Ted reflects on 2011, breaking it down into sections on work, family, money, health, drawings, and looking ahead. At work he struggled with pitching for a brand known for sexualizing pre-teens, and found managing multiple agencies on a campaign challenging. As a new parent he adjusted to caring for his growing daughter and missing time with her while traveling. Health-wise he battled body image issues and was hospitalized for 5 days due to a cat bite. He published a book that sold modestly and created over 100 drawings. Looking to 2012, he anticipates his daughter's terrible twos and more cat bites while embracing the daily cycles of life. Overall he scores the year a positive 11.
2. 2011: A Breakdown
Section 1: Work (or âHow to work on brands that creep you outâ)
Section 2: Family (or âHow to age fucking gracefullyâ)
Section 3: Money (or âHow to go back in time and put that Harvard degree to use for
something like investment banking instead of advertisingâ)
Section 4: Health (or âHow not to get your cat to go to the vetâ)
Section 5: Drawings (or âHow continuing to make cartoons with titles like âGlory Holeâ will
keep you from getting in The New Yorkerâ)
Section 6: Looking Ahead (or âHow Iâll attempt to keep my child from one day wanting to
go to Burning Manâ)
Section 7: Final 2011 Scoring
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4. I have been in advertising for almost 17 years. So far, Iâve been lucky with
the clients Iâve worked on.
Even within the âkinda makes me
feel dirtyâ part, most of that can
be blamed on one campaign.
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Section 1: Work
5. This year, only a few months after welcoming my daughter into the world, I got to
work on a pitch for a clothing brand that will, sooner than I want, be on her radar.
Known for its unabashed flaunting of pre-teen sexuality (which I guess is great if
youâre a pre-teen, just creepy for new parents like myself), the core philosophy of
the brand takes its cues from the 1950âs South, just replacing âblacksâ with
âunpopularâ or âab-less.â Needless to say, my âkinda makes me feel dirtyâ
percentage of work went up a bit.
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Section 1: Work
6. After working on this brand, I have drastically altered my parenting philosophy to
adjust to what I now see are the realities of her future adolescence.
So from now on I will:
⢠encourage my daughter to invest in more
empty yet strategic friendships
⢠praise her derision of the different
⢠and, most importantly, help her walk that fine
line (or is it âspin around that thin poleâ)
between owning her sexuality and being a
total hobag.
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Section 1: Work
7. My other big client was a brand of deodorant.
Things I learned:
⢠When a client has two separate marketing departments (such as âbrand
developmentâ and âbrand buildingâ or âmarketing communicationsâ and
âmarketing solutionsâ), youâre fucked. Run away.
⢠An âall-star teamâ of agencies from different disciplines working together is not
an all-star team. Itâs The Bad News Bears, before Kelly Leak agreed to play for
them. Seems the phrase âtoo many cooks in the kitchenâ applies to advertising
as well, with the resulting dish a revolting casserole of misguided tactics,
overestimated brand participation, and parkour.
⢠Despite the fact that the 90âs are a full decade ago, some brands still believe
âExtremeâ is still an alluring way to brand your product in 2012.
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Section 1: Work
9. We have a 15 month-old. Sheâs great. No, sheâs fucking amazing. Better than anything.
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Section 2: Family
10. So, sheâs 15 months. And Iâll be 42 shortly.
This has led me to do the depressing math. When sheâsx, Iâll be x +41.
So, when sheâs 9, shit, Iâll be goddamn 50.
When sheâs 21, Iâll be fucking 62.
When sheâs 30, âŚscrew it. At least Iâm not Tony Randall.
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Section 2: Family
11. During the month of February, when Viv was 3 months old, I took advantage of Californiaâs
hippie-dippy parenting laws and stayed home from work all month as my wife went back to
work.
Then when we moved up here to Portland in September, I stayed home with her for the last
few months of the year while we got settled and I looked for employment.
What Iâve learned is that a 3 month-old and a 1 year-old are totally different human beings.
