A dirty job

So, back around 2001 we did an ad campaign for a division of Abbott. It was an interesting (according to me) campaign that involved a very complicated (according to all involved) photoshoot. There was a sand-sculpture of The Thinker on the beach. There was a discus topiary in a garden. Finally, there was a giant snow-sculpture of Atlas in the snowy mountains. The idea was that tools shouldn't limit your talent. It was a brand campaign and it tested well.

We used a photographer out of San Francisco named Hunter Freeman. He's really good, check out his stuff.

Anyway, the first two were reasonably simple in the grand sense of things. We had scouts find us some good locations, a beach and a garden type of environment, you know, where you might find either a sandcastle thinker or a topiary discus thrower. Believe it or not, there exist stock plastic sculptures of both the thinker and the discuss thrower. We got them and modified them. We spray-mounted sand to the thinker and hot-glued plastic leaves all over the discus thrower. We shot them on location. Hunter had assistants that were constantly adding sand and leaves respectively during the shoot. Terrific. The only monkey wrench was the nosiness of the Cali beach wackos. Whatchoo guys doin'? Hunter's stock answer was that we were shooting a mayonnaise commercial. Not true, but for some weird reason, people would buy the answer and walk away. Cool, mayo. A helpful tip if you're ever on a photoshoot in public. You're making a mayonnaise commercial. Customize the answer to your liking. Maybe you want to be doing a mustard commercial. To each their own. I think it needs to involve a condiment, though. Otherwise, the wackos will add follow-up questions.

Finally, the Atlas image created different challenges. There wasn't a stock Atlas sculpture that we liked. What to do? We had it sculpted out of a styrofoam-like substance and shot it in studio. Throughout the sculpting process, I would get jpegs of the sculpture in process to look at and approve. Something wasn't quite right about the back arm (Atlas' right arm). They ended up resculpting it. His back arm was moved so that it was coming out of the side of his head. All that really mattered was that from our camera angle it looked natural. If I hadn't of had the arm relocated, it wouldv'e looked like it was coming out of his abdomen. Now that you know this, the sculpture may look weird, but to the unknowing eye, it worked. It's amazing how the angle and viewer perspective makes all the difference. For the background/location? There weren't any suitable (by suitable I mean snowy) locations to shoot a giant nine-foot tall snowman in the greater SF area. Hunter provided an image of a snowy scene that he had previously shot. We put the two shots together in post and it looked believable.

Fast-forward to today. I have a 5-year old son. Well, Boy and I like to watch some television shows together. We have a great time. We watch a lot of Discovery. Mythbusters, Dirty Jobs, things like that. I DVR the shows and he gets to pick a show before bedtime. On this particular night, Boy chose Dirty Jobs. We're big fans of Mike Rowe, the host. Tonight on Dirty Jobs, Mike is at the San Francisco dump. He opens the show in the back of a pickup truck. If you don't know the show, Mike usually opens with some sort of monologue that romanticizes the particular dirty job he is about to perform. As he is waxing poetic on the trash collection industry, he pushes a piano out of the way. There it is. In the bed of the pickup. The upper torso of a giant white Atlas sculpture. Wait a minute, that can't be my Atlas, could it? Well, he is at the SF dump. And yes, we, the viewer, are focused on the back side of the sculpture. The side with the weird head-shoulder. He makes some comment about the weight of the world and then throws the thing out of the truck. The camera holds on the thing as it now lays on the ground next to the truck. And, scene. What happened to Atlas's legs? Who knows. I do know that the thing was so big at one point they had to saw it in half.

Take what you want from the story. I take the fact that all the bits and pieces that bounces around my head are in some ways intertwined. I have just defined the creative process.

A peek inside the brain of a mad genius

I was having a conversation with Boy the other day. I asked him what he was thinking about. He pointed at his head and he said, "All that's in here is Legos and candy."

He made me write it down

So I'm leaving this morning to go to the airport. I'm traveling to the middle of the country to present some work. I'm getting ready, putting on one of my nicer shirts. I don't travel a ton, but the kids are reasonably used to me getting on airplanes. I'm packing a bag, dealing with the whole separate quart size ziploc bag for the liquids and such. I'm used to it, but I still roll my eyes. Boy comes up to me as I'm finishing my packing. He tells me, Dad, please get me some more of those pilot wings. Probably a year and a half ago I got him some of those wings that the pilot's have sewn onto their uniforms. The flight attendant gave them to me. I thought Boy would think it was cool, and as I had been gone about a week that trip I felt guilty. He wore them nonstop for about a week. Then we all didn't think about them again. Fast forward to today. Boy remembers. Not only does he ask me for a new set of wings as his old ones are no good anymore, he refuses to get ready for school until I write it down on a piece of paper and put it in my luggage. Pilot wings for Boy. Scrawled on my itinerary. I had to show it to him before he would move. Please let the crew have some for me. God forbid I go home and not have them. He wouldn't forgive me. So, the moral of the story is, Boy can remember minute details for a year and a half no problem. Boy thinks the only way for Daddy to remember something for more than a few minutes is to get him to write it down.

