Cool Stuff

Thanks, Amy

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Amy at Tilden Bar None Ranch sent me two blogger awards a few days ago!  I was pleasantly surprised to be recognized by her, and am more appreciative than you know that even one person finds my writing interesting.  The awards she bestowed on my humble attempts at writing are ‘The Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award,’ and the ‘Versatile Blogger.’ What I appreciated most, though, was her description of my blog:

If you like to read about real life, follow this link to a down to earth, well rounded blog. It’s well written and one of my favorites.

Wow, who could ask for a better sound bite than that?  I certainly aim to be down to earth, and I’m glad that’s coming through in my writing. Now, for the obligatory seven random facts about myself…

1 – No one that knows me would ever choose the phrase “irresistibly sweet” to describe me (though I’m grateful for the shout-out from Amy!).  People tend to see me as nice, fairly generous, supportive – plenty of positive things – but I’m more introvert than extrovert, more serious than playful, more straight-faced than expressive, thus sweet is generally left off of the list of adjectives used to describe me.

2 – I won a women’s state championship in high school for trap shooting.  Have I mentioned I grew up in the Midwest?  Also in high school, I entered a competition with my mother called the ‘Annual Father/Son Trap Shoot,’ and they graciously changed the name of the event to the ‘Annual Parent/Child Trap Shoot.’  We won.  Not just the name change, but the event.

3 – I am fairly obsessive about a number of things, like keeping my house really clean, multi-tasking to the degree that I stop and think what I might be able to carry with me if I move from one room to another so I can make that walk more productive, writing lists multiple times because I need all like items to be grouped together and that almost never works out perfectly the first time I make a list.  Speaking of categories, I’ve been thinking of using my own post categories as writing prompts because I keep creating new ones and the list grows and grows, but too many categories have only one entry in them.  It’s just a little OCD, not a lot.

4 – I get bored very easily, which is maybe why I’m more of a generalist than a specialist at anything.  You’ll have noticed if you visit my blog directly that I’ve changed the design twice in the past six weeks.  I’m just glad there are more themes created all the time, so I have choices when I do get bored.

5 – My favorite place to hang out, when I bother to get out of the house, is a ridiculous dive karaoke bar called “Mel-O-Dee,” which is located in a strip mall.  They have red velvet wallpaper, cheap and strong drinks, and even lasers and a fog machine on the dance floor.  You hear everything from truly horrific singing to some singing that is quite good – but the place is friendly to those horrid singers and everyone always seems to be having a lot of fun.  In keeping with my introvert nature, I’m one of those annoying people who will only sing after plenty of drinks, and I am told that even then, no one can actually hear my voice.

6 – Sometimes when I decide to try a new hobby, I convince myself that if I spend a lot of money on it, I will be more likely to stick with it.  It rarely works.  For instance, I decided 5 or 6 years ago to take guitar lessons.  I bought two guitars (couldn’t decide between electric and acoustic, so I got one of each), much more expensive guitars than made sense for a beginner, and some fancy electronic equipment that would have allowed me to play the electric guitar as though it were plugged into one of a million different amps.  I think I tried it out once.  I bought the complete original scores to all Beatles music – it’s a huge book that looks beautiful, but I never used it.  Luckily, I have a friend who plays guitar, so after I gave up the charade, I have been able to give some of these things to someone who loves them and actually uses them.

7 – I am dying for DirecTV and Tivo to get their act together and release a new Satellite Tivo HD DVR.  It broke my heart when they stopped working together and I was forced to buy a DirecTV branded HD DVR.  I live with it because I have to, but I long for the Tivo interface.  They announced a new partnership 3 years ago, and still have yet to release the product!

Next, here are some blogs I thing are very worthy of recognition, awards, highlights, shout-outs – whatever you feel like calling them…

Flight Platform Living – A mother’s journey with precious souls and Smith Magenis Syndrome is one woman’s uplifting tribute to the trials, tribulations, triumphs, and gifts she encounters on her journey with her family.  This is reading that will put you in a good mood whenever you need it.

