“Can You Brainwash a Guatemalan Orphan?”

This was Woody Allen in Robert de Niro’s Body Creative Director’s Body question to me as we sat together on a flight to Milan, pondering the identity of a colleague’s adopted children.

Said colleague is gay, and he and his partner have adopted two Guatemalan children, both boys. The youngest of these two boys (who is about five) is shaping up to be an enthusiastic transvestite AND shoe fetishist. Now, I am not in the least advocating anything that might read like a “healthy, natural inclinations” manifesto – but I suppose that we were both in our conversation wondering at what point do you actively encourage your son to become the next RuPaul?

If a four year-old boy is requesting a Barbie Doll, red sequined slippers, and wants to watch “Cabaret” again, do you say “OK” – or do you try and say maybe (not an Action Man) but a jigsaw puzzle, or a viewing of “Fantasia” might be better? I mean, clearly, you don’t equip him with a toy gun, a John Huston box-set and a pit-bull – but is furnishing him with The Best of Cher, a Bob Mackie gown and “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” any more right?

We couldn’t work it out. Maybe someone out there can…

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Creativity and Collaboration

I am at the start of what I think is going to be a very long process of writing a book on the above idea. I’m looking at collaborations between partners in diverse fields, hoping to identify a series of common principles or even practices that can be imported into any situation where creativity is necessary, and born of a collaborative, rather than solitary, process.

And so… and so it is more than a little dispiriting to keep coming up against evidence of how old-fashioned advertising agencies (so keen to profess that they are “in the business of creativity”) are in their approach to trying to encourage EITHER collaboration OR creativity.

I am off to Singapore for a week with some of our “best” creative talent from round the world – and yet, trying to get even twenty minutes with Woody Allen in Robert de Niro’s Body Creative Director (who is meant to be partnering with me on this experiment) is proving rather more elusive than Lord Lucan riding Shergar. I am increasingly concerned that the session (which should be a really interesting examination of some classic storytelling structures and narrative archetypes) is going to fall flat on its face, as a result of a simple lack of preparation – on both our parts.

This makes me incredibly nervous – I know from various enterprises (from directing in the theatre, to Planning in advertising) that preparation is essential in getting the trust, and enthusiasm, of the people one is trying to lead. At this rate, they will be nervous and wary – and (what is worse) right to be so.

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The Ur Playground

Wife has come to the opinion that the defining location in humans’ lives is the school playground: there is simply too much “adult” behaviour that confirms her in this belief for her to consider otherwise (she has recently been subjected to the oddest bout of “I want you to be my friend, not hers” and “I get very jealous of other people being friends with you”). I hope that this isn’t going to end up with the introduction of a strawberry-embroidered handkerchief and some fatal stabbing, obviously, but it does seem that some juvenile jealousy is making her life as a friend to one and all (or rather, to those whom she hasn’t dismissed as “absolute cunts”) a little tougher.

I, meanwhile, am facing playground antics of my own: probably the best of these is the fact that after our latest spat (recorded in uneven fury below, somewhere), Woody Allen in Robert de Niro’s Body Creative Director “defriended” me on Facebook. I am yet to experience him actually nicking my lunch money, or getting the big boys to flush my head down the loo, but I daresay I can look forward to it. Can you believe it? It’s the forty year-olds’ version of “I’m not going to be friends with you any more”: a silent, stealthy – but mighty – click of a mouse, and it’s all over.

Well, it probably is now: because the latest exhibition of self-indulgent, 1980s-style wank from his department finally got the better of me and I sent out an e-mail detailing exactly how and why I was so aggrieved. In retrospect, it was probably not the wisest thing that I could have done – but I don’t think that wisdom is really in my DNA: I meant it, and at the time it felt entirely justified. It was, however, a brutal piece of communication – not shrinking from detailing what I saw as faults, failures and indulgences in CAPITAL LETTERS, and with a FUCKLOAD OF SWEARING.

