Significant Intern Moment #4: Some like it corny

You may or may not be wondering what exactly happened next in the Scriptwriting Sink or Swim. I’ll tell you anyway. I swam. And I paddled and floated right into the next Significant Moment.

You see, what happens after you read your scripts aloud to the room is that every person at the table takes a turn to critique each script. And this is when the opening line of one of my scripts was raved over by half the room (“Perfect opening line!” “Makes me hungry!” “Takes me right there!”) and hated and spat upon by the other half. One of those being the copywriting creative director who has a reputation of telling it like it is and who I’m pretty sure, wanted to throw up right there in the room. Something about the corniest, cheesiest line ever – one that reeked of advertisingese.

And while he was losing his breakfast in the corner, I was glowing. I’d polarized the room! Hell yeah.

Significant Intern Moment #3: Scriptwriting Sink or Swim

In all the time I was in school, learning how to create ads, I wrote one TV spot. More print ads than I can count, a whole lot of non-traditional placements, some online pieces, a few radio spots and one TV spot. And I believe my teacher’s comment was something like, “How is this interesting?”

So when I got my first TV assignment about a month into my internship and found out that the first creative internal would be in two days, I felt a tiny bit out of my element.

And when the team called me two hours before the internal was scheduled to start and told me that they were just going to go ahead and start NOW instead, I felt a whole lot out of my element. So without any time to ask anybody how one was supposed to present a TV script in a professional agency, I walked into the room. And with this being one of the agency’s biggest clients, that room was pretty bloody full. A few planners, a few managers, the principal on the account and the two creative directors on the account. And me, the clueless intern clutching three raw TV scripts in hand, waiting for my cue to present, and acting as if my brain wasn’t screaming: OMG, I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE HELL I’M DOING. HOLY CRAP, HOLY CRAP, HOLY CRAP!

And that, y’all, was how my 2nd, 3rd and 4th TV scripts met the world.



Also, I’m not going to lie. I LOVED it. This kind of delicious adrenaline being a performance major’s crack and all (not the right reason to choose a degree in music, by the way.)

Significant Intern Moment #2: Crickets and Tumbleweeds

On the very same day that those first headlines were slaughtered , I was at the internal creative review for that same client – an internal creative review being the equivalent of portfolio class at school except that my words and ideas were up to be crucified by real-life creative directors plus account managers and planners.

So there I sat as the principal account manager peered at one of my headlines and said, “I love the thought, but the line… it just doesn’t have enough… something.” Not to be daunted, I said, “I have more.”

And the wonderful, wonderful copywriting creative director that was working with me on this project said, “Yes, yes. She has more. Let’s let her read them.”

At which time the entire team turns, looks and listens expectantly. The newest little copywriting intern at the center of attention and the wonderful, wonderful copywriting CD nodding encouragingly.

So I read one.

Silence.

I read another.

Silence.

I read two or three more in a row without pause. Crickets. Tumbleweeds. And more crickets.

And that afternoon, my skin proudly grew one more layer.

Off the bench

A week and a half into my internship, it happened. What every little copywriter who has ever thought she might work in advertising daydreams about – the day when you offer the work that you wrote with such care and affection up to the client and watch as they shoot a bullet in its heart.

Every single one of your headlines murdered, swift and brutal.

It was a moment that was simultaneously totally sucky and completely euphoric. Yes, I said euphoric. Because that, my friends, is the moment you know you’re in the game.



More significant moments in The Internship to come.

And I still don't got milk

Milk tastes like nothing.

That’s what I told my mom at the age of three when she asked me why I gagged every time I tried to drink some.

I was the kid who was drinking pickle juice, sucking on lemon slices, craving black licorice, guzzling root beer, devouring ginger, licking the flavor off salt ‘n vinegar chips (only available in Canada at the time), and of course sinking my teeth into bitter chocolate. I wanted sour. I wanted bitter. I wanted spicy, extra salty, and super sweet. And all the combinations of the above.

I am now the adult who is drinking pickle juice, craving black licorice, downing root beer, you get the picture. I don’t suck on lemon slices anymore, but I do prefer an Amstel Light with four or five green olives stuffed down into the bottle.

I’ve gotten used to the looks of horror and disgust. It embarrassed me a bit when I was little, but then I started feeling proud. I’m not afraid of taste, I cry. I like my food the way I like my life. With some kick, some edge, and some ferocity along with the super sweet. I am a real woman.