Helen Writes – An interesting mix of tips on writing short stories, fiction, and crime, book reviews, and odes to Agatha Christie have repeatedly brought me back to Helen’s blog.  I happen to be a big fan of crime stories, both written and in film/television, but this blog is a good read for anyone, regardless of genre preferences.

Michael Haynes – A Writing Blog is full of interesting story dissections, updates on Michael’s writing, and regular links to other great content.  He has published both fiction and non-fiction, and I love the effort he makes to dissect and understand how other authors accomplish what they do in their writing.

The Voice of Stobby is wonderful.  Stobby is the imaginary friend/inner voice of writer, N. Scott.  The concept is great, and the writing very entertaining.  Make sure to read ‘Who’s Stobby?’ when you visit.

Stories Connect Love Heals is a brilliant blog written by Charlie Hale.  He tells stories that  take you on journeys, and writes of songs, history, and genealogy.  I’m sure Charlie has many followers, but his is one of my favorites, so I wanted to share it here.

Mr. Faucet says, “Please be gentle.”

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This is the phrase on the handmade water-splotched bled-ink piece of paper taped to the wall above the sink in the kitchen at my new job.  What is it about working in an office that turns otherwise normal people into cheesy caricatures of themselves, creating signs that are only appropriate for a four year old?  I only wish the maker of the Mr. Faucet sign at least included a little cartoon picture of a faucet with arms and legs and a smiley face somewhere.

And what about this picture?  I snapped it from inside the bathroom stall with my iPhone.  Should I be worried about the fact that someone feels the need to decorate the insides of the bathroom stalls with calming images?  

When I used to work at the marketing agency, I managed a forty-something Office Manager that would ask me if she could go to the bathroom.  What do you mean, can you go to the bathroom?  Of course you can go to the bathroom.  We’re not in third grade here!  If that alone weren’t enough, the actual words she used were, “I need to go tee-tee.  Is that OK?”  TEE-TEE.  TEE-TEE!  I kid you not.

I once had to referee a difficult discussion between two other employees.  A newbie that had just joined the team asked grass-phobia girl to go out to lunch one day.  Not realizing she was committing herself to become a stalking victim, she agreed to go.  It was an awkward lunch, and grass-phobia girl tried extra hard to avoid one-on-one situations with the newbie from that point forward.  The newbie, however, believed that their single lunch meant they must now be BFF’s.  She stalked grass-phobia girl over instant messenger, tried to corner her for conversations at lunch, hung around after work waiting for everyone else to leave so they could talk.  She did not understand how one day they were BFF’s and the next, she was being blown off.  Eventually, grass-phobia girl confided in me because she just couldn’t take it anymore.  I had to sit them both down and explain to the crazy new girl that not everyone at work becomes best friends, and she needed to respect grass-phobia girl’s wishes to focus on work, not lurid boy and fashion gossip.

I just don’t get it.  Is there something in the air as soon as the corporate door swings shut behind us that taints our ability to act like adults?

Anecdotes from a wedding in Carmel

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I was in Carmel for a wedding Saturday – a very close friend of mine that has struggled with addiction on and off for years was marrying a man she met four or five years ago in one of her stints in rehab.  They make a great pair, my friend has been sober for almost four years now, and it was a gorgeous and intimate affair with 45 people in attendance, including the happy couple.  My partner and I went along with another close friend (grass-phobia girl) and her boyfriend (who didn’t know she had a grass phobia until I outed her at the wedding).

The setting was a small beach house on the ocean, a perfect blend of warm sun and an ocean breeze, a score of surfers in the background riding big waves, and a little girl, maybe 9 or 10 years old, who wandered away from her family and to jump in hills of seaweed piled up on the shore as though they were large piles of autumn leaves (I have to admit, cute as she was, frolicking in the seaweed, the main thought in my mind was There is no way I would let you in my car after all that.).  In all, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and the most important thing was that my friend and her new husband looked as happy as any couple I’ve ever seen.  That said, there were a few humorous elements during the ceremony that seem worth sharing.

