Yoga, Rollerblades, Oblivion

So now that you've all had time to contemplate the meat muffins, I suppose I should give you a real update.

Things have been pretty busy around here. After a few months of letting my muscles atrophy, I started taking yoga the other week. I was surprised a bit to find I really enjoy it. Karen already had been taking it for a month or so, and with my new job we're able to meet there twice a week or so for a 90-minute class. Yes, I recognize the irony that we lived in the yoga capital of North America for the past three years and then didn't start taking classes until we moved to Alabama, but better late...

I also picked up a set of rollerblades (I was the last one in the house to step on board with that plan, too, but it's been a good way to wear out the dogs and bruise our tailbones). So with that and the guns I'm building up from drumming, I've been mildly active these days.

In less productive circles, I've been playing a bit of Oblivion, the epic new life-sucking Xbox game. I'm probably three hours into the estimated 200+ hours of gameplay in Oblivion, but several of my friends have immersed themselves much more successfully. My brother-in-law and I have been trading off on playing it, so that's stopped either of us from injecting it directly into our forearms.

I also got a boating license, so I'll be able to take advantage of my parents' lakehouse this summer with full legality.

Oooh, and I almost forgot, I am officially done with Barnes and Noble. I worked my final day there last weekend. I'll obviously miss working in a coffee shop, especialy one with such great people, but it'll also be nice to have my first two-day weekend since last November.

There. There's a quick wrapup of my recent life. I hope spring is being kind to you all, as well.

So? ... Oh...

Classic headline confusion on MSNBC today. I didn't realize it was such a big deal to haul around plumbing fixtures. Apparently, it's deadly.

Bahrain tourist ferry carrying 150 sinks
Interior minister says 44 bodies recovered off coast


Yes, yes, I'll be posting real stuff soon. Just had to share.

Come for the paycheck. Stay for the meat muffins

So, some of you might be wondering, what is it I'm actually doing at my new job?

(Maybe you're not wondering, but I sure was. I had no idea what a copywriter actually did all day at an advertising agency. I'm still not sure I know, but anyway...)

Well, in summary, it was a good first week. Everyone was excited to have me on board, which I thought would translate to me being buried under backlogged work. But that wasn't the case. What's strange is that my agency is, by billing at least, the largest in the state. There are about 100 employees, and the clients are some of the biggest employers in the region (Blue Cross, Mercedes, Little Debbie, Regions Bank, etc.). Despite all that, there has only been one full-time copywriter. There are a few "free-lance" writers, which I put in quotes because they are actually in the office quite a bit, and at least one actually has an office.

So now there are a whopping two full-time copywriters, and we'll probably split the major accounts. I won't get into details on this kind of stuff in the blog because A) it's boring and B) it could be considered top-secret industry info. I'm not sure how important such things are, so I'll err on the side of keeping my mouth shut.

But getting back to the topic at hand, what do I actually do all day? Well, I roll into my cubicle at 8:30 a.m. and check e-mail, announcements, bracket standings, etc. Then I basically just look at a computerized database to see what projects are still assigned to me. I'm left to manage my time however I want, shifting back and forth from writing different projects. This week, I spent most of my time writing a 16-page bank booklet while also cranking out small stuff like an insurance flier, a hangtag for free water bottles, and an invitation to a company event.

None of it is tremendously exciting, but it's nice having a random and diverse set of things to work on each day. Once or twice a day, someone will give me a rush job, which is usually something easy like a one-line ad for a local paper, saying something like "We're proud to sponsor this event." Thanks, Griner, here's your check.

So I'll have a better idea of my workload in the coming weeks, but I have to say it's a nice gig. The stress level is low compared to journalism, although I'm sure it will spike when we're on serious deadline. But it seems like a good fit for me, and it's actually kinda nice to be in a real corporate environment.

Oh, and free doughnuts and meat muffins on Friday mornings. What's a meat muffin? I guess you'll just have to get a job here to find out.

We've got new cell phone numbers...

...so if you didn't get my mass e-mail, let me know. Between my 205 area code and my new Alabama license, I just feel so darned...relocated.