That is until I had a conversation with a couple of coworkers recently and learned about supertasters - the superheroes of taste. Born with more taste buds than the rest of us and the special power to experience flavors more intensely. They’re out there tasting flavors in broccoli that my simple tongue can’t even begin to comprehend. It turns out that I'm not so fierce after all. It’s just that I was born with maybe ½ of a taste bud. I am not brave, I am not super. And, I am a second-rate taster.

Off to drown my sorrows in dark chocolate covered black licorice, salt ‘n vinegar greek olives and a cocktail of pickle juice, root beer and ginger ale.

To all the art directors I’ve ever exasperated

I’m sorry. I didn’t know. But I’ve repented and I’ve changed my ways. Do you see it now? One space after a period at the end of a sentence. ONE. You may thank the proofreaders at my internship who catch every single one of my evil sins and then tell my art director who was the first one to finally grab me by the arms and say, “EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU DO THIS? I HAVE TO CHANGE IT.” God bless her.

So please forgive me. And maybe give me a break? I learned to type on a typewriter for Pete’s sake. I used to get a pat on the back and a cookie for remembering two spaces.

My eyes only, never my heart. So there, God & ESPN.

With genuine respect for all the men (real and fantastical) in my life, I’d like to share a story called, Why Professional Athletes Start Thinking They are God & ESPN’s Gift to Women.

I would first like to say that I am not a girl who scopes out men at all times. Not when I’m by myself, not when I’m with Significant Man, not when I’m with my girlfriends, not when I’m with the gay men. Never. I know it makes me somewhat boring, but I’m just not that girl. I’ll admit that I have a bit of a weakness for athletes when they’re out on the court/field/ice. But still, if I’m at a game, I’m not there to look at men. I’m there to scream, cheer and watch a game. Also, I happen to take some pride in not being one of those girls who contributes to the tragically inflated egos that result from Why Professional Athletes Start Thinking They are God & ESPN’s Gift to Women. And no, the Dirk thing doesn’t count. His ego is just fine and if you try to argue with me, well then you will lose.

So a couple of weekends ago, I went to a Stars game. Sure, they were probably going to get their asses kicked by the Colorado Avalanche, but a simple fan like me is just happy to be at a game. Especially when I’m sitting third row from the glass and 10 ft. from the penalty box. Eye contact range.

So there I am, sitting next to the Boutique VIP who so generously shared those great seats, yelling for the Stars, making some noise, wearing green. But I’ll be damned if within the first ten minutes of that game, someone wasn’t sent to the penalty box for fighting – a certain #15 of the Colorado Avalanche. And y’all. As soon as he took off his helmet, revealed his sweaty blond hair and skated into that penalty box a mere ten feet away, I took one look at the blue-eyed, 6-ft warrior on ice (oh yes I did write that) and my eyes popped out of my head. Popped. Out. Of my head. I nearly bruised Boutique VIP’s arm and knocked her out of her seat, screaming, “LOOK AT THE HOT GUY IN THE PENALTY BOX! LOOK! LOOK! LOOOOOOOOK! HE IS HOT. HOLY, BLOODY HELL, HE IS HOT!” God bless the people sitting around me for not throwing me out on the ice. Especially since he was sent to the box a couple more times (#15 is a hell raiser) and they then had to hear me yell, “MATT HENDRICKS. HIS NAME IS MATT HENDRICKS! #15!” and “HIS EYEBROW IS BLEEDING. HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANYTHING SO DAMN HOT?”

In one afternoon, the girl who never scopes out men reverted back to a boy-crazy teenager. And another pro athlete was wrapped up in a bow and dropped in the lap of my eyes. The tag attached said, “Dirk, Matt. Stop lying to yourself. YOU ARE ONE OF THOSE GIRLS. Love, God & ESPN.”

A brand I can trip over

As part of our creative internship, we make what we call a self-promotion piece. It’s a way to think about how we brand ourselves and how to represent that brand in a small tangible piece that we can use to get our names and faces in front of creative directors. As usual, I went through a few hundred ideas before settling on this:

HAIKU OF A VIOLINIST TURNED WRITER

That damn violin
it’s strings just give me blisters.
Words don’t butcher skin

-bebe Me
recovering violinist, diehard Longhorn and the newest little copywriting intern

If you need some help, please give me a call. I work hard, I care very much about doing my best and I like to think and write. Also, I’m remarkably good at tripping over invisible dogs.


I laid it out, printed it on glossy cardstock, and then handed one to each of the agency's 30 or so creative directors. I met most of them within a span of two days. That’s a lot of faces to remember in two days. You can see why I'm terrified that I’ll run into one of them and blurt out, “You’re the one with the crazy black glasses!” And then, I will trip and sprain my ankle.

