A Very Scary Christmas

Roll over, Billy Bob. Meet the original Bad Santa. Krampus, abductor and consumer of small children.

Krampus is a demon from Alpine folklore in Austria and Switzerland. Now, these nations gave us sachertorte and Toblerone. Anschluss and neutrality. Klee and Klimt and Jung and Freud. One has to give their folklore its due. But this Krampus thing is horrifying. It has goat hooves and huge antelope-worthy horns growing out of its skull. Its dentition resembles that of the evil clown in the movie It, and its tongue would put Gene Simmons to shame. Krampus is a scary-ass demon who stalks your neighborhood wielding a birch switch and toting a giant murse, into which it crams naughty children to snack on later. If one craves this kind of symmetry, Krampus serves as a counterpoint to Santa, evil to good, dark to the light. How you behave during the year determines whether your December visitor will be a jolly old man or a devil from Hell.

Alpine children are exposed to Krampus at a young age through the yearly Krampuslauf - literally, Krampus Walk. Village folk, mostly strapping young guys, wear disturbingly realistic Krampus costumes and march down the streets, terrifying kids, teasing cute young women and smacking folks with their switches. In order to ensure that their Krampii are sufficiently impressive, some villages actually audition them and have a 6 foot height minimum. The Krampuslauf takes place around December 5th, St. Nicolas Day, and the parade usually includes a Santa or two. I'm going to have to add it to my bucket list.

Now, it seems Americans are discovering Krampus. Philadelphia just held its first Krampuslauf and similar parades are cropping up across the country. (If this is the beginning of an Alpine culture movement, may I suggest we bring back fondue. I'll also take a secret Swiss bank account, but I'm voting "No" on Lederhosen).

I get the naughtiness of subverting a family holiday. I realize folks like to push against the constraints of happy smiling earnest cornball Christmas. Some people have taken to celebrating the Seinfeldian holiday Festivus (Must say it: For the rest of us). Others are members of the Santarchy/Santacon movement, in which legions of Santas descend upon a town, swarm its watering holes and act like elves (and a few trolls) on a Christmas cookie sugar high. I was in San Francisco during Santacon and the streets were red with bar hopping Santas. They seemed mostly well behaved, but then it was only 6 pm.

Still, I question the need for Krampus. I can't speak for religious people, but I suspect the Satanic imagery doesn't jive with a holy night. I seem to recall that Jesus liked little children, and not in a stew pot way. I imagine he and Krampus wouldn't get along. I myself have two children (In fact, my now adult daughter sent me the Krampus article linked to above). I can tell you from personal experience that to kids younger than 5, realistic masks are scary even if your mommy puts one on right in front of you. Heck, I once had to leave a puppet show because my daughter couldn't handle the troll in The Billy Goats Gruff. The holidays are about family, and warmth, and love, and charity, and lights a-twinkle everywhere. For kids, at least those whose parents are employed, it's a magical time. Why ruin their mellow? It's bad enough that we need to tell young children about bad strangers, for their own good. Do we really want to have to reassure our little ones that Krampus won't eat them?

While a Krampuslauf provides a nifty excuse for young males to party and get devilish, there's a subtext to this Krampus business. In the article my daughter sent me, a distillation of a story on NPR, the reporter interviews a woman who plans to fashion herself a Krampus costume from dozens of rib bones and wear it to a Krampuslauf. And she's a middle aged mom, not a hard-partying, 22 year old bro. Like the other Krampus fans interviewed for the news story, she sees the creature as an antidote for the icky side of Christmas, the carols in October, shopping frenzies and excessive sentimentality.

I understand the urge to escape the relentless seasonal corniness, but I think there may also be a therapeutic aspect to Krampuslauf. Maybe a hairy, long-horned devil is just what people need to combat their own holiday demons. Think about the folks for whom Thanksgiving and Christmas are dysfunction fests. Greek tragedies. Third-rate sitcoms. Overpopulated Sartrian Hells. Imagine you have to dig really deep to view certain relatives with empathy. Maybe you need to hit the egg nog before you can view them at all. And yet you feel bound to these people who make you crazy, and besides, they can't help themselves, and you're no prize yourself, and you have to get your holiday attitude on.

Krampus provides perspective. That blast of demonic anarchy is like a reset button that makes your family appear kinder, gentler and yes, less insane. And in this time of strange politics, environmental catastrophes, freakish weather, protests, revolutions, layoffs and economic instability, perhaps only the craziness of a Krampuslauf can make normal life look normal.

One man's first hand encounter with the Kramposse

Another Krampus victim speaks out


I admit she doesn't look too traumatized. Maybe she's a demon seed.


Two horny devils.


A white Christmas nightmare


"No, little girl, I did NOT star in Werner Herzog's remake of Nosferatu."


Primal Scream Therapy


Today, Krampuslauf, tomorrow, leather shorts and accordions.