The new licenses actually feature the state haiku. In case you haven't read it yet:

Ah, Alabama
where none of God's pickup trucks
has a turn signal.

Art, absinthe and the scary coolness of Andrew Wyeth

As I continue the required reading for my new advertising job, I ran across a debate that snagged my attention, and I'd like to get your thoughts.

One of the writers said that advertising creative staffs largely are made up of artists who feel they're merely prostituting themselves to the corporate devil until they can get the backing for their "pure" art.

The writer's counter-argument is that advertising is in fact one of the most potent art forms, often trumping art that's made just for art's sake. My instinct was to disagree, but the more I think about it...

Take, for example, the Absinthe poster I've included here. Those of you who know me and Karen know that this has been hanging on our wall for years since we found a large lithograph in New Orleans. It's my absolute favorite piece of art we own, with sentimental exceptions for paintings done by Karen and my sister.

And yet, it's an ad. Our other prominently displayed piece of art is a poster for Black Hook, a beer made by Seattle's Red Hook brewery. The more I think about it, the more examples I find. We also had a vintage ad for passenger train service to Chicago, a framed menu from a French restaurant, and a poster for the They Might be Giants movie, "Gigantic." My sister's house, where we live now, has a massive framed advertisement for Isolobella liquor. These are all great pieces that everyone seems to notice (at least more often than pretty pictures of flowers).

So getting back to the point, if we as a society hate advertisements so much, why do we have so many intentionally placed around our houses?

This is where we get to the potency part. The goal of advertising, or good advertising, is to attract attention and then give the audience an emotional reaction: desire, need, happiness, comfort, etc. The people who produce such ads, and obviously even those who did it 100 years ago, focus much of their energy on giving this experience to the viewer. How can I make this poster resonate with someone's refined taste, so that they think: "Not only will I look at this ad for a few seconds, I might even make a space for it on my wall." Is there a better endorsement imaginable than someone taking your product and using it as decoration?

Looking back at pure art, the art produced by hungry young bohemians with goatees and thick-rimmed glasses, it's often made with the goal of showing the artist's emotional experience. They want to tell their story, and as the viewer, you often feel like it doesn't matter whether you're brought along for the journey or not. This is what drives me away from art. It's often a reflection of beauty with no real mystery, or it's a mystery with no doorways left open for the viewer. In a word, it's masturbatory.

Before anyone thinks I've become some sort of art-hating convert to consumerism, let me cite a quick exception. I will always have a deep love for Andrew Wyeth, whose paintings are powerful, rich, complex and borderline scary. I could look at them every day for a year and still feel different reactions. (The one posted here is "Christina's World." Of course, there are many other greats like him. But what makes him great is that he gives an openness to his art that makes you feel welcome to come in and look around without being confused or victimized by snobbery.

OK, your turn. I'd like you guys to post some of your favorites from either category: the ads that have become your art or the pure art that you believe to be the most powerful. Meanwhile, I'll be taking part in the antithesis of all that is artistic: my taxes.

Front row to the mustache mayhem

Breaking away from our old-person lifestyle of work and sleep, Karen and I went downtown last night to see the Eagles of Death Metal play a tiny venue. It was a great show, and Karen walked away with a set of drumsticks without even having to hussy herself up like the other girls in the front row.

In case you're not familiar with the Eagles o' DM (their single "I only want you" was featured in an iPod commercial, I believe), it was started as a side project by the lead singer of Queens of the Stone Age. It's basically just him and a mustachio'd singer/guitarist named Jesse. But it looks like the lineup changes regularly (much like Queens of the Stone Age, which only has one recurring member). Just to add to the confusion, the Queens singer, who plays with Eagles under the pseudonym "Carlo," doesn't tour with them. Clear now? Great. Oh, and they're not a death metal band.

The moral is, see them if you have the chance.

Required reading

As most of you know, I've never written an ad in my life. This seems to be of bigger concern to me than to my new boss, who is utterly confident in my untested abilities. In fact, he'll be out of town the first few weeks I'm at the ad agency.

But he did give me a few reading assignments, the most important being "Hey Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads" by Luke Sullivan. Sullivan began by building ads at a small newspaper and then worked a few connections to get into an ad firm. But his first day was much like mine...he had no idea what was expected of him or whether he could do it.