My friend and her husband were married by her husband’s sponsor, who also happens to be a “preacher,” as we were told.  They call him Brother Love.  I could easily picture him in front of a mesmerized bunch of parishioners, passionately shouting bible verses, pointing out individuals in the pews to repeat what he says to help him punctuate his already forceful statements.   There was a bit of awkward shuffling at the beginning of the ceremony as the bride’s father stood with her, waiting for the moment he was to “give her away.”  Brother Love was explaining that the thirty-something couple (who already live together) must be willing to leave the homes of their parents and build a new home together.

He ended by asking who was going to give the bride away, although it was evident that her father, standing immediately in front of him, was doing that part – “Um, … I will…,” said the bride’s father, which brought many chuckles from the guests.  He began to sit down, but Brother Love wanted the bride’s father to physically place his daughter’s hands into the hands of her husband-to-be.  To lookers on, it seemed none of this had been practiced at the rehearsal dinner.  While the awkward moment was underway, the groom’s father saw it as an opportunity to jump in and be part of the hand-off, which then turned into a “Go team!” kind of affair, with all the hands that had come together thrown into the air with exuberance.

In one part of the ceremony, Brother Love addressed both the bride, [C],  and groom, [P], alternately, giving them what sounded like life or death instructions on how they were to conduct themselves in their marriage.

“[P], in this marriage, you must care for your wife and have eyes only for her, and no other woman!”

“[C], in this marriage, you must trust your husband completely, knowing he will care for you and provide for you forever!”

“[P], you must give yourself up to your wife, put her interests first, and trust that your personal needs will be met by God!”

“[C], you, too, must give yourself up to your husband, put his interests first, and trust that your personal needs will be met by God!”

The bride alternated between curious expressions, glances into the audience, the occasional nod of the head, but mostly it seemed she was trying not to laugh.

“[C], you must keep your home orderly, must not be quarrelsome, nor contentious!”

At this point, the bride looked at Brother Love, with an expression that said, Who are you? Did you really just say that?

“[P], and you must give your wife what she is due!”

Brother Love followed his final instruction with an elbow to the groom’s ribs and a couple of exaggerated winks.  To everyone’s relief, they eventually made it through the ceremony and were proclaimed husband and wife.

More posts from around the blogosphere

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Just a few links this week.  Enjoy!

Michael Haynes wrote a great post reminding us to use our everyday life experiences in our writing. Read his example here.

Christine Zilka’s U is for Urgency is a compelling short memoir piece that blends humor with the reality that we never know when our time will be up.

This short piece, a written observation of a small corner of nature on a college campus, left me feeling relaxed. Thanks, Hayley!

This beginning to a series about Amy Elizabeth’s observations of a homeless man is fascinating. It reminded me of an evening I once spent with a homeless man in San Francisco. Check it out!

Great posts from around the blogosphere

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Below are links to some of the posts I most enjoyed reading in the past week.  Check them out!

Charlie Hale has such a graceful style about his writing.  This post, Friends and Lovers: In Passing Years, is particularly eloquent, though that can be said about everything he writes. Charlie has a way of reaching right into your soul with his words.

Julie Farrar wrote a post about road trips that will get you reflecting on your favorite car travel memories.

Check out this Star War’s fan’s well-written take on changes to a classic and who really “owns” art, anyway. I spent some time reading through other posts Graham has made, and his writing is insightful and thought-provoking. Don’t miss it!

I can’t resist another homage to the 80s, this one on favorite songs.

I’ve read a few of The Wandering Atavist’s posts about his horrible luck with women, and this one is hilarious, as are the others.

Enjoy!

Las Vegas

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What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.  That’s the party line, but some of my random trips to Sin City were in my mind lately, so I thought I’d toss a few thoughts out here.  I’ve been to Vegas a number of times, for a number of different reasons.  Conferences, work assignments, pleasure trips with friends, and an odd semi-family reunion with my grandparents and mother.  Each experience was quite different.  Don’t worry, they’re all tame stories.