The Name Game

Years ago, the first time I went freelance, I thought it might be fun to call my business iCopy. It said copywriter, it was military slang for "I get it" and making it one word with a lower case "i" seemed really cool. So cool that before I could get around to ordering business cards, Macintosh beat me to it and launched the iMac. I was disappointed, but I took it as a sign that iDontsuck.

This has happened to me more than once, and if you are a half-way decent copywriter, it will happen to you. That cool TV spot, great headline, or indelible tag your client rejected pops up in the mind of some other copywriter, somewhere. Their version gets produced, and all you can do is stew in your own bile – especially since that other person's take is usually lame compared to what you had in mind. But if you want to experience the Deja Thought Of phenomenon at it's worst, try naming something.

When I first got on the Internet a million years ago, I thought I could be curly@aol.com. No, I could not. I could be curly33. I ran into the same problem when I tried to name my other blog. There's a reason I defaulted to Eucalyptus Way. The blog was intended to chronicle a seasoned East Coast woman's adjustment to West Coast ways. I riffed on California, on midlife crises, on change itself. I explored every possibility. The truth is, it's easier to name your child than it is to name your blog. And that is a piece of cake compared to, say, naming a new line of intravenous fluids. Healthcare and IT are gigantic baptismal maws that suck up all the most evocative names – the ones that instantly create a vibe, evoke an attribute of the product or just plain sound cool.

Finally, you cobble together a list of names, some of which aren't half bad. You google them as you go along and eliminate any names that crop up in your same category. Of course, if you're naming something for the international market, you're just getting started. Does your name mean toe jam in Hebrew? Heartburn in Danish? Group sex in Farsi? (Do they have a word for that in Farsi? Maybe not. If there is, the religious police would give you a good lashing just for uttering it.) Eventually, you realize that your winning monicker is Swahili for fuck your mother and you're back to square one.

So you move on to combining syllables, and again, any halfway decent sounding non-word belongs to some IT or pharma company. It's enough to make you want to howl at the moon. Some people specialize in this – the naming, not the howling– although I suspect they have their moments of animal despair after nomenclating for twenty hours straight.

A few years back, I was working on a pharmaceutical account. They had contracted an internationally famous branding agency to name a new medication, and they shared the results with our agency. The list consisted of a bunch of seemingly random three syllable names. Except they weren't really random because each syllable had a rationale. Rationales not unlike these:
" We used the syllable "Tor" because it's strong, evokes Taurus the bull, and also the Nordic god Thor."
"Na". Sounds like no - subtext is eliminating or doing away with. Also the root of Navigate - good for a chronic condition. "
"Vel? It's soft, like velvet. The el sound is feminine, like the word Elle. Works well for a dermatology product.
To make matters more challenging, the name has to be stealthily persuasive because it can't sound like a claim to the company attorneys. That's why, to this day, there is no medicine called Siknomor.

Names 101

On no! It's Finnish for enema!

Think globally, check globally.

Detour Through the Land of Cosmo

Even as a nubile young thing, I never was a Cosmo Girl. The hair, the makeup, the analyzing men as though they were a different species. I couldn't relate. It seemed like so much work. (I admit, I did like clothes - still do). Anyway, that demo is behind me now. Today, I am the mother of a young woman just the right age for Cosmo Girlitude. Except she takes after me.

So imagine my surprise when a shiny, hot-pink Cosmo arrived in the mail, with my name on the address label. Adele adorned the cover, all plump and fetching, her leopard print frock offsetting the burnished gold of her locks. I briefly considered tossing the rag but changed my mind. Gift horse – dentition irrelevant. At least I'd get to read up on Adele.

I picked up the magazine and my eye went straight to "When He Shouldn't See You Naked." Some hack milked a whole article out of that. The answer is simple. Never. Guess they pay by the word. Oooops. The piece is actually about the eroticism of semi nudity (no, they don't mean naked but for your socks) and smoldering looks. Me, I have to decide whether to wear distance or reading glasses before I can smolder. But I will give Cosmo props for covering both sides of a story, because in the same issue as "When He Shouldn't See You Naked" they also published this:



To strip or not to strip. What's a girl to undo? In "Seduction Secrets French Women Know", we read "Part of maintaining mystery is holding back a bit during conversations. " But in "5 Reasons Raunchy Girls Are Winning," it says "Comeons don't have to be subtle. Telling a man you want to "climb him like a tree" will most likely lead to faster, more satisfying results than surreptitiously exposing a bra strap and hoping he'll notice." Again with the objective reporting. How is a girl supposed to know whether to go all Jane Austen or channel Lady Chatterley?

Oooooh, lets look at the ads. Like this one, for "Le Male", a men's fragrance by Jean Paul Gaultier. Now I ask you, what is the gay male readership of Cosmo? Because this ad ain't aimed at chicks, be they young, old, cosmopolitan or trailer park. That is one homoerotic confection, and the sailor hat is the cherry on the sundae.



