Truth in Advertising

Truth in Advertising - By John Kenney



For Lissa





In the world of advertising there’s no such thing as a lie, there’s only the expedient exaggeration.

—Advertising executive Roger Thornhill, played by Cary Grant in North by Northwest





NEVER BORE THE AUDIENCE


Paul Murphy was a Vietnam veteran whose legs had been blown off at the battle of Da Nang and who now lived in one of the Veterans Administration hospitals in Boston. I met him in my senior year of high school when I had to write a term paper for a modern-history class. A large part of the assignment involved our ability not merely to research but also to interview people.

I spent many days interviewing doctors and nurses and orderlies, which eventually led me to Paul. Paul was skeptical at first, but I was able to put him at ease, mostly by bringing him cigarettes and once a bottle of vodka. One day, while I was visiting him in his hospital room, a place that smelled of disinfectant and sometimes of urine, I asked Paul Murphy about a book that we had read in class called Born on the Fourth of July by Ron Kovic, who would, years later, be played by Tom Cruise in the movie of Kovic’s life.

“Have I read it?” Murphy asked, rhetorically, between drags on a Marlboro. “I am it.”

“Were you born on the Fourth of July?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “April twenty-seventh.”

“I see.”

“I wonder if you do,” he said, lighting another cigarette off the one he’d already lit.

Paul Murphy was an angry man. But he was learning to deal with his anger. Once a week he read to inner-city children and the blind. He loved bowling and was in a league. They bowled and drank beer and laughed and had team shirts. He was seeing a woman who worked at the hospital, a young woman who had great compassion. Her name was Phyllis and she wrote letters to the governor about the need for more handicapped ramps in and around Boston. They got tattoos of each other’s names on their buttocks. Paul said they had to be creative during their private time, “on account of the fact I’m a limp dick.” I put all of this in my paper, which I titled A Living Death. I received an A.

My history teacher, Mr. Stevens, said in his brief evaluation:

Fin, this is a paper of great maturity and unusual sensitivity. I was deeply moved at times. You should be proud of this work. Nice job.

And I was proud. The only problem was that I had fabricated every aspect of the paper, including the person of Paul Murphy. Not one ounce of it was true, not his name or his smoking or anger or missing limbs or his passion for bowling. I invented everything. I said that he had been a star soccer player in high school in Ashtabula, Ohio, because I liked the sound of the word Ashtabula. I said that if he could stand he would have been 6' 2". I said that his penis didn’t work properly because I wanted to work the word penis into the story because it made me laugh when I saw it in print.

It’s not that I didn’t try to do the assignment. I did, in a half-assed way. I spoke with a friend of mine’s older brother, Larry Gallagher, who’d been in Vietnam. He was the assistant manager of the bowling alley, Parkway Lanes, though mostly he sold nickel bags of pot in the back. I interviewed him there, if by interview you mean ask him a few questions while he sprayed disinfectant into the bowling shoes. I asked Larry to tell me about Vietnam and the scars it had left him with. Larry said it didn’t leave him with any scars except for where he cut his leg once on a jeep door when he was drunk. I asked him to tell me about the lasting pain of it all. He said it wasn’t very painful but it was boring a lot of the time. He said it was fun firing his machine gun and that “R&R was great because Vietnamese girls really know how to screw.” I thanked him for his time and then he let me bowl two frames for free but charged me for the shoes.

Alfred Hitchcock said that drama was life with all the boring bits taken out. I believed that in creating Paul Murphy, who surely must have existed in some form somewhere in the United States, that’s all I had done. I wasn’t interested in unearthing the truth so much as creating a truth I wanted to believe, that I knew others would believe. Because it seemed true.

Maybe it’s not entirely surprising that I ended up in advertising.





AND . . . ACTION


Fade in.

Close-up of a man’s face. Mine.

A little internal voice. Also mine.

“Psst. Hey, Gary. Gary? You suck.” (My name isn’t Gary, but the little internal voice knows I have an unnatural dislike of the name Gary and calls me that to annoy me.) “You suck, Gary. You’re a fraud and a phony and a hack and also did I mention that you suck? You lack soul and depth and intelligence. You’ve gone about it all wrong. You’ve wasted your life. Strong words. Think about them. Oh, except I forgot. You don’t think about words. You use them like you use paper towels. Without thought or care. Can I say something else, now that I have your attention? Can I ask you to think about the fact that you got a three-ninety on your math SATs? Why do you leave the house in the morning?”

Cut to a short film, a reinterpretation of the seminal moment in Sophie’s Choice when Sophie, just off the train at Auschwitz, must choose who lives, her son or her daughter. Except here Sophie is my mother. She must choose between me and . . . nothing. The SS guard shouts at her: “What will it be?!” She looks at me on one side. She looks at nothing on the other. She chooses nothing. The camera moves in for an extreme close-up of my confused little expression as we cut to my mother, who shrugs, as if to say “Sorry.” Pull back to reveal the expression of the SS guard, who also shrugs, something you rarely (ever?) see in the SS in particular and Nazis in general.

Raphael is speaking and has been speaking for some time, though I don’t know what he has said because I haven’t been listening—I’ve been in Auschwitz. But I should have been listening because we are about to roll film. And that means we are spending money, many hundreds of thousands of dollars, as is reflected by the number of people (nine) listening to Raphael, the director of the commercial. Also by the presence of Gwyneth Paltrow.

“So what are we talking about here?” Raphael says to Gwyneth. He then looks to the floor, clearly a man reflecting deeply (albeit about his own question). “We’re talking about life. Yes? I mean, that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about motherhood. Is there anything more precious, more beautiful? You, the giver of life. You made this life, this child.”

