Chapter 3 Part One Chapter One Just Do It

When you're in advertising, you find yourself constantly trying to extol products that are no different from crap.You want to turn decay into magic, a magic that seems to be indispensable to our lives.For example, I once advertised a hair conditioner, and my slogan was "softness at the touch, style at a glance."But in reality, this conditioner is nothing short of garbage.It makes your hair sticky and most women would hate it; also, it stinks and it makes your hair smell like bubblegum mixed with Lysal (a disinfectant) Weird smells all together.But, I had to advertise that it was the top conditioner ever.I had to concoct a beautiful and sexy image for it, approachable and passionate at the same time.

Advertising can cover up blemishes, reveal blemishes, and beautify everything, which is why I see it as a perfect industry.It is an industry that creates illusions for people.In this regard, there are few people who can beat me, because I have fully integrated all kinds of advertising techniques into my life over the years. At thirteen, my crazy mother dumped me to her equally crazy psychiatrist, who later adopted me.Since then, my life has fallen into a terrible situation. I am watched by a group of pedophiles every day, I can't go to school, and I don't have any medicine for illness.Then I ran away.When I was looking for a way to make a living in an advertising agency, I presented myself as a self-taught, slightly eccentric, but passionate and creative young man.I don't say a word about my lack of spelling and history of oral sex since I was thirteen.

Not many people can enter the advertising industry at the age of nineteen with only a primary school diploma and no connections.Not everyone who wanders the streets can be a copywriter who can sit at a sleek black desk every day and say solemnly, "Maybe we can have Molly Reward do the voice-over." It's going to be very hip and MTV"...but when I was nineteen, that was my dream.And actually in the end my dream came true, I made it, and it made me feel like I could run the world with my mind. It's unbelievable that at the age of nineteen I joined the National Potato Board as its junior copywriter, earning seventeen thousand dollars a year.Compared with the nine thousand dollars I made two years ago as a waiter at The Round Land, this was an enviable fortune.

This is the charm of the advertising circle.Advertisers don't care where you're from, what your family background is, or even if your kitchen drain pipe is full of little girl's bones.As long as you can come up with a better ad for ChuckWagon, you're in the loop. I'm twenty-four now, but I've tried my best to forget the past.I was preoccupied with my job and my future, which was the first priority.Especially in such an ever-changing industry that is difficult to surpass yourself - the advertising industry is using its cruel competition to whip you forward non-stop. The movement is on the verge of breaking out and moving forward (Chiat/Day waving the flag for Reebok).

Just do what you want (Weiden & Kennedy cheers on people for Nike). Hell, something's not quite right. (I said in the bathroom mirror, it was 4:30 in the morning, and I was in the midst of a total burnout.) Tuesday night, my house.I've been at home for twenty minutes, checking my mail.When I open the bill, I'm going crazy.For some reason, I have a hard time writing checks, so usually, I put them off until I have to.Usually by this time I am already deeply in debt.It's not that I can't pay the bills -- I can -- it's that I'm horrified when faced with these life responsibilities.I'm not used to some social norms, so as long as the phone is still connected, or other electrical appliances are still working, I feel a little bit out of place.I keep all my bills in a box next to the stove, and personal letters and cards scatter in the space between my computer and printer on my desk.

The phone rang and I asked the answering machine to answer it. "Hey, it's me, Jim... Just asking if you want to go out for a drink. Call me, but better answer now." I picked up the phone, which screamed like a strangled cat. "Of course I would," I told him, "my blood alcohol level is deadly low right now." "I'll see you at the Cedar Pavilion at nine," he said. Cedar Hall is at 12 University Avenue, I am at 3 Tenth Avenue, which is only a few blocks away, and Jim is at 2 Twelfth Avenue, so Cedar Hall is the fulcrum of our lever.That's one of the reasons I love it; another reason is that their martinis are huge and the vodka is generous. "See you there," I said, and hung up.

Jim was brilliant, a wonderful funeral director.In fact, technically speaking, he is no longer a funeral director. After graduation, he worked as a coffin salesman, as he described - "a career to prepare for a rainy day".Euphemisms prevail in the funeral industry, and according to their lingo, no one actually "die", they just "move away", indistinguishable from traveling to another time zone. He always wears the old-fashioned Hawaiian shirt, even in winter.You look at him and think he's just an ordinary Italian blue-collar guy, like a policeman or a little pizzeria owner, but he's a mourner through and through.For my birthday last year he gave me two bottles, one containing a beautiful pink lotion and the other an amber liquid that turned out to be an embalming agent.I'm not a small-bodied person, but this one was out of the ordinary.

A few hours later, I walked into the Cedar Pavilion, and I was immediately relieved.To my left is a huge old bar, hand-carved a century ago from several old oak trees.The old bar stood there like a dismissive middle finger to the conservationists.The wall behind the bar, paneled in the same wood, contained a tall etched mirror; beside the mirror stood a dull brass lampholder illuminated by a stained-glass lamp.There are no light bulbs over twenty-five watts in this place.At the back of the bar is a handsome tall wooden stand selling chicken stir fry, fish and chips and cheese sandwiches.I thought I could live here like never before.

Although I was five minutes early, Jim was already sitting at the bar, halfway through his martini. "Martinis are good," I said, "how long have you been here?" "I'm so thirsty. Just arrived." He was staring intently at a woman.The woman sat alone at the jukebox, wearing khaki slacks, a pink and white striped oxford shirt, and white sharps.I immediately concluded that she was a nurse just off duty. "She's not your type," I said. He looked at me with that look on his face. "Why not?" "What do you think she's drinking? Coffee."