If you're not convinced, I suggest you take a long, hard look at the bottle for "Le Male". Notice the striped tank on that ripped blue torso. Can't you just hear the house music pulsing?



Sorry, Vince. I just don't think my orthotics will fit. There's a reason they call those things "fuck me shoes". Because those shoes really could fuck a shoe-whore in countless ways. Bunions, callouses, neuromas – and that's if you don't trip, fall and break an ankle.

More editorial content: "Is Being Too Nice Holding You Back?" Uh, no. Because I am not too nice.


I skipped "Sh*t My Man Says." After nearly 30 years of marriage, mine doesn't talk much. It's hard to get a word in when you're married to me. When he says something, I promise I'll get back to you. OK, lets check out some of the other feature stories.
"What's Sexy Right Now."
"How to Crank up Your Kissability."
"Fire it up!"
"Five Sensual Massages to Do Together."
The common denominator here is setting the stage for romance. So labor-intensive. It's not easy being young and single. As an old married lady, all I have to do is cock my head and say "Hey, Honey, it's Friday!"

Common ground at last! I totally agree with Cosmo on this new porn stash trend. It makes Jude Law, Marc Anthony and Anthony Kiedis look really sleazy. Not that they needed much help achieving that vibe. A man sporting this kind of facial hair is making some sort of statement. Probably one of these four:
A: I am a total sleezeball
B: I am playing a total sleezeball in the remake of Boogie Nights
C: I wish someone would remake Boogie Nights so I could star in it as a total sleezeball
D: How else am I supposed to conceal my raging attack of mouth herpes?



Now, I am an advertising copywriter, and this cheap ploy would have occurred to me right away, BUT it ain't funny nowadays. People are broke and desperate and what would have been cute when the nation was living high on the hog feels like a low jab today.



And now to the cover story, Adele. Here are a few things Cosmo taught me about Adele. She got discovered on My Space by some enterprising label exec. She wrote and recorded the song Rolling in the Deep the morning after the break up of her first serious relationship. She's never told a guy she loved him. And she remains hopeful about her relationship future.

There is more knowledge to be gleaned from this article, but Adele is a force of nature and her mystique should be preserved. That voice tells you everything you need to know. Adele is impulsive, soulful, passionate, direct and open. She does not conform to the weight norms of the fashion industry and she does not care.

She is probably not a Cosmo Girl.

Footnotes:
NOT a Saturday Night Live skit.

Sole Survivor

The Republican field is starting to look like a bad heist movie. In the lead role, we have Romney as the handsome one who has a romantic past with the hot female con artist, played by Michelle Bachman. Herman Cain gets the Don Cheadle role, for obvious reasons. Newt Gingrich is the seasoned criminal they coax out of retirement for one last job. Rick Santorum is the dim bulb who's there for comic relief and gets shot in the ass during the nearly botched getaway. John Huntsman is the producer's son who's trying to break into acting and got cast in a bit part as the driver of the getaway car. Ron Paul is the old time safe cracker. And Rick Perry's just a cracker, period.

Body Talk

Grab your mat - we're going to yoga. There's a nice, quiet little studio in my new neighborhood. The majority of the yogis and yoginis are over 40, and the classes are pleasant, if not overly challenging. On the mat behind me is an attractive, chatty 50 year-old blonde, obviously well-exercised and at most a size six. We are all sitting on floor trying to lower our torsos as close to the ground as possible, and the move is hurting her lower back. Even with our instructor's help, Blondie still can't get her chest to the floor.
"Oh!" she says, looking up at our teacher." It must be my fat stomach getting in the way, ha ha!"
Now, Miss Botox doesn't have a fat stomach, but the yoga instructor does. She's an earth mother type, big boned with a bit of a menopot. I'm sure she's long past caring, as she's well on her way to enlightenment of the Buddhist kind, but she knows a prompt when she hears one.
"Of course not!" Our teacher coos reassuringly. " What fat stomach?"

Years ago, I worked with a dramatic and self-absorbed female art director, a slender, attractive woman. She was maybe 36 at the time. Some of the women in our office took occasional smoke breaks, I, just to socialize, the other ladies because they were hooked. We had barely gotten off the elevator before GLBAD (not a new sexual orientation, an acronym for Good Looking Blonde Art Director) started complaining. She's gained weight. She's hovering around a size four instead of her customary two. Her clothes are a little snug. It's a tragedy. GLBAD is ranting now.
"Look at me! I'm fat! I'm a heifer! I'm a fat f*@king pig!"
Cue the rest of us girls.
"Of course not! You look great! You're so skinny!"
Meanwhile, several of the women in GLBAD's instant support group are overweight, one of them morbidly obese. As we head back towards the elevator, the big lady turns to me and whispers, "If she thinks she's so fat, how am I supposed to feel?" So I have a little chat with GLBAD. I explain why her behavior was insensitive. And she does not get it. It seems we haven't come such a long way, baby, because my twenty-something daughter has friends who pull the exact same number.