At a developers’ conference, I spent more time than I like to admit actually attending the conference sessions.  There are only two things I remember that weren’t work related.  One, I dragged an Indian co-worker to the Star Trek casino at the Las Vegas Hilton.  Sadly, the Star Trek experience is no longer, but I thought it was the best thing ever when I first visited.  Who can resist the slot machines activated by hand motions or the soothing blue and purple haze that defied the standard casino assault of horrific bright white lights everywhere?  My Indian friend indulged me, but being from India, Star Trek wasn’t to him what it was to me, having grown up with Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Two, I went on a helicopter ride with another co-worker at night where we cruised at such a slow speed I was convinced we’d simply drop out of the sky any moment.  I’m not a fan of flying in general, and the two times I have been in helicopters, I’d have tried to climb up to the ceiling if I weren’t buckled in, just to be a slight bit further from the point of impact if we crashed.

Many years ago, I went to Vegas because my grandparents and my mother and then step-dad were going to be there.  My grandpa used to go to Vegas every year for a sportsman’s show.  It was a business related trip, so they got to write off practically everything they did.  For years, my grandparents had a big glass vase on a shelf that was full of quarters.  Every quarter they got back in change from some random purchase went into the jar – it was their gambling money jar.  My grandparents are thrifty.  They never had much money to spare, but I think Las Vegas was my grandma’s favorite place to go.  I don’t know if she actually went anywhere else outside the immediate Midwest, now that I think about it.  She loved the slots.  She generally stuck to the penny and nickel slots, and she was disapproving as slot machines became more modernized and you could spin by simply pressing a button.  Pulling the handle was what it was all about, and she thought the buttons took the fun out of it.  More than once, she won enough at the slots to practically pay for their entire trip.

It was on this trip that I found what is still my favorite casino.  Slots-O-Fun.  The name alone gets it points in my book.  This place is a complete dive of a casino situated next to Circus Circus and across the street from The Riviera, which is where my grandparents always stayed, even as it declined and became a pretty crummy hotel.  I’m a fan of most things dive-y, except, of course, hotels.  Dive bars and dive diners rank high on my list, as does this dive casino.  Slots-O-Fun is particularly great on weeknights because it’s not so busy and all the table games are much cheaper than anywhere else on the strip.  Who can argue with quarter roulette?  I spent hours and hours at a roulette table with my mother one night, and walked away a few hundred dollars ahead.  Not bad for a quarter table.

A few years ago, I went with my partner to Las Vegas for a weekend, ahead of a work assignment I had for the following week.  It was one of the most relaxing and enjoyable weekends I’ve had, even surrounded by the steady bombardment of screeching slot machines.  We saw Love, the Cirque de Soleil show set to Beatles music, and it was amazing.  I highly recommend it to anyone who is even slightly a Beatles fan.  My uncle turned me into a die-hard when I was only a kid, so it was heaven to me.  We rode the roller coaster at New York, New York.  We went to the Fine Art Gallery at the Bellagio.  We stayed until closing at a Piano Bar where we had to pay $20 apiece just to get a seat.  I blew $20 more bribing the piano guy to sing Bon Jovi so I could scream it at the top of my drunken lungs.  I hadn’t been dating my partner for very long yet, and she had to head back home before I did.  She left me a note scribbled on tiny pieces of paper from the hotel’s notepad telling me how much fun she’d had – it was during that trip that we both stepped over the line from dating to being unable to bear time apart from each other.  I still carry that note in my computer bag.

Anyone else have some Vegas stories to share?

Great posts from around the blogosphere

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I noticed on Junebug’s blog that on Sundays, she features blog posts she’s enjoyed from around the blogosphere.  It seems like a great idea, so I’m going to steal it (thanks, Junebug) – not necessarily for every Sunday, but we’ll see.  For this morning, though, here are some of the posts/blogs I’ve enjoyed the most over the past month:

The Wuc – The Wuc’s blog is the funniest thing I’ve read in as long as I can remember.  If you’re not already reading this, do not waste another minute of your life without the sarcasm, wit, and brilliance of this hilarious blog.  I recommend reading ‘About the Wuc’ and the descriptions of all the characters she writes about under ‘who the wuc is…’ before you dive into the posts.  BTW, this is one of those blogs where it is absolutely worth your time to dig into the older posts.  You’ll be doubled over and addicted before you know it.

jonellert – The Taming of the Ground Squirrel – This four-part story will leave you in stitches as jon describes his personal battle with an adorable ground squirrel that is tearing up his prized yard. A must-read. I’ve linked to part 4 of the series, but just follow the links back to part 1.

