shoot was being monitored and supervised by the Humane Society. Here's what HBO had to say about it:

"We maintained the highest safety standards throughout production, higher in fact than any protocols existing in horseracing anywhere with many fewer incidents than occur in racing or than befall horses normally in barns at night or pastures. While we maintained the highest safety standards possible, accidents unfortunately happen and it is impossible to guarantee they won't in the future. Accordingly, we have reached this difficult decision."

I tend to believe them when they say they took every precaution possible. There's really no upside for them to have horses dying on set.

I'm a little more skeptical about it being a "difficult decision" to cancel the series.

HBO ordered a second season of the show after the pilot aired. While they were excited about it, the viewers weren't. And with Dustin Hoffman, Nick Nolte and Dennis Farina as stars of the show, and Michael Mann and David Milch as producers, they had a very expensive flop on their hands. A flop they'd just renewed.

So the horse accidents gave them an out and they took it. This isn't to say they don't genuinely feel awful about what happened. I'm sure they do. At the same time, I imagine they also feel a certain amount of relief that they were able to cut their losses.

The tagline for the series is "Leave nothing to chance." Unfortunately even when you take every precaution, in Hollywood, as in horse racing, that's not always possible.

Next

On the menu bar at the top of this blog, just like every other Blogger blog, is a nav link like the one above (although not nearly as pixelated). It's kind of like Amazon's "You might also be interested in..." feature. It's the eHarmony of blog sites. It's the match.com of blogspot.com

You see where I'm going here.

I don't know if you've ever clicked on it, but I have a few times. I'm not quite sure what algorithm design they use to make the connection between one blog and the next.

But let me just say this. If you like ROTATION AND BALANCE - and what's not to like? - the "next blog" button tells me that, for reasons only it knows, you might also be interested in:

A game of Checkers

A friend of mine used to say you weren't in a real city unless you could do two things: jaywalk and hail a cab.

The first time I was in New York I realized, as everyone instantly does, that this was not only a real city, but the real city.

And one of the best and most memorable things about it were the ginormous yellow Checker cabs.

By the thousands, these tank-sized cabs would roam up and down the avenues, looking great, burning gas and picking up passengers. Once inside, you were met with the cavernous back seat. It made you feel like you were driving in your living room. Or more often than anyone needs to think about, bedroom.

I remember flying into JFK one time and sharing a Checker cab into the city. They were built for sharing - they had an additional backwards-facing fold-down bench seat in the back so about 8 or 9 people could fit comfortably into one of these babies.

It made getting into the city fairly painless, financially speaking.

Eventually the Checkers, like the dinosaurs, became extinct - not because they were taken out by a meteor, but because they couldn't adapt to the changing times. And by changing times I mean gas prices.

So instead, in their place today we have fuel-efficient, technologically-advanced, non-polluting, dull-as-hell, puny little Prius cabs. They barely carry four people. None of them comfortably. And luggage? That's just crazy talk.

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If you know anything about me - and really, what haven't I shared on here - you know political correctness isn't one of my strong suits. I think the Big Apple should bring back the inefficient, polluting, technologically outdated, passenger-pleasing Checker cabs.

Earth Day, Ed Begley and Al Gore be damned.

Bumper. Car.

With cars, as with life, sometimes you're the bumper and sometimes you're the bumpee. In this picture, my car is the bumpee.

While I was stopped in a strip mall parking lot near where I live, questioning what this beat up Chevy Tahoe angled in front of me was going to do, the Tahoe gave me the answer. It backed up into me. No one was hurt, my car was still drivable, and the Tahoe driver was insured. All good right?

Not so fast.

As we were exchanging information, the woman's husband who apparently worked at one of the businesses in the mall - and didn't see the accident - came out and joined us. They were both just as apologetic as could be. They had a short conversation between themselves, and I happened to overhear him say to her, "You're going to lose your license over this."

Clearly there were implications and incidents I wasn't privy to. By the way, Implications & Incidents - great band. Saw them at the Roxy in '98 (Note to Rich: you're welcome).

After apologizing again for hitting me, the husband asked me how I wanted to handle it. I said I wanted to go through my insurance company, but he had another idea. He said, "If you're open to it, I'd like to pay out of pocket for it. I have the cash, and I know a body shop you can go to."

Sounds perfectly legit - I know, right?

You know what body shops are like in California? I'll give you a clue: everyone has one.

Even though every instinct I had was screaming not to do it, I told him I was willing to get an estimate on the repair and bring it back to him. He could look it over and give me an answer that night. If he agreed, he'd have to meet me at the bank in the morning to get a cashier's check made out to the body shop.

Here's what I learned: in my next life I want to own an auto body shop. The estimate for this seemingly minor damage was $1703.00. After I brought it back and he saw the total he grumbled a bit, then said he'd talk to his wife and call me that evening.

When the phone rang at 8:30, I was frankly a little surprised since I figured I'd never hear from them again and wind up going through insurance anyway.

It was all very civil, she apologized again for hitting me, and said she'd called her insurance company and I'd hear from them. I said fine, I'll call my company and we'll go from there.

I'm with Mercury. Have been for almost as long as I've been driving. They've never been anything but amazing in past dealings, and they were just as awesome in this one. They took the information down and had a claims adjustor call me this morning.

After going over a few things with the adjustor, we got into a discussion about how they might change their story. She said she'd call the woman who hit me and find out.

You'll never guess what happened next? No, really, you'll never guess.

Apparently her new and improved version is that we collided. I told the adjustor that if by collided she meant she backed her big fat SUV into the side of my stopped car, then yes.

So it's going in the body shop tomorrow, I'll have some awesome rental for about a week, and the insurance companies will duke it out. But I'm pretty sure mine will win. The thing is to get the kind of damage my car sustained, I would've had to have driven sideways into her. The Lexus comes with a lot of options, but not that one.

Frustrated, I told my adjustor that you'd just hope people would do the right thing.

In that world weary voice only insurance adjustors who've heard it all have, she replied "I hope that every day."

Rock and roll

There's an exhibit coming to LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) called Levitated Mass. At first I thought it was about me on a ladder. Come to find out, it's actually a display with a giant 340-ton boulder as it's centerpiece.

That's how I knew it wasn't about me. That boulder weighs at least twice as much as I do.

I had an advance viewing of the rock yesterday as I was coming home. Turns out they're transporting it, slowly, right through my very own city on it's journey to the museum. There was a huge line of traffic moving slower than the rock just so they could get a look at it.

Logistically it's like a presidential visit. Since the bed of the truck it's on is 32 feet wide, it can only move on specific streets wide enough for it. Roads have to be closed as it passes, and traffic signals have to be coordinated since it doesn't exactly blow through the intersection.

I know what you're thinking: it's a rock. Technically, true. But it's also one of the single largest items ever moved since ancient times. Maybe that's because they didn't have flatbed trucks back then.

As the video shows, the engineering behind moving it is mighty impressive.

I know what you're thinking. He's reached the end of the post, and here comes some quasi-attempt at a funny wrap up line involving the words "getting stoned" or "rocks in his head" or "sticks and stones."

You're way ahead of me.