Years ago, I worked for a couple of guys who were in partnership in the restaurant trade. At the behest of one of them I formulated an advertising concept and the restaurant paid in advance for six-months of ads in a community newspaper that circulated in the neighborhood.
Both of these guys were dickheads, but it was funny watching them battle it out over the philosophy of advertising. One of them, the bigger dickhead, who was a very wealthy former NFL football player, thought the investment was a waste. I tended to agree with him because the restaurant was already well-known.
The other one, the lesser dickhead, believed there was true value in advertising, that it reminded people of their nightly dinner and weekend drinking options, and helped support the community, including the local advertising rag, which after all might one day publish something nice about the restaurant.
I've been in both the newspaper and restaurant business--at times concurrently--over the years, and I can inform you that while newspapers claim to have separate advertising and editorial agendas that don't overlap, editors and publishers are flat-out lying about this.
Particularly in the community news business. If you are a big advertiser you will get ink.
A restaurateur's joint will not be panned, even if it deserves to be, in a paper where he or she advertises.
My thinking at the time I was working for the dickheads was that new businesses opening in the neighborhood might be well-served by spending for ads to increase visibility, but established businesses--not so much.
Who knows if I was right? That is more or less the ongoing debate.
The restaurant was a neighborhood landmark. I thought its visibility was just about maxed out. Even new-comers to the neighborhood would eventually discover it on their own without having to see an ad.
Word-of-mouth goes a long way in the kind of tight-knit community I'm talking about in this experience.
The lesser dickhead won the argument and the ad campaign geared up. I wrote and placed the ads and watched the developing results.
Sales didn't jump. A few words about the joint found their way into a few stories, but that is all that happened.
I and a few of my friends enjoyed my ads because they were sort of subversive without being serious, but the bigger dickhead didn't like them too much.
The last one I wrote was the end of the story for me. I posited in the ad that people were nuts to buy the expensive hot dogs and beer at the local ballpark during a Portland Beavers' home game when they could come to our nearby restaurant pre-game and eat a full dinner and slake their thirsts for a fraction of the cost.
It made too much sense.
The owner of the beer and hot dog concessions at the ballpark was a golfing friend of my boss, the bigger dickhead, but I hadn't a clue of that.
Then things turned bad.
In order, I sprained my wrist at work when lifting something heavy and went to a doctor who put me on a week of rest. That evening, I arranged for a sub-cook to handle my next few shifts.
Later that same evening I learned my oldest sister had died a few days before, and I made plans to attend her funeral in my home town before going out for a few beverages to mourn and remember.
A disgusted and ignorant co-worker who was in reality a witch walked past the bar where I was sitting, my arm in a sling, tears bubbling into my beer, and called the bigger dickhead.
The bigger dickhead called me the next day just as I prepared to leave for my sister's funeral and told me I was fired. He'd read the ad and thought I had unfairly maligned his golfing-friend's business.
But like the advertising man and the editor, he was lying.
What he really resented was that I had hurt myself doing his heavy work, was about to miss a week, and still had the gall to go out to a local bar and drink a few on my free time.
Listen dickhead, I said. I hurt myself doing a job for you. My sister just died. We're burying her tomorrow, and you're worried about me drinking beer on my off hours in another neighborhood joint? You're worried about the hurt feelings of your golfing friend? Fuck you.
I told you he was the bigger dickhead.
TS
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