Quite where we go from here, I don’t know. It’s not like he can block me on Twitter (as I am yet to see the appeal of: “Stuck on a bus. Tcch!”), so maybe we’ll go aggressively old skool and have a duel with pistols.

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Angry and Disappointed

Friday saw me fuming at Woody Allen in Robert de Niro’s Body Creative Director, but falling short of the full shouty-crackers, as he has the resilience and maturity of Daughter, and I saw no point in entering the weekend in a really bad mood.

Essentially, he didn’t show up for work all week (two days of which he was shooting in Manchester with Very Famous Footballer – so that’s understandable, but the other three of which he just didn’t fancy it: but who does?). I wouldn’t normally care, but this meant that our meeting with Favourite Client (who, in other news, has recently asked me to write a presentation on alternative ways of representing Phronesia in narratives for Central Eastern Europe – so that should be quite something…) was hideously compromised and the meeting that I arranged was amateur-ish and damp-armpitted. Canadian Account Director With Disconcertingly Terrible Hair presented the creative work, and Enthusiastic Account Guy did a brilliant job of making the whole thing seem more cohesive than it actually was – nevertheless, I knew it was shit, and didn’t need to be. I haven’t spoken to him since the meeting, which I left early (when they moved onto the testicular stranglingly awful specifics of timings and budgets), and I didn’t actually tell him what my issue was, partly on the teenager-ish “If you really don’t know, I’m certainly NOT going to tell you…” but also I have noticed that everyone that ever criticises him (however softly) meets with his unending hatred and vitriol, which is more than I can be bothered with.

I’ll probably simply have him killed….

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The Return

My return to work is imminent.

I have already had lachrymose e-mails from both Old Friend At Work and Woody Allen in Robert de Niro’s Body Creative Director on this subject – and the consensus is that we are not filled with joys at the impending return, nor are we simply going to go ahead and return to work as the Planners and Creative that people THOUGHT they knew.

WAiRdNBCD has advised me that he is going to transform himself from being “the most negative person that you know” (for so I dubbed him last year) and will embrace positivity. Naturally I am horrified at this eventuality – not just because I associate it with the sort of wheatgrass-drinking, self-help book-reading imbecile whom I loathe (normally because they are NEVER funny); but also because I am, in this, with Rilke (as on so many things) whose profession “If my devils leave me, then I fear my angels will leave me too” I endorse whole-heartedly.

OFAW is more sanguine about the need for change – and I am cheered by the fact that she reinvents herself about once every ten days, often around a new shade of lipstick. However, it is a fact that most of her reinventions occur when she has been away from the office for any length of time: so after holidays, she is always at her best, creating idyllic (and unsustainable) lifestyle tableaux in her head that she and her long-suffering husband then comprehensively fail to live up to:-

1. “I’m cooking every meal from scratch.”
2. “I’m giving up drinking.”
3. “I’m always going to be perfectly groomed and have perfect nail polish and lipstick AT ALL TIMES.”
4. “I’m going to talk like that girl out of All Saints.”
5. “I’m going to have a capsule wardrobe.”
6. “I’m going to be mysterious and enigmatic.”
7. “I’m going to be the sort of person that people think might be Italian.”
8. “I’m going to be really feminine.”
9. “I’m going to be Kristin Scott Thomas meets Cameron Diaz.”
10. “I’m just going to get my handbags REALLY ORGANISED.”

These are all genuine examples of past reinventions, not to mention all the ones that have been founded on the basis of a new handbag/skirt/fringe/way of doing her eyebrows – and I love her for it. I am VERY keen to know which combination of these will be put into play for this year.

My own efforts (rather than New Year’s Resolutions) are going to be rather simpler, and I put them up here in the promise that I will revisit them publicly one month after today, and assess my progress:-

1. Try not to be DELIBERATELY antagonistic to Travesty Of All Things Gay.
2. Rein in my fury at the people who work with me.
3. Go to the meetings that I need to go to – not all the meetings that I get asked to go to…
4. …and once there, be gracious about them.
5. Don’t procrastinate.

