Bedside manner

Every once in a while - a great while - my faith in humanity is momentarily restored. This is one of those times.

A while ago I had seen this letter from an emergency room doctor to a man who's wife he'd treated. Sadly she later passed away, but she'd left such an impression that this doctor felt compelled to write his first letter ever to a family member. What strikes me is the time he took to write this letter, which is clearly carefully and deliberately worded, was probably longer than he gets to spend with most of his patients.

In an age of cost cutting, managed care, debates by monkeys in congress over healthcare and the traditional distance doctors keep from the personal lives of their patients, this letter is nothing short of remarkable.

I never want myself or any member of my family to have need of an ER doctor. But if it's unavoidable, I hope they get someone as compassionate as this.

You know, for kids

Here's a little bit of toy trivia for you.

Fifty years ago this very day, the hula hoop was patented by Wham-O. It's actually been around (no pun intended) since the mid-1800's, just not in the form and material we know today.

If you saw the Coen Bros. Hudsucker Proxy - an extremely underrated film - you know the hula hoop is central to the plot and lead character played by Tim Robbins.

I was thinking about the hula hoop - because really, what else do I have to think about - and I realized it's the same thing I, and all my creative brethren, strive for in advertising: An idea so uncomplicated and pure, it resonates on a visceral level.

But as anyone in the biz will tell you, the simple ideas are the hardest to find. And the hardest to sell.

In the movie, Tim Robbins character shows his idea to a colleague in the mail room: a circle on a piece of paper. The colleague thinks he's nuts. The simple ideas are a lot like shopping for homes - you have to look past what they are and see what they can become.

It's a skill not every agency and client has.

I'm not sure why toy makers can see it and people who are supposed to do it for a living can't. Wham-O followed up the hula hoop with another astonishingly simple idea: the Frisbee. And the rest is history.

As anyone who's worked ten minutes in an agency knows, until the dial gets reset to simple we're going to keep winding up with things like this:

Mail enhancement

I never understood all the jokes made at the expense of the post office. It always seemed to me it was more about people's impatience waiting for something to arrive more than the actual service itself.

I'm just going to come out and say it: I love the mail. I look forward to it getting here, I love using my Warner Bros. Wile E. Coyote letter opener to open it, I love going through it and I like when there's a whole bunch of it. I also like sending it out. When I seal those envelopes, even if they're bills, and I slap that stamp on it and drop it in the mailbox, it actually gives me a sense of accomplishment.

And I'll take a sense of accomplishment wherever I can find it.

Don't you think it's amazing that for 46 cents, you can mail a letter in L.A. and usually within a couple days it's being read by the person you sent it to in NY? Assuming you sent it to NY. I think it's incredible. I know it's not instantaneous like email, but I think the whole "snail mail" label is a misnomer considering what the service is.

Believe it or not, some things are worth waiting for.

Obviously my unbridled enthusiasm for the post office doesn't make me a fan of ending Saturday mail delivery. The thought of it is quite depressing. I like having the "one more day" option, which means if I'm expecting something on Friday - for example, a check - and it doesn't get here, there's always Saturday.

Only starting in August, there isn't always Saturday anymore. I can't say I'm surprised by it. In fact, I wrote an earlier post here about the decline of personal, handwritten communication. A decline that's going to eventually doom the postal service.

By the way, just so you know I'm not the only one who loves the idea of personal, handwritten letters, my friend Janice has made a nice business sending letters from Paris to people all over the world like myself, who love receiving them.

It's only $2 billion dollars standing between Saturday mail delivery and seeing it disappear. Can't the government fund that and build one less B2 bomber? Or two less drones? It just seems so correctable. More than that, it seems like something both parties should be able to agree on (pauses waiting for laughter to subside).

Besides, it would make me really happy. And since I'm an only child, I think we can all agree that's what really matters.

I have an idea I'm pretty sure would make the government take action to rescue the postal service. It's pretty simple really.

Just tell them Saturday delivery means tax forms arrive earlier.

Bobbleheads

I had a decision to make about what to call this post. It was either going to be Bobbleheads or Asshats. Either one would’ve been just as applicable, although I suppose the one I chose is more specific.

