Chapter One: Physics
I am a man of constant sorrow
I’ve seen trouble all my days.
I bid farewell to old Kentucky
The place where I was born and raised.
I spent a generous portion of my college career flunking the classes you need to get into medical school. Of all the classes I failed, physics was my favorite. Which is why I failed it twice.
Physics fascinates me and I believe life has taught me more about the subject than college ever could have. I've personally experienced a lot of physics firsthand. Some of these lessons were fun and some not so much.
While there isn't a single definitive answer, most consider there to be around a dozen fundamental laws of physics. But we don't know for sure. And that's what fascinates me the most about physics. The stuff we don't know yet. And it's because of this that I believe in a lot of weird shit.
I believe in magic. I believe in luck. I believe in wishing wells, curses and hitting slumps. I believe in voodoo. I believe in witchcraft. I believe in funny feelings, Spidey-sense and lucky underwear.
I even believe in God, which might be the weirdest of the shit that I believe in— but for me it is all clearly explained by the physics that we don't yet know.
It is this fundamental lack of certainty, coupled with my own personal experience that leads me to postulate that in any mechanical, mathematical, or theoretical system; assuming gravity, mass, velocity and friction are all applied equally and measured via conventional standards— given enough time, pressure and Heinz ketchup— eventually some really weird shit will happen.
I call it the weird shit equation; however, I am yet to nail down the exact mathematical formula.
Chapter Two: The Dizzies
For six long years I’ve been in trouble
No pleasure here on earth I find.
For in this world I’m bound to ramble
I have no friends to help me now.
Lying down cures the dizzies. I spent a lot of time on the bathroom floor that first night.
The pain was unimaginable. The worst I've ever had. And I've been cauterized.
The hydrocodone they gave me did nothing. My pain laughed at it and called the pills little bitches.
Over the course of eight hours, I took eleven pills and got no relief. In too much pain to sleep, I thought changing the bandages might help, but every time I tried I would get the dizzies.
Steadying oneself does not cure the dizzies. Focus does not cure the dizzies.
Only the floor cures the dizzies. It’s a cure you can take willingly or not—it’s completely up to you.
2 AM.
4 AM.
5:15 AM.
These are the hardest and most lonely hours to get through when you’re in agonizing pain. You have to go through it alone because you’ve burdened the people who love you enough to help you already. They need sleep now so that you can burden them some more later.
I call the doctor’s office in the morning and tell them how many pills I took.
They tell me never to do that again and I don’t.
Another injury.
Another lesson learned.
Another little piece of me taken away.
Chapter Three: The Dead Dog Dies Twice
It’s fare thee well my own true lover
I never expect to see you again.
For I’m bound to ride that Northern railroad
Perhaps I’ll die upon this train.
Winston is 190 years old. He’s blind as a bat and deaf as a doornail. My wife loves that dog more than anything in the whole world, including me. I am happy to be her favorite human. It's a strong second fiddle.
I can hear his nails tap the wooden floor as he lumbers from the living room to the back of the house where I do my writing.
He peers in and announces himself with a lazy body shake. It’s the dog equivalent of clearing your throat.
As he stands in the doorway to the room I’m in, he also stands at the top of the stairs that lead to the basement. He gives me the look that says, “Either you stop what you’re doing and let me outside or I go fuck up your basement.”
I know the look well. I’m not sure if dogs have prostates, but if Winston has a prostate it is the size of a watermelon and I have no idea how he keeps it inside his butt.
I reach down and give him a pet. He’s all lumps. It’s like petting an old sack of potatoes. We walk through the kitchen and I let him out into the backyard. I stand by the door to watch him while he goes. He is so old and frail that I worry a strong wind might blow him over or a sparrow might swoop down and carry him off.
So I stand guard because my wife loves that dog and every day I say a little prayer that he doesn't die on my watch.
She doesn’t see the broken Winston that I see.
She sees the Winston of long, long ago.
I see what’s left. I see death already upon him. I see it slowly swallowing him up. His cataracts are the size of saucers. When he looks at me, I see something hollow. Something vanished. Something no longer there. Something already dead.
Sometimes the life leaves us, before we leave the life.
And then you have to watch something you love die twice.
Chapter Four: Floating.
It’s fare you well to a native country
The places I have loved so well.
For I have seen all kinds of trouble
In this cruel world no tongue can tell.
The first time I got fired I was about 28 years old, working at a super cutthroat shop and at the time, I was what they used to call a floater.
A floater is someone who didn’t belong to any specific group or account. You’d get your assignments from the creative resources manager and you’d help out on any “hot” projects.
These days, every position in an agency needs to be covered by a client scope. Everyone has to be paid for, so I don’t think floaters really exist anymore.
