Well, this feels weird. So here it goes. Since you all (or y’all, depending on what side of Maryland you’re reading this) are my online buds, I’ll share some news about me since writing my first post on this blog a year ago.

Don’t Fear the Reaper, for some strange reason, remains the most read post on pleasefeedtheanimals. I honestly don’t know exactly why. At the time I was without a full-time job for the first time in my career. Yet, for some reason I still don’t understand, I was feeling was tremendously positive despite my layoff and uncertain future. I felt it was within my power to reboot my career. Still, the economy last summer was just plain awful. Like many of you, I was wondering from where my next paycheck would come. I should have been freaking out. When I sat down to write, I found the right voice. It was funny. It was upbeat. It was me. I’m humbled that so many of you have read the post and continue to do so. Thank you. Over and over again.

Since then, amongst my frequent online ramblings, I found a lot of freelance work at various agencies, and did a decent job being an independent soldier of copywriting fortune. I felt fortunate to have found work when I did. Honestly, I think a lot of it was luck. My father always told me, “you make your luck,” and I believe there’s truth to that. Even though I secretly wanted the big TV shoot with the travel and the craft services table and the wrap parties and everything that makes advertising fun, I was happy to accept under-the-radar digital assignments and direct pieces. They kept the lights on, the kids fed, the bills paid.

As fortunate as I felt to be finding steady freelance, recently, a full-time job presented itself. I thought long and hard about it. I remembered my last post about someone who turned down an offer in a weak economy. I looked at the news about the continued fickleness of a recovery that just won’t settle in. I accepted. And I’m working with good people who I want to grow with. Perhaps this is my chance to reboot, and to laugh in the face of “the reaper” who I wouldn’t let get the upper hand.

Maybe I’m just having a good year and should simply accept that with the deepest humility. Or maybe I should smugly tell the reaper to take a hike. I’ve got ads to make.

Epilogue: If the happy ending of this post turned your stomach, or made you throw up a little in our mouth, then here’s a hyperlink to agencyspy, where there’s an ample supply of snarky comments to fulfill one’s daily dose of cynicism.

Brad Mislow is a senior copywriter and just wants to please you.

I sit on the couch with my daughter, teaching her to crack peanuts with her fingernails

her hair still wet from the dip in the pool on this 95-degree Sunday.

Joe Castiglione calls balls and strikes on the radio.

1-0 for the good guys.

My son and wife are in the kitchen, cooking cupcakes from a recipe in the back of a children’s book called

Cupcake.

Later, wife and I sit on the back porch while Clara draws chalk robots in the driveway.

Kathryn makes herself a salmon burger and me a salami sandwich because she knows how I feel about fish.

Salmon and salami look like the same word but couldn’t be more different.

A butterfly drops out of the sky from nowhere.

She rises then drops then rises then drops and makes me wonder if there is an intended flight pattern.

Because nothing is random.

I say it’s a Monarch. Kathryn disagrees and calls yellow swallow tail.

“Chutes and ladders dad?”

1-1. Tie game.

Sure, Clara.

The cupcakes are done baking.

We apply the homemade buttercream frosting, which Kathryn and Ben also whipped up together.

3-1, bad guys.

Ben tries to sneak a handful of sprinkles into his mouth.

I pretend not to see him.

Never mind that the Sox are on the radio because we can’t afford cable.

Never mind that we were in the backyard instead of on vacation.

Forget that the book was from the library because we aren’t buying books for a while.

And pay no attention to the patchwork inflatable pool that has seen better days thanks to our friend the raccoon.

None of that stuff seems important today.

Why does it ever? Why will it tomorrow?

Today, like every day, is a gift.

Today, unlike every day, I am accepting it.

Still 3-1.

When I was a child, my father spent two years going back and forth between underemployment and unemployment. I still remember those times. They were hard. They were so hard that they left a mark on me. Not repeating his story was my biggest motivation to get an education and start a career. But that wasn’t enough. I made up my mind to become really good in my field, thinking that talent and a good reputation would be my ticket to work stability.

However, years later unemployment knocked on my door, too. I felt frustrated, but eventually I found another job. A couple of years later, I was out of work again. This time, the period of unemployment was longer and found me alone and far away from home. Those were hard times, too. But they were also times of a lot of growth.

I got laid off three weeks ago and I found myself unemployed for the third time. But I have to admit, this one is different. I feel lucky. Lucky that this isn’t the first time this has happened to me. Because fortunately, I can say that I learned a few lessons along the way.

First, nobody stays unemployed forever. It’s almost impossible.

Second, the jobs may go away but your talent never does.

Third, at least in my case, every job I lost led to something much better.

And fourth, you have to have joy in the journey. Back then, I used to be so obsessed with finding work that I would feel so sorry for myself that I couldn’t enjoy the present. Now that I have a wife and two kids I’m not making that mistake again. Being home is allowing me to spend more time with them and create fun memories that will last forever. The other day I heard a phrase from the musical, The Music Man: “You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you’ve collected a lot of empty yesterdays.” So true.

