Anyone know CPR?

Inching my way back from the light.

Barely (it’s so warm and tingly, here).
And there’s a much needed vacation, soon.

But no promises.

9 commentsEmail Article Monday, June 11th, 2007 at 08:59pm Mack Simpson

Entry Filed under: Site News, Ad Jungle, Monkey Travel       |       add this post to del.icio.us

A Nut-crushing Update

Normally if I had updated information on a blog post I’d just edit the entry and be done with it. This nut-crushing update is a special case, however, because so many people have been visiting the original entry. (I’m not quite sure how it happened, but the Doritos Japan Nut-crushing Package Design became the most popular post ever here on Adverb.) So I just couldn’t let this one go with a simple edit.

Most of the traffic is being generated from my new blogging friends over at Pantherhouse’s “The New Shelton Wet/Dry” blog and it is from their efforts I’m able to tell you what the package says, give you some context and show you more examples.

The New Shelton folks are good.

It appears my detecting a “slight, joyful smirk” on the crush-ee’s face was no hallucination (I have been known to hallucinate, just not about this). The Japanese characters on the far right of the package read, “denki anma,” or “revived by an electric nut-grind!” A phrase, it turns out, that comes from the crazy world of Japanese porn.

The chips themselves are black corn, chili-taco flavored and are part of a line called “Tights-kun Doritos,” or “Buddy-boy in tights Doritos.” Mr. Buddy-boy in Tights is a popular (adult) cartoon character in Japan and having a rotating stable of illustrations appearing on Doritos packages has caused people to begin to collect them. You can see a few of the packages in the image at the end of this entry.

That’s perhaps more than you ever wanted to know about “Revived By Mr. Buddy-boy in Tights’ Porn-derived Electric Nut Grind, Chili-Taco-flavored, Black Corn Doritos (from Japan)™,” but I’m sure you think it was worth it. (And thanks again to the nice folks over at “The New Shelton Wet/Dry Blog.”)

You guys make Fark’s outflow traffic look amateurish.

12 commentsEmail Article Tuesday, November 28th, 2006 at 10:39am Mack Simpson

Entry Filed under: Site News, Ad Jungle, Blogroll       |       add this post to del.icio.us

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Japan, Doritos, Frito-Lay

Carson’s Crib

Ok. So Adverb is an ad blog. It’s here that I talk about, um, ads and ad people and all the other things you’d expect to find in an ad blog. Oh. Almost forgot.

I talk about monkeys, too. You can’t go wrong with monkeys.

But now I have a new daughter and I can already tell it will be difficult to keep Adverb from becoming a babyblog.

I must… resist… the temptation.

Fortunately, the Wee Monkey is a genius and, after I discussed my concerns about Adverb with her, she leapt at the chance to design and run her own blog.

So problem solved; she’ll have her space, I’ll have mine. Even better, a friend of ours has registered “weemonkey.com” and my little girl will eventually be able to mirror her site there.

Until then, you can keep up with the comings and goings (and the poo-ings) of the Wee Monkey over at her new blog, “Carson’s Crib,” located at carson.macksimpson.com (you can also find an icon at the bottom of Adverb’s right-hand sidebar that points to her blog).

2 commentsEmail Article Sunday, November 12th, 2006 at 05:52pm Mack Simpson

Entry Filed under: Site News, Ad Monkeys, No Really, A Life       |       add this post to del.icio.us

Technorati Tags: Wee Monkey, Baby Blog, Girl, Genius

SNAFU-fixing time

You might have noticed a lack of posts recently. Yeah, that would be my fault.

I’m in the process of creating a blog for the Wee Monkey and, on my first attempt at it back on October 30, I fouled things up really, really well (I’m blaming it on a lack of sleep).

In fact, things were so fouled up, I couldn’t gain access to the admin functions here, so no posting, no approval of comments and no new photos.

Thanks to the miracle workers at my IPP, DrakNet, we’re back up and good to go.

Sorry about that. I’ll try to do better next time.