A good place

It’s been too many weeks and not enough posts about my internship. But I have a completely unoriginal excuse that you may or may not accept: I’ve been thrilled, exhausted, in love and wanting nothing more than to spend any free time I have in a selfish state of brainless indulgence. Which does not necessarily include writing for the blog because as hard as it is to believe, I really do use a brain cell or two when I write the cotton candy for the brain.

I have lots of stories to post about the internship, but until I can sit down and craft them in a way that won’t make you nod off mid-post, I’ll start out by sharing a few things overheard that remind me that I’m indeed at an ad agency:

We have similar panties, but our bra is more sheer.

-said in all seriousness by another writer

I made the mistake of going to lunch today.

-said in all seriousness by a brand manager

Now if we can just get the cows to quote scripture.

-could have been serious, could have been joking. I’m still not sure. And said by my brilliant writer boss

Back to bebe

A few weeks ago, I got a text message:

Your bebe vacation is over.

I knew what that meant - word had spread among bebe store managers that I’m out of school, back in town and bringing in a bit of money. And this was their way of welcoming me back. Me and my credit card.

You may remember that before I went back to school, I modeled at local bebe stores for the spring and fall premier collection events. It’s a brilliant promotional tactic: bebe gets real live bodies to model the clothing during the event and models get a nice discount on anything in the store that day. And because the models are carefully-selected, top-spending clients, store managers get to hear a sound that's sweeter than the fluttered sleeves of this knit top that evening: screams of delight from the models in the fitting rooms, credit cards being whipped out at the register and multiple tags being scanned. Sales for them, style for us. Everybody wins.

Of course, the rule is that if in the middle of modeling, you tell the store manager that oh, you think you’ll only buy 1 or 2 items, then even faster than you can say “just kid-” she will strip you down and throw you out of the store in your underwear. Don’t even joke around about it. 

You can bet that I never joked about it. In fact, I’d been modeling and rightly spending for so long that when I moved to Austin three years ago, the Boutique VIP asked me if I’d want to model in one of the Austin stores while I was there.  My reply was, “Um, school remember? I have no mon-“  At which point, she hung up the phone.

But this spring, I was back on the floor in 4-inch heels, showing clients where to find the various pieces I wore throughout the night. My favorite: this smokey rose pleat folded corset. And God bless the store manager for not throwing me out when I asked her which store was carrying bebe Sport these days (the line was discontinued a couple years or so ago) and when I took a whole 60 seconds to unearth my club bebe card from the depths of my wallet.  God also bless her and bless the Boutique VIP for letting me on the floor in the first place. Sure I’m bringing in a bit of income - enough to buy more than two items, but certainly not enough to buy the bagsful and hangersful that I once did.  Ether they really do like me or they’re counting on a future of even more very full bags and hangers.

In return for their generosity (and also just because I love the merchandise), I will now properly gush about a few of the looks in bebe stores right now. Just like old times. 

My favorites: Bold tops and dresses with asymmetric lines and cuts in vibrant colors, including hot pink, yellow, and coral.  Stretchy, snug skinny jeans with rockstar embellishments - I picked up a silver-studded pair. Cropped denim jacket (went for it) and leatherette denim jacket with a wicked cool asymmetrical zipper (lusted after, but didn’t get it this time). Clean pencil skirts and short shorts. Unapologetically high heels and wedges with funky straps and crazy studs/bling. Fun metallic or otherwise shiny hairbands.

More looks: Modern ruffled tops. Fitted blazers and military blazers. Skinny jeans, some distressed, some solid, some with a sheen. Long mermaid dresses. Fedoras with bands.

Now if it would just stop snowing out of the blue around here, we could put our sweaters away and start wearing spring. There's nothing like a few new looks to motivate a girl to look forward to another season of Texas heat. Bring it on.

Stupid New Girl in Adland

Yes, I really did.  I survived the first week of my writing internship at The Ad Agency.  And the only thing I broke was a cowboy boot. 

My brain, of course, is crispy-fried and bulging at the seams.  And I still carry a 7 -paged map of the office every time I leave my desk.  I’ve walked back to the wrong desk (five times and counting) and noticed only when I couldn’t find my handbag in somebody else’s drawer.  I’ve shown up to meetings, certain that I was being hazed (and probably recorded by a secret camera) because no one else was there yet.  Let’s see how long the intern will sit in a conference room all by herself.  And if we’re really lucky, she’ll face the camera and PICK HER NOSE.

