As far as I could tell, he wanted me to conduct hilarious interviews with skate-kids that would surreptitiously convey valuable data on the consumer habits of the target market sector. Under ideal conditions, I’d have struggled to build a rapport with them, and these conditions were far from ideal. For a start, David had decided that I wouldn’t appear on camera: instead the on-screen interviewer would be a doll-head on a stick. I would crouch out of shot, addressing my questions to a knee.
‘OK, Linda,’ called David, ‘we’re rolling!’ I cleared my throat and unfurled the question list, which kept flapping in the wind. Now, was there a question that wasn’t too dreadful … ?
‘Rolling!’ said David, again.
‘Um,’ I said, to a flapping trouser-leg, ‘why do you smell of tuna?’
‘Whaaaah?’
David bent down. ‘Linda, he can’t hear you.’
I tried again. ‘Why Do You Smell Of Tuna?’
‘Whaaaah?’
Our cameraman turned to the kid: ‘Sorry, man, she has an accent. The question is, why do you smell of tuna?’
‘Whaddaya mean?’
I tried another tack. ‘What Is Cool?’ I shouted into the wind.
‘What’s cool? Oh, I dunno, like, skaters and stuff, you know? Like, the X Games! That’s cool!’
Bingo! Time to slip in a marketing question. No one would ever notice. ‘What was the last consumer durable you purchased?’
‘Whaaaah?’
‘What was the last thing you bought with a plug on it?’
My TV career proved short-lived, but as lay-offs weren’t yet in vogue, David quietly demoted me to tagger-alonger. In my stead, he hired a dreadful little man who dressed up like a ladybird and went round hitting people with a balloon, all his own idea. I trudged around after them, slowly accruing my twenty-five dollars an hour. When the X Games drew to a close, I approached the Create! employment agency. ‘Nothing today,’ they chirped, ‘but soon! Check in every day!’
Three weeks later, they dredged up something, and I went downtown to a swanky ad agency. There, a man with curly red hair sat me down and spoke as though we were planning an air raid. ‘Thanks for coming in at the last moment, Linda.’
I tried to look as though I had something better to do. ‘That’s all right.’
‘Excellent. So, here’s the deal. Our client wants two options for this campaign, and we’ve already come up with the ideal solution.’ He held up a drawing-pad with a blue scribble on it. I inspected it and raised my eyebrows appreciatively. ‘Nice …’
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘However, we need to offer them something else, something that’s not so hot, so they get the impression they’re choosing the ideal solution. And that’s where you come in.’
I was confident that I could create something truly second-rate.
Next, Create! got me an interview for a permanent job with the brand-new interactive wing of a global ad agency. The creative director hired me on the spot. ‘Great portfolio,’ he said. ‘Sharp. Edgy. I like it.’ His judgement was awry, but I ran off a-sparkle, rushing into Jack’s arms with the good news.
‘Fifty bucks an hour?’ He beamed. ‘Full time? That’s great!’ He lifted me off my feet for an extra big hug. ‘I’m so proud of you!’
‘I’m so proud of me too!’
We went out to dinner to celebrate. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I really didn’t want to come over here to San Francisco. And things have been pretty difficult so far. It was the worst time of my life, being here without you. But now I’m thinking that maybe we did the right thing after all.’ He polished off his third whisky.
‘I’m sorry I made you do it, Chief. I’m sorry I uprooted you from everything. I know you had a terrible time.’
‘That’s all right, Bun. We’re together now and it’s working out. Shall we get salmon-skin rolls? With little bits of lettuce for you?’
Things were looking up – we’d got ourselves a sun-drenched, overpriced pad with a palm-tree in the garden, and Jack was already bringing in enough to support us both. Viewing life as a ladder we couldn’t fall off, we threw away our savings on designer sunglasses, roller-blades and CDs.
Sadly, life at the cutting edge of interactive advertising proved to be a lot like freelancing in London, except I couldn’t get a single word approved. After two weeks I’d been given nothing to work on except the subject line for a single spam email.
See the potential. Reflect on your growth.
A moment’s reflection.
A lifetime’s growth.
See your reflection; reach your potential.
Your potential is reflected right here.
Extraordinary potential. Time to reflect?.
Time to reflect on extraordinary potential.
I passed my latest sheet to Slim, the head of copy. ‘Yeah!’ he said, nodding. ‘Nice work! There are some really strong lines in here.’
‘That’s good,’ I said, breaking a smile. ‘I was beginning to think —’
‘Yeah, you’ve nearly got it.’
‘Nearly?’
‘Yeah.’
My buttocks clenched inside my nice pants. ‘So, um, how do I actually Get It?’
‘Hmm.’ He tapped his chin. ‘I’d say … focus on the concept of “Extraordinary”.’
I trudged back to my borrowed desk. Slumping in my ergonomic chair, I began to type yet again.
Reflect on extraordinary growth potential.
Reflect on potential extraordinary growth!
Reflecting extraordinary potential growth?
Extraordinary potential: growth-reflecting.
Extraordinary potential for reflecting growth.
Potential growth reflecting the extraordinary.
Growth potential reflecting the extraordinary.
Extraordinary reflecting potential = growth!
Grow extraordinary reflecting potential.
Extraordinary! Reflect your growth potential.
Potential: reflect your growth. Extraordinary!
Reflect potential for growth: Extraordinary!
Reflecting truth growing potenti …
Why didn’t they get a computer to generate this stuff? It wouldn’t need its own ergonomic chair. I stood up and went to lunch.
As I ate my rice pudding, I calculated that if Slim ever accepted one of my sentences, it would have cost the company five hundred dollars a word. Considering this, I felt bad about downloading so many knitting patterns. It was time for some straight talk, so back at the office I collared the creative director.
‘You’re doing fine,’ he purred, stroking his plastic hair. ‘There’s plenty of work. Just a bit sporadic. Start-ups.’ Then he ducked into the loo.
The veneer began to disintegrate before my eyes, and I realized quickly that nobody else