2 commentsEmail Article Saturday, November 11th, 2006 at 08:42pm Mack Simpson

Entry Filed under: Site News       |       add this post to del.icio.us

Dark Days One: Welcome Juan Camilo

This is Part One of a short series of posts I hope to make that will fill those of you who are interested (read: the flack at Omnicom who’s assigned to read my blog, making sure I don’t spill the beans on anything of any real import) in on what’s been happening in monkeyville for the last month. I’ll try to work through it all as sequentially as possible. I’ve fried a few brain cells in the last month; it might be difficult.

Production calendars are a staple of the ad jungle; they tell us what’s coming up, what’s going on and where we need to be– hopefully months in advance. And, as a Creative Director who’s been pigeonholed as a broadcast guy, production calendars are my friend as the process tends to be long, involved, time intensive and massively expensive. I want to know what needs to be done and by when, as I need to throw bodies into the breach as needed, making sure our agency-side magic is pulled off as seamlessly as possible. Any little hiccup in the process can create an avalanche of shit downstream.

So, when the Labor Day Holidays passed and one of the writers on one of my teams, Chava, failed to return from holiday without warning– and as my many production calendars began to coalesce into a giant blob of ink centering on the following few weeks– I was left scrambling to find a replacement.

So, welcome Juan Camilo Moore. I hired Juan Camilo (or J.C. to me– as opposed to J.D., a Writer/ACD on another of my teams) direct from University, grabbing him even before he’d completed his Senior year. I felt bad about keeping him from earning his degree for about fifteen seconds because, one second later, we formulated a plan whereby he’ll spend a few half-days doing coursework to finish out the semester and will transfer his credits to a Uni closer to the office thereafter. So congratulations S.M.U., you’ve just gained a future graduate who’s destined for great things.

J.C. comes to the team with tremendous potential, boundless energy and the benefit of having worked within my group for the past two summers as an intern.

The only downside is both of my groups are broadcast production heavy– and we’re in the middle of the heaviest part of our schedule– and, as a Junior, he’ll need to do some serious, sink or swim, on the job training.

Fortunately, he’s partnered with Jose (who’s recently celebrated a milestone birthday), in whom I place a tremendous amount of faith– not only in his innate ability as a creative but also in his expanding depths as a manager (and mentor)– having worked with him previously when we were assigned to the PepsiCo business.

So that’s the bedrock of the “Dark Days” story; everything else (over)flows from there. Stay tuned. Good times.

To lighten things up a bit, I’ve added a new track to “Music for Monkeys” (right sidebar) sitting at #58: Röyksopp’s “Remind Me.” The track is from 2001 but has gained recent acclaim as the backing track to a Geico “Caveman” spot here in the US. If you like it, say so– I’ve got several hours worth of their music in my iTunes and can add more.

9 commentsEmail Article Saturday, October 21st, 2006 at 01:42pm Mack Simpson

Entry Filed under: Site News, Ad Monkeys, Ad Jungle, Ad Nauseam       |       add this post to del.icio.us

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Management

Train?

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Four weeks of 5:00 A.M. alarm clocks and more than a few Midnight drives home are beginning to give way to a still-hectic-but-manageable schedule that should persist through, oh, February. Believe me, though, it’s an improvement.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I’ll try to tell as much of the story as I can but a lot of it will have to be left on the cutting room floor.

For now, let’s see if we can get the monkey ball rolling again.

3 commentsEmail Article Friday, October 20th, 2006 at 07:08pm Mack Simpson

Entry Filed under: Site News, Ad Jungle, Ad Nauseam       |       add this post to del.icio.us

Music for Monkeys hits 75

I’ve added a new track to the Music for Monkey’s playlist: “The Mariner’s Revenge Song” by The Decemberists. I hope you enjoy it.

It’s sitting at track #70 and brings the total number of tracks available for your listening pleasure to seventy-five, and I think that’s as large as Music for Monkeys will grow. From this point on, if I add a new track, something else will have to go.

So look over in the right sidebar, scroll down to track #70 and have a listen. “The Mariner’s Revenge Song” is a lovely little ditty– actually, it’s more of a short story set to music– about a conversation between two sailors, had while they sit, trapped, in the belly of a whale.

