The right connections

Assuming you're going to read this post—and I recognize that's a big assumption—are you going to read it all the way through the first time, or stop halfway, go do something else for an hour, then come back and finish it?

Stop talking, it's a rhetorical question.

If you're going to read it, you'll do it nonstop until you get to the end. And why wouldn't you? It's easier, it takes less time and you can get to whatever you're doing afterwards a lot faster.

All the same reasons I like to fly nonstop.

It's literally been 21 years since I last took a connecting flight somewhere. The only reason was because it was the only way I could get to a surprise birthday party I'd arranged for a friend who was shooting a movie in Ponca City, Oklahoma. If you've never been to Ponca City, the Walmart on Saturday night is the hot tip. You're welcome.

Of course, part of the reason it's been so long since I've been on a connecting flight is I usually fly to destinations that are easy to get to directly. San Francisco. Las Vegas. New York. Las Vegas. Seattle. Las Vegas. Portland. Las Vegas. Austin. You get the pattern.

With how much I love gambling (how could you tell?), you'd think I'd book connecting flights more often. It's always a roll of the dice whether or not it'll be on time, the connecting flight will be there when I land, or the weather will cooperate at the second airport of the day.

I was just in Iowa. I had to fly to Denver, connect to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, then drive an hour and a half to where I was going in Iowa. It was an adventure, but it wasn't fun.

Like visits to the dentist, prostate exams and tax returns, I just prefer to have it done and over with as soon as possible. But because of the airline hub structure, and my need to go to little out-of-the-way towns in Iowa, I don't have as much choice in the matter as I used to.

I suppose the thing to do would be to look at connecting flights as a way to see parts of the country I wouldn't normally see, fly a variety of aircraft I wouldn't otherwise get to experience and rack up more frequent flier miles than I might going nonstop.

I also suppose I could also look at kale as cotton candy, but that's not happening either.

Rustic never sleeps

You know the old saying—you can take the boy out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the boy. Whatever. I'd actually hoped that saying would propel me into some kind of pithy segue into this blogpost about the most rustic restaurant you'll ever eat at.

Come to find out I was wrong. So let's just dive straight in, shall we?

This past Sunday we took my son—a newly-minted 21-year old—to the Saddle Peak Lodge for his birthday brunch. The wife and I have been there many times over the years, but not recently. And when we were thinking about where to take him, my wife was the one who came up with the SPL, which like many of her ideas, was a brilliant one (Hear that? It's the sound of me scoring marriage points).

The SPL is definitely unlike any other restaurant in L.A. For one thing, it's not in L.A. You'll find it on the side of a mountain in Calabasas, about five miles up the road from Pepperdine University and the Malibu Colony on Pacific Coast Highway.

Like someplace out of the 1800's, the SPL is built from logs, and has stuffed animal heads hanging all over the walls, looking down at you while you're dining on the superb, pricey food. Maybe it's that I've been to Disneyland too many times, but I kept expecting the heads to turn and start talking and singing like at Country Bear Jamboree. Or maybe the scene from Diner. "You gonna finish that?" "If you want it, just say it!" "Well, if you're not gonna finish it..."

They didn't. But it would've been bitchin' if they did, amIright?

Dining there, you really feel you've gone somewhere away from the city, and time-traveled to a more genteel era. Or a more gentile era, if that's possible. I may be getting off track here.

Anyway, the point I'm getting at is its rustic charm and semi-isolated location (even though only a few miles from the coast and a freeway) makes it feel like more than a nice meal. It becomes an easy getaway.

Unlike the Rainforest Cafe or other fabricated "theme" restaurants, the SPL comes by its rustic charm honestly. According to its website:

"Part roadhouse, Pony Express stop, hunting lodge, European auberge, perhaps even a hint of a bordello, Saddle Peak Lodge has been many things to many people in its long history. For 100 years—some say even more—Saddle Peak Lodge has been a place of enchantment, romance and great dining for generations of those who seek a unique experience."

In case you were wondering, my son had steak and eggs, and to celebrate his new 21-ness, washed it down with a mimosa. I had Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon and a heart-stopping good Hollandaise sauce. The wife enjoyed California Goat Cheese and Broccoli Quiche, you know, like they had in the old west.

Everything was exceptional.

The only suggestion I'd make is if you're going to dine there, it might be a better idea to visit at night. Away from the glare of the city lights, you can see the brilliant light of the stars against the dark blue blanket of the night sky. Also, the restaurant is decorated with lights inside and out. There's a lot of twinkly magic going on after the sun sets, and it brings out the enchanted quality even more.

