February « 2011 « Black Marks on Wood Pulp / by Corey Vilhauer

Goodbye, Perk

February 25th, 2011

See, you can’t truly love a team until you’ve suffered with it. The 2008 title team always felt like a fantasy team that had been thrown together in some sort of euphoric basketball dream that wasn’t quite real. Losing Garnett in 2009 (and eventually, the Orlando series) definitely hurt; blowing the 2010 title was 100 times worse. The agony of those last two games pushed our relationship with the team to an entirely different level. I still remember seeing Perkins rolling around in pain during Game 6 — it happened about 20 feet away from me — then the veterans watching him get helped off, his right leg dangling in the air, the life sinking from their bodies like Apollo watching Rocky wave him back to the corner. With a healthy 2011 Garnett in that Game 7, maybe we could have survived. Banged-up 2010 Garnett couldn’t get it done. The trophy was sitting there, and we couldn’t take it. A crestfallen Perkins spent the summer blaming himself, busted his butt to come back … and the Celtics dumped him a month after he returned. Claiming they couldn’t afford him only made it worse: The kid signed a discount extension four years ago and outperformed it. They owed him.

Bill Simmons can be an annoying homer sometimes, but that’s exactly what makes things like this – his rundown of emotions regarding seeing a favorite player traded away – so damned good.

I feel exactly the same way. Kendrick Perkins was never the best player on the Celtics. He wasn’t even one of the five best, at times. But he was easily one of the most important in terms of attitude, ability and specialty. He was one of my favorite players on the team, and I looked forward to the years when, after Garnett and Allen and Pierce walk away, Rondo and Perkins took the team as their own and continued playing genuine Celtics-style basketball.

Now, he’s gone. And, like Simmons says, I’ll eventually talk my way into this new era. Doesn’t make it any easier, though.

Beef freezer

February 24th, 2011

Today, Kerrie made a list of food in our freezer. She did this because we just purchased a third of a cow, and we need to remember what we have in there. YES, I SAID A THIRD OF A COW.

The list:

Beef roast (2)
Sirloin steak
Beef stew (2)
Ribeye steak
Beef ribs
T-bone steak
Ground beef (14 lbs.)
Whole chicken (2)
Fake bacon (2)
Spicy black bean (3)
Garden veggie (2)
Meat crumble
Ham hock
Lasagna (3)
Rhubarb
Cubed ham

And to think: we used to be vegetarian.

In other news, Kerrie now has an extra reason to collect frozen food. She has her own blog: Serves Four.

I think it’s pretty great, so go bookmark it or RSS it or whatever you people do to save cool web blogs.

Comments: 2

Issues Considered: Blogging, Food

The day we didn’t show up for the movie

February 23rd, 2011

It wasn’t that we didn’t show up for the movie. That wasn’t too big of a deal – after all, Sierra went with her preschool class. Her friends were there. Her teachers. We were incidental, invited on the side but not integral to the event.

To be honest, Sierra didn’t even know we had told her teacher we’d be there. Which means Sierra never had a chance to know we had forgotten about the movie altogether. A movie we had signed up to participate in over a month ago. A movie neither of us remembered to put on our calendar.

So we never showed up. But, it wasn’t that we didn’t show up for the movie.

It was that all of the OTHER parents DID. And Sierra wished we’d have as well.

She had fun. She enjoyed the movie. She couldn’t stop talking about getting to sit by her friend. But she also reminded us that she was sad we weren’t there.

Kerrie took her to lunch. I rushed over to sit with them. I apologized. I couldn’t believe it. I’d become one of those parents who forget their kids.

“Are you okay, Sierra?”

She’s okay. She had forgotten about it around the time her pizza arrived.

Me? I’m still trying.

Comments: 2

Issues Considered: Sierra

On productivity

February 18th, 2011

At night, when all that’s heard is our whining dog and Kerrie’s tapping on the iPad, I am at my most productive. I sit at the dinner table and marvel at my mobile office, my laptop, my notebook, my cup of tea. It’s all right there, right? Like magic. Like magical magic. Sometimes, when I’m feeling masochistic, I still smile at the novelty of having work so important that it requires an extra hour of my time.

Wait. No.

In the morning, early, when all that’s heard is the hum of fans and the occasional vehicle moving over wet cement, I am at my most productive. I’m in the office, and I’m the only one there. It’s 5 am, sure. And 5 am is usually pretty stupid. But it’s also the one chance I get to pack in two or three hours I didn’t have before. I drink some coffee. I cancel out that fan hum with some radio. I hammer out some weird deliverable that, ten years ago, I never knew even existed.