Raphael is twenty-nine, with creative facial hair and no deficit of self-love. He is far too intense. Jack Black on coke. Watching him is a group that consists of five client representatives, as well as my art director partner, Ian, our producer, Pam, the director’s producer (or line producer), and me. We stand in the middle of a set that looks exactly like a child’s bedroom on a soundstage in Queens. We are not supposed to be in Queens. We are supposed to be in Pasadena, California, in a lovely Arts and Crafts home that a production company chose after scouting close to seventy-five other homes in and around Pasadena, Santa Monica, and Laguna Beach. The home, per the client’s verbatim direction, should feel “suburban but not too new and not too old and not too far from a city center but by no means urban, i.e., New York City and its general ‘smart-alecky’ sensibility, which often tests poorly in market research.”

We did this in large part because Gwyneth was going to be in Los Angeles on vacation with her family and we wanted to (were forced to) accommodate her. Except it turned out that Gwyneth was no longer going to be in Los Angeles at the time of the shoot. She was going to be in New York for meetings and a partial vacation and could we find a location there, please? At which point the New York office of the production company scouted suburban but not too (see above) homes in Scarsdale, the Upper West Side, and Brooklyn Heights. All of which Gwyneth’s assistant was fine with (“Scarsdale’s not really New York, though, is it? Bit of a drive and we hate driving.”), but all of which the client hated. At which point the New York office of the production company hired the set director from the former Broadway smash hit Mamma Mia! to design a child’s bedroom to the client’s specifications, which was then built by union carpenters, at a cost of $135,000. All before rolling a single foot of film.

Raphael says, “That’s what we’re talking about here. Life. You, mother Gwyneth. And your womb. Your vagina.”

He pauses to let this sink in. Which it does, whether she wants it to or not.

Raphael continues. “The Latin word for sheath. Say it with me. Vagin . . .”

“I wish you’d stop saying that,” Gwyneth says with a smile, trying very hard. I give her credit. She’s much nicer than I imagined from my casual reading of Us Weekly.

“The way Raphael sees this shot . . .”

“I’m so sorry,” Gwyneth says. “Who’s Raphael?”

“That would be me,” Raphael says, his titanium ego unfazed.

“Huh. Okay.”

He barrels along, a clueless man-boy dressed in jeans that are dangerously close to falling down and a T-shirt emblazoned with the words FRITOS ARE LIFE. “Raphael sees that baby is naked, afraid. So he looks to you for everything. Now, let us consider your breasts.” And with that he moves his hand to mime the shape of Mrs. Coldplay’s diminutive yet shapely bosom.

Gwyneth is by far the highest profile super-mom that we’ve shot for our almost-award-winning campaign, “Snugglies Moms and Snugglies Babies: Together as One.” To date we’ve shot Rachel Weisz, Rebecca Romijn, and Kelly Ripa (whom I saw, briefly, in her underpants). Gwyneth at first refused to do it, saying through an agent that she “didn’t care for advertising, though she made no aspersions toward either the brand or the agency, though she was not familiar with either.” Initially Gwyneth was not on the consideration list, as both the agency and the client felt she’d never do it. There had been a great deal of discussion—in-person meetings as well as conference calls involving dozens of personalities—as to who best represented the brand, as well as who would do it for the money. (I am not at liberty to disclose that figure but it was between $299,000 and $301,000.) Names like Madonna and Angelina were short-listed but ultimately the client feared that they were seen as “baby thieves” (the client’s words). Nicole Kidman was considered, but was labeled “weird and scary.” (We had a large board in a conference room with names and corresponding traits.) President Obama’s mother-in-law, Marian Robinson, was added to the list but was also ultimately nixed because, as our senior client, Jan, said on a conference call to general acclaim, “This is about the mother-child bond, not the nana-child bond. Though we would like to see more women of color.” Which is when a midlevel client responded, suggesting Victoria Beckham (aka Posh Spice). Which is when we informed the client that Mrs. Spice-Beckham was not, in fact, a woman of color but just a woman colored, perpetually tanned, often deeply so.

We launched the campaign in 2007. The initial focus group testing results had been very good. But the economic downturn found a far different attitude toward extremely rich, unusually beautiful, oddly thin mothers who, according to groups in a number of cities around the country, “probably had twenty-four-hour-a-day help” (Chicago) and “sure as hell ain’t using the drive-through window at McDonald’s to shut the little bastards up” (Houston). Gwyneth is our last super-mom in the campaign.

“Breast milk,” Raphael begins.

“Maybe let’s move on,” Gwyneth says, the radiant smile somehow still in place. She appears to have no pores on her face.

“Also clothing,” he continues. “You have to ask yourself this question—what diaper will you place on his precious bottom?”

One senses a collective “Give-me-a-f*cking-break” coming from the assemblage. But then one notices the five clients. They are mesmerized. They’re buying it. Which is both good and bad, as they now think Raphael (who, it turns out, is named Richard Dinklage. That’s right, Dick Dinklage) is a genius.

He slowly, dramatically, raises a diaper.

“Will it be any old diaper, or will it be . . . a Snugglie?”

Pam elbows me and whispers, “Say something. Now. We are way behind schedule.”

I say, “I think what . . .” I realize I can’t say his fake name, so I simply gesture to him instead. “I think what the director is saying is that this is one of those nothing little moments that actually mean a lot to a parent, when you’re changing your baby and they’re smiling and there’s that connection. The whole idea is that nothing is more important than being a mother.”

Gwyneth speaks to me and smiles, and I instantly understand why some people are stars. “Cool. That’s great. I like that. Are we starting now? Because I’d love to use the ladies’ room.”

The crowd disperses. Pam, Ian, and I walk to the craft services table for coffee.

