Truth in Advertising (18 page)

I will fly business class on an airplane to faraway places. London. Venice. Tokyo. I will try to look as bored as my fellow cabin-mates in my fully reclinable flatbed with in-seat DVD player, even though I want to shout,
Holy shit, I'm in business class!

I will feel a great rush of pride at selling an idea to a multinational corporation, watch as they allocate huge sums of money to make my idea real. I will see it on television during a sporting event or a sitcom and friends, impressionable women, will say, “You did that? That is
so
cool!”

I will compete (though I will not win) with colleagues to create an idea of such magnitude that it will be chosen to run during the Super Bowl. I will attend the Super Bowl and sit in a corporate box with gassy men eating meat and drinking beer, and later the client will want to go to a strip club. I will wonder where all the money comes from, as no one ever seems to pay for anything.

I will get into heated discussions with account people about the length of time a logo appears at the end of a spot. We will fight over thirty-six frames, which is the equivalent of one and a half seconds.
Tempers will flare, e-mails will be exchanged, people will shout and curse.

I will thrill at the idea of creation. Of making something from nothing. Of making something funny or charming or poignant out of a mere product. Of transcending the product to a place of entertainment or insight.

I will begin a screenplay that I will never finish, having no idea how to write a screenplay, making the mistake 87 percent of all copywriters have made, thinking it's identical to a thirty-second commercial except much longer.

And then it will change. Slowly. It will become less . . . special. Less exciting, fulfilling.

I do not remember exactly when it went from being awe-inspiring having someone bring my breakfast to my room in an exceptional hotel to being mundane, and bordering on annoying when I asked for jam and not jelly.

From feeling guilt about taking something from the minibar to raiding it dry.

From feeling blessed to walk cross-town, in the shadow of these magnificent buildings, these storied streets and avenues, to cursing the cross-town traffic, which moves at an average speed of four miles an hour, I once read. “I have a meeting at Palmolive!”

I will curse the stench and the humidity of August in New York. I will forget large chunks of time as I dedicate month after month to projects that are suddenly killed, put on the backburner, or cut because of budget concerns.

It will change. All of it. Imperceptibly at first. Then irrevocably. Thirty comes. Thirty-five surprises you. The prospect of forty stuns you. Once the money was a wonderful surprise. Now it is not enough. A restlessness creeps in. A wanting of something you cannot quite put your finger on. Stories of others people's lives fascinate you. The idea of many things—a career change, a sabbatical, graduate school, a tattoo—
seems
interesting but you never do any of them. Others somehow found time to marry, have babies. You hold them when they
come to the office (the babies, not the adults). Round faces, absurd toothless smiles, soft and warm. Someone changed the clocks, pushed them ahead when you weren't looking. There is, occasionally (though more and more frequently), a small pit of anxiety in your stomach. You keep waiting for something to happen. And that is your mistake.

•   •   •

The subways are empty. It feels like everyone is out of town. The recession-proof rich are skiing in Killington, Aspen, Gstaad. They're sunning in Turks and Caicos, Miami Beach, Mustique. Others are enjoying the break with family, friends, catching up, making old bonds strong. They're talking and laughing. One wonders if others know a secret.

Ian and I sit in my office and try to come up with ideas for a revolutionary diaper. We visit the other teams, check on their progress, talk through their thinking. Sometimes we make the ideas better. Sometimes we make them worse. Sometimes we talk about how strange the circus is and why people would pay money to sit and watch clowns and elephants. We look at reels of award-winning commercials from Super Bowls past for inspiration, if by inspiration you mean ideas we can steal. In the afternoon I call the hospital and ask for Margaret. If she's not working she's told me to ask for the pretty one. Each day the news is the same.

•   •   •

I get an e-mail from Rachel Levin asking if we're still on for Tuesday night. Rachel is a friend of Stefano's. He's been trying to fix us up for a few months. I've been reluctant. In fact, I haven't gone out since we called off the wedding. I'm tempted to cancel, postpone, something. But I e-mail back, saying we're still on.