Not to mention it hides all the bone-dry brush in the canyon that's one cigarette butt away from a raging inferno.

That might be the city boy talking.

A-maize-ing

Johnny Carson was born there. So was Ashton Kutcher. And The Duke himself, John Wayne. Herbert Hoover is from there. As are comedian Adam DeVine and actor Elijah Wood. TV Superman George Reeves hails not from Krypton, but from Woolstock, Iowa.

The point is a lot of famous things come out of Iowa. Not the least of which is corn.

I had my very first experience with Iowa this past weekend. Instead of going to one of the premier universities in the California system located virtually around the block from our house, my daughter had her heart set on a private college in Iowa, which we moved her into this past weekend.

Sure, it would've been nice to have her closer to home, but then we wouldn't get to pay out-of-state tuition, take two airplanes, drive two hours and travel 1,692 miles to see her. Apparently she doesn't know there's an east coast and it would've been even further from us. Maybe she'll learn about it in college.

Here's the thing about Iowa: cornfields everywhere. And by everywhere, I mean everywhere.

There's a certain beautiful monotony (Note to Rich Siegel: Beautiful Monotony, The Whiskey '06) to the rows of corn as you zip by them on the two-lane highways. And what it made me think about—besides how I was going to die when the driver of one of the eighteen-wheelers coming the other way fell asleep and slammed into me head on—was just how big a part cornfields have played in some of my favorite movies.

I know people don't like Signs because a) it stars Mel Gibson b) it's directed by M. Night Shyamalan and c) it's a story about faith lost and found, and not aliens (for the most part). But it does have Joacquin Phoenix, German Shepherds and cornfields, so that makes it a must see in my book.

The ultimate father-son film couldn't help but be corny. Field Of Dreams takes place almost entirely in an Iowa cornfield. One of the ball players in the movie asks Kevin Costner, "Is this heaven?" To which he responds, "No, it's Iowa." Boy is it.

The first film anyone mentions when I say cornfield is Children of the Corn. Not exactly quality motion picture faire, but a horror classic for it's kitschiness and that tall, ugly red-headed kid. That short kid is yelling and chewing scenery all throughout the movie. Good thing most of it's edible.

Lions and tigers and corn, oh my. Perennial favorite The Wizard Of Oz not only has a cornfield, but a talking, singing and dancing scarecrow right in the middle of it. Ironically, the song the scarecrow sings is the same one our fake president sings to himself every night.

The other thing Iowa (and South Dakota where I connected through) have plenty of are the nicest people I've ever met anywhere. It's startling how genuine they are. Glad to see you, ready to help, open and honest, it really is a refreshing change of pace.

Now if they could just truck that to the big cities the same way they do their corn.

Start spreading the news

Even though you could probably guess, I'll say it anyway—I love New York. It's the best city in the world, and it vibrates with talent, creativity and possibilities.

As a theater arts major, the fact there's a city where I can go to a Broadway play or two every day is a little bit of heaven on earth for me. I'm always looking for reasons to hop a plane and go there. Fortunately, over the past few years, I've had a couple very good reasons to visit.

The first was to see my friend Holland Taylor perform at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center in ANN, the play she wrote and starred in about former Texas governor Ann Richards. It was a master class in acting watching Holland literally inhabit the spirt of Ann Richards.

Now you say, "Oh sure, of course he'd say that. He knows her." Just to be clear, she received a Tony nomination for Best Performance By A Leading Actress In A Play for her performance, so apparently I wasn't alone in my thinking.

This past April, the family and I hopped a plane to NY to see Hamilton. We'd had the tickets for a year, and even though it was coming to Los Angeles, we wanted to see it on Broadway. It's one of those rare plays that transcends the massive hype around it—for all you've heard, it's even better than that.

This October, I have yet another reason to head east. I don't know if you know this, but there's this singer from New Jersey I like quite a bit. Come to find out he's doing an 8-week residency on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theater. It will be a night of stories, music, with just him, the guitar and piano. It's a 946-seat theater, the smallest venue Bruce has played in 35 years. And I'm going to guess at that size, there are no bad seats.

For as hard as it is to get tickets to a regular Springsteen concert, I'm going to wish it was that easy come August 30th when they go on sale. I've already seen one estimate that said it'll sell out in 45 seconds.

While Bruce has never done a show this intimate, I imagine it will look and sound a little something along these lines, minus the farm:

I'm going to say my prayers, keep my fingers crossed, live right, and be nice to everyone I know in New York and just hope I can see this once-in-a-lifetime Springsteen show. I know, I can hear you saying, "Geez, hasn't he been to a billion Springsteen shows? When's it going to be enough?"