Floating was fun because you didn’t really have a boss and you could get in on pretty much any assignment if you were willing to hustle, but it was dangerous because you didn’t have a home or anyone looking out for you if things got dicey.
If there’s anything you can count on in advertising it’s that things will always, eventually get dicey.
I was helping the agency defend a large piece of business and the campaign I had come up with was leading the pack. I had everything covered. I had the brand spots, the retail spots, the in-store ideas and I even threw together a quick little spot promoting the brand’s rewards program.
It was a simple spot.
A young teenage couple is watching TV downstairs in the family room. The boy wants to put his arm around the girl, so he starts to do the cliché yawn-and-stretch move.
At that point, the character I had created to represent the brand pops into the scene and whispers to the boy, “Relax. You already scored.” We see the character holding the branded rewards card and the boy gives him a smile and a thumbs up.
Not a great spot, but it checked the rewards box and showed the campaign could be used anyplace.
When I presented it in the big internal meeting, the CCO seemed to like it and the account team loved that I had gone deep with the campaign. However, the ECD who technically owned the assignment and the second-best campaign in the room wasn’t smiling.
“Scoring is fucking,” he says.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You can’t do that spot, Jeff. Scoring is fucking.”
“They’re like 13 years old.” I tell him. “The boy in the storyboard has braces. He just wants to get his arm around her.”
The CCO is watching the ECD and I go back and forth like a tennis match. as we debate what it means to score. Finally, he speaks up and tells me to change the spot.
I’m not going to argue with the CCO, so I say fine.
I spend the rest of the night coming up with several different solutions. Each new solution requires one new storyboard frame and one new line of copy. By 10 AM the next morning I’ve got everything sorted. All I need is approval.
Naturally, the ECD is now out of town. If I want approval, I’m going to have to get it from the CCO. I make an appointment with his assistant. I show up 15 minutes early.
45 minutes later I’m pushed aside as the CCO comes barreling out of his office. The assistant looks over at me and raises her eyebrow. His next availability is tomorrow morning at 11. I set up camp at 10:30 this time.
The appointed hour comes and goes. The door is closed and I hear a lot of shouting going on. By 12 he’s out the door again. It’s lunchtime now.
He leaves. I decide to stay.
I spend the next three days sitting on the floor outside his office. It’s humiliating but I’m committed. It becomes sort of performance art in my mind.
The morning of the big meeting he finally comes over to me and says, “You wanted to see me?”
In one hand I’ve got the original story board. In the other hand I’ve got a manilla folder with the alt copy and corresponding frames.
He takes one look at the board and says, “What the fuck is this? You didn’t change it.”
I begin to fumble through my manilla folder, explaining to him that I’ve got three options and how each one is ready to be put over the old frame on the board.
He’s not happy.
“I don’t have time for this. You should have gotten to me sooner.”
He drops the board at my feet and walks off. The next day HR calls me. Within 20 minutes I’m unemployed.
To this day, I’m not sure exactly why I got fired. Either he really was pissed that I didn’t remove the offensive frame from the storyboard, or I creeped him out by sitting on the floor outside his office for three solid fucking days.
I was a kid.
I thought I was showing some moxie.
It didn’t really even sink in until the next day when I woke up and realized I no longer had a place to go to.
It wasn’t a good feeling and I sought to remedy it as quickly as possible. Eventually, I caught on with another agency and spent the next 10 years or so not having to feel unwanted.
Freelancing is great because you can’t really get fired or laid off. But the jobs do end. And when they do, no matter if the gig lasted two days or two years the feeling of having no place to go comes back.
It's a scary way to make a living.
In physics they say that a body at rest tends to stay at rest until it is acted upon by an outside force. But if one applies the equation of weird shit to the scenario, you could also say that a body at rest tends to stay at rest until its inner desire to move is properly stimulated.
I remember this when lying on the floor with the dizzies. Gravity is a constant. Mass and distance are the variables. Onion rings cost extra. Refills are free.
It comforts me as I care for Winston. I'm humbled by the love that my wife has for this creature and I sincerely believe that it is the sole force keeping him alive. I believe in the power of love. I believe it is tied up in the laws of physics that we don't yet know.
And when all around me is so heavy that the weight becomes simply too much to carry, I float. I hustle. I accept that I have no one to protect me if things get dicey. And I use any and all of the weird shit that I believe in to keep myself going.
At the end of the day, it's all just a bunch of physics that we don't know yet. The variables are infinite. And the only constant is sorrow.
Maybe your friends think I’m a stranger
My face you’ll never see no more.
But there is one promise that is given
I’ll meet you on God’s golden shore.
Thanks for reading. I’ll see you again real soon.
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