May 2013
4 posts
Clarity →
I’ve written lots of print advertisements and a billboard or two and speeches and press releases, but never a moving picture. Here’s a little web advertisement for reading glasses that I dreamed up and wrote. I appreciate the outcome.
A Pretty, Bad Shirt
Today would be the shirt’s last chance. I would give it just one more attempt to not act like a complete fuck-up right off the hanger, or else we would finally part ways.
It’d been months since I’d worn it: a gifted J. Crew oxford with navy and olive-colored checks across a white backdrop. Made in a country that no one can point out on a map (Mauritania, don’t even try,...
Sees Guy Selling Doughnuts
Me: How much for a box of Krispy Kremes?
Guy: Five dollars!
Me: Hell yeah! What's the cause?
Guy: Fundraising for our church.
Me: Heck yeah, I mean!
April 2013
2 posts
WatchHaven’t posted on here in a while so here’s a video from tonight of Olive going apeshit for a squeak toy.
March 2013
1 post
Great To See You
It’s so great to see you!
I mean, under the circumstances, it is great to see you. There are certainly times when it would be greater, in terms of the context of where we are seeing one another at this very moment, to be in your presence. I don’t want you thinking I am having a great time right now, as this is not a happy occasion and we are here as a showing of respect for the...
February 2013
2 posts
Horse meat and Americans, why it is taboo
mediainquiries:
A horse is a horse of course of course, unless it’s served up on a sesame bun. Why do meat eaters refuse horse yet eat cow in the USA? Looking for educated opinion on cultural standards on this.
During my job I see many media inquiries for various stories on a number of topics, so I’ve decided to start compiling some on a blog. These requests sound a lot weirder when they...
Toplessness And Her Father
It’s a wonder to think that only seconds prior to seeing the olive-skinned French woman remove her top with both hands - the way women do seemingly only in movies, each hand on the opposite hip, arms rising slowly above the head in an almost ballerina-like motion - I’d fortuitously positioned my beach chair in a direct line of sight to capture the moment. No pretending not to stare, no secret...
January 2013
2 posts
Coffin Face
After a long day that included a white chicken Crock-Pot chili that cooked for six hours and smelled amazing yet ultimately tasted like inedible garbage and ended up in it, I found myself in a bad mood. It all started earlier in the day, when I’d been, well, actually the rest of day was fine. Great, even, come to think of it. Honestly, the only reason I was in a bad mood was because the...
“You two are the two worst possible people I know to have in this hospital room...”
– Sister-in-law, who just gave birth via C-section and therefore is not supposed to laugh as it causes abdominal pain, to me and my wife.
November 2012
1 post
Hard Times
The other evening there was a knock on our front door after dark. We’d ordered a pizza not more than 10 minutes before, so I figured it was the delivery man and thought perhaps I’d called the wrong Papa John’s: not the one down the street, but the one in the future, which already knew our order before we’d even placed it and was able to deliver in less than 10 minutes.
...
October 2012
1 post
Coincidence
[Sitting at coffee shop]
Dude: "Hey, are you Jeff?"
Me: "Yes, hi!"
Dude: "It's me, Matt."
Me: "Hi, Matt."
[Awkward pause, as if he's waiting for me to acknowledge who he is]
Me: "Sorry, have we met?"
Dude: "On the phone. We had a meeting this morning, yes?"
Me: "I don't think...what now?"
Dude: "You're Jeff [last name that wasn't mine], right?"
Me: "No, Kelley. Ha!"
Then we giggled for a little while, realized we had some mutual friends, and who knows, maybe we'll grab that coffee some day.
August 2012
1 post
Inspiration
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.
Although, if you think about it: most stars are pretty far away from the moon, many times with distances measured in light years and like 20 zeros on the end. “Among the stars” is more of a misnomer. Should you miss the moon, you’ll be nowhere near any of the stars, marooned all alone to mostly suffer what...
July 2012
2 posts
Cosmonaut And Me
Outside of a small contingent of fine people, most every person I know lives on the East Coast, and they are asleep. Tonight I am on the West Coast, and I do not spend much time on the West Coast, and there is a three-hour time difference between here and home. It is 10:25 p.m. here right now. I don’t know what time it is back home, as I’m never awake then.
With everyone I know...
