Experimenting Again

I understand that my posts might be getting a little dull…all of that walks in the wood stuff.  But it is what it is and…alas…yes, I did go for more walks today and I’ll briefly share some of the day’s adventures and photos with you here and use this post to experiment with some new features I have found in the WordPress settings.

I also discovered dozens — maybe 100s! — of other templates for my blog.  I thought I had to pay for that kind of stuff, but a lot of it is free.  So, what do you think, a snappier template?  More colorful, perhaps?  Let me know what you think.  Perhaps I should create a poll.  (One of those features I found today.)  

So far I have composed most of my posts in MS Word then uploaded them to WordPress.  I think I can do more formatting here.  Let’s find out.  Be patient if I play a little.  All right, let’s get at it…  

Today’s sales activity represents what one normally expects to experience while out working a sales beat.  I met the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Let’s start with the ugly.  

I have a rule that has worked for me fairly well, but has been on hold for practical reasons.  (I need sales.  Practical enough.)  However it might be time to enforce the rule again.  I call the rule The 70 Rule and it is very simple.  If a person is older than 70 or has an IQ below 70, I steer clear.  Surprisingly a lot of business owners fall into one of these categories and it can make finding new leads a challenge…  

Image via Wikipedia

 

All right!  Ok…I don’t mean to make insensitive remarks about people with handicaps or a few extra years behind them, but in my work it simply is what it is.  The older folks I often find charming…they just don’t seem to buy.  I have had some interesting meetings with older business owners though.  I have toured a garage of antique farm equipment, found a private clock and electronics museum, and picked up a hell of a lot of gossip about the younger set in town while trying to make a business connection with a more experienced business owner.  I really can’t say I regret the tours and the talks, they simply eat up a lot of time and I don’t get paid for admiring a wall of cuckoo clocks.  

The people who really drive me nuts are those in the 70 and below club.  I have mentioned this in a previous post, not to insult your client by pointing out simple logical inconsistencies, however a lot of these people would not understand the inconsistency matter how carefully you try to explain it.  Just as important is avoiding snarkiness.  You don’t want to play down at the level of your competition.  

 Often these calls work like this.  You show up for an appointment and find yourself talking to the back of the head of the person you’re supposed to meet.  That is a strong indicator of a serious social deficiency, if not worse.  The next indication that you might want to cut your sales call short is confronting the know-it-all.  This is what the intellectually challenged do when confronted by someone smarter than they are…which is going to be just about everyone.  Finally, there is the anger response.  Everything is more important than your meeting and they don’t just say so, the swear and slam things around to make the point clear.  

I met one of these knuckle-draggers today.  One of the worst.  On the quiet streets of Shafer, MN, this inconsiderate clod scolded, insulted, and dismissed me.  This is a business owner who has worked with me for more than a year and I have delivered great results for his puny little business.  Even if I had not generated great results for him and did a horrible job, there is no excuse for this shit.  You either have a tough skin or you change careers.  I’m coming close to changing careers.   

So guess what I did after that?  Yes, went for a little stroll.  Yesterday it was butterflies, today it was dragonflies.  They were everywhere in the fields .  I recall a summer many years ago when there were more…the neighborhood was out together to share in the experience…and this was not quite as impressive, but there were as many dragonflies as I have seen in a long time.  

Dragonfly Field -- Shafer, MN

 

(All right.  I am a little frustrated because the picture placement feature doesn’t work quite the way it does on the video I watched.  Shouldn’t I be able to drag stuff around the screen and drop it where I want it?  This post will likely hit the recycle bin.  But let’s keep moving.)  

I also went to a beautiful little park in Lindstrom, MN, where I wrote a little and enjoyed the lake.  While it certainly is true that I am growing impatient with my current line of work, it does give me opportunities to take in some fresh air and enjoy the outdoors.  I might look a little absurd walking the shoreline in a suit and wingtips, but Richard Nixon got away with it.   

