posterousfolio: reading in case you're bored at the bar Pt 1

BRtent_trad.pdf Download this file

Client allowed us to do fun things with beer (there are actually a lot of aspects of beer advertising where this is not the case, somewhat surprisingly). Finally got a chance to poke some fun at Legal Disclaimers here. Overall, as fun as working with a beer client should be!

Agency: Phoenix Advertising Group
Art Director: Gillian Meyer
Creative Director: David Bellerive

late TV commentary: love, trust and #TheBachelor w Ben Flajnik

via people.com

Besides the lateness of this post (lateness is this site's modus operandi; it's my story & I'm sticking to it), the other standoutish thing about this from people that know me is that I totally don't seem like the type who'd be into something like The Bachelor. Those people are mostly right. I found myself surprised that I was as into this show's drama as I was. This seemed a unique season of the Bachelor, though...

Quick synopsis: It's a reality show called The Bachelor so you can likely guess what the deal is (as I'm essentially doing now): Bachelorettes are contestants to win the hand of the Bachelor. One or more Bachelorettes are kicked off each episode. The last episode, ideally, is the Bachelor proposing to one of the two remaining bachelorettes, that bachelorette saying Yes, and everyone living happily ever after.

I only tuned into The Bachelor at the very end of this season, starting with the penultimate episode, Women Tell All, where just about ALL the women (so my wife tells me) wanted Bachelor Ben Flajnik to pick Lindzi Cox (blonde, bubbly, rode in on a horse on their first meeting) and NOT Courtney Robertson (brunette, not as bubbly, came across as very calculated).

Shocker 1: Ben picked Courtney (she said Yes).

Shocker 2: At the After The Final Rose, months after the proposal, they hadn't been living together and she was not wearing the ring.

I'm bulleting my thoughts out based on a 3-2-1 analysis (tweaked from Dr. Paul Spate after attending his 1day workshop).

Three (3) Thoughts I Thought

1. The Bachelorettes spoke with a voice that seemed to ring true and is indeed resonating with a large part of the TV viewership: Courtney comes across as manipulative and two-faced. Rumour has it she broke a few of The Bachelor rules to get her way, including one or two around physical contact with Ben in the early weeks. Yet Ben chose her, listening to a voice very independent of this American consensus. I'm not sure who's voice it is, but it called to me a big question of how we know what's true. Granted, what the viewership sees is what is chosen through the editing process which is one carefully-selected hour a week. Still, I'd think Ben would have heard this Bachelorette consensus, one that didn't really have anything to gain by promoting Lindzi over Courtney or vice versa, would be heard with at least some ring of truth. The concept calls to mind a book I'm in the middle of, that On Truth book by Harry G Frankfurt (I know, it sounds made-up, doesn't it?...) where Frankfurt defends the importance of truth. In it, there's a neat section on Truth and Troth, an old term from which we get betrothal, in short, a couple "pledging their troth" "means that each promises to be true to the other" (p 68). So what's lingered with me, and with a lot of the audience, is that Un-true love, love with a lot of strings attached, ulterior motives and was a kind of win-at-all-costs love, won out over a love that was considerably less so.
2. Going on the record with a controversial thought: my mind went to the possibility that the conclusion was a contrivance by the show's executive powers-that-be. It's feasible, to me, that given the circumstances, Ben was told to propose to Courtney. This, after all, would be the most controversial and, therefore in the eyes of some, would make the best TV. This also provides opportunity for Lindzi to be The Bachelorette in a future incarnation of the show, one of the rumours floating around. I'm not saying this is what happened. But I'm saying it could have.
3. There was a time, probably not even not that long ago, where my wish would have been that this relationship not work out. My hope now, very likely shaped by being married with a baby now, is the complete opposite: messy and weird as the situation is, I do wish for this relationship to work. I'm not totally sure why, I just do.
   

Two (2) Questions I Still Have

1. To take this on a personal level, what can we learn from seeing a really weird example of trust on TV, and how can we use this as a basis to see how true our relationships, both lovers/family/friends and professionally, really are? The episode really evoked that all-round sense of trust and how we get it, keep it, nurture it and prevent its loss. And trust is making the rounds as an important leadership and business principle (unless I've missed the boat on that one... as a guy who set up a website based on The Late News, that is very entirely possible).
2. Does Josh Groban know his long-lost twin was The Bachelor?

One (1) TakeAway / Response / Conclusion
Bringing this one home in a weird way is to affirm the trueness of my relationships: with my wife, my baby, the rest of my family, and good friends: to stay true in word and deed, beyond just as duty to loving truth and being true in action and heart to my word(s). Seeing un-trueness and its fruit can drive us in this direction. I hope.

Really late movie review: Charlie and a dark chocolate factory

via imdb.com

For some time, I've been curious about whether a retroactive movie review concept could fly. Theoretically, there's some value in looking at whether a movie can speak to you after it was made. Some movies work well like this, some are even better so: I think The Shawshank Redemption is a classic example as a bit of a bust in the theatre, yet had this amazing following on video; even now I'm strangely drawn to it every time I run by it on TV. And I believe IMDB.com and RottenTomatoes.com keep a retroactive measure of a movie's following after it's been out for a while. 

Watching this movie was something of a happy accident: this past week my one-year-old daughter got me up so early that I watched the whole thing on PVR before we had to get out the door (small object lesson in itself of what a baby does to your life).

