The last of our 6 part serial from Lou Aronica and The Story Plant.
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The day after my lunch with Noel Keane, Daz and I held our first late-nighter on the Korean car campaign. We still had two weeks before the presentation to the account, so this wasn’t a high-pressure session. Still, we liked to give ourselves a couple of opportunities to be truly awful before the stakes rose. Pizza with hot cherry peppers was often involved in our brainstorming, as we were aware of the mind-clearing qualities of spicy food and we both had a passion for Anthony’s Oven, a pizzeria about four blocks from the office. Beer was also often involved, but only enough to wash down the peppers without dulling their awareness-heightening benefits.
Our meeting with the rest of the team, along with a conversation with Steve Rupert about basic direction, gave us a foundation to work from. Now it was time to just go where the ideas took us. This was unquestionably the way Daz and I worked best. We liked to get input from others, even creative suggestions from time to time, process all of it for a while, and then start churning.
“Explain this to me again,” Daz said as he volleyed a soccer ball from foot to knee and back again. The ball skittered off a couple of times, which caused him to mutter obscenities at himself before picking it up and trying again. “It’s a luxury car for people in their twenties?”
“Luxury car is the wrong term,” I said, somewhat fixated on the motion of the ball and the fact that Daz wasn’t doing this as well as he usually did it. On his best days, this kind of noodling was a form of performance art. “It’s a sedan. They’ve thrown in leather, wood trim, a great sound system, and Bluetooth to make it seem fancier than it really is. They’re trying to distinguish themselves. The price point is totally in the range of other mid-size cars.”
“I still don’t get it. If I wanted a nice car, I’d get a Jaguar or a BMW.”
“That’s because you can afford a Jaguar or a BMW. Now imagine that you’re one of the vast majority of people who weren’t lucky enough to hook up with a genius sidekick and get a fistful of huge bonus checks. Imagine that you’re someone who’s just on the way to making it and want to appear like you’re already there.”
“Don’t I get one of those mid-priced sports cars instead?” He started taking shots against one of his office walls. The primary reason we usually had these sessions in his office was because Daz’s drawing board and computer were there. A critical secondary reason was that I didn’t want him destroying my furniture or knocking over any of my stuff.
“Yes, you would get one of those mid-priced sports cars. But there are other people in the world who would rather have a car that made them look older rather than younger.”
“There are?” he said generating a series of rapid-fire kicks with both of his feet. Again the ball skittered off. He clearly hadn’t brought his A-game to his fidgeting tonight.
“Yes, there are.”
“Do we know any of these people? I thought one of the keys to our success was that we only handled clients whose products we could imagine using.”
“I can imagine using this product.”
He shot the ball off the wall one more time and caught it with his hands before turning to look at me. “Really?”
“Yeah, really. I mean, sort of really, anyway. You know, if I hadn’t been an overnight sensation and all.”
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There was never a point in my life when I’d had any meaningful concerns about money.
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There was never a point in my life when I’d had any meaningful concerns about money. My mother and father both had very successful careers and if they provided nothing else – and there were plenty of times when I believed exactly that – they made sure my sister and I were well supplied with creature comforts. I got my first credit card (on my parents’ account, of course) when I was sixteen. After graduating, though, I refused to have them support me in any way – it was time for me to make it on my own and definitely time for me to stop taking handouts – and though I was hardly making big dollars, I never worried that I couldn’t pay the rent or that I would eat nothing but beans for months. Now, in spite of the big mortgage on the co-op and the not-insignificant cost of my lifestyle, there was always plenty of cash around.
If I hadn’t jumped the shark with Keane, there might have been a whole lot more. I still hadn’t mentioned anything about the lunch to Daz. First it was because I didn’t want him to think there was anything to be concerned about. Now it was because I didn’t want him to know how much I screwed up – though since I screwed up with him in mind, he probably wouldn’t have teased me mercilessly about it for more than a couple of days.
“Are you telling me that when you grow up you want to drive a Lincoln Town Car and wear double-knit polo shirts?”
My father drives a Lincoln. “No, jeez, why’d you say that?”
“Because that sounded like what you said.”
“I didn’t say anything like that.”
