Failure to Launch my Career
My first year in advertising is not a great story.
It was July 2012 and I was 29 years old. I just finished a year at an advertising school in downtown Minneapolis called Miami Ad School and knew what I wanted to do—think, concept, write, create, and make work with like-minded people.
After that year, I had a small portfolio of work (some of which is posted above and below) and an arm’s length of email addresses. I sent a slough of notes to people within creative agencies and marketing firms from Minneapolis to Portland, London, New York, Detroit, Boston and Austin.
I got a few informational interviews, met a lot of people and got some free cups of coffee. But no job. After a few weeks, I wondered if my ad school education would yield the same results as my Associate's Degree from Western Technical College — a degree only my parents cared about.
Eventually, some people in Indiana cared. How nice.
I flew from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Indianapolis on Thursday, August 23rd and interviewed at a small advertising agency called Young and Laramore. I met some wonderful and charming people and got along with them like friends do. Two creative directors and I got lunch at a Mexican restaurant. In the afternoon I drank heavily with a handful of people before getting onto a plane that afternoon and likely annoyed the hell out of the guy I sat next to on the flight back to Minneapolis.
In a few days, I was offered a job and was told to take my time moving. I replied immediately let them know I’d have everything in my life figured out enough to move southeast and start working on Monday, September 24th.
This was the first time I felt like my education investment and hustle paid off.
Moving didn’t require a lot of effort since it was just me and I had lived 11 years with just enough junk to fill a Honda CR-V. I’d usually borrow a friend’s truck to move whatever dresser and bed I owned. By the time my parents were 29 they had three kids and a mortgage! I had debt and a drinking problem.
I connected with a person named Amy, my soon to be roommate, in early September and was filling out rent paperwork by the 18th. She and I would live together in a house near Fountain Square in Indianapolis with a guy named Darren. I think that was his name. Darren liked drugs and Ween. When I pulled up to the house with my U-Haul, vehicle in-tow, Darren was on the front porch with his buddy. We said hello and then he and his friend went into the house, all the way back to the kitchen, where they hung out as I lugged boxes and a bed and a dresser up a flight of stairs. They were drinking and I was sweaty and jealous.
That night I opened a bottle of Two Gingers whisky my friend Tony gave me as a going away gift. I drank some of it on the porch with Amy after she got home from work. Things started well enough.
I hung out that weekend in the house, bored, not sure what to do in an unfamiliar place. For the first time in my life, I had nobody to see and nothing to do. I may as well have been in Bangladesh.
The following months were interesting. Like in the way a train wreck is interesting.
While it was still hot outside, I recall Darren jumping up and down in his room. He thought the house was unbalanced and decided he’d try to get the place to level out. After a trip to the psychiatrist one day, he came home. Standing in his boxers drinking a big bottle of Sierra Nevada he had me place my hands upon his hips like a character in the Freak Nasty song, “Da’ Dip.” I declined. But he insisted. So I kind of did. He informed me the house is okay, but his hips were crooked—hence his feeling of imbalance. At the time it all seemed insane, but what the hell did I know.
Amy didn’t like me. I think she might have for a week or two. Or 12 hours. But then probably thought I was a weirdo because I hated everything but big beers and watching New Girl and Battlestar Galactica in my bedroom.
Our disconnect could’ve been due to my lack of empathy and self-centeredness. I also think it’s as simple as two people who were very different and wouldn’t haven been good roommates in this life, or the next. I ended up disliking her because she didn’t like me and we had a confrontation about Jimmy Carter one night. I think that was the last time we spoke face to face.
I hated living in Indianapolis.
At work, I was eager and wanted to do well. My first day, as I walked into the building, one of my creative directors, a well-dressed and neatly groomed man named Trevor told me that my job was to make him look good. I probably chuckled lightly at that. “Okay!” (I probably said). I learned a lot from another lesser-groomed, more eccentric Creative Director named Charlie — a man who would prove to be the best, maybe the only, mentor I’ve had in my career. My third CD was Bryan. A large, jovial man. Enthusiastic, funny and hard to peg. He tried to help me a lot and I liked him. He and his partner, Mary, took me to see It’s a Wonderful Life in a theater around Christmas. He bought me a few books — one for work, the other about the movie we saw together. And he tried convincing me that Tom Waits career post-’74 was worth exploring. He was right.