Now if I could format this ge the way I want to, I would have the dragonfly photo up a paragraph and the lake picture where the Dragonfly Field picture is now.  But I am driving myself nuts trying to figure it out.  I’ll just keep going…  

Lakeside Park -- Lindstrom, MN

 

Near this park is a house a I really like.  I like the look of it.  Older place on a well-wooded hill above the lake.  A classic old house on a beautiful lake lot.  My ideal place.  Many beautiful old homes still grace the streets of Lindstrom and Chisago City.  Not quiet a New England village — still too Midwestern for that — but certainly pleasant and very much a place for anyone with any nostalgia for mid-20th century America.  

A House in Lindstrom, MN. I like it.

 

Hell…I’m getting bored. I will revisit this entry later.  I need to see how to set fonts here, but I haven’t the time or the patience to do that now.  I have some things to learn!  

Summer’s Penultimate Sunday

No drudgery to dwell upon today. Just an easy Sunday even with plans changing almost by the minute. I finally gave up on plans and took myself for a walk. Here’s what I found…

I brought along my phone to test the camera a bit more and see what I think of a web service called Photobucket. The idea behind Photobucket sounds like a great one, but I am concerned about privacy. I sent what I thought was one photo to a Facebook page and it turns out all the pictures I had taken with my phone were searchable through the link Photobucket created! That’s a problem. I am an exciting guy and exciting things might get caught on camera that I might not want the world to see. If I want pictures of myself boozing with the beautiful people, I’ll post them myself, thank you very much.

So anyway…U No Hu will be getting impatient with me if I don’t stop complaining about Photobucket and get on to something other than my exciting life. So let’s dive right in…to butterfly watching.

But first I must digress one more time. The photos taken here are from my phone’s camera and for what it is it is a pretty decent little camera, but I really do need a better digital camera for walks like this. I have a Canon PowerShot that I like, but I want to get a new one. I am waiting for someone to come out with one loaded with GPS and wireless technology…stuff like that.

So come along now as we track butterflies…

The woods were full of Monarch Butterflies today. Quite beautiful, really. At times there were as many as a dozen flitting about the trail with me. They seemed to be much more vivid orange and black than I recall, too, a moist deep color. Very nice.

I was on a little trail between Lake Harriet and Lakewood Cemetery. There is a little wooded trail there that is called the Bosset Bird Sanctuary. My photos should be geo-tagged so you can find the place on a map. It is right in the middle of the city and I have seen deer tracks in the mud there. No deer today. Just the butterflies.

You can’t see the butterflies in this picture. There are no butterflies in this picture. I just like taking pictures of trails. The wind blew in strong gusts all day today and this was one of the few places where there wasn’t much wind. The wind still tugged at the treetops, however, and it reminded me of a night near Halloween several years back when I started a walk in those woods in the late moments of dusk. That was a windy night, too, and as I walked farther into the woods the night got darker and the wind kept blowing. The cemetery – really should be called a graveyard to fit the story better – the graveyard was on my left and what light remained reflected off the tombstones. I let my imagination get the best of me, which was fun, and it got a little creepy back there in the dark wind. But I think I’ll do it again this fall, especially if we have a windy night near Halloween again.

And back to the butterflies…

This is the best picture of a Monarch I was able to get. Unfortunately the little critters are not all that cooperative and my phone camera has a slight delay that makes quick shots a challenge. And as I mentioned earlier, I really should have a better camera…a real camera…if I want to impress my readers with my photography. Nonetheless, here you go…

This frustrating butterfly would spread its wings precisely when my camera was not ready for it. By far this was the most beautiful one I had a chance to photograph. I followed it around the woods for nearly 10 minutes hoping for a better shot, but the opportunity never occurred.

I took a stab at poking butterflies to coax them into opening their wings. That didn’t work. Curiosity got to me and I wondered what I might look like from a butterfly’s perspective and so I took this photograph. (There is a butterfly near the camera lenses for the purpose of documentary integrity.)

Of course the butterfly would see dozens of images of me, right? They have those bug eyes because…because butterflies are a bugs, right? Well, I did a quick search for a filter that would convert my photo into a bug-eye mosaic – and actually found something – but that is a little more than I have time for right now so we’ll leave it at this. You get the idea.

