I'm Not a Copywriter, But...

I hear that once a day from account people. At least once a day.

Truth is, everyone thinks they're a copywriter - and truthfully - everyone is in some way. People know what works. They know what works for them, anyway. They know what commercials grab them or what billboard catches their eye, what banner makes them click. I like to think I know what works for everyone. Because I'm an arrogant copywriter. It's my job. But when an account person says to me, "I'm not a copywriter, but..." I try to listen with an open mind.  

Still, simple words trip me up. Like barely and hardly. When is something barely doable and when is something hardly doable. Does barely mean it can be done, but only by the skin of its teeth? Does hardly mean it can't be done, ever? So, is hardly a word used in sarcasm? I hurt my brain with these exercises. I can't think about it too much and just take every case situationally. Situationally is not even a word. It sure should be.

Think of the word maybe. According to Jack Johnson, maybe pretty much always means no. According to a child, maybe means we will absolutely get you that thing you want. Maybe is basically the same as I promise.

Probably, on the other hand, is like maybe towing a yes trailer.

The Sleep Twilight

I've long been a believer in finding (or rather receiving) ideas in that half-conscious state between sleep and wakefulness. In fact, I let one go this morning. It was genius, I'm sure, but I didn't write it down and it vanished.

Found this quote at AnimalNewYork marking the passing of Ray Bradbury:

“Any owner of cats will know of what I speak. Cats come at dawn to sit on your bed. They may not nip your nose or inhale your breath or make a sound. They simply sit there and stare at you until you open one eyelid and spy them there about to drop dead for need of feeding. So it is with ideas. They come silently in the hour of trying to wake up and remember my name. The notions and fancies sit on the edge of my wits, whisper in my ears and then, if I don’t rouse, give more than cats give: a good knock in the head, which gets me out and down to my typewriter before the ideas flee or die or both. In any event, I make the ideas come to me. I do not go to them. I provoke their patience by pretending disregard. This infuriates the latent creature until it is almost raving to be born and once born, nourished.”

Maybe that's what lacking in today's workplace. Not enough napping.

How to Make a Short, Indie, Post-Apocalyptic Thiller

A friend I've never met, Josh Oakhurst, let me in on his latest project and gave me some behind-the-scenes details on how he pulled it off.

A brief backstory: "Six months from now, two North American Union Armored Guard Personnel and an electrician find out what it's like to be trapped in a rolling coffin in unfriendly territory. Inspired by a photography project on abandoned homes."

Here's the film:


Chimera from Josh Oakhurst on Vimeo.

And here's how he pulled it off, shared with me after I asked stupid questions like, "How'd you pull that off?"

Josh said finding people to help out, not just actors, was by far the hardest part.

Aside from his wife (the female cop), all of the other actors and crew were just people he knew from the neighborhood.

He catered lunch over two days and tried to pay everyone something, even if it was just a little bit.

My wife obviously worked for free. She was a trooper and I definitely tested her patience.

The Male Cop was a dude from the neighborhood I know. I liked him, he was great.

The electrician guy was a Turkish engineer I befriended in my building. He was awesome, no one ever asked him to do something like this. His wife was so proud.

The kid I found through a post on Craigslist. His mom volunteered him. He was really great as well.

I paid this big Jamaican dude to run security for us on both days. We were in some sketchy neighborhoods.

When we were shooting inside that abandoned drug house, the actual drug dealing (not hyperbole) neighbors next door thought that we were a SWAT team or something. I guess between the car, the uniforms, the big dude with a SECURITY t-shirt and some prop guns, they thought we were raiding the place.

The rest of the people on screen, and the "crew" were all a bunch of drunken, fellow artists from the metal studio who had a free afternoon.

All told, I think if I'm honest I'm in this thing about $7G, including all the metal work and learning how to weld. I think it was worth it, because no one else has ever spent that much money on anything else I've shot. I needed to do it for me, if nothing else.

Nice work. And even though Josh is a creative director at a digital shop in North Carolina, this supports what I've always said about working in our industry; you've got to keep a side project that you have total control over. You're never going to satisfy your need to create by working for clients.

Film Festival time for Josh, I think.

Is This Thing On?

Some will not have noticed I was gone, but it’s been a few months since I put this blog on what I called “indefinite hiatus.” I took a leave from what started to become a burden, that of entertaining you ungrateful and slothful people who are supposed to be working, but instead troll the wires looking for laughs and oddities, anything but that dreaded task you’re supposed to be toiling over, the one that saps your soul and makes you long for a real job; something like a lumberjack or a crab fisherman. But then you remember there’s no WiFi out in the middle of the North Pacific and you settle back into your dimly lit cube, with your Starbucks and your iTunes and your Bose® | QuietComfort® Acoustic Noise Cancelling® headphones and you say to yourself, “Life could be worse. I guess. Whatever.”

