The un-giving tree

Like many of you, I have a money tree in my backyard. Frankly, it makes things a lot easier. When the pile of bills gets higher than Amanda Bynes at Chateau Marmont, I can simply run out to the backyard, pick a few of the ripe Benjamins and take care of business.

Oh, huh, what...sorry, I'm always groggy when I wake up. I was dreaming about my money tree again. The problem is while I wish I had one, people who want money from me seem to think I actually do have one.

Like so much of life, timing is everything when it comes to the bills. In our house we have a system that looks great on paper, but clearly has its drawbacks.

There's a tray near the front door for the mail. All the mail for all four of us go into this tray. Then, when I get around to it, I separate my mail - which includes the bills - from everyone else's and put them in another tray in the dining room.

Here's the tricky part: sometimes (and by sometimes I mean always) bills get mixed in with other peoples mail in the first tray, and I don't discover them until after their due date. That due date also creeps up on the bills I've put in the second tray.

I really need to check that tray more often.

What usually happens is I forget about the bills, then start thinking, "Hey, look at all this money in my checking account." That thought right there? That's my cue to look at the bills.

The past due bills.

So I break out the checkbook and start paying the piper. But because I thought I had the money, I was spending the money. It runs out way before the bills do (due).

This is where the money tree comes in handy. Or would if I really had one.

What I need to do is provide a better role model for my children when it comes to managing money. I simply have to realize there's no money tree, and start organizing my bills in a more adult and responsible way to make sure there's enough money to get them all paid on time.

Right after I buy my lottery tickets.

The luckiest actor alive Part 2: Channing Tatum

Astonishing charisma. Gritty realism. Award-winning performances. Channing Tatum has none of these.

What he did have is what every other good looking kid from Alabama who spent weekends at the local movie house had: a Greyhound bus ticket and a dream.

Unfortunately his dream is every movie lover's nightmare.

Performance after endlessly dull performance, Tatum walks through movies, smiling and posing then calling it "acting." It's a bad imitation of the male stars he used to see in that dingy Alabama theater. It's also the way he thinks the character would act, if the character were a bored and boring individual getting by on his good looks alone. It's what I like to call "model acting." He knows how to walk around and look good. Worse, he thinks that's enough, just like it was when he modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch.

Every one has to start somewhere. But Ricky Martin's She Bangs video? Some people will do anything for $400.

You have to wonder who he has pictures of, or who he took pictures with. It's hard to figure out how the Hollywood fame lottery works. There are a million guys who look good and actually can act, but maybe they don't play the game as well as Tatum does.

It is amazing how many different types can be lucky in Hollywood. My last luckiest actor post was about Jonah Hill, who'll certainly never be mistaken for Channing Tatum. But at least, as he proved in Moneyball, has some acting talent besides being the funny fat guy.

He can also be the serious fat guy.

Tatum is quoted as saying, "I've been able to explore life, and through exploring it I've found that I love art, I love writing, I love acting, I love all the things that make sense to me."

I just wish it made sense to the rest of us.

A tip for restaurants

I enjoy going out to eat. Whether it's alone or with friends and family, it’s one of life’s little luxuries and I’m grateful I’m in a position to do it almost as often as I like.

I also happen to enjoy good service. It’s like great art: you know it when you see it. And when I’ve been on the receiving end of an attentive, prompt, knowledgeable, intelligent, humorous, caring, alert food server, I have no problem showing my appreciation by saying it with cash in the form of a generous tip.

What can I say. I’m a giver.

What I don’t need is a Gratuity Guideline on my check. Especially one that starts at 18%. If the service has been lousy, 18% is going to be an impossible dream for the server.

For me, this has exactly the opposite of the intended effect. Instead of being grateful for them doing the math for me, I resent the fact they want me to consider the tip at a certain starting amount, regardless of the quality of the service.

From what I can tell, most of the time the wait-staff is a little embarrassed by it as well.

If they’re going to give me guidelines on how much I should leave for a tip, I’d like to offer restaurants the following guidelines on how to run their business.

First, hire people who want to be there. Really nothing worse than a waiter or waitress who makes you feel like they’re doing you a favor by taking your order. Don't make me wait until the mood strikes you before you come over.

Make sure your staff knows the menu. Enough with “I’ll check with the kitchen.” They should know the menu as well as they know their next audition time. They should also know the ingredients in every item, if substitutions are allowed, and what the specials are.

Remember the reason we’re there is because we’re hungry. The fact their job description has the word “wait” in it shouldn’t be taken literally. Whether they’re bringing the food or an expediter is, it should arrive promptly and hot if it’s a cooked item.

