What took so long - Part 2

It's been well over a year since I wrote my first installment of what I've decided is going to be an ongoing series of posts, What Took So Long. And let's face it, a year can be a long time.

Like, for example, if you're a dog. Or a Republican presidential candidate. (For a story about a dog and a Republican presidential candidate, go here.)

So today, I'm reigniting the series with a journey into the bathroom. Not the comfortable reading room I sometimes call home at home, but the public restrooms we all must eventually use despite our best efforts to "hold it until we get home".

I don't know about you, but in public restrooms, there's really only one thing I want to touch. And it isn't the toilet.

So when these hands-free, self-flushing, whisper-quiet little bowls started appearing at restaurants and movie theaters (where they were desperately needed, especially if American Pie was playing), it was a huge relief. In every sense of the word. It meant no more one-legged foot flushing, on what was often a rather, um, slippery floor to keep balanced on.

Of course, what would be the point of having a hands-free toilet if you then had to turn the wet, slimy, bacteria infested faucet handle by hand. So to compliment the toilet, hands-free faucets started showing up as well.

The very definition of technology working for you.

A welcome addition to the public restroom repertoire, the only problem with the hands free faucets is that you can't adjust the water temperature. Warm leaning towards hot seems to be the impossible dream. The other control you surrender is the speed at which the water flows out. Somewhere between a trickle and a garden hose, it still seems like a good trade-off for not having to touch it.

Completing the public restroom trifeca is the automated paper towel dispenser. This piece of equipment is the most mixed blessing of all of them. Most come with a sensor where you wave your cold, wet hand past to get it to dispense one - one - paper towel. You then have to wait a long moment for it to reset, while you stand there waving frantically to get more paper towels. Again, still worth the trade-off.

If you have any suggestions for the WTSL posts, let me know.

That's it for today's installment. Signing off for now.

And as always, I know what you're asking yourself.

What's the downside?

It's always interesting to me - and not in a judgmental way - the importance atheists place on letting you know that they're atheists, and the extent they go to to prove something they don't believe in doesn't exist.

I'm sure the same enthusiasm is evident on both sides of the argument.

But my experience has been that, say, in the course of a week, I have more people telling me why I shouldn't believe than why I should. Sometimes it feels like they're protesting too much.

I happen to believe in God, but I don't run around trying to convince anyone they have to believe with me. More importantly, I'm not bothered in the least by people who don't share my feelings. I don't think less of them, I don't mock them (unless I can find the appropriate cartoon somewhere), and I go by the rule "to each their own" when it comes to faith. Or lack thereof.

My pal at Round Seventeen put up a post about why he doesn't believe there's a God. Well thought out, well reasoned and, as always, well written. If you've followed this blog for any amount of time - and if you have, really, it's time to take up a more productive hobby - you know this isn't the first time we've disagreed on the view from the other side.

One man's ceiling is another man's there's no proof a ceiling exists.

One of his points is that there isn't any physical or visible corroboration of the existence of God. I see it everywhere - trees, clouds, water, the fact we're close enough to the sun to tan but not to fry, my son's heartbeat at six weeks on the ultrasound.

I think prayers get answered in small ways every day. For example, my friend came through with awesome tickets to Springsteen tonight. Definitely an answered prayer from where I'm sitting (see what I did there?).

I also believe in the big bang theory (the real theory, not the sitcom). I believe light and matter collided to create the universe. But they didn't just get there by themselves. I also believe evolution and faith aren't mutually exclusive.

I know what you're thinking: the big bang is where everything including time began, and that I just can't wrap my head around the concept of nothingness. Please, I work in ad agencies. You have no idea how wrong you are.

Round Seventeen asks if termites go to heaven - after all, they're God's creatures too. My guess is they go to termite heaven, where everything's made of plywood and the word "tent" is forbidden. Thankfully termite heaven is nowhere near my heaven.

I'm not sure what the downside to having faith is. And I'm not sure why so many people are so upset about it.

The truth is that if there is no heaven, then the atheists get the last laugh. Although no one will hear it because they're dead.

And if, as I believe, there is a heaven, then it'll be a nice surprise for them and I'm sure they'll be welcomed with open arms.

Especially if they worked for Orkin.

Unbuckled

I was in a hurry to get somewhere yesterday. Pick up the kids, get dinner, go to the post office, work (stops and laughs at the thought of rushing to work, regains composure), whatever. I had to be wherever I had to be fast.

