Truth in Advertising (35 page)

I revert immediately to my go-to mode when confronted by angry, displeased superiors: frightened child. Pam, Ian, and Keita are watching me. We pull into the Universal lot, past security, to our soundstage.

I say, “We can handle this. Yesterday was a little rough, but . . .”

We come to a stop.

Martin says, “Listen carefully, Fin. Don't fuck this up.”

I say, “I won't.” But he's already hung up.

We get out of the car and there, standing at the door to the soundstage, is Martin.

•   •   •

More babies.

We're shooting the wide shot of all the moms and babies sitting in the auditorium, facing the screen. Try getting one hundred babies to look at the same place at the same time. I dare you.

Martin's anger has turned to endearing British charm as he air-kisses Jan, Euro-style, both cheeks.

“Martin.” Jan beams. “What a lovely surprise. You didn't have to do this, but thank you.”

Ian and I don't look at each other. But I feel him not looking at me.

“I have a meeting here tomorrow but figured I'd come out a day early and observe,” Martin lies. “Pretend I'm not here.”

“I'd certainly like to,” Pam says.

Karen comes over. “Jan? Sorry to interrupt. But we need to get on that call.”

Jan excuses herself. Martin says, “Come with me.”

Pam, Ian, Keita, and I follow him to the camera, where Flonz is looking through the lens.

Martin says, “Mr. Kemp. Martin Carlson. A great honor. Fan of your work.”

Flonz smiles, “Hey, Marty. Glad you could make it out.”

They're shaking hands but Martin's not letting go.

Martin, still smiling. “I'm not sure what kind of arseholes you're used to working with but if the next two days don't go flawlessly, and I mean flawlessly, I'll see to it no one ever wants to work with you again. Clear?” Still smiling. “And it's Martin, not Marty.” He takes his hand back.

You can see remnants of the old Flonz temper. His eyes narrow, his cheeks color. But his fame and power are long gone. He needs the job. Welcome to the new world, Flonz old boy.

Flonz says, “We're going to be fine.”

“So glad we had this little chat.” Martin turns and walks away.

Pam, looking at Martin walk away, says, “Wow, I like him so much more now.”

•   •   •

Martin sits in video village with Jan. Ian, Pam, Keita, and I stand a few yards back from the camera, watching on a monitor. Martin's chat with Flonz seems to have inspired him. He's moving faster, the shots coming more smoothly. The baby gods are kind to us and we get the wide shot as well as several tighter shots on moms and babies looking to the screen. Now we're shooting extreme close-ups of moms and babies, just babies, just moms. Everyone on the set with access to a monitor can't help smiling. The perfect little faces fill the frame in close-up, wide-eyed and gorgeous.

There's a break as they reset. The moms stand and stretch. Some change their babies.

Ian and Pam find a space to sit and open Pam's laptop to log on to the website of a digital design company in New York. They're the ones who will create the not-Big-Brother–like bunny figure on the screen. We will then fill that image in during post-production. It's art-related, which means Ian's in charge. Keita mingles with the crew.

One of the moms comes over. She says, “What do you do?”

“I'm the writer.”

“Oh, wow. That's cool. Seems like a neat spot. I'm Cindy.”

“Fin. Thanks. We'll see how it turns out. Do you remember the original?”

“Original what?”

“The original spot. Apple 1984?” I'm speaking Russian, if her expression is any indication. “This is a spoof,” I add, instantly ashamed at using a word I loathe, sounding like something from
A Prairie Home Companion.

Cindy says, “Oh. No. I didn't know that.”

She's smiley, maybe thirty, thirty-one. Athletic looking. She's cradling her son—I think it's a boy—on her chest, his back to her, her arm across him like a seat belt, holding him under his well-padded crotch. He's staring at me.

I say, “What's his name?”

“Nathan.”

“How old?”

“Ten months next week. Do you have kids?”

“I don't.” I feel I should say more, explain why a man of almost forty doesn't have children. The hair and makeup woman comes over.

She says to Cindy, “Excuse me. Hi. Sorry. You're up soon and I just need to do a touch-up.”

Cindy turns and holds the baby out toward me. “Would you hold him for a sec? I don't want the powder to get on him.”