Female fishing for complements is nothing new. No woman asks "How do you like my new dress?" because she really wants your opinion. If she wanted it, she would have asked BEFORE making the purchase. A woman who asks this wants affirmation, not honesty. Ditto the dreaded question that makes men feign temporary hearing loss, "Does my butt look big?" This kind of insecurity is probably hard-wired in heterosexual females. (Lesbians seem to have a more relaxed relationship with their bodies). But bitching about putting on five pounds to a woman who needs to lose fifty is just plain mean.

Why do women do this? Is it:
a). Blatant narcissism, like Snow White's Wicked Queen.
b). A subtle form of sadism
c). Vision issues.
d). Pure stupidity
e). Congenital insensitivity (That would be my guess).
Why can't these chicks just take a bathroom break to monitor their own cuteness and leave the rest of us alone? And isn't fifty a little old to be playing this game?

I have my own body issues. It gets really hard to be objective about your appearance in your middle years, especially if, as my husband recently said of me, your mental age is 17. (He has since taken it back and adjusted the figure to 26). As a middle-aged female in a class full of fellow AARPies, I find myself dividing the other yoginis into two groups: the ones that make me worry that I don't look as good as them, and the ones that make me wonder whether I look as fat/old/droopy as they do. At least I am self-aware enough to get that this is wrong in multiple ways. From a yogic perspective, it's the kind of thinking that will get me reincarnated as a gerbil. Hopefully, a svelte one.

What's the emoticon for schadenfreude?*

Because I am so darn ecstatic over the Murdoch empire debacle, words are no longer enough. But that's hardly the only Schadenfreude-inducing story in the news these days. There's the J-Lo/Marc Anthony divorce announcement, just months after this smoldering display. The dismal box results of the Sarah Palin bio-pic, The Undefeated. The dumping and dissing of Hugh Heffner by a woman young enough to be his great grand daughter. The news that one of Charlie Sheen's Goddesses just took the first bus back to Olympus. Then there's the debt ceiling debacle. Mostly schaden, (sorrow), but hard to overlook the freude (joy) of watching congress get what it deserves, the lowest approval rates EVAH! (Take that, Eric Cantor, you obstructionist, egomaniacal little twit). All of which leads me to conclude that schadenfreude needs to be added to the emoticon vocabulary ASAP. I've provided a few design suggestions below.

;-]

[:>)

(:^’

:-[

{:–D

(:–/

(:-*



* Schadenfreude (sorrow/joy) is a German word for taking pleasure in the pain/suffering/misery/abject humiliation of others.

Check out wikipedia's emoticon chart. At the risk of sounding politically incorrect to the max, I have to say the East Asian ones are totally inscrutable.

Crosspollination

Like this blog? Then maybe you'll like my other blog. And maybe you won't think I'm such a slacker for not posting often enough...

Sexy Beasts

Finally, Florida outlaws bestiality. Some 1.3 million alligators are breathing a sigh of relief. You can choke the chicken, but you can't poke the chicken. And you better not horse around with your pony, or do it doggy style with Rover. Going to the cat house? Stay away from any actual cats - no pussy for you. Got bitten by a trouser mouse? it better not be an actual rodent - yes, gerbils count. And if you think you can still lie with your lizard, truss your turtle, fondle your ferret, spank your monkey, charm your snake, get jiggy with your iguana, pork your potbellied pig or go all the way with your gold fish, fuggedaboudit. Control your animal instincts, because bestiality is officially illegal in the Sunshine State.

Iggstrapolations

I confess. I watch American Idol. I know it's cheesy. I know it's terminally uncool. I know the TV audience consists of grandmas and 14 year old girls. I know it might be rigged, and people vote multiple times. I suspect that Taylor Hicks is probably the king of the cruise ship circuit by now, and while Kelly Clarkson is a great singer, I'm not sure the music world needed someone whose idea of a good lyric is "You got a piece of me and honestly my life would suck without you." I know all these things. And yet, I watch. And thus it was that on results night last week, I saw this. Ladies and gentlemen, Iggy Pop.

Just in case you are Iggnorant of Mr. Pop's contribution to contemporary music, let me fill you in. He is best known as frontman for his band The Stooges, which disbanded due to Iggy's heroin problem. Nerdy types who like to play spot-the-influence think of him as a godfather of punk, and he is credited with inventing the reckless sport of stage-diving. Pop and David Bowie have been friends and occasional collaborators since the Ziggy Stardust days – China Girl was actually co-written by Iggy. (The two met in the Thin White Duke's bisexual period but whether Bowie and Iggy ever did each other, I cannot say. Iggy – big sigh of relief, ladies – says he is straight). Anyway, for reasons even Google was unable to reveal, Iggy has performed shirtless since at least 1977. Fortunately, he has managed to keep his pants on the whole time.