When we last parted, I was seeking full-time work and I needed a roof. Since then, I found a serviceable assignment as a contractor with a large corporation specializing in hospitality and travel. (There is little else here in Orlando.) This assignment enabled me to get that roof. Now we don’t cringe every time it starts raining at Casa de Jetpacks. But style guides and communication guidelines don’t often leave much room for thinking outside the PDF, so I kept busy on some other side interests. If you follow me on Twitter, you’re familiar with my series "Coffee with Jesus", (54 of those to date), Saturated Street Scenes (the latest is called "Pinche Gringos - Cozumel, Mexico"), and hopefully with other aspects of what is happening at Radio Free Babylon, an 11-year old endeavor/passion/mission that I’ve always fantasized would someday employ not only me, but hundreds of thousands of people across the globe. (Not really, just me.) To date, I think we sold a mug on cafepress once.

The contract mentioned above is expiring, they told me this morning, in early August. They have hired a full-time staff employee. They would like for me to train my replacement. I’m thinking of training her all wrong. There are other irons in the fire, and as I wait for them to heat up, I thought it was a good time to fire up the old jetpack blog and see if it had any kick left for me. I already like it again, I think. (And I'm blogging from work! Shhhhh!)

So, put this blog back in your RSS readers if you deleted it, like RFB on Facebook, Link-In with me and comment here when something pleases you or pisses you off. We writers are a needy lot, just like anyone else who makes their living in the “arts.” Designers, musicians, actors, hell – even jugglers and mimes – we all crave that little morsel of recognition. You don’t get paid to blog in most instances and you can’t hear any applause or booing, so comments are like the little fish tossed to the trained seal at Sea World. (Sorry, I meant SeaWorld® Theme Park.)

If you have actual little fish to toss my way, send me an email and I’ll give you my address.

Post Number 2000

I've tried to make this blog more about quality than quantity. It has been for me, above all, a creative outlet, because we all know how hard it is to actually be creative, even in a supposedly creative industry. (As I tell every "creative," keep a real creative passion on the side just to keep you sane, because you will never fully satisfy your need to create through your work.) 

And with that, I'm putting this blog on indefinite hiatus. It's been a fun four and a half years, but it's time to do some other things. I need to sell a book, or write another couple. I need to land a full-time job*. Or get a degree in architecture. Maybe I'll record some more music. Maybe I'll put a little more effort into some other neglected endeavors. Maybe I'll clean out the attic. It's good to reinvent yourself. Just ask Bowie.

I will still be on Twitter and probably still posting things at Radio Free Babylon. And I might bring this blog back to its regular posting frequency after I've had some time to miss it. As I said, it's a hiatus.

* If you need a résumé, just search the archives of this blog and you'll get a good idea of what I do. I'm entertaining all offers east of the Mississippi. If you still want to play the old-school game of "objective, experience, education," find me on Linked-In.

Logo Creative Review

More messing around with the fun art of North Korean propaganda.

In this installment, the client plays the role he plays best, Supreme Dictator and Arbiter of All Things Creative. (click)

Hope That Something Pure Can Last

This is what they will play for you on your deathbed, like the old man in Soylent Green watching the film of flowers before he's wheeled into the processor to become snack crackers. (Did I lose you, kids? Look it up.)

Indie band Arcade Fire, in cooperation with "some friends from Google," have showcased the capabilities of HTML5 with director Chris Milk through the website The Wilderness Downtown. Type in the address of a childhood home (or any address for that matter) and wait a bit. Provided you grew up in a suburb, the film will aptly reflect the title of the band's latest release, The Suburbs. (Is there something about Canadian bands and their obsession with subdivisions? "Any escape might help to smooth the unattractive truth," I suppose. Look it up.)

Having moved around quite a lot as a child, I watched it several times using different addresses. The birds cast shadows over your neighborhood and the running child can be seen from the birds' view on high, running down your old street. As he/she spins on the wet asphalt, the scene in front of your old house begins to spin. It's like a dream, honestly, up to the point where the film asks you to write a letter to your childhood self, which I found to be an overwrought stretch. I was enjoying a journey, not looking for a therapy session.

The video, as far as I can tell, is only viewable in Google's Chrome browser, and it's a little clunky. Even still, it's worth it. But believe the warning: "This film is processor intensive. Please shut down other programs and close unnecessary browser tabs. Doing this will enhance your viewing experience. Thanks."