That's easy. Never.

Yes, Iowa

If you know anything about me—and seriously, if you don't by now then we have nothing to talk about—you know that underneath this winsome, easygoing and slightly-overweight-but-still-brutally-handsome exterior lies the restless spirit of a globetrotting vagabond.

In fact, I'm surprised he hasn't asked for it back - BAM! I'll be here all week.

So knowing that, you might be asking yourself about now what exotic destination my travels will take me to next. Belize? Madagascar? Nepal? Fiji? Sadly, no. My next trip, coming up next week, will find me in two places I've never been in my life. And up until now had no reason to go. First is Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Followed by Orange City, Iowa.

Don't be jealous. It's such an ugly emotion.

Why those two cities? Well, I have to go through the first one to get to the second. And the reason I'm going is to take my daughter to college as she starts her freshman year.

I'll bet you're asking why she's not going to the world-class university located just blocks from us, even though she was accepted there and could live rent free at home. I've asked that my own self. I suppose the answer is I'm not the only one with a restless vagabond spirit.

The good news is the more I learn about Iowa, the more interesting it becomes. No really.

For instance, James Tiberius Kirk, captain of the starship Enterprise was born in Riverside, Iowa.

The Field of Dreams location, yes, that Field of Dreams, suits up in Dyersville, Iowa—a mere four and a half hour drive from Orange City.

Quaker Oats, world's largest cereal company, is in Cedar Rapids.

Meredith Wilson, who, I don't have to tell you, wrote The Music Man, is from Mason City, Iowa.

I'm completely going against my nature here, and not just because I'm taking a connecting flight. I mean I'm trying to be optimistic by looking at this Iowa trek (see what I did there?) as a big adventure.

Besides all the new things and places I'll be seeing, I'll also be a Jewish Democrat in a part of the country I'm pretty sure doesn't have very many of either. So I'll be as novel to them as they are to me.

I hope my girl is looking at it as an adventure as well, because the going-away-to-college years are one of the great life experiences not to be missed.

And, according to her, neither is Iowa.

Fighting fire with fire and fury

I've seriously stopped counting how many ways our dipshit, liar-in-chief, fake president, and Putin's personal lapdog, is unqualified to hold the position he has. Frankly, I can't count that high. But here's a good example that happened just today: apparently he's decided to fight stupid with stupid. On learning news North Korea most likely has been able to miniaturize a nuclear warhead that can sit on top of a missile aimed at the west coast of the U.S., Trump said they'd better stop making threats or they'd face "fire and fury like the world has never known." He then followed it up with "Nyah, nyah, nyah."

I suppose there are two ways to look at this. First, Trump is smarter than any of us think, and he's speaking in language the chubby psycho with the bad haircut in North Korea understands. But more likely, he's an idiot completely ignorant of the ramifications of the sabre-rattling he's doing, trying to overcompensate for a dick he couldn't find with a flashlight and a search party, and at the same time edging us closer to nuclear conflict than we've been since the '60s.

And what does he care? He'll be holed up in his gold-leafed bomb shelter, watching Hannity on Fox News and Dancing With The Stars, complaining how unfair North Korea is being to him.

Or maybe it's just all a rouse to get Melania to finally hold hands with him (insert small hands joke here).

Regardless, this is what happens when hillbillies, greedy billionaires and spineless Republicans give nuclear codes to clowns.

At any rate, with all this going on it seemed like a good day to repost this piece, which was originally called "Gimme shelter, or not." It's a little personal plan of attack (pardon the phrase) if you will about what to do as we reach the final chapter.

Put on your sunglasses, pop open a beer, rev up the credit cards and grab that guy or gal you've been thinking about. The big bang is getting serious. Please to enjoy.

Back in the mission accomplished, strategery, fool me once days of the George W. Bush presidency, everyone had a great time making fun of the way W mispronounced the word nuclear. It never mattered much to me. I say nuclear, you say nucular. Either way we're toast.

Lucy, our one-year old Sock Finder terrier absconded with a tasty argyle the other day and hid it, poorly, in her den which is under the dining room table. I had to go under there and retrieve it (who's the retriever now?), and in a flash (SWIDT?) it reminded me of the drop drills we did in elementary school.

We'd be sitting there, either doing school work or counting the minutes until we could get home and watch Engineer Bill or Sheriff John, and suddenly the teacher would yell "Drop!" We'd all hit the deck under our desks, as if that was going to prevent us from looking like one of Johnny Depp's ash trays on a Saturday night.

