Awaiting Client Approval

4.18.12

Lately, we’ve had some time to reflect on our career choice: zoo keeping.

Sorry. Advertising. Meant to say advertising. Anyway. These frightening introspective glimpses behind our own sequined curtains seem to often come 1.) late into night when our bodies should be entering into their NPR sleep cycles, 2.) when there are 2+ in-laws in the room or 3.) when smooth jazz comes on Pandora.

So after Easter weekend, when we had plenty of time to reflect (cough-#2-cough-cough), we came to work on Monday chock-full of Peeps, glazed ham and paths we would have taken. Had the world of advertising not reared its toupeed head into our formerly sleep-filled lives, a few of us, when corned, confessed we’d probably be:

“Social Media/Bed-dwelling Insect Specialist for the Center for Disease Control.” “An anchor on the Today Show, known for asking hard-hitting questions of my personal sommelier.” “Animal handler for the Cirque du Soleil’s all-mole acrobatic troupe, La Vermine Fantastique.” “A teacher. HA. Got you there. Probably an old woman in the Florida Keys.” “Proud producer of XM’s Rick Astly Radio.” “Professor Emeritus at Harvard’s Gilbert Gottfried School of Linguistics.” “Hungrier.”

3.22.12

Kantorwassink sees the beauty in the madness.

3.1.12

Kantorwassink, L, directs young talent, R, on break at a recent shoot.

1.6.12

Another new year has arrived, which means yet another chance to get it right. And in typical fashion, we’re already doing it wrong. Here are a few New Year’s Resolutions that have already gone in one year and out the other.

1. Get Organized. Scout’s honor, we made an honest attempt at this one, but got lost in the stack of memoir drafts, boxer briefs and cheese sticks strewn about the office.
2. Thumbs down every Coldplay song on Pandora. OK, we must have set this resolution after a few pops, because it clearly is downright impossible. No matter the artist, no matter the genre, no matter the era, Coldplay, like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, will find a way.
3. Eat healthier. This one will be hard for some to understand, but this resolution is entirely out of our hands, and mouths. What’s that you say, naysayers? “The decision to eat healthy is up to you, and you alone?” Have you ever had caramel corn coated in succulent, Pantone 1545 C, chocolate? Have you had Art of the Table gift baskets laid before you by client angels on high for an entire moon cycle? Veuve is overrated? Please, people.
4. Get in shape. Define “in shape.”
5. Try something new. In a crowded bar, “new” sounds a lot like “nude.” Our failure to complete this one can be chalked up as simple miscommunication. We do have to admit, however, that Kantor’s garmentless hair-of-the-dog Bloody Mary’s wow’d our jeggings right off.

12.6.11

The identities have been concealed to protect the not-so-innocent.

11.15.11

As Thanksgiving nears, we’d like to take a little time to put down on e-paper the myriad of things, big and small, for which we’re thankful.

We, Kantorwassink, are thankful for G, our trusted Ukrainian cab driver, for being our chariot of fire when an occasion calls for it. We’re thankful for Wallpaper magazine. Without it, we’d actually believe we’re skinny. We’re thankful for the Winchester’s Steak Fries for ensuring the previous point is never moot. We are, of course, thankful for our clients. May they never quite resolve the deep-seeded emotional insecurities that led them to think trusting us with their brands was a good idea. The homeowners about us are thankful for garage door openers because they’re just super, super handy, and the rest of us would like them to cram it. We’re also thankful, from a safe distance, for the regulars at the neighborhood strip club, and the endless supply of entertainment they provide. We’re reluctantly thankful for sale racks on sale racks on sale racks. We’re grateful for the 52 brilliant bulbs in our WOW sign that tell Jimmy Johns, freelancers and new clients which building is ours. The parents in our gang are impossibly thankful for our children, and, more importantly, for their dreams of growing up to be lawyers, astronauts, Segway Tour Guides, traveling salesmen, carnies, or anything other than designers, creative directors, copywriters or account execs. We’re also thankful (read: indebted) for “two-identical-lightning-strikes-in-a-leap-year” stroke of unfathomable luck that paired us with kin who have unimaginable patience, babysitters for when this patience needs to be rewarded and for our pets when it all runs dry. We’re thankful for Michigan Ave., for getting us here, and Michigan, for letting us stay.

And finally, we’re impossibly, infinitely, unimaginably blessed to have the ability to do what we love for a living and live a life surrounded by those we love.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, and thanks for coming in today.