Is it a clever promotion for Google's Chrome, still slow to be adopted after two years? Is it a smart publicity piece for Arcade Fire's new music? Is it a showcase for the capabilities of HTML5? Yes, yes and yes. What's more, it's a hauntingly beautiful piece of art, it's a good (and catchy, damnit) song, it's an unexpected trip into your childhood, and the lyrics recall an innocence that will make you nostalgic for the time before "the flashing lights settled deep in your brain."

Via

Everyone's a Creative

During a recent and sudden storm that blew through the neighborhood in a matter of minutes, a trash can was blown over on the side of the house. It fell in just the perfect way that it sheared off an outdoor spigot at the wall, so water was gushing all over the place. I shut off the main and went about searching for a plumber. Now sure, I probably could've fixed this myself. Eventually. I'm not above a little home repair and enjoy learning new things, but when you don't have water and you can't flush toilets or take a shower and it's 95 degrees outside, time is sort of against you if you're going to make a few runs to Home Depot in between checking forums and boards on how to fix this thing you've never tried to fix before. My trusty iPhone was fairly useless in finding a plumber but I'd long ago trashed all my Yellow Pages, certain they were bulky relics of another era, like encyclopedias. iPhone's first recommendation was very near to me, but they were new construction plumbers exclusively and wondered how I'd even found them. They recommended someone else. I called that recommendation who long ago got out of the plumbing business but recommended someone else. Turned out third time's the charm and they could fix this thing. "So the hose bib broke off?" asked the dispatcher. Uncertain of what a "hose bib" was, I pretended to know and said, "Yes."

Soon after, a large man with flowing white hair and a huge, matching beard appeared in a white van. Sort of a Santa Claus plumber, and I'm sure he gets some part-time gigs around the Holidays. He was the rare type of contractor who doesn't mind the homeowner looking over his shoulder as he explains what he does. Usually that will piss a guy off, but Santa was in a jolly mood. He said he could fix this thing with ease and he rummaged through his van for a long time. It wasn't long before I was starting to think, "This dick is trying to milk this job, taking way longer than he needs to for a simple 'hose bib.'"

He eventually explained, "I could've put a simple hose bib on there down where it broke off, but then you'd be thinking, 'That guy charged me for an hour and he hardly did anything.'" He went about connecting pieces and adding fittings, clamping this and cutting that as he continued, "See, if I just did the minimum, then you don't even get to see my talent." He said that word with pride. "Might as well give you your full hour's worth." He fashioned a nice little bunch of right angles that went up the wall above where the old spigot sat and locked it all down with anchors and brass, assuring me no silly, errant trash can would ever fuck with this bad-ass spigot again. As he was leaving, he said he does it that way so that when it comes time to replumb this old house (and that time is coming) I might think of the guy who took the time to do the job right rather than just what was needed to get it done. He can rest assured that I will. They call that Customer Service. It's a dying art.

It made me think of all the out-of-work creatives looking for work in a steadily dying industry. Or the struggling agency or consultancy wondering where the new business is. Maybe when we eventually take work outside of our chosen profession, we will still approach things with creativity, not resentment, finding the joy, and dare I say it, "art," in something as simple as stacking the clean dishes or sweeping a floor, finding the satisfaction in doing a job right. You don't have to make pretty, eye-catching designs or write compelling, witty copy to be considered "creative." And come to think of it, no one is going to edit this plumber's work. There will be no re-dos.

Guy's name was John. He was a creative.

Previously in Everyone's a Creative:

Production By Committee

Tree Trimmer Artists

It's The Wrong Tone

Before I was workforce reduced from my last gig at an under-the-radar marketing firm here in O-town, I wrote the agency some new web copy. (The client runs the show, and he was an incompetent tool, and he apparently didn't appreciate me thinking so out loud. Plus he made it clear he wanted his writer on-site in Miami, which meant sitting at his feet for 10 hours a day taking notes as he uttered profundities from his spittle-spattered, fat mouth.) Anyway, the copy the owner had on the site began: "Welcome! Let's face it, the difference between a good company and a great one is the quality of the people." Other gems included: "We approach everything we do with strong determination, intense passion and continual focus on meeting the objectives of our clients." Golden, I'm sure you'll agree. It's what everyone says and it's why I hate most small to medium agency sites. (For more on this, see here.)

That new copy has still not appeared, along with the new design someone spent a long time on. The agency is apparently having problems with their web design firm in Rochester. Yes, a small Orlando marketing firm went to Rochester to get a website. This was after an extensive, nationwide search that included a trip to New York City. You know how it is, the small shop owner wants to play big-shot, so they "tour the facility" of a potential vendor, make them feed them lunch and then get in a round of golf. Nevermind that sitting in the office of the agency were at least four people with the skills to build the small site required.

Two months ago I heard that the new site is "Going live this week!" It still hasn't. And this agency, like way too many others, faces the potential client with silly cliches and sound-alike copy that they think sets them apart from everyone else.