Craft services is the odd name given to the food service area on a shoot. It’s not, as first-time-to-a-shoot clients and neophyte creatives often mistake it, a place to buy handmade knitwear and driftwood art.

Pam says, “She is so much better looking than a regular person. She’s like a different species. I look like ass next to her. And, in case you haven’t noticed, the client’s pissed.”

I say, “Why? They looked happy to me.”

Pam says, “They say we’re not following the storyboard. And the purple liquid thing. They want blue.”

Ian says, “Where the hell is Alan? Where’s Jill?”

Alan and Jill are our colleagues. They are account executives and their responsibility is to shepherd the client, act as liaison between client and agency, help devise a strategy, understand the client’s business as well as the client, understand the creative’s job, smooth the process. It is an important and powerful job. The relationship between client and agency rests upon it. Both Alan and Jill attended graduate business schools of the Ivy League persuasion. Currently, they’re on the neighboring soundstage, trying to sneak in to watch the filming of an episode of Law & Order.

Ian says, “It’s really like he has no idea what he’s doing, like he’s in film school.”

Pam says, “He’s one of the hottest commercial directors in the world.”

Ian says, “He keeps using the word profanity. Only he’s using it wrong.”

I say, “I noticed that. He thinks it means spacious.”

Ian says, “I heard him say to the set designer that he wanted the baby’s room to be more profanity.”

Pam says, “He makes $30,000 a day.”

Ian looks at his iPhone. “He’s tweeting about the shoot.”

Pam says, “Who?”

Ian holds up his phone, shows Raphael’s Twitter account. “Cecil B. DeMille.”

Pam says, “Please tell me he didn’t tweet about her vagina.”

I say, “Tweet about her vagina sounds wrong to me. Do you tweet?”

Pam says, “What do I look like, Kim f*cking Kardashian?”

I say, “I don’t tweet. Should I tweet? Maybe I should be tweeting, be more of a tweeting presence in the digital world.”

Ian says, “What would you tweet about?”

I say, “Thoughts. Ideas. I have ideas about things that I think people would like to hear and follow. I think I’d have a lot of followers. Like Jesus.”

Pam says, “Tweet this, Facebook that, LinkedIn my ass. C’mon. I mean, what the f*ck?”

I say, “There are times when you don’t strike me as someone named Pam.”

Ian says, “Clients want it, though. It’s magic to them. Gotta be on Facebook. Gotta tweet about the new campaign. Go viral. Big phrase these days. Go viral. This spot will have its own Facebook page.”

I say, “And the world will be a better place for it.”

At last count the three of us have made twenty-three commercials together over seven years.

Ian says, “God bless that clever Mark Zuckerberg.” He looks down at his phone. “Raphael just tweeted again saying people should go to his Facebook page to see new photos of him with Gwyneth.” He looks up at me. “By the way, Merry Christmas, Tiny Fin.”

Christmas is three days away.

Pam says, “Seriously, though, where the f*ck are Alan and Jill?”

We make our way back to video village, that place on every TV commercial shoot where the client and agency sit and watch the action on a monitor.

I see Jan, our senior client, and know immediately by the large smile on her face that there is a problem. Diapers are to Jan a kind of religious calling.

Before we move on, a word about Snugglies. Snugglies and Stay-Ups and Nite-Nites and Tadpoles (for swimming). We are the agency of record for the largest manufacturer of diapers in the world. Snugglies babies are happy babies. I know that because I wrote that line. You will never see an unhappy baby in one of our commercials. Other companies show unhappy babies. This is a mistake.

“Jan,” I say. “It’s going well, don’t you think?”

Jan says, “I do, Fin. Really well.”

I say, “Raphael.”

Jan says, “He’s brilliant. He gets the brand. He gets the brief.”

Her colleagues nod and smile like lunatics.

One says, “Has he read the manifesto?”

I say, “I’m . . . I’m not sure. But I doubt it.”

Her colleagues are suddenly chirping like birds.

“He has to read the manifesto,” says one. “How is that possible?” says another. Yet a third makes odd noises and contorted facial expressions, as if she just found out that her favorite woman wasn’t given a rose on The Bachelor.

Jan remains calm. “Let’s get him a copy. Immerse him in the brand. Perhaps Gwyneth would like to look at it as well.”

I’m sure the Academy Award winner would love nothing more than to review the Snugglies manifesto.

And what is a manifesto, you might ask?

You may have a vague notion from history class that a manifesto once referred to the soul of a revolution: blood, sweat, and tears on paper, codifying women’s rights, civil rights, human rights, economic justice, religious freedom. Today, it’s about diapers. Or cars. Or refrigerators. Or gas grills. Or dental floss. In advertising, a manifesto is something that sums up a brand, one page, maybe two hundred words. Name the product and my people will write the manifesto for it. Superlative claims, a badly skewed world view, sentences like, “Because let’s be honest—what’s more important at the end of your day than your family . . . and their enjoyment of grilled meats?”

The Snugglies manifesto is particularly awful. I know. I wrote it.

I lie and say, “We’ll get copies to Raphael and Gwyneth. Otherwise, though, I think we’re in a good place with the spot.”

Jan says, “It’s real, honest, artful.”

Ian says, “It’s what we wanted.”

Everyone smiles and nods. This is very good. We’re about to turn and go when Jan says, “Except . . . is it too artful, Fin?”

• • •

There are two kinds of creative people in advertising. Those who think they’re smarter than the client and those who are successful. To say that the client is unreasonable is to say that death is unreasonable. Death is. Deal with it. Deal with it by making the client (death) your friend. Respect them, despite what they say. Advertising is a language and they do not speak that language. We say things like “It’s original” or “It’s a big idea.” Wrong. Picasso’s style of painting was original. Penicillin was a big idea. They call us creative. Baloney. The inventor of the corkscrew was creative. The irony of advertising—a communications business—is that we treat words with little respect, often devaluing their meaning. The all-new Ford Taurus. Really? Five wheels this time? Great for any occasion. I saw these words on a large sign in front of a national chain of cupcake shops. Any occasion? Doctor: “Mr. Dolan, the test results are back and I’m afraid you have an inoperable brain tumor. Cupcake?”

