Mistress, the LA Ad Agency That Named a Conference Room After Monica Lewinsky, Eschews Racy Heritage for the Mainstream

The award-winning LA creative shop Mistress — which made a splash a few years ago with its work on Mattel's Hot Wheels and more recently when it partnered with Discover Los Angeles on its "Everyone Is Welcome" campaign following President Trump's travel ban — has now rebranded itself as The Many.

I suppose I can understand the agency wanting to make this change: The original, provocative name, dating back a decade, was inspired by its having done project work on the sly for brands working behind the backs of their AORs — like a dude cheating on his spouse with a mistress, get it? Considering the genesis of the business, it's probably not a surprise it's never shied away from taking risks with its work, which is why it's been able to attract clients like Netflix, TripAdvisor, PayPal and Coca-Cola and why Ad Age named it Small Agency of the Year three years running.

The repositioning signals that the agency is no mere side piece any longer. Explains founding partner Christian Jacobsen: "The Many embraces our cross-functional approach to work — we are many disciplines, many verticals, many creative solutions. It's about time our name caught up with who we are."

I first got to know Christian and his team several years ago when I was out there working on a story about ascendant LA creative agencies. Their first office, a somewhat ramshackle beach house in the grungy thick of Venice, looked like your typical startup: a large, open room jam-packed with young creatives and their slightly more weathered overseers, and teeming with plenty of creative energy (and little dogs running about, naturally).

A visit a few years later to their slicker, more industrial digs in Santa Monica signaled that they were beginning to move up in the world — but the spunk and spirit of the place were still every bit as evident. I remember being amused by the names they chose for their conference rooms over at the new offices. It's kind of a thing in the ad world to give one's meeting spaces names more clever than, say, "Conference Room A" — these are creative enterprises after all. Some do this to better effect than others, and Mistress did it better than anyone, naming its conference rooms after — what else? — famous mistresses. A couple of the more memorable ones, as I recall, were the "Camilla Parker Bowles" and the "Monica Lewinsky."

They'll be missed, as will one of the cleverest names for an ad agency ever.

What's the Real Reason Adam Moss Is Leaving New York Magazine? Because He's Not Allowed to Be a Journalist Anymore

When an editor as universally admired as Adam Moss leaves a thriving magazine like New York and its family of fabulously successful digital offshoots at the relatively young age of 61 — even though, admittedly, his is a business increasingly run by teenagers — all purportedly because he's tired or was reminded of the fragility of life after a bicycle accident, something smells fishy.

We are talking about the best magazine editor of our time, his successes having been well documented in the New York Times piece announcing the news. He is that rare editor who maintains the highest standards, produces stuff people actually want to read, wins awards for it, and who performed the herculean by spinning off that content into a stable of well-read and profitable websites. For those of us who write about the media business, reading that Adam Moss is leaving New York is like reading that God is dead. Reading it also makes you wonder, what's the real story? None of us is naive enough to think that people like this, people as mighty as Adam Moss, just up and "retire."

A closer read reveals the truth. Reports the Times:

And while he never shied away from the business side of the job, his management duties were outweighing the thrill of putting out a magazine. "In a lot of ways, it doesn't feel like the same publication or the same job," Mr. Moss said. "I get reports back about what sold at what price point and all that stuff, and I think, Wait, really, this is what I do for a living? You do spend less time worrying about getting the story right."

"This is what I do for a living?" It's a question more and more editors have started asking themselves.

Once upon a time, I ran features for a magazine. It was good journalism, and we got a lot of attention for it, and yes, it was also fun. Then that magazine got bought by some bottom line-obsessed goons who had no experience in journalism (nor expertise in anything that I could tell) and demanded that their editors and reporters be held accountable, revenue-wise, for everything they produced. Every reporter's clicks were scrutinized, every editor's stories judged against whether they were monetized — and editors were even forced to make sales calls, and had how much sales revenue they'd brought in tracked by software designed for that purpose. At one point, the idea was weighed of having editors' salaries tied to how much money they'd brought in. Let that sink in.