I’m very grateful for the lessons from the past. Thanks to them I can feel the peace and confidence I enjoy today. I’m also grateful for the lessons of the present. I’m learning that I’m more mature, that my wife is my unconditional support and sometimes she believes in me more than I believe in myself. Experiences like these are the ones that make you a better you.

I know someday my next job will find me. And there I’ll be again, dealing with poorly written briefs, tight deadlines and killer ideas being killed. Of course, I’m doing everything possible to make this happen. But for now, my biggest challenge is to enjoy the process until that day comes. That’s what I’m focusing on.

_____

Xavier Curia is bilingual copywriter from Mesa, AZ. You can see his work at http://www.xaviercuria.com.

Note From Erik: I met Harris Davis during a January screening of “Lemonade” in NYC and we instantly connected. He believes there’s a place for ethics and integrity in advertising as well as advertising schools. So do I. What do you think?

——

Back in November 2003 in NYC, an art director friend of mine found himself unemployed. With no compelling full-time or freelance prospects, he tried his hand at teaching advertising in a local university. The money sucked, but it was steady sucky money. And it was technically an ad gig.

Cut to three years later. He had become a wildly popular teacher with the students.  Killer portfolio pieces were coming out of his classes and several of his students landed great jobs after graduating. And, most important, he loved teaching. A lot. He even volunteered his own time to run an extra-curricular concepting class at night for his graduating students, which he recruited me to help teach.

After just one class session, I was totally hooked on this teaching thing. By the end of the 6-week class, we decided to start our own ad school. It was our lemonade moment. Now in its second year, The Mission unites our passion for nurturing creative talent with our personal values of social responsibility. You could call it an ad school with a conscience—the first of its kind.

So back to teaching, and the point of this piece. If you are in advertising but find yourself out of work (fairly likely if you’re reading this blog), or maybe just checked out of work, teaching can be a wonderful remedy. I’ll explain:

You get to play creative director.

Teaching allows me to do something that I’m rarely in a position to do at work, even though I’m more than capable. For two hours a night, one night a week, I get to spend quality time with creatives, review their work, discuss the thinking behind it and provide direction. I would never rely on an agency job to afford me that kind of professional development and experience, even if I was a creative director already.

You choose the assignments.

Unless you run your own agency or have your own clients, you don’t have much say in what you work on. Teaching lets you assign projects that you think will benefit the students most. And you can pick something new every week, every two weeks, or whatever you think is appropriate. The assignments I give are ones that I think my students will genuinely give a shit about and will enjoy doing the research and concepting for. Their passion for the project is usually pretty evident in the quality and range of the ideas they bring to class.

You write the briefs.

How many times have you gotten a brief from an account exec that is (a) a novel and (b) a novel written explicitly for client approval rather than a thumbs up from the creative department. As a teacher, not only do you choose what the students work on, but you author the briefs. We provide our teachers with a template to help them keep their briefs clear, insightful, thought-provoking and, um, brief.

You’re exposed to great ideas. Lots of ‘em.

With the ridiculously tight timing, silo’d work environments and rampant “just get it out the door” mentalities of most agencies, you rarely walk into a conference room and see 20 to 30 compelling, well-thought-out ideas tacked to the walls—pitches being the exception. Teaching gives you an opportunity to be literally immersed in great ideas dreamed up by eager creatives in a collaborative spirit. Their work might even inspire you the next time you sit down alone in your cube and put pen to paper.

You get excited about the business again.

Only a handful of agencies make you genuinely excited to show up every day. I never worked at one. And as a result, I constantly questioned my career choice and struggled to be as excited about being in advertising as when I first got into it over a decade ago. Teaching delivers on that much needed confirmation that, yes, you truly love this business—crap deadlines, hack bosses, uncourageous clients and all.

You get paid.

It’s not exactly your day rate, but considering the nature of the job (see all points above)—and the fact that it might be your only job—it’s a pretty damn good way to earn some scratch.

__________________

Harris Davis and Jeff Cooper are the co-founders of The Mission. They are actively recruiting teachers in NYC and other major cities. If you’re interested in teaching or taking a class, check out themissionnyc.com for more info and give them a shout.

There’s a fantastic community of people out there who get off on helping others overcome their bullshit excuses for complacency. One of the best is Hugh MacLeod, the always genius and often surly cartoonist, author, and blogger behind GapingVoid.

Like me, Hugh once worked in advertising. Unlike me, he’s figured out how to fully commit to his art, no longer straddling between the two worlds.

I woke up yesterday to this message on Twitter. Turns out, Hugh created the above Cube Grenade in my honor. (For the definition of a “Cube Grenade,” click here.) He often does these for private commission, so to say I’m flattered is an understatement.

But the truth is, he’s always giving away his art. He’s one of the few entrepreneurs who fully embrace that you get by giving. And not just philosophically, but in real, financial terms. By giving freely of his work, he’s established his brand. People know him now. And he gets hired to do more of it.