Bottle Caps and Broken Bits – Check out this brief bit of worldly advice. Simple, but oh, so wise.

And, finally, a few posts about the 80s, which I happen to believe trumps all in music and ridiculous fashions. This post on great 80s films took me back, as did this post on the origins of MTV.

Happy reading. I hope you enjoy these posts as much as I did!

Cat Power

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I have a friend who is crazy for bacon.  I know.  Who’s not?  But my friend’s obsession is extreme (most of them are, like her grass phobia) – so, my partner once took a picture of a package of bacon using my iPhone and associated that image with my friend.  When she calls, I see crispy fried bacon.  All good. She called today, which prompted me to remember another case of iPhone hijacking, but some back story is required.

I’ve written before about the fact that I worked for a marketing agency. The place had trouble with turnover. Someone recently did an official count of how many people were hired and left in the past couple of years. The company averages about 20 employees, but 32 people have come and gone in less than 3 years. Amazing, I know. Anyway, a few years ago, the President of our company hired a person who we were told was a whiz-bang expert at Client Service, which is sort of the holy grail function in a marketing agency, and a role that had gone unfilled for a long time. This guy was awesome, we were told. He had years and years of experience and had started and sold multiple companies, one of which turned into a pretty major player in the digital marketing space. He was going to be our savior, especially since there was a guy that worked in Client Service that all of us in Production secretly wanted to kill. Well, it wasn’t even that much of a secret, actually. This guy made our lives more miserable than a vegetarian eating liver and onions would be.

A few months in, none of us could see the whiz-bang in our new SVP. We didn’t get it. We didn’t get him. He was very Texas, and we were very San Francisco. He liked to talk, but he didn’t understand what we did and he didn’t like to do any actual work.  He was very polite, and the evil and small New Yorker he inherited was meaner than Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest. Our “savior” was ineffective, forgetful, and entirely unable to exert any control over The Devil. So, we began to ignore him and go on about our frustrating work. One week a handful of us were in Las Vegas for some client that had a display at a big tech conference. Between courses at a late and luxurious dinner, the big boss checked his email and just stared at his phone – so we all followed suit. Below is the exchange we found in our inboxes, names removed for the sake of privacy:

Email 1
From: Evil New Yorker with Anger Management Issues
To: Entire Staff
Subject: Stuck in Charlotte

Sorry for the mass email, but my quick-in-quick-out has turned into a nightmare. I’m stuck spending the night in Charlotte. My brick is dead and my cell is about to croak. Supposedly flying back to NYC in the morning, so hopefully I’ll be settled by the time you all read this, but if anyone’s looking for me, now you know.

[Guatemalan], we need to cancel the [big alcohol brand] call in the morning.

-The Devil

Nothing big here, nothing to worry about.  Unfortunate for The Devil, but nothing that should cause the endless staring our boss was still engaged in.  BTW, “brick” is the term we used to describe the smart phones our company forced us to use due to their unwieldy size, shape, and weight.

Email 2
From: Whiz-Bang CS SVP (aka Boss of The Devil)
To: Entire Staff
Subject: Re: Stuck in Charlotte

In times like these you need a strong leader (such as myself) and:

  • something warm to drink It should be brown and from the UK; not yello
  • A place to stay the night (remember the guidelines!!)
  • and the knowledge that I will personally help you out of this mess in any way that I can– go to JD’sBBQ and have five shiner bocks, ribs and some potatoes.Take it from me, it’s better than havng a goat’s tongue wake you up in a dirt airport.
  • YOU’LL BE OK. If I can help, lend some support or whatever call me at home ((9X7X2x 3O7–1212 or cell
  • I will however be in a deep ambien trans while my wife is in NYC living the cool life.

But, you an always trust in me –I’m here for you ===^..^=== (cat power !!!)

