Wrongful Termination: Chapters 1 & 2

Any similarity to persons living or dead, locations or incidents is purely coincidental.

The first thing she noticed was his boots.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t seen them before, it was just that she’d never seen them this close up and personal. She’d never really been interested in men’s footwear, so even she was surprised by the fact she was taking the time to study them.

She'd been looking down at his morning mail as she walked into his office to drop it into his in-box. It was the usual collection of office memos, letters from production company reps, and a couple of comped subscription magazines. Today it was Playboy, with yet another tired photo spread on Pamela Anderson, and Men’s Health, featuring a cover story on how to get better looking abs in seven days.

But as she looked up from the mail, there were the boots staring right at her almost as hard as she was staring at them. She stopped to admire the intricate detail and craftsmanship that had escaped her all the other times she’d seen them. Maybe because then they’d been moving. But here they were - still - allowing her time to really notice things she hadn’t seen before. The fine sterling silver tips. The little moons and stars cut into the toepieces. The bright, golden sunlight reflecting off them because of the blinding shine. The polished, flathead silver tacks that held the toepieces in place. No doubt about it, these were quality boots.

She moved her eyes ever so slightly upward and looked at the leather. Black, wrinkled, worn, but with a look of comfort and familiarity.

“Like a pair of old shoes…,” she thought, smiling.

Yes, these boots were maybe the best looking pair she’d ever seen. And just as she was having that thought, another one came right on the heels of it.

Why were they at eye level?

She looked up, and saw Dean Montaine hanging from the light fixture.

The screaming went on for almost an hour.

Detective Jack Sheridan walked his six foot two frame into the offices of Cressman/Krate, the advertising agency where Dean worked. Or at least had until this morning.

Sheridan worked Westside long enough to see a few cases involving advertising people. He often wondered why more of them weren’t murdered. As far as he could tell, they were for the most part loud, petty, egotistical, annoying and self-loathing. And those were their good traits. He figured the city, which was essentially a company town, made them that way. They all liked to consider advertising a part of the entertainment community. They all thought they were in show business. But the truth was they were just on the periphery of it. If you could call commercials for Swedish furniture stores, Japanese car manufacturers and fast food burger joints show business. No, Sheridan thought, these were, on the whole, people who made a lot of money for contributing nothing to society but volumes of visual and verbal pollution.

Not that it stopped them from thinking they were better than anyone else.

Sheridan walked up to the receptionist who’d just gotten to work and was putting her purse in the drawer. She used to just leave it under the desk at her feet. But a couple months ago she’d run to powder her nose, and a messenger decided he’d help himself to her wallet while she was gone.

He asked to be directed to Dean Montaine’s office.

"Do you have an appointment?”

“Actually, I’m a little late. I don’t think he’ll mind.”

“Your name?”

He flashed his L.A.P.D. badge. “Tell you what. Just tell me where it is. I’d like to surprise him.”

She pointed down the hall towards the northeast corner office.

There was nothing surprising about the fact she wasn’t aware of what had happened. The way Cressman/Krate was laid out, reception was a huge atrium with a narrow, copper waterfall sculpture two hundred yards away at the other end, and a long wall of bad art that at least added color to the space. You had to turn one of the four corners in the lobby and go down a hallway to get to any of the interior offices, which left the receptionist sitting on an island of her own removed from the rest of the employees. Since Dean Montaine’s body was discovered two and half hours before the agency opened, there was no way she’d have seen the police and coroner personnel that were already securing the scene.

Besides, Sheridan thought, receptionists are always the last to know.

You're going to need a smaller car

I believe I speak for many people when I say clowns have always scared the living bejeezus out of me. I think you'll find that any nightmare worth it's weight in true terror usually has a clown in it.

Oh sure, I can already imagine all you red-nosed squeezing, boutonniere-squirting, floppy-shoe wearing, bicycle-horn honking clown fans greasing on your sad faces in protest. Alright, alright. Never let it be said I'm not being fair. I'll agree I shouldn't stereotype all clowns (he says coughing to conceal his laughter). Because as few and far between as they are, I have to grudgingly admit there are actually some that're enjoyable.

For example, Fizbo from Modern Family? Love him. Hysterical every time. And if you recall the scene at the gas station with Mitchell (which YouTube has pulled for some reason), you know that Fizbo isn't just hysterical. He's also an ass-kicking clown.

Chuckles, the clown from the old Mary Tyler Moore Show was also a good one. Not only is his name the quintessential clown moniker, his funeral is one of the most classic scenes in all of television history.

But for every Fizbo and Chuckles, there are a thousand clowns with hell for their home address.

I think the first time this one shows up in the kid's room in Poltergeist, we all know nothing good is going to come of him. Who was fooled at the beginning when he was benignly sitting on the rocking chair? Anyone? Thought so.

Not that imagining what might be lurking under the bed isn't already every kid's nightmare. But this little feller just kind of cemented the deal.

Under the bed isn't the only place evil is lurking. It's also hanging around in the sewers, waiting to drag little children under to an unthinkable fate. Pennywise over here, the clown from Stephen King's IT, always liked to remind children that, "We all float down here." If that doesn't make for sweet dreams I don't know what does.

Perhaps the most perverse take on clowns is Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight. Using clown makeup to represent the actual decay within the character, I think he also shows a side of clowns most of us don't want to believe is real.

But for all the kids reading this, especially the young ones, it is.

So the next time you're at the circus, try not to focus on all those clowns popping out of that impossibly small car. I'm sure they're not really rehearsing the way they'll spring out from under your bed or the closet in your room late at night after you've floated off to sleep.

"We all float down here." Goodnight.

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.