Duane Greed. Now easier and more enjoyable to shoplift.

Saw this poster at the Duane Reade on 2nd Street and Ave. B. Very well re-written in my opinion.

Fill in those blanks in. Yeah, fill 'em in good.

Shannon, a girl I hadn't seen since high school, came by to spend a little of my birthday with me the other day. We got to reminiscing, and remembered this.

I was her paperboy, and used to hang out with her a bit during my route. One day, she broke out a MadLibs book. I proceeded to fill in the nouns, adjectives and verbs with the dirtiest words my 13-year old brain could wrap itself around. It was prose that would have made Mamet proud.

When I came to collect the money from her dad at the end of the week, he stood there with the MadLibs in his hand. He then had me read from it aloud. It was pretty humiliating. Not so much because I got caught, but beacuse when he pushed me to explain what all the words meant, I didn't really know.

Back then, I didn't know if a blow-job was a noun or a verb, and I had no idea you couldn't conjugate a pussy. Still, I think it was some of the best writing I have ever done.

A funny thing happened on my way to nowhere.

I’m aware comparing yourself to others will only lead you down a rabbit hole. But, I’m only human. Or in this case, rabbit.

The other day I found myself walking around the city feeling blue. I had just turned 39, and I was going over in my mind how, lately, many of my friends have been racking up some seriously prestigious awards in the advertising industry. Meanwhile, the situation I’m in right now hasn’t afforded me many opportunities to produce finished work and shine as brightly as my buddies.

I’m certainly happier for my friends than I am jealous of them. Well, I might be a bit jealous, but in a way that pushes me to try and do better work myself rather than be all “sour grapes.” And I’m thankful to have so many talented friends. I also know creating your own projects can be fulfilling, as well as beneficial to any creative person’s career, so there’s no need to wait around for your job to plop an opportunity in your lap. Still, on this day, I was lamenting how the accolades of the ad world haven’t been coming my way, and truth be told, haven’t been due.

Then, I tried focusing on something positive about my creative output – my improv. Since returning to New York, the work I’ve been doing at the Upright Citizens Brigade has been met with a lot of positivity by my mentors and peers. While improv isn’t a tangible thing I can put in my portfolio, submit to award shows, boost my salary with, or share with anyone other than the small audiences who see it, I was patting myself on the psychological back for having a creative outlet that made me happy and garnered some recognition.

At that absolute very moment, I happened to look down at the ground. There on the sidewalk lay an empty box from a bobblehead of the character Hiro, from the TV show Heroes. Masi Oka, the guy who plays Hiro was someone I recruited to be in SNAFU, an improv group I put together in San Francisco. Even as I tried to find my way past envy, the world just couldn’t resist shoving another friend who’s achieved a higher level of success and industry acknowledgement than me in my face. I laughed out loud. As good as my comedic timing may be, the universe’s is better. Well, I gotta run. I have a hole filled with carrots to get to.

P.S. I’ve been typing this on a plane to Denver to see my buddy Sean and go on a whitewater rafting trip. They just announced we are about to land and need to close our laptops, right as I’m finishing this post. See, my timing is indeed stellar. Take that universe.

It's all a lie!

AgencySpy has it all wrong. Yes, there was an outbreak of Swine Flu at our agency. But what is being mistaken for "pandemonium" over a health scare was simply excitement over this being one of the first things our agency's been involved with that has truly gone viral.

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