I do not think I am smarter than the client. Instead, I simply try to put myself in their sensible shoes, when, say, the long process that is the making of a commercial begins. Watch their furrowed brows and puzzled expressions as they listen to us present ideas. Watch as they sneak a peek at a colleague to see if they understand what the hell we are talking about. Were we working from the same brief?! they wonder. Watch as they listen to the agency reference movies and shots in movies that they, themselves, have never seen nor in some cases even heard of (“We’ll shoot it like that great tracking shot in The Bicycle Thief.”). Song and band references that might as well be in Farsi.

Inside, the client screams, What does any of this have to do with our toothpaste? Outside, they nod, slowly, letting their own insecurities build. I never wanted to be in marketing for a toothpaste/diaper/paper towel/soda manufacturer, they think for the eleven millionth time. A frat buddy/sorority sister/parole officer suggested the job, after a long, pride-deadening search in other fields, a bit lost at age twenty-eight, wondering what to do with my life. I wanted to be a poet/a drummer/a porn star/a machinist.

Give me your tired, your poor, your great teeming masses of middle managers who are unable to move the process forward or make a decision! The Carols and Maries and Trents and Tracys and Carls! Give me your resentful and angry, your worried and deeply frightened, your petrified of the next round of layoffs, of those insufferable human resources women with their easy detachment and heartless smiles. You’re eligible for Cobra and the family plan is just $1800 a month. The afterlife for HR people is a Clockwork Orange–like reel of everyone they’ve ever fired, playing over and over and over.

This is life in advertising and marketing and public relations today, largely superfluous service-sector jobs in the great economic crisis where homes are worth less than we paid for them, job security no longer exists, college tuition is $40 million, and the future is a thing that parents sit up nights trembling about. Fulfilled by your job? Who the f*ck cares. Have a job? Then do whatever you can to hang on to it. This is business today. This is America today. A land of fear. Fear of things that cannot be proven with focus-group testing. Fear of layoffs and large mortgages, education costs and penniless retirements, fear of terrorists and planes that fly too low.

• • •

Jan is staring at me, waiting for an answer. As is her team. What was the question?

“How do you mean, Jan?” I say.

Jan says, “Is this the brand?”

I say, “I think it is. I think it’s very much the brand. Ian?”

I write the copy. Ian does the pictures. He’s much smarter than I am and a champion talker.

Ian says, “Emotion. The mother-child bond. Life. This is the DNA of your brand.”

If you can speak like this with a straight face, you can make a very good living in advertising.

Jan says, “Agreed.”

Her colleagues nod. It’s as if they’re wired to Jan. Almost all are texting, talking on wireless headsets, tapping an iPad. Unless you are connected you are not alive. Earlier I heard one of the clients in the toilet on a conference call, his voice strained at times from peristaltic exertion.

Jan says again, “But is this too artsy for our brand?”

I say, “I’m hearing you say you think it might be too artsy.”

Jan says, “I think that’s what I’m saying, yes.”

I say, “How so?”

Jan says, “The camera is moving around quite a bit. I’m not seeing the product.”

I say, “Well, we’re trying to focus on Gwyneth and the baby, but, as we discussed in the pre-production meeting, we wanted hip, cool, and edgy along with the brand attributes of safe, homespun, and conservative.”

Jan says, “Agreed. But Gwyneth and the baby aren’t the product, Fin. The product is a Snugglie, the finest diaper in the world.” You wait for the punch line but it never comes. People speak like this.

I say, “Absolutely. No question. But the baby is wearing the diaper.”

Jan sighs deeply. It is a signal to one of her drones. In this case, Cindy, a bubbly twenty-eight-year-old Jan wannabe. Cindy says, “As infants grow and become more active, our job is to create a diapering experience that fits their lives . . . and the lives of their moms. We aspire to do nothing less than let them be the best babies they can be. Largely dry and free of diaper rash. Though legally we can’t guarantee this.”

Now, as if it’s the final scene of a high school musical, others jump in. Chet, late thirties, also extremely eager. Chet says, “I.e., new Snugglies Diaper Pants. The ultimate in flexibility for babies on the go. Explore. Be free. Be dry. New mommies love this. Focus groups bear this out.”

I say, “Are you f*cking crazy talking like that? This is a diaper. C’mon. Let’s all get drunk and get laid.”

Except I don’t say that at all. I nod and say, “Understood.” Because Jan knows, as do Cindy and Chet, that it is 2009 and the agency I work for will do anything to keep the sizable fee that this brand brings in. Jan could say, Fin, I need you to climb up on that rafter, take down your pants, shave your ball sack, and jump into a Dixie cup full of curdled beef fat, and she knows I’d do it.

“One more thing,” Jan says. “Purple.”

Her colleagues nod.

“Purple?” I ask with a smile.

Jan nods. “The liquid in the demo shot rehearsal looked purple to us. We’d like blue. A deep, deep blue. Like the brand.”

Cindy adds helpfully, “According to recent focus group testing, the color purple often connotes homosexuality, and homosexuality, according to our testing, tested poorly.”

Ian can’t resist. “Maybe you’re just giving the wrong kind of test.”

Jan says, “We good, Fin?”

I manage a nod, smiling. “We can fix it in post.” The great go-to line on a shoot. Post being post-production: editing, color correction, audio mixing.

Then I turn and walk away, leaving what’s left of my scrotum on the floor.