Before I have time to answer she hands him to me and then focuses on the makeup woman.

He's lighter than I imagined, despite his pudginess. His face is close to mine. He takes his hands and grabs fistfuls of my cheeks, which does not feel great. A primal noise emanates from him.

I say, “Hi.”

He opens his mouth and puts it on my nose, leaving a great deal of slobber in the process.

I pull back. “What are you doing? You can't eat a nose. Who eats a nose?”

He laughs.

I say it again. “Who eats a nose?”

He laughs again.

He doesn't blink. He just stares and waits, smiles.

Pam comes up next to me.

She says, “What are you doing?”

“Holding a baby.”

“I can see that. I guess I meant why are you holding a baby?”

I say, “I'm helping. His name is Nathan. He likes me.”

Nathan puts his mouth on my nose again. I could get used to it. His breath is remarkably pleasant.

Cindy says “Thanks,” as she takes him back and heads back for her close-up.

I watch them walk away and turn to see Pam looking at me.

I say, “What?”

“What am I going to do with you, Dolan?” She shakes her head and walks away.

•   •   •

Later, a major problem arises when one of the junior clients notices that the industrial-size box of diapers made available for the baby changings throughout the day is the leading competitor and not Snugglies. This caused no small amount of consternation and a trip by two PAs to the nearest Ralph's. A small uproar in response by the moms, fully seventy-five percent of whom complained that they preferred the leading competitor's brand and refused to use Snugglies. This provoked a call to the Snugglies legal department, asking if a baby not wearing a Snugglies diaper, but a competitor's, could legally appear in the spot. Several lawyers were consulted and a conference call was scheduled thirty minutes later, wherein four in-house attorneys, Jan and her team, and several team members back at the New York headquarters took forty-five minutes to decide that the babies had to be wearing Snugglies, even if you couldn't see them. The moms were told to change their babies or forfeit their day-rate and residuals. Every one changed their own baby's diaper.

•   •   •

My cell phone is buzzing. I must have fallen asleep.

I answer.

Pam says, “They're here. They landed at LAX thirty minutes ago.”

It takes me a second. It's just after midnight and I'd only gone to bed a half hour ago. Keita arranged a dinner at Matsuhisa, a well-known sushi restaurant in Beverly Hills. Jan, Pam, Ian, Martin, Alan, Jill, Flonz. Keita was a star, the perfect host, ordering, translating. Somehow we were all friends. Flonz made Jan the center of attention. Flonz and Martin were fast buddies after the first bottle of wine. By the third they were praising each other's greatness.

“You're kidding,” I say to Pam.

“When it absolutely positively has to be there.”

“Jesus.”

Pam says, “FedEx wanted me to let you know they're profoundly sorry and as a gesture of their appreciation of your business would like to offer you free shipping next time you send internationally.”

“I'll keep that in mind for the next relative who dies.”

Pam says, “They'll be at the hotel soon.”

She made calls. She lit into people, people's managers, shift supervisors. She spoke with people in Boston and Memphis and Düsseldorf and Hong Kong. She made it her mission. Of this I am sure. Just as I am sure she would never, ever admit it to me or share the backstory. She forces you to read between the lines. Who knows, maybe she's a distant Dolan relative.

“Thank you,” I say.

“Good luck with this, Fin.”

“You never call me Fin. Are you falling for me?”

“Fuck off.” She laughs and hangs up.

I call the front desk and ask if they could send the package up as soon as it arrives. Thirty minutes later, after a knock on my door, I accept a squat, surprisingly heavy well-handled FedEx box with my father's remains—Boston to Los Angeles with stops in Memphis, Düsseldorf, Kuala Lumpur, and Hong Kong—handing the kid who brought them up $20. Then, for the first time in twenty-five years, my father and I sleep under the same roof.

•   •   •

Day three.

It's early and the crew is setting up for the first shot—our hero-mom running from the guards. It's our last big shot. The remainder of the day will be used for shooting the green screen—that is, the movie screen at the front of the auditorium that the mom/babies are looking at so that the image can be put in by the computer artists later. A minor legal issue derailed us briefly late yesterday when the Snugglies lawyers urged us to avoid shorts and thus any potential infringement issues. Working together with several members of the marketing team back in New York, they drafted a memo (subject heading “Shorts v. pants issue”) reminding us that “our target audience is, according
to research,
very
uncomfortable with their thighs.” Their italics, not mine. The marketing team, with the lawyers' blessing, went on to strongly suggest that we consider “a nice pair of beige-colored slacks.”