And honestly, the only reason I even wrote this was so that I could embed this clip from the Academy Award Winning film* Joe Dirt.



* No, it really didn't, but it should've SWEPT!

One Size Fits All and the Death of Creativity

(Click it for the big picture)

Presenting: "Where's My Jetpack?" The Song and The Video

Or: Unemployment Will Make a Man do Weird Things, Part III.

I've put together a song - and a video to go along with it, and I really like how they both turned out. (You're free not to.) It's called, not surprisingly, "Where's My Jetpack?" I went ahead and created a jetpack of sorts for this video. Don't try this at home. Or do. It was a load of fun.

Much thanks go to the phenomenally talented Professor Fred Leo, musician extraordinaire, for his expert advice during the creation of the audio track.


Enjoy...or don't.

Where's My Jetpack? from Radio Free Babylon on Vimeo.

Using the Facebook Vimeo embed here since the sound quality of YouTube leaves much to be desired.

Also, any perceived homage to ancient rockers from Boston is entirely intentional. Best to turn it up loud.  

This Beats a Killer Whale Show Any Day

In a matter of days, expect an ad agency with a dog snack client to steal this idea and use it in a commercial.

We Interrupt This Broadcast

Over the weekend, I read what has been widely acclaimed as a pretty good novel by a well-known author. I came away from his book saying, "What a pile of crap. That thing I wrote in 30 days is better than this." But the game of publishing is, in fact, a game, all the more these days when publishers are freaking out about the viability of their industry. I'll keep standing on the sidelines hoping to play, shouting for the coach to put me in, but I'm going to bend the rules now.

Nothing like self-publishing; the ultimate "Bite me!" to the REAL publishing world. Downside, of course, is that no one reads it and you never see a dime, not that most authors make any money anyway. So I decided, "Why not take self-publishing one step further and just say, "Fuck it," posting the manuscript I wrote, in its entirety, here on Blogger? Maybe it'll catch the eye of a literary agent or publisher, or maybe it will expose me for the hack that I am, a risk I have been taking here on this blog for four years. 

Raise your hand if you have a great idea for a screenplay. Raise your hand if you think you've written the killer novel. (It has Vampires in it? Excellent!) We would-be writers and hopeful authors hold on to our "works" as if they are undiscovered gold, clutching them to our chests lest some plagiarist see them, recognize their worth, and steal them. That's bullshit. Throw it out there. See what happens. 

We now return you to your regularly scheduled whatever it was we were doing here.

It's Hard Out There for a Pimp

I think every unpublished writer has questioned the value and necessity of the literary agent. Nathan P. Superagent is here to explain.

Steamy Romance Novel

You're Not an Artist. You're a Tool

David Burn over at AdPulp remarked in a tweet yesterday that the best line from this week's episode of Mad Men was, "You're not an artist, Peggy. You solve problems."

It was a great line, but I'm feeling even more cynical than that today. So, here's to all the short-sighted, buck-passing, back-stabbing, micro-managing, self-inflated clowns we deal with daily.

grande

Lest you think I harbor fantasies that this business is anything more than selling, here's a 3-year old post.

Everyone's a Creative

No, I mean it. Everyone really is. In some way or another, everyone is a creative. But in this business, it'd sure be nice if there was a way to keep everyone's opinion out of every job. Production by committee...you know the result...a watered-down and usually ineffective piece. Client's always right? Rarely.

Bigger is Better

And I thought I recognized that multicultural group from somewhere.

Where's My Creativity Magazine?

Brian, aka @askacopywriter, sent me this image of the latest issue of Creativity. I will assume that's Brian's thumb in the corner.

Brian claims to be a copywriter, but from what I've seen at his blog, he can't possibly spend more than 10 minutes a day writing copy. He's too busy wandering the streets and subways of NYC, documenting ads and uploading them.

They Call it "Stock" Photography For a Reason

I am rewriting an old ad. The old ad uses the “plant in hands with a little soil” image. I trust we are changing that, too.

I could go on and on and get all crazy on a rant about lack of creativity and being stupid and using the expected, like a guy climbing a mountain to illustrate a financial services ad or two hands shaking (one white, one black) to show your “client services” page or maybe a smiling woman (Hispanic) with a headset for your “contact us” image, but I’m not going to rant. No. But clicheimage.com is available if you'd like to start a new stock photography company (or a site about stupid ads).

A Nation of Immigrants

Hey, Hannity! They barely speak English, but they love their country.

Patriotism is alive in one of the most neglected yet colorful areas of Miami. This in-progress American mural graces a wall in Little Haiti.

mas grande

I'm hoping the artist eventually puts some lapels on that Mister Rogers sweater Obama's wearing, turning it into a proper jacket.