Are you confused yet?  I have not modified a single bit of the email above other than to change the final few digits of the very weirdly formatted phone number.  I have included it here in all its glory – spaces missing, punctuation missing, letters missing, half words, and the brilliant closing emoticon-ish image of a cat with whiskers.  Eventually, our stares turned to puzzled glances at each other, and finally the big boss broke the silence.  “Hahahahahahahahahaha.  He must be drunk.”  It was not unusual for employees to be drunk – that’s a well known activity that goes with the marketing territory.  Work hard, play hard.  Or, work til you think you’re going to die, then go drown yourself in whiskey.  This was different, though.  Drinking was a group activity, so acceptable drunkenness occurred only when you were with someone else from the company.  And even then, we had standards.  Crazy drunken emails were not part of the package.

The next morning, the entire company was abuzz about the email.  We were obsessed with trying to figure out exactly what Whiz-Bang SVP meant by “cat power!!!”  The Devil had been stuck in Charlotte – was it an obscure reference to the Carolina Panthers?  One brave soul decided to ask.  He said, “When you wrote “cat power!!!”, did you mean “cat power!!!” [said in the style of an innocent high school cheerleader raising a pom-pom high in the air], or did you mean “cat power!!!” [said in the style of the Incredible Hulk]?”  Whiz-Bang SVP replied with something somewhere in the middle, so we were no closer to an answer.  We did print out copies of the email, though, and tape them on the walls around our desks to help raise our spirits on dark days.

A few weeks later, the entire company gathered in San Francisco for some meetings.  We ended one day with an exhausting scavenger hunt through Chinatown and North Beach and our significant others and friends joined us for dinner and drinks.  After we’d had a few, someone convinced my partner to go talk to Whiz-Bang SVP about “cat power.”  He adored my partner, so we all thought she’d have the best luck.  She spoke with him for some time – probably at least 15 minutes, so we were hopeful she’d come back with an answer.  All she learned was that one of the SVP’s hobbies was rescuing cats – a very particular breed of cat I can no longer remember the name of.  She’d had to use every ounce of self-control she possessed to keep a straight face throughout this lengthy discussion of lost cats, and it was all for nothing.  Perhaps he was trying to will the strength of these rescued cats to The Devil, stuck in an airport.  We still had no clear answer, and to this day, no one really knows what “cat power!!!” meant, let alone how the Whiz-Bang SVP knew what it was like to be awoken by a licking goat in a dirt airport.  He “resigned” a couple months later, so we’ll probably never know.  I do, however, still have his phone number saved in my iPhone, and were he to call me, a picture of my own sleeping cat would appear on the screen.

Then We Came to the End

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I’ve been kicking around the idea of using a day a week in my posts to share something I’ve loved from the many random books I’ve read.  Mondays seem like a good day for this, since Mondays tend to suck the life out of most of us and it’s easier than writing something new and fresh, which might be better suited to Tuesdays… or Thursdays.

I read Then We Came to the End, by Joshua Ferris a few years ago.  It is a story about many things, but it is primarily about of a bunch of sad Chicago ad agency mucks who are within an inch of being laid off every day because of a bad economy.  At the time I read this book, I worked for a San Francisco marketing agency, which made it just a little funnier to me.  We, too, were constantly waiting for the axe.  Working in marketing is like pimping yourself out to whoever will bid the most – or actually, whoever will bid at all, whether you actually offer what they want, or not.  You want Asian?  OK, we can absolutely give you an Asian and she will be the best Asian you’ve ever seen!  Meanwhile, the boss wraps Maria Sanchez in a kimono.

From Then We Came to the End:

  Jim was so desperate one day to come up with inspiration for an ad, he exhausted his traditional list of people, broke down, and called his uncle Max.  “You know how when you buy a new car,” he began – and immediately Max interrupted him.

  “I haven’t bought a new car in thirty-five years,” said Max.

  Jim suspected then that this was probably not a man with his finger on the pulse of the buying public.  Patiently he tried explaining his assignment.  When people buy a new car, he said, they usually have an image of themselves that corresponds to the car they buy.  Jim wanted to know from Max how Max would want to perceive himself when purchasing a new ink cartridge.