There are a lot of other news organizations being run, while not quite to that extreme, not all that far off either — where, like Moss says, journalists are now spending more time worrying about clicks and ad sales than producing quality journalism. Nobody appreciates that news organizations have to make money more than I do — in fact, I've been closer to it than most, having spent a career producing "listicles" and profiles of award winners against which congratulatory ads are sold, as well as advertorials and custom content, and working closely with the sales department on such projects. On more than one occasion, I've had to hold my nose and do my best from retching when forced to create content that was nothing more than a promotion, a free ad, for another division of my company. Businesses are in business to make money, of course. We all know that, and accept it. It's when there's no breathing room, or support or respect from the higher-ups, for actual journalism that it becomes untenable.

I once attempted to explain to one brainless twit I worked for — one of the owners of my publication — the importance of journalistic integrity and independence. His response? "We're not Woodward and Bernstein here, you know." No, I found myself thinking — more like Laurel and Hardy.

However, I was fortunate enough early in my career to have worked for editors who had me chase stories regardless of who it upset — including the publisher or owner. And I did, and we were threatened, and our lives were made a little miserable for a while. But we ran the stories anyway. And those stories had impact with our readers and led to real change in the real world. It happened because I had bosses with balls, who had courage, who didn't back down — even if it meant being threatened with their very jobs. I'm sorry to say, we just don't live in that kind of world anymore. We live in a world of ass-kissing and kowtowing and building "relationships," not of independent, adversarial journalism. Just look at the way the TV networks cower at this corrupt president and his cronies instead of standing up to them and feeding the shit they peddle daily right back to them. There are a few brave ones like Jim Acosta, but precious few. Did you see that story this week about NBC News telling its reporters not to refer to Steve King as a "racist," before backing down after everybody, quite rightly, erupted in a rage?

We are no longer allowed to call racists racist, or crooks crooks, or bullshitters bullshitters. Make nice, now. Be friends with everybody. Don't ruffle feathers or rock the boat.

Maybe I'm an idealist, or an anachronism, or naive, but whatever happened to fearlessness, and integrity, and the willingness to stand up to the powers that be in the world, including our own bosses, and tell the public the things that other people want kept hidden? Whatever happened to our business — a business where Adam Moss did great journalism and had fun doing it instead of being driven from the industry after having grown weary of staring at a spreadsheet and being given a stern talking-to after this year's "Reasons to Love New York" issue sold 15 fewer copies at the newsstand than last year's?

Remember what he told the Times: "It doesn't feel like the same job."

Is it any wonder the guy finally said enough?

What is this industry where Graydon Carter, the onetime impresario of the magazine world, can be driven into retirement too early because he makes too much money, paving the way for an unknown, untalented kid who is, issue by issue, destroying an entire franchise? Where Out magazine decides it's time for "new blood" and hires another child as editor to create a product that is totally unremarkable and unrelatable in every single way unless you ride a skateboard to work? Where all the content of Hearst's legendary magazines is now done on an assembly line of drones — cranking out dull, soulless content for one website that is virtually indistinguishable from the dull, soulless content of another?

I've always been in love with journalism, especially that which is produced by magazines. It's so painful watching it be destroyed.

Murder'd: Your Hook-Up App Could Kill You (Or, Meet My Friend, the S&M Psychopath)

Having been blamed for everything from stress, depression and ADHD to bad posture, eye strain and even the shrinking of our brains, we know the internet is bad for you. We also know now that it can literally kill you.

It's been a busy week for cybercrime, especially for cases in which gay men were the victims. In Brooklyn, a former male model was sentenced Thursday to 12 years in prison for the stabbing death of a man he met on the gay dating app Jack'd — an app that has a long history of nefarious users. And in Dallas, two men were charged with using another hook-up app, Grindr, to lure guys who were then beaten and robbed.

Unfortunately, such stories are nothing new. The internet and all those looking-for-quick-love apps have for some time been a dark tool for criminals seeking their prey. It's not only gay people who are in danger, of course — countless individuals of every gender, race and sexual orientation have been victimized by shady characters they met on sites like Craigslist and Facebook and in chatrooms. So many have met their demise because of relationships facilitated on the internet, in fact, that there's even a classification for such cases in law enforcement: "internet homicide." (An entire Wikipedia page, including a listing of the most notorious cases, is devoted to the topic.)