I receive an e-mail from Jill, cc'ing Ian, Alan, Frank, Dodge, Martin, and the teams. The subject heading is “Revision to Brief. Important.” She says the client, at the urging of counsel, would like to remove the words
one-hundred percent non-toxic.

•   •   •

Late afternoon, a gunmetal sky. A few days before New Year's Eve. Ian and I go out and bring Starbucks coffees and cakes and cookies back for everyone. We've decided to work as a group for a few hours, see
what happens. We sit in my office. Paulie leafs through an advertising awards magazine. Stefano's head is back and his eyes are closed. Raj sits on the floor cross-legged. Malcolm is on the couch between Paulie and Stefano looking at his nails. He keeps sniffing them, which is bothering me, but I can't seem to look away. Ian sits at my desk. I have no chair.

Stefano says, “I have an idea.”

I say, “Fantastic. Tell us.”

Stefano says, “The idea is that we get more time for this assignment.”

Ian says, “That's not really an idea.”

Malcolm says, “I like that idea.”

Paulie says, “What's the worst that happens? We don't come up with anything.”

Ian says, “The worst that happens is that we don't come up with anything, the client finds someone else to do it, and we all get fired.”

Stefano says, “You have to admit, though. Very rushed. This is an American thing, I think. Rushing around. Always in a hurry. Do you mind if I smoke, Fin?”

“Yes,” I say.

He asks to smoke every time we get together as a group and try to come up with ideas, which almost never works. (The ideas. Or the smoking, for that matter.) But sitting in a group gives the appearance of work, despite the results of a recent study, which says that group brainstorming produces far fewer good ideas than people working on their own. The guys have brought half-written scripts, a line on a page, a half-baked idea, nothing. Rajit has an old issue of
National Geographic.

Stefano says, “Very fascist of you, Fin.”

Rajit mumbles something and he and Stefano and Malcolm laugh.

People tap their iPhones, their iPads, tweet, update a Facebook page, post a wall comment, browse Zappos. I stare out the window and imagine the reaction from the driver of the boat when someone first suggested waterskiing.

Stefano continues, “I feel like we used to get much more time. Weeks. Now it's days. Am I alone here?”

Paulie says, “Hey, ya know Captain Underpants, right?”

Ian says, “You mean Dodge?”

Paulie says, “No. Like Captain Underpants. The books.”

Malcolm says, “Underpants. I don't understand.”

Paulie says, “Underpants. Captain Underpants. Ya know.”

Ian has Googled
Captain Underpants
on his iPhone. “I love this. I love his name.”

I say, “Maybe he's a cartoon and everyone else is real.”

Paulie says, “What if it's like, ‘Be like Captain Underpants, don't crap your pants.'”

Stefano says, without opening his eyes, “I could have told you he was going to say that.”

Rajit's laughing. He's also in the process of lighting a cigarette.

I say, “Raj. Could you please. Raj.” He just smiles and nods, lighting up. Stefano smells it, opens his eyes, and does the same. Smoke billows. I wave it away with my hand. No one else seems to mind.

Raj says something. Malcolm translates: “Animate it. Everyone else is human except the diapers. They dissolve.”

Raj says, “Pixar. Pixar.” Rajit holds his cigarette between his index finger and his thumb, as if he's about to throw a dart. When he inhales he turns his hand upside down and drags like he's smoking a bong. When he exhales, very little smoke comes out.

Ian types the ideas into my computer.

Paulie says, “
Up
was awesome. I cried.”

Malcom says, “I cried like an infant. It could be because I was adopted.”

Raj says something.

Malcolm says, “He thinks celebrities with extremely large heads and tiny bodies are funny. Babies' bodies. Wearing diapers.”

Ian says, “That's mental.” But he writes it down.

Malcolm says, “Okay. Well, we had something. Use the song ‘Under Pressure.' Queen and David Bowie. And we see landfills. All over the world. Getting fuller. Maybe. I don't know. Not sure you want to see trash.”

Raj says something. Malcolm says, “He says maybe you reverse it.
You see them getting less full, turning into fields again.”