(Note the classic LL Bean shirt in this picture. I believe I purchased that 20 years ago. When I was still yet a babe. Wears like iron. Yes, I do wash it.)

How about a picture of the Ice Cream Girl? When I left the little bird sanctuary I saw this girl and ice cream cart and suddenly the world seemed to be in order. I damn near cried. So I slinked around a bit to get a photo. The ice cream girl was beautiful, too, but I won’t write about that because U No Hu wants to hear less of my leering. I’m not sure why innocence and beauty cannot be compatible, but perhaps I am naïve. Isn’t this a nice picture? Much better in real time, but I do what I can to bring the best to you.

No. I didn’t buy any ice cream.

Then across the street to the Rose Gardens…

I am aspiring to a country house with large gardens, fields, some woods, and…

Wouldn’t a lake be nice? Lakes are nice, but so are rivers. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll get some pictures of my favorite, the St. Croix River. That’s where I would like to be. Until then…keep selling!

Friday Night and a Contest

No sales today, but I actually got some “sales positive” tasks accomplished, things like getting payments from clients and correcting production errors. I also burned the phone lines with a torrent of slick sales calls. And I lost an account to a colleague who claims to have closed a sale a couple days ahead of me. I have my doubts about this and while I’m sure U No Hoo would love to hear the story, I’m going to save it for now. I’ll write more about sales in a moment.

First I want to cover a trend that annoys me a bit. It causes me to question my authority even with my own personal life and experiences. I am beginning to feel flimsy if not invisible. In recent weeks it seems that Arizona keeps coming up in conversations…work, friends, at the bar…maybe it’s the heat we’re having. I have started to initiate conversations about Arizona just to see what happens because usually what happens is someone corrects me about something I say about Arizona. Why is this annoying? I lived there for ten years…almost exactly 10 years to the day.

Usually weather stories get corrected. I explain the monsoon or the mountain snows or dust storms…something like that…and I’m told something like “Oh, no, that’s not right. Phoenix only gets a thunderstorm once every five years or so.” Or maybe “It doesn’t snow in Sedona.” Jerome a little old mining town on the north side of Mingus Mountain? Nope, it is over by Flagstaff. The Cardinals played football at Sun Devil Stadium? Impossible. It was the University of Arizona stadium in Phoenix.

I explain to people that I lived in Arizona, attended ASU, and actually watched a football game or two and then I get a reluctant shrug and a “well, ok…”

But I rarely win weather arguments. Minnesotans are damn stubborn about weather authority. “No, no…it is more humid in June than August in Phoenix.”

The best comparison I have from my experience is New Orleans. I have been there five times in my life and a three of those visits lasted for more than a week. I can get around my limited scope of New Orleans fairly well, but I would never correct a native or even someone who had lived there for a year or two on the correct pronunciation of beignet or suggest that it doesn’t rain in July simply because I met someone who mispronounced beignet on my rainless July New Orleans vacation.

(Of course I still have friends in New Orleans who do not recall me leg wrestling a particular friend’s fiancé on the dirt floor of some old bar. Ok, maybe I am mis-remembering the dirt floor, but I’m sure I was leg wrestling unless I was maybe having a seizure of some sort. Strange things have happened to me there. I have seen a ghost at Jean Lafitte’s. No big deal. Just a fluttering thing.)

I am straying here…So let me get back on track.  I am getting a little frustrated with being corrected on my knowledge of what was my home state for ten precious years. Tomorrow when I am whoring around some bar I will make a point to draw an erroneous comparison between our weather in Minnesota with the weather in Arizona and report on what happens.

Until then, how about a picture. This is what I look like when I am sitting on a park bench in Chisago City. (Nice jacket, by the way.)

I am awfully damn bored. I might have to blackmail a date tomorrow. I’ll report back on that, too.

