Visiting Paula

Work in advertising on the creative side, and you find out pretty quickly that you only ever get to work with about five genuinely great account people. If you're lucky.

My friend Paula was one of the greats.

I met her 22 years ago when we worked at an agency downtown that handled McDonald's operator business. She was brilliant, funny and passionate about great work. She didn't suffer fools lightly, and approached her job with something I've often been accused of - an unfrightened attitude. It was a thing of beauty to watch her direct it equally towards clients, creatives and management.

It was impossible not to respect her for it.

She lived in Long Beach, and was a great advocate for the city. It was her convincing arguments (along with the fact it's my wife's hometown) that led us to buy a house and move here. We even used her realtor because Paula said he was the best. And if she thought so, there was no reason for us not to.

For years, every Christmas we'd go to her house in Naples for the boat parade on the canals. We talked frequently, even if it was just to check in.

When Paula became VP of Marketing for Disneyland Resort, she asked me to be the consultant on her search for a new agency. I told her I'd never done anything like that, and she said, "I think you can do it. Why wouldn't you?" We developed the strategy, created the assignment and went to the agencies pitching the business together. I remember flying with her to see some agencies in San Francisco on a morning with 75 mph winds in Northern California. The plane was buffeted around, sometimes pretty violently, from about ten minutes into the flight until we landed. Paula, who was not crazy about flying in the first place, had my hand in a vise grip the entire time. The experience of being the creative consultant was exciting for many reasons, not the least of which was the chance to be working with her again.

Eventually Paula sold her house in Naples and moved into one a bit further north in Long Beach.

As life so often does, it got crazy and we lost touch for a few years, despite the fact we were in the same city and only minutes away from each other. Or so I thought.

This past June, I had lunch with my friend Alison who worked with Paula and me at that downtown agency. Alison was an account executive under Paula. She too had moved to Long Beach, and also eventually wound up working at Disney. I met her in Burbank and we had a wonderful lunch, kicking around old times and catching up.

At one point, I mentioned I'd lost touch with Paula, and asked if she knew what was going on with her. She sighed and said, "Oh Jeff." A sad look came over her face, a look that said I don't want to be the one to tell you but I have to. I braced myself.

She told me that Paula had extremely advanced Alzheimer's. I was devastated and heartbroken.

Paula isn't that much older than me, but apparently it runs in her family. It found her mother at a young age as well. Alison told me where Paula was, and there was no question that I was going to go visit her. But truthfully, the idea of seeing her without her really being there scared me.

It took me two months after that lunch to work up the courage to go.

Paula had been in a long-term care facility in Long Beach, but by the time my wife and I went to visit her last month, she was gone. She'd been moved to another facility. Apparently she had hit another patient and was sent to a hospital for observation and to have her meds adjusted. She wasn't accepted back to the facility because they were unable to manage her feistiness (they should've seen her at the agency).

They didn't have the information about where she was taken at their fingertips because, as it turned out, this incident had actually happened a couple months before my visit. But they did give me the name and number of her conservator who told me where to find her, and expressed his appreciation that I was going to visit her.

The facility she's currently in is not in a great part of Los Angeles.

But ever since lunch with Alison, Paula has never been far from my thoughts. And today, the day before Labor Day, I went to visit her.

Alison made clear to me in the most compassionate way she could that the Paula I knew, my friend that I loved, wasn't going to be there. The woman I was going to see would look like her, but she wasn't going to remember any of our history. She wasn't going to know who I was. Which for some reason felt okay, because I know who she is.

When I got to the facility, I asked for her. A nurse escorted me to the lock-up area, a section where the most advanced Alzheimer's cases are. There are signs all over the door going in warning that patients may try to fight their way out when you leave.

Once inside, the nurse said Paula would probably be walking around. I first saw her talking to herself, walking towards me in the hall. She looked pale and thin, and her dark brown hair, always meticulously styled, was completely gray and disheveled. The nurse told her she had a visitor. Unfazed by the fact she didn't know me, I introduced myself and took her hand. She held on tight, just like the flight to San Francisco.

I remembered Alison had told me not to ask her questions as that upsets her, but just to listen or speak in statements. We walked around the facility and I listened and watched as Paula had a conversation with herself almost the entire time. Occasionally I'd chime in with something, and she would look at me, agree, then go right back to her inner talk.

