MR CLYDE P. ULSTER, EXPERT RETAIL ACCOUNT GUY, HAS JOINED THE AGENCY TO LAND A PRESTIGE RETAIL ACCOUNT.
AT A WELCOME SPEECH IN THE BOARDROOM, CLYDE GAVE A SHORT HISTORY OF RETAIL ADVERTISING. ABOUT NINETY MINUTES SHORT. AFERWARDS, THE FEW PEOPLE REMAINING IN THE BOARDROOM GAVE HIM WARM APPLAUSE.
CLYDE (BEAMING): Any questions?
FROM THE BACK OF THE ROOM: Yeah. Can we go to lunch now?
CLYDE (MISSES THE SARCASM): Sure. I know just the place.
BACK IN THE CREATIVE DEPARTMENT. MICK, WRITER, AND DAVE, ART DIRECTOR, ARE DECIDING WHETHER TO WORK ON AN URGENT PRESS AD OR GO TO LUNCH. THEY DECIDE THE PRESS AD WASN'T ALL THAT URGENT. THEY EXIT AND CROSS THE ROAD.
IN SARATOGA'S CAFE.
DAVE (STARING AT THE SPECIALS BOARD): I'll have the angel hair pasta with crab meat, chili and ginger.
MICK: Sounds disgusting, Dave. I can't decide between the Caesar salad or the vegetarian foccaccia.
DAVE: You've got no imagination, Mick. I mean, come on, Caesar salad? Some tired cos, a few burnt bits of bacon and a slop of mayonnaise?
MICK: No, the Caesar is actually good here. They assemble it on the spot rather than dredging it from a cold bain marie like most places up and down St Kilda Road. What did you think of Clyde?
DAVE: Fattest bore in advertising. That's two great achievements straight away. He's supposed to be landing a big piece of retail business.
MICK: It better be good. I'm sick of working on industrial boltcutters, cat enemas, pest extermination chemicals and carpet glue.
DAVE: You're never satisfied, Mick. That carpet glue campaign was actually quite creative.
THE WAITER CURTLY ANNOUNCES 'ANGEL HAIR PASTA' AND 'CAESAR SALAD', PLONKS THEM DOWN AND RACEWALKS AWAY.
MICK: Yes, but because the concept was triple X rated, it never actually ran.
DAVE: Yeah. Well, carpet glue. It kind of suggests something obvious. Anyway, who cares it never ran? It still cleaned up at awards night.
MICK: I know. That's crazy. You don't need to actually run an ad to win an award.
DAVE: Of course not. But then, award judges don't go around checking minor details like whether an ad has run or not.
MICK: No. In fact, they don't go around checking any details at all. They spend their three weeks in Cannes snorting white dust up their noses and then pointing a shaking finger at a board like a pin the tail on the donkey. It's their reward for being gurus of the industry. And old and fat and almost dead.
DAVE: You'll be like that one day, Mick; and then you'll be glad of a little chemically-induced stress relief.
MICK: No, I won't, Dave. Because I won't be in the industry any more. I'll be retired. It completely escapes me why people want to continue working twelve hour days into their late fifties. I've known creative directors who don't know their own children's names because they never see them except on weekends.
DAVE: Speaking of creative directors, here's James.
JAMES APPROACHES THEIR TABLE.
Hey, James, want to join us?
JAMES (LOOKS AROUND FIRTS TO SEE WHO ELSE IS THERE) Sure. What are we eating?
MICK: Pasta and Caesar salad, James. Hey, have you got any idea of what big-name retail account Clyde is bringing in? We want to know so we can practising what we need to draw; whether it be fridges, ladies' fashions, cans of baked beans or circular saws.
JAMES: Mick, you couldn't draw any of those if your life depended on it. So why bother worrying?
MICK: Thanks for the vote of confidence in your top team, James. And I'm not worried, I'm just mildly interested.
JAMES: Well, I don't know. I haven't spoken at length to the fat windbag. Although I did see some case studies in his folder from some of the traditional fashion houses of Europe and the US.
MICK: David Jones? Myer? Henry Buck's?
JAMES: We'll see.
HE GAZES AWAY. HE KNOWS.