So here is my contest! And it is worth getting excited about…

I need followers. So if you find followers for me I will let you direct a theme for a post.  Or maybe a story…or a play!  (One act, please.)  How exciting is that?

I plan to add a new blog, too…maybe something more political and wonkish…but that might take place on Open Salon at www.salon.com. I have an account there, but most of my posts should be withdrawn to protect my dignity.

So far I have been writing to only two people: Myself and U No Hoo. That has to change. I drive both of us nuts.

Just Some Random Notes

Your Little Tour in Yellow guide is feeling uninspired. Perhaps summer has dragged on for too long. Feeling wilted.

This wonderful little spot is on Lake Netta in Ham Lake, Minnesota. I’m told it once was a grocery and a garage/general store. The house on the left belonged to the owner. All second hand information from a neighbor down the street. I’ve never met anyone who has owned the place. The interesting thing about this property is the location. It is on a side road not near anything I can see that was ever developed or had much traffic. Even today it is essentially in the middle of nowhere. A short distance to the north a major road crosses from west to east and I’m sure most people have no idea this sits abandoned on a lake road.

I wish I had framed this shot better though…I cut off part of the old house. Lake Netta is right behind the property. It is a beautiful lake, mostly untouched by development and most of the shoreline has natural vegetation of reeds and grass. Once there were thousands of little lakes like this in Minnesota, but many were drained or ruined by development. I like the place.

It is a good idea to have places like this to go to when sales suck. Of course everyone might not find peace in an abandoned garage and grocery, but that doesn’t matter. You just need to have your peace and find whatever it is that brings it to you. Unless it is a bar. I believe that is frowned upon in most professional circles these days. But you never know…

Hey…you know that place in the middle looks like it might make a nice little bar and restaurant. There are neighbors, however, and they might not be all that big about an idea to open a bar and restaurant on their street.  What else could a person do with those buildings other than grab a lawn chair and enjoy them?

Shoot! Battery almost dead! Need to post…

Bonus Entry

I feel like I should get this off my chest just in case I die in my sleep:

I HATE SUMMER!

To be more accurate, I should say I hate summer weather. I hate it, hate it, hate it…Of course I would go crazy mad if I didn’t have summer storms to enjoy and I don’t mind some quality time on a lake or river or at a beach, but for the most part I hate summer.
In Minnesota it is regarded as bad form to hate summer. We’re supposed to like the season because we’re supposed to dislike winter. That kind of thinking is unsubstantiated by any rational premise and flat-out ass-backwards besides. Winter isn’t nearly as swell as fall, but it is a hell of a lot better than summer. No bugs is the obvious advantage, but think of how nice it is to breathe fresh winter air and think about how soothing those long dark winter nights can be. Don’t forget the food…does anything better exist than a cozy rich meal served with a hearty wine? I don’t think so. Fashion in the winter…well, ok. For guys not so bad, but I have to admit that I might give summer the edge for the ladies’ fashions.

But why not settle on fall? October! God, is there a more beautiful season than a northern autumn? Realistically it is all that you want in summer but better. You can still enjoy boating, swimming, and outdoor sports and activities generally…and you can enjoy it without the fear of overheating and sweating up a stink. And autumn is the time to sleep with all windows wide open (although I’ll confess that I frequently open a bedroom winter throughout the year). October is where it is at. The best time of the year…better than this obnoxious horrible summer shit we suffer through.

I accomplished little to nothing tonight because I was in such a sour mood about the weather, but now…now I feel better. Now I can go to bed with my mind at ease. My conscience is clear. I’ll accomplish more tomorrow. 75 and sunny with a steady northwest wind and no humidity. Perfect.

Glad Handing…

A sale today. It doesn’t deserve much more mention than that. A teeny tiny little itsy bitsy sale today. I feel good nonetheless. The guy that bought the program probably couldn’t pay for more and even this little bit will help…at least it cannot hurt. And I made a buck or two. (Literally…damn near.)