So I flew out of the house, got in my Lexus ES (the E stands for extra, the S stands for soul-less) 350, pressed the button, hit the self-accelerator and took off down the block.

What I didn't do was buckle my seat belt. And it took me awhile to realize it.

There are only three ways into my neighborhood. It's not gated, but you have to know the way in and out. As I was barreling up the block, and then around the corner, I felt an extremely pleasant sensation.

I was unconstricted, free, able to effortlessly lean over and reach down to pick up the loose change in the passenger footwell. And that's when it hit me: no seat belt.

Now, I have tried very hard to never be one of those a.) people b.) bloggers c.) parents who say when I was younger.

When I was younger, we didn't wear seat belts. We flew around the corners and around the car, and if we were sitting on bench seats we slid and sqooshed the people next to us.

It was, how you say, fun.

Yeah yeah, much safer. Blah, blah, lives saved.

For at least a couple blocks before I got to the perimeter of my neighborhood, and had to turn onto a busy main thoroughfare, I got to recapture that freedom.

In case my kids are reading this, you are never allowed to ride in a car without your seat belt for any amount of time. When we were younger we didn't know the dangers as well as we do today. I apologize if I've mislead you by making it sound fun. It's not.

(Yes it is.)

Wrongful Termination - Chapter 8

Jack Sheridan finished questioning Barbara Beckwith, as well as the rest of the creative department. What he learned wasn’t going to make his job any easier.

It seemed during his career, Dean Montaine had made a lot of enemies, even for an ad man. The creative part was the way he made them. Naturally, he’d plagiarized work from other creative teams who worked for him and represented it as his own. This was nothing new. The practice was rampant throughout ad agencies, especially if it was a good idea. Many of the most famous ad campaigns of the last fifty years have over a hundred teams claiming ownership. Some on campaigns that came out before they were born. For example, everyone seems to have worked on Volkswagen in the sixties. Montaine had even taken credit for the classic ad campaign for the original Volkswagen Beetle, despite the fact his resume didn’t list Doyle Dane Bernbach, the agency that created the ads.

But the thing Dean did that made him so insidious was this: he made you think he was on your side. That he was going to the mat for you. He made you believe he was your friend.

It was a lot of little things really. The way he asked questions about other creatives, leaning in to you, then lowering his voice to a soft whisper that implied an unstated confidence between two professionals. If the creative team in his office was junior, he’d give them lots of attention. Ask what they thought of something he’d written. They’d be wowed. After all, Dean had taken credit for creating a successful national campaign for the popular French mineral water Clair, as well as a start up car company, Neptune. Junior teams didn’t know that in fact he’d stolen those ideas from juniors at the agency.

Upper management was no friend of his either.

On more than one occasion, Dean worked for an agency freelance, only to try and ingratiate himself with the creative department and general manager, then organized a mutiny to squeeze out the executive creative director who’d brought him in in the first place. Sometimes he succeeded.

Then there were the people who ran awards shows. They hated him. Advertising awards are the guilty pleasure of every agency creative. If you ask, creatives roll their eyes at the idea of them. They make a big show of taking refuge behind the fact good work is it’s own reward. But inside every copywriter and art director is a little insecure kid looking for approval and validation. They love winning awards. They love saying they’ve won awards. They love schmoozing at the awards shows. They love getting drunk and seeing if the rumors are true about the media girls at the awards shows. If all creatives hated awards the way they profess to, the shows would never sell out, or be able to charge their obscene entry fees.

Of course, one way to help your chances of winning is to enter lots of ads. Which is exactly what Montaine did year after year. He had the agencies he worked for spend a fortune on entry fees. And he entered lots of work that wasn’t his. The problem was, the people who'd actually done the work also entered it. So when the shows received different entry forms with credits that didn’t jive, they called Dean to clear them up. He always told them the other people were lying. The award show officials knew better.

The women in his life hated him. All of them. His daughter. His wife. His ex-wives. His mistress. In fact, a woman didn’t even have to have a relationship with Dean to hate him. She just had to have a conversation.

When Dean was at one of the bars he frequented, somewhere between a nice buzz and completely passed out, if he saw a woman sitting alone he'd strike up a conversation with her. It didn’t matter if they were waiting for someone, or if they were obvious about not wanting to talk to an overaged hippie. None of it mattered. His usual line would go like this.

