Lobotoscopy

I don’t want you thinking this is just a stunt to highlight my skills or any of that stuff. After posting Part 1, and reading it, it gave me a feeling of assholishness and boastiness. The truth is, I’ve been living my whole life thinking I don’t remember stuff, and basically that I’m an idiot who forgets everything and is losing his mind. But years go by, and memories are starting to arise, so I felt I must write them down before they leave again. That sounded like I was 80 years old, well no, I’m 27, so, stop interrupting me… evil cricket.

Back to the story.

First day in advertising. Well, my first job was to design a billboard for a mortgage bank. I did about 6 layouts, each one worse than the other. Somehow, my DC saw them, liked them and presented them. None flew, obviously, ‘cause the client knows. It’s stupid to have a colored textured background with free fonts and a stupid headline. I still wonder if my DC did it on purpose. It may have been a lesson. A lesson that led to another lesson.

There it was. Like a gleaming warm burst from heaven. The pinnacle of creativity, the ultimate resource, the holy saint of creativitus. GETTYIMAGES. My DC showed me how you can search ANYTHING, you can put Santa motorcycle road rudolph, you got it; Woman naked 18-22 touching breast children, you got it; Couple fornicating TV, dancing oompa-loompas mixing chocolate white background 30-45, that, well, who knows.

Astonished, my eyes wetting, I saw my future…

I’m fucked.

So, you’re telling me, there are thousands of people, doing my job for a couple hundred bucks? And what the hell is this crap? The people in the pictures don’t look like us, we’re puertorricans! We are short, dark skinned, dark haired. These people are all pale white, blonde, blue eyed and tall as shit. I think, by that time in my life, I haven’t met a single puertorrican with those features.

I said that, out loud, and pissed. My DC didn’t move, shrug his shoulders and told me I had to add a little surname to my searches: Hispanic. Guess what, you can’t find a Hispanic Santa Motorcycle Road Rudolph. He told me I had to look for a Cute Hispanic Girl. I found it, placed it flush left, big headline in the upper half, big ass phone number in the lower half. Approved. Printed. I was so excited and disappointed at the same time. What did I do? What was my job? This shit sucks!

A week later, another bank had the same girl on their ads. Same thing happened about three times more. Then came catastrophe, 2 competitor banks, 1 government office and my bank, same day, same picture, same newspaper.

Fuck this shit man, this is bullcrap.

And now wait for part 3. After this, or before, it depends, ‘cause stupid blogs are backwards. Yeah, I repeated on purpose, ‘cause I hate it.

I hate advertising. For real. Not because Bogusky says he hates it. I’ve always hated it, since the first day. But I love it. I’m diagnosed with the Stockholm Syndrome.

My first day in advertising, was a sunny day of December 2001. Temperature about 90F, partly cloudy. I arrived at an ad agency, big glass windows overlooking Rio Piedras. They were looking for a messenger. When I got there they asked me:

-What are you studying?

-Theater arts and audiovisual communication.

-What do you want to do in life?

-I want to not sleep, and divorce twice, work overnight, I want to be a film director and film ads.

-Says here you’re a photographer and know how to use Photoshop, tell me about it, do you know Illustrator?

-Yeah, I was a photographer in Mangrove magazine and in less than six months I became dir. of photography, also did the webmastering, sell ad space, and distributed the magazine. I slept on the office, literally, like in couch pillows, on the floor. All that while studying, straight A’s, and I have a girlfriend, oh and also play drums in a band. And no, I’ve used illustrator, but can’t say I know how to use it.

-How can you do all that?

-I don’t know, I don’t like sleeping. And I get bored easily.

-Why did you leave Mangrove?

-They never paid me, and they didn’t want me to play the gigs with my band ‘cause it was interfering with my “duties”. So, I left. Beside, I wasn’t learning anything new.

-Well we need a graphic artist, you think you can do it?

-Well, gotta be honest, I’m a good retoucher, but I’m still pretty weak designing for print. I’m a quick learner though.

-That’s ok, we’re gonna pay you 7.50 p/h, 28 hrs a week. Can you start now?

In a time when I was 19y/o, minimum wage was 5.15, and my dad, a licensed optician, earned 8.75 p/h, I saw heaven.

I’ll tell you more later… On part 2. That’s why this is Part 1. ‘Cause then comes Part 2. Although, you probably already read Part 2, ‘cause fucking blogs work backwards. But that’s another post.

I have a problem with some fruit names in the English language. There are fruits that are way misrepresented by their names, for example: Grapefruit.

Wouldn’t the actual grape be a grapefruit?

Think about it… man.