SEX SELLS
The True Tales Behind the Greatest
Ads of the ‘80s
by ROGER PAUL MOSCONI
Copyright © 2007
by Roger Paul Mosconi
Jersey Street Graphics, LLC
Book design by
Vincent D’Onofrio
Dennis Felicio, Production Manager
Smashwords
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For information: Jersey Street Graphics, LLC, 708 Third Avenue, Suite 1600, New York, NY 10017-4123
ISBN-10: 0-9817240-3-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-9817240-4-1
This novel is about one man’s highly successful and award winning journey along New York City’s fabled Madison Avenue, and a real peek behind the scenes of life on the fast track in the multi-billion dollar advertising industry.
Much like ‘Broadcast News’,‘Wall Street’, ‘Jerry McGuire’, and ‘Barbarians at the Gate’ exposed their dark, secretive, behind-the-glamour worlds, so will ‘Sex Sells’ expose the extremely powerful ad industry and its manipulative control over the American public.
You will be taken on one hell of a scintillating tour that spans some 38 years of kicking, clawing, getting stepped on, and stepping on and over others as the author climbs to the top of the corporate ladder in some of Madison Avenue’s largest and most illustrious advertising agencies.
It’s a hard hitting behind-the-scenes exposé about those few insignificant Machiavellian craftsmen who have mastered the power and politics of information and salesmanship to persuade over 200 million Americans to purchase products and services that they neither want nor need.
You will be witness to what really happened during and after the filming of the now famous and considered to be the greatest Super Bowl commercial of all time, the ‘Mean Joe Greene’ Coca-Cola television commercial as the author weaves a page-turning tale of betrayal, back stabbing, manipulation, and even piracy that near destroyed the commercial before it ever made it to ‘on air’.
“Promise them anything, but give them nothing!”
Find yourself sitting front row and center when ad agencies go into one of their feeding frenzies to recruit and raise their armies of young talent with promises of mega-salaries, limousines, sex, drugs, huge expense accounts, and the most tempting of all, those big accounts with clients that have very, very deep pockets.
“No good deed goes unpunished!”
You’ll be exposed to the depths of evil to which these so-called craftsmen will stoop. You’ve always assumed that lurking behind the façade of all that glamour and excitement existed a dog-eat-dog world. Well, guess what, you were totally right. But that strange little feeling that’s now beginning to grow in your stomach is taking you beyond that. Now is when you begin to realize that you are no longer just a spectator, no, not this time. This may be the author’s personal story, but somehow this story is also about you. “Open your eyes people, you too are the victim here!”
What these Machiavellian craftsmen are doing to the author is exactly what they’re doing to you, and they’re doing it to you every ten minutes of every day.
It doesn’t matter to them, including this author, if you’re male or female. It doesn’t matter whether you’re three years old, or seventy years old, they don’t give a shit. You can be black, you can be white, you can be yellow, or red, its totally meaningless to them, so long as you buy what they’re selling. “SHIT!! They’ll even speak to you in tongues if that’s what it takes to separate you from your money.”
And, if all else fails they’ll resort to sex to sell it to you. Sex always works. Hell, sex can sell anything. That’s advertising 101.
This author prides himself on being one of the best at using sex to sell products, especially those that have no real attributes to talk about. This novel delves into his Tab soft drink campaign and how he used a very attractive young woman clad only in a bikini walking out of the ocean drinking from a can of Tab as the ocean water dribbled down her body. A lot of people dribbled over that commercial and their dribble turned it into the highest recall scoring commercial of all time. And, in turn, made Tab the third largest selling soft drink. Not bad for a product that tasted like turpentine.
And do you really believe that using Fabio to sell fake butter doesn’t work? Come on, women buy it off the selves almost hoping that when they get home and pop the top open that he’ll magically appear and smear that shit all over their naked bodies.
Your Sony clock radio introduces you to a new day, Why Sony? You grab your trusted bar of Ivory Soap. Why Ivory? Because it floats? Oh, and don’t forget to bring your Head & Shoulders into the shower with you. Why, because it’s blue, and blue products always work? ‘Brush-a-brush’ your teeth with Crest, remember to gargle ‘All those germs away’ for at least thirty seconds with Listerine while you slip into your Calvin Klein underwear, you know the same ones that Kate Moss wears. Hey, if you put on a Victoria’s Secret bra you’ll look just like Heidi. Slip into the shoes you bought at DSW and you’ll suddenly have great dancing legs.
Swallow ‘That last drop of Maxwell House coffee’ as you speed off to work in your brand new, hunter green BMW. Why hunter green? Well, that would be because someone on Madison Avenue convinced you that hunter green is the ‘new in color’ according to RL.
One last thing, if you will. Why the BMW? Because you know that all the while you bumper-to-bumper your way to work you’ll constantly be bitching to yourself that this car cost you more than your first house.
“Why do you buy all of these products? Because you need them?”
No, no, no, it’s because someone on Madison Avenue convinced you that you couldn’t live without them. And they convince you of that every ten minutes of every day, 365 days a year by interrupting your life with their little 30-second messages.
And this is how it happens in one fine career on Madison Avenue. It was and still is all true, the only thing that’s changed is you, the consumer. You’ve gotten smarter. So those insignificant few Machiavellian craftsmen will have to work much harder to separate you from your money. And trust me they will, and they’ll continue to be “Everywhere that you want to be.’ And trust me I know they will because I’m one of them, and I am one of the best of them.
“Oh, one last thing. Did you remember to spray yourself this morning with Axe Body Spray? You do want all those women out there to notice you, don’t you? And ladies, remember to drop the KY Jelly in your purse, you just might get lucky tonight.”
This book is the sole responsibility of the author but as in any concept, there are always those who have stepped in along the journey to either tutor, correct grammar, make a suggestion or two on how a scene could be improved with some additional writing, thoughts on how the book jacket should look, to even consulting with a tattoo artist about the type design.
To my tutor, Brandon Tartikoff. To my grammar coaches and script advisors, Lisa Ronell, Leah Nosnik, Kerry McCashin, and Dennis Felicio. To my trusted designer buddy, Vincent D’Onofrio. And to Budda, my tattoo genius. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, and thank you!
SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
To my beautiful much younger wife of twelve years and still sizzling, Patricia, yes she’s Irish, yes she’s an account executive turned client, yes she knew all too well my sordid history before she took my hand in marriage, and yes she does know how to control this Italian boy from New Jersey. And she does it with a lot of tender loving care, much understanding, a ‘big’ stick, and some help from my two daughters, Audra and Nicole.
To view the TV commercials mentioned in this novel please go to: www.sexsellsbook.com
Table of Contents
Scene
One: Take One
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Two: Take One
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Two: Take Two
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Two: Take Three
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Two: Take Four
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Two: Take Five
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Two: Take Six
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Two: Take Seven
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Three: Take One
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Three: Take Two
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Three: Take Three
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Three: Take Four
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Four: Take One
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Four: Take Two
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Four: Take Three
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Five: Take One
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Five: Take Two
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Five: Take Three
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Five: Take Four
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Six: Take One
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Six: Take Two
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Six: Take Three
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Seven: Take One
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Seven: Take Two
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Seven: Take Three
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Eight: Take One
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Eight: Take Two
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Eight: Take Three
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Eight: Take Four
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Eight: Take Five
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Nine: Take One
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Nine: Take Two
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Nine: Take Three
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Nine: Take Four
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Nine: Take Five
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Nine: Take Six
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Nine: Take Seven
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Ten: Take One
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Ten: Take Two
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Eleven: Take One
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Eleven: Take Two
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Eleven: Take Three
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Twelve: Take One
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Twelve: Take Two
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Twelve: Take Three
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Twelve: Take Four
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Twelve: Take Five
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Twelve: Take Six
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Twelve: Take Seven
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Twelve: Take Eight
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Twelve: Take Nine
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Twelve: Take Ten
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Thirteen: Take One
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Thirteen: Take Two
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Thirteen: Take Three
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Thirteen: Take Four
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Thirteen: Take Five
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Thirteen: Take Six
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Thirteen: Take Seven
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Thirteen: Take Eight
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Fourteen: Take One
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Fourteen: Take Two
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Fourteen: Take Three
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Fourteen: Take Four
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Fourteen: Take Five
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Fourteen: Take Six
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Fourteen: Take Seven
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Fourteen: Take Eight
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Fourteen: Take Nine
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Fourteen: Take Ten
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Fifteen: Take One
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Fifteen: Take Two
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Fifteen: Take Three
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Sixteen: Take One
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Sixteen: Take Two
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Sixteen: Take Three
“Cut!! Cut!! Cut!! What the fuck is going on here? Hey kid, what the fuck is your problem? Will someone tell me please what the fuck this kid’s problem is? He’s supposed to be a fucking actor isn’t he? Well, isn’t he?” N. Lee jumps out of his director’s chair and strolls over to the script timer, who is so terrified at his approach that she tries to become one with the tunnel wall. N. Lee rips the script out of her hands, thumbs through her script notes, “128 takes on the master and your notes are telling me that not one fucking take is good!” He spins around stopping only when his eyes lock onto Paul’s eyes, “Well, Mr. Fucking Genius, what the fuck do you want to do now? This is all on your fuckin’ meter darling.”
Paul stands up checking his watch. “The answer is not to be found on the face of your watch unless of course you want to call a wrap and put an end to this insanity.” Paul wipes N. Lee’s spit from his face, his answer is toiling hard to escape from the depths of his throat, “It’s just past midnight according to my watch, and I don’t intend to leave this fucking stadium without a spot, or was your head parked up your ass earlier today when my boss called me from Detroit to inform me that if this isn’t the greatest spot he’s ever seen I better not come back. Or maybe you were too busy trying to figure out what your fucking problem is with the lighting in this tunnel. Whatever, I don’t get a commercial, and you don’t get paid. Are we understanding each other now?”
N. Lee lunges at Paul, but only succeeds in being introduced to the tunnel pavement for his efforts. Paul drops back and readies himself as N. Lee springs to his feet. If looks could kill they both would have suffered a terrible death. “Well bubba, you chose this fucking kid so you tell me what we should do now. Because you’re only getting one spot, one 30 or one 60, not both.”
Paul leans in real close and personal, “You’re contracted to deliver one 30-second spot and one 60-second spot, so if you’re looking to get paid you had fucking well better figure out a way to deliver both.”
“You’re not listening to me, bubba. You’re not getting two spots so what is it about NO that you’re not understanding?”
“I’ll settle for the 60, I can always lift the 30 from it.”
“Mr. Ruggero, sorry to interrupt but the kid’s agent is demanding to talk to you now.”
“Oh, he is now, is he?”
Paul slowly backs off, his eyes glued hard on N. Lee’s molten red face, and moves towards the head of the tunnel where the 800-pound ape, stuffed into a dark blue bankers suit, awaits. Sweat pouring from every pore of his body. His face, now there lies the story of his life, dark blue veins transverse from one cheek to the other across his nose. His skin is the color of crimson, obviously the result of too many years and too, too many visits to the bottle. Paul starts to climb over the stands, but staggers momentarily, repulsed by the man’s breath, bourbon, straight, no water, and probably straight from the bottle.
“Barry, what’s so urgent?”
“Listen Paul, need I remind you of the SAG rulings when it comes to treating talent properly?”
Paul smirks and looks down at the concrete steps, shakes his head, then returns his stare straight into Barry’s eyes, sending Barry dancing back on his heels, and almost falling off of the steps. “Barry, maybe if you weren’t lost somewhere in that never-never land in that bottle of yours you might have just noticed that it is your so-called actor who’s sending me to my grave with triple golden time. One hundred twenty eight takes Barry, are you with me? One hundred twenty eight takes and we still don’t have a useable master shot!” Paul slaps his hand down on Barry’s shoulder driving him down slightly, “I’m not abusing an actor because there is no actor out there to abuse. And I swear on my mother’s soul, Barry, that if I don’t get the greatest fucking commercial out of this shoot that that little bastard will never act again. And you will get to pay the client back for this entire shoot. Do we understand each other here, now, I’m going back down there and I’m going to make this commercial work, and you know what you’re going to do Barry, right? You’re going back down there and you’re going to have a nice little ‘Come to Jesus’ talk with that so-called actor of yours. Okay, do we both understand each other now?”
