Cubby-Blue

Awesome Chicago Sports Fan Stocking Stuffer

Chicago sports teams keys.
You know where you can have 'em made for like nothin' and yet the sports fan you give them to will LOVE THEM?
True Value Hardware.
That's all I got today.
Because tonight is our agency Holiday party.
Usually, I'm on a shoot somewhere, but tonight I'm here so I'm going.

Actually, I'm writing this yesterday, the day of the party, in anticipation of not really feeling like doing any blogging today.

Which brings me to what I really wanted to tell you.
A horrible, really embarrassing Holiday party I went to when I was a baby art director and new to Chicago.
It was my group creative director's party, so I kinda had to go.
But I was nervous and didn't really want to and I was telling this other baby art director and she goes, "I have to go to a recital and I'm dreading that. If you go with me to mine, I'll go with you to yours."
For the record, I'd never even heard the word "recital" before.
But she said I should wear a tie, so I went to a used clothing store and got a skinny, glittery silver tie for $5.
To wear with my jeans and tennis shoes and my best shirt, which was a heavy dark blue flannel.
What didn't really register was the fact that she was also the neice a famous Chicago movie critic (not dropping names, but he was the skinny one on "_____ and Ebert") and probably came from a family that...well, the kind of family that gets invited to recitals alot.

So I pick her up in a cab and we go.
It's at a mansion.
On Astor Street.
It's possible that I've told this story before - so skip it if you know it.
Astor Street is where the seriously rich who also really want to be urban live, but who knew?
I was like, "Man, that's a big house!"

We walk in and my "date" immediately leaves.
And I can't help but notice that every dude in the room is wearing a tuxedo.
So I'm Gomer Pyle and I just walked into the Officer's Club.
A waiter comes up to me with a tray and 4 glasses of red wine on it, begins to describe what region of France each one is from and would the gentleman care for a glass?
Total outer body experience.
A woman catches my eye from across the room, comes over as I'm getting the wine talk.
Thinking about it later, the only thing that made sense was that I was SO not dressed for the occasion that this woman thought I must be family and just didn't care.
"Are you related to the hosts?" she asks.
Not hi or anything, so I'm caught off guard on top of being class-challenged.
And I swear to god I said this: "Uh, I don't know, is their name Souers?"

Had I said it like a smart ass, probably she would have laughed.
But I said it just true to myself, a naive dope.
She looked at me strangely, saw somebody else to talk to and scrammed.

Okay, cut.
Now it's about an hour later.
There are a million people in here, I'm drinking red wine and my shirt is boiling.
So I see a bay window in a little clearing behind some empty chairs, I walk behind the chairs and crack the window.
Ahhh.
Fresh air!
That's better.
Look at all that snow out there.
I hate everything about being here and sure wish I could...HEY.
I turn around and in the chairs are 3 young women in black prom dresses, each holding instruments.
So THAT'S what a recital is - MUSIC.
I hadn't even noticed the piano to the one side.
And one of girls is holding this giant standing violin thing that's completely blocking my way.
I'm trapped.
Everybody in the entire party is staring at me, because now I'm the 5th Beatle.
One of the girls makes some kind of introduction and they begin playing.

I stood behind them for their entire little set, politely clapping after each song and ruining every photo, every note, and every sip of wine the black ties took.

Later, we went to my grouper's party, but nothing horrible happened.

So, that's my holiday party story.
I've got lots more, but I also have children so ahh...not writing those down.

_________

Did you see the Angels signed Josh Hamilton?
Wouldn't you love to read the fine print in that contract? 
He and Prince Albert come to Wrigley in the middle of July.
When it's hot, the wind maybe blowing out, and somebody's reject on the mound for our favorite team.
Awesome.

 

Ned Colletti, head of the new Evil Empire.

 

It wasn't that long ago that if you'd have asked me to name 2 general managers in all of baseball, I woulda said hey man, shut up I'm watchin' the game.
They're getting to be as famous as players, these GMs.
And Ned Colletti is now the biggest among them, because he won the mega lotto.
His boss changed from a dingbat owner/mismanager of a professional baseball team driven to bankruptcy, to an ownership supergroup that includes Magic Johnson and has some kind of Carl Sagan-ey type tv deal (that means billions and billions) in the works that gives them SO much money that they don't even care about the luxury tax.
You can read around and find different numbers, but the Dodgers payroll for 2013 will be over $200 million dollars (here it says $230 mil).
It'll be the highest payroll ever.
I'd forgotten about how the luxury tax works but ran across this quote from here: "For those of you not familiar with the luxury tax, a first-time offender pays a 17.5% penalty for every dollar spent above the $189 million threshold. That penalty rises to 30 percent in year two, 40% in year three, and 50% in year four. Ouch, ouch and ouch."
So, you know, that's like a different bracket than you and me. 

You remember this one year - 2003?
When some team from Florida beat the Cubs and went on to win the World Series?
Yeah, that team.
Their entire payroll was $54 mil.
Long time ago, but still. 

The amount of money that's spent in pro sports is already insane, the amount of money that Ned Colletti gets to play with is insane squared.
And since it seems so outrageously unfair, you wish he was some boob with no idea of what he was doing so he could fail and we could all laugh.
But he's not.
You can never tell about chemistry or injury or that kinda stuff, but this is gonna be a seriously good team.
Our old buddy Ted Lilly will be battling 7 other starters.: Kershaw, Grienke, Ryu, Beckett, Billingsly, Capuano and Harang.
If you were wondering where Randy Wells went, it wasn't here.