The real joy is keeping the pencil-pushing management team at bay. A new sale, even the tiniest of small sales, gets them all worked up and satisfied. Never mind that one of our biggest clients might be about to go belly up and a person could make a case for investing time to save that account, the new sales rule supreme and I do understand that to a point. Plus it is fun…yes, fun…to add an account to our book of business. It’s kind of like finding a choice of meat still clinging to a turkey carcass just a moment before the old bird was going to be tossed. It feels good to add to the company stock.

And the day got better. People were in a pleasant mood, more or less, and other than the horrible heat it was not such a bad day to be out and about. I pulled up along one of my favorite lakes to make a few calls. That was a highlight of the day. I made calls, checked my oil, cleared out some clutter from the back seat, and took a short walk down to the boat landing to watch guys luckier than me haul in a large pontoon boat.

(I need to remember pictures! Pictures! More pictures!)

Then I got “lost”. Lost in quotes because I should have known better. I was 99% certain I was going to end up on some torn up gravel roads in the middle of nowhere, but I took that route anyway just in case I was wrong and the route was right. That was all fine until I really did hit gravel, the car got dusty, and I got sick of the rumblely washboard ride. I did hit pavement again, but only after wasting a good 30 minutes and who knows how much gas. But even that was ok. It kicked me into high gear. I went and did a little extra door-knocking. And, once again, people were rather pleasant. I even made an appointment or two. I don’t expect much from the appointments. Teeny tiny sales maybe. But hey, those add up…slowly…like ice on a glacier, but once you get that glacier going it is one big old thing.

Glaciers take tens of thousands of years to develop and grow.

I don’t have tens of thousands of years.

Can’t think of retirement though. Got to keep on pushing on. Be the best sales guy in the business. (Came close…kind of…at one point in my career.) Just keep pushing on. Wake up tomorrow, look in the mirror, and call myself Mr. President’s Club.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

This is Better

Bars have always been a refuge for the down and out so why should I deprive myself of a safe harbor?

Last night…early evening or late afternoon, actually…I retreated to the bar and quickly the accumulated bad mood melted away. (Red wine.) People started flowing into the bar as if a gentle current were carrying them there…and one by one, sometimes in twos and threes, they pooled up in little clusters of the carefree. And me there all alone to enjoy it was just what I needed.

Then a rather happy girl sat next to me. Perky as a kid. Obviously…or so it seemed…she was meeting someone, probably a group of someones, and she had her extra happy face on for the occasion. She ordered a drink. Jameson Irish Whiskey. And we both sat there watching, smiling, nodding that hum-dee-dum nod people do when they are nodding alone at the bar, and drank our drinks. Finally I got around to saying hi…

I’ll fast forward and maybe fill in middle ground details later, but for now just some details needed to jump ahead.

First, she was not meeting a group or a friend or anyone. She had just stopped in for a drink or two. Second, she really is one of the crazy people who are big smile happy for no apparent reason. She tolerated me quite well.

I commented about smells in my apartment. Always a good thing to bring up with a woman you just met. (Some of us are single for a reason…in fact most of us are.) But I explained that I thought perhaps my place was haunted and the smells were the haunting. Of course I don’t really take that thought too seriously, but my new friend…she was all over it!

“Why yes!” she said. “Of course your place might be haunted!”

I explained that the odors were not of anything you would expect like rotting meat or pits of sulfur and she just took it all very seriously, leaning forward nodding intently to push me along.

“It smells like boiling pasta and sometimes like an old man’s sofa.”

That didn’t throw her off one bit. She seemed to understand and took it all in stride and quickly rattled off advice, references for ghost chasers and recommended paranormal workshops. Apparently she thought she had found a kindred spirit. She went on and on and on. I started regretting the random thought that led us to this topic.

Then, out of the blue, she commented on her breasts. A nice wholesome looking girl and it occurred to her that she might like to point out her breasts. She did, in fact, have very nice breasts; not sideshow freakishly large breasts, but plain and simple nice breasts. I hadn’t really noticed, but now all I could do was glance at the firm things and agree. It seemed that she had just realized her breasts were rather attractive and wanted to talk about it. We agreed to agree about the boobs and that was about it.