Barry musters up a limp nod, and slowly, ever so slowly, navigates his way back down the stands.
“And Barry, do me one small favor, stay out of my sight until two days after this shoot is over. You and I both know that this kid is no actor.”
Paul drops his head, looks down at the stands, smirks, then locks his eyes on Barry’s face.
“You know something else Barry.”
“No, but I’m sure that I’m about to find out.”
Paul cuts a tiny smile, “Yes you are. Yes you are. When I came to this shoot I was terrified that Joe Greene wouldn’t be able to pull it off. Boy, was I wrong, he ends up being the real actor here, Barry. I even had to drag him into the tunnel to help your actor deliver his lines.” Paul shakes his head, “You know Barry, if I were you I would sign Joe Greene up before I left here. And then you’d have a real actor to rep.”
Paul makes his way back towards the camera and all of the high-volume action whirling around the set. Not two feet into his return his assistant producer, Karen, grabs his arm, pulls him to the side, and informs him that his so-called partner has split, “Kelly left the set.” Paul’s eyes go from Karen’s eyes to the concrete floor of the tunnel, back up to the ceiling, then back to meet her now full-orbed eyes rimmed with an almost uncontrollable anger about to explode. “Paul, she fucking ran out on us, she fucking shit in her pants and took off. The bitch chicken-shitted out on us!!!”
Paul raps his arm around Karen and prods her forward, “Well darlin’ I guess we’ve just tripped into that clusterfucking shit storm that my Gunny always bitched about. Now we’ll see if I’m as good as I always say I am.”
Paul delicately navigates his way through the security wall created by three of N. Lee’s apes and drops into the chair next to his high-priced director. With an extremely exaggerated huff the two-foot, four-inch Napoleon rises indignantly from his perch, dragging his chair with him, to which Paul rises up in kind, and pursues him across the tunnel floor dragging his own chair along. Paul whips his chair around, slamming it into the side of Lee’s chair, pinning Lee’s forearm to the armrest. Paul drops into his chair and goes nose-to-nose with the finely sculptured nose of his emperor. The rims of N. Lee’s eyes pool with tears, bright red veins begin to explode around his pupils, his mouth widens, his throat quivers followed by an almost hellish, not from this earth, grunt, “Your chair arm is crushing my arm.”
Suddenly Paul’s chair, with him on board, is elevated upwards, heading non-stop for the tunnel ceiling, but inches from his head being introduced to the ceiling he’s jerked to safety, falling back down into JC’s arms, “This is not the time for all of this bullshit. We need to get this spot on film, or we’ll all be hung. Okay, so calm down and let’s roll camera. Are we calm?” “Yes, I’m good.” JC readjusts his head to make direct eye contact with Paul, “I repeat, are we good?”
Paul nods yes, and is released from his executive producer’s bear-hold, and escorted to his chair where Karen pokes him with the script, “You need to rewrite the end scene, it’s not working.” Paul stares at Karen as she and JC move him away from N. Lee towards an unpopulated corner of the tunnel. The dynamic trio hunkers down, with script in hand, and begins the task of rewriting the ending. Forget that it’s only about 12:30 at night with the entire film crew, actors, and stadium staff hanging all over them.
The sound that now emanates from this crowd of hostiles fast begins to fill the entire tunnel and resembles the low pitch of a high-speed turbo engine slowly climbing to full-up max.
JC, in his most wonderful French way, elbows Paul’s arm, puts his hands together, almost prayer-like, nods his head up and down and whispers, “Let him throw his football jersey to the kid as a thank you for the soda” Paul raises his head from the script, visuals of the scene JC has just suggested racing past his eyes like film already shot, “That’s great, Claude, you’re a genius.”
Paul cranks out the new ending and struts over to N. Lee, “We’ve written a new ending that’s brilliant. Here.” He hands him the script. N. Lee grabs the script, glances down at it then returns his eyes to the trio, “So this is the McCann-Erickson brain trust that’s come to save the day is it? Two producers and one award-winning art director, wonderful, just fucking wonderful.” His eyes drift back and forth from Paul to JC to Karen, “So tell me guys, where’s the blond? You know the writer?” He starts to pound the script with his index finger. “She’s supposed to be the writer on this, isn’t she?” He twists his body around in his seat looking down the tunnel “Well, where is she?”
Karen forces her way in front of Paul and goes head on with N. Lee, “She split, you know like gone.” Paul cuts her off, “She left during the lunch break.”
N. Lee swaggers his head and places his hand over his heart, “I’m so totally crushed, so you’re telling me that she left without even so much as a goodbye?”
Karen cuts back in, “Well, aren’t you the clever one. Yeah she ran out right after Paul told us about his phone call with Charlie.”
“Enough of this fucking bullshit! We’ve got a commercial to finish.”
“Well let’s just hope and pray that you’re half as good as your reputation claims you are.” JC collars Paul, slams his hand over Paul’s mouth, and proceeds to drag him away cursing in French, “Just shut your fucking mouth and let’s get this commercial finished before it costs you the soul of your first daughter.”
“The soul of my daughter? What the fuck does that mean? And for your information you almost broke my jaw.”
“Hey genius, we’ve got a problem for camera here.” N. Lee leans away from the camera lens motioning for Paul to look at the scene through the camera. Paul leans in, pressing his eye against the eye pad on the camera eyepiece. N. Lee pops into the scene placing himself midway between the kid and football player, “See what I’m talking about, I can’t pull focus on both the kid and the bottle of soda, so you have to tell me which thing I’m supposed to focus on. The kid or the bottle, or the bottle or the kid, you can’t have both, so which one do I focus on?”
Paul pulls away from the eyepiece, motions towards the camera seat, “Focus on the kid, his reaction is extremely important to the concept, besides everybody knows what a bottle of Coke looks like anyway.”