“Sure sounded like it.”
“Do you think we could focus back on the account?”
“If you say so.”
Daz started bouncing the ball off the wall with his head, though he stopped thirty seconds later and sat down for the first time since we’d entered the office. “All right, so let’s assume there are a bunch of people just like young Mr. Rich Flaccid who want this car. How do we turn them on to it?”
“I think that’s what this meeting is about.”
“Yes, it is.” He sprung up, though he didn’t go back to heading the ball. “What does the car look like again?”
I held up a photograph.
“It looks like an Accord,” Daz said.
I turned the picture around to look at it. “Yeah, it does look like an Accord. With more chrome, though. And remember the leather and the wood trim and the sound system.”
“This isn’t a luxury car.”
“Daz, really try to concentrate for five seconds.”
He headed the ball twice and sent it into his wastebasket. I refused to give him any indication that this impressed me. If I let Daz know every time he did something that impressed me, his ego would occupy the entire west side of Manhattan. He sat down across from me and fixed me with his most attentive gaze.
“When is the pizza coming?”
“When we order it.”
“You didn’t order it yet?”
“If I order it now, will you promise me one constructive thought in the next half hour?”
“Order it and I’ll see what I can do.”
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Daz was doing handstands and babbling nonsense words…
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We managed to talk about the car for several of the twenty minutes it took for the pizza to show up. Nothing really came of this discussion, but with me and Daz, it was all about the process. Some of our best ideas, including the very first BlisterSnax campaign line, came directly after hours of flat-out inanity. In fact, Daz was doing handstands and babbling nonsense words when watching him inspired me to come up with the phrase, “Get blistered.” We didn’t quite subscribe to the notion that there were no bad ideas, but we did believe that every bad idea we put out there increased the chances of our having a good idea sometime soon after that. It was all about the law of averages.
“How about if we do something with light glinting off the chrome,” I said while eating my third slice.
“Gee, there’s an original concept.”
“Well it would be if the art director came up with a new way to do the lighting.”
“Yeah, of course, put it all on me. Once again, hot images compensating for tepid ideas.”
“Do you have any open wounds I can rub this cherry pepper into?”
“Psychic injuries only, please. Remember, the softball season is starting. Speaking of which, do you think Chess is serious about his acting lessons conflicting with our games?”
Chester Hampton, known amongst friends as Chess, was the star center fielder on The Shop’s softball team. Like many of the transients at the agency, though, his back office gig was really just a way to stay solvent until Broadway or Hollywood called. He even tried to convince me to cast him in one of our commercials, but I explained that he’d have to quit his job before I could do that. That always got him to go away.
“Sure sounded like it.”
“But he really can’t act. Do you remember how awful he was in that off-off-off Broadway thing last year?”
“I guess that’s why he’s taking the lessons. And it’s not like chasing down fly balls for our team will further his ambitions.”
“Yeah, but it’ll further our chances of winning games. Who’s gonna bat cleanup if he doesn’t play for us this year?”
“Looks like that falls to the man with sauce on his chin.”
Daz wiped his face with a napkin. “Can’t. You need me to set the table. If I don’t do that, the cleanup batter won’t have anyone to clean up.”
I held out my hands in a gesture of surrender. “Well, don’t look at me. I’m there for my keen strategic mind and the occasional bloop single.”
Daz guffawed. “I think you’d better look up the word ‘occasional’ in the dictionary. I think something has to happen more than once a century to be deemed occasional.”
I smirked at him and then slapped the table. “Hey, how about using ‘occasional’ in the car campaign. Something like, ‘Because your life isn’t an occasional thing.’”
“What does that even mean?”
“What does ‘Just Do It’ mean?”
“It means just do it. People can figure that out.” He shook his head derisively, muttering the word “occasional.” He took a couple of bites of pizza while mulling something. This might have been anything from his next jibe, to our center field crisis, to whether we should order the pizza with prosciutto next time.
“How about going back to that chrome thing,” he said finally. “Let’s say I come up with some world-class, never-before-seen lighting effects and then we tag it, ‘Only your future is brighter?’”
I put down the pizza crust I was munching on. “That might actually be good.”
