Unquestionably sound theories

Frequent commenter and beloved Cafe Asteria treasure Drea has floated a perfectly reasonable response to my previous question: Why do men prefer male singers, while women like to listen to women?

"... I really think the reason most people prefer the same gender is that they can sing along easily to their songs."

Elegantly simple and logical. Maybe that's why I like Concrete Blonde. But...I really like Portishead, largely for the same reason I like Radiohead...they can hit notes that are beyond the capabilities of myself and most dolphins.

Thoughts?

Oh, and I want to take this opportunity to air one of my musical pet peeves: Covers where the gender of the subject is changed to suit the gender of the singer. (Tiffany's "I Saw Him Standing There," etc.) Wait, did I just reference Tiffany? And would I really want They Might Be Giants singing "Maybe I know that he's been cheatin?"

Oh well. Create a bulletproof theory, dismiss criticisms of said theory, then conveniently forget you ever floated the theory. ("The only good sci-fi movies involve aliens that swarm like insects," etc.) It's just what I do.

The new excitement: Cafe Asteria Camera Phone Contests

In my ongoing effort to add interactivity to ye olde cafe, I'm starting an occasional camera phone competition. We all have em. Let's put em to good use.

The topic for the first one:
The weirdest thing on/in/hanging above your desk at work.

My entry:



It's a urine sample cup with an easter egg. Both are surprises from my company...one from April Fools, the other from yesterday. I'm going to see if I can build it into some sort of holiday shrine.

HOW TO TAKE PART
Just take the pic in the next week and have your phone send it it to me at griner (at) gmail (dot) com. I assure you, it should work. Feel free to include a description, or not, but follow it up with an e-mail letting me know who it was from. The winner will get...I dunno...a new nickname, probably.


------

UPDATE: Our first entry

This from Em:


It's her cat mug featuring scissors, chopsticks, a fork and some well balanced eggs. A lesser person might have photographed the hat in the background, but who am I to judge?

Shocking confession: I like guys.

As I was burning ... err ... tracking down original versioins of some CDs to loan to a friend, I stumbled across something that's concerned me off and on for a few years now. It doesn't concern me to the level of "Is shaving once a week too little or too much?" But, you know, it's in the back of my mind.

Anyway.

I seem to overwhelmingly prefer guy singers. Most fellas seem to, as well. (With one recently noted and glaring exception.) And most of the women I know seem to prefer female vocalists. The permutation of this is that women seem more likely to like male singers than the other way around. Plus, is there a female equivalent of Coldplay or John Mayer? (Meaning, is there a woman that guys would like, but women would consider poorly representative of their gender?)

So back to the question at hand: Do men prefer to listen to men, and women to women? If so, what does that say about us?

OK, discuss.

Wait, there are other blogs out there?!

After recently re-posting my original blog entry, I feel justified in breaking one of the initial rules I established. Namely, I said I wouldn't link to a bunch of other blogs. I think I've been pretty good about this, and I don't plan to make it a regularity.

BUT, I wanted to pass along some sites that help me get through slow days while still motivating me in my new profession. While some of these are advertising-oriented, I'm only listing the ones that I think each of you will enjoy:

• AdFreak - While part of the much more staid Ad Week, AdFreak is the most consistently updated and fun advertising blog I visit. It's got a quirky voice and avoids industry politics. Plus, if it weren't for them, I'd never find gems like this little guy.

• AdHunt - This one's so much fun, I think I breezed through all the available archives in just a few visits. It's an international collection of whacky ads, some risque and some just plan bizarro. Possibly not safe for work, if you work for a bunch of prudes.

• Minor Tweaks - I don't really read this blog, but AdFreak recently linked to a section where they e-mail corporations with fake compliments. Some of the letters and responses made me titter, I must say. Oh, and there was this classic post about a Duke of Hazzard.

• Gawker - I don't care a tinker's cuss for New York gossip, so I'm not sure why I like this blog. But I do. Maybe it's because they seem to care so intensely about something so vastly unimportant. It reminds me of those people who protested for Fiona Apple. I mean, who cares that much? Oh....wait...it's someone from Columbia, MO. But I digress. Oh, and I should note Gawker uses some pretty rough language, in case you're sensitive about such things.

• Romenesko - If nothing else, this is one aspect of my journalistic life I still cling to. Most of you who aren't already reading this blog will probably find little interest in the goings-on of newspapers, but if it weren't for this blog, I'd never learn about things like the obscenity in a New York Times Crossword. (Don't worry, that one's only unsafe for work if you're working in the year 1912.)

Hope this helps pass some time for you all.

Extreme puppy makeover

As you might know, our dog Jonas shares our current housing with two others... my sister's dogs, Loki the Brittany Spaniel and Picasso the Spanish Water Dog. Today was Picasso's first annual shearing, which had dramatic results.

The before:




























The after:


























The side view:

10 months, 100 posts....I'm so lazy

Egads, people. We've reached an honest-to-god benchmark! CafeAsteria has now had 100 posts, all by little old me.

When I launched this bad boy last year, my goal was just to create an easy way for me to keep family and friends posted on the increasingly unpredictable question of what was happening with me and Karen. Obviously, we were in California at the time, and we were both ready to move along with our lives. But where would we end up? Oh, the drama! But, you know, the answer's Birmingham.

Yes, given its humble origins, I didn't expect this blog to become an international sensation racking up thousands of hits a day.

And thank goodness, that never happened.