Still, some argue that too much has been made of the connection between the internet and bad stuff happening to us. After all, dangerous, horrific people and things existed before we all got online — serial killers, muggers, rapists, sexual deviants, STDs, open manholes, tidal waves, President Donald Trump. Having been a New Yorker for nearly three decades now, I have, unfortunately, known victims as well as perpetrators of sex crimes, none of it having anything to do with the internet.

Story time: I had this rich investment banker acquaintance in the early 90s, long before hook-up apps and Craiglist, who was the very embodiment of Tom Wolfe's Sherman McCoy character in The Bonfire of the Vanities. He was the type of guy who had Audubon prints hanging in his home, got his suits from Brook's Brothers on Madison Avenue and gave money to charities. He was the first person I ever knew who worked on Wall Street, owned houses within driving distance of each other and had a Sub-Zero refrigerator. He also threw lavish parties at his condo, on Park Avenue, and I went to a couple. He also invited me and other friends up to his summer house on Nantucket a few times. Being fresh to the city and a young, poor writer (as opposed to an old, poor one, like I am now), I was, naturally, wowed by it all. Imagine my surprise when I opened The Village Voice one morning to find that Mr. Brooks Brothers turned out to be a twisted sex maniac who by night trolled leather bars where he picked up unsuspecting men, brought them back to his place and proceeded to immobilize and torture them and hold them there against their will for days before turning them loose — but not before threatening them if they ever breathed a word of any of it. The authorities did some nosing around apparently, but nothing came of it and the monster slipped the country, never to be heard from again. (Such an escape would've been easy for him, as he had homes, not to mention rich friends and benefactors, all over the world). Strangely, any and all details about the case have vanished into thin air, just like the perp himself — absolutely nothing about it can be found on the internet. Money really does buy everything, I guess, even a scrubbed-clean biography for an S&M psychopath.

Several years after that hideousness, another friend of mine, Martin Barreto, a former aide to New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, was found dead in his apartment in the Village, the victim of a drug addict he'd picked up on the street who was, soon after the event, picked up himself by the NYPD. (I partied a bit back in the day with Martin and his fellow Nicaraguan/lifelong family friend Bianca Jagger — and no, not a drag queen doing Bianca Jagger but the Bianca Jagger. Being around her was like being with Mount Rushmore as reimagined by Andy Warhol — and she said about as much as those dead presidents carved out of stone. But the eyes, they talked and talked. No wonder Mick got smitten.) Anyway, Martin, after his stint in the mayor's office, would go on to start a successful PR agency, and I have often wondered what would've come of him had he not been snuffed out at such a young age. Senseless tragedy, as they say. Poor Martin had the misfortune of befriending the wrong person — but their meeting had nothing to do with the internet. The dude who did him in was just some random thug on the street, the kind we've all passed by a thousand times.

The point is, whether on Grindr or Jack'd or at a fancy Park Avenue party or just around the block, you never know where evil lurks. Be safe out there, kids.

Remember, We Are All Really Just Salesmen

What do you think the Devil is going to look like?

The subject of sales is on my mind. I am writing a piece on what consumer brands need to know to market (sell) their products in Asia — no small feat considering there are two dozen official languages in India alone. I am reading all the coverage and commentary about Trump's big televised sales pitch last night for his beloved (and pointless) wall, thinking of the people (including some I know personally) whose paychecks are being held hostage because of this stunt. (I'm more than a little pissed at the broadcast networks for carrying a political speech in prime time. Even they are terrified of the guy. But I guess the networks, being run by businesspeople, are beholden not so much to their responsibility to the public as to their ratings and their relationships to the mighty and powerful — in other words, sales.) I'm hardly the first person to make the point, but everything, everything is sales. If you're an advertiser, you've got to sell. If you're in a relationship, you've got to sell. If you're a politician, you've got to sell. Even journalists are always selling: selling the idea that they're credible, selling whatever case they're trying to make with whatever piece they're writing at the moment and, in certain cases, when not busy exercising their First Amendment duties and serving the public trust — including at a former employer of mine that tracks its editors' outreach to sales prospects via Salesforce and rewards or punishes them accordingly — selling ad space, not to mention selling themselves out. (This was the same place where a boss of mine once told me, during a conversation about journalistic independence and credibility, "We're not Woodward and Bernstein, you know.") All this has me thinking of that scene from the terrific and prescient film Broadcast News where Holly Hunter's character, Jane, confesses to her best friend, Aaron (Albert Brooks), that she's fallen in love with the morally ambivalent, mashed-potatoes-for-brains anchorman Tom (William Hurt), who they heretofore have actively despised. Aaron's response on learning this unsettling news:

"Tom, while being a very nice guy, is the Devil. What do you think the Devil is going to look like? Nobody is going to be taken in by a guy with a long, red, pointy tail. What's he going to sound like? [Hissing sounds.] He will be attractive, he'll be nice and helpful, he'll get a job where he influences a great, God-fearing nation. He'll never do an evil thing, he'll never deliberately hurt a living thing ... he will just by bit lower our standards where they are important, just a tiny little bit, just coax along, flash over substance, just a tiny little bit ... and he'll talk about all of us really being SALESMEN."

But at the end of the day, if we're all salesmen, doesn't that make us only human?

Or, are we the Devil?

How Parker Posey Taught Me to Focus on What I'm Good At — and Strangle the Rest

I was visiting my mom a while back when one of those singing competition shows came on the television. As we listened to some tone-deaf Whitney Houston wannabe's screeching, mother just winced and shook her head. "Everybody thinks they're a singer," she sighed.

I feel the same way about writing — everybody thinks they know how to do it, that their own personal histories or the random, amusing thoughts that pop into their feeble brains are worth sharing. Social media has, of course, made the situation so much worse, giving literally any nobody a platform. Andy Warhol had no idea how right he'd be — though those 15 minutes have dragged into an endless, merciless hell, a sellout shitshow that will play forever and ever. Narcissism is the social disease du jour, and Facebook is a box of Trojans riddled with pinpricks.

Which brings us to Parker Posey.

I've always enjoyed the work of this comic actress. Her offbeat supporting roles in movies and TV programs ranging from Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show to You've Got Mail and Will & Grace have earned her an enduring career in Hollywood and independent film and many adoring fans (of which I am one, or used to be). I had really looked forward to the publication a while back of her memoir, You're on an Airplane, so you can imagine my disappointment to find it an utterly ghastly affair: poorly written, excruciatingly dull, a rambling, incoherent mess and all-around one of the worst excuses I've come across for murdering a tree. (It says something when the cover art is the best thing about a book.) I keep my copy on a shelf where I can see it every day as a reminder to not fool myself into thinking that there's anything I can do. But I am considering relocating it to my car's glovebox, so the next time I'm around Posey's weekend hometown of Hudson, New York, which I also frequent, and happen to bump into her on the sidewalk or in one of the many hipster coffee joints up and down Warren Street, I can thrust this bloody abortion back into her hands and demand a refund of my 30 bucks. Or at least a latte.

Yes, there are many things you can learn from Parker Posey, but writing is not one of them. I'm in good company apparently, as these customer reviews on Amazon attest:

"I've always loved Parker Posey for her eccentricities as an actress and her genuine charisma. But she is not a writer. The book is disjointed and I found myself constantly looking to see how far in I was to determine how much longer I would need to spend in this purgatory. Take another flight."

"I love love love Parker Posey, but this book is unreadable."

"If you love Parker Posey and her movies, do not read. This book will make you hope you never sit next to her on a plane. Or in a restaurant. Or anywhere."

"I'm a huge PP fan. Great actress and artist. But most of what she writes about is thoroughly mundane and uninteresting and devoid of clever insights or anecdotes. Quirky only goes so far, certainly not 300 pages. I hate to say it, but I like her less after reading this book."

There is a lesson to be learned here, as with the baseball career of Michael Jordan, the paintings of George W. Bush or anything starring Madonna: stick with what you know, with what you're good at. You may be a fine used car salesman or teacher or bank teller or vegan chef or investment banker or streetwalker — but that dream you've always had of playing for the Knicks, of flying to Mars, of writing your life story? Do yourself and humankind a favor — strangle it in its sleep.

I may be from Nashville, but there's a reason I'm not Dolly Parton.