We walk back toward the craft services table. On the way we pass dozens of crew, some of whom help to set the shot, position Gwyneth, tend to her hair and makeup, many of whom stand around and check their iPhones.

Ian says, “I thought that went well.”

Pam looks at me and says, “You’re pathetic.”

Ian pours coffees. Pam eats a donut. I rub Purell on my hands.

Ian says, “It was genius on paper.”

It’s a thing we say on every shoot when we realize the spot isn’t going to be any more than average.

Ian asks Pam what she’s doing for Christmas.

Pam says, “Family. Pittsburgh. Vodka. Cigarettes. You?”

Ian says, “Dinner for friends. Jews, atheists, fellow homos, the great unwashed. People who have no family or family they don’t want to go home to. Tons of food and wine. No store-bought gifts. Everything has to be handmade. Could be music or a video, whatever. It’s amazing. We’ve been doing it for about five years.”

Pam says, “That’s so gay.” She looks at me. “You?”

I say, “Mexico.”

“Family?

“Not so much.”

“Friends?”

I say, “Alone. Going alone.”

Pam says, “That’s weird.”

“Is it?”

“Weird and sad. No family? Of any kind?”

“We’re not that close.”

Pam says, “I hate most of my family. I can understand. But you seem reasonably normal. Why alone? Bring that cute little assistant of yours. Half the men in the agency would divorce their wives for her.”

I say, “Phoebe? Don’t be ridiculous.”

Ian raises his eyebrows. Pam does the same.

I say, “We’re just friends. We’re good friends. She’s my assistant.”

Ian says, “She’s not your assistant. She’s the creative department assistant.”

Pam says, “She’s your office wife.”

I say, “What does that mean?”

Ian says, “Everyone has an office husband or wife. I have both.”

I say, “Who’s your office husband?”

Ian says, “I’ll never tell.”

Pam says, “But you have to be careful of the power-struggle thing. They can’t report to you. Does Phoebe report to you?”

I say, “No. Why?”

Pam says, “Good. Eliminates the sexual-harassment thing, which I myself had to deal with when I was screwing a production intern last summer. Poor thing left in tears.”

I say, “You’re a romantic.”

Pam says, “At least I’m not going on Christmas vacation alone.”

I say, “It’s a last-minute thing. An interim vacation. I’m planning a big trip for after the New Year. February. Possibly March.”

Ian says to Pam, “My dear friend Mr. Dolan has been saying this for a while. He calls it the big trip. That’s his name for it. He’s a copywriter.”

I say, “The big trip is going to be amazing. Life-changing. I just can’t figure out where to go, though. It’s complicated.”

Pam says, “What’s complicated about it?”

I say, “I have these two tickets to anywhere in the world. Two first-class tickets.”

Ian says, “Very expensive tickets.”

Pam says, “I thought you said Mexico.”

I say, “I did.”

Ian says, “It’s complicated.”

Pam says, “You have two first-class tickets to anywhere in the world and you’re going to Mexico? No offense to Mexico, but are you high?”

I say, “No. I’m not using them for Mexico. They’re for the big trip. After Mexico.”

Pam says, “So, wait. You have two first-class tickets anywhere in the world and instead of using them, you’ve bought another ticket to Mexico.”

I say, “Yes.”

Ian says, “It’s complicated.”

Finally I say, “They’re the honeymoon tickets.”

Pam says, “The what?”

I nod slowly, waiting for her to do the math.

Pam says, “Shit. The honeymoon tickets.”

I say, “The honeymoon tickets.”

Pam says, “Yikes. Sorry.”

I say, “So it’s complicated because I don’t just want to use them for a trip to Mexico.”

Pam says, “Do you ever hear from her?”

“Not so much.”

Did I mention I canceled my wedding? I probably should have mentioned that. I was supposed to get married last May. I was engaged to a really wonderful woman. Amy Deacon. But then I got a very bad case of cold feet. More like frostbitten feet, where they turn black and your toes fall off and you think you’re going to die. That’s the kind of cold feet I had. We canceled six weeks before the wedding was to take place. We were going to go to Italy on our honeymoon. I’ve been trying to take a vacation ever since then, trying to use the tickets. In the past eight months I’ve planned three trips, canceling two because of work and one for a reason that escapes me. To be honest I feel that the tickets hold power. The tickets urge me to find the right destination, to figure out where they want me to go. This place will be the place that assures me happiness. It doesn’t say this on the tickets, unfortunately. Mostly it just talks about the restrictions. The problem is that the tickets expire in three months. And I can’t get the obscene amount of money I paid for them back. So I have these tickets.

My cell phone rings. It’s Phoebe, our aforementioned group’s assistant.

I say, “Stop bothering me. I’m an important executive.”

Phoebe says, “How’s Gwyneth?”

“Gwyneth who?”

Phoebe says, “Tell me!”

“Honestly? She’s heavy. Bad skin. She keeps hitting on me.”

“Shut up.”

I say, “What’s up?”

“Nothing. I’m bored with you and Ian gone. And Carlson wants you to call him.”

Martin Carlson, my boss, executive creative director of the agency.

I say, “Why can’t he call me himself?”

Phoebe says, “He’s too important. He said it’s urgent. And that he wants you in a new business meeting Thursday.”

“Thursday. As in this Thursday? Christmas Eve? Not possible. I’m going on vacation that day. He knows that.”

“I know that.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“Did I tell him that he knows you’re going on vacation Thursday?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Is this a logic test?”

“I’m not canceling another vacation.”

Phoebe snorts. “You mean unless he asks you to.”

“Exactly.”

Seconds go by. I can tell she’s reading an e-mail, looking at her computer. I stare at a key grip’s ass crack as he adjusts the base of a lighting stand.

