Encore post: Are you the gatekeeper

Back in the day, before I was a gainfully employed creative director for the industry's leading cybersecurity company, I was a freelance copywriter doing what all freelancers do.

Dialing for dollars, networking and making nice with the gatekeepers.

Since I've been client side for over three years, I haven't had to do any of that. But if I'm being honest with myself, which happens less often than Haley's comet, I have to admit I miss those freelance days. The energy and excitement of being a hired gun and seeing what I can bring to the party.

Usually it was comic relief, but still.

The one part I don't miss about freelancing is dealing with the gatekeepers - the bad ones anyway. Here's a little piece I wrote about them over seven years ago. I imagine in the post pandemic, politically divided, budget tightened world the experience is pretty much the same if not worse.

Just know freelancers that I'm with you in spirit if not in the trenches. And no, I don't have anything available right now but keep checking back.

Please to enjoy.

Once upon a time, when it came to getting into an agency, whether for a full time position or freelance, hopeful creative people sent their books (portfolio of their work in layman's terms) or promo piece (remember promo pieces?) to the creative director. That's because in a kindler, gentler industry, creative directors usually carved out some time - an hour or so a week - to go through books that'd been submitted.

They returned the ones they didn't want with a nice, brief thanks-but-no-thanks note. They called in the owners of the ones they liked for an interview or a meet-and-greet.

They were obviously the most qualified people to do this for a few reasons. For starters, they were creative people themselves. They understood what goes into coming up with an ad, the obstacles encountered in shaping and crafting it to make it great and the hurdles involved in getting it presented and produced. They spoke the language.

They were the first stop on the job tour.

Fast forward to today, where they're the last.

In today's fully-integrated agencies, with their manifestos on their websites, granola in the kitchen next to the Starbucks Via envelopes and planners offering their "insights," there's a position called Creative Resources Director. Or Creative Services Coordinator. Or Talent Relations Supervisor. Or Creative Concierge. However, that's not what they're called by the actual talent.

They're called gatekeepers.

These are the people who make or break you by getting you - or not - into the agency, and getting your work in front of the creative director.

Gatekeepers usually have the full trust and endorsement of the creative directors, even though most of them have never actually worked as a creative in a creative department. Yet there they are, judging on some criteria only they know which books get through and which don't. I imagine it's a carefully worked out formula of quality of work, reputation, freelance budget and have I had my coffee yet.

Gatekeepers, like creative directors (and freelancers), come in all flavors. There are absolutely great ones out there (like the ones at all the agencies where I work - you know who you are, and thank you). These are the ones that return your email, maintain a friendly attitude, negotiate a rate you're both happy with when they bring you in and let you down easy when they don't.

They keep the lines of communication open, and make it clear it's alright to check in every now and then to see what's going on.

Then there are the other kind of gatekeepers. They're what I like to call the meter maids of gatekeeping. They have a uniform so they think they're real policemen. But they're not.

Every creative person has or will run into one of these. They almost go out of their way not to have a relationship with the very people they will at some point want to work for them. They will never answer any emails, yet they will fully expect you to negotiate your day rate to the basement for them when they call you in two hours before they need you. They'll make sure you know how lucky you are they even considered you.

They'll check your availability, and then they'll never check back with you.

In the same way creative people establish reputations around town, so do the gatekeepers. It's well known in the freelance community who the great ones are, just like it's known who the um, less-than-great ones are. Like the French resistance, there actually is a freelance underground where the community has its ways of sharing their gatekeeper experiences with each other. It's a way of looking out for each other even if everyone's competing for the same jobs.

At the end of the day, gatekeepers are something you accept and work with. If they're the good ones - and I can't say this enough, like all the ones I work with - it's always a pleasure dealing with them. If they're the bad ones, you find the grace to muddle through while holding your ground.

By the way, if you happen to be a gatekeeper and you're reading this, you know the meter maid crack wasn't about you, right?

Cold truth

There are a lot of things I’ve forgotten as I’ve gotten older, not to mention a few I’d like to forget.

Like that spontaneous date I went on with a very attractive temp receptionist I met at an agency I was working at that shall go unnamed. Wells Rich Greene.