Ascension
We sipped our fresh-poured Bud Light pints as our eyes met across the table. I could tell our minds were in the same place, one of the only places they’d been for five months. And that place was not this bar.
“We have to do this tonight,” I told him. I lit a cigarette and did that thing where you flick the lighter with one hand while your other hand covers the tip of the stick,...
June 2012
2 posts
Emergency
The call yesterday came from a number I did not recognize, but I picked it up anyway since I had nothing better to do at the time but drive. It was my 91-year-old grandfather on the other end, apparently using the cell phone that, outside of the occasional storm surge that knocks out power and phone service as it had just done, stays bricked in a desk drawer somewhere inside the tri-level house he...
Black Baby And Me
I could see the situation brewing from as far back as row 10. It’s always about a dozen rows out when one begins assessing seating assignments on an airplane, figuring out who you’ll be flying beside and who you’ll pretend doesn’t exist for a few hours. It’s also at this point when men - all straight men, every single one of them every single time - are hoping to spot a young woman on her way to a...
May 2012
3 posts
A Description Of My Hotel
When traveling, in lieu of racking up points, I always try to stay in hotels that cost the same or less than a Marriott, Hilton, and the like but are more unique and independent. I think people call them “boutiques,” but I refuse to use that term unless I’m referring to an arrangement of cut flowers.
Instead of sharing a photograph, I have decided to describe this hotel in...
Kevin
Kevin was the coolest kid in the class, by far, and everyone knew it. He’d earned this title simply because of his prolific athletic ability, and, I think, sick buzz cut. He wore diamond-insignia’d Umbros and his soccer team’s shirt to school every day, which in North Carolina was the signature style of third grade hipness. I looked up to Kevin, partly because he was about two...
April 2012
3 posts
Oates
We are working on a campaign for a client that has business interests with sunglasses. This client recently sponsored a concert for John Oates, of Hall & Oates fame. We were looking through pictures from the event and noticed all of the band members except Oates were wearing sunglasses.
Coworker: “I wish John Oates was wearing sunglasses during the show.”
Me: “Maybe he...
Sales
In a sense, everyone’s a salesperson. You sell yourself to a company in hopes of being hired, or sell yourself to an attractive person who has a beauty mark in hopes of them liking you back. I can be a good salesman in these cases. But when it comes to actually selling something - products or services to another person or entity - I am genuinely no good. Take the time I Craigslisted a sofa.
...
March 2012
4 posts
My Second McSweeney's Rejection
Getting rejected by McSweeney’s - and believing that you have what it takes to get published there - is, in and of itself, one of the whitest things a white person could ever do. The rejections from editor Chris Monks, however, are some of the kindest rejection letters you’ll ever receive. Chris actually makes you feel good about losing.
I’ve set a goal to get published on...
The Time I Drove Dave Attell From His Hotel To A...
Years ago I knew the owner of a comedy club, and one evening the namesake host of Comedy Central’s Insomniac with Dave Attell, Dave Attell, was performing there. I was given the keys to a Dodge Durango and asked by the owner to pick up Dave Attell from his hotel and bring him to the comedy club. Along the way I imagined myself hamming it up with Dave Attell and really getting to know him as...
Pants Panic
The jeans I was wearing smelled like the Chinese place’s kitchen from the night before. I’m certain it was the cumin that had penetrated the denim in a way that made the pants unwearable for a second day, despite having already worn them for half of that second day. Who puts cumin in Chinese food anyways (besides the Chinese, as they have for centuries)? The cumin made the Chinese...
February 2012
3 posts
Salad(s)
For lunch I ate salad. Now you might be asking, “Did you eat a salad-salad, a fruit salad or some sort of meat-based salad?” More than likely, though, you aren’t asking yourself that question, because it’s a really uninteresting thing to inquire and you probably assumed, from the beginning, that I ate a salad-salad. You immediately imagined me eating a green salad with...
An outtake from Clint Eastwood’s Chrysler...
Return Flight
I’m on a return flight home from San Francisco to Richmond. San Franciscans might wonder why I would require a flight to Richmond when Richmond is a district in San Francisco. It’s also a city in Virginia. It’s actually also a city in the San Francisco area, along with the Richmond district, which includes both Inner and Outer Richmond. My point is that I am not going to any of...