N. Lee smirks, shrugs his head and remounts the camera seat, “You sure you want to do that? I know you’re a genius and all of that other bullshit, but are you sure that your client will agree with your brilliant call?”
“Just shoot the fucking spot, and let me worry about my client.”
N. Lee just makes this twisted demented sucking sound with his teeth, must be some Cajun thing or something, and turns back to Kenny, “Quiet on the set! Are we ready for camera?”
“Yeah, camera’s ready.”
“Roll camera!”
“Camera rolling.”
“Sound!”
“Sound rolling!”
“And action!!”
The tunnel fills with a long, deadly silence as the kid slowly begins to drift down the tunnel, passing from light to dark as he moves gingerly through the pools of light cast by the ceiling lights. The entire place stops breathing, fingers crossed, even double crosses, more Hail Marys being whispered now than at any Notre Dame football game ever played. The kid’s eyelids are fluttering wildly, his voice is tangled up in his throat, the soda bottle is trembling, but only slightly, “It’s okay, you can have it” stumbles from his mouth. The kid is genuinely terrified, more by the director than the huge black hulk towering over him, but the performance is genius, pure gut-wrenching brilliance.
“And cut!”
“Good for camera.”
“Good for sound.”
N. Lee rubbing his fingers together actually cracks a smile, and lets his eyes glide slowly around to rest upon Paul’s eyes, “As my momma would say, you must have someone upstairs watching over you boy, ’cause you are one lucky motherfucker.”
Paul smacks JC on the thigh with the script board, “No, we just live well, thank you, Jesus.”
“What time is?”
“3:15inthe AM.”
“It’s a wrap, people, and I thank each and every one of you for hanging in here with me.” N. Lee flips Paul the bird and parades off like the little fucking Napoleon that he is.
“We too thank all of you for hanging in.” Paul turns to Karen and JC, wraps his arms around both of their shoulders and prods them forward, together the trio disappear into the pre-dawn light as they enter the parking area, “You know that my Gunny used to say that this time of day was the deadliest time of day, especially if you were in combat because this is the only time of day that there are no shadows. I don’t know, but I sure as fucking hell believe we just lived through a combat of our own. And you know what fucking shits me the most?”
“Yeah, that we don’t even know if we have anything on film.”
Silence falls over the trio as JC slips into a phone booth at the edge of the lot, drops several coins in the phone and dials. “Who are you calling?” JC raises a finger to silence Paul.
“Hi, it’s 3:22 in the morning and I know where we are, but I’d like to know where you are?” He hangs up the phone, allows a huge belly laugh to escape from the depths of his stomach, “I thought Kelly just might want to know what’s up.”
“Screw her, she fucking ran out on us right after you got that call from Charlie. Guess she thought if she wasn’t here she’d hold onto her job, right?”
“Something like that.”
“Why the fuck do you always protect her?”
“She’s got five kids, and….”
“And what? Come on Paul, and what? God damn it, are you slipping her the big Italian sausage or what?”
JC cuts Karen off, “Now, now, children, let’s not waste what little time we have on something that we can’t do anything about, and figure out what, or better yet, where we’re going to hide until we know what we’ve got on film.”
He raises one eyebrow and allows a snicker to escape his lips. “Cause we all know that back at the fort while we ponder our collective futures that our illustrious colleagues are already in the process of trying us, convicting us, and preparing the gallows for our demise.”
“Duh. Ya think?”
“Karen! Don’t get your tits all out of whack okay? I’m the one they’re looking to string up, not you or JC.” Paul’s eyes glide across JC’s face, “Okay, Mon Ami, what is the plan for tomorrow? I need to stop by the hospital first to see my wife and my new daughter, then I’ll catch up with you where?”
“I think we meet at Dennis’s, I’ll tell him that we’re hiding from the world until we screen the dailies. He’ll cover for us.”
“So we agree to meet at Dennis’s at around 11?”
“Agree.”
“Yes.”
Paul slides his butt across the rolled-and-pleated leather seat, inserts the ignition key, the engine snorts to life then eases into an even mellow tone, his dashboard comes aglow, he closes the door, leans his head back against the headrest, checks to make sure that his two cohorts are on their way, with it all clear he makes the sign of the cross, and mumbles softly, “Oh God, please don’t forget me now.”
He puts his BMW 733i into gear and eases out of the stadium parking lot heading for the Hutchinson Parkway and the way home, back to New Jersey.
The first shards of early morning light creep slowly over the edge of the Palisades introducing northern New Jersey to the new day, and coaxing the ground mist to awaken from its slumber and tumble down the slopes, weaving its way almost snake-like in and out of the pine trees and rock outcroppings. Then pouring over a stone retainer wall, through the Mountain Laurel, and spilling across the brick driveway only to be inhaled by the huge wooden garage door as it groans and clatters up its metal tracks.
Inside the garage Paul’s eyes glide idly from one of his BMWs to another, oh the tough choices life has thrown at this first-born American of northern Italian immigrants. He smiles to himself remembering his maternal grandfather’s words, “You found America little one. He saunters down the three steps into the garage, chooses the silver 733i, slips into the dark blue leather driver’s seat, inserts the ignition key, and sparks life into 200-plus horse engine. He plows through the mist leaving a trail of swirling mist to mark his passing. His plan is to stop by his mother’s house, pick up his mother and his six-year-old daughter, Audra, and have them accompany him to the hospital for a visit with mother and new daughter, Nicole, or as Paul loves to say, Nikki.
The nurse places Nikki into Paul’s open arms, he bends down so his sixyear-old can get a closer look at her new sister, “Audra, this is Nicole, Nicole this is your big sister Audra, she’s going to protect you from this day forth, so say hello. Aud, say hello.”
“Hello.”
“You want to say anything else?”
“No.”
“Okay then let’s go see mommy.”
