I, ad man

Back in the 1990's when I was in college, I decided after bouncing around a few majors that I wanted nothing more than to be a Madison Avenue advertising guy. Why? Well because a lot of my friends were doing it and it looked like an incredibly fun, sexy and cool way to be  (somewhat) creative and make a good living.

So I enrolled in the creative track at the University Of Texas advertising program, which is as renowned as similar programs at RISD and the Portfolio Center in Atlanta. I did pretty well and managed to survive three rigorous semesters of intense work developing my "book." (That's inside baseball-speak for a portfolio of spec ads).

Upon graduation I landed a headhunter who had an office in Chelsea that I was probably the least cool person to ever step foot in and within about two months I had a good solid job at a real ad firm on Fifth avenue and 18th street.

I worked there for eight years. I probably didn't know how good I had it, given the freedom and autonomy my boss and mentor gave me. As long as the work got done he didn't care what we did in our free time. Sure, I didn't work on a bunch of fancy Clio winning accounts, but I think I did something just as challenging - I regularly pitched commercials that pushed my conservative clients out of their comfort zone.

It was great! It was the tail end of the era of extravagant budgets, expense accounts and boondoggle commercial shoots in far flung locales like Mexico City, Amsterdam and of course by beloved Vancouver. I went to amazing parties at post-production houses and photographers' lofts and directors' houses. I left the business at age 30 to pursue screenwriting full-time but along the way I even got to make some fun commercials. This is one that always makes me laugh.

I'm trying to track down more of my spots online to add here and eventually put up my own site. Unfortunately all I have to show for my years in the biz is a horrible VHS copy of my reel.