Ted in 2011: A Year in Review

2011: A Breakdown
Section 1: Work (or “How to work on brands that creep you out”)

Section 2: Family (or “How to age fucking gracefully”)

Section 3: Money (or “How to go back in time and put that Harvard degree to use for
something like investment banking instead of advertising”)

Section 4: Health (or “How not to get your cat to go to the vet”)

Section 5: Drawings (or “How continuing to make cartoons with titles like ‘Glory Hole’ will
keep you from getting in The New Yorker”)

Section 6: Looking Ahead (or “How I’ll attempt to keep my child from one day wanting to
go to Burning Man”)

Section 7: Final 2011 Scoring

2

I have been in advertising for almost 17 years. So far, I’ve been lucky with
the clients I’ve worked on.

Even within the “kinda makes me
feel dirty” part, most of that can
be blamed on one campaign.

4
Section 1: Work

This year, only a few months after welcoming my daughter into the world, I got to
work on a pitch for a clothing brand that will, sooner than I want, be on her radar.
Known for its unabashed flaunting of pre-teen sexuality (which I guess is great if
you’re a pre-teen, just creepy for new parents like myself), the core philosophy of
the brand takes its cues from the 1950’s South, just replacing “blacks” with
“unpopular” or “ab-less.” Needless to say, my “kinda makes me feel dirty”
percentage of work went up a bit.

5
Section 1: Work

After working on this brand, I have drastically altered my parenting philosophy to
adjust to what I now see are the realities of her future adolescence.

So from now on I will:

• encourage my daughter to invest in more
empty yet strategic friendships
• praise her derision of the different
• and, most importantly, help her walk that fine
line (or is it “spin around that thin pole”)
between owning her sexuality and being a
total hobag.

6
Section 1: Work

My other big client was a brand of deodorant.

Things I learned:
• When a client has two separate marketing departments (such as “brand
development” and “brand building” or “marketing communications” and
“marketing solutions”), you’re fucked. Run away.
• An “all-star team” of agencies from different disciplines working together is not
an all-star team. It’s The Bad News Bears, before Kelly Leak agreed to play for
them. Seems the phrase “too many cooks in the kitchen” applies to advertising
as well, with the resulting dish a revolting casserole of misguided tactics,
overestimated brand participation, and parkour.
• Despite the fact that the 90’s are a full decade ago, some brands still believe
“Extreme” is still an alluring way to brand your product in 2012.

7
Section 1: Work

Section 2: Family

8

We have a 15 month-old. She’s great. No, she’s fucking amazing. Better than anything.

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Section 2: Family

So, she’s 15 months. And I’ll be 42 shortly.
This has led me to do the depressing math. When she’sx, I’ll be x +41.
So, when she’s 9, shit, I’ll be goddamn 50.
When she’s 21, I’ll be fucking 62.
When she’s 30, …screw it. At least I’m not Tony Randall.

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Section 2: Family

During the month of February, when Viv was 3 months old, I took advantage of California’s
hippie-dippy parenting laws and stayed home from work all month as my wife went back to
work.
Then when we moved up here to Portland in September, I stayed home with her for the last
few months of the year while we got settled and I looked for employment.

What I’ve learned is that a 3 month-old and a 1 year-old are totally different human beings.

A 3 month-old is a time bomb, in constant need A 1 year-old is a manic depressive golden retriever
of having precisely the right wires cut every few puppy, keeping you on edge with wild mood swings that
hours to avoid total destruction. can only be resolved with the correct meds, including
Cheerios, milk, and Itsy Bitsy Spider sung in the voice of a
drunk German opera singer.

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Section 2: Family

From April through July, I spent a fair amount of time in New York for work.

And while Skype is great for grandparents and uncles and aunts, dads video-conferencing
with their 6-9 month-old daughters (and their moms) provides much less positive results.

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Section 2: Family

Section 3: Money/Fame

13

I have enough money and fame to afford subscriptions to US Weekly, Entertainment
Weekly, Wired, Fast Company, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Esquire, The
New York Times, Vanity Fair, and Rolling Stone.

I do not have enough money and fame to warrant being mentioned in any of them.

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Section 3: Money/Fame

Section 4: Health

15

My wife often compares me to a 15 year-old girl. Not because my unhealthy
knowledge of the stars of most Disney Channel programming, or my “accidental”
recording of Justin Bieber’s “Never Say Never” on the DVR.
No, its because of my body image issues.

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Section 4: Health

This has only grown worse since our daughter was born, because I now live in fear
of “Dad Body.”

What is “Dad Body?”

Dad Body evolves from that slight skewering of expectations of just what your
weight should be, combined with the new batch of men who you can suddenly
compare yourself to, men who, face it, are much fatter than you.

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Section 4: Health

This year was also the year of the
goddamn fucking cat bite.

Before I dive in to the bullshit story about how, in late September, a goddamn fucking
cat bite landed me in the fucking hospital for FIVE fucking days, it’s important to flash
back a few weeks earlier, when I took on the shit show of driving our goddamn cats up
to Portland from San Francisco.
This pretty much explains fucking everything.

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Section 4: Health

Needless to say, when it came time to take one of them to the vet, the goddamn cat
didn’t want to go back in the fucking crate. So when I reached under the fucking bed
for his sorry ass, the fucker fucking bit me. The infection spread up my arm like this:

The next 5 fucking days were spent in a bed in Providence fucking hospital. The guy in
the room across from me was getting his fucking COLON REMOVED, and here I was
strolling the halls with a fucking cat bite. For fuck’s sake, a woman played the fucking
harp every fucking night for a sneak peek of what its like in fucking heaven for some
of the people around me.

And yes, we still have the cat. He sleeps nestled up against me every night.
Fucker.

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Section 4: Health

Section 5: Drawings

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This year, I published a book, Paper Doll Orgy.

I published a book! How amazing is that?

Not one of those self-publishing, Blurb-style books
either. I have a ISBN number and everything.
(#0982859821!!!)

And then it sold 148 copies.
And probably 50 of those were bought by me and my family.

That depressed me to no end. Still does.

But, hey…I published a book!

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Section 5: Drawings

This year, I also did 135 new drawings.
Even if I love them, I still find myself judging their quality by the number of hits,
Likes, re-tweets, and Google +1s. (Yeah, right. Like people actually use that
feature…)

“Good” drawing “Bad” drawing

I need to work on this too.
Without further ado, here they all are in chronological order.*
*If you want one, email me.

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Section 5: Drawings

Section 6: Looking Ahead

40

In 2012,
• I’ll turn 42.
• My daughter will enter her “Terrible Twos.”
• My cat will attempt to bite me approximately 57 more times.
• I will not take a Zumba class.
• The sun will come up every morning, and set every night. Until December
21st, when the world will blow up.

The rest is up in the air.

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Final 2011 Scoring
+ -
• Amazing wife/child (+25) • Job mostly sucked balls (-18)
• Move to Portland (+12) • Hospitalized for cat bite (-12)
• Published a book (+10) • Dropped our 8 month old baby
• Living in a house after 15 years in an (It’s OK, she was fine) (-8)
apartment (+8) • 13 hour road trip with cats (-6)
• Attained Delta Silver Elite status (+5) • Entered early 40’s (-5)
_______________________________ _______________________________
+60 -49

FINAL SCORE: +11

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Ted in 2011: A Year in Review

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