It's a lot like when a potential client is about to tour the agency, and the account guy yells "Look busy!" The difference is at the agency nothing changes.

Anyway, with enough nuclear bombs on submarines alone to take out the world, and the Stay-Puft dictator in North Korea shooting off his firecrackers towards Malibu, I started thinking about preparations I need to make in the event of the event.

There's this very informative website that tells how to prepare for a nuclear blast. And while there are a lot of helpful tips on it, I have a few of my own I think will come in handy should we get close to that edge.

First, get to Vegas.

For almost four decades, the U.S. Department of Energy did above-ground testing of over a thousand nuclear bombs at the Nevada Test Site just sixty-five miles northwest of Vegas.

And to no ones' surprise, Vegas did what they do best: turned the detonations into a tourist attraction.

It's where the saying, "It ain't the heat, it's the radiation." originated. My point is if they're going to drop the big one, shouldn't there be swimming pools and free drinks involved?

Who's with me?

Next, run up the credit cards.

The minute the news shows interrupt the season finale of The Bachelorette and start tossing up the Breaking News banner to report on on tensions getting higher between nuclear-armed third-world nations, and we're reaching a point of no return, reach for the credit cards.

A quick shopping spree is better than none at all, and you'll probably have a few days at least before the big boom. Those things you always wanted? Buy 'em. Enjoy 'em. Even if only for a little while.

Just because you're going to die soon in a flash of brilliant white light doesn't mean you have to do it with regrets. 82-inch flatscreen, hello?

Then, grab someone you've always wanted to kiss and plant one.

To some, the impending end of all life on earth might be the time to reflect on what your friends and family mean to you, and to tell them in a heartfelt final conversation so they can vaporize knowing how much you loved them.

Here's the thing: if they don't know by now, you really don't have time to explain it.

Instead, find someone you've always wanted to kiss, grab 'em and plant one on 'em. They'll be startled, maybe in shock to the point where they won't even know what to say. Which is when you say, "I'm so sorry. What I actually meant to do was this." Then plant another one.

Will they be mad? Maybe. Will they report you? Who cares. You can stay out of sight for a couple days until we're all gone.

Remember the part about no regrets?

Finally, remember to smile.

You don't want to look like those people from Pompeii when it's over. They were turned to stone and ash, and not a one of them looked happy about it. At least in the pictures.

If on the chance you wind up charred and not vaporized, you want to have a smile on your face when you go. It projects confidence, joy, a certain je ne sais quoi that says, "Even 500 kilotons of fissionable material can't harsh my buzz."

It lets them know you were having a party while you were here, and you're planning on a great time where you're going.

Years - and I mean a lot of years - from now, when they discover your preserved remains and see the smile, they'll wonder what you had to be so happy about at that particular moment. They'll do documentaries about you. Scholars will debate that look on your face. And if you're lucky, your remains might actually get to go on a national museum tour just like King Tut did.

And of course, on the off chance politicians somehow manage to head off the attack at the eleventh hour, you won't want to miss my next post about right ways to apologize and strategies for debt reduction.

Where never is heard an encouraging word

Work in advertising long enough, and you realize despite all the books, effective management style classes and lists on the subject, there really are only two kinds of bosses in the agency world.

Command and control. And nurture and inspire.

Unfortunately, agencies are usually lousy with the first kind and scarce on the second.

There isn't a creative working that hasn't felt the clumsy, heavy-handed thumbprints of an overbearing creative director on their work.

For some reason (cough "ego" cough "insecurity" cough cough "douchecentric personality disorder" cough), they feel the need to "make the work their own," agency code for "Just put my name on the award show entry form." and "I think I'll stay at the International Carlton at Cannes this year."

Having been a creative director, I always made it a point never to forget what it's like to present work. And being a copywriter, I never forget what goes into coming up with those ideas. So I always went the nurture and inspire route.

Here's the dirty secret about being a creative director: it's a lot easier than some of them make it look. The trick is to hire great people, make sure they don't run off the rails, clear the path by running interference for them, then get out of their way and let them do what you hired them to do.

Their success is your success. Bask in the glow. Repeat.

I'd like to suggest not only creative directors, but everyone in agencies—and in life for that matter—try to be more encouraging, supportive and inspiring to their colleagues. It's not a lot to ask, and it is the golden rule after all—or at least golden rule adjacent. Be the kind of person people want to work for - it's how you'll get the best work out of them.

After all, you've already got the job.