But y’all, it’s been fantastic.  Because, well, there’s the most obvious reason - I get to go to work and think of ideas, find stories, craft voices and write.  But also, the culture at this agency is pretty damn great.  The people take one look at me, my maps and my perpetually startled expression and ask how they can help.  When my above-mentioned $30 fake-leather boot came apart at the sole, the girls in the cubicles next to me whipped out the packing tape and helped me tape it back together.  And the founder and principal of this very established agency also sits in a cubicle (albeit a very spacious and cool-shaped one) and he didn’t blink an eye - even seemed thrilled - when I spontaneously walked into his office on my first afternoon and introduced myself as the newest little intern. 

And then there was the first warm and fuzzy moment:  I told someone that, you know, he could just call me Stupid New Girl. And I did NOT get a look of silent horror.  Or awkward sympathy.  Instead, just like that, I got a brand-new nickname: StoopidLee.

To She of the Cool Hats (the creator behind the original best nickname ever) and everyone else there from Event Management Company X:  it’s our people!  Hallelujah, it’s OUR PEOPLE.

Shout out to The Other SNG

To The Girl with the Platinum Locks:


From one Stupid New Girl to another, you rock. I wish I'd have thought of sending YOU a card to the office on your first week of work. But I bet I can SNG you under the table any day.  How many times have YOU walked to the wrong desk and started opening drawers that don't belong to you?

All warm and fuzzy

God & the Universe may have given me a dumb blonde karma, but at least they’ve blessed me with a mother who truly hears me when I self-deprecate.

I’d just sent her an email about how an ad agency had expressed some interest in me and told me they’d call me back the next day.  And I felt pretty good until I found out that they’d also been asking around about my old art director, hoping that we could work together as a team.  So when this agency found out that she is already art directing somewhere else and I didn’t hear back from them the next day, I told my mom that they must’ve wanted her – and I was just included.  Like the plastic fork that comes with the salad.  The sticker on the banana.  The ketchup packet that comes with the burger.

Almost immediately, I got an email back from my mom.  It started with, “Dear Ketchup,” 


And that y'all, is the kind of thing is that confirms that this woman is my own flesh and blood.




P.S. It turns out that I am not a plastic fork after all.  And the good news for y'all is that I will soon  be Stupid New Girl somewhere else.  Get ready.

Once a salesperson, always a manipulative little bitch

Conversation this morning with the sales guy in the next cubicle:

ME: Hey, how are you?  How was your weekend?

congenial chitchat and exchanging of weekend stories

ME: That's great, sounds like a good weekend.  Oh and hey by the way, can you send me the updates for the Top 20 list?

HIM: Wait a minute.  Is that why you came over here to ask me about my weekend?

I guess it takes one to know one and all that.

Just ask Earl Hickey

Dear Person who stole my Beautiful iPod Nano,

I have just this to say:  My karma may be a dumb blonde, but she is real and so is yours.

Love,

bebe Me

P.S.  And even if I do end up finding the shiny pink light of my life under the seat in my car, well then I'm still not going to apologize for writing this note.  Mostly because you don't exist.

Why I don't remember the taste of chicken

All true champions know that unless it is occasionally peppered with the bitter bite of defeat, the sweetness of life just tastes like chicken.

-Alton Brown on The Iron Chef

We blondes eventually get it. It just takes a few seconds. Or years.

This morning, I woke up to the life of my dreams. My dreams from the year 2006.

You see, about three years ago, I was trying to find my brain.  It had gotten lost somewhere in the rubble of professional tedium and discontent that I'd let accumulate for too many years.  I was ready to make a dramatic change, and yet I had no idea of what I wanted to do.  What I did know was that I was going to have to start right back down at the gritty bottom.  So after a few months of asking people if they thought I'd be able to become a hip-hop violinist without having to actually play the violin or a professional personal shopper without having to shop for someone else, I finally buckled down to figure out some real, entry-level options.

And  three years later, I'm knee-deep in one of those entry-level options and the opportunities to wade right into the next level are unabashedly throwing themselves in front of me.  The problem being, of course, that I NO LONGER WANT THEM.

Bloody hell, y'all.  I uprooted my entire life, moved to Crunchy City, put my work up to be publicly crucified on a weekly basis and came out with a lovely portfolio that killed a few hundred thousand of my brain cells.  All so I could call up a temp agency and live out my dreams that expired right along with the second Bionic Woman.

God bless my karma.  I guess she's blonde too.

Snowflakes that fall on my nose and sunglasses

When I moved to Austin a couple years ago, I swore on my Dirk Nowitzki fathead that I would not change.  I would not become a hippie, an emo, a “cool band” elitist or anyone who throws on a pair of Birkenstocks and exposes her dirty, crusty toenails for all the world to see.  No, the city that keeps it weird WOULD NOT CHANGE a single fake-blonde hair on my head.

