Truth in Advertising Page 0,11

‘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?”

THE LAND OF MISFIT TOYS

Did I mention that I am a copywriter at a Manhattan advertising agency? I am. You might recognize the name. Lauderbeck, Kline & Vanderhosen. It’s been around for decades. We have offices in New York, Los Angeles, London, Amsterdam, and, as of January of this year, Tokyo. We were acquired many years ago, like so many once-independent agencies, by a multinational PR firm. That firm was acquired earlier this year by a Japanese shipping company, though I have no idea why a shipping company—or a Japanese one at that—would buy an American ad agency, except that I’ve heard rumors that the shipping company owner’s son, apparently a spectacular moron, was given the agency as a pet project by his father. Anything to keep the kid away from large vessels holding millions of dollars’ worth of cargo.

Why did I, Fin Dolan, choose advertising, you might ask? Why not law or medicine or the fine arts? Because of bad grades, fear of blood, and no artistic talent of any kind. Was it a passion, something that simply overtook me, the way famous people on television speak of their careers as a passion? No. Did it dawn on me at a young age that advertising was my life’s work, the way it dawned on Mohandas K. Gandhi, after he was thrown off that train in South Africa, that wearing a dhoti, carrying a stick, and changing India would be his life’s work? No. Was it more of a calling? Did I try the priesthood first, spending several years in contemplative study with the Jesuits/Mormons/Buddhists before coming to the realization that God wanted me to serve Him by creating television commercials for Pop-Tarts? No (nor have I worked on the Pop-Tart account, though I would be open to it). Did I do it because I was kicked out of the Morgan Stanley training program after three days, the recruiter saying these words to me with a contorted face: “It’s as if . . . I mean . . . seriously, pal . . . it’s as if you have no understanding of mathematics at all.” Yes. Definitely yes.

And what is it that I actually do? How does one find oneself on the set of a fake bedroom that is not attached to a real home on a soundstage in Queens with a group of people who are bizarrely serious about a diaper?

It starts this way. A small office, a cubicle, a place of unopenable windows and bad lighting. People with colds. A cafeteria that smells of warm cheese. An assignment.