RUDIMENTS, pt. 507
(franklin and marshall)
I designed a billboard
once, for free, at St. George
Press. Some ad. rep. guy
named Alan Pollack - an
otherwise real pain in the
butt - had an account, one
of his clients in Garwood
or Fanwood, Westfield or
Cranford - I never knew
what town it was, along
South Ave. - for whom
we had to come up with a
billboard graphic. The
name of the company was
Loiseaux-Brewer. No one
ever knew what the heck
they were, a French brewery?
(No one knew how to pronounce
it either - another handicap -
it was Lou-Ah-Zo- Brewer).
They were actually a fuel-oil
company, for home delivery
of heating oil. Big whoop,
right? The idea was to get
the identity across, quickly
and on-site, with the
billboard; what they were,
what they did. So I came
up with this mathematics
equation-look thing. A
picture of a sick-looking
scarf-wearing house, over
(like an equation), the line,
with Louiseax Brewer's logo
beneath it, then + (the image
of a telephone), and then the
equal sign (=) with that same
house now with sunglasses
and a big smile. It worked,
and I saw it on about 12
billboards, locally, for some
3 months. One, by itself,
somehow stayed in place
for over a year, and was
finally done in by peeling
paper and weather. Billboards?
What a dumb industry.
-
After that, of course, I
was always thinking of
cool things for billboards
- the kind of pranks and
humor I'd enjoy. I wanted
to do one (usually you were
unable to buy ONE billboard,
they were sold in months-at-a
time contracts, usually in
placements of 4 locations).
I wanted, for instance, a
billboard, split in two image
halves, my thinking being
the usual, hairy and bearded
image of Jesus on the left,
with the letter caption, 'Jesus
Saves,' and then, on the right,
a handsome and bare-faced
Jesus, with the caption 'Jesus
Shaves!' I figured Gillette
would be an easy sell. And
of course it went on from
there: A hamburger version,
'Jesus Craves!' An easy sell
for Burger King or maybe
Taco Bell (instead of that
dumb chihuahua they had).
You can take it from there.
-
So, anyway, this Ed Loiseaux
guy thought my idea was cool.
Alan Pollack, he took all the
credit, but I didn't care. He
had started out working
accounts for the old Bamberger's
chain of stores, out of Newark,
and then he branched off into
advertising and brokering
ads and deals and printing too.
He lived at the Metuchen end
of Park Avenue. Nice family,
and his son went to Franklin
& Marshall, for college. I used
to go to their house to go over
account stuff and proofs and
all. One thing I noticed, from
it, and in other locations too
once I began noticing it, with
others of that ilk : Pollack
had a very Jewish household;
crass and money-grubbing,
but that's normal, chosen folk
and all. No matter when I
arrived - and as I said, in
other locations of Jewish folk
too - they would make me
wait. I realized it was some
sort of tactic - business or
not - to establish control
or a sort of situational
predominance. It really
bugged me, but they'd
never come out on time,
no matter. Something about
humiliating the visitor, or
something. So, before the
whole relationship fizzled
because he became so
annoying anyway, I just
stopped ever showing up
on time. Sort of like their
Messiah, I figured. Let
them wait; they were
apparently used to it.
-
After my time with him,
Pollack's big account
became Ray Catena, the
car guy. Besides the big,
new dealerships, in NJ,
of fancy cars and glamorous
advertising, both print and
broadcast, he used to tell me
how they would travel in a
private plane, over Pennsylvania,
searching out, from the air,
new places, plots, woods, lots,
to buy, for future uses for car
dealerships. Damn it all, if
that didn't used to tick me
off. Alan Pollack's big, pet
idea too, was rhinos. Yes,
as in rhinoceros. His office,
when it was inn Metuchen,
and his previous one in Edison,
(he moved the office a lot)
had a big rhinoceros statue,
about 4 feet high. It was
made out of some sort of
metal or an amalgam of
something. Anyway,
supposedly, and iconically,
it was meant to represent
his armored toughness within
the business world all that
hardball decision-making
stuff. A big bunch of crap.
-
I did all that business stuff
for a long time - 80's and
a few years of the 90's, and
a few of the 70's too, and,
really, it was all despicable
and not worth a minute of
my time. How people live
like that is always beyond
me. Real estate, right off
the bat, and the slimeball
agents that go with it -
they treat the land and
the rest of the world as
if it was their toilet paper
just so they can make their
12 useless cents on it and then
leave a permanent brown-stain
on everyone else who had to
live with their crappy debris.
That's what they teach you
in the big house too, I'm told.
Never bend over to pick
up the soap. It might even
be someone you know
who's jamming you.
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