Well y’all, I've changed.  No, I haven't cultivated a full head of dreds.  Nor have I replaced all of my Britney Spears tunes with Ghostland ones.  I have changed in an entirely different way.  And I didn’t even know I'd changed until last week, during Dallas’s first “snowfall” of the season.   There I was, driving to work through a flurry of snowflakes and I'll be damned if I didn't SMILE.  Because of the snow.  And then another pig flew past my window.

You see, I am not one of those Texans who is fascinated and delighted with frozen water falling from the sky.  After all,  I was a kindergartener who trudged through a Denver blizzard and a pesky little sister on a sled, pulled by my reluctant brother through white Calgary winters. So up until I was 18, my attitude toward snow was something like an offhanded “meh.”  But then there were the four long years at the music conservatory in one Rochester, NY.  And that is when my attitude changed from “meh” to “Are you there God?  It’s me, the girl from Texas.  JUST KILL ME.”  Ok, it may have had something to do with the fact that Rochester’s skies are especially sunless.  And snow that accumulates into frozen heaps of greasy, gray slush looks way worse under gloomy skies than under the forgiving light of sunshine.  And ok, it probably had a LOT to do with the fact that I started to associate snow with walking through that slush in frumpy down coats and ass-freezing temperatures while my spirit slowly lost all of its breath because I was trying to force it to BE A VIOLINIST AND BE HAPPY ABOUT IT, DAMN IT.

Which is why, for several years, at the very sight of snow, I'd put my hands up in defense and yell, NO I WILL NOT SPEND AN HOUR BY MYSELF IN A TINY PRACTICE ROOM, PERFECTING MY 4-OCTAVE MINOR ARPEGGIOS! And then I'd turn on a sappy love song, curl up with my sunglasses and a pair of strappy sandals and spend the day pining for the sunshine, wondering if I'd feel its heavenly glory ever again.

And how did I get from that to smiles and flying pigs?  Austin, Texas.  The place where five minutes of walking outside in the summertime left me in an ugly, sticky sweat.  The same place where five minutes of walking outside in the dead of winter left me in an ugly, sticky sweat - in the dead of winter, wearing  a short-sleeved T-shirt no less.  The place that is regularly about 10 degrees hotter and 500% more humid than Dallas.  Now I know that 10 degrees sounds like nothing to people who don't live in Texas, Florida, the deep south or any other place that closes down at the drop of a snowflake, but thinks nothing of spending every waking triple-degree summer day frying in the heat. But, trust me, it is different.  So different that even a warm-weather lover like me can start craving cold.  I missed the two times a year I get to drive on ice.  I missed getting to wear my winter sweaters for more than one morning every six weeks.  And I wanted to be able to walk outside in December without wondering if people were staring at the sweaty ring around my neckline or if they were just very fascinated with my remarkably flat chest.

So of course I was happy to see the snow last week.  Because snow, it seems,  no longer means the sun has abandoned me forever, leaving me with only a violin and my Galamian technique book.  No, y'all - it means that I just might get to wear a sweater AND a coat for several days in a row and leave the ugly sweat at the gym where it belongs.

It also means that as I drove through the snow that day, I took a moment to reach out: "Are you there God?  It's me, the girl who kinda likes snow now.  So... can we possibly do something about the flat chest?"


 

For behold, I bring you tidings of great teen fiction

Just in time for the holidays, I'd like to share the link to this little site I've seen:

Grown-up thoughts on teen fiction

Master of what?

Many of you have heard the first part of this already since it was just too good of a story to keep to myself as soon as it happened. But for anyone reading this who has not heard this story, brace yourself. Because you’ve never heard such ditziness in your life.

So I’d been at work for about an hour and a half or so when I got up to go to the bathroom. While I was standing at the sink washing my hands, I looked in the mirror and noticed that I didn’t have an earring in my right ear. And just as I was wondering how the hell I’d already lost an earring by 10:30 a.m., I looked a little closer. And holy crap, y’all. You see these earrings in this photo?

I’d put TWO of them in my left ear.  In the ONE hole.

But you don’t actually think this is the first time something like this has happened to me, do you? There was the time I discovered that I was wearing my V-string sideways. Yes, sideways. Or the time I almost left the house with two contact lenses in the same eye. And all of us flat-chested women have left the house without a bra at least once or twice, but have you ever known anyone to leave the house with two bras on at the same time? Well, YOU DO NOW.

And The University of Texas let her out with a diploma. And a MASTER'S DEGREE.