From Whence We Came

They say journalism is a first rough draft of history. If that's the case, then blogging must be the fleeting thoughts of historical moments we scratch out on post-it notes just before sleep.

My work career began as a dish bitch in the back of a greasy kitchen diner known as "Todd's Restaurant" in my home town. The restaurant specialized in pressure cooker fried chicken that known as Broasted Chicken. This place was owned by an ugly, lecherous, detestable man named Todd, who also owned the dive motel found opposite the dirt parking lot - which allowed for a continuous supply of both transient diners and waitresses.

Todd, the obese and cantankerous owner, found it fitting to write, direct and play a leading role in his own television commercials that aired on public access television between the hours of 11:30 pm and 4:30 am. The commercial went something like this:

Scene: The inside of Todd's dingy diner with dirty carpet and dinged up furniture. Camera angle set uninspired toward the windows with a table for two in the center of the frame. Two dried up women (off duty waitresses in street clothes) sit across from one another - their silhouettes glowing from the cigarette smoke refracting in the light of the windows behind them.

Off Duty Waitress 1 (voice monotone, hands resting flat and unnatural on the empty table in front of her) : Where's my world famous Broasted Chicken?

Off Duty Waitress 2 (injecting a small forced inflection into her monotone line): ...And where's my world famous broasted chicken?

Todd (entering from outside the frame, clutching a plate of greasy chicken to his enormous gut, and says in monotone): Here's your broasted chicken...right here at Todd's Restaurant at 8215 Whitehall Road and Colby Street. The only place you can get broasted chicken in Michigan, so you'd better hurry before it's all gone.

Ug. There was no question in anyone's mind that it was horrible. And there were so many things that would have made it better (like simply changing the camera angle out of the head on light, for instance) but I was fifteen and secretly hoping Todd's would catch a grease fire anyway so I said nothing.

Since the time I was six and gave my own mother Oil Of Olay moisturizer for mothers day to "make you beautiful, mommy." I've been curious about advertising. How it is made and the psychology behind what makes people buy.

This blog is about advertising and marketing - the gig I love, the profession I adore.