  “Ink cartridge?”

  “Yeah,” said Jim. “You know, for your printer.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Max.

  We had a client at the time whose marketing objective was to make their customers feel like heroes when purchasing one of their ink cartridges.  Our charge in every communication was to inspire the potential buyer with the heroic possibilities of man-using-ink-cartridge.

  “I want to see myself as Shakespeare,” Max said.  “What’s this for, anyway?”

  Shakespeare, thought Jim.  Shakespeare.  That’s not bad.

  “It’s for a client of ours,” he said. “They make printers and ink cartridges and that sort of thing.  I’m trying to come up with an ad that makes you want to buy our specific ink cartridge after you see our ad because it inspires you and makes you feel like a hero.  Will you tell me more about wanting to feel like Shakespeare?”

  “So you’re trying to sell ink cartridges?”

  “That’s right.”

  Another long pause.  “Do you have a pen?” his uncle asked.  He began to quote: ” ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity…’ “

  Finally Jim reached out for a pen.  He tried to keep up with him.  At a certain point, Max stopped quoting and told Jim the lines should start to fade out, gradually at first, eventually disappearing altogether.  Then he suggested the headlind. “A Great Writer Needs a Great Ink Cartridge.”  The small print could explain how, if ink cartridges had been used throughout time, the history of literature might have been at stake using a cheap ink cartridge.

  Not only was Jim startled that his uncle could quote what he thought was Shakespeare seemingly off the top of his head; he was floored by the speed and ingenuity of his advertising abilities.  Who was a greater hero than Shakespeare?  And the person encountering the ad that his uncle had just pulled out of his ass could immediately put himself in Shakespeare’s shoes.  Max had just made a million Americans feel exactly like Shakespeare.  He told Max he’d missed his calling.  “You should have been a creative,” he said.

  “A creative?” said Max.

  Jim explained that in the advertising industry, art directors and copywriters alike were called creatives.

  “That’s the stupidest use of an English word I ever encountered,” said Max.

  Jim also told him that the advertising product, whether it was a TV commercial, a print ad, a billboard, or a radio spot, was called the creative.  Before he hung up Jim asked Max for two more examples of great pieces of literature, suspecting that an entire campaign could be generated from Max’s concept.

…

  Sometime later that afternoon, Max Jackers surprised Jim by calling him back.  “You folks overthere,” said Max, “you say you call yourselves creatives, is that what you’re telling me? And the work you do, you call that the creative, is that what you said?”  Jim said that was correct.  “And I suppose you think of yourselves as pretty creative over there, I bet.”

  “I suppose so,” said Jim, wondering what Max was driving at.

  “And the work you do, you probably think that’s pretty creative work.”

  “What are you asking me, Uncle Max?”

  “Well, if that’s all true,” said the old man, “that would make you creative creatives creating creative creative.”  There was silence as Max allowed Jim to take this in.  “And that right there,” he concluded, “is why I didn’t miss my calling.  That’s a use of the English language just too absurd to even contemplate.”

  With that, Max hung up.

Green Bay Packers

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It’s clear that I’ve benefited greatly from the things my grandparents gave me – love, support, life lessons, and exciting experiences.  One of the passions in my life – and there aren’t that many – is Green Bay Packer football.  You can’t grow up in Wisconsin and avoid football.  It’s bigger than religion and I didn’t know a single family that wasn’t fanatical about the Pack.  My grandpa was no exception, and he passed his football passion on to me.  I spent plenty of Sundays watching the game with him.  He put out cheese and crackers and sliced summer sausage, potato chips and French onion dip, cheese curds and pickles, and we watched the game in the basement, in front of a crackling fire, as we munched on snacks.  He explained the rules to me, patiently describing why someone was called for one of a thousand types of fouls, and we generally expressed our frustration that Green Bay always seemed to lose.  Those afternoons were warm and cozy when the weather outside had started to turn cold.  I was comfortable, happy, and relaxed.

