I can't wait for the movie

So it’s a book review. I don’t do them often, but sometimes—like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction—a book comes along that simply will not be ignored.

Like most ads, this book review comes with a disclaimer. I’ve been friends with the author for somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty years, and I may have had a hand in editing this book.

And by the way, it’s a finely edited book.

The book I’m talking about is Stones & Sticks by Cameron Day. It’s the thrilling conclusion to the advertising trilogy, along with Chew With Your Mind Open and Spittin' Chiclets, that we didn’t know we needed but now can’t live without.

In Stones & Sticks, Cameron, who has clearly earned every gray hair on his LinkedIn profile, delivers a masterclass on what it’s like to sit atop the creative food chain.

Spoiler alert: it’s not all cappuccinos and Cannes Lions.

This isn’t just a book—it’s a survival guide for anyone who’s made it to the big chair with “Creative” in the title, and discovered that it comes with less creating and more fending off crises.

From managing tantrum-prone copywriters and art directors to explaining why your budget really needs those extra drone shots, Cameron walks us through his journey in the high-stakes chaos of wielding ultimate responsibility with wit, wisdom, and just the right amount of jaded sarcasm.

Added bonus—if you’re looking for a fun drinking game, take a shot every time he drops an f-bomb.

The writing is sharp, as if every sentence were honed during a midnight brainstorm fueled by stale donuts and cold pizza, two items that are somehow always available at agencies. Yet beneath the humor lies a treasure trove of practical advice only someone who’s been through the advertising wars with a view from the top could offer. The anecdotes about managing clients who think “just make it pop” is a strategy will leave you laughing and crying—sometimes simultaneously.

What makes Stones & Sticks truly stand out is its brutal honesty. Cameron doesn’t shy away from the burnout, the compromises, or the sheer number of acronyms you’ll pretend to understand during boardroom presentations.

But it also reminds us why we fell in love with advertising in the first place: the thrill of turning a half-baked idea into something iconic.

By the time you close the book, which if you’re like me you’ll wind up doing in one reading, you’ll feel both inspired and slightly terrified—a perfect encapsulation of what it means to be a Creative Director or Executive CD.

Whether you’re an intern dreaming of greatness, or a grizzled vet wondering if it’s too late to start a llama farm, this is the book you need.

If it were a campaign, it’d win gold at the One Show. And the client might even approve the first draft.

Leaving Las Vegas

You can’t go back.

Last week I found myself at a Global Marketing Summit for the cybersecurity company I work for. It was four glorious days and three nights of seminars, eating, lectures, eating, planning, eating, socializing with colleagues, and, say it with me, eating.

There also happened to be craps and blackjack involved, because the summit was held in this little desert rat-trap town that Bugsy Siegel started, Meyer Lansky financed, the Rat Pack sang in and Moe Green—who doesn’t have so much as a plaque—died in: Las Vegas.

As some of my loyal readers will recall (trying to stop laughing at the thought I have “loyal readers”), I’ve written here in the past about how much I used to love Vegas. “Used to” being the operative phrase.

For a lot of years, I’d go four and five times a year to visit the money I’d left behind and see how the Jeff wing of the Venetian was coming along. There was nothing like the adrenaline rush and excitement I used to feel once I landed and was on the way to my hotel. This time, my first Vegas trip in about eight years, that rush was replaced by sadness.

The Vegas strip still photographs well, but if you look closer you see the town, with its out of control development, sad faux showgirls hawking pictures of themselves with you, the mix of well-to-do visitors sidestepping the homeless, and the general low-rent traveling carnival vibe have made it all a lot less glamourous than the brochure.

It was a far cry from the town where I played $5 and $10 minimums at the tables, saw Tony Bennett at the Flamingo, Sigfried & Roy (before) at the Mirage, Danny Gans (RIP) at Caesar’s, Penn & Teller at the Rio, Jerry Seinfeld at the Thomas & Mack Center, Bruce Springsteen (I know, I’m as surprised as you are) at the MGM Grand Garden, and Cirque du Soleil everywhere.

This trip, with the exception of one outing, I was pretty much sequestered at my summit in the dark, unwelcoming, chemical fragrance infused Cosmopolitan Hotel & Casino. My room was on the 49th floor, which made me a little jittery. But then I realized there were still twelve floors above me, so in my head I was on a lower floor.