The Idol performance was deeply disturbing, visually and vocally. He looked like a well-preserved mummy back from a trip to the hair salon for highlights and a Brazilian blow out. My friend Maura and her sister are convinced Mr. Pop has COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) and had an oxygen machine waiting offstage. I kept flashing on the killer doll from that awesome camp classic, Trilogy of Terror.

It was especially entertaining to watch the pint-sized provocateur get right up against the judges' table and do a pelvic thrust in Jennifer Lopez' face – a juxtaposition reminiscent of one of those Medieval Death and the Maiden paintings. Poor J-Lo, who has probably never heard the first few bars of Lust for Life without immediately changing the station, looked as though she wanted to scream for her body guard, or maybe her wimpy husband Mark Anthony (although I suspect Iggy could kick his ass).

The whole thing was, as Maura put it, out of context – waaaaay out of context. But why was the sight of that dehydrated little dude bouncing all over the stage so unnerving? After all, I've seen Lady Gaga perform with a dozen half-naked gay guys in thongs and dog collars. Context does have something to do with it. We think of American Idol as a family show – those aforementioned grandmas and tween age girls, the occasional references to Jesus taking the wheel, the home town crowd rooting for their local hero or heroine (down, Iggy, that's heroine with an e on the end). And then there's the greater context of contemporary pop, which is all about dancing and taut young bodies in revealing outfits. The Iggnoble one is not taut. He is well-exercized and veiny. And probably waxed. Hardly a wild child - more like an old dude.

So why does he persist in singing topless? Call me overly analytical, but I have actually pondered this in detail:

1. He believes the beef jerky look is part of his brand.

2. He can't afford a stylist. Or maybe even a shirt.

3. He is completely deluded and thinks he's still got it, like a male version of Madonna.

4. He has a Peter Pan complex and refuses to grow up. Ever.

5. He's still on heroin and suffers from the sweats if he waits to long between fixes.

6. He's proud of being the only remaining non-tattoed rock star on the planet and wants to flaunt his virgin epidermis.

7. He'll do anything for the money - including TV commercials in the UK and providing the singing voice for one of the babies in the Rugrats movie.

8. He's ACTING. And the guy has worked as an actor before, including cameos in Sid and Nancy and the color of money, and an appearance on the Crypt Keeper. (No, he did not play the C.K.)

9. Irony, baby. Icky's semi-nudity is an in-your-face rebuke of the air-brushed, over-choreographed, auto-tuned slickness that infects so much of today's popular music.

I think I'm going to settle for the last explanation. At least it allows Iggy to keep his dignity - if not his shirt.


Those were the days, my friend...

F*@k Fest

The English language is all fucked up, and I don't mean metaphorically. Sometimes it seems like the f-word is fast closing in on "the" as the most commonly used word in the American vernacular. (Can't speak for the Brits - they fuck but they also shag, which makes me suspect that British English is a bit less, uh, frisky).

It's been decades since the late George Carlin's seminal routine about the seven dirty words. We used to find them shocking – now we just don't give a fuck.The Entertainment Industry blithely uses obscenities to signify grit and relevance. Thanks to hip hop and rap, motherf*@king is now the high school adjective of choice, as in "That motherf*@ker has a motherf*@king third period pass." Just look at all the foul mouths among your friends and family. Now, multiply that by legions of families, nationwide.

In my case, the desensitization began when I started working in advertising. Other than high school and the military, I can't think of a more expletive-friendly environment than the average creative department. I learned this my first week on the job, when I had lunch with my new colleagues. The humor was definitely ribald - I remember the hard-boiled female producer was making smegma jokes over her pizza. Everybody swore – a lot – with fuck a frequent root word. I was shocked, but it didn't take long for me to shed my propriety. After a few months, I made sex jokes without blushing and used fuck reflexively. I still do – In fact, I joined a face book page entitled "Intelligent, classy, well-educated women who say fuck a lot." I say fuck a lot. And I am a woman. Two out of five ain't bad.

When used literally, the word retains its graphic shock appeal. To this day, I would never use it in the dictionary sense, as in "I think she's f*@king him". It would make me feel like an entitled Manhattan artiste from a third rate Woody Allen movie. I prefer to default to something genteel, like "sleeping with", or goofy, like "boink" or" schtup," or maybe tongue-in-cheek technical, like "exchanging bodily fluids". I'll jokingly say fuck you to all my dearest friends, but I'd never say it to anyone if I really meant it. Foul language makes for ineffective rage. You appear out of control. The swearing is a distraction and an invitation to dismiss you as a hysteric. Far better to contain yourself and keep it cold, direct, polite and lacerating.

