Sirius negotiations

I've written before about how E Street Radio is the one reason satellite radio brings me so much joy. Frankly, the ability to listen to my favorite artist all the time is my personal runaway American dream.

So after my Lexus became a wreck on the highway, totaled last July, I had to find a car to replace it. I looked at a sixty-nine Chevy with a 396, Fuelie heads and a Hurst on the floor, but what I wound up with was the exact same Lexus I'd had, only a couple years newer.

Imagine how happy I was to learn my new, replacement pre-owned Lexus came with 3 months of complimentary Sirius Satellite Radio. I figured I'd enjoy E Street Radio 24/7 for that time, then when the offer ended I'd be back to Roy Orbison singing for the lonely.

But then something miraculous happened: the dealer selling me my new Lexus, after a little Tanqueray and wine, disclosed a very useful piece of information. He said, "No matter what Sirius wants you to pay, they'll negotiate it down to $10 a month or less." Good to know.

As the 3-month-end-of-Bruce deadline approached, I started getting mailers from Sirius almost daily about keeping my subscription going. The problem was to continue the same all-channel access complimentary plan I had, they wanted around $25 a month.

So I let the plan lapse. And then they called me.

I won't bore you with all the back and forth, but there was a lot of it. They kept trying to give me a plan that was more money and less channels than I wanted. Eventually the offshore operator asked me "How much do you want to pay?" I said my budget was $60 for six months. Total. All of it.

After putting me on hold, she checked with her supervisor, who said she'd like to see me. I said if she wants to see me, you can tell her that I'm easily found. But I guess she decided it wasn't necessary. The operator took a second shot offering me a bad deal, checked with her supervisor again, then gave me the all-channel access plan with Nav Traffic, weather and sports for only $157 for six months. But they credited me $97.

I'd say do the math but I've done it for you: I got what I wanted for the price I wanted - everything for $10 a month. So now, when I'm out in the street, I get to roll down the window, let the wind blow back my hair and listen to the music I love.

Since I now have the luxury of time on my side, I've actually explored a few other channels. I like Stern in small does. The comedy channels are pretty fun, except I've learned the hard way not to listen to them with the kids in the car. The Real Jazz station is unbelievably great. And, I'm just going to say it because my macho self-esteem is not threatened, the On Broadway channel is fun every now and again. But those are just distractions for a few minutes. I always come home to channel 20 - E Street.

I found that by taking a hard line with Sirius, and being willing to walk away from it all I wound up with exactly what I wanted.

When it comes to satellite radio negotiations, it's a town full of losers and I'm pulling out of here to win.

Failing the test

I love my mom. I love my dad. I think sons are the best thing ever. I think daughters are the best thing ever. I think cancer sucks. I'm a great friend. I support the walk. I think dogs have many better qualities than most humans. I think it's a good idea to donate blood.

But I also think I don't have to prove it to you.

Of all the annoying posts on Facebook - and there is no shortage of them - the ones that make me wish my eyes could roll further back are the ones asking me to re-post if I agree.

They're under the guise of a good cause, but the last line is always something aggressively patronizing and challenging like "I know many of my friends won't repost this, but I want to see who will...."

Screw you. Re-post if you agree.

Life is demanding enough without having to prove to you I agree with your cause. And if you think I don't agree with it because I'm not posting, I'm more than fine with that. I've lived through worse.

Plus if you feel you have to "test" me to see if I'll do what you want me to, we're probably not as close friends as you think we are.

Sorry, but you'll just have to trust that I'm a good person, and as a rule love my family and don't wish crippling diseases on anybody.

Besides, if you'd stop testing me to see if I'll re-post, you'd have more time to post things that are actually meaningful.

Like that sunset shot. Or what you had for breakfast.

Well-placed blame

My good friend Michelle Purcell once said you can never underestimate the power of well-placed blame. As usual, she was right.

Clearly this is something all ad agencies, or marketing communication collectives, or integrated media-agnostic think tanks, or whatever the hell they're calling themselves this week have a deep understanding of.

At agencies, blame gets passed around faster than a Kennedy driving to the liquor store at closing time.

Or to paraphrase Groucho's "whatever it is I'm against it", the internal battle cry is "whatever it is, I didn't do it."

