Let me tell you a little story:
I arrived in New York City, winter of ‘93. I needed a job.
So far I’d been a tutor, office assistant, café worker, cabaret performer, security person, housecleaner, lead singer, film editor, data input guy, nanny, scriptwriter, and telephone fortune teller. None of these stuck as a career. Now I was a husband and suddenly, a New Yorker.
I put on a blue suit, the nice one I used to wear on Sundays, and started interviewing, my goal to secure work in the city while my wife was at college upstate. Amidst record breaking blizzards I got a roommate, a room, and was offered two jobs right away, but in each case the interviews were on the telephone, and when I showed up in my clean blue suit I was told that the entire thing had been a terrible misunderstanding. One woman actually told me in what she called “confidence” that I was intimidating. Skin wise. She hoped I understood, and I did; comprehension wasn’t my problem.
A friend from San Francisco, who had lived in New York for a time, helped me out by introducing me to her temp agency rep, who found me a short-time position as executive secretary at a very fancy advertising agency for the Chief Creative Officer, who needed someone quickly because her assistant had suffered a complete and total nervous breakdown and was out for six weeks on multiple doctor’s orders. I jumped at the chance.
I was a pretty good secretary – I’d been trained pretty well by some excellent people. Most of the staff were confused enough when they saw me to either avoid me entirely or speak very politely. One person stared at me from down the hall, then turned around, went back to their desk and called me, but for the most part I was considered a bizarre oddity, the kind of which a powerful creative leader had the authority to conjure and display. Anyway, she liked me, and after about four weeks asked me what I was going to do next.
“I’d love to work here!” I said enthusiastically. “I think my creative side and my business side could really work in this environment.”
She stared at me. It was like I was being cast in a movie, or a plastic surgeon envisioning what the changes would look like once the swelling went down.
“Hmn.” That’s all she said.
“How does somebody get a job here?” I asked.
She brought me into her office and explained advertising to me, everything, from the bottom up, and then said, “Take a crack at this application. Fill it out and bring it back next week.”
Except it wasn’t an application; it was a test. I’ve still never seen anything like it. It was five tiny little briefs of problems that needed creative answers; a concept, an image, a print ad, a script, and the last one was the best:
“You have been hired as the main songwriter for Polly Piledriver, the world famous punk rock star. But when she arrives at the studio, she has had a change of heart, and wants to record a country album, and she wants her first single to be a love song about rancid butter, flat beer, and cold pizza.”
Aw. You shouldn’t have.
I finished the test over the weekend and turned it in. I didn’t hear anything, which wasn’t weird because she was incredibly busy. But Friday morning we both arrived at the elevators at the same time, and I finally asked her what she thought. She pulled me into a wider part of the hallway and looked me dead in the eye -
“I hope you appreciate what I’m going to tell you, because I really don’t want to say it, but I think somebody should be honest with you.”
Well, this wasn’t going well.
“You would be incredible in this business. But you can’t work here.”
Ok. A bit pear shaped.
“It’s not you it’s… well, I said I’d be honest, there is no one like you around here, you’re young and different and I would hire you today, but this business is all about collaboration and you just wouldn’t have that, not at first, and maybe not for a long time. And I don’t want to put you through that. There are other, specific, agencies that I will call right now and get you a job there.”
“Isn’t there anything I could do here?” I asked. “Mail room? A lot of people start there in the movies.”
“But you wouldn’t be doing the work that I do. It would just be work.”
“Let me be honest, then; I need work. I need a job. And at least if I’m in the building, then maybe I could learn the ropes that way.”
Again she looked at me. A shorter amount of time, like the puffiness had gone down nicely and the scars were barely visible.
“Fine. I’ll find you something.”
And she did. That’s how I got started in advertising. The very next week I started as a secretary in the print department, then after organizing the office learned how to set type and during a crisis where they had no other option, I became an official digital artist and so on and so forth.
So after investing in a high-profile education that I wouldn’t pay off for a quarter century, I began my career by songwriting. Which is not what I went to school for, technically, but has served me well in several odd situations, a few of which will serve as the core of this year’s Summer Replacement Series, a concert of gentle anarchy, respectful protest, warm and cuddly rebellion.
We begin with that smash hit for Polly Piledriver. I wrote this 35 years ago and probably recorded it on the old TASCAM 4-track, but I can’t find it on any cassette tape, so I have faithfully recreated the incredibly amateur glory of my enthusiastic youth. If you read these rather than listen, please, do listen. It’s ridiculous.
Thank you so much for your time, and Happy beginning of Summer.
As a girl, I was rude
I thought love was just fast food
Anything more substantial was
not on my mind
as I dated and courted
the confused sad and sordid.
But you were the home cooked meal I’d left behind.
Like a fine wine you aged
Burning’ into my memory
Looking into your eyes
I forget all those deep fried guys
Butter goes rancid
And beer goes flat
If you refrigerate ‘em you still can’t stop that
Honey pizza gets cold
You know all that gets old
But you are a staple in my Pantry of Love
Oh sugar, the thought of you sends my heart reeling
These flowers you brought me lift me to the ceiling
They’ll throw rice at our wedding and our eyes will tingle
As the salt on our tears of joy commingle
Yes, butter goes rancid and beer goes flat
If you refrigerate ‘em you still can’t stop that
Honey, pizza gets cold
You know all that gets old
But you are a staple in my Pantry of Love
Yes, butter goes rancid in sticks or in pats
and a Twinkie’s just full of corn syrup and fat
But, baby, you’ve got it all
You’re non-perishable
Yes, you are a staple in my Pantry of Love.
SUMMER REPLACEMENT SERIES - EP. ONE: SING, MEET SUPPER