Dennis’s editorial suite is quiet creative, thanks mostly to his wife’s artistic background. It’s one of those old industrial lofts with 14-foot ceilings veined with 12-inch whitewashed water pipes, steel steps running up concrete columns to what must be 16-inch cutoff wheels. The exterior walls are crowded with huge iron-framed windows that connect the floor to the ceiling. The wooden floors are marbled with centuries of wear, but polished and varnished to an almost glass-like finish. They’re dotted with wooden plugs and copper patches to cover the scars from being abused by what must have been monstrously heavy metal machinery. The walls are whitewashed in a way to accentuate the mixture of raw concrete and exposed brick. All in all it’s a masterpiece of raw New York City beauty where time has done nothing more than turn it into a museum piece worthy of Jackson Pollock’s signature.
If there’s a better place to hide out in, only Butch Cassidy and Sundance would know where that would be. Besides even extradition papers wouldn’t get Dennis to give us up. So here we’ll stay until 3:00 PM when we can get into Rizzoli’s screening room to see what we really have on film, and then we’ll really know what our next step will be. If the film sucks we’re dead, if the film’s good we live to face another day.
At one point the incoming calls reached such a frequency that they caused the phones to trip into uninterrupted ring, driving the receptionist’s face to resemble a bright red light bulb, and she refused to continue to lie for us anymore. Dennis sent her out for an extended lunch break, and informed his staff that they were to answer the phone in her absence and continue the lie.
The dailies finally arrived at somewhere around 3:47 PM, but who was counting? The film was beyond fantastic, it had all the earmarks of being brilliant. Tears welled up, pooling along the rims of Dennis’s eyelids until his lids could no longer hold them back.
They cascaded down through his eyelashes falling onto his cheeks then quickly following the well-chiseled cracks in his face caused by a lifetime of squinting over a moviola. His eyes floated all over my face, his lips parted ever so slightly, the words fought their way up though the thickness in his throat. So soft was his delivery that Paul caught himself leaning in close enough to Dennis’s mouth that he could feel Dennis’s breath float across his face.
“Brilliant, fucking brilliant.” Dennis grabbed Paul and kissed him, they hugged, then Dennis patted Paul’s cheek, “This is the most brilliant footage I’ve ever seen.” Their eyes locked.
The screening room phone rang out, crashing though that ‘one’ fantastic moment, that beautiful moment just before orgasm, flushing everyone’s visions of greatness right down the toilet.
“Paul, it’s for you.” Karen thrust the phone into his chest.
“Who is it? Is it Kelly?” His voice tones up, “Jesus Christ, Karen stop with the theatre, and tell me.”
“It’s Bob.”
Paul cups the phone mumbling profanities to himself, “Hey Bob, what’s up?” He yanks the phone away from his ear, squirming in his seat, Bob’s distorted voice booming from the earpiece, “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I pray you have good film. Do you? Because if you don’t they’ve already tried you, convicted you, and are building the gallows for your demise. I want you to know that they all failed, not one, not even one of the vignettes that anyone of those so-called geniuses shot worked. It’s total insanity here. And man did they all turn on you, so I pray to God Paul that you have good film, or you’re deader than dead. Charlie wants you in his office ASAP! Go with God my friend.”
Paul’s mind near short-circuits, filtering through all of Bob’s brief conversation at warp speed, he shoots to his feet, “It’s time for me to go back and face the music.” He turns and throws Dennis, JC, and Karen a wink.
“I’m going with you.” JC rises slipping his blue and gray woven Paul Stuart sports jacket on.
“I think it would be best for you if you remained back here, I’m going to get hung, Mon Ami.”
JC flings his silk scarf around his neck with all the flourish of an Errol Flynn, and slides past Karen, “No, no, my friend, I will go with you,” he smiles, “we’re all going to hang, so we can choose to hang alone, or we can choose to hang together. I choose to hang with you.”
Paul stares through the pools of water gathering in his eyes, this crazy Frenchman certainly knows which notes to play when it comes to that part of Paul’s brain labeled ‘Semper Fi.’ They leave to Dennis’s fading voice, “You’re not going to get killed, this film is Oscar quality.” The screening room door slams shut behind them, cutting off Dennis’s lingering words.
JC throws me his magical Kris Kringle wink and swings the cab door open for me to climb in, “You do believe him don’t you?” Paul slides across the back seat, his body ripples with electricity, he’s salivating at the thought of walking into Charlie’s office and confronting his executioners, “Believe, yes I do, and I’m going to turn those little scum-bags into believers too.”
The late afternoon sky veined with lightning from far up the Hudson River as an impending storm moved rapidly downriver past the GW Bridge to collide with their cab as it came to a stop in front of the entranceway to McCann-Erickson. Thunder pealed slowly across the sky heralding the arrival of the duo, or was it the coming attractions of what was about to unfold way up there in the clouds on the 17th floor.
Paul and JC picked their way through the now golf ball-sized raindrops pounding on the pavement all around them. The sidewalk grating trembled and creaked under their every footstep accompanied by the screeching brakes and booming clatter of the No. 7 subway racing towards Grand Central Station. “Is this the prelude to what we’re about to face upstairs?”
“No, but I’m sure that we’re walking into one hell of shit storm. The only good thing is that those bastards don’t know we’re wise to them.”
“True. And what’s that military bullshit you’re always slinging around, ‘If you know that the enemy is there, and they don’t know that you know they’re there, don’t let them know, use it to your advantage’.”
“Yeah, sort of that.” Paul hits the 17th floor button, the door starts to close, but through the narrowing slit in the closing door he reacts to the horrific sounds of steel meeting stone. With her eyes fastened on Paul’s face, Kelly trips and falls, along with the metal magazine rack, sending magazines to all four corners of the store, along with the high-pitched squeals of the Indian owner’s voice.
Paul leans back against the elevator wall, a self-amused grin re-sculptures his lips, and he begins to mumble under his breath, “I don’t get it, all she had to do was freeze in place.” Paul shakes his head and lets his eyes drift over to JC. “And I wouldn’t have spotted her.” His eyes well up, “Christ, JC, we’ve been partners for five years, I thought we were tight, everyone always said that Kelly lied and Paul swore to it. Do you know how many times I covered for her?”