One more quick drink and a promise to look for each other again at the bar sometime soon and the night ended with a friendly handshake. That was just good enough. No need to get to know her better and ruin a good thing. Things have been tough enough as is. This was a wonderful little break from an otherwise dismal week. I’ll just keep my eyes open for her the next time I am at that bar.

What I am thinking about…

No…I’m not thinking about why They hate me, although I probably would if I started thinking about my sales career again. I’m too exhausted to think about work. Not much to think about there anyway.

So I caught myself wondering about what would happen if my dead cat really did show up at the foot of my bed one night. Or if I opened the door and met a dead relative there to greet me. But let’s think about the cat. Less creepy. More normal. Klick Klack Kitty Cat makes frequent appearances in dreams and I simply shrug off the supernatural aspects of her showing up to do whatever it is she is doing. It is rather simple, really: “Oh, Kitty Cat. What are you doing here?”

So I am guessing if I am going over to the other side quietly in my sleep, Klick Klack Kitty Cat won’t be there to greet me. At least not first. I can’t believe Kitty Cat would ignore me entirely however. I mean…I wasn’t that bad of a guy to live with. And I did try — with mixed results — to save her life a few times.  (Cats have nine of them, you know.)  I’m sure Kitty Cat will be fine when I show up.  There’s plenty of room in paradise.

I expect it could be one of those relatives at the front door scenarios that will let me know I have slipped quietly over to the other side. There’s good reason to think that. First of all, what decent self-respecting dead relative would waste time just showing up for a gag? None of mine, unless a prankster exists in a generation unknown to me. Plus…and here is the real test…when these dead relatives do show up in dreams, eventually I freak out! “Whoa! What are you doing here?!” Generally I’m slow to catch on and my eyes open to spectral spookiness about half way through dinner or whatever it is that we are doing.

I’m not buying the visit from a dead relative theory much, however. (I already mentioned that they are decent and self-respecting kind of folk.) I have my money on a long-forgotten friend or neighbor from years long ago. Mr. Pepper, maybe.

So anyway…it is something to think about when skipping from one storefront to the next. I just hope I don’t find out too soon.

(Golly…What if it is a Space Odyssey kind of experience. Do I invite myself to sit down for dinner?)

Today is the Day!

Got up this morning and I said to the cat, “Today we’re going to be the best advertising salesman ever!”

Because my cat has gone over to the other side and is now chasing birds in paradise, I am not quite sure what her response was, but I expect it was a positive one. I can feel Klick Klack Kitty Cat on my side! And with that I cannot fail.

Unfortunately my Outlook calendar looks a little sparse this morning. So about an hour ago I thought I would muscle up my day with a good hearty breakfast. Thick cut black pepper bacon and pancakes topped with real maple syrup. (Don’t eat the artificially flavored stuff…that can’t be good for you.)

Now everything smells like bacon and I feel a bit overfed. We lacked orange juice over here at Sales Control, too, so I am not feeling entirely refreshed. Plenty of calories to burn, however. It’s a shame this is not all happening deep in the winter.

So as a part of resolution to be the Best Advertising Salesman Ever I will include better attention given to my Little Tour In Yellow. I’ll include more photos, too. Perhaps I can get a snap or two of some of the knuckle-draggers I deal with on a daily basis…no, can’t do that. I am keeping everything about my clients unidentified.

I might try to get a picture of the adorable Corn Girls selling fresh sweet corn just outside of Scandia. They might think it is creepy – when isn’t it a little creepy for an older guy dressed in a suit to stop and take a picture of nubile farm girls? – but it would make a good neutral picture. No clients. Neutral.

All right…how do I neutralize this bacon smell?

Where Have I Been…?

I have been rethinking it all. Not so much “Where have I been?” but more “What the hell am I doing?”       

Rarely have sales been such a disappointment…and that’s saying something. These are the dog days of sales. Flat, discouraging, ugly. Intelligence runs thin this time of the year. People drive me nuts and my attitude isn’t the best.
       