Having said all that, Vegas is still a town you should see once if you’ve never been.

But I think I’m good for another eight years. Unless they lower the table minimums.

Hey sport

In case you didn’t know, I’m not a sports guy. Never have been. I know what you’re thinking: “But Jeff, you have such a ripped, awesome physique I would’ve thought you’d been playing sports all your life.”

First of all, thank you for noticing. And second, no.

But for some reason, once a year, during the World Series, I become an armchair fan. Especially when it’s the Dodgers v. Yankees.

Suddenly, I’m an expert on when and when not to take a swing. Miraculously I can call the pitches better than the umpires. I’m even starting to be fluent in the players’ names.

Then again, “Mookie” is kind of hard to forget.

I don’t go as far as wearing the team jersey, but I do yell at the tv from the comfort of my reading chair.

The cruel tease of my career (laughing for using the word “career”) is that at every agency I ever worked at without exception, I was always the copywriter who got assigned the sports tie-ins for clients. It's safe to say the most research I ever did for anything was going to the glossary for whatever sport I was writing about so I could speak in the language of the realm.

I do however love movies about baseball. Major League, A League of Their Own, The Natural, Moneyball, Bull Durham, The Rookie and, of course, Field Of Dreams.

For seven games a year, if the series goes that long, I’m all in.

When it comes to this post, it's the bottom of the ninth, two outs, bases loaded. So instead of some snappy line or bad joke about covering the bases, I’ll leave you with my favorite speech ever about the sport, courtesy of the late, great James Earl Jones.

Now if I could just get the wife to bring me a Dodger dog.

It comes for us all

As my friend and colleague Grace says, it comes for us all.

I was starting to feel invincible. And why not? I’m vaxxed to the max, with the exception of the very latest update. I’ve gone through four years and God knows how many variants of covid without getting it. I was beginning to think maybe I was one of those rare humans whose immune system just took it out before I even knew it was there. When I’ve been informed by friends who came down with it that I was unintentionally exposed, it never laid a glove on me.

It comes for us all.

Last week I was in Sunnyvale on business. Felt great the whole time I was there. When I flew back Thursday I was a little fatigued, but chalked it up to not sleeping well in hotel rooms. I tested Thursday afternoon, then again Friday morning. Both negative.

But Friday was a really bad day. I felt like Wile E. Coyote after the anvil hit him in the head. Saturday morning’s test, as you can see, was positive.

It comes for us all.

I forgot to mention that the wife has it right now as well. She thought she had a slight cold when I left for my trip, and during the trip tested positive. So maybe I picked it up from her and it was incubating while I was away.

Marriage, amIrite?

I can’t take Paxlovid because it conflicts in a big way with another med I’m on. So I’m taking Lagevrio, another anti-viral that doesn’t have the bad interaction, but is about fifty-percent less effective. I’ll take it. Something’s better than nothing.

Doctors tell me I still have to isolate from my wife because she may have a different strain, and her viral load may be higher.

By the way, Viral Load. Great band. Saw them at the Troubadour in ’98. (You’re welcome Rich).

Alright, going back to my daughter’s old bedroom where I’ve been isolating, and going to finish watching Season 3 of The Bear. Again.

Should you catch it, and I genuinely hope you don’t, just lay low. Fluids and rest, fluids and rest, fluids and rest. Also Robitussen and Advil. And don’t feel bad about it.

It comes for us all.

Goodbye Jeff

I am devastated and heartbroken. My friend and advertising icon Jeff Weakley passed away suddenly this weekend.

I don’t remember exactly where Jeff and I met, but it was over thirty years ago. We were both longtime freelance copywriters, and our paths crossed at many, many agencies during those years.

When I met him, my first thought was, “How does he get away wearing shorts and a t-shirt to a freelance gig?” I was always more conservative in my attire – at least at the beginning. If you’ve seen me in the last twenty years you know caring about what I wear to work was just a phase. And now that I work remote, it's not even a notion.

Jeff was an outstanding writer, and an even more outstanding human being. It was always the best surprise running into him at work, hearing his insights, and being on the receiving end of his wicked sharp wit.

Not to mention seeing the example he set, and trying to live up to it, for being the world’s best girl-dad.