He shrugged. “I just toss ’em off.”
“I mean, it probably sucks. But it might be good. Could you make it work in a print campaign?”
“Color or black-and-white?”
“Both.”
“Color definitely. Black-and-white might be more of a problem. It’ll take me at least three hours to solve it.”
“Take four and make it perfect.” I sat back in Daz’s desk chair.
He retrieved his soccer ball from the wastebasket. “Hey, what do they call this car again?”
“They want us to come up with the name.”
“Wow, really? We get to name a car? That’s like a little moment of immortality. Even if the car is kinda dorky.”
“They knew it would make you happy. So what do we call it?”
“How about ‘Lumina?’”
“Already taken.”
“‘Shimmer.’”
“Too pedestrian.”
“‘Brilliante.’”
“I think I feel my pizza coming back up.”
Daz threw the soccer ball at me. “Hey, I came up with the campaign; you come up with the name.”
“Technically, I came up with the campaign. You just refined it.”
“Whatever. Listen, I’m burnt. Let’s crash.”
“You’re burnt? It’s 8:30.”
“I don’t know, I’m just really tired. We did enough tonight already, right?”
“Yeah, we probably did.” I closed up the pizza box and handed Daz the last piece. I always had three slices and he always had five.
“I don’t want it,” he said, holding his hands up. “You eat it.”
“You’re full of pizza?” I picked up the phone. “Think we can still get this on the eleven o’clock news?”
“I won’t make a habit of it.”
I put down the phone. “You too tired for a few rounds of Search and Destroy?” Daz smiled. “When have I ever been too tired for that?”
♦◊♦
I’ll admit right up front that I was only in it for the explosions. Search and Destroy is an XBox game that is short on plot (essentially two teams of aliens try to vaporize each other), challenge (anyone with a modest level of eye-hand coordination can blast a serious number of aliens) and social value. However, the explosions (and there are many of them) are spectacular – especially on my sixty-inch television. The music is pretty great, too, a sort of combination of speed metal and thrash that makes me feel sixteen again, and it sounds especially good coming out of my Bang and Olufsen.
Daz and I were Zen masters of Search and Destroy combat, sometimes staying at the game long into the night with little more than bathroom breaks. We have played the game over dinner, while brainstorming, while listening to sporting events, and even once on a double date that unsurprisingly didn’t turn out very well.
We were back at my place by 9:00 and had the game fired up no more than ten minutes later. Daz chose to be Admiral Krus of the Flurg Republic. I was Blitar, the rogue Vanzian who could be trusted by no one.
“I can’t believe you chose Blitar,” Daz said derisively. “His resources suck.”
“And you think Krus is such a great choice? What’s the fat old thing gonna do, fart all over me?”
Daz leaned forward and started flicking his game controller, though nothing had started yet. “We’ll see who’s standing in the end.”
I set the game in motion. “Don’t worry, Daz. Blitar will be very respectful as he pisses on Krus’ blasted body.”
Daz sneered at me and turned to the screen. Within moments, we were fully engaged. Blitar set up camp on the desolate sands of Wizhn’h’t and he and his army engaged the enemy from behind the desert-forged Walls of Defiance, electronically enhanced fortresses that gave Blitar a full view of the opposing forces while shielding him completely. I definitely had the best of the early action, with dozens of Krus’ troops cut in half by pulse-rifle fire. I took down two of Krus’ lightships in booming Technicolor displays – which never failed to inspire me to whoops of joy.
Then Daz caught me off guard when Krus authorized a particle-flanking maneuver. Hundreds of his soldiers atomized and rematerialized behind my lines. It was a dangerous move and one that I could have countered by making materialization impossible if I’d anticipated it. It took me by surprise, though, and suddenly we were in one of the bloodiest firefights we’d ever exchanged.
I was pinned down and in danger of a humiliatingly fast defeat when the phone rang. I thumbed the pause button on my controller.
“I can’t believe you’re gonna get that,” Daz said in loud protest. “I was just about to vaporize you.”
