Category Archives: jus’ some writin’

The place to be.

I consider myself lucky for having had two formative and cool jobs before careening into the advertising agency world. One was at a record store — Budget Tapes and Records (’86-’89) — followed by Kinko’s Copies (’89-’95).

(I’m ignoring the horrifying month of selling Sears maintenance agreements over the phone in between those two gigs.)

I remember wearing the blue Kinko’s apron with the deep pockets that would fill with office products during my shifts, and I occasionally look to see if any survivors ever show up on eBay/Etsy/etc. Not yet.

Last week, I was on the Wikipedia page for FedEx Office, and read the following…

Kinko’s played a significant role in the development of American counterculture in the 1980s and 1990s. In her study of the role of xerography in urban cultures in this period, the anthropologist Kate Eichhorn recounts:

“At its height of popularity between the late 1980s and mid-1990s, Kinko’s outlets in urban centres across North America were catch basins for writers, artists, anarchists, punks, insomniacs, graduate students, DIY bookmakers, zinesters, obsessive compulsive hobbyists, scam artists, people living on the street, and people just living on the edge. Whether you were promoting a new band or publishing a pamphlet on DIY gynaecology or making a fake ID for an underage friend, Kinko’s was the place to be.”

She’s not wrong.

After checking out the footnote reference, then looking for the journal the article was in and finding out it would cost $$$ to read it on an academic site, I contacted the author so see if she still had a copy of the article and she let me know that article became part of one of her books. She is a very excellent person.

Adjusted Margin: Xerography, Art, and Activism in the Late Twentieth Century by Dr. Kate Eichhorn (MIT Press, 2016)

So I bought the book. It ain’t no apron, but it’s part of my past before the Internet kicked in, and books are pretty neat too.

Best of luck to the marketing team receiving this consumer insight.

Ope, never mind. I cracked it.

The commercial begins with a dolly shot into a grocery store cereal aisle, moving past a stockboy stocking and a young man shopping with a plastic shopping basket. An indistinct easy-listening song is playing in the store. 

A 40-something woman with messy hair and wearing sweatpants and an oversized sweater is checking out cereal box options. She has a half-filled shopping cart with several items in it usually targeting children.

She takes a box of Kellogg’s Special K Red Berries off a shelf and suddenly the lights in the store dim, a disco ball drops, and the music becomes a bit louder and… sexier.

She looks up at the disco ball, then down the aisle to see the stockboy and shopper staring at her, entranced.

Startled, she puts the cereal box back and everything returns to as it was before.

She pauses, then grabs the cereal box back off the shelf. The lights dim, the disco ball drops again, the music now morphs into full boom-chicka-mow-mow music.

When she looks down the aisle again, the two from before have been joined by several other male shoppers and one female shopper, all with plastic shopping baskets except for one guy who is holding too many things in his arms. All stare at her, entranced. A glass jar falls and breaks on the floor. A red hawk cries somewhere in the distance.

A decision made and with a sweeping arm, she knocks many boxes of Kellogg’s Special K Red Berries into her shopping cart and pushes it down the aisle, leaving a cereal box of the floor. As she turns the corner out of sight, the stockboy and shoppers all lunge for the box on the floor. A scuffle commences.

End tag with a grooving Kellogg’s Special K Red Berries cereal box, music and voiceover saying “Kellogg’s Special K Red Berries. It’s not just ok, it’s ohhh yeahhhhh.”

Possible options with a George Takei cameo and/or Barry White hologram.

What posts are called on the different social networks:

Facebook — Post

Instagram — Post

Twitter — Tweet

Mastodon — Toot

Bluesky — Skeet

Pinterest — Pin

Snapchat — Snap

Threads — Strand

Tumblr — Clink

LinkedIn — Outie

TikTok — Rangoon

Myspace — Tom

Reddit — Ditz

Where’s the milestone emoji?

How can social media effectively promote a company milestone?

Step 1: Have a company milestone. If one is not handy, fabricate or borrow one.

Step 2: Take a group photo with everybody holding a little plate with a piece of cake on it. Offer a gluten-free option.