Girl and the real baby

In my direct family, there have been few girls born. My father was one of 4 boys, there is my brother and myself, and up until Baby Girl was born, there was just Boy and my brother's son. So when Girl was born it was quite a to do. She being born in October, Christmas soon followed. As my father said, leading up to the holiday, his house was a sea of pink with all of the gifts and clothes Grammy had purchased. It began the day after Girl was born. And continues today.

That Christmas, one of the gifts Girl received from my grandparents was a (you guessed it) doll. It was one of about 15 dolls in various shades of pink she received that day. But this one was to be different. Mommy and I didn't think much of its significance at the time, we just noticed that it was large. I believe there were even jokes made that the doll was the same size as Baby Girl at that time. It got put away until an appropriate later date when Girl was ready to play with such a doll.

Some time passed. We took it out of its packaging and introduced it into the toy rotation. It got played with a little. Boy liked to change the thing's diaper. Girl would carry (drag) it around or push it in her doll stroller. However, things have changed recently in that Girl has become a little more attached and she is now demanding it whenever we go out in public. So we leave the house and after I've strapped Girl into her car seat she asks for her baby. I have to run back into the house to get it. It's impossible to try to go anywhere without three trips into the house it seems. Just this past weekend, we parked the car at a little ice cream shop to go in. Girl starts crying for her baby. Great, now I have to take this thing into an ice cream shop. It's gonna get filthy. Needless to say, it's starting to become a member of the family.

Here's where everything comes together and I realize that the perception of my family with the doll differs from how people in the general public perceive it. Mommy is walking down the aisle of the grocery store. Girl is carrying this giant doll. Some random lady comes walking the other way down the aisle. Mommy hears the lady gasp, Ohhhh. Then a second panicked OHHH. Girl was carrying her doll awkwardly, probably by the leg or something. What we sometimes don't realize is that this doll really is the size of a real baby. This other lady had thought for split second that Mommy had let our 2-year old carry our newborn baby and it was falling. Mommy says to me later, great, now everywhere I go people are going to see me as a neglectful mother because Girl is going to be carrying this newborn sized doll everywhere she goes. I've seen other people give looks, but I didn't connect the dots, she said.

So now we're gonna try to get Girl to leave her doll at home whenever we go out. I've learned from experience that's how to make a toddler want something more. So we will be leaving a wake of parenting disdain in our trail. Maybe someone will call child services to protect Girl's doll.

Look, Mommy, I'm a catcher

2 children are much more difficult than one child. It’s rare that you get a single second to yourself. So when either of the kids are out of sight and quiet for a stretch of time, you tend not to question it. Finally, a second of peace and quiet. I’m going to sit on the couch and stare straight ahead and enjoy the silence. Let me tell you from experience that this is, in fact the wrong response. Be suspicious. Silence may seem harmless, when really, if a child is running around naked and singing at the top of his lungs while in the same room, at least you can see what is happening before it’s too late. I’ll be the first to admit that when Boy is in a different room and quiet, I usually happily enjoy it and prepare myself for the repercussions.

Mommy was recently put into one of these situations. It had been an incredibly long day within an especially long week. Boy had probably been running around naked and singing at the top of his lungs while Girl egged him on. So when Boy went upstairs and was quiet for a stretch of time, she made the choice to deal with the repercussions. I’ve certainly been there. After a period of time, Mommy started to worry. Here’s when you need to make a decision. Do I go and check on him or do I plead ignorance? Our house is a small Cape. The stairs going up are in the middle of the house, straight up. You can’t see up the stairs from the living room, you need to go to the bottom of the stairs to look up.

Mommy? Mommy? Mommy! MOMMY! I’M A CATCHER! We’re Red Sox fans in my house. We watch a lot of the games together. Boy loves to play baseball in the backyard. His favorite player is Jason Varitek. Mommy is on the nervous side at this point. Oh, no, what has he gotten into. She gets to the bottom of the stairs and looks up. Boy had (well, I’m not exactly sure how to say this but I’ll try) gotten into Mommy’s feminine products for her monthly friend. As an ignorant man, please bear with me. They are the external kind with the sticker on one side (Mommy note: they are called panty liners, Daddy note: I’m a bit of an idiot when it comes to this stuff, luckily I have some time before Girl will be embarrassed by my male-centricity, I also don’t much care for the term “panty”). He is wearing nothing but underwear and a whole box of feminine hygiene products. He had removed the sticker strips and stuck them all up both of his legs horizontally, like a catcher’s shin guards. He had them going up his chest, like Jason Varitek’s chest protector. And he had a look of pride on his face from being so clever in his dress up moment. I don’t remember, but I’m sure he next asked Mommy to go outside to play baseball.

How do I know the look on his face you ask? That is because Mommy was quick and smart enough to go right for the camera. She snaps a couple pictures and then my phone rings at the office. All I hear on the other end of the phone line is laughter. Next I receive the email with the pics. I’m not sure if I’m more proud of his creative thinking or the fact that he likes to put safety first.