I say, “Do you tweet?”

“Sometimes. I follow some people.”

I say, “Do you have a lot of friends on Facebook?”

“Not really. Not compared to some people I know.”

“I have one hundred and nine, but there’re about twenty I’ve never met.”

Phoebe says, “Oh.”

I say, “What? How many do you have?”

“About twelve hundred, I think. Maybe more.”

I say, “I’m feeling great inadequacy right now.”

Phoebe says, “Run with that.”

The key grip stands and turns to see me staring at his ass crack and gives me a look that suggests he might do physical harm to me.

Phoebe says, “Also your brother Edward called. Is he the one in San Francisco?”

“No,” I say. “That’s Kevin. Eddie’s in Boston.”

“He left his number.”

I say nothing.

“Fin?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want his number?”

“No. What did he say?”

“He said, ‘Tell him it’s about his father.’”

How nice. Hi, Daddy!

One word, one blink, and I am back in the basement of Saint Joseph’s Rectory. A winter night. I am in the Cub Scouts. I am eight years old and I wear a dark blue Cub Scout shirt and yellow kerchief and military-style enlistedman’s cap. Tonight is the Pinewood Derby, for which they give you a small block of wood and plastic wheels and ask you to carve it into a car. Kids spend weeks with these things, mostly with their fathers. He’ll show you how to whittle, say, or paint, or put the wheels on. He’ll gently ruffle your hair the way they do in TV shows from the sixties or present-day commercials. An experience you will always remember, that perhaps you will one day share with your own son. Tonight, on a small wooden track, they will have a race for the fastest car. Happy fathers and excited sons. Lots of prizes and trophies. Everyone goes home with something. And then there’s my father, who’s just screamed at my mother and made her cry, and who stormed out of the house with me in tow, the silent drive to Saint Joe’s. I’m holding a Stride-Rite shoebox with my pathetic excuse for a car in it, confused as to whether to be more terrified of my father in one of his moods or of the reaction of my fellow Cub Scouts when they see my car, which my father has not helped me with, and which, as I have no affinity for carpentry, is still largely a block of wood, except for the paint I put on it. I don’t want to go. That was what the fight was about. My mother said I didn’t have to go. I told her about my lame car. But my father said I had to go, that I was wimping out, that I should have worked harder. I briefly imagined a storybook ending (the budding copywriter), wherein my hideous, misshapen block-like car thing would somehow speed to victory in record time, stunning the crowd of vastly superior Scouts. Reality was crueler. I came in second to last, just besting Tommy Flynn, whose wheels fell off. He burst into tears, his father holding him. And my father? My father said, “Well, that was a waste of time, wasn’t it?”

He’s dead. He must have died. That’s the only reason Eddie would call me about “my” father. And since when did he start calling himself Edward?

Phoebe says, “I hope everything’s okay.”

I say, “I’ll call him.” But I won’t. And maybe Phoebe senses that from my voice.

Phoebe says, “Do you have his number?”

“Yes.”

She says, “You’re lying. What is it?”

“There’s a seven in it.”

“I’m texting it to you. Call your brother. Also he may be calling you since I gave him your cell. And call Carlson. Can I come to the shoot this afternoon?”

“You’d be bored. It just looks exciting. Like the circus. Or a strip club. So I’ve heard.”

Phoebe says, “I want to meet Gwyneth. I think we could be friends.”

“I’m hanging up.”

Phoebe says, “Say something nice.”

I say, “You’re prettier than she is.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I’m not kidding.”

And she knows from the tone of my voice I mean it.

Three or four long seconds. Never awkward, though. Not with her.

Phoebe says, “Call me later, okay?”

Her text arrives. Edward’s number.

Did I mention that I have family? Eddie’s the oldest and for years acted that way. Maura left a job in finance to raise her kids. They’re both up in Boston. At least they were the last time we spoke. Kevin is in San Francisco. If Ian’s the gay brother I never had, Kevin would be the gay brother I actually have. Some families grow closer. Others are Irish.

I delete the text.

A twenty-five-ish production assistant jogs up to Ian, Pam, and me.

She says, sternly, “Raphael wants to roll immediately.”

Pam says, “We’ll be two minutes.”

The PA says, “Umm, he said to tell you he wants to roll immediately.”

I wince and see Ian do the same.

Pam’s face breaks into a big smile. “What’s your name?”

The PA says, “Saffron.”

Pam says, “Saffron. Wow. I’m going to guess southern California or, wait, Boulder.”

Saffron says, “Boulder. That’s amazing!”

Pam says, “I want you to listen to me, okay? There are two things I know to be true. One is that there’s no difference between good flan and bad flan. What movie is that from?”

Saffron stares at Pam, clueless, only now sensing, perhaps, that she’s made a terrible mistake.

Pam says, “Disappointed. Wag the Dog. Classic Mamet line. Not sure what you’re doing in this business if you don’t love film. Two, we roll when I say we roll. And if dick-breath has a problem with that you have him come see me because this is my show. Okay?”

Saffron is wide-eyed and stunned and scared and nodding slowly.

Pam says, “One more thing. I don’t like your name. So I’m going to call you Barbara for the rest of the shoot. Now go away and tell Raphael to learn what an F-stop is.”

Saffron scurries away.

Another woman walks up to Pam and has what appears to be a massive amount of baby spit-up on her shirt.

Ian says, “I have bad news for you about your blouse.”

Pam says, “Who are you?”

The woman says, “The baby wrangler. We have a problem.”

Ian says, “We got that part.”

The woman says, “The baby’s puking like crazy.”

Pam says, “What about the backup baby? So far we’ve only shot this one from behind.”

“Yeah, I know,” the wrangler says. “But there was a bit of a screwup and the casting agency sent . . . they sent a black baby.”