Green Bay is the only NFL team that is still a publicly-owned team, and it’s the pride of Wisconsin, no matter how much they lose.  In the past 15 years, they haven’t done so badly – but when I was growing up, they were a losing team for a long time.  Things turned around when Brett Favre started playing in 1992, and they won a Super Bowl in 1997.  When I was in 6th grade, there was a contest at my school to see who knew the most about the Green Bay Packers.  There were probably twenty questions or so about the team and its history.  I won the contest, which made my grandpa proud.  The prize was a book about the team, which I gave to him to add to his collection.

Grandpa was a football player in his youth.  When he played, they still wore leather helmets and flimsy pads.  He was a tailback in high school, and was good enough to get a partial scholarship to college to play.  He wasn’t able to go because the scholarship didn’t cover all his expenses, and his family didn’t have the money to help him.  He always regretted he didn’t get to play college ball.  He is a devoted fan and loves the Packers almost as much as he loves shooting and hunting.  He has framed autographs from famous players hanging on a wall in his house, and God knows how many books on football and the Packers.

He was at the infamous Ice Bowl between Green Bay and Dallas in 1967.  I have no idea how he sat through that game in the open air at Lambeau Field without getting frostbitten.  The temperature at game time was -13 degrees, and the wind chill brought it to a ridiculous -40 degrees or so.  It was a championship game, though, and my grandfather wasn’t going to miss it.  His brother was with him, and wanted to leave because his feet were completely numb, but my grandpa wasn’t having it.  They stayed, and watched Vince Lombardi and the Packers pull out a win with seconds on the clock.  The victory put them in Super Bowl II and led to their second world title in a row.

Fans that hadn’t somehow gotten season tickets in the early days put their grandchildren on the waiting list, hoping by the time they are adults, a set of tickets might come available.  People that own stock in the team are fiercely prideful of their position as owners, even if they hold no actual influence over what happens with the team.  In 1997, Green Bay issued new stock for the first time in almost 50 years.  The stock can’t be traded, and has no intrinsic value, but many great Packers fans would want to own a piece of the team.  The new stock was going to be issued for a couple hundred dollars a share, and the point was to raise more money for the team.  Since the team is publicly owned, they have no rich owner to fill their coffers.  The public supports the team – stadium and all.

I bought a single share of stock that year for my grandfather as a Christmas gift.  When it came time for him to open his gift, my entire family was completely silent.  You could have heard a pin drop in the room.  Grandpa slowly unwrapped the flat package to find a FedEx envelope inside.  He fumbled with it for a few seconds, clearly confused about what this gift could be.  He slid two pieces of paper out, lifted his head slightly so he could read through the bifocals on the lower part of his eyeglasses, and after he got through the first sentence of the letter, he broke down in tears.  It read, “Congratulations!  You are the proud owner of one share of Green Bay Packers stock.”  The second page was the stock certificate itself.  I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house when we saw his reaction.

Although he owns only a single share, he started going to shareholders meetings in Green Bay, and he loves the fact that he is a tiny bit closer to the team he’s worshipped his entire life.  The stock certificate is framed on his wall with all his other Packer memorabilia.  Even though I live in California now, I never miss a single Packers game.  I have DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket so I can see them play every week, and I often call my grandpa after the game to discuss how it went.  Sometimes, in a big game, I’ll call him 3 or 4 times, excited about how close they are to winning, or frustrated that they made a boneheaded play and turned over the ball.  If the phone rings when the Pack is playing, my grandparents always know it’s me calling.

When I finished my undergrad degree, my partner surprised me with a wonderful gift – 4 tickets to see Green Bay play Minnesota on a Sunday night.  She got 4 tickets because she knew I’d never want to go to a Packers game without Grandpa.  We flew home for the weekend and took my grandpa and my mom’s husband to the game with us.  We made a day of it, visiting the Packers’ Hall of Fame, and spending an hour or so in the massive memorabilia store at Lambeau Field.  Brett Favre had defected to the Vikings and was playing his second year there, what would be the last in his storied career, and we got to watch the Packers beat him that night, on their way to another Super Bowl win.