Making a TV commercial. We're making some TV commercials for one of our clients this week. Making a TV commercial is like nothing else I've ever done. It's tiring, exhilirating, daunting, fun and maddening. What's most amazing about the whole thing is that you can shoot the foyer of a home where there is a staircase going up, then turn around and shoot the dining room like it's the upstairs, then turn around again and shoot the kitchen counter like it's the mailroom of the office you're shooting in the next day.

Oh, and don't forget you can shoot a high school office to look like a hospital waiting room and then go outside onto the football field so you can shoot a football field. However, you only have three players and a coach and that's supposed to (and does) look like a full team.

Mark Bennett, excellent director and friend, once said it this way:

It's the lie that tells the truth.

I like that.

Ooops, gotta go look at some wardrobe choices.  ¶ 12:35 PM 14 comments

  Friday. Today is Friday and Fridays are always good.
They come when you least expect them.
Sure you know they're always at the end of a workweek.
Whether good or bad or great or something else altogether.
But you know how some Thursdays seem like Mondays and how you can
wake up on a Wednesday, think it's Saturday, realize it's Wednesday and
then almost cry because it's not Saturday? (I know you know.)

But today is Friday and you know Fridays are good because
at the end of the day a beer or a ballgame or a dog or a friend
or a loved one or a child or a mom or a dad or a movie or a sitting
on some deck or a novel or a video game or a something-else-you've-
been-waiting-all-week-for

awaits.  ¶ 10:53 AM 4 comments

  Ireland 1, France 0 Uh, duh. Like we didn't know that beer and potatoes make you loads happier than champagne and goose liver.

Check out the fact that the Irish are the happiest workers here.  ¶ 3:54 PM 29 comments

  Jesus. Last post was fucking Christmas? Sorry about that.

Truth is, I haven't had that much to write. Here, I mean. I've been terribly busy for the past just about half year writing on the professional side of the fence. Advertising is one of those things that can be great one day and shite the next.

But I think that's the case for pretty much anybody's job.

Either way, I plan to get more of my thoughts down here. But I can't make any promises.

Listening to Marillion right now. Holy smokes, you'd think it was 1986 all over again. But thank God it's not.  ¶ 9:00 PM 34 comments

  Tug List - Christmas 2K6 Noted without comment:

"Linus and Lucy" by the Vince Guaraldi Trip
When Frosty says "Happy birthday!"
Barbeque/Brothers by The Frogtown Hollow Juibiee JugBand
An official Red Ryder carbine action two-hundred shot range model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time
Honey Baked Ham™
Christmas Microbrews
NBA 07 for XBOX 360
Christmas and New Year's Parties
Saying "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays"
Dressing the kids up in matching Christmas jammies
Trying to get to sleep on Christmas Eve
Setting cookies and milk out for Santa
Santa Claus
The Abominable Snow Monster a.k.a. The Bumble
Yukon Cornelius
The Charley In The Box
The South Park Christmas Card where Jesus and Santa get in a Kung Fu fight.
"Dude, don't say pigfucker in front of Jesus."
The fact that Rudolph was created by advertising copywriter Robert L. May in 1939
The fact that Montgomery & Ward donated the trademark to him in 1947
The fact that I will be spending this Christmas with Sarah, Sean, Nick all the McTighes and all the Bucks.
Happy Christmas War is Over (If you want it)
Peace.


  ¶ 10:46 AM 28 comments

  Noted without comment.   ¶ 11:43 AM 32 comments

  Yesterday was an historic event in the U.S.A. and I'm proud of all of you who voted for change.
What happened reminded me of this:

Hey, do you know about the U.S.A.?
Do you know about the government?
Can you tell me about the Constitution?
Hey, learn about the U.S.A.

In 1787 I'm told
Our founding fathers did agree
To write a list of principles
For keepin' people free.

The U.S.A. was just startin' out.
A whole brand-new country.
And so our people spelled it out
The things that we should be.

And they put those principles down on
paper and called it the Constitution, and
it's been helping us run our country ever
since then. The first part of the
Constitution is called the preamble and tells
what those founding fathers set out to do.

We the people
In order to form a more perfect union,
Establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,
Provide for the common defense,
Promote the general welfare and
Secure the blessings of liberty
To ourselves and our posterity
Do ordain and establish this Constitution
for the United States of America.

In 1787 I'm told
Our founding fathers all sat down
And wrote a list of principles
That's known the world around.

The U.S.A. was just starting out
A whole brand-new country.
And so our people spelled it out
They wanted a land of liberty.
And the preamble goes like this:

We the people
In order to form a more perfect union,
Establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,
Provide for the common defense,
Promote the general welfare and
Secure the blessings of liberty
To ourselves and our posterity,
Do ordain and establish this Constitution
for the United States of America.

For the United States of America.

I urge all outgoing Republicans and all incoming Democrats to watch America Rock. They all might learn a little something. (You should watch it too.)

Darn! That's the end.  ¶ 11:27 AM 2 comments