The reason is pretty obvious. If you've ever been fired from an agency, all it means is that you showed up. But agencies, especially the ones owned by holding companies (is there any other kind?), run on fear and no one likes getting fired, especially for a mistake they made.

Like underestimating the client's budget by $12 million.

Scheduling a shoot on a Vancouver beach in winter.

Telling the client you can get it done without checking with anybody if what they're asking for can be done. Then not getting it done.

Rather than man up and face the music, walk into an agency and you'll see so much finger pointing it looks like a master class in giving directions. Ironically for a business that believes consumers have to have an emotional attachment to their product, many of the players have no personal attachment to their decisions or actions. At least if they backfire.

However if they succeed, then the ground shifts from the blame game to the taking credit game. That's the one where anyone who was in the building and passed a meeting in the conference room where they were presenting a successful campaign takes credit for it.

Agencies don't have a monopoly on either behavior. Anytime you have an office with the kind of politics, ego and ambition found in agencies, the same primal survival instincts kick in.

I don't mean to paint in broad strokes - this is not to say you can't find responsible people with a finely honed sense of integrity, grit, decency and honor in agencies. You can.

But if you can't, don't blame me.

Sustain this

When I was growing up - a process many who know me would say I have yet to accomplish - I remember in history class or social studies when we'd talk about the then Soviet Union. We'd laugh as only ugly Americans can at the plight of those people who, having yet to experience perestroika or come to their capitalist senses, were still living under a harsh communist regime.

One example of their state of despair that we talked about always, pardon the pun, stuck with me. It was their toilet paper. The teacher would make the observation that in communist countries, the toilet paper was always brown and had the silky smooth texture of sandpaper.

Clearly Mr. Whipple was not a communist.

I've never forgotten that image of square, brown sheets of paper. In fact, I couldn't even if I wanted to. I'm reminded of it every time I go into a restaurant where they use napkins made from recycled paper.

Absence of color me old-fashioned, but I miss the soft white napkins these environmentally correct ones have replaced. They brought an elegance to the dining establishment, even if the main course was burgers and fries.

And really, are we running out of trees to make paper? Trees are one of our most renewable and sustainable resources. While we may not be growing them as fast as we're cutting them down, are we really at the point we have to recycle paper that's been wiped across someone else's mouth?

The solution seems relatively clear - plant more trees, and make the ones we have now last a little longer.

Yeah, I know it takes electricity to run the mills, but the sandpaper napkins aren't making themselves either. Track it down and you'll find a brown plug somewhere.

Besides, when a restaurant like, for example California Pizza Kitchen, decides to trade down to recycled napkins, they may be making themselves feel good about their environmental efforts but they're also cheapening the currency when it comes to their brand. You can bet customers aren't hurling compliments at them for their proactive stance on the napkin issue. No one cares. The damage to the brand isn't worth the trade-off.

I have no doubt I'll be hearing from all my Earth Day-lovin', environmentally leanin', recycling supportin' friends about how wrong my position is and how I'm advocating wastefulness.

If it's any consolation, I love the Dyson Air dryers in the men's room.

Winning

I don't know whether I have good luck or bad luck. As a rule, I feel like I'm pretty lucky in life. Things seem to go more or less my way when I need them to, and I never seem to want for too much. God knows I'm not going hungry.

Still, I do have my own wing at the Venetian in Vegas, so good luck clearly isn't always riding shotgun.

But every once in awhile, Lady Luck doesn't have a date for the night and decides to plant a big wet one on me.

For example, the reason I joke so much about becoming a lotto winner as a profession is because I've actually been one. Back when the state lottery was first introduced - when they only had scratcher tickets - on the third day they were out I won $5000 with a ticket similar to the one above. My wife-to-be was with me when I bought a ticket in the little market between the towers at Santa Monica Shores, where I lived at the time. After I'd scratched off two $5000 squares, I remember turning to her and saying "How funny would it be if there were a third one under here?"

Which to our unbridled surprise there was.

My feeling was since it was the introduction, they top-loaded the scratcher tickets with winning ones. Fine by me. I wound up using the money to buy my 1986 Toyota Supra (the first half of the year model, before they ruined it by rounding out all the edges).