I was driving – and when I say driving I mean crawling – to work today on the 405 which, for those of you outside of L.A., is the world’s biggest parking lot. Kevin and Bean on KROQ were pretty funny this morning (especially on their phone call with “Justin Bieber”), so I was looking around at my fellow gridlock victims to see who else was laughing. What I saw was more than a few of them bouncing their heads up and down. And not because they were laughing.

It took me a second, but then it all made sense. They were texting or reading texts while they were trying to drive.

Alright. Asshats.

Suddenly the 405 was even more frightening than usual. While these human bobbleheads were busy with their smartphones (something something about phones smarter than the people using them), I saw more than a few of them narrowly avoid rear ending – and not in a good way – the car in front of them.

There needs to be some kind of “Idiot Behind The Wheel Texting” hotline where you can report these lamebrains. Of course, it would only be available to cars with Bluetooth and voice-dialing.

Or maybe a Megan’s Law kind of website where texting-while-driving offenders have their pictures posted, along with the messages they were texting when they ran into the car in front of them. Just to make sure they're really put to shame, their driver's license photos would also be posted.

Texting fines have to be jacked up. Like the carpool lane fines, their wallets need to hurt if they're caught. Or even better, a mandatory night in jail for being a threat to every car on the road ahead of them. That'll give 'em something to text about.

I don't like it any better, but at least the nose pickers keep their eyes on the road.

I didn't even know it was sick

It's not easy trying to eat healthy. Even though I maintain that bagels, cream cheese, chocolate and oatmeal cookies represent the four basic food groups, people say I have to try harder.

But what works against me on that is the protein portion of our program. Virtually every meat product in Lazy Acres or Whole Foods says "uncured" on the label.

Intellectually I know that's a good thing when it comes to meat. It means it's not loaded with sodium nitrates. Actually even if they were they aren't. The amount of nitrates to preserve meats is minimal - it's the idea of it that's so huge. (If only this weren't a family blog I could type the joke I'm thinking right now.)

And while we're on the idea of things, let's talk about the power of words. Specifically, the word "uncured." Don't like it. It conjures up images of cows or pigs at their least flattering - as opposed to the flattering pictures you usually see.

Plus, my taste isn't that refined when it comes to, let's say, bacon. All I know is the uncured meats go bad in a week, and the cured ones expire around the next appearance of Halley's comet.

I'll stick with the cured meats. I like knowing my refrigerator will go bad before the meat does.

Seeing red

There's good news and there's bad news.

The good news is that for the past week, and the next couple coming up, I'm working in Santa Monica. I lived here for almost 20 years, and the city feels like home to me. I can see the ocean from my office, the sunsets are stunning and I know the shortcuts when I need to get where I'm going.

The bad news is those shortcuts don't do jack for me at quittin' time.

See that red cross going from where the 10 freeway starts to where it intersects with the 405? That's what I have to navigate every night to get out of the west side, and then crawl the rest of the way home to Long Beach.

As I've said many times here, I grew up on the mean streets of west L.A., north of Wilshire. And I don't want to become one of those guys that starts a lot of sentences with "back then", but back then this was a precision driving town. People knew how to maneuver. They knew how to go with the flow.

Which is hard to do if the flow's not going.

It's also gotten a lot more crowded since I was a kid. I blame it on the Rose Parade.

Every January, at the same time the rest of the country is digging out from fifteen feet of snow, playing hopscotch over downed power lines and holding on to lamp posts so they don't blow away, they're also watching the Kiwanis Club float celebrating "Togetherness Through Diversity" and the Davis High School Marching Band on television, and seeing the clear, beautiful and often warm sunny January days we get to enjoy here.

So everyone watching sells their house and moves here. The majority of them from the east coast. The thing about the east coast is they actually have public transportation that works, so many times the car they're driving here is their first one.

Which is no news to you if you've ever been on the 405 at rush hour.

Remembering Paul

I’ve thought about this post even before my great friend Paul Decker died Tuesday. Truth be told, I’ve been thinking about it since Kitty – his wife, and the love of Paul’s life – sent me an email saying how ill Paul was.

I knew Paul only had one kidney, was down a gall bladder and had been a smoker far longer than he should’ve been. He’d had some health issues over the years. I immediately sent all the good thoughts and prayers I could their way. I offered to fly to Portland and help out for as long as needed, but Paul was too weak for visitors.

In my mind’s eye, this post was going to be a cohesive story about my longtime relationship with Paul, complete with a beginning, middle and sad, sad end. But as I sit here writing, hard as I try, I can’t seem to conjure up that kind of structure.