My patronage still seems to be our loyal friends and family, several of whom now read my posts days after taking part in the actual events being described. It's like reality TV ... with a REALLY SLOW lagtime. Wait, don't reality shows generally have a lagtime of six months or so before airing? Heck, I'm way ahead of schedule, then.

So how am I celebrating? Would you believe we're going to fly to Spain's Costa De Morta to visit the real Cafe Asteria? No? That'd be nice, though. It's the one pictured up top.

Or maybe the tourist-packed Cafe Asteria on the Greek island of Poros? Nah.

Instead I'll just paste in my first-ever blog post for nostalgic effect. Thanks for reading, folks.

Let's get brewin

Here's the plan. The best way to write more is to force myself, and what better way then to push myself out onto the virtual ledge of the blogging world? Thus, I'm kicking off Cafe Asteria.

What you won't find here: Political rambling, angst-ridden poetry, a flurry of links to other blogs.

What you will find: Some random thoughts, some fun new things to think about, and probably some recipes. For my friends and family, it'll be an easy way to stop in and see what I'm up to. For everyone else, it will be a momentary break from a Web world that always seems itchin for a fight.

So here goes.

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...

Why go to New Orleans?

A few pics from our recent Mardi Gras dinner party:


My sister looks really excited about the jambalaya:


There was a little dancing/judo:


And Brak was there...


I made a jambalaya that included two whole ducks, some shrimp and a pound of crawfish tails. Very tasty, but the duck was a bit awkward to work around.

Flirting with the enemy

Over the past three months, I've probably applied for a dozen or more serious jobs. Of all those, only two were outside journalism. Those were the two (including the bookstore) that brought me in for an interview. Should I take a hint?

On Thursday, I got a call from a major advertising firm here in Birmingham. A friend works there and had mentioned they might have an opening for a copy writer. I decided that if I was going to apply to a completely new field, I would really need to make myself stand out. So I wrote my cover letter as if it were a memo I was writing to my boss in early 2007, a year after he hired me. I thought it was a bit risky, but it showed my clever side.

I sent it off in mid-January and waited. And waited. I called to follow up and still didn't hear back. I moved on with the old job hunt.

But like I said, the creative director called on Thursday to see if I would come in for an interview. He said, and I'm really quoting, that I was "an odd duck, but an attractive duck."

Turns out, my letter was a hit, but the firm was a little unsure what they could do with someone who has 10 years of journalism experience and no advertising background. They asked me to come in the next day (yesterday), and I had a great talk with the creative director. It sounds like they'll probably throw some freelance work at me to test my abilities, but he still seemed interested in hiring me.

What's funny is, my second best chance at a good job right now is in another field considered anathema to journalism. There's a public relations position open at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, and I think it could be a great job. I'd be digging up stories for local and national media on a few of the schools at the university. A good friend of mine is one of the lead hiring people at UAB, and he said he will try to spread the word that I would be a good choice for the job. It's definitely in my target pay range, and the benefits are great. Plus, it only requires three years of newspaper reporting experience. Drops in the bucket.

So it seems I'm destined to leave journalism, unless a miracle occurs. Sure, I'm a little sad about that, and I think I do have a talent for the field, but I'm also pretty excited about trying something new and still getting to write. Plus, my real goal is just to save up enough money in the coming years to finally open my coffee shop.

As always, I'll keep you posted.

My wife has a picture with him, too

Whenever I doubt someone's ability to stay creatively viable throughout a lifetime of writing, I always find hope in my man Roger Ebert. Sure, he's been amazingly wrong before, but I would still argue that he's one of the greatest minds in mass media today. And for those of you who know me, I should probably note that I'm not being sarcastic.

What inspired me to point this out today is this intro line from his new review of "Night Watch," a Russian film being lauded by some as a gripping portrayal of the battle between good and evil:

I confess to a flagging interest in the struggle between the forces of Light and Darkness. It's like Super Sunday in a sport I do not follow, like tetherball.

But just in case you need a reminder of the low points of mass media (I know, who does?), well, here you go.

It's....um....rainy

A fascinating phenomenon. In the same yard, with the same weather condition, only one dog becomes a mudbucket. Can you guess which one?

My borrowed life

Buying a car felt good. Really good. But for a little while, I couldn't quite figure out why.

Then it occurred to me; this is one of the major steps toward leaving this phase of "borrowed life." Since moving out here from California, Karen and I have largely been floating on the generosity of my family. It's been great, and don't think for a second that I don't appreciate all they've done, but it's also been a constant tug on my pride.

Now, Karen has a good job, and it sounds like I'm at least getting some good opportunities. Plus, the consulting gig is becoming a reality, and it's working out better than I could have expected.

Getting my own car again, and being able to return my dad's truck, was a big step for me toward feeling like we're re-establishing our lives.

Of course, the big remaining goal is to get our own place. But I've got major mixed feelings on that point. On the one hand, I can't wait to buy a house and stop being a burden on my sister and her husband. On the other hand, we've all had a great time living together, and it will be a sad day when we move -- even if it's just a few miles away. Anyway, it's doubtful that we'll have the ability to move out in the coming weeks. For now, we'll just keep enjoying the party mansion lifestyle to which we've become accustomed.

I own wheels again!

Breaking news: Griner got a car.

As you may remember, I sold my Subaru for $14,500 in October, and today I agreed to buy a 1999 VW Golf for $6,000. So not a bad deal. It's in pretty great condition. This isn't a photo of the car (which I won't drive home until I transfer some money out of savings), but it looks pretty much just like this one.

I'll post some real pics soon. It's a nice ride, I got it from a cool couple, and it's very dog-friendly. So huzzah.