New Blog

Check the new blog out @ http://writeforbeer.blogspot.com

it's cool and stuff.

Fallen Concepts

Every so often (twice now), I like to share some ideas and concepts for ads that I'm working on that have been censored or died for one reason or another. Usually they are killed off because they are offensive/too honest/completely dishonest/ludicrous/dumb/terrible. But I find it fun to sometimes examine the ones that don't make it as a way to appreciate the ones that do.

The following are lines of copy written for a client that sells ad space/time in movie theaters. Enjoy!

Advertise at the movies! It's like fishing for fish in a barrel full of fish! (Except the fish are people who want to exchange money for goods and services and you're a provider of goods and/or services)

Advertise at the movies! It's almost like you've taped their eyes open and are forcing them to watch.

Advertise @ the movies! The @ symbol makes it cool!

Advertise at the movies! 10x more annoying than advertising on TV.

Advertise at the movies! Once the doors are closed, there's no place for them to hide!

Advertise at the movies! You have no shame!

Ruin everyone's good time! Advertise at the movies!

Proud of Myself

The Running Broccoli Man is back.

Hooray!

My commercial has officially "premiered." Look out for Jimmy Football coming to you from the Tailgate Tested Laboratorium. It's where they ask the big questions.

You'll find it on ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN NEWS & ESPN Classic (apparently).

I still haven't seen it on TV, but people at the office have. I can't find it online, but I also haven't been looking all that hard.

Not to take anything away from Jimmy Football, because he was a nice guy, but the dudes that play the tailback and psychic are pretty nifty. It was good fun hanging out with them for a day.

Catching Up on My News

This article is a few days old, but offers some cool insight into the seemingly idiotic practice of carbon dioxide capture and storage. Take the CO2 emitted and sell it to oil/natural gas drillers to help pump the fossil fuels to the surface. Right now oil and natural gas companies drill for CO2 deposits while we spend every day pumping the shit into the air. Trap it, sell it to them for dirt cheap and everybody is a fucking winner. At least for a little while.

Jay-Z Has Been Mocking Me Lately

He doesn't know it though. Let me explain.

Over the last week or so working at Old Navy in the mornings, my bosses have been putting on their own music until the store opens. It seems just about every day, Jay-Z & Alicia Keys' song Empire State of Mind comes and forces me to do nothing but romanticize my memories of living in New York City for the next 3 1/2 to 4 minutes. I then spend the following 4 to 5 hours thinking about much I miss living in the city and having a big-boy job that actually paid me enough money to live on my own.

Of course, I don't remember all of the bad stuff (what bad stuff? Oh right, the exorbitant rent, high cost of everything, awful smells, pollution, noise).

I remember the awesome people, the ability to go anywhere at any time. Being able to go out and drink and not be concerned with someone staying sober enough to drive home. The awesomeness of all of the unique stores, restaurants, bars, people and whatnot with all their various themes, ideologies, priorities and deliciousness (maybe not so much the people). The sights, the sounds (minus car horns; fucking cabbies), occasionally the smells, the city had me wrapped around its finger.

But most importantly, it felt like home. Since moving away I've come to realize that NYC was the only place (so far) that I've felt like I could just be me, without self-censorship. It's not that people in NYC are any less judgmental. Some are probably far worse than anywhere else I've lived. But there's a tolerance for the bizarre and different in the city that goes far beyond anything I've experienced anywhere else. It also helps that according to the mentality and standards in the NH/MA area, I'm a bit of an oddball. In NYC, I'm quite "normal." Or at least I don't really fit into the parameters of weird. Because there are some crazy-ass weirdos all over New York. And even if I did meet people that thought I was weird/annoying/an asshole/crude/mean/whatever, there are 7,999,999* million other people living in the city limits that I could go hang out with. So fuck that guy (or girl). I'll go chill with someone else. My options are bit more limited in Nashua, NH.

I've been back to the city a couple times since moving away. And I've noticed each time as I started to see the various apartment buildings against the empty horizon as I cross into the Bronx, I got that warm, safe feeling one gets upon returning home. I felt the cozy feeling of familiarity when I stepped off the bus and onto Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, seeing that despite my extended absence, little had changed. As I walked to the subway, fumbling in my pocket for the MetroCard, it swept over me how in a mere 18 months, this place became my new home. It gave me the feeling of comfort that I hadn't felt since my days as a youngin' returning from the week+ ventures to Pittsburgh, PA to visit family.

As romanticized as it is, I still miss it like I was born and raised there.

I downloaded the song and seem to torture myself with it every day. The hook is so catchy.

*estimated

GOP to Moderate Republicans...Get the Fuck Out

All-Knowing Overlord of the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh, and his right-wing zealot minions are increasingly marginalizing the moderate members of their party and with them, their supporters. They keep this up, there won't be any Republican Party. Well, there will be. But it will be the type of Republican Party that would make Dick Cheney so excited he'd take his family out hunting, shoot them all in the face and then have another heart attack. No, that doesn't make all that much sense.

Honestly though, if the Super Conservative Plus wing of the GOP keeps forcing out moderates, they're going to do exactly what Diedre Scozzafava did. She was a moderate Republican running for the open seat in the House in an upstate NY district that has been Republican since 1852. She was marginalized for not being "Republican" enough, for being socially moderate. She dropped out of the race after being incredibly frustrated for being torn apart by her fellow Republicans. She then threw her support behind the Democratic candidate. GOP keeps this up, there are going to be two Republican parties and neither one is going to win a majority.