Hold on.

For a few hours each day, after the clerical tidying up, but before the afternoon chat session, I throw in my headphones and listen to music. Just loud enough to drown everything out. Just quiet enough to still be able to think. Pushed to the limit of deadline, I am at my most productive. And, unfortunately, at my most hipster-ish. That’s when Animal Collective and LCD Soundsystem come out. When I want music I can still think with. Music that helps me grow my ironic moustache.

Well, this is weird.

Because, outside of those couple of hipster-fueled musical hours, I never once said “I am at my most productive during business hours.” And, if you’re disagreeing with that notion, you’re wrong.

Sorry. You’re dead wrong.

Wait, what? No. Stop. I never said “I don’t get work done during business hours.” It’s just that, well, the work is different.

I know we need the basic structure. We need the workday. There’s a necessity in having everyone in the same place at the same time, working on the same things. I don’t even really find it work, to tell you the truth, which is kind of a snotty way of saying “my job is better than yours.” A billion advances in technology haven’t replaced the effectiveness of face-to-face discussion.

But it’s funny how many things at work, during working hours, with working colleagues and working clients, prevent us from working at our most productive. Meetings and conference calls and emails and all of those things that Merlin Mann somehow made a career out of shunning. Which makes it difficult to determine whether it’s a case of being LESS productive at work or being MORE productive in off hours.

Who can I blame for this? Probably Obama, huh?

Comments: 3

Issues Considered: Career

Adoration is not a commodity

February 10th, 2011

Let’s talk for a second about what’s expected of us when something great happens to someone we know.

For background, I present Mike Greenberg, co-host of Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN Radio.

Greenberg, who tends to take offense at everything, wondered aloud why, after Green Bay’s Super Bowl win, Brett Favre hadn’t bothered to call and offer congratulations, specifically to Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

To which I wonder aloud, “Why should he?”

Why does a player need to call his former team to offer congratulations? He had nothing to do with this current incarnation. He has no connection other than a playing history. With that argument in mind, why didn’t Ron Jaworski call Aaron Rodgers? Or Mark Chmura? Sterling Sharpe?

When you win the Super Bowl, or the World Series, or the NBA Finals, or any individual sporting event, there are certain expectations when it comes to congratulations. You get a call from dignitaries, and from the commissioner, and from friends you haven’t talked to in years and will never talk to again.

The problem: when it becomes expected, it no longer means anything.

If I suddenly turn around and win the French Open, I expect a call from the President. If I don’t get it, I’ll be disappointed.

“Why didn’t he call me?”

Because he didn’t HAVE to. Support and joy don’t need to be VOICED to be TRUE. And relationships don’t need to be conjured in the name of success.

Brett Favre didn’t say “congrats” because he didn’t want to. He doesn’t have a relationship with Aaron Rodgers. He played for a division rival last season. He feels wronged. He is his own person. It doesn’t matter why.

Let’s stop pretending like adoration is a commodity.

Where’s My Jetpack goes on hiatus. Damn it.

February 4th, 2011

I don’t really read marketing and advertising blogs anymore because I don’t really like marketing and advertising blogs. They are filled with banal “commentary,” synergistically leveraging a choice brand package of marketing buzzwords, or they just suck. It’s the advertising industry, and NATURALLY most commentary-based advertising blogs are built to either secure jobs or promote agencies. Or both.

So when one of the good ones decides to close up shop, well, I mean, that sucks.

From Where’s My Jetpack, “Post Number 2000:”

I’ve tried to make this blog more about quality than quantity. It has been for me, above all, a creative outlet, because we all know how hard it is to actually be creative, even in a supposedly creative industry. (As I tell every “creative,” keep a real creative passion on the side just to keep you sane, because you will never fully satisfy your need to create through your work.)

And with that, I’m putting this blog on indefinite hiatus.

I love Dave’s blog because I love it when people call advertising’s bluff. I love it EVEN MORE when that bluff-calling is both accurate and confident. It’s rare to find someone that’s part of the industry without being tied to it and seeking justification for some of advertising’s biggest problems.

Where’s My Jetpack is/was a smarter marketing/advertising blog than most, and he’s a smarter marketing/advertising guy than most I’ve ever met. That he isn’t getting job offers by the boatload proves a lot about how I feel about the advertising complex: namely, that it still doesn’t understand what it’s looking for. The notion of being safe rules the industry. Where’s My Jetpack is/was a beacon in that sea of safeness.

Good luck, Jetpacks. May you return to my RSS sooner than later.

Comments: 1

Issues Considered: Blogging, Linkage, Marketing