In ad school, one’s art director partner was essential and I had a half dozen good ones. Having a solid partner in advertising can make or break you — career-wise and mentally. The guy I got stuck with in Indy was Peter. A gangly thirty-something who went to the University of Texas for art school but had very little discernible talent or drive. He lived in a part of Indianapolis called Rocky Ripple near Butler University and a record store I liked called, Luna. One night when I was over at his house watching a football game, I came inside from burning a cigarette and he muttered in his nasally voice that I smelled like his mom.
Peter was pretty much my only friend for three months. Then he got fired and moved to Los Angeles.
With my art director out the door, handsome Nick became my running mate. He took me to the Indy 500—an event I was at for two days and all of my memories from those 48 hours are very Sodom and Gomorrah. Rife with strange boobs, porta-potties overflowing and on fire, intense heartburn, abounding questions of morality.
Nick also gave me my only strip club experience. I don’t remember it, but I was told I took $80 out of the ATM and gave four twenties to the first four women I saw. The next morning, I woke up on Nick’s couch. Terminator 2 was on TV. Nick had a black eye.
Eventually Darren moved out and Amy’s sister Dana moved into the house. She was very kind, easy going, approachable and in most ways, the opposite of Amy.
At my six month review, Bryan and Trevor told me that I had to stop being in the office so much. Which was true. I spent all my waking hours in that building working and eating pizza. Either there, or next door at Lockerbie Pub working on writing Facebook posts whilst drinking as many cans of beer as possible.
My clients at the time were Scotts LawnService, Penn Station (a sandwich place) and Ortho Pest Control. I wrote social posts and banner ads. I’m sure you’ve seen some of the famous things I conceived in 2013:
A few months before I got let go, an intern named Sarah got hired. She was a good writer, thinker, and has had a better career than me. She’s a copy director somewhere today. I am not.
Because I’d been at Y&L a few months longer than her, I scheduled a meeting to give her some advice (because I knew everything). I remember telling Sarah she had to go to Miami Ad School to get a portfolio in order to get a job in the advertising industry. There was no other way. Trust me. I knew everything.
With hindsight as my ally, I can say that Indianapolis isn’t a terrible city, but being lonely is a terrible thing. I was brutally alone. Like a character in a Patsy Cline song.
I remember lying in bed one night desperately pleading with God to blow me up or get me out of Indiana. I don’t know if I pounded on the walls, but I may have. I was jumping up and down in my mind — frantically trying to level out my life. For a number of weeks, there were many emails sent to agencies in Minneapolis, Portland, London, New York, Detroit, Boston, Austin and everywhere else. But nobody cared.
As the calendar neared August, I was pulled aside by Bryan and his boss, Carolyn. They told me I’d have a month left but after that I’d be out. I felt like one of the bugs that’d got done dirty by an Ortho man. I was angry and sad. Because despite how I felt about my life and location I worked really hard. Too hard to get let go. But I had to. It was time. My pride and ego were too big to ever leave without having a place to go and Bryan and Carolyn may have known that. They also may have known I needed to leave as much as I did. Euthanizing me was the right thing to do.
Carolyn had a going away party for me at her house. I fixed a flat tire on Charlie’s Jeep, had a few beers and some food. Hung out with some wonderful and charming people for the last time. My dad drove to ‘Nap Town the next day and we packed up most of my things in his truck. I left my bed and a pair of floor speakers. I gave Dana a hug goodbye and we drove away. Amy wasn’t there. I was 30 years old, unemployed, broke and moving back to Minneapolis without a job. Or a car. Or a bed.
When my parents were 30 they had three kids and a mortgage!
Regardless, I was happy to be on the road heading northwest.
A few weeks later I found out Young and Laramore hired Sarah to take my place. Turns out she didn’t need to go to ad school.
Turns out I didn’t know everything when I was 29 years old.