I’ve never been much for structure. Ask anyone I work with.

All that comes to me are mental snapshots, a highlight reel I know will fall short of giving a full picture of Paul because he was such an original. He was, as their friend Carla Clemen’s said in tribute, “one of God’s masterpieces.”

But incomplete as the memories may be, I’m going to share them. Because for me, any story involving Paul is inherently a great one.

Here are a few things I remember.

Paul spoke slowly. I’d often be in conversations with him where he’d pause to think about what he was going to say next, and then I’d start talking. And then he’d continue. Paul always thought before he spoke, making sure the words as well as the details conveyed exactly what he wanted. Not only was it refreshing, it was an education in how to listen as well as how to tell a story.

I met Paul at the first agency job I ever had, which was in the mailroom at Cunningham & Walsh. I remember they had built out a new studio and recording booth, and after work and on the occasional weekends Paul and I would go back there and do a radio show for our own amusement. I’d be talking about Bruce Springsteen (even then), and he’d be talking about baseball, asking me if I knew why Ted Williams was called “The Thumper.”

Since I mentioned Springsteen, I should also mention that at the time Paul couldn’t stand him. He thought he was a fake, a poser. I couldn’t convince him otherwise. I was never actually sure if he felt that way or if he was just having some fun with me because he knew I was such a hardcore fan. In fact, when Paul knew I couldn’t come to see Bruce in Portland last November, he decided to rub it in a little bit with this Facebook text:

The fact I was in the mailroom didn’t matter to Paul. He enjoyed people for who they were, not the position they held. And the fact this man, this writer, I admired so much treated me as an equal – which he continued to do after I became a copywriter – meant the world to me. Paul was the writer we all wanted to be. With a degree in English Literature from USC, he didn’t just make it up as he went. He knew what greatness looked and read like.

When Paul was going through his divorce, I was living in a two-bedroom apartment in Brentwood and my roommate had just moved out. Paul needed a place to stay, so I offered the extra bedroom and he moved in. I wish I could remember every conversation and story from back then, but sadly no.

I do remember at some point we decided we both could stand to be healthier, so every morning before work we’d walk about a mile and a half, stopping to have a donut at a place on San Vicente.

We saw the irony. We didn’t care.

One night during the time we were rooming together, I got into a horrendous car crash. I was thrown 20 ft. from the car, broke my arm and was knocked unconscious for over an hour. When I came to in Cedar’s ER, the person I had them call was Paul. He was the one who called my parents.

Paul gave me my first taste of real jazz. I remember one night he took me to the famous jazz club The Baked Potato in Studio City, where we saw the Dave Brubeck Trio. He explained – to the degree you can explain jazz – the music, the origin, the sound. He knew it all. At the end of the night, not only did I feel smarter, I felt more grown up.

While we’re on the subject of jazz, it should be noted that Paul and Kitty held their wedding at Harvelle’s, another legendary blues and jazz club in Santa Monica. I don’t ever remember seeing Paul happier than he was that day. If you know Kitty, you know there's no other way he could feel.

Always looking for ways to amuse himself, Paul came up with a game called Revenge. Basically it was where you’d challenge someone, and then you’d both run around in public with squirt guns filled with red water. Whoever shot the other person first won. That’s the explanation why I found myself chasing and being chased by Mal Sharpe all through Fox Hills Mall one night.

Just for the record, I lost. He snuck up behind me in front of a luggage store.

There was the legendary advertising brochure he did for Mammoth, Pervasive & Bland, a parody of large, dusty, non-creative, global shop that took pride in not using hackneyed phrases like “breakthrough” and “original”. The brochures became collector’s items in the biz because they only did a limited run. I’m proud to say I have one in mint condition.

Anyone who knew Paul well is also probably a customer of Modern Meats. I don’t think there’s anyone among us who didn’t look forward to the calendars, letters (suspiciously well written) and branded pens from Otto, president of Modern Meats. The note I wrote to Paul when I first found out he was ill was written with that very pen.

Here’s the truth of the matter: Paul isn’t gone when he dies. He’s gone when we die. It’d be impossible to have known him and not carry his spirit in your heart forever.

On the website where Kitty was posting updates about Paul, you have to log in with your I.D. and a password.

My password is ilovePaul.