Quick synopsis: Charlie is a really poor kid who loves Willy Wonka's chocolate even though he only has one bar a year as his birthday present. When Willy Wonka announces 5 Golden Tickets among all his factory's chocolate bars worldwide, the prize being a trip to his factory, Charlie defies the odds and wins the trip.  Tim Burton directs Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka, so it is indeed quite the trip.

I'll structure these reviews with a 3-2-1 analysis (tweaked from Dr. Paul Spate after his 1day workshop on emotional intelligence).

Three (3) Takeaways

1. I popped this on because I was thinking, hey, kid's movie, I can have it on and my daughter can watch when she's interested. Tim Burton's name in the opening credits clued me in that I might be a bit wrong. In fact, "it's Tim Burton" is probably review enough, esp if you have an opinion about The Nightmare Before Christmas (whether you've seen it or not). I guess I wasn't paying attention enough in grade school to remember this was really dark. My wife's reaction to me seeing it was pretty much "don't kids die in that?" (spoiler-ish: they don't actually die but it's a natural thought...). Roald Dahl's other book, James & the Giant Peach, was much lighter in my mind. In contrast, this thing was so dark. I'm okay with some darkness, really I am, but for a movie I think is aimed at kids, this was shield-their-eyes dark a few times. It reminded me a lot of Edward Gorey's creepy (and more explicitly homicidal) Gashlycrumb Tinies which were out at about the same time the original Charlie book was.
2. Dark as it was, parts of it served the purpose as background eye candy while I watched my daughter play. Most exemplary was the squirrel room: our little one gives a cuteness review to animals by how much she talks to them, live or recorded, and she talked to those squirrels lots.
3. Weird bit of trivia, the band Veruca Salt is named after a girl in this story. Not sure why they went there actually, the character's disturbing on many levels. Unless the book is somehow very different. 

Two (2) Questions I Still Have

1. Does darkness have to be this dark to serve its purposes?
2. Is Tim Burton, or Johnny Depp for that matter, or author Roald Dahl, trying to teach a lesson here, or are they just like this?

One (1) Action / Response / Conclusion
The movie ends up ok but for me, the happy ending never quite makes up for all the darkness it's traipsed in along the way. I can see where the Burtons, Depps and Dahls are coming from: paying attention for 5 minutes to the usual saccharine kids' fare makes me want to tell a story as dark as this as a reaction. However, it's a reminder to me to rein in the darkness (even negativity, criticism or sarcasm) that I put out there: while dark has its purpose, I believe that going too far to the dark side doesn't really help anyone get back to any beneficial light.

Got a Hi Score at the Vancouver Scrabble(r) Tournament!

I got a Hi Score in my Division in the 2012 Vancouver Scrabble Tournament!

If it seems like old news to anyone who happens to be following my exploits, that's because it is pretty old news: it happened 19 days ago. If the organizers hadn't been nice enough to mail me my prize, I wouldn't have known it at all.

The story of my tournament was, in a word, bi-polar.
I know I was a sour-grapes-y on the 2nd day of the tourney, a big reason being I'd had my first O-fer (zero wins)day in my Scrabble tourney career. It happens, but losing does kinda suck.

This in contrast to day 1 when I only lost 1 game, and that a close one.
Kudos to Murray Weber who tied with me for the prize. Funny, we're both usually quite defensive players I think.

 

The late news

This post marks the debut of an idea I'm floating. I'm starting a website called The Late News, basically my commentary on news in various states of past-ness. (ie I don't think any of my Scrabble buddies are still talking about this tourney). I'm trying to spin my chronic lateness into some semblance of order, so better late reporting than never. Right? Anyway, part of my personality is to process things mentally before putting my stuff out there. Sometimes it's not a great way to go. But sometimes it is. Hence the tagline on this blog I've set up: News, After Thought.

Some stories I'm developing:

• my thoughts on the latest season of The Bachelor (yeah, late, I know, eh?...)
• quickie review of that Introvert book
• quickie review of that Thinking Fast & Slow book
• old movie review of The Truman Show

I'd LOVE for you to suggest other late news you'd like written up... I'm willing to reach back pretty far!

Got a Hi Score at the Vancouver Scrabble(r) Tournament!

I got a Hi Score in my Division in the 2012 Vancouver Scrabble Tournament!

If it seems like old news to anyone who happens to be following my exploits, that's because it is pretty old news: it happened 19 days ago. If the organizers hadn't been nice enough to mail me my prize, I wouldn't have known it at all.

The story of my tournament was, in a word, bi-polar.
I know I was a sour-grapes-y on the 2nd day of the tourney, a big reason being I'd had my first O-fer (zero wins)day in my Scrabble tourney career. It happens, but losing does kinda suck.

This in contrast to day 1 when I only lost 1 game, and that a close one.
Kudos to Murray Weber who tied with me for the prize. Funny, we're both usually quite defensive players I think.

 

The late news

This post marks the debut of an idea I'm floating. I'm starting a website called The Late News, basically my commentary on news in various states of past-ness. (ie I don't think any of my Scrabble buddies are still talking about this tourney). I'm trying to spin my chronic lateness into some semblance of order, so better late reporting than never. Right? Anyway, part of my personality is to process things mentally before putting my stuff out there. Sometimes it's not a great way to go. But sometimes it is. Hence the tagline on this blog I've set up: News, After Thought.

Some stories I'm developing:

• my thoughts on the latest season of The Bachelor (yeah, late, I know, eh?...)
• quickie review of that Introvert book
• quickie review of that Thinking Fast & Slow book
• old movie review of The Truman Show

I'd LOVE for you to suggest other late news you'd like written up... I'm willing to reach back pretty far!