Step 3: Have a human write a little something about what’s going on.

Step 4: More emojis, more better.

Step 5: Put it on social media. See? That wasn’t so hard.

All Business

A few days back, I was talking with a friend about the differences between a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degree.

This took me a few years back to when I was finishing up my Bachelor of Science in Business Administration at Dickinson State University.

I remember the horror of finding out the big final test (Major Field Test, pretty much an exit exam) was going to cover the entire program, not just that current semester.

Eek.

When the time came to take it, I remember no notes were allowed and we were to take it under close supervision.

Eek.

Things get fuzzy.

Continue reading

The Woods

On a warm summer morning not too long ago, a boy went walking through the woods near his family’s farm. In one of his pockets, he carried a small broken compass, a blue sodalite worry stone given to him by his grandfather, and an unfathomable horror disguised as a coin.

As the boy was passing by a huge and gnarled oak tree, a squirrel fell from above and landed roughly at his feet. The boy stopped and stooped down to make sure it was all right. The squirrel blinked its vermillion eyes and locked its gaze on the boy as it struggled to rise. 

The squirrel rose, then continued to rise until it floated up to eye level with the boy. 

The boy, unafraid, said, “Hello, squirrel.”

The squirrel, still dazed and still floating, shouted “HIBISCUS!” and disappeared into thin air.

The boy shrugged and continued on his way.

The woods soon opened up into a small meadow with a spring-fed brook meandering through it. On one side was the greenest grass the boy had ever seen. The other side was filled with flowers of every imaginable color.

Weaving through the flowers was a yellow and black bat whistling a happy, high-pitched tune. It spotted the boy and flapped toward him. As it got closer, the boy could see the bat’s face and backside were covered in pollen.

The boy, unafraid, said, “Hello, bat.”

The bat sneezed.

Then the bat sneezed again.

“Bless you,” said the boy.

The bat screamed in agony and disappeared into thin air.

The boy decided to walk through the grassy side of the meadow and soon found himself back in the woods.

The woods grew thicker and darker. There was no sound except for the scrunches of the boy’s footsteps as he continued on his journey guided by a force he couldn’t explain. Eventually, he saw a distant glint of light and walked toward it.

As the boy got closer, he could see sunlight squeezing through a break in the forest canopy above, spotlighting a huge stump where once a mighty tree had grown. He walked up to the edge of the stump and stopped. He could now hear a dim hum that grew louder and louder.

Suddenly, at the stump’s center, an object appeared out of thin air. It was a can of new Minute Maid Hibiscus & Honey Lemonade Frozen Concentrate, available now in your grocer’s frozen beverage aisle. 

The boy, unafraid, said, “Hello, refreshment,” and disappeared into thin air.

Requiem

The soles are shot
The canvas torn
They’ve gone to pot
These shoes I’ve worn

They lasted long
And then some more
So this swan song
Has hit the floor

They paid their dues
t’s nighty-night
My Puma shoes
Head toward the light

The Bag

Plastic bag up in the tree.
Far beyond the reach of me.
Flapping loudly in the wind.
Ripped and torn without a mend.

Who were you in newer days,
Before your rotting branch malaise?
Maybe Walmart. Maybe Sam’s.
Maybe filled with litter sands.

Were you from a dollar store,
Or were you meant for something more?
Whatever it was you held inside,
Your ending’s most undignified. 

A Pandemic Limerick

No matter how nice you were asking,
Karen was totes against masking.
In science she’d scoff
As she said with a cough,
“In Covid I’d rather be basking.”

Potato Slogans

a potato

Eat more potatoes.

You have toes, so eat potatoes.

Dig those potatoes, man.

Tonight, we’re having potatoes!

Potato — the egg of the underworld.

There’s nothing hotter than a potato.

“No matter how you spell it, it’s still potatos.”— Dan Quayle

Eat yer taters.

Potatoes — The rocks you can eat.

Starch something.

Your bud, the spud.

Mash things up.

The potato — North America’s banana.

Potatoes — America’s favorite lumpy nutrition.

Tater up!

Are potatoes ok?

Where fries come from.

Hey! It’s a potato!