I have much to learn from him.

We’re going for it. With no backers and very few scruples, we’re pulling a Field of Dreams. (Actually, we’re pulling a Teddy Roosevelt. But I digress.) Build it first, get funding later. Gain momentum by doing. Create something people want to be a part of.

It’s what I’ve been preaching for the past year, and now I must put my lack-of-money where my mouth is. As Steve Hall said in “Lemonade”:

If you’ve had an idea you’ve always wanted to do now is the time to do it. Just do it!

We’re about to start shooting a film about the reinvention of Detroit. And oh, what an amazing team of talent we’ve amassed. Here are the early adopters; those people just crazy enough to build it first and trust something amazing will come later:

• Ringside Creative and Doug Cheek: Powerhouse integrated media studio and sponsors of our Detroit screening.
• Finish Post and Andrea Papazoglou: Post-production facility in Boston that polished the hell out of “Lemonade.”
• Peter Nelson: The DP behind “Lemonade,” “Art & Copy,” and Michael Moore’s “Sicko.”
• Chris Perry: A-list producer, former Arnold colleague, and fellow Bukowski’s Dead Author’s Club mug holder.

It’s far too early to thank the Acadamy. But it’s certainly not to early to thank these people. So, thank you for your insanity everyone. Here we go.

“Would you do it again?”

Yesterday, I asked this question to my beloved wife, who endured months of uncertainty and inflating credit card balances for the sake of “Lemonade.”

Yet there I was, asking her again to look down the barrel of a loaded mortgage. To fall on the grenades of our finances. Wondering if she could see beyond her still-healing scars to support another uncertain film project.

And this woman, this brave woman, who is neither unaffected nor always certain of her decision to support my insanity, said yes.

I am about to embark on the first leg of production for “Lemonade, Detroit” (working title). The plan is to shoot and edit a trailer, attach it to the case study from the first “Lemonade,” then pitch the hell out of it to financial backers.

It’s an uncertain course with an uncertain outcome. And without this support — this amazing, spiritual, affirming, connective, transcending support — nothing great is possible. Everyone needs their spine. Their sounding board. Their muse. Kathryn is mine.

I’ve tried to lure more than one person away from the relative certainty of future paychecks to climb an uphill startup battle with me. In each case, the realities of commitment prevented it.

It’s absurd of me to expect otherwise, really. How do you do that? How do you convince a gainfully employed family man to leave his post and embark on a question mark? You don’t.

Which makes Kathryn’s willingness to do this with me all the more remarkable. It was a theme consistent throughout “Lemonade.” Bob Weeks wanted to start a coffee roasting business with no clients and his wife said “Go for it.” Jonathan Halitsky wanted to change careers and carefully consider next steps, and his wife said take your time.

But it works both ways. If Kathryn asked me to return to the regularity of full time work — either because she wasn’t ready for another go or because the kids and the house and the need for normalcy were just too important to our family — then my answer would be, yes. Absolutely. The Detroit film stops today.

And that’s what makes our unit work. We are a platoon. Decisions made, together or unilaterally, affect us all. I would sacrifice for her the same way she has for me and for our children. If ever the road ahead looked too dark, we would return to the light. No questions asked. It’s our mutual promise.

Am I ready? No. Never have been. But here we go anyway.

Willful checks emails every five minutes hoping to hear from a recruiter.

Willing leaves the Blackberry at home while it volunteers at a food bank.

Willful spends sleepless nights worrying about money.

Willing cancels cable and sells the second car.

Willful tweaks the kerning on its resume.

Willing launches a side project cool enough to eliminate the resume.

Willful opposes force, like a schoolyard bully.

Willing redirects force, like Akido.

Willful wishes and hopes and wants and needs and tries to alter unalterable things.

Willing accepts today as a gift and tries to give more than it receives.

You can spend today railing against the forces that got you here, doing a million things that won’t make a damn bit of difference. Or you can choose to listen to your conscience — that whisper that is tempting you to take the first step toward something powerful and important and affirming.

That whisper is willing. But the question is, are you?

Do something interesting. Do something worth talking about. Do something worth sharing.

That’s how you stay alive, vibrant, and employed (if you want to).

The Red Pencils are a San Francisco-based group of adfolk who are training for the 7-day, 545-mile AIDS/LifeCycle ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles. To raise money for this incredible cause, they’ll be holding a fundraising event on Feb 23 at the Barrel House, which includes a screening of Lemonade, Q&A with me, and a blow-out party afterwards.

To RSVP, visit http://www.redpencils.org/kickoff.

EVENT DETAILS:

• WHERE: The Barrel House, San Francisco, CA
• WHEN: Tuesday, February 23 at 7:00 PM (screening) and 9:00 PM (party).
• COST: Asking for a $20 donation for the screening and after party, or a $15 donation for just the party.  All proceeds go to the Red Pencils and the AIDS/LifeCycle Ride To End AIDS

To RSVP, visit http://www.redpencils.org/kickoff.