January 2012
5 posts
2 tags
Health Questions
Over the weekend I managed to cozy up to a patch of poison ivy. Not on purpose; that would be dumb. Though I’ve always wanted to try what they do in deep African countries where the natives attempt to build up a resistance to poisonous plants by rubbing their bodies with them, but I’ve never really gotten up the nerve. Anyway, I could see the rash forming on my right arm and hand...
5 tags
Concordia movie (a synopsis)
Here’s what I’ve got thus far on my script for Concordia, the movie about the doomed cruise liner in Italy, due out Summer 2013.
So this dude, Giampiero Consigliere, is just nailing this hot chick. This goes on for about seven minutes before the opening credits start. There is graphic nudity. “Walt Disney Pictures Presents.” We see flashbacks to the attractive couple...
Gwyneth and Heads
We recently rented the movie Contagion and while I’ll say that it was rather slow and uninteresting (a pity rental), I was curious on why Gwyneth Paltrow chose to do this film. I’m not giving anything away by saying she dies because her death comes at the beginning, but there is a scene where, lying dead on a table, the autopsy-doer pulls her scalp down over her face to reveal her...
Tim's Shirts
A buddy and I recently developed a business concept that we think is going places. It’s kind of hard to explain but I’ll dumb it down: you visit our website and buy a shirt, and then we’ll give a second shirt to a person in need in Africa or Mexico or someplace. Right now we are calling the business Tim’s Shirts. Neither of us is named Tim, or knows a Tim. It’s just...
December 2011
3 posts
Barefoot
Shoes, socks, bare feet. When I walk into someone’s home and don’t know their domestic habits, my eyes turn to their feet. If they’re wearing shoes, I’ve just stepped into a nightmare.
A shoed homeowner means I need to keep my shoes on while indoors, too. To seem polite. “Make yourself at home,” they’ll say, Reeboks hogtied snug around their feet as they...
3 tags
Next Time I'll Warn People Before Bringing A...
Live and learn, that’s what my grandfather always used to say. I tend to be one of those people who has to learn through experience, and sometimes, that means learning the hard way. When I was a kid, I put my hand on a stove burner and quickly grasped the concept of “hot.” It took a speeding ticket - 62 in a 25 - before I quit driving like a bat out of hell. And then last...
On Set
Out of nowhere this week, I managed to snag a role as a Union soldier the set of Steven Spielberg’s new Abraham Lincoln movie. This was, apparently, payoff for the gobs of cash that Cristin and I have mercilessly blown into the stratosphere while eating and drinking at higher-end bars and restaurants around town, all in what has been a fruitless attempt to land a celebrity sighting in the...
November 2011
5 posts
StockWatch: Wayne Enterprises (WEP)
$15.47 (-$0.08)(-0.51%) Photos of a bruised Bruce Wayne have led many investors to fear the conglomerate’s CEO is suffering from lymphoma.
-The Onion’s “StockWatch” featurette
Catalog
I’d traveled to the suburban office building to hand-deliver a package. The guy who was to receive it was out at the time, so I left it at the front desk.
Not one to leave a package behind without a note, I asked the the receptionist for a Post-It. Obliging, she tore off a yellow square and slapped it onto the counter. I began to write my note, but the pen seemed to be out of ink. As one...
Furnace Home
About a week ago, the unmistakable smell of death entered our home, nestling itself around the kitchen. Considering both of us and the dog are very much alive - and, speaking for myself, smelling pretty fine these days - we came to the immediate conclusion that the stench was that of a house mouse in the early stages of decomposition.
After opening the windows, I investigated the probable...
1 tag
October 2011
6 posts
Hepatitis Cteakhouse
This week I traveled Texas for 22 hours, and the group I was with ate dinner together at steakhouse.
Nearby, a small group was assembling in a private dining room. I could see the whole party through the glass door that separated them from the rest of us. The table fit about 12 people or so, and at the head of it was a projector screen reserved mostly for stuff like wedding slideshows or a...
5 tags
DD-L
Daniel Day-Lewis has arrived in my city and has begun filming the upcoming Steven Spielberg film Lincoln, which I’ve written about before. Day-Lewis (or is it just Lewis?) plays the part of Abe Lincoln, who was a president or something. That part isn’t important.
What’s important is that Dan is in town, and my chances of running into him have increased from like 0.01 percent up...