“I assume that was Kelly at the root of all that commotion?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s only covering her ass, Mon Ami. She’s making sure that she’s been seen and noted back here at the fort, and building some serious space between you and what she’s chalked off as a total disaster. You swing alone on this one.”
“We’re not swinging on this one.”
JC raises his hands up, “Agree, but she doesn’t know what we know.
And you can make book on this, when she hears that we’ve pulled it off she’ll flash some tit and ass around and work her way back to the head of this line.”
“Do you really think that Charlie’s that dumb that he doesn’t see through her bullshit?”
“No, but she’ll be totally terrified, and terrified people do really stupid things, especially when they have that many mouths to feed.”
The elevator bell sounds the arrival at the 17th floor, land of the Gods, JC motions for Paul to exit first. Paul exits, immediately peeling off to the right side of the large overstuffed couch, then darting, hunched over, across the open space between the couch and several matching chairs towards the solid mahogany doors that stand guard to the executive floor. Once there he signals JC to follow. JC musters up a low grunt and strolls past the receptionist making a circular motion with his finger near his forehead, “In case you haven’t noticed over the past few years that he’s totally certifiable.” The receptionist smiles, “Yeah, but he’s very funny.” JC rolls his eyes and joins Paul at the door.
Joined at the hip they push through the doorway and enter the valley of death, yet they fear no evil because they know they have the film. As they close in on Charlie’s office they become very aware of the sudden deadly silence that’s enveloped the entire secretary pool. The lowered heads, the guarded stares, the not wanting to make eye contact, that ‘dead man walking’ feeling that’s spreading like some airborne virus throughout the entire pool. God only knows what they’ve witnessed, what vile evil rumblings must have overflowed from Charlie’s office flooding this entire area. God, they all share that hollow thousand-mile stare. What evil lies beyond those hand carved mahogany doors with their ultra-fancy, bright, solid brass hardware?
Charlie’s secretary rises slowly, moves by the pair, making sure to give herself a very wide berth, then raps on the door with her knuckles ever so weakly in the hopes that she’ll not be heard. No such luck.
“Send them in!” Charlie’s voice bellows out.
Paul’s eyes lock onto the face of this young woman, his eyes float all over her geography, “You’re new.”
“Yes, and you’re dead. That is, according to everyone in that room except for Charlie.”
“Well, aren’t you a sweetheart.”
“They’re waiting.” She swings the door wide open, “Don’t make them wait any longer, it’ll only make things worse.”
Paul gives her that ‘fuck you’ look as JC shoves him into Charlie’s office.
All of Bret Lee Forest’s six-foot, six-inch frame launches out of one of Charlie’s leather wingback chairs, coming to a screeching crash not four inches from JC’s face. JC stands hard against Bret Lee’s assault on his being. Paul knots Bret’s finely pressed white dress shirt at the collar, “Now would you kindly explain to me your necessity in expending this enormous amount of physical energy towards my producer?”
Bret’s eyes shoot from JC’s eyes down to my hand grabbing at his three hundred dollar custom-made Paul Stuart shirt collar, “What’s this frog doing here?”
Paul releases his grip, irons out the ripples he created on Bret’s shirt, “He’s with me by his own choice.”
Bret cuts Paul off, “And a very poor choice it is.”
Charlie makes his appearance, wraps his arms around the shoulders of both contenders, ushers them out of his office and into the secretarial pool area, closing the door behind him. Bret’s eyes are frozen on the closed door, the implication of him being separated from the rest of his herd climbs into his face, bringing fear along as an unwanted guest.
Charlie’s eyes move deep into Paul’s eyes, navigating past his pupils, and heading non-stop for his soul. Paul, caught in Charlie’s spell, remains totally marble. Charlie stands down smiling. “Paul, I think I know you long enough to be able to read your body language correctly. And what I’m reading is that you have something great.” Charlie’s eyes continue to study Paul’s face, “Take me through the commercial as you have it on film, and do it with all of the body language, voice inflections, and attitude you’ve captured on film.”
Paul knows Charlie well, and knows exactly what he’s up to, and where he’s taking this.
Paul reenacts, almost frame-by-frame, the entire 60-second commercial according to what he knows he has on film. And as Paul’s animated performance unfolds, Charlie’s eyes well up and he lowers himself into a chair next to his secretary’s desk. Bret, on the other hand, is going into slow meltdown, his face is turning blood red, and he begins to make this strange clucking sound with his tongue. His forearms bead up with tiny pearls of sweat, and finally losing all control of himself allows his anger to rise up from the depths of his stomach, like some bilious fluid, “No! You fucking moron! He’s supposed to smile and then thank the kid for the Coke. Not take the Coke to get rid of the kid! Did you at least shoot it both ways?”
Paul’s mouth twists slightly open, enough to show several teeth, followed by this hideous snake-like sucking sound backing Bret way back with his eyes popping out of their sockets. “I shot it the right way, the way I created it, and it works just fine.”
Charlie reenters the skirmish placing his hand on Paul’s shoulder followed by a light squeezing letting the two combatants know just whose side he was coming in to reinforce. “Gentlemen, I’m very comfortable with everything that I’ve just heard. So Paul, go weave your magic and call me when it’s time for the magic show. Bret, let’s you and I go back inside, and let Paul go back and save our collective asses, sound like a good plan to you?” Charlie wraps his arm around the Cajun’s shoulders, steering him back towards the doorway to his office.
Bret twists around to give Paul one last ‘evil eye,’ ‘gris-gris,’ I think it’s called back down in the bayous. Paul responds with the ‘Jersey Bird.’
JC exits Charlie’s office screwing his eyes, “What happened out here?”
Charlie’s new assistant releases a gut laugh, followed by that all too familiar liquid lip smile, “Your friend there is one hell of a great actor, that’s what happened out here.”
JC studies her being, from head to toe, then drags Paul away, “Christ, here we go again.” He rolls Paul around a corner, totally out of sight of the secretary pool. Well, at least out of sight of Charlie’s new executive assistant. JC knows Paul all too well, and can see this one coming on and coming on fast, maybe too fast.