Anyway, Ned Colletti did that.
Did you know he's from Chicago?
He went to NIU (who we're all rooting for when they play Florida in the Orange Bowl).
He started out with the Cubs in 1982 and was there when the Cubs won and failed in '84 and '89. So he worked for both Dallas Green and Jim Frey.
(That must have been interesting.)
And now he's the busdriver with "Voldemort" on his nametag driving the new Evil Empire around. 

Okay, done writing. Really just a silly illustration of Ned Colletti. Ned if you see it I hope you get a laugh too even with the blue drool. It must be FREAKY, like being in charge of a whole economy, to be you.

 

1st installment: The Adventures of Jay Cutler's Head. (gif)

 

Man, watching this team is SOOOOO hard.
The Bears lost to a really ordinary Vikings team and..
Yeah, there's a new GM in Phil Emery and thank GOD Jerry Angelo is gone, but I do not understand what is up with guys way smarter than me not understanding that your offense won't work without guys who can block. 
I literally squirm when Jay Cutler drops back. 
When I imagine what he might do if he was running to create something good rather than running from something bad...
So he got a neck injury tonight, and I'm amazed it's not another concussion.
He had a couple bad passes, but how many drops?
When it really counted.

Revolting.

I'm gonna save that gif and keep adding to it.
Pretty sure he's not done getting whacked around this year.

 

Just do the next thing, Cubs.

One of the cool things about our ad agency is the history of the thing.
Now it's simply called DDB Chicago, but when I first started it was privately owned and called Needham, Harper and Steers.
And back in the day there used to be a guy you'd see walking the halls who was a real, honest to god legend.
His name is Keith Reinhard.
You can look him up.
He used to run the place creatively back then, but he started out as your basic copywriter.
Just a guy in an office.
And one day he started to write these agency-wide memos called "Any Wednesday".
They were just his thoughts, observations, stuff he found inspiring.
He wrote them sideways, across the lines on the page, symbolically breaking the rules.
You could read 'em in couple minutes and then think about 'em for a minute, or your whole life...

Anyway, so I'm a baby art director back then, and I am swamped.
I've got so much stuff to do it's impossible to comprehend.
Back then, if you had a tv idea, you drew the storyboards yourself and hand colored every frame with markers. A couple storyboards could easily take you all night.
So I'm on Wheaties and Betty Crocker and Anheuser Busch and new business pitches and I'm at the end of my rope.
And the mail comes, on a cart back then.
And there's this Any Wednesday from Keith.
And it had a quote and little story that was all about my situation.
I can't remember it exactly, but the title and gist was, "Do the next thing". 

Basically, when you've got a million things to do, you can't look at 'em all at the same time.
Makes the whole thing too big.
Too daunting.
But if you just look at it as one little thing to do after another little thing to do, pretty soon you'll get the whole big thing done. 
I'd never heard that before.
I applied it to my enormous roomful of dread and after awhile...all done.

My daughter went off to college this year, and I spoke to her on the phone one day and she was semi-overwhelmed. 
So I did that little painting above and told her the story.
(No idea where the wrench came from, but it looks kinda tattoo-cool.)

Looooong way to get to here, but this is what I'm thinking after looking at what happened with the Winter Meetings.
We spend most of our time thinking about what's in it for us, us being Cub fans.
And we should - we pay the money, we give our time.
Hearts.
All that freaking hope.

But think about Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer and even the Ricketts family.
When they knocked this Cubs thing over..
When they said hey, the only way to do this is to begin all over again, can you imagine what that pile of work looked like?
Still does?
I read about Hector Rondon, the surgically repaired Rule 5 pitcher the Cubs got from the Indians the other day.
I'm excited about this guy - sort of under the radar.
He's one of those things that got done.
Maybe he'll be healthy and turn out great.
Kyuji Fujikawa?
Closer.
Thing.
Done.
Nate Schierholtz, done.
Even Ian Stewart.
I read a tweet of his saying something like he was so happy to be back because the Cubs had been so cool to him through the wrist thing. Don't you think he's going to give 110%?
Done.

Of course, there's no fixed deadline for the Cubs.
So every time they get something done they have to start doing it over again.
But they'll get there if they just keep doing the next thing.
And when they do it's gonna be one grand old time.
______ 

Next is just a stupid ad story, but kinda funny...
We had an inexpensive champagne to sell.
I won't say which brand.
Again, baby art director time, and I was still working as a waiter a couple nights a week and had tons of experience with champagne.
And while drawing my storyboard I included a frame that demonstrated the correct way to open a bottle of champagne - you drape a cloth over the top and gently pry the cork off so no one catches a cork in the eye.
Unwittingly, I would become mildly famous for this frame.
Because I presented the board in a roomful of ad people: creative directors, a group creative director, other art directors and writers.
Before I could even take anyone through the board the Grouper, Tony Vanderwarker, points to this frame and goes, "Souers. What the hell is going on there?"
It looked like this:

 

 

 

I started to explain the right way to open champagne, but the laughter made me shut up.

Later, I drew it so you could see the whole bottle, and from a different angle.

Besides Dale Sveum, who REALLY doesn't want to go hunting with Robin Yount?

Hey.
I've been totally sick.

Like a dog.
But I got a text from my friend Pete Dever (Jets fan, he's totally eating it this year) that said "Dale Sveum got shot by Robin Yount?!"
I'm so out of touch.
I looked it up on ESPN.
You can't make that kinda stuff up. 

-

And I wish that the radio I was listening to this morning was making this up: Brian Urlacher is probably out until the playoffs. If the Bears make the playoffs.
Something with the hammy. 
Really really hurts, that one. 

-

Full disclosure: later, Pete texted me the Rob Deer joke. It's probably all over and I'm the last one to do it, but whatever.

I'm sick.

Lastly, from just those notes, can you guess the ring tone?