Clear my table as you go. I hate trying to navigate the battlefield of used plates, glasses, soiled napkins and silverware. No I don't want to "hang on to my fork." When you bring some, take some away.

Find a balance. Don’t come by every two minutes asking if everything’s alright, but don’t disappear entirely either. Strike a balance between being a good server and annoying the crap out of me by asking me questions every few minutes while I’m trying to enjoy my meal. And when you ask, it'd be better to do it when I don't have a mouthful of food.

Do laundry. Whether you wear your own clothes on the job or the restaurant provides a uniform, make sure it looks clean and crisp. It not only reflects on you but, in the same way a clean car runs better, it makes the food taste better.

Don't bring the check in the middle of the meal. And don't say, "I'm just going to leave it here. Take your time." When you bring the check before I'm anywhere near done, what you're really saying is, "Here's your hat. What's your hurry?" The other thing the check says is you're done with me. And I don't want you to be done with me until I'm done with my meal.

Stop upselling me dessert. I know this comes right out of the manual and you're required to do it. But be the William Wallace (look it up) of the dessert tray and strike a blow for independent thinking. If we've had enough food to feed an army, and look like we're going to explode, don't ask about dessert. Just bring the check.

There's definitely more advice I could dish out, but that seems like a good start. Don't worry about tipping me for it.

It's on me.

Twelve chairs

From agency to agency, as a freelancer you have to adapt to all kinds of situations: tiny workspaces, unreliable wi-fi, uncovered parking, bad agency coffee. However those are much more easily overcome than what I think is the worst mountain you’ll have to climb – the communal writing table (or its equivalent, open cubicle seating).

I just returned to an agency gig after a three-month stint on the client side. While there, I had something I haven’t had in a very long time – no, not a 32” waistline – an actual office. With a door. That closed.

Not only was it a trip down memory lane, it was also extremely helpful in shutting out the world and the noise that comes with it. It was significantly easier to concentrate on my writing, or to make that extra special personal phone call to my doctor, banker or wife.

In one form or another, besides the few actual offices with doors reserved for upper management, almost every agency today has an open seating plan. I like to blame Chiat\Day and it’s phenomenal failure, the “virtual office” experiment almost 20 years ago.

The idea was run an office like a college campus. No one had any assigned personal space. You’d come in, see the “concierge” and check out a powerbook and cell phone. You were then free to work from anywhere you liked in the office. What this lead to was petty turf wars, people scurrying for private space and a high absentee rate since you could literally phone it in from anywhere.

The thought was all this togetherness would foster a more creative, collaborative environment and improve the quality of the work.

It did neither.

The other thought was that instead of building out spaces and moving walls to accommodate titles, it'd simply be cheaper to throw everyone into the mix and let them fend for themselves.

Chiat abandoned the experiment when they moved to their current Frank Gehry-designed space in Playa Del Rey. It's wide open, but at least (most) people have desks to call their own.

Whether it's open space or communal seating, it's like trying to work in the world’s largest Starbuck’s, where 200 baristas are yelling orders and names non-stop, and it all echos off the open-ceiling, exposed duct design. Or as I like to call it, Chiat-lite.

Maybe I’m just nostalgic for a time when effort was better spent doing the work instead of trying to block everything else out so you could focus on it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to throw these babies on and get back to it.

Danny

I don’t know if other industries are like this, but the ad community is a small one. Especially in L.A. Because of that, you wind up seeing a lot of the same faces at different agencies around town. Sometimes a good thing, sometimes not.

In the case of Danny Alegria, it was more than a good thing: it was a blessing.

Danny either worked in the studio or was the studio manager at three agencies I had the good fortune to work with him at: DBC, DDB and Y&R.

Ad agencies just love their initials don’t they?

Danny was always a bright light in what could be a dark environment. Being in the studio, he was ground zero for stressed out account and creative people throwing fits when it came to getting something they usually needed yesterday out the door to a client, or materials for a big presentation or new business pitches.

Regardless of the pressure and tantrums that came his way, he had a good word for everyone (something extremely difficult to do at agencies). And there was never a question about him getting what you needed done.

Even though I’d known him for years, I’d never really sat down and talked to him until one very slow day at Y&R about nine or ten years ago. We wound up sitting down and literally talking for over three hours. He told me about his time in the Navy, his background as a singer, his years as a jockey, exactly how horseracing worked (not the way you’d think or hope), his family and more.

I couldn’t believe this fascinating person had been steps away from me for years, and yet only now was I just discovering who he was and learning about him.