6 commentsEmail Article Tuesday, September 26th, 2006 at 08:21pm Mack Simpson

Entry Filed under: Site News, Audio       |       add this post to del.icio.us

Email Notification Sign Up Fixed

And I didn’t even know it was broken. Those already signed up were receiving email notifications just fine; anyone new who tried to sign up encountered errors. It’s all fixed now.

If you’d like to receive an email notifying you of new entries here on Adverb, just enter your email address into the field in the upper right area of the sidebar and click the “sign up” button. All good stuff, no spam, and you’ll be among the cool kids on the block who are in the know ahead of the hoi polloi.

2 commentsEmail Article Monday, September 18th, 2006 at 07:40pm Mack Simpson

Entry Filed under: Site News       |       add this post to del.icio.us

Good Mischief, Indeed

God bless the Delta Blues and all who dig into its Muddy (Waters) red clay for rock inspiration. (Warning: music geek conversation follows.)

My birthday surprise was a nice dinner and tickets to last night’s relatively intimate Dallas-venue performance by The Raconteurs.

It was an awesome show. Jack White might be this super-group’s entrée to fast-track stardom, but he hardly fronts the band– at least in the traditional sense of the word. He’s there, he plays (and plays very, very well) and sings, but he does so with a classic (and classically undervalued) Jimmy Page sensibility.

Instead, he shares lead guitar/vocal duties with Brendan Benson, freeing him up to concentrate on improvisational guitar genius. I swear, at times it seemed as if White was looking down at his guitar as if to ask what it wanted to play, and it never steered him wrong. He, along with the rest of this “power cinco,” delivered a virtuoso performance.

I have to admit to a large lack of knowledge about the group before we arrived at the show; I knew the Jack White factor and little else. Because of my recent workload, I haven’t even had the chance to watch the MTV Video Music Awards show, on which they were, essentially, the house band.

We arrived just before they went on, having missed the opening act and, once they began, I looked over at the she monkey and said “they sound like the ‘birds,” and they do– in an “influenced-by-but-take-into-new-space” sense of the phrase. (If you don’t know the Yardbirds, shame on you but it’s unimportant for enjoying The Raconteurs’ sound.)

Their sound was slightly post-punk tinged, blues-rock from start to finish. Unfortunately, with few exceptions the Dallas Über-hipster crowd couldn’t fully fall in to it heart and soul. Our seats– excellent ones, especially for the pregnant she monkey who needed a cushy spot to sit– were four rows up from the floor. Having grown up with punk (and wearing a Dead Kennedys’ “Too Drunk to Fuck” T-shirt), I desperately wanted to see someone, anyone, mosh. Finally, during the encore, a small area of the pit began to writhe but, before I could look over at the she monkey and tell her I wanted to drop in and join the fray, it was broken up and dispersed.

It’s probably for the best; at my age I would have likely broken something.

The almost total lack of crowd participation didn’t matter. These guys have more than enough talent to put on a great show without needing to feed off the energy of others. This is a live band, not a group of Ashlee Simpson/American Idol overdub, magic box studio fakers. I’ve spent the morning listening to their CD (which came with the tickets) and, as great as it is, I have to say the live show, which was full of wall-of-sound fuzz distortion improvisation, was even better.

I’ve placed one of the tracks off their debut album into the Music for Monkeys playlist over in the right sidebar (track #7). For sure, buy the CD; but if they come within a hundred miles of where you live, go see them live.

I hate to admit it but thanks to Michel, Tamara and my wife, it was a terrific way to spend a birthday.

3 commentsEmail Article Saturday, September 16th, 2006 at 02:10pm Mack Simpson

Entry Filed under: Site News, Ad Monkeys, No Really, A Life, Audio       |       add this post to del.icio.us

Technorati Tags: Dallas, The Raconteurs

Music for Monkeys: New Track

I’ve added a new track to the Music for Monkeys playlist, sitting at #6.

It’s not new. In fact, it’s old. But it’s new to the playlist.

I’ve got the feeling we’re approaching our next, newest National Holiday. Rejoice. Yay.
Is it just me or is anyone else feeling melancholic? Must be me.

Bah.

RespondEmail Article Friday, September 8th, 2006 at 11:01pm Mack Simpson

Entry Filed under: Site News, No Really, A Life       |       add this post to del.icio.us