Still, there's no getting around it. Used with finesse and a sense of timing, an f- bomb can be f-ing funny. But there's a fine line between funny and lazy, as in this recap of 2010 from the website Jezebel. You heard the expression "phone it in'? The writer fucked it in. She wrote a lame piece and used the f-word to try and liven it up, but bad meat, even if you drown it in hot sauce, is still bad meat. Another example of uninspired writing, this anti-prop 8 video has been making the rounds online. Now I H8 prop 8. I find it appalling that we could pass a law that actually takes people's rights away. Still, expressing a critical civil rights issue as an angry fuckathon is a tad reductive. I get that the spot is preaching to the converted, not trying to sway the opposition, but a foul-mouthed 6 year old makes a lousy poster child for gay parenting. If Annette Benning and Julianne Moore were that child's moms, they'd send him to his room without dessert.

So this is the part where I'm supposed to tell you about the empty water jug in my kitchen. The one folks throw a quarter in every time they swear, until the day when the whole family is 100% fuck-free – like the Shakers, only metaphorically. But there is no such coin receptacle in my kitchen. Why? Because I'd rather give up chocolate than profanity. No doubt chocolate is in better taste. But profanity's less fattening - and you can't beat the mouthfeel. I need fuck and its derivatives to express another f-word, frustration. I'm not just tired: I'm fucking exhausted. I'm not just angry: I'm fucking furious. And after three rounds of running around the house looking for my keys, it's only natural to wonder where the fuck they are.

Quickies

Get your etymology on!
Cole Porter, where art thou?
Shagadelic

The Many Faces of Julian Assange

While Interpol was casting its net to capture Julian Assange, my daughter and I have been casting the inevitable biopic. Her idea. She's a first year law student, I've been jamming on a multi-media ad campaign for a hospital in Palm Springs, and we both needed a break.

The leakage to date has been embarrassing and, in terms of American foreign policy's ability to get with the times, disheartening, but I confess that what I find most fascinating about this entire affair is the Wiki-Leaker-In-Chief. A rumpled and slightly sleazy international man of mystery whose motives remain debatable, despite his passionate claim that all he wants to do is get the truth out.

Is he a whistle blower fueled by righteous indignation? An anti-American trouble maker? A pioneer of 21st century journalism? An overgrown preschooler looking to see just how many of his classmate's block towers he can knock down before the teacher puts him in time out? A bonafide anarchist in the Emma Goldman mode? An egomaniac who never had enough attention as a child and has been overcompensating ever since? An internationalist looking to clear the air so we can bypass the bullshit and get cracking on our global problems? A sexual deviant who forced himself on two Swedish women? The victim of a CIA smear campaign to brand him as some kind of perv? (Re: the sexual deviant stuff, there is a lot of chatter on non-mainstream news sites about the actual "assault" being much ado about a broken condom, aka Quicky Leaks. I researched the broken condom thing and all the references I could find are alternative, which, depending on your perspective, makes them either more suspect or more believable).

Assange is obviously the role of a lifetime, with major Oscar potential given the right director. (Oliver Stone, this does not mean you). Anyway, without further ado and in no particular order, I give you our shortlist:



Kevin Spacey. He has the chops, and the round, doughy face. He's also 51 to Julian's 39, which I think makes him too old. Daughter disagrees.



Peter Sarsgaard. Good physical resemblance, proven acting talent, inde-film street cred, which means he may have too much taste to take the part if it's directed by, say, Ron Howard.



Christian Bale. Daughter thinks he's too good looking, despite his obvious nose job. (We have very different taste in men). I thought he was remarkable in The Machinist and believe his acting ability trumps the total lack of physical resemblance.



Edward Norton. Not an Assange lookalike, but bottle of bleach would help. Norton knows how to disappear into a role. Assange knows how to disappear, period. At least until now.



Cillian Murphy. Sorry, dear daughter. Too young, too creepy and too feminine. Not that he wasn't terrific in Red Eye.



Sam Rockwell. Can't say. My daughter likes him but I haven't seen enough of his work. Didn't go to The Green Mile because I am allergic to movies about magical black people who help clueless white protagonists find their authentic selves.



Leonardo DeCaprio. Yes, I know, he's too good looking, but it's amazing what you can do with a little nose putty. He's only three years younger than Assange and he's played morally ambiguous before – he rocked in Catch Me If You Can. I could see him getting the part if Spielberg directs.



Kevin McKidd. Blondeness, check. Pock marks, check. Hotness, check. Hotness is probably secondary here, but he made one smoldering centurion in the miniseries Rome, which, by the way, makes a great holiday gift for the amateur historian in your life.



Michael C. Hall. Creative suggestion on daughter's part, and if you look at Stephen in Six Feet Under vs. Dexter, you can see how Hall could pull off the duality of the Assange character.