Jan told us to ignore the memo and stay with the loose-fitting Snugglie-blue shorts-cum-gauchos.

One senses a change on the set. The excitement of day one, the camaraderie of day two have evaporated, been replaced by something heavier, more fatigued. People want to go home.

For me—and I sense for Ian—a mild panic has set in, expressed through moist palms, a mildly upset stomach, an all-encompassing fatigue. My career (such as it is) could use help. Indeed, I could use a significant boost to my fortunes at the agency, a Best-of-Super-Bowl spot, a much-deserved promotion, a new account. It would change my life and make it better. I would achieve happiness. In theory, anyway. I have believed this same thing for many years, that each commercial I made would somehow change my life, catapult me to the next level, whatever that level is. A happier level. Of this I am sure.

Some of that nervousness could be due to the fact that I'm carrying around my father's ashes. I stared at the box as I was about to leave my room this morning and paranoia overtook me. What if the exceptionally efficient Four Seasons housekeeping staff mistook the FedEx box for an outgoing parcel? What if they mistook it for trash? What if they stole it, thinking it was drugs or money or jewelry? What if it disappeared again? I arrived in the lobby to meet Pam, Ian, and Keita. They looked at the box.

Ian said, “Bring Your Father to Work Day?”

I said, “He's never been on a shoot.”

Keita said, “This will be fun.”

Pam said, “I still intend to smoke and yes, there will be ashes and no, I'm not going to feel bad about it. Let's go.”

We shoot our hero-mom, who's carrying a comically (one hopes) large doodie diaper. Initially there are problems with that as well. Some of the toddlers saw the guards (all female, by the way) don their masks, which we tried hard—with the production company's art department—not to make scary in any way. But some of the kids
screamed, setting off a chain reaction of screaming. It took forty-five minutes to calm everyone down (graham crackers, juice boxes, Elmo movie).

Flonz began to trust Ian to the point where he relied on him. Ian knows lenses, focal length, understands what we'll need in the edit room. We shoot hero-mom in close-up and in a wide shot. We shoot her rounding corners and on straightaways. We shoot the drone-guards chasing her. We shoot her at twenty-four frames per second—the way your eye sees the world—and we shoot her at forty-eight frames per second—slow motion.

At some point during every shoot the moment comes when I see the idea as dog shit. On this shoot that moment comes when Flonz shouts, “Cut!”—a huge smile on his face—having just watched our hero-mom throw a giant doodie diaper (we used dozens of Baggies full of chocolate Jell-O pudding for heft) at the screen. I video the woman running and throwing the diaper with my phone and send it to Phoebe. No answer. Normally she'd text back right away.

I imagine the post-Super Bowl Monday-morning reviews online, in the trade magazines.
“Lauderbeck, Kline & Vanderhosen strike out again.” “Pooperbowl losers.” “Derivative. And mind-numbingly stupid. Finbar Dolan should be shot.”

•   •   •

I have little to do so I walk to video village, check on the team of clients surrounding Jan. We're in between shots so no one watches the monitors. They're typing on laptops, tapping on phones, speaking into headsets. There's a table set up with snacks, coffee, bottles of water. There is a gravitas to their expressions, their tone of voice, their frantic typing and texting. I stand there holding my box. Everyone is working. There can be no stopping in the new world. We take pride in our busy-ness, our relentless workiness. You hear it every day.

I'm swamped. I'm incredibly busy. I've never been busier. Work's insane.

It validates us. Helps us feel important. Helps us feel alive. If we were to stop, stand still, not do anything, we'd burst into flames.

“Dad,” I say to the box. “This is my client, Jan, and her team, whose names I forget, except for Karen, who's pacing near the snacks
table talking into a headset and who last smiled in 1987. This is my job. I come up with ideas, most of which are killed, and once in a great while one is made into a TV commercial and then we stand around and watch as they are filmed. You would think it would be more fun. I'd introduce you but they're busy and you're dead.”