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The (South) Polar Express

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‘Discovering the Pole, without the Polarfleece’

Well, Snowmageddon was kind of a bust, at least here in New York City. But the wannabe-blizzard yesterday, during which I toasted my toes by the fire while reading Hilary Mantel (er, did loads of housework), did remind me that I promised to write about the South Pole. (See ‘Who is Lutheranliar?’)

See, I’m fascinated by the South Pole. I just love to read about those wacky Englishmen and Norwegians who duked it out trying to be The First to the Pole, oh about a hundred years ago. And I actually got to visit the Scott Polar Institute on the Dude’s and my trip to check on (er, visit) the Child in Cambridge last year:

It’s funny, though. When I tell people about my fascination, they invariably ask me if I want to go to the South Pole. No way! It’s really cold in Antarctica, and pitch-dark most of the time. And getting there involves being on a ship. Which of course would be on the ocean. Where scary creatures swim and rogue waves roam. Deal-breaker. Continue reading

‘My head feels funny’

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‘The Suit with the Tyrolean hat’

So. Does anybody else out there get the Sunday-Night Blues? Well, I certainly do. Guess it’s a holdover from those Omigosh-I-Haven’t-Done-My-Homework-Yet Days. This particular Sunday it means my Weekly Post is staring me in the face. But I did think of a good story, just now. Whew.

It’s one from my Golden Olden Days of Advertising. And it’s about an Account Guy and his hat.

See, back then there were (basically) two kinds of people: the Creative People, who were the writers and art directors (and producers and music people and many talented others, but for the purposes of this story I am limiting this to writers and art directors), and the Account Guys, who were the men and women (though usually men) who worked with the clients in mysterious ways that involved Business.

You could tell the Creative People and the Account Guys apart easily enough. The Account Guys usually looked really serious, and wore suits. So we called them, affectionately enough, the Suits. The Creative People, both male and female varieties, wore jeans and leather and tee-shirts and much longer hair. And, (if you were female and a Creative) sometimes very short skirts with tights.

I take it back. Creatives sometimes wore suits. I once wore a Chanel Suit (thrift shop, but still) with Converse sneakers to a Big Job Interview. (I didn’t have time to change into the heels I’d stowed in my bag; I got the job. Maybe the low-tops clinched the deal.) But most of the time, if you were wearing a suit, you were the one carrying the bags and driving the car to the client meeting. (Er, conducting Important Business with the Client).

Well, back to the hat. Continue reading

Take a letter, Miss Henry

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‘How a rubber chicken got me to New York’

Today is a big day here in Lutheranliar Land. Not only does The Child start her new job as a software engineer at this cool company in Boston called Kensho. (She told me it was okay to tell you, so read more about it here). But it was also on a Monday in October — the 22nd of October in a year long ago — that Yours Truly started a new job in a new city. As a copywriter at Ogilvy & Mather in New York.

I’ll leave it to The Child to tell you of her path to Software Success. Since this is my blog, I get to tell you my story. I will spare you the stuff about how I got interested in advertising in the first place. (Though I may eventually run short of blog material and decide to mine that vein.)

So let’s fast-forward to Kansas City, Missouri. Where I am doing pretty nicely, thank you very much, as a copywriter at a fair-to-middling agency writing ads for Safeway, Phillips Petroleum, and Fleishmann’s Yeast. Heady times. I had gotten to that stage, career-wise, where Continue reading

Karl Malden’s nose

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‘Don’t leave home without it.’

Fair warning: if you are related to Karl Malden, or are the president of his Fan Club or anything like that, you may wish to stop reading this post. Switch to the one about the silo. Or the one about Bruce Dern and the sweepstakes.

Because this is an Ad Story in which Karl is the butt (as opposed to the nose) of the joke. But he deserved it. As you will see. To mangle a phrase, ‘Hell hath no fury like a bunch of creative women dissed’.

First, a little (probably necessary) background. Karl Malden was a movie star once upon a time (terrific as Mitch in ‘Streetcar Named Desire’; good in ‘On the Waterfront’ too). But it was his run as a police detective on a TV show called ‘The Streets of San Francisco’ (with a youngster named Michael Douglas as his sidekick) that got him his looooong lucrative run as the Spokesguy for American Express Travelers’ Cheques (‘Don’t leave home without them’).

Karl Malden and his nose (and Michael Douglas too) in ‘The Streets of San Francisco’

It grieves me to realize that I just explained who the hell Karl Malden was and now I have to explain ‘travelers’ cheques’. (Do they even make travelers’ cheques anymore?) Anyway, travelers’ cheques were these things you’d get before going on a trip to use instead of cash because, if you lost them or (gasp) if a bad guy stole them, you didn’t lose out. American Express would replace them, and you’d be fine.

In order to get people to use their travelers’ cheques instead of dangerous old cash, AmEx (as we who worked on their business affectionately called them) ran these commercials where pathetic travelers who used cash were duped and/or robbed and lost their money. Then Karl, wearing his trademark tough-guy hat, Continue reading

Winning money isn’t funny

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Bruce Dern in Nebraska by Alexander Payne

‘Betting everything on the Sweepstakes’

Poor Bruce Dern. His character didn’t win the sweepstakes in Alexander Payne’s movie ‘Nebraska’. And he — Bruce — didn’t win the Oscar for playing him either. I forget now who did. (Don’t we always forget? No matter how exciting it gets around Oscar time?) But that’s not the point of this post.

I’m posting to tell you about my own experience with a sweepstakes. It was almost as sad as Bruce’s. (That Payne movie is dark, people. Really dark. And I don’t just mean the black and white footage.)

Anyway, back to my sweepstakes story. This was during my Ogilvy Days. As you may know, I worked on a lot of interesting accounts: Hershey, who made yummy chocolates. Kimberly-Clark, who made useful paper products. General Foods, who made, basically, powders (Shake ‘n Bake, Country Time). And then there was the Sweepstakes Company, who made a lot of money selling magazine subscriptions — er — dreams.

I will not name the Sweepstakes Company. Though my blog is new and probably has, like, 13 subscribers, if I name this Company it would be just my luck that Continue reading

Proof that Swedes are geniuses

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As if we needed any more evidence of superior Nordic brainpower, watch this:

Heh heh heh. The BookBook. I can just hear Grandpa Peterson chuckling over that one. Right after he finished his raspberry pie and very-weak-but-constantly-present coffee.

Speaking of food, I’m glad to see that my fellow Swedes are concentrating their brains on what they are good at (witty commercials, impossible-to-construct furniture) because they are certainly no great shakes in the culinary department.

My Grandma Peterson used to serve a traditional dish called lutefisk every year at Christmas. It’s made from a fish that’s been Continue reading

Old MacDonald Had a Silo

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‘Gramma Peterson loved this one’

My just-completed jury duty reminds me of my days of going on commercial shoots. You know, scores of random people thrown together for long stretches of downtime and boredom, interrupted by bursts of furious activity.

One thing you were sure to get out of a commercial shoot, though: a great story. Not always the story you went out to shoot, but a great story nonetheless.

Here’s one of my favorites.

I was working with my boss, a great art director and native New Yorker who shall remain nameless. Though if you were active in the business Back In The Day, you may recognize him in the picture above. (Hint: he’s not the one in the blue glasses; that’s me. I guess blue glasses and I go back awhile.)

Anyway. For those of you who don’t know, Continue reading