Paul Bettany. This was actually my husband's idea. You may remember Mr. Jennifer Connelly from A Beautiful Mind. He is also a Beautiful Man in an aging British school boy kind of way. He was decent in the Darwin biopic Creation though the film itself was a bit dull.



Eric Bana. Boring as a romantic lead, but as an inter-galactic villain, he was the best thing about the otherwise totally lame Star Trek 11 (Yes, that's an eleven, not a roman numeral two - no wonder it was totally lame).

Well, that's the short list for you. Next step is finding a director. Is it better to go with a foreign candidate who won't take the whole affair too personally? Or would a foreigner have too much of an anti-American perspective? I'm ambivalent – pretty much how I feel about Assange in general. Our phantom production company is open to suggestions.

Copy Comments

I have a husband and two kids who never listen to me and a dog who won't come when I call. I can't tell any of them anything without being accused of lecturing. (The husband gets surly, the kids talk over me, the dog farts). So when I went on Linked In and saw that a budding copywriter was seeking writing advice, I couldn't resist the opportunity to pontificate. In fact, this post started as a wall comment, but I got so carried away, I figured I'd paste it in to the old blog.

Cadence:
As anyone who's ever experienced a frisson of delight reading Shakespeare knows, good writing is auditory. Even if your middle English is rusty, even putting aside all that timeless insight into the human condition, even sans access to the Cliff notes, the bard's words sound beautiful. Granted, a product website isn't exactly Hamlet, but cadence and rhythm still count. Lets say we were listing the ingredients for a minimalistic picnic. Should it be...
Wine, bread and cheese.
Bread, cheese and wine.
Cheese, wine and bread.
Wine, cheese and bread.
I won't list all the possible permutations, but you get the idea. There is no objectively right answer or wrong answer, unless you are a writer. Maybe you think cheese is an ugly word on which to end a sentence (unless you're on the Laughing Cow account and want to end on cheese for emphasis). Perhaps you prefer to end the sentence with wine, for its promise of intoxication and romance. You might want to start the list with bread because that's the most basic element of the meal. Not that you need to overthink it: a natural writer will just go on instinct and pick what sounds good – to her. If you can't hear the rhythm in your head, read it out loud. When you start to trip over your tongue, you need to do some more fine tuning.

Repetition
Try to avoid repeating the same word in one paragraph. Lets say you're writing copy for a hotel. You could just dash off something like this:

Our rooms are spacious and elegantly decorated. Each room has room for a roll-out cot, and every room has its own ocean view.

I'd say there's room for improvement. Take five minutes to craft that copy and see if you can make it sing without saying room four times. There are exceptions to this:
•The word you are using has no synonyms, or using one wouldn't feel conversational.
• You are using repetition for effect. Inspirational speeches may use a word or phrase as a mantra or rallying cry.
• You are writing SEO copy, otherwise known as "content", which means you will have to shove a key word or phrase into a small copy block three times.
•You are toiling on a heavily regulated pharma account (akin to donning a straight jacket and writing with a pencil in your teeth). If that is the case, the regulatory team will make you repeat not just the same word, but the exact same phrase, until you develop psychosomatic symptoms for the disease you are writing about. (By the way - it's now officially OK to end a sentence with a preposition.)

Back Off
Are you writing a brochure or a complex website? Take a step or two back, like when you're hanging art. Look at your paragraph order. (Paragraph. Now there's a perfect example of a word that's hard to avoid repeating. "Sentence collection" just doesn't cut it as a synonym). Make sure everything flows logically. Do your best not to start two back-to back paragraphs with the same word or phrase. Let's say you have two sequential paragraphs that start with the words "Collingsworth Finials." There's a school of thought that says great, you're beating the reader over the head with the client's name. I say do it more subtly. Why remind people that they're reading marketing copy? You can insert the client's name into the text just as many times and make it seem perfectly natural. Even starting two sequential paragraphs with the innocuous "We are" can make your copy look stilted and uninspired.

Kill all your darlings.
I love this. It's Faulkner's advice to writers, and if Spike Lee followed it, he'd be a much better film maker. Many of his films have entire scenes that feel like they belong in a different movie. They work on their own but not in context. To paraphrase the late Johnny Cochran, if it doesn't fit, you must edit. (No, that doesn't work. Why? The rhythm of the word "edit" is off. Instead, try "If it doesn't fit, you must omit.") Translation, if it's clever but it's not working tonally or contextually or even word count-wise, kill it. You can keep it in your bag of tricks for later. The point is to sell product, not demonstrate how clever you are.

De-clause your sentences
Try not to write sentences with more than two clauses. Three clause sentences are OK for a really high end target, say, people reading up on a hedge fund, but it's generally a good idea to pare down your sentence structure. Stay as conversational as you can. Remember that the public is, alas, getting dumber every day (OK, less educated). 8th grade reading level is about right on many accounts. You want your copy to sink in. Dish it out in digestible morsels. Avoid honking long paragraphs.