We’ll see…

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A New Friend For Roger

My alter ego, Roger, has been fairly apparent of late: he was on a teleconference to a Client only yesterday, getting belligerent as said client started talking UTTER shit about an idea that is so clearly brilliant, that if it were any clearer it would be glass and insects would fly into it. He has also made himself known to Distractingly Beautiful Trainee Planner – but he is as NOTHING to Woody Allen in Robert de Niro’s Body Creative Director’s alter ego, who is called Gerry (or possibly Jerry – we’re not 100% clear on that. We’ll get back to you. Yup, no  problem. Nice to talk to you. Yup. OK. Bye).

Gerry has been going APE-SHIT recently – which is quite something, as WAiRdNBCD is one of the most placid Creatives that I have ever worked with. He has been telling people to shut up to their face, he has been shouting at Fearless Leader, he has had a go (in front of a Client) at American Diva Planner – and the list goes on. Last night, Gerry apparently hit such heights of justifiable fury that he left Fearless Leader, Extraordinarily Posh and Good Account Director and Geezer Account Manager shaking: no mean feat. He made Barbra Streisand look laid-back and calm, apparently.

I am glad. Not only because I think that Gerry is obviously a very important outlet for WAiRdNBCD, but because everything that Gerry has said (much of it aimed at 80s Account Guy) is entirely fair and justified: which is always gratifying. What happens next is going to be the big question: either Gerry will take over completely, feeding off WAiRdNBCD’s mortal flesh; they will continue in the current Jekyll/Hyde symbiotic relationship; or WAiRdNBCD will wrestle and defeat Gerrry (a la Spider Man III). I hope this last doesn’t happen, as Roger likes his new friend, but if it should, then at least I can be confident that Old Friend at Work’s alter ego (Barbara) shows NO signs of shrinking away…

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Re-Christening

Thursday, 20th September 2007

The beginning of this week was spent at our agency in Madrid, working with Ludicrously Suave Creative Director; Woody Allen in Robert de Niro’s Body Creative Director and So Gallic It’s Ludicrous Account Guy.

But this last character has become even more comic: he has now bought so whole-heartedly into living in Spain and working in the Spanish way, that he has re-named his son (“Charles”) as “Carlito”, and insists on referring to himself as “Latin”.

Now: I just can’t help myself on instances like this, and so I told him: “You’re not Latin. You’re French.” – and it was like I had told him that his wife had died. Anyway, he has to be (like his son) re-Christened, so henceforth, he shall be “French Account Guy Who Wants To Be Spanish”. It’s not a funny name, but it’s a funny fucking predicament: like being called Keith and being desperate to be called Daryl.

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New York

Saturday, 13th October 2007

I had a fantastic time in New York: a work trip that was far less arduous than I had been expecting, and every day spent with Sister and Nephew, which was a real joy. 

The work was brief and simple: Woody Allen Creative Director is a joy to work with and likes walking and talking, or briefing in museums, rather than in the offices: which suits me JUST fine. Other than that (and the gorgeous family…) the shopping was extensive and ruinous. That is not a figure of speech: stupid amounts of money were spent in the interest of enhanced Autumn/Winter 2007 looks for Wife and I, and on glow in the dark pyjamas for all of the children. However, the good news is that I think I have pretty much nailed Christmas.

The other good news is that (for the first time) Good Friend in PR was in New York (where he lives) at the same time as me: so we drank and ate and laughed and gadded – which was magnificent. 

I love visiting New York: I have NEVER had a bad trip there. I think that’s because while there’s a lot of it that annoys me, there is also a lot that I love about it too and find really enjoyable (especially in small doses). I don’t suppose I’ll be out there in the foreseeable future, as we’re trying to get Woody Allen Creative Director to move to London, and so I’ll have no need to go out there, which will be a real pity, but both Sister and Good Friend in PR are due to come home in about two years, so that’s bearable.

I returned home to find Wife slumped in bed with Youngest Son dancing on her head. She had a hangover and was too weak to bat him away, but not to weak to ask: “Have you got me a present?” with her first breath…

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