I say, “Chris Martin is not going to like this.”

Pam doesn’t blink twice. She takes out her cell phone and calls the casting agency. Into the phone she says, “It’s Pam Marston for Sandy.” Away from the phone: “Barbara!” Saffron comes running, wide-eyed, an eager, terrified little Marine ready to follow Pam’s orders into battle.

Alan and Jill, our account execs, finally reappear.

Alan says skittishly, “You want the good news or the bad news?”

No one says anything.

Alan says, “Okay, that’s good because there is no good news. So I’ll move right to the bad. We’re using the wrong diapers.”

Pam stares at Alan in a way that could not be mistaken for friendly.

Alan says, “These diapers are for infants. We need the Diaper Pants for toddlers.”

Ian covers his face. I look to the ceiling, in hopes of a ladder being lowered from a waiting helicopter.

Pam says, “We’ve been shooting since 7:46 A.M. It’s 11:32. Do you know how much film we’ve shot?”

Alan says, “A lot?”

“A lot, Alan? We’re shooting thirty-five-millimeter film, haircut. One-thousand-foot mags. Eleven minutes a mag. Two dollars a foot to process. That doesn’t include transferring or color correcting. We’ve blown through eight mags so far today. That’s eight thousand feet of film that’s useless.”

Alan says, “I missed a lot of that.”

Pam says, “Try this. The client just spent thirty-six thousand dollars on nothing.”

Alan says, “That’s very bad.”

Pam says, “Wait. Are the diapers we’ve been using that much different? How different-looking can diapers be?”

Jill says, “Dramatically different, Pam. That’s the Snugglies touch.”

Pam says, “Jill. Say another word and I will drown you in a toilet.”

Pam puts the phone to her ear. “Sandy. Pam. I have a black baby.”

A woman approaches, one of Gwyneth’s assistants.

“That’s so beautiful,” the assistant says. “I wish more people would break down the color barrier. Are you Pam?”

Pam nods and says into the phone, “Sandy, I’m going to call you back in sixty seconds.”

Gwyneth’s assistant says, with a big fake smile, “I think there might be some mistake. We see here on the schedule that this is a two-day shoot?” She slowly shakes her head no. “We were under the impression it was just one day.”

Pam says, “What? No. No, no. No, it’s definitely two. We need her for two. We went over all of this with you guys. Like, twenty times.”

The assistant, still smiling, says, “I know, but that’s not going to work because she’s on a plane tonight to Berlin. The new M. Night movie.”

Ian says, “Is it about diapers?”

The assistant says, “Sorry.” But she’s not sorry at all. She turns and walks away. Everyone stares at Pam.

Pam says, “There are so many filthy, filthy words I want to say right now.”

She turns to Alan. “Talk to the client. Fix this blue-purple-gay thing. Do not tell them about the scheduling thing. Go.”

He snaps into action, and Jill follows him.

Pam turns to Saffron. “White baby, then M. Night. Ian. Come with me.”

I stand alone as three people attend to Gwyneth’s hair and makeup. I watch the director of photography and the second assistant camera loader change lenses. Gaffers adjust huge lights nimbly, quickly. I appear to be the only person on the set with nothing to do.

My phone rings. The display reads Martin Carlson.

Martin is English and famous in the advertising world and came to our agency about eighteen months ago and changed what was a wonderful place to work, if by work you mean not work very much, into a place where you have to work, if by work you mean work, a lot, nights, weekends. Martin loves meeting on Sunday afternoons to review work. His arrival has not gone over well.

Our previous creative director was a legend in the business. Ron Spasky. Ron lived in what was most certainly one of the heydays of advertising. Budgets were large, clients listened, you could scream at people and still keep your job. Who’s to say what caused his downfall. A misfire in the synapses, too much stress, bad wiring. Or just too many years of repugnant living. Like so many clichés in the business—men nearing fifty who dress far younger than their years, keep guitars they do not play in their expansive offices, wear bizarrely large wristwatches—Ron’s real downfall began with his hair, which seemed to have a direct line to his penis. The more hair he lost, the younger the women he dated, to the point where he began dating a twenty-four-year-old junior producer, the unfortunately named Fiona Finkel. Fiona was a curvy woman, a woman who knew the power of her sexuality over men of a certain age, an age when the supple elasticity of young female flesh can be mind-altering. She was promoted, rather abruptly, much to the dismay of others who had worked far longer and knew much more. One thing led to another, the other being working late with Ron, the odd late-night drink, a ride home in his car service, dinner at out-of-the-way places where coworkers—or anyone else, really—might not see them. During those late dinners way downtown and sometimes on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx (“Why are we up here?”) she would, using her foot, play with his Cialis-assisted erection through his trousers under the table. She had never before seen an American Express Black Card.

Later, Ron left his wife of many years, his wife who had increasingly found herself alone late at night, wondering when her husband was going to get home from the office, leaving him a little something on the counter, a note under the plate, Saran Wrap protecting the sandwich, the chicken leg, the piece of homemade cake. I miss you. Surely his wife’s mind drifted during the boring sitcoms that she watched after the children were fed and bathed and read to. Wandered from her quotidian life in Katonah to his exciting one in the city, in the company of young, interesting, attractive people. She wondered why he never invited her to join him for the occasional event. She could get a sitter, she’d told him. You’d be bored, he’d told her. They say she was on antidepressants for some time, her heart and ability to trust a kind of roadkill now. They say Ron found himself a particularly vicious divorce attorney, left her with very little, and certainly without pride.

Powerful Ron and curvy Fee (her preferred name, the irony simply too rich) wed on a beach somewhere. Friends from the city, from advertising. Great sums of money were spent. Small, fancy hotels. They’d called the island’s only helicopter service late one night because they wanted a tour under the full moon.