I had always loved horseracing. In fact, when I was in college I loved it a little too much, to the tune of rent money on occasion. Danny and I made an agreement we’d take a trip out to Santa Anita, and he’d give me the lowdown on the horses and be my betting Yoda.

Sadly, we never got to make that trip.

Danny was diagnosed with cancer. But like everything else in my experience with him, he handled it with grace, honesty and dignity.

He would post unflinchingly on Facebook about how he was doing - the progress of both the treatment and the disease.

As to be expected with cancer as widespread as his had become, there were good days and bad days. But even on the bad days, the really bad ones, there would be a thread of optimism.

On one of his good days, he invited me to come see him give what he knew would be his last singing performance. I wouldn't have missed it. Not only did I get to see Danny perform, I got to see a lot of long, lost friends from agencies past we'd worked with over the years, who were also out in force to show support for him, and his talent that we didn't get to see nearly enough.

Danny was in great form that day, but it tired him out. It was easy to see the toll his cancer was taking.

I would text back and forth with him. I told him I'd come out to where he lived in Riverside and take him to lunch, or if he wasn't up to going out, bring it to him and we'd eat at his place and talk about the race track. I believe he was confined to his bed at that point, but even so he just told me he wasn't feeling well, but as soon as he rallied we'd do it.

Shortly after that conversation, on July 10, 2012, Danny died at the age of 60.

For me, it's certainly a personal loss, as I know it is for his family. But it's bigger than that: it's a global one. The world simply can't afford to lose people as decent, caring and loving as Danny always was to not just his family and friends, but everyone he encountered.

His Facebook page is still active, and every now and then I find myself re-reading some of the posts he put up as he was going through his ordeal. They are honest, inspiring, funny, heartbreaking and hopeful. I'm also friends with his daughter on there, and though I've never met her in person I feel as though we have a strong connection.

She is funny, bright and optimistic. Just like her old man.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about Danny and the meal together I was so looking forward to.

It's comforting knowing he's finally resting in well-deserved peace.

And that he's making heaven a much more rockin' place.

Dig it

There are some days when I think to myself I could be putting my time to better use. Like the ones when I’m just vegging out on the couch, watching Source Code for the thousandth time on cable and doing my impression of a vacuum cleaner slamming Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies down my throat.

But then I think at least I’m not out digging a hole looking for Jimmy Hoffa.

I don’t actually think that, but I could.

Once again, the FBI has a tip about where the body of the former union leader may be buried in Detroit. And once again, they’re breaking out the backhoes, shovels and forensic kits and going looking for him.

I think we know how this expedition ends.

This time it’s thanks to a tip from a former mob underboss named Tony Zerilli. He was the second in command of the Detroit mafia when Hoffa disappeared. While he doesn’t have direct involvement in the crime since he was in jail the day Hoffa disappeared, he alleges he found out the location of his body once he got out of prison.

By the way, Zerilli is 85-years old now. I'm not in the FBI, but if I were I'd have a lot of questions about how reliable his memory is.

The other question is who gains and who loses in the search? The FBI does both. Their inability to solve the Hoffa matter has been an embarrassment to them for over forty years - that’s why they keep trying. If they find his remains, their perseverance and skills are rewarded. If it turns out to be like Geraldo and The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vaults, they lose. Again.

At this point, no one else besides them and whoever is left in Hoffa's family really cares. The chances are just as good Hoffa was tossed in an incinerator and there’s not even a body to find.

Still, it makes for good folklore and so-so movies with Jack Nicolson.

Father's Day 2013

I don't usually re-post on here, but today's my day and one of the perks is that I don't have to write a new post if I don't want to. Especially when this one will do just fine.

I think you dads know what I'm talkin' about..

Since today is Father's Day, I thought I'd take a minute to pay tribute to the great dads of our time. No, not the real ones, the tv ones.

It occurred to me as I was looking for these pictures that the fictional dads are as varied as the real-life ones are.

The difference is that they make great decisions almost all the time. And even when they don't, they get to resolve the situation properly in a half hour or an hour.

Sometimes they're just as much a mystery as the real ones are. For example when they appear to us after they've died and we've crashed on an island. As they so often will.

And sometimes, the people you think are least equipped to be a dad turn out to be great ones.

I used to joke that ninety percent of the job was just showing up. But two teenagers later - while it's still a big part of it - I've learned the percentage is way off.

To all the real world dads, who need more than thirty or sixty minutes to make things right, who are there for their kids at breakfast, after school, after dinner and in the middle of the night, doing their best day in and day out to provide everything and more for their kids, Happy Father's Day.