“That’s exactly what I wanted you to believe,” I said with manufactured bravado. “You might want to spend the next few minutes thinking about what could go wrong with your little plan.” I of course had absolutely no countermeasure in mind and he was going to tear me to pieces when we put the game back on. Still, if I could make him think I had something up my sleeve, it was possible he’d make a mistake.
I couldn’t figure out where my phone was right away, finally finding it in the bedroom.
“Rich, I hope this isn’t a bad time to call.” It was Noel Keane, recognizable immediately by his singular accent. “No, no, not at all. I was just hanging out with –” it dawned on me that saying Daz’s name to him wasn’t the best idea – “a friend.”
“I’m glad to hear I’m not disturbing you. Listen, I was very pleased with our lunch yesterday.”
“You were?”
I heard a little chuckle on the other end. “You say that like you’re surprised. Weren’t you pleased with it?”
“Yeah, of course,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound like I was fumbling. “You just never know what someone else is thinking.”
“You’re a smart guy, Rich, and you asked a lot of the right questions. I talked to Curt Prince about our conversation and he asked if I could set up some time for the two of you to meet.”
Curt Prince was to creative admen what Eric Clapton was to guitarists. He was brilliant, powerful, admired by his peers, and absolutely ubiquitous in the trades.
“Yeah, of course,” I said while trying to calculate how much I would have paid for a meeting like this. “I’d love to have a chance to get together with him.”
“Well, let’s make that happen, then. Next Tuesday lunch okay?”
It seemed a little strange to me that these super-powerful ad guys had so much free lunch time (I was booked almost every day in April), but I chose not to quibble. “I’ll make it okay,” I said without even looking at my calendar.
“That’s good. I’ll have my assistant call you with the details that morning.”
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We exchanged a couple of pleasantries and I hung up with Keane a few moments later.
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We exchanged a couple of pleasantries and I hung up with Keane a few moments later. I stayed seated on my bed for several minutes after that. I needed a little time to digest this. How could I have misread Keane’s expression at the end of that lunch – the one that told me, “Have a nice life”? When he said that I asked a lot of good questions, did those questions include the ones about bringing Daz in as part of the deal? I needed to think this over. I also needed to catch my breath before going back out to the living room. Once again, I felt that I couldn’t mention this to Daz. This time it was because I hadn’t mentioned it to him before. This was getting more than a little complicated – and I was starting to feel more and more like I was “cheating” on Daz. Finally, I picked myself up off the bed.
“I hope you’ve considered all of your options,” I said to Daz as I walked into the room. “Not that it matters, because you have no idea what I have up my sleeve.”
When I looked at Daz for a response, I saw that his head was tilted back and he was fast asleep. It was 9:45.
This was an absolute first. I thought about letting him just spend the night on the couch, but he didn’t seem to be in a very comfortable position and he was too big for me to move. I tried a bit of repositioning but that didn’t help at all. Finally, I just jostled him awake. He seemed completely disoriented when he opened his eyes. He saw my face, looked confused, and then closed his eyes again and shook his head. I got up to get him a glass of water.
“How long have I been sleeping?”
“Not very long but you look wasted. You’d better go home and crash.”
“What about the game?”
“We’ll play again tomorrow. I was kicking your ass anyway.”
He stood up but he looked shaky. I thought for a second he might sit back down again. “That’s not the way I remember it.”
“You were probably winning in your dreams.” He ran his fingers through his hair and then reached for his jacket. He still seemed very much out of it. “Do you want me to walk you home?”
He smirked, a bit of life returning to his face. “Thanks, Honey, but I think I can make it.”
“You sure you’re good?”
“I’m fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Daz left and I walked over to the couch and sat down. The impression his head had made was still on one of the cushions. I really hadn’t been on the phone with Keane that long. Daz must have knocked off right after I left the living room. I took the XBox off pause and immediately half of my army was pierced by streamflash. I quickly exited the game.
I switched the television to cable and put on ESPN. I absently watched a basketball game while I continued to think about how weird it was that Daz had fallen asleep like that. Maybe he had been up really late the night before. Maybe with a woman he hadn’t told me about.
That wouldn’t be like him. Unless he had a compelling reason. Daz didn’t keep secrets from me.
Then again, I didn’t keep secrets from him, either.
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