He looked bitter, stopped looking at her, and took another sip of his wine. "You see, I can't stay too late tonight. I have to meet someone at nine o'clock tomorrow morning." "A meeting?" He looked puzzled, "Why?" I rolled my eyes, raised my finger and shook it, signaling to the waiter. "My client Faberge is working on a new fragrance and they want an ad agency to come and visit their egg exhibition with them tomorrow morning to see if they get any ideas." I ordered a glass of KetelOne vodka originating in the Netherlands.Martini with an olive leaf held upright in the glass.The olive leaves they use here are smaller, which I love; I have a problem with the big, fat leaves, which take up so much room in the cup.

"So I'm in a suit and I'm going to be there all morning looking at those goddamn eggs. And the day after tomorrow I've got to have a horrible meeting with their top brass about some so-called global thing. The kind of meeting you're going to have a few weeks before It’s just a headache.” I took a sip of the martini, and it tasted really good, as if it was tailor-made for me. "God, I hate my job." "You should get a real job," Jim said. "Advertising sucks, every day you go to meetings and watch shit. You make a couple of bucks, but you don't go a day without whining. God, don't you Twenty-five." He put his thumb and forefinger into the wine glass, picked up the olive leaf and dropped it into his mouth. I looked at him and couldn't help but wonder what his hand touched when I was at work just now. "Why don't you sell that coffin to that seventy-eight-year-old widow in the Bronx and let her take care of herself?" We have argued this matter many times before.The mourner always felt superior to me, and indeed he was, the backbone of society, the essential service he provided.And I, on the contrary, can only use my rhetoric to deceive people into buying things, which is a great harm to society. "Yes, yes, get us another drink. I'm going to pee." I went into the men's room and left him at the bar. We had another four or five drinks, and Jim suggested going to another bar.I looked at my watch, it was almost half past ten.I should go home and sleep now so I can be refreshed for work in the morning.But I thought about it, what time can I go to bed at the latest?If I get there at nine in the morning, I have to be up at seven thirty at the latest.That meant I should -- I started snapping my fingers, because I'm terrible at arithmetic, let alone mental arithmetic -- be in bed by half past twelve. "Where do you want to go?" I asked Jim after I finished my calculations. "I don't know, let's take a look first." I said, "OK".Then we walked out.As soon as I stepped out into the fresh air, something oxidized in my head.I feel a little drunk.I am not drunk, far from drunk.Of course, in my current state, I can't run a cotton gin. Jim and I walked two blocks, and finally turned into a corner bar with live jazz music.Jim told me that the worst thing you can do as a mourner is to meet a "high jumper." "Two KetelOne martinis, with olive leaves." After I told the waiter, I turned to Jim, "What's wrong with the high jumper?" Chatting with Jim is so fresh and interesting, I like this man so much. "Because when you move their arms and legs, the bones break. They're loose under the skin, and they slide, and..." Our wine has arrived.He took a sip and continued, "It still makes a rumbling sound." "It's fucking scary," I said excitedly, "what else?" He took another sip of his wine, frowning in thought. "Okay, and this - you're going to like this. If the guy was a guy, we'd put a string around his dick to keep his pee from leaking out..." "My God!" I exclaimed.We both stopped and took a sip of our wine.I found that I swallowed a lot, so I had to ask for another glass.The martini here is really pitiful. "Something more scary," I said eagerly to Jim. Then he said that once he came across the body of a woman whose head had been beheaded, her family insisted on opening the coffin for service. "Can you imagine that?" he said, and he snapped a broom handle in two, and thrust them deep and tight up the neck of the corpse; then he thrust the woman's head in At the other end, after pushing and pushing, the corpse was connected. "Wow." I cheered.What he did was really something only a dying person would want to do. He smiled smugly. "I also put a cashmere jumper on her, and she looks great in the end." He winked at me, and plucked the olive leaf out of my cup.I never touched that glass of wine again. We had about five more drinks before I remembered to look at my watch.It's a quarter past one and I have to go or I'll get drunk.But instead Jim ordered another nightcap. "Try one of the most famous brands of Cuervo tequila.  …Cheers, wish us luck!" The last thing I can think of right now is me standing center stage at a karaoke bar in the West Country with the spotlights flickering on my face as I struggle to see the screen in front of me with The Brady Bunch , a movie based on the popular American comedy series "Family Fun" in the 1970s.The subtitles are scrolling.I had to close one eye or I would just see a double image.But as soon as I close one eye, I lose my balance and fall. And Jim was sitting in the front row, banging his hands on the table, smiling like a woman. I tripped over the floor and fell.The waiter came from behind the bar and escorted me off the stage.His arm around my shoulder was so thoughtful, I wanted to rub his nose or give him a kiss on the mouth—just a friendly kiss.But I didn't do it. When I got out of the bar, I looked at my watch again, but I pretended not to see it, and I said to myself: "It must be wrong." I leaned on Jim's shoulder, otherwise I would have fallen on the uneven pavement. "What did you say?" Jim grinned at me.He has a thin plastic straw clipped in each ear.The straw is red, and the end of the tube is covered with tooth marks, left when it was chewed. I raised my arm and almost pressed the watch to his nose. "Look!" He pushed my arm away a little to get a better look at the surface. "Ah! How is this? Are you sure your watch is correct?" The watch showed four fifteen in the morning—impossible!I muttered to myself, why does this watch show European time and not Manhattan time?