“Excuse me, ever see that Clint Eastwood movie where they hang him by mistake?” If the girl said yes, he said, “You know, even when he was swinging from the tree he wasn’t as hung as I am.”

Believe it or not, every once in a while it worked. But when it didn’t, it could be brutal. He'd been slapped, spit on, kicked, had hot coffee thrown at him and been beaten to a pulp by boyfriends who'd shown up while he was still there laughing at his own juvenile joke.

Even when he thought he was being funny, it wasn’t hard to hate Dean.

Wrongful Termination - Chapter 7

Billy’s eyes were as wide as manhole covers.

Being a city kid, he was naturally skeptical. The only real horses he’d ever seen were the ones the police rode in Times Square, and the swayback nags pulling tourists around Central Park in replica turn-of-the-century carriages.

Neither had impressed him.

So when he saw the first bronco break from the gate, all four legs in the air, gyrating wildly, it was all he could do to remember to breathe.

He watched in awe as the cowboy in the red checked shirt tried in vain to stay on the wildly spirited horse. His dad couldn’t help wondering why anyone would put themselves through that kind of beating. That thought never crossed Billy's mind. He just thought it was fun to watch.

Robert thought about his two hundred dollar investment, and was glad it had paid off. The seats weren’t exactly where the black man said they were, but they were awfully good just the same. He felt like he’d won the lottery.

Seeing the smile on his son’s face, he knew he had.

For the first time, he let himself think that maybe everything was going to be okay. Maybe the pain of growing up without a mother might take a leave of absence.

What he didn't know in that moment was the leave was temporary.

Wrongful Termination - Chapter 6

When their cab pulled up to the Garden, the first thing they saw when they got out was a ticket scalper. He was a tall, happy black man with a New York accent, wearing a crisp, Stetson cowboy hat and a red scarf.

“Rodeo tickets right here! Hundred dollars. Get your rodeo tickets here! See them white boys get thrown all around! Hundred dollars.”

“Where are the seats?” Robert asked.

“He’s funny Dad.”

“That’s right little man. I’m as funny as they come. I bet you don’t see a lot of funny men like me up where you live, ain’t that right boss?”

Billy just smiled up at him.

“The seats, where are they?”

“Mister, they so close, you can watch the bruises change colors on the cowboys' ass.”

Billy giggled. Robert took out his 100% tanned leather wallet Johnson & Johnson had given him for one of his job anniversaries, handed the man in the cowboy hat two hundred dollars and took the tickets.

“These better be great seats.”

“If they’re not, you can come back and make me live in Harlem.” He started laughing hysterically.

“Bye mister.” Billy smiled up at him and waved.

“Bye little man. Watch you don’t get any dust in your eyes.”

For a moment, Billy and the black man held a knowing stare.

Then Robert took his sons’ hand and they went inside.

Guilty pleasures Part 2: The Three Stooges

I'm just going to come right out with it. I don't care what you think: I loved it.

For the second installment in my Guilty Pleasures series - you can read the first one here - I've chosen everyone's (almost) guilty pleasure: The Three Stooges.

I've always been a Marx Bros. guy. But I've also always loved The Stooges. I've even been to a Stoogefest a time or two in my life. Don't judge me. And having just seen the movie, which is funny as hell, I can only hope there's a whole series of them planned.

The movie pays homage to the original Stooges short films by divvying up the action into chapters, right down to the original graphics and music. Is it stupid? Here's a clue: it has the word "stooges" in the title. But it's the perfect escape film, the very definition of mindless fun.

There've been many big names attached to this project. At one time, Benicio Del Toro was going to be Moe, Sean Penn was Larry and Jim Carrey Curly. For whatever reason, it didn't work out that way. And it's everyone's good fortune it didn't.

The cast they went with not only look like the Stooges, but they inhabit the roles with a disturbing ease. With the exception of Will & Grace's Sean Hayes as Larry, the mostly unknown cast (Chris Diamantopoulos as Moe and Will Sasso as Curly) does a stellar job of not only reincarnating the Stooges, but bringing them into the modern world.

There's a "kids don't try this at home with real hammers and sledgehammers" disclaimer at the very end of the movie that the studio lawyers clearly made the producers include. It's done in a humorous way, but if you give it even the tiniest bit of thought it's a sad statement about the times we're living in.

Anyway, I imagine there's not going to be any middle ground on this film. It's going to be a love or hate, all or nothing deal.

But for me, the best way to sum up my feeling is with those three little words.

Nyuck nyuck nyuck.