A 3 month-old is a time bomb, in constant need A 1 year-old is a manic depressive golden retriever
of having precisely the right wires cut every few puppy, keeping you on edge with wild mood swings that
hours to avoid total destruction. can only be resolved with the correct meds, including
Cheerios, milk, and Itsy Bitsy Spider sung in the voice of a
drunk German opera singer.
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Section 2: Family
12. From April through July, I spent a fair amount of time in New York for work.
And while Skype is great for grandparents and uncles and aunts, dads video-conferencing
with their 6-9 month-old daughters (and their moms) provides much less positive results.
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Section 2: Family
14. I have enough money and fame to afford subscriptions to US Weekly, Entertainment
Weekly, Wired, Fast Company, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Esquire, The
New York Times, Vanity Fair, and Rolling Stone.
I do not have enough money and fame to warrant being mentioned in any of them.
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Section 3: Money/Fame
16. My wife often compares me to a 15 year-old girl. Not because my unhealthy
knowledge of the stars of most Disney Channel programming, or my âaccidentalâ
recording of Justin Bieberâs âNever Say Neverâ on the DVR.
No, its because of my body image issues.
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Section 4: Health
17. This has only grown worse since our daughter was born, because I now live in fear
of âDad Body.â
What is âDad Body?â
Dad Body evolves from that slight skewering of expectations of just what your
weight should be, combined with the new batch of men who you can suddenly
compare yourself to, men who, face it, are much fatter than you.
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Section 4: Health
18. This year was also the year of the
goddamn fucking cat bite.
Before I dive in to the bullshit story about how, in late September, a goddamn fucking
cat bite landed me in the fucking hospital for FIVE fucking days, itâs important to flash
back a few weeks earlier, when I took on the shit show of driving our goddamn cats up
to Portland from San Francisco.
This pretty much explains fucking everything.
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Section 4: Health
19. Needless to say, when it came time to take one of them to the vet, the goddamn cat
didnât want to go back in the fucking crate. So when I reached under the fucking bed
for his sorry ass, the fucker fucking bit me. The infection spread up my arm like this:
The next 5 fucking days were spent in a bed in Providence fucking hospital. The guy in
the room across from me was getting his fucking COLON REMOVED, and here I was
strolling the halls with a fucking cat bite. For fuckâs sake, a woman played the fucking
harp every fucking night for a sneak peek of what its like in fucking heaven for some
of the people around me.
And yes, we still have the cat. He sleeps nestled up against me every night.
Fucker.
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Section 4: Health
21. This year, I published a book, Paper Doll Orgy.
I published a book! How amazing is that?
Not one of those self-publishing, Blurb-style books
either. I have a ISBN number and everything.
(#0982859821!!!)
And then it sold 148 copies.
And probably 50 of those were bought by me and my family.
That depressed me to no end. Still does.
But, heyâŚI published a book!
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Section 5: Drawings
22. This year, I also did 135 new drawings.
Even if I love them, I still find myself judging their quality by the number of hits,
Likes, re-tweets, and Google +1s. (Yeah, right. Like people actually use that
featureâŚ)
âGoodâ drawing âBadâ drawing
I need to work on this too.
Without further ado, here they all are in chronological order.*
*If you want one, email me.
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Section 5: Drawings
41. In 2012,
⢠Iâll turn 42.
⢠My daughter will enter her âTerrible Twos.â
⢠My cat will attempt to bite me approximately 57 more times.
⢠I will not take a Zumba class.
⢠The sun will come up every morning, and set every night. Until December
21st, when the world will blow up.
The rest is up in the air.
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42. Final 2011 Scoring
+ -
⢠Amazing wife/child (+25) ⢠Job mostly sucked balls (-18)
⢠Move to Portland (+12) ⢠Hospitalized for cat bite (-12)
⢠Published a book (+10) ⢠Dropped our 8 month old baby
⢠Living in a house after 15 years in an (Itâs OK, she was fine) (-8)
apartment (+8) ⢠13 hour road trip with cats (-6)
⢠Attained Delta Silver Elite status (+5) ⢠Entered early 40âs (-5)
_______________________________ _______________________________
+60 -49
FINAL SCORE: +11
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