“Question. In your Oscar performance did you get to mention that you didn’t use Roger Staubach?”
“No, but I’ll face that when I show Charlie the rough cut.”
“Are you hoping that he won’t notice that there’s a black football player in the tunnel with the kid? Are you also hoping that Coke will forget that they have a multi-million dollar contract with the Dallas Cowboys, and that they agreed to doing this spot based on their love for Roger Staubach?”
When Paul arrived at Dennis’s, early as usual, he found Dennis picking takes and hanging the 35 mm strips in the pick bin according to which scene they were.
“I ordered you two poached eggs on whole wheat toast, a small orange juice, and a small Irish Cream, black no sugar.”
“Thanks.” Paul slides one of the chrome and wood stools over to the moviola to join Dennis, Dennis rotates himself around keeping his eyes glued to the cup of coffee in Paul’s hand, “Do you really want to do that,” and nods his head in the direction of Paul’s cup. Paul raises his hands up, almost spilling the coffee all over the moviola, “My point exactly, or do I have to remind you how many rugs, clips of film, and machines you’ve wrecked on me over the past four years?”
“Sorry.” Paul continues his struggle to regain control of the cup before he ruins yet another one of Dennis’s Persian rugs.
“Paul, you have a call on line three.”
“Who is it?”
“He didn’t say, but it’s not any voice I recognized.”
“I’ll take it out in the lounge.” Paul drifts into the lounge sipping from the plastic cup, trying to figure out who’s bugging him this early in the morning, especially someone who Rosemary isn’t familiar with. He drops into the couch, places his coffee on the end table by the phone, scoops the receiver up, and taps line three, “This is Paul.”
Paul’s face goes into immediate cardiac arrest, his mouth slowly drops open, his entire body quakes, every little muscle in his body ripples, even his trusted vocal cords have betrayed him. He’s speechless and grasping at the air like someone who’s come to realize that he’s about to drown. He sinks down deep into the cushions hoping to disappear well below everyone’s radar. “Chet, longtime partner.” His fingers fumble across his closed eyes, “You’re turning the dials on my history, bubba, and I’m not appreciating it.” Paul cautiously peers up over the top of the couch as though he’s making sure that he’s not making himself a target, “No, you listen to me chief, that was in another lifetime, one that I’ve worked real hard to forget, and I don’t need you suddenly showing up to remind me of it.”
Paul carefully studies each and every face in the lounge, no one seems to be paying any mind to him or his conversation with the ghost from hell.
“I’ll be in San Francisco week after next for ten days.” Paul’s eyes dart back and forth between the receptionist and Dennis’s edit suite, “The Hyatt at the Embarcadero.”
Dennis leans against his doorjamb, “Are we ready or what.”
“I’ll contact you when I arrive.” Paul returns the receiver to its cradle and strolls past Dennis, “Another one of your lady friends breaking your balls?”
Paul’s thousand-mile stare unnerves Dennis enough to make him grab Paul’s arm bringing him to a halt just inside the doorway. Dennis slides the door shut, “Hold on there, you okay? Because you sure as hell look like you just went straight to hell and shook the Devil’s hand.”
“No, but you’re warm, very warm. Let’s get back to the good stuff and let this moment slide.”
Dennis squeezes Paul’s shoulder, “Fine by me, but you’re the one that’s all bent out of shape, not me. You sure you don’t want to talk about this?”
Rosemary eases Dennis’s door open only wide enough to fit her head through the opening. “Sorry guys, but Paul, you have a Patricia from Adweek Magazine in the lounge claiming that she has an interview scheduled with you.”
Paul reels around in his stool almost unloading the entire contents of his coffee cup into Dennis’s lap, “She’s here? Now? How the fuck did she find me? I don’t have the time to be interviewed now!”
Rosemary recoils, her eyes are fluttering fast enough to achieve liftoff, “I don’t know, but I can find out.”
Patricia shoves her head into the doorway, “Your secretary back at McCann told me where I could find you, so here I am.”
Paul slumps over in his chair and releases one long breath, “Patricia, you know that I love you dearly, and that I owe you ‘big’ time, but this isn’t a very good time for me. As a matter of fact, your timing really sucks right now. Could we do this at another time, say next week?”
Patricia strolls further into Dennis’s room, she’s not exactly the type of woman who’s willing to except ‘No’ for an answer. She’s sort of a Barbara Walters type, and in the ad world she rocks supreme. Any ad person looking for their 15 minutes of fame would kill to get two minutes of her time, and in Paul’s case, she went out of her way to make sure the spotlight shined on him.
She clasps her hands together, “Sorry that I seemed to have caught you at a bad time, but I have a deadline to meet, and you’re one of the main headliners in my piece. I’ll only need about ten minutes of your time. I promise.”
Paul’s eyes drift back and forth from Dennis to JC. Both shrug, and JC waves his hand suggesting that Paul take the time for Patricia, “Do what you’ve got to do.” Even he is very aware of the power this woman has over Madison Avenue.
Dennis pats Paul’s shoulder, “Use my office. No one will bother you in there, besides I need five minutes to organize the selected takes.”
Paul escorts Patricia to Dennis’s office, closing the door behind him as she pulls her tape recorder from her shoulder bag. “Thanks, I didn’t mean to be rude, but this article on the use of sex in advertising needs to be put to press no later than 10 tomorrow morning. And, as I told you last week on the phone that your involvement in my article is extremely important. Besides, you’ll be sharing the spotlight with some very major players.”
Paul collapses into one of Dennis’s stuffed chairs, his head nearly swallowed by the back pillow, “Who else will appear in your article?”
“One of your heroes, George Lois.”
Paul straightens himself up in the chair, his eyes light up, he’s suddenly become very interested in participating in this interview, “George Lois, hah, you do know that he was one of my favorite art directors when I was in college don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“What did he have to say about sex in advertising?” Paul fights back a major gut laugh, but loses.
“He had a lot to say, but the only part of the interview I’ll tell you about was his answer to when I asked him how far he would go.”
“Yeah!”
