Truth in Advertising Page 0,3

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 fucking 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 fuck?”

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 fuck 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