I kept wondering if the old Paula, my Paula was in there. And if she was, could I somehow bring her out. Maybe if I told her a story about us, or about one of the many good deeds she'd done for me over the years, that would spark her into the moment for a few seconds.

Never underestimate the power of denial.

Years ago there was an episode of St. Elsewhere where Dr. Mark Craig's (William Daniels) mentor Dr. David Domidian (Dean Jagger) was returning to the hospital. Mark was thrilled, then shattered to learn that his hero had advanced Alzheimer's. Towards the end of the episode, Dr. Domidian has a single moment of clarity where he looks at Mark, recognizes him and says his name.

I understand life isn't like it is in the movies or television. But even though I knew better, even though Alison had warned me, I couldn't stop myself from hoping for one of those moments.

At the end of my visit, I was holding her hand and told her I had to go. I was standing and she looked up at me and said, "Ok." I told her next time I'd bring my wife with me. Then I told her how good it was to see her, and how much I'd missed her over the years.

She looked up at me, smiled, and continued the conversation with herself. However at one point, one of the things she said was "I love you too."

That was my moment.

Sometimes there's a man...I won't say a hero...

John Goodman

Drew Carey

Variations on Stand By Me

Getting the edge

Thanks to a certain play and movie, it isn't hard to figure out why getting a straight-edge razor shave has gotten a bad rap.

True, maybe not as bad or enduring as the one dentists have to live with thanks to Laurence "Is it safe?" Olivier in Marathon Man.

But still, mention to anyone you're getting a straight-edge razor shave, and it definitely conjures up certain images. Not all of them pleasant.

Fortunately, not all barbers wielding the blade are named Sweeney. In fact, mine is named Manny.

Every year when I vacation for a week at the Hotel Del Coronado, I walk on Orange Avenue to 10th Street to the Bow Ties and Haircuts Barber Shop. The place has been in Coronado forever, catering not only to vacationing touristas like me, but also many of the military personal from the naval base on the northwest side of island (which explains all the fighter planes thundering over the pool at the Del. I love watching them, but judging by the reactions of other guests it's easy to tell a lot of them didn't see anything about it in the brochure).

Anyway, I'd never had a close shave, in the literal sense, in my life. So one year I decided to try it. I planted myself in Manny's center chair, cleared my head of all the Sweeney thoughts, and went for it.

Now, ask anyone who knows me, I mean really knows me, and they'll tell you that despite appearances to the contrary, I'm really a pampered poodle at heart. Not afraid to admit it. My macho self-esteem isn't threatened. After all, you're reading the blog of a guy who used to go for three-hour haircuts at Giusseppe Franco's in Beverly Hills.

Giusseppe would shake hands with everyone and ask how it was going, offer a cup of espresso, then go upstairs and talk Harleys with his beauty school mate Mickey Rourke. Meanwhile, downstairs the stylists, in short skirts and tight tops, each more beautiful than the next, were dancing to the blaring music as they were cutting away.

Every six weeks, it was like dying and going to MTV.

So when I walked into Bow Ties and Haircuts, it was decidedly old school. Which to my way of thinking is exactly what you want in a barber when he's holding a straight-edge razor to your throat.

When Manny puts the chair back and starts by covering my face with the first of three or four steaming hot towels, I try not to think about the razor he'll be holding to my throat. Instead I try to focus on just how smooth and amazing it's going to feel when he's done.

Occasionally the thought does cross my mind that all those hot towels are there to mop up the blood spurting from my carotid artery, but then I realize I haven't done anything to make Manny mad so it's probably not anything to worry about. Too much.

Manny skillfully guides the blade across the contours of my face, even the curves that I have difficulty navigating. When it's over, the last towel is a cold one, which Manny tells me is to close the pores (if you're following along in your barber-to-english dictionary, you'll see that means stop the bleeding).

Afterwards, my face is amazingly smooth to the touch. This is what a shave is supposed to be.

I thank Manny, and tell him I'll see him next year.

But as I think about how this shave turned out, as opposed to the way it turns out with my little 59-cent Bic disposable razors, I think a year may be a little too long to wait.