Because I thought it’d be an impressive thing to do, we drove the ninety-five miles from L.A. to Santa Barbara for dinner and back. Had I put a little more thought into it, I would've realized just how long a drive that is after a hard day's work, not to mention a whole lot of conversation to fill with someone you don’t know. And the Chart House in Malibu would've worked just as well and had me home a lot earlier.

Live and learn.

I might be getting off topic here. We were on things I’ve forgotten.

One of them is how to be sick.

Last week, for the first time in over two years, I got sick. Really sick. It wasn’t covid, although at first I wasn’t sure. My symptoms — runny nose, sneezing, coughing, aching, mild difficulty catching my breath — were right in line with the dreaded 'rona virus. But come to find out the months and months of masking, keeping my distance from people, tons of hand sanitizer and washing my hands more obsessively than Howard Hughes paid off. After home testing every day for the last five days, I had what I like to call a case of novid.

It wasn’t that nasty flu going around either. Although some symptoms were similar, the telltale flu fever never arrived. It was some killer cold/respiratory/bronchial thing that saw me and decided since my immune system hadn’t had a real workout in a couple years I was an easy target.

Anyway, not being able to focus on much more than breathing and trying to score two-point shots lobbing used Kleenex from my bed to the trash can, I did something I haven’t done in years: I called in sick.

Calling in sick when you’re working a 100% remote is a different experience. In the before days when I had to commute to an office, calling in sick meant sweet relief from having to get ready, fight traffic and slog through the day.

Now it meant I didn’t have to walk from my bed to my desk.

Speaking of getting older, here’s another thing I noticed: I don’t bounce back as quick as I used to. Colds, even bad ones, were always a 24 or 48 hour ordeal tops. As I’m writing this, I’m on my seventh day of it, although it does seem to be easing up.

In between watching The Social Network twice a day on HBO and the third season of Dead To Me and Neal Brennan's comedy special Blocks on Netflix, besides what being sick is like I remembered another thing I'd forgotten.

Business goes on without me.

And it’ll all be there when I get back.

Cameo appearance

Here’s the dilemma I find myself in every October.

It just so happens the wife’s birthday and our wedding anniversary fall four short shopping days apart. And as I’ve been reminded many times, under no circumstances will one gift stretch across those four days to cover both occasions.

So because I love my bride as much as I do, and don't want to get docked marriage points, I spend a great deal of time and careful thought deciding what would be the perfect presents to get her. Usually they’re very specific gifts for each event. However this year, I had an idea for a gift for both that would be the same, but different.

”Mom! Dad’s talking in riddles again!” Fine. I’ll explain.

Because I know you commit each and every fabulous post on here to memory, you may reacall reading about the wife and I recently bingeing The Sopranos twice in a row, back to back. And besides the headliners, she has a couple characters she really likes.

One is Johnny “Sack” Sacrimoni, underboss of the Lupertazzi crime family, elegantly played by Vincent Curatola.

The other is Ralphie Cifaretto, member of the DiMeo crime family, viciously played by Joey “Pants” Pantoliano.

Because the wife and I had gone hard down The Sopranos rabbit hole, watching all the YouTube clips, listening to all the episodes of the Talking Sopranos podcast, reading all of creator David Chase’s interviews about that remarkably unsatisfying series ending, I thought a Sopranos-related gift would be in order.

Thanks to my son, young Mr. Spielberg, I'd been the recipient of a Cameo.com video for one my birthdays a while back. For those of you unfamiliar with Cameo, it’s a site where, for a fee, the actors, comedians, musicians, politicians and more celebrities ranging from A to D list will make a short video to give as a gift for whatever occasion you choose. If you're willing to pony up more, they'll even do a live call with you.

I decided to see who was available from The Sopranos, and come to find out Vince and Joey Pants were both on Cameo. I gave them each a short write up about my wife, told them what the occasion was and generally what I'd like them to say.

A hit list if you will. See what I did there?

Cameo says to give the talent five to seven days to get a video back to you, but both Vincent and Joey had the videos back to me within a couple hours. And both gentlemen were generous with their time and messages, going more than four times the average video length.