Paulie says, “Is that the right song, though?”

Malcolm says, “Probably not. That's just the song we were listening to at the time.”

Paulie says, “Ya know what could be kind of beautiful? Like, do you guys know Bach's
Cello Suites
? They're insane. The first one is my favorite.”

Ian's gone to iTunes and plays it. We listen and I wonder how someone can make that kind of sound. Everyone is quiet for the thirty seconds of free music iTunes gives us.

When it's done, Ian says, “I kind of love that.” The others nod.

Ian writes it down as
under pressure idea/Bach.

Paulie says, “They used it on
The West Wing
a bunch of years ago. The episode where Josh has the flashbacks of being shot during the assassination attempt.”

Rajit says, “I remember that one,” and we actually understand him.

Ian says, “I loved that show.”

I say, “I own it. The boxed set. I own it.”

People nod, drink their coffee, eat their unusually large Starbucks cookies.

Stefano says, “Have your cake and eat it, too.”

We look at him.

He says, “I was just thinking about that phrase. I don't understand it.”

Ian says, “It's about greed, right?”

I say, “I think that's right. Having cake, but being aware that you shouldn't eat it.”

Ian says, “No. I think it's more like, you shouldn't want more than just your own cake.”

Stefano says, “But why even have the cake in the first place, then? Why is it bad to have some delicious cake and eat it, too?”

Raj says, “No, no,” and then something else.

Malcolm says, “It's the idea of having cake but also eating it. Two things at once, yeah?”

Paulie says, “Wait. Why would you have it and not eat it?”

Stefano says, “You could be on a diet. Or maybe it's not a very good cake. The cake in the cafeteria is atrocious.”

Ian says, “
Cake
's a funny word. Cake. Cupcake.”

Paulie says, “That's what my wife calls her hoo-hoo.”

Ian says, “Thanks for that.”

Stefano says, “It's just odd to me, this notion that you would be served a piece of cake and then not eat it. What's the point? Is there coffee to go with it? Can I not drink that, too?”

Paulie says, “I think it's like don't ask for too much.”

Malcolm says, “Then why not have the saying be something like, ‘Don't ask for a second piece of cake'?”

Stefano says, “That works much better for me.”

Paulie says, “Does a bear shit in the woods? Is the Pope Catholic?”

Stefano says, “What's your point?”

Paulie says, “People say that sometimes. Like, when something's obvious.”

Stefano says, “Of course a bear shits in the woods. The Pope is the head of the Roman Catholic Church. I don't understand.”

Paulie says, “We had a thing. I mean, you're gonna think it's like E-Trade but it's not E-Trade.”

E-Trade has for several years had wildly successful commercials during the Super Bowl where a baby talks like an adult.

Ian says, “What is it?”

Paulie says, “It's a baby who talks like an adult.”

Ian says, “That's E-Trade.”

Paulie says, “No. Listen. It's different. They're in a board room and they're talking about how to save the world.”

I say, “With voices like adults or like babies?”

Paulie says, “Adults.”

Ian says, “Still E-Trade.”

Paulie says, “Then they're talking like little kids. High baby voices. My daughter just turned three and she has the most awesome voice you've ever heard.”

Ian says, “A kid's voice is okay. What else happens?”

Stefano says, “That's as far as we got. Good, though, no?”

Ian says, “Maybe work on it. People like babies.”

Malcolm stands, stretches, then shoves his hand down the back of his pants, scratching his ass aggressively. “If I don't drink a beer soon, my head's going to burst into flames.”

The rest stand.

Paulie says, “Who wants to buy me a drink?”

They all nod and shrug.

I say, “I don't feel we've accomplished much. We don't have much time.”

Stefano says, “This is what I've been saying.”

Paulie says, “Fin D? Coming with us?”

I start to say something when Stefano says, “Fin is predisposed this evening, Paulie. A romantic rendezvous.”

They all stop and turn.

Raj says, “Fin. You dog.” Which sounds ridiculous in an Australian-Indian accent.

I say, “Go away.”