You talking to me?
Never forget who your audience is. If you are a 20-something writing for boomers, give us a little more content. We don't mind reading. If you are a boomer writing for 20 somethings, run your copy by your kid. 20 somethings are a jaded bunch. They think everything is "cheesy" - romance, sentiment, alliteration, word play of any sort. Fine tune your nose for cheese, even if it means smiting a darling or three. And don't be the dork who panders to a young audience with dated slang. If you're over forty, rest assured that slang will be passe by the time you first hear it. Of course, if you're sure of your colloquialisms, use 'em!

Write for actual people
Stop viewing focus groups as drudgery, or creativity killers. They are a goldmine. This is where you learn how to talk to people in their own language. I know it's entertaining to make fun of the people on the other side of the mirror, but you can learn a lot from them. Besides, if you pay attention, you'll eat less focus group junk food.

Ins and Outs
Watch your first and last sentences. You need to get people hooked immediately, and not leave them hanging at the end. A really good first sentence is like the cork in the champagne bottle. Get it out of the way and your copy starts to flow.

Seek reality checks
If you "get it" but two other smart people in the creative department don't, throttle that darling, bury it and continue to concept. Even Colbert comes out with a bad joke now and then - a self-indulgent gem that no one gets but him. Sooner or later you will come up with an idea that appeals only to your quirky sensibility. Give quiet thanks for your capacity for self-amusement and move on.

Strategy
Stay focused on the strategy. If you don't get one, go back and ask for one. If you still don't get one, come up with your own, based on the research. Yes, read the research. And do your own - go on line and visit chat groups, look at what the competition's doing, know the product/service in-depth. Make sure you check your brilliant concept against the strategy.

Jargon
Cranking out collateral or webwork for a jargon-happy industry can be painful. Finance, tech and education are just some of the categories that have their own lingo. Your natural impulse will be to simplify and humanize their language. For a first draft, it's the right thing to do. Maybe the client will say "Wow! This copy sounds like it was written by an actual human being. It's so clear, so friendly, so concise. Don't you dare change a thing." And maybe, to quote Wayne's World, monkeys will fly out of my butt. Here's what usually happens: you get slapped on the back for writing something simple and direct, and then, change by annoying change, the jargon seeps back in. It's easier to accept if you understand why:
• Using industry lingo helps position the client as an industry insider, especially in the B-to-B arena. You're simply more credible if you can talk the talk. Of course, if the end user is a consumer, simplifying language is usually a good call, and worth a little push back on your part.
• Political correctness may be an issue. In the non-profit world, for instance, there is no longer any such thing as a disadvantaged community. It's an underserved community. If your copy gets scrubbed for un-pc terminology, just smile and make the corrections.

When funny isn't
Most advertising people are funny. Most clients are humorless, at least when it comes to their brand. If you're going to use humor, make sure it is in the service of selling more product. Find a left-brained way to sell your idea. Your client isn't going to buy into something just because it's hysterical. And remember who you are talking to - don't go all Jimmy Fallon on a Leno crowd.

Spelling and grammar
Spelling matters. Grammar is relative. Hopefully, you get to work with a proofreader. Make those pesky little grammatical changes. When it comes to informal elements such as sentence fragments or sentences that start with "and" or "but", put your foot down and tell the proofreader to take a hike. Of course, your client may be the grammarian, in which case, you will be viewed as a hack until you comply. And if your target is affluent and/or over 65, they may be more inclined to follow the rules of proper English.

Punctuation
Ellipsis marks are cheesy. Unlike puns and wordplay, which were once common tools of the copywriting trade, they were already considered tacky twenty years ago. The only excuse for using the dreaded dot dot dot is when you have edited out part of a quote. Exclamation points are usually redundant and should be used extremely sparingly. Deploy commas, colons and semi colons as you see fit and hope you have a good proof reader.

Bite the bullets
Yes, they are ugly from a graphic standpoint. No, you do not want bullets in a print campaign you plan on putting in your portfolio. However, bullets are useful in crafting long copy. Anything that breaks copy down into scannable, easily digestible chunks enhances readability. Bullets, sidebars and callouts help make collateral more reader-friendly. Remember, nobody has an attention span any more.

Sublimate your ego.
Here's a painful truth: the best idea may not always be yours. Sometimes, the art director comes up with the headline. If you're worth your salt, sometimes you think of the visual. There will be occasions when the creative director, in his infinite dickishness, decides to reward you and your partner for your hard work on an account by opening up the TV job to the entire department. (The sad truth is, by the time TV comes along, the client may have beaten you into a creative rut, and your CD may know that.) You have to muscle through this, and you may not win - whether you have the best idea or not. Get used to the taste of bile.

Transcend style
Every brand should have its own voice. Not YOUR voice. The product, the target and the strategy all factor in to finding the appropriate tone for marketing communications. Your job is to find and maintain that tone.