Needless to say, the wife was thrilled and surprised and loved both videos.

So if you're looking for a gift that's a little more personal and off the beaten path, I highly recommend perusing Cameo and checking it out. With celebrities ranginng from Snoop Dogg to Kevin Pollak to Richard Schiff to Paula Poundstone to NOT Tom Cruise, there's something for just about everyone.

And should your tastes run a little more to the marketing side, and you're willing to pay for a creative director/copywriter to record a short video for a loved one, I'm pretty sure that can be arranged too.

Goodbye Amy

I used to call them the six o’clock check ins.

Over the course of two years of doing fabulous, high-caliber, groundbreaking, printer-selling work at Epson America (and no, I don’t get my printer discount anymore so don't ask), my boss Amy Weitzman would more than occasionally check in with me to see what was going on. I didn’t mind the check ins—that’s what bosses do. What I wasn’t too crazy about was that they always happened just before six o’clock in the evening, my clocking out time.

They always wound up being fun calls. Since my very first telephone interview with her, Amy and I just had a connection, we hit it off immediately. Both of us were each others safe place, able to talk freely about anything. Over my two years of knowing and working for her, our conversations were open, laugh-filled, and completely honest about whatever the topic was: the company, the work we were doing, the many different personalities (including that one guy who was a monumental asshole), politics, life in general.

For all my griping about her after work hours calls, how I wish I could be on one of them with her now.

Amy passed away on October 17, 2022, her 50th birthday, from glioblastoma—a mercilessly aggressive form of brain cancer.

When she went on medical leave about 13 months ago, I instinctively knew it was bad. Amy was an incredible worker who literally didn't know when to quit. She'd be up all hours of the night and on weekends, thinking of ways she could make things better. I used to tell her that's what she had a department for and to take a weekend off and enjoy time with her husband Keith. She agreed she should, but rarely did.

I called her and asked what was going on. She told me she’d been diagnosed with a brain tumor and was going to have surgery to remove it. Her doctors were hopeful.

I’m not going to go into a lot of details here, because they don’t seem to matter much right now. In my talks with Amy over the last year, up until she wasn't able to talk anymore, she confessed her fears about dying. She had so much to do, and she felt it was so very unfair. Of course she was right.

She also told me often how much she loved and appreciated her husband Keith, who was her sole caretaker for most of the past year. She was funny, was able to joke about her cancer, and able to be hopeful through much of it. She had told me there was a woman in her cancer group who'd also had glioblastoma, and was twelve years past it.

Miracles do happen.

Unfortunately hers didn't happen fast enough.

As you'd imagine, the expenses that come with caring for someone with a terminal disease are enormous. And even though Amy is gone, those bills continue to roll in for Keith to navigate as he mourns the loss of the love of his ife.

If you're so inclined, there's a Go Fund Me set up to give some small relief to his devastatiing loss. I know he'd be more than appreciative.

On our check ins, and often during the work day, Amy would patiently listen to me complain (I know, so out of character) about issues I was having at work, and she'd unfailingly and fearlessly go to bat for me. Her department was her people, and she felt a responsibility to take care of us.

Amy was an artist, a dog mom, a wife, a boss and my friend. She was the kind of strong, opinionated, open, spirited person that immediately lights a room and makes you feel comfortable and part of her circle. In her case, the saying is absolutely true: while the world's a sadder place now that she's gone, it's a better place for her having been here.

Thank you for everything Amy. You'll always be in my heart. I'm glad the suffering is over.

And for crying out loud, enjoy the time off will ya? You've more than earned it.

Rest in peace.

Coming attractions

With everything going on in the world, you may not have noticed this hasn't been what anyone would call a productive year blogpost wise for me. I suppose one could speculate on the reasons for that.

You might chalk it up to pandemic malaise.

Or being too exhausted and thought out after spending my day writing for a leading cybersecurity company.

Maybe it was the sense a lot of ground I was going to cover had been covered. I mean how many posts about Springsteen, Breaking Bad and ad agency idiocy can one person read, let alone write.