I finished the book in a few days (which is good, because I have a few more to plow through), and it definitely got me a lot more energized about my new career. He repeatedly points out that copywriter is one of the only jobs in the world where you're paid to be a purely creative talent surrounded by actual business people.

If you're like me, you don't understand how ads are written. So I've included this page from Sullivan's book:

For me, writing an ad is unnerving.
You sit down with your partner and put your feet up. You read the account executive's strategy, draw a square on a pad of paper and you both stare at the damned thing. You stare at each other's shores. You look at the square. You give up and go to lunch.
You come back. The empty square is still there.
So you both go through the product brochures and information folders the account team left in your office. Hmmm. You point out to your partner that this bourbon you're working on is manufactured in a little town with a funny name. Your partner looks out the window and says, "Oh." Down the hallway, a phone rings. He points out that the distillers rotate the aging barrels a quarter turn to the left every few months. You go, "Hmmm." You read that moss on trees happens to grow faster on the sides that face a distillery's aging house. That's interesting.
You feel the glimmer of an idea move through you. You poise your pencil over the page. And it all comes out in a flash of creativity. (Whoah. Someone call 9-1-1. Report a fire on my drawing pad, 'cause I am smokin' hot.) You put your pencil down, smile and read what you just wrote. It's complete rubbish. You call it a day and slink out to see a movie.
This process continues for several days, even weeks, and then without warning an idea just shows up at your door one day, all nattied up like a Jehovah's Witness. You don't know where it comes from. It just shows up.
That's how you make ads. Sorry, there's no big secret. That's basically the drill.

There is a big caveat. He goes on to say that while 20 percent of your energy is spent brainstorming, a hefty 80 percent goes into defending your work. He said your own agency will almost always support you, but clients are mercurial and unpredictable. I might spend two months working on a campaign, just to have a client say: "Nope. I don't like it." At least in newspapers, having an editor not like your finished product generally just meant it would get buried inside. In advertising, much of your best stuff never sees the light of day.

Overall, I'm jazzed about this assignment. Generating ideas has always been my favorite part of journalism, but it's also been a small fraction of my job description. If I had 20 minutes in a day to brainstorm story ideas as an editor, it felt like a miracle of time management.

The only thing that makes me a bit hesitant (and this is pretty shallow) is that I have a cubicle at the corner of a hallway. I'm not saying I wanted an office. In fact, it's kinda the opposite. I've never had a desk that was separated from the rest of my colleagues (well, except in my first bureau, but that was only for a few months). But my friend Emily, who works at the agency as a proofreader (and *ahem* has an office), says that everyone finds the time to circulate and chat throughout the day.

A week from today is my last day at the cafe, and then I start my new job on Wednesday. Should be interesting.

We installed a beer tap in our kitchen! Oh, and...

Yep.

In two weeks, I'll start as a copy writer at the Luckie advertising agency here in Birmingham. I just got off the phone with one of the chief executives, and they've made a pretty great offer. The pay is equivalent to what I was making in journalism, except that the low cost of living here means it's almost like making tens of thousands of more dollars than in California.

I'm excited, but of course I have some mixed feelings and trepidation. Many of my friends in journalism will likely see this as some sort of defeat. All I can say is that I spent the better part of the past year applying to newspapers and magazines, and I was overwhelmingly ignored. Journalism and I have shifted from hugging friends to handshake friends.

With Luckie, it was nice for an employer to be interested in me not because I had done the job before, but because I was the kind of smart and creative person who wouldn't be afraid to try new things. They seemed to take a strong interest in my potential, not just my track record.

So what will I actually be doing? Hard to say for now. I'll be writing a variety of text for advertising. They'd like to take advantage of my background by having me tackle some "long-form" copy, but there will obviously be a steep learning curve as I try to figure out an entire industry.

How will I look back at this decision in a year? I've been asking myself those kinds of questions since deciding to move back from California. I'm tired of those questions. I've made the best decisions available to me, and now only time will tell how it shapes my life.

Plus, I have some celebrating to do. Good thing that beer tap's in the kitchen...