Years ago on channel 9 in L.A. there was a local show called The Dick Curtis Show, which everyone always confused with The Lloyd Thaxton Show (feel free to look up both of them). Anyway, the show aired live, and one afternoon they had one of those "...and the fourth caller wins a months supply of frozen pizza!"

Guess who was the fourth caller?

I remember they sent a certificate for ten frozen pizzas, which we had to pick up from the market. It was as exciting as it was challenging, because we didn't have a freezer nearly big enough for ten frozen pizzas. But we had hungry neighbors and I'm a giver, so we made it work.

Just this past week, I won something I desperately needed: a luxury car wash. I take my car to Rossmoor Car Wash in Los Alamitos for two reasons. They do a great job, and it's owned by good friends of mine. Which is why I thought winning their Facebook question of the week contest was a total fix.

Come to find out they had nothing to do with it. It's entirely overseen by their manager, who also selects the names randomly from what I can only assume is an empty carnuba wax container.

So I claimed my prize yesterday. Just my luck, as I was driving home it started to drizzle.

Oh well. Can't win 'em all.

'Twas The Night Before Christmas - Revision 5

‘Twas the night before Christmas in the agency halls
Not a planner was stirring, there were no client calls
The glasses were hung by the conference room with care
In hopes the Christmas party would soon begin there

Creative directors nestled with campaigns that were dead
While visions of One Show Awards danced in their head
They’d talk of production and work they had done
It was true this year’s party would be nothing but fun

When out in the lobby there rose such a clatter
I sprang from the status meeting to see what was the matter
Was it the new intern wearing an Urban Outfitters jacket
What could possibly be making all of that racket

With a little old driver, so lively and quick
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came
And he whistled and shouted and called them by name

Now Dasher! Now Dancer! Now Prancer and Vixen!
Let’s go in the kitchen and see what they’re fixen!
To the corner office and just down the hall
They found trays of hors de oeuvres and ate them all!

The staff would look forward to the holiday bonus
Saying "as hard as we’ve worked of course they would owe us"
The general manager spoke, it was quite a summit
He told us all how profits had started to plummet

Cutbacks, downsizing, raise-freezes, client losses
He would if he could, but not so the bosses
He charted the bonus with marker not chalk
He wrote on the white board “That’s just crazy talk.”

They showed the work that’d been done all through the year
But with no bonuses the staff was not of good cheer
Sure there was music and dancing for those who were able
Even some shenanigans on the conference room table

Soon it was over, soon it was gone
All the carrying they’d planned had been carried on
The party was finished, the tinsel unhung
The songs they were singing had all been sung

After bad luck like this, what else could they add
It was Christmas, and really, things weren’t that bad
Until he exclaimed as his limo drove out of sight
Happy pink slip to all, and to all a good night!

Heaving her Christmas cookies

I can hear the season laughing at me, and it sounds like Ho Ho Ho.

Until now, this Christmas seemed to be shaping up nicely. It wasn't nearly as hectic as ones in the past. The lights were up in time. We found everything we wanted shopping wise. And it all managed to get here in time.

We still haven't gotten Christmas cards out, but the bright side is now they'll turn into New Year's cards. Yet another Christmas miracle.

We were going to have family over to our house on Christmas Eve, then visit more family on Christmas day. It was shaping up to be a Christmas full of fun, merriment, egg nog and family. And lots of bourbon in the egg nog.

That was right up until my daughter, through no fault of her own, started heaving her own cookies when we got home today.

She'd been complaining of a bad tummy all day, but she has that every once in awhile and it usually passes and then we move on to more important things- like what's for dessert.

She was a trooper today in spite of feeling bad. I took her to our dentist in Santa Monica and had her teeth cleaned (something she might be needing again). We had lunch at The Counter, although she really didn't have much appetite.

But once we were home, she asked for the bucket and started spreading a little Christmas cheer of her own into it. Very thankful her aim is true.

So it looks like our Christmas plans are in a holding pattern until we see if she's feeling better.

But as Christmas' go, sitting on the couch with my girly next to me, looking at our beautiful tree and watching tired Christmas movies isn't a bad deal.

The bad deal is having to empty the bucket.