It might've been that with incredibly entertaining, thoughful, hilarious, well-written blogs like Rich Siegel's Round Seventeen, and Jeff Eaker's Kingdom of Failure readily available on the interwebs, I didn't feel the need to keep throwing my URL in the ring.

But I finally figured out the reason. And it was right there in front of me the whole time.

As Will Patton said to Griffin Dunne in After Hours— "lack of discipline."

Not saying it was a total lack of discipline. Problem was it was the exact same amount I apply to my new year's resolutions to diet, exercise, get through my ever rising tower of unread books, clean the garage and, did I mention my diet?

You see where I'm going.

But like disco and eating at Five Guys, that's all behind me now.

I've gotten my second wind, and here at Rotation and Balance headquarters we're going to be ramping up the line.

Normally I don't like to tip my hand, show my cards, spill the beans or whatever the fuck that saying is. But because you may recall I've made this promise once or twice before here, I wanted to give you a little sneak preview of the topics that will be coming up in the next couple weeks for your reading and time-wasting pleasure.

There will be a fine piece on how I recently came out to my car one morning only to find out it'd been broken into and ransacked.

I'll have a little rant about LAX and all the joy that implies.

You can look forward to reading what a monumental prick Matthew Perry is (could he be any more of an asshole?).

There'll be a tribute to my friend and former boss Amy who passed away recently (#fuckcancer).

And, just in time for the holiday season, I'll have my musings on my experience giving the wife not one, but two Cameo videos from some of her favorite actors.

Those are just a few on the list, but there are many more to come.

So like shoulder pads, floral wallpaper and patchwork denim, I'm back.

Besides, if I'm writing I won't be eating. So there's hope for that diet resolution yet.

Back-to-back Tonys

I’ve often said my wife has a criminal mind. She’s demonstrated that many, many times in the course of our long, solid, loving, wonderful marriage (Ding! Ding! Ding! Marriage points!).

In the traditions we’ve come to cherish as a couple, one we always look forward to every couple of years is our binge of The Sopranos. Romantic, amIrite?

We recently finished this year’s viewing, but here’s where things took a turn. The minute we saw the very last scene in the final, controversial episode, she turned to me and said, “Meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me, and being married to you makes me the luckiest girl in the world!”

Nah, I’m just funnin’ ya. She said let’s watch it again. The wife wanted to watch The Sopranos start to finish again after we’d just watched it start to finish.

What’reyougonnado?

So back to the beginning we went. This time, she took a deep dive, listening to the Talking Sopranos podcast with Michael Imperioli, who played Christopher Moltesanti, and Steven Schirripa who played Bobby Baccalieri.

This allowed her to give me the play-by-play and behind-the-scenes inside story to each episode we rewatched, while we were watching it.

And who doesn't love someone telling a story and talking over the tv when you're trying to watch one of your favorite shows.

Now, as you may know if you’ve followed this blog for any amount of time — and if you have, you might want to reconsider your priorities in life — I’ve binged Breaking Bad a crazy number of times (16). But Breaking Bad is a solo binge for me, because the wife finds that show too dark.

However, she has no problem at all with the plethora of inventive murders, strangulations, cursing, dismembering, horse-burning (we still miss you Pie-O-My), car crashes, strippers, raw sex, nudity and drug addiction portrayed on The Sopranos.

Now that I think about it, that either makes me the luckiest guy in the world, or someone who needs to sleep with one eye open.

An encore post for Labor Day: Dig it

I thought I'd wish you all a happy Labor Day this year with an encore post from nine years ago about the late labor leader Jimmy Hoffa. As you probably already know, Jimmy Hoffa disappeared mysteriously and has never been found. There's been much speculation he's either in various pieces in different states, or wearing cement shoes at the bottom of a lake.

Or as Tony Soprano would say, "He's in 'witness protection'".

Anyway, thank you to the work force that with dedication and determination keeps this country running year in and year out. It seems like there should be more than one day to celebrate their efforts.

Whatever you're doing today, take a moment to thank them, even if quietly to yourself.

Happy Labor Day. Please to enjoy.

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.