Too close for comfort

During the course of the day I don't usually have any reason to bring up the fact that I was a theater arts major (oh yes I was).

As the old joke goes, "Oh really? Which table?"

Obviously if I'd wanted to stick with it I would've. It's not like I didn't pursue it because I couldn't get used to having my work rejected. I mean, look at the profession I chose.

(Realizes he used the word "profession" and waits for uncontrollable wave of hysterical laughter to subside).

But instead, I just sold out...er...changed my mind...uh...paid my rent...um...decided to learn a new craft. Yeah, that's it.

Remember that quote from Jerry Maguire, "it's an up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing siege that I will never fully tell you about, ok?"

Yeah (Pauses. Looks up. Whistles nervously.), me too.

No seriously, I kid. I kid because I love.

It's not like every time I hear this song - and my son loves Weird Al so I hear it a lot - I replace the words "tour guide" with "copywriter" in my head. It's not like that at all.

Thanks a LOT Weird Al.

I have to go drink now.

Look what iDid

As much as I want to, I just haven't been swept away by the "magical and revolutionary" iPad as much as some of my friends have.

Of course, that hasn't stopped me from appreciating its elegance. Its intuitiveness. Its simplicity. As well as its overall bitchin'-ness.

But I already have an iPhone. And a 17" MacBook Pro. And between those two things, I couldn't quite see where it would fit into my life. I haven't been able to justify a reason for falling in love with - much less purchasing - the iPad. Until now.

I was in an Apple Store this morning with my partner in crime, my daughter. We had some time to kill before picking up my son. As we perused the display table with a dozen iPads on it, I wondered how this very blog would look on that screen.

Well, the answer is rockin' good news.

I loaded it on to one of them, and as you can see from the picture, it looked awesome (really awesome in person, trust me).

Like Rosie O'Donnell at a Hometown Buffet, I've always operated under the theory if one is good, two is better. And if two is better, then twelve must be even six times better than that.

So in an act of brazen vanity and shameless self-promotion, I enlisted my daughter and we proceeded to load my blog on to every iPad on the table. All of 'em. They looked amazing.

Then we thought, there's no reason all the other laptops in the store shouldn't feel the love. So we loaded my blog on them.

Suddenly, a profound feeling of loneliness and loss came over us. It took us a minute to pinpoint the source, but then we realized it was coming from the iMacs and monitors, who were feeling abandoned and alone. Discriminated against. Their self-esteem shattered.

We couldn't have that, so we loaded my blog on to those screens as well. By the time we slinked our way out of the store, virtually every screen had this blog on it.

That's not even the good part. The good part is people were reading it.

I'm pretty sure I didn't pick up any long-term followers. But at least some new eyes got a look at a few of my posts they wouldn't have otherwise seen.

I used to complain because the only thing my kids wanted to do was go to the Apple Store.

After today, I'll definitely think different next time they ask.

Passing on seconds

Late the other night I was flipping through cable channels and I saw John Travolta chomping mighty heavily on some scenery, so I decided to see what the movie was. Come to find out it was the remake of The Taking Of Pelham 123.


Now, I'm a fan of the original with Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw. It was smart. Well-acted. Sly. And cast with a lot of unknown-at-the-time actors as well as more famous ones. But since I didn't see this remake in the theater, I decided to plant my big bahooki down on the couch and give it a chance.

                              Just the same way I gave the remake of Psycho a chance.

                                              And the remake of The Pink Panther.

                                                 And the remake of The Stepford Wives.

Here's the thing - I'm not one of those cinema elitists who don't think movies should be remade. I think many times remakes have done justice to the spirit of the original while improving on it by giving it a more contemporary spin.

Little Shop Of Horrors. Dawn Of The Dead. The Fly. The Thing. True, all horror and sci-fi examples, but still, better for the remaking.

And then, there are the movies that don't need to be remade because the original was so perfect.  Movies like the ones above. And Arthur. And Rosemary's Baby (both of which are being remade).


There's probably a treatise to be written on the dearth of ideas in Hollywood, and the constant returning to the well of proven properties to wring the last bit of cash out them (yes, I used the word "dearth"). 


But I'm too tired to write it now.


Maybe I'll just copy one that's been written before.