Let’s face it, the typical sales career hasn’t evolved much, especially if you’re stuck running door to door, and for a stretch that’s exactly what I am doing. Good people are out there, but I ain’t finding them. Instead I am meeting the nitwits and the dimwits. It’s discouraging.      

So let’s talk about my dinner tonight instead.     

 It is dinner and a movie tonight. (Who gives a flip about sales? Screw it.) Tonight it is Kubrick’s The Killing, a surprisingly engaging late noir film starring Sterling Hayden…or is it Hayden Sterling? No matter. Gritty noir classics, especially under-appreciated ones, deserve period cuisine and I did my best. I sliced up some old summer sausage I’ve been hoping would dry a bit in the fridge. And I sliced some cheese…pricey gouda and Swiss…and paired it all up with a short stack of stale water crackers I have had in the cupboard. This might not sound like much of a dinner, but in fact it is a bit of a luxury tonight. I am trying to eat better, but while watching a film like this I thought a somewhat “manly” snack was better than having a highball. My blog needs more photos so I’ll get a good clip from the movie to share.
       

So let’s watch the film! Perhaps I can rethink my career through the great old film.
       

Let’s start here. In this scene Hayden or Sterling … Johnny in the film … is renting a shack at a motel, but you can easily see a sales call in this shot. Imagine driving 50 miles to meet a client who’s set on buying a nice advertising plan and when you pull into his potholed driveway he tells you he has changed his mind. It happened…this week. And THAT’S about as good as it has been recently, the most civilized disrespect I’ve endured in this profession that has been neither civil nor respectful.        

So look again at the picture below…I have driven 50 miles after spending an hour prepping all the required paperwork to complete the order. Everything is set to go. (Note the nice, suit, too. All top notch.) And the little client is saying: “Well, I talked it over with the wife and she doesn’t think I should do it.”       

  

       

The wife?? Really, the wife?  Don’t you want to flick his ears and poke him in the eye?  I do, but you get used to this kind of abuse.  It happens more often than the outsider might expect. We call it getting “spoused.”  

      

 

     

 

    

 

   

   

   

 

  

  

 

       

If you’re going to get spoused, you might as well get soused. So let’s stop for a drink. Here we are at a bar. Bars appear frequently in old films, especially film noir. Loads of boozing. Here, however, we have a rare bottle of beer making an appearance. Note man and woman in foreground. Likely man and wife. In sales we don’t like wives…She’s almost certainly whispering in her husband’s ear: “Don’t buy advertising, dear. We can spend that money better on booze.” (Seriously. Really.) But let’s move on because I don’t have anything working here.
  

      

   

     

Glug, glug…
    

    

After a drink I always like to work the maternity accounts…
     

   

      

  

Did they buy? Not likely. So what can a salesman do when things are really slow? Where does he find new accounts?
       

Sometimes he needs to peek into the Employee Locker Room
       

       

Oh, but here…this is my favorite. Dress up like a clown, ignore No Admittance signs (a good idea anyway…the clown get up), and load up your shot gun…
       

       

Then ask politely for a little cooperation…
       

       

And voila! They line up to buy advertising…works better than driving 50 miles for a no sale!
       

       

But if that fails, don’t sweat it. It looks like you can just buy money at a shop like this!
       

       

All right…it is harder than hell to watch a movie when snipping and pasting scenes into a blog entry. I lost track of the movie – kind of like my career recently – and then got sucked back in when the film did this crazy … god, I don’t know what you would call it … this crazy kind of a dual perspective on the penultimate scene shown in two parts. The heist begins and ends – A to B – then it repeats A to B but from the insider perspective. The two perspectives are not shown concurrently but first one and then the other. Golly. That really confused me for a moment because I was busy pasting scenes here then when I figured everything out I lost track of the blog – kind of like my career recently – and got to the end lickety split:
       

       

So hell…I don’t know what happened, but I wouldn’t mind having these guys on my side for the rest of the summer. (That would be me standing there behind the closed doors.)
       

Time to go to bed and dream about clowns.