Patricia falls back in her chair, crosses her very shapely legs, “He said that he would go as far as they would let him and then push it farther.”
Paul rolls his head around in the back pillow of his chair, “So, I’m going to be in the same article with George. Guess I’m finally getting up there with the big boys. One of the masters of sex in advertising.” Paul relocates his stare to Patricia’s eyes, and the only thing he gets for his weak attempt at some insider humor is her twisted mouth smirk.
“Oh yeah, you learned well from them, but you have a special way of doing it with some class.”
“Thank you.”
“You are welcome, but my one question to you is this. When do you know when to use sex, and when not to? You didn’t use sex to sell Goodrich Tires, or Bulova Watches. And, I’m sure you wouldn’t have had any trouble convincing your French clients at Peugot to use sex to sell their cars. But you didn’t, and yet you still cleaned up at all of the award shows. So talk to me.”
“You certainly are familiar with all of the notches on my gun handle aren’t you?”
“I’m a fan, and a big one at that. So tell me your secret, ‘Mr. Storyteller.’ When do you pull the sex card?”
Paul rocks forward coming to rest with his elbows planted squarely on his knees, “When I have nothing to say about the product I’m trying to sell, or as you said, that’s when I pull the sex card. I learned very early on that sex always sells.”
“So you’re telling me that you only use sex when the product you’re selling doesn’t have any real attributes to talk about?”
“Mostly, yes.”
Paul rises to his feet beckoning her to follow him, “I want to show you something that we’re cutting for Coke right now, but first you must promise me that you won’t breathe a word of it until I let you.” He locks eyes with her and grabs her hand, “Do we have a deal?” She tightens her grip on his hand, “We have a deal.”
“Good. What I’m about to show you will change the way soft drink advertising is done for a long time to come.” He cracks a smile, “I gotta tell ya that this spot will win me more awards than all the awards I’ve already won.” Paul breaks into a somewhat nervous laugh, “Patricia, you once wrote an article about me in which you stated that ‘there isn’t an award given out for advertising that he hasn’t won at least four of each,’ am I correct?”
She slaps him across his shoulder, “True, but I thought my more clever quote about you was ‘he’s won enough lions at the Cannes Film Festival to open his own zoo’.” She touches her cheek with her index finger, “Hey, that earns me a kiss right here, mister.” Paul obliges.
“So what’s the award count to date?”
“Somewhere around 62, but who’s counting?”
“Sixty-two, but who’s counting? You’re such a shit.” She burst out laughing as they enter Dennis’s room.
Dennis slams on the moviola brakes with his face going to bright red, a level five on the explosion meter. Paul eases Dennis back down into his chair, “Relax bubba, she’s already sworn an oath on her life to keep her silence until I give her the green light to run with the story.”
Dennis isn’t buying into any of this and storms out screaming over his shoulder as he exits, “I fucking don’t want any part of this, and I’m sure as shit not going to stand up for you if Charlie ever gets wind of this stupidity!” The door slams shut behind him hard enough to send shock waves clear across the Hudson River and deep into New Jersey.
“Sorry Paul, I don’t need to see it if it ends up costing you your job.”
“Not to worry, it’s already going to do that, even without your help.” Paul guides Patricia closer to the moviola screen, “JC, would you please do me the honor of operating the moviola, or are you suffering from the malady that seems to have struck Dennis?”
JC extends his hand out to Patricia, “Hi, I’m Jean-Claude, and I’m his partner on this commercial.”
“I’m Patricia, and it’s nice to meet you. And thank you for not leaving.”
JC cranks the gear handle and sends the film clattering over the sprockets yet again.
Patricia stands totally frozen before the moviola screen, the only signs of life are the tears that start to collect along the edges of her eyes. She allows a sniffle to escape accompanied by an almost inaudible “Oh my God.” She wipes the tears from her eyes, glances at Paul first then JC and then back to the moviola screen, “May I please see it one more time?”
“Sure.” And JC sends it clattering along the sprocket highway for yet another viewing with the same results.
“Well mister, I couldn’t agree more with your previous comments. This is truly everything that you claim it will be. And, I can’t wait to break this cover story.”
“As I stated earlier, I’m not always about using sex to sell.”
“I agree.” The woman is totally blown away, almost at a point of babbling, “How many awards did you say you’ve already won? Was it 62? Well, mister, I think that you’ll be adding a few more to that count real soon.”
JC pipes in, “Well if we ever get them to run it. They still don’t know that we didn’t use Roger Staubach.”
“Roger Staubach? What?” She snaps back to reality going face to face with Paul. “Why Roger? I love Roger and I think that he’s fantastic, but he’s not right for this spot. He wouldn’t bring the drama or tension to this spot that Joe Greene does.”
Dennis reenters the room, “Is it safe to return?”
Patricia plants a kiss on Paul’s cheek, taps JC on the cheek with her open hand and slides past Dennis with their eyes locked on one another, “Not to worry, your commercial is safe with me, and my lips are sealed closed until I get the word from Paul to run with it.”
The lady disappears.
JC plops down on one of Dennis’s chairs, picks up the New York Times, and glances over the rims of his sky blue glasses at Paul, “Have you given any thought to exactly when you just might let Charlie know that we didn’t shoot this spot with Roger Staubach like we were supposed to?”
Paul slowly navigates his stool around counterclockwise to face JC, “Not yet, but soon, very soon.”
“Is it that you’re attempting to stay our execution for some reason, or is it that you haven’t come up with a good enough reason yet?”
“Good enough reason for what?” Charlie strolls into Dennis’s editorial suite, dropping his raincoat over one of the leather chairs while he drags one of the chrome stools behind him over to the moviola. “Hello Dennis, what wonderful magic do you have to show me on this gloomy, rain-soaked day?”
Sweat begins to leak from every pore of Paul’s face, his throat goes so dry that he can’t swallow, JC starts coughing uncontrollably, both he and Paul have gone from flesh-toned faces to bright Chinese red. “Maybe you might want to give Charlie a little one of those creative preambles that you’re so good at before you show him where we’re at.”