But that little black card does not come cheap. And so it was that one day a few years ago, in the agency’s main conference room, Ron stood up in a meeting and began removing his clothes, not saying a word, not changing an iota, one witness said, the smile on his face. I’m told he continued presenting the idea (I believe it was for batteries). Later, when the police arrived, he refused to get dressed and was led out of the building and into a waiting police car on Sixth Avenue wearing around his buttocks and manhood his secretary’s canary-yellow cardigan, the one she kept on the back of her chair for summer days when the building’s air conditioning was too cold. She urged him to keep it.

Now, one hears stories of Ron and Fee’s rocky marriage, of her forward ways on television commercial shoots with young men who are rising in the agency, while her formerly powerful husband is at home, surrounded by specially made soft gardening implements, where he tends to their tomato plants and, on good days, is allowed to walk the dog. In the afternoons he is given cookies.

Since Martin’s arrival I have tried to show my worth by enacting what I like to call The Finbar Dolan Campaign for Creative Director, Long-Term Success, and Renewed Self-Esteem. (A long and not particularly interesting title, to be sure, especially from someone who’s supposed to be good at writing exactly these kinds of things.) How have I enacted The Plan? I have done this by getting in at 9:30-but-closer-to-10 and leaving around six, with a midday pause for a long lunch. Also by acting as a respected mentor to the other creatives in my group, which is not technically my group, nor do they really see me as a mentor or even listen to me. My great hope (as I believe is reflected in the clever titling of my plan) is to be promoted this year to creative director. It is an important milestone in one’s advertising career. You go from merely creating ads—concepting, writing, art directing—to overseeing, critiquing, criticizing, and most often shooting them down. It is something I feel I could be good at. It would also be a bump in salary. It would mean the respect of others at the agency. Which is not to say I don’t have enormously high self-esteem or that I rely on the opinion of others. (I don’t and I do.)

I say, “Martin.”

“Fin.”

“Martin.”

Martin says, “How goes it on the coast?”

“We’re in Queens, actually. Which is certainly a coast, but not the one you were thinking of.”

Martin says, “And Gwyneth, Fin? Stunning?”

“Stunning,” I say.

Martin says, “Met her once. She might remember me.”

“I mentioned you to her,” I lie. “She remembered.”

Martin cackles. “I knew it. Did she say where that was?”

“She didn’t. You sound strange, Martin.”

“Yoga, Fin. Standing on my head at the moment. Secret to life. Releases tension. Have you tried it?”

“No, but I masturbate a lot. Does wonders.”

Martin says, without a hint of a laugh, “Humor. Very good. Hearing reports of black babies, Fin, of unhappy clients.”

How does he know these things?

“Just rumors, Martin,” I say. “We had some issues earlier but things are better now.”

“Good to hear. Creative directors take care of these things. Bull by the horns.”

Creative directors.

Martin says, “I have some excellent news of my own, Fin. Big oil.”

I say, “That’s great. Except I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“Petroleon, Fin. Head man’s an old chum—we were at Eton together. Not happy with their current agency. Want to avoid a formal pitch. Meet and greet, see if the chemistry’s there. Oh, Christ.”

I hear a thud and then moaning.

“Martin?” I say.

Muffled, somewhat at a distance, I hear, “These bastard walls!”

I hear a hand grabbing the phone, rubbing the mouthpiece.

“Martin?” I say again. “You okay?”

“I don’t feel pain, Fin. Anyway. He’s only in town a short time. I’d like to bring in one of our top creatives.”

This is turning out better than I had hoped.

Martin says, “Except none of them will be around Thursday because of the holiday.”

“Oh,” I reply cleverly.

“I’m joking, Fin. I think you could be the man for this. Might be a nice change from diapers.”

“You said ‘change’ and ‘diapers.’ That’s funny.”

“Are you available Thursday?”

“This Thursday?”

“Yes.”

“My flight leaves Thursday, Martin.”

“Morning or afternoon.”

“Afternoon,” I say, sensing my mistake immediately.

“No worries, then. Knew I could count on you. You, me, Frank, Dodge. Top brass, Fin. The big leagues. Win this and write your own ticket.”

I say, “Wait. Isn’t Petroleon the one responsible for the big spill in Alaska awhile back?”

“And you’re perfect, I suppose? Don’t mention the spill. Very sensitive about it.”

“Are they doing anything about it?”

Martin says, “About what?”

“The spill.”

“Of course. Deeply committed to change. That’s why they’re hiring a new agency.”

I say, “Excellent.”

Martin says, “Snugglies client happy?”

I say, “I guess.”

Martin says, “Don’t guess, Fin. Make sure. Keep them happy. Keep your job. Humor.”

The line goes dead.

A twenty-two-year-old from craft services with spiked hair walks up with a tray of small paper cups of coffee.

“Mocha cappuccino?”

I say, “I have a degree in English literature.”

The kid stares at me.

I say, “My thesis was on Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.’ I won an award for it. That’s a lie. I almost won an award for it. Or would have, perhaps, if I’d finished it and submitted it, which I didn’t.”

The kid continues staring.

I say, “‘Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky, like a patient etherized upon a table.’”

I say, “I wanted to write. I wanted to write poetry. To touch people’s hearts and open their minds. I wanted to live by the sea, England perhaps, teach at an old college, wear heavy sweaters, and have sex with my full-breasted female students.”

The kid stares some more, his mouth open a bit now.

I say, “‘Do I dare to eat a peach?’”

The kid says, “Um, I don’t think we have any peaches. But I could make you a fruit smoothie.”

I hear Raphael shouting, “I want to film something! Ms. Paltrow and I are waiting!” There’s a pause. “Why is this child black?”