Category Archive

Maybe it’s because we’re big Coen brother fans. Maybe it’s because we’ve always wanted to know how to perform this particular victory dance. Either way, we love the poster for the 7th Annual Lebowski Fest.

By the way, did anyone know there was a Lebowski Fest? Don’t get us wrong, we love the idea. We’re just hoping there isn’t a Fargo Fest going on somewhere.

Too much blood and not nearly enough fest.

And just so no one jumps in their Dude mobile headed toward Louisville dreaming of White Russians that never go empty and rugs that could tie any room together, this year’s Lebowski Fest is already over. Sorry, but it looks like nobody will be festing with the Jesus until next year.

Marlin is pleased to announce three new faces in our halls. And rather than put our adjective-heavy spin on these talented, talented people, we’ve decided to let them tell you all about themselves.

Allison Cash — Group Account Director

“I like Led Zeppelin; Going to California is my favorite song. Wendell Berry is my favorite essayist. I love my husband and kids and think one day maybe I’ll do Pilates. Hendrick’s gin and tonic with extra lime is my favorite extracurricular drink. I have been in communications 15 years and stretching the truth for at least 9.”

Allison, for those of you paying attention, previously worked at our sister agency, deep. Which explains the “two and a half” reference (and here you thought we were just big Charlie Sheen fans). Now, Agatha!

Agatha Lesiew— Account Executive

“I grew up in Kenya (East Africa) and come from the tribe that always wins marathons. That gene must have skipped me! I came to the states 10 years ago to go to SMSU (then transferred to Drury, where I graduated from). I moved back to Springfield to join Marlin, having been in Kansas City for the past two years working on the print production side. I love to play tennis and I own/am owned by my little yorkie Rafiki (which means friend in Kiswahili).”

Jeff Hedrick — Account Service Intern

“College attended: Still attending Evangel University.(Senior advertising major, middle linebacker for football team, manager/designer of Excalibur yearbook.)

Years in the advertising business: 3 weeks?

I joined Marlin after traveling the world throughout the month of May. (Russia, Kyrgyzstan, New York, California, Michigan — 32,000 miles/12 flights)

I can’t wait until I am old and living in a log cabin in the mountains with my wife, where the highlight of the year will be hopping in our RV and taking a trip to Branson. I have a season pass to Silver Dollar City.”

Welcome Allison, Agatha and Jeff. We are incredibly happy to have you.

The East London Decapitator surfaced back in January with a barrage of breathless posts about how fantastic it was that someone was sticking it to The Man with a clever if somewhat bloody bit of culture-jamming on London’s street ads. Honestly, our first reaction was the same — we loved it. Somebody out there was turning insipid ad visuals against their advertisers and spinning all that fake glamour 180°. Brilliant.

Then we came across this interesting bit. Somebody noticed the decapitator was, shall we say, favoring the ladies. And by favoring, we mean chopping off their heads more than men. Noticeably more than men. A fact highlighted in one of the most recent targets, ads for Sex And The City:

So the question becomes: is it a modern example of violent, momma-never-breastfed-me misogynism? Or simply a result of advertising that itself favors women (even if men are present in the ads) to deliver the bulk o’ the attraction and appeal, which makes the women the logical target for somebody wanting to screw with said ads.

Or maybe the question becomes: why the hell are you overanalyzing what’s basically a clever and fun bit of graffiti pop art?

To which the answer is: I GOT NOWHERE ELSE TO GO.

“I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We’ve created life in our own image.” —Stephen Hawking

Earth Day, today, is usually an opportunity for the following fun time happy parade of:

• Companies latching onto Earth Day (or say, Earth Week, like this blog!) and telling us just how darn much they care about our planet
• Website after website bombarding us with so many “Here’s How You Can Save The Entire Planet With A Seemingly Insignificant Action!” tip lists that we become paralyzed into doing absolutely nothing (Green Sex? Are you kidding me?!)
• And well-intentioned organizations telling us just how destructive mankind is

There’s not much that can be done about that first point, aside from companies like Green Seal keeping marketing monkeys like ourselves somewhere near the truth. It’s the other two that can really start getting you down.

We are drowning in green data. And if a near-infinite amount of Green Commandments (even Moses got it down to ten) it isn’t enough to immobilize you, a great deal of those imperatives are contradictory. Witness the current version of the chicken-or-the-egg question that came out of Home Depot’s Eco Options: which is less destructive to the environment, the plastic paintbrush because it doesn’t use wood, or the wooden paintbrush because it doesn’t use plastic? Sounds like a riddle you’d ask a giant killer robot to short circuit its logic board.

Or maybe that’s just us.

That’s probably just us.

Out of this year’s eco cacophony, we came across one article that truly did give us hope, that helped us find a little meaning and comfort in the duality of freakin’ everything. It was in this week’s Sunday Times Magazine, an article by Michael Pollan entitled, simply, Why Bother? Rather than step on any more of Mr. Pollan’s insights, we’ll let you read the article yourself.

And when you’re done reading it, we invite you to finish our little post with another thought from one of our planet’s brainest brains.

“We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.”
— also Stephen Hawking

It seems we were a bit premature in mocking a news story about padded lampposts in London. Apparently it was just a stunt pulled by the company 118m8 to promote some sort of padded lamppost selling company (that’s what we got out of the stunt anyway).

We want our readers to know that we strive to mock only the most accurate news stories and apologize to anyone who wrote letters to Queen Elizabeth II in regards to our post.

Thankfully, there is a silver lining to all of this in the form of a lesson. If you need lamppost pads, get them from 118m8. If you need lamppost news, don’t get it from Foxnews.com.

This happens every year. The fin de siecle barrage of work. The soon-to-expire vacation days being cashed in. The holiday shopping shoved to the margins until the last possible second. The eating.

And suddenly, it all goes poof.

The week between Christmas and New Year’s is blissfully quiet. Anyone who can has built a tidy little vacation bridge between December 25th and January 1st, leaving our hallways incredibly quiet and our to-do lists happily short.

In fact, you’re probably not even reading this until January 2nd. Which, honestly, you’ve probably got better things to do. You’ve got an inbox filled with hundreds of emails, only half of which are poorly worded, softcore ads for Viagra, not to mention all the stories you need to tell of which extended family member gave you what horrible gift from Steinmart for which you had to really strain, dig deep, and come up with yet another fake, appreciative smile. Best to get to it, don’t you think?

Oh, and the picture is of a Christmas tree made entirely out of tumbleweeds. Seemed fitting in this most festive of sparsely populated lulls.