Jeff also put the word “raconteur” into my vocabulary rotation. His earlier website and freelance biz was named Raconteur Advertising. The nav bar on the site was Jokes. Poems. Propaganda.

There wasn’t anything he couldn’t put his own personal, interesting spin on.

Jeff also wrote me the loveliest recommendation on LinkedIN. If you’re so inclined you can see it on my profile from Les Guessing, Jeff’s alter ego.

He was also one of those guys in advertising virtually everyone knew, and had more than a good word to say about.

Jeff was only sixty-four years old. He was just getting warmed up.

I'll miss hanging, laughing and working with him. And I can’t help thinking how much better this post would’ve been if he’d written it.

God bless you Jeff. Thank you for having me in your circle and making my life richer. Rest in peace.

Unstuck

Letting go. It's never easy.

Case in point: a week ago, thanks to the record-setting stock market (Bidenomics bitch!), I was able to sell some shares and treat myself to my first brand new car in seventeen years. German car, expensive to maintain, expensive to repair, ridiculously expensive to own.

What the hell. I'm not taking it with me. And as the wife said, "Life is short. Buy the car."

The point is in purchasing my new wheels, I have to let go of my old ones, a fourteen-year old Lexus ES350 with over 155,000 miles on it. While I was initially thrilled at jettisoning the Lexus, I started thinking about all the times of my life that car has been a part of.

Driving the kids to school.

To rehearsals.

To game practice.

Nights out with the wife.

Emergency trips to urgent care or the ER. Fortunately not many of those.

I'm not gonna lie: thinking about the outgoing car in that light got me more than a little misty. It shouldn't come as a surprise. If you know anything about me, and if you don't by now then I just don't know where we go from here, you know I'm a sap.

I cry at Hallmark commercials. I never had a chance.

Because I have a new car, and a new windshield, I also have to say goodbye to something else I've been holding onto for the last two cars I've owned. My Chiat/Day parking sticker.

I always loved the Chiat sticker. The pirate culture it represented. The skull and crossbones shadow it made at high noon on the dash. The bragging rights it gave me. And the fact I could visit Chiat weeks after I was done freelancing there, park unnoticed amongst them, and sneak upstairs for one of their great breakfast burritos from the in-house restaurant.

I'm not proud. But on a stack of bibles, it was a pretty fuckin' great burrito.

When I was still working at agencies, before finding the most awesome client side job ever, that little blue sticker was also proof positive, tangible evidence, something I could point to whenever I'd play the Chiat card.

Which almost everyone who works or worked there does at one time or another.

The sticker's faded now, and years of sunlight exposure have given it a little curling around the edges. And just like the velcro strips that hold my FasTrak transponder, or the Magic Castle member parking discount sticker, the time has come to lower the pirate flag, and let go of the Chiat sticker.

All to say that if you want to sneak in for a breakfast burrito, we're going to have to take your car.

Don’t forget to stop at the gift shop

I like to think of myself as a rather cultured individual. I have an annual pass to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). I’m a member of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. I’m on a waitlist to see the infinity mirror room at The Broad. I’ve enjoyed my many visits to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). And I make it a point to visit the Whitney whenever I’m in New York to take in the brilliant isolation, loneliness and realism of urban life that only Edward Hopper can convey.

I don’t know why I relate to Hopper so much, but the feeling of hopelessness and futility in his characters hits home with me. I have issues. Another post.

Anyway, despite the fact I’m just lousy with class, I have to admit I’ve never visited what could arguably be called the most interesting museum of all: the Poozeum in Williams, Arizona.

Or as their webpage says, “The Gateway to the Grand Canyon!” Whatever.

The Poozeum collection is made up of thousands of fossilized dinosaur droppings, including, as the website says, “ the wateringly huge ‘Barnum’.”

Interesting adjective.

You can even snap a selfie with a replica of a 4-foot wide titanosaur poop.

Honestly if I wanted a picture with a giant piece of shit I’d just go to a Trump rally.

Look, people can spend their money any way they want. And if a room full of dino droppings is their idea of seeing the sights, then have at it.

So enjoy your visit to the Poozeum. And if you happen to stop by the gift shop to pick up a little something for me, I’m fine with a tee shirt or poster.

Just not a paperweight.