Among the multitude of advertising agencies littering the streets of the greater Los Angeles area was a small relatively unknown agency by the name of Crispin & Jones. They had achieved some buzz among potential clients as the creative geniuses responsible for making dollar stores a destination shopping requirement. Add to that some catchy ancillary advertising campaigns worth a measly million in yearly advertising revenue and you pretty much had just another struggling advertising agency.
There was one thing that set the potential for Crispin & Jones’s greatness apart: Dick Witt. His name alone might suggest a few things: an asshole, self-absorbed, well-endowed. The first two were completely accurate. The last point was only something he would share with a cadre of select women, generally not at the same time, but usually in the same week. There must have been some truth to it since he was not a handsome man. He was short, a bit stout, and not sporting a full head of hair. By the time he graduated from college, he knew his calling and quickly manipulated his way into some of the industry’s most well-known agencies. Ultimately, his cockiness was his demise as he was often fired for offending someone or sleeping with the boss’s wife. Only in his early thirties, he was a brilliant creative, but he was also truly a dick. Finding the right balance proved challenging, but he was still in denial about that.
Crispin & Jones was a small upstart who needed someone like Dick. Miles Crispin and Kenny Jones were both gay so sleeping with wives would not come into question. It seemed a safe bet and Dick had convinced them as much. They liked his sales pitch: He truly believed he was put here on this earth to impart his brilliance upon the mushy minds of consumers glued to their television sets absorbing in the latest and greatest nonsense about something they really didn’t need but must have. He considered himself a master of fact manipulation; he knew how to present the product in such a way the consumer felt compelled to buy. It wasn’t until the purchase was complete that the buyer realized what a crock of shit Dick was really selling them. But his worth (and his head) were quickly gathering steam in the high-priced world of advertising.
Those in the advertising world know that it takes a team to execute even the most brilliant strategy. Dick had a talented but grossly overworked and underpaid staff of two. Together they created a cohesive impression for the potential and existing clients.
Kathy Flowers was in her late forties. She had been in the industry for a good quarter century. Some might have considered her an advertising slut. She had been to bed with just about every agency in town. They loved her aggressive attitude and staunch support of the client’s wishes. At least that is what she would have had them believe. Always in collusion with the creatives, she was herself a genius at manipulating the client’s needs to better meet those of the creative team. If Dick were truly the dick of advertising, she would be the bitch of account executives.
But even a good bitch recognizes when her reign may be coming to an end, so she left the glitz and glamour of the big agencies with their multi-million-dollar accounts for the more sedate side of the small and likely gullible client. She had seen it all and left it all for the slower, less frenetic pace at C&J. She had not, however, bargained for Dick Witt.
Dick had propositioned her shortly after they both arrived at Crispin & Jones. As his faithful account executive, she had pretended to fall for his arrogant charm knowing better by pure experience that it would not last. She was always flattered when a younger man was interested in her. She knew she still looked stunning for a woman in her forties. Living in the most superficial place quite possibly on earth had allowed her to enhance herself as well. Men liked her double D breasts and voluptuous curves. Just enough Botox had left her looking youthful and yet allowed her to remain animated. Subtle eye lifts exposed her beautiful green eyes. And it was obvious she still loved sex.
She slept with Dick a week after starting work. She knew he would be persistent, so she acquiesced. She slept with him just once to prove the well-endowed myth wrong, but it proved to be very true indeed. She might have actually enjoyed herself save for the fact that Dick was as selfish in bed as he was in work. He made quick work of her breasts determining their makeup was in fact not natural. He seemed to hold on tighter simply for that reason. As she neared the brink of being satisfied herself, he quickly finished his work, rolled over, and was done. “Selfish son of a bitch,” she thought. He suggested she should finish herself off and that he would like that. She turned to him, smiled, and said, “I save that for special occasions.” Dick didn’t know what to make of that.
She declined his second invitation suggesting that she was simply too old for him and implied she knew she wouldn’t be able to satisfy him on an ongoing basis. That fed Dick’s ego and allowed her to continue having ravenous sex with her son’s ex-college roommate. While perhaps slightly less endowed than Dick, she had much more control of the situation. Neither Dick nor Kathy was an especially good seed, but they complimented each other well.
The third member of their advertising team was a freshly graduated young lady named Addison Endicot. She believed in all the beauty that was advertising: truth, honesty, accurate product representation, finding wants, and ethically enticing the consumer to buy the product. Dick laughed in her face the first time she tried to sell him that load of crap. “You actually believe that bull shit they teach you in school?” he mockingly asked her. She almost burst into tears, which certainly would have cost her the job anywhere else. If not for the simple fact she was Miles Crispin’s sister’s daughter, she did not appear a good fit for an advertising agency. She was still wearing her freshman fifteen pretty much everywhere on her body, dressed like a preppy, and was visually unappealing. Conquest was not anywhere on the radar for Dick. But he knew he had to hire her and did his best to humiliate her in the process.
Miles Crispin was well aware of Dick’s reputation. He felt Addison would be safe in Dick’s clutches. There was absolutely no way Dick would find the fat and fashionably frumpy Addison worthy of anything other than mockery.
Addison, despite the near release of tears in that first interview, knew she was up for the task. It didn’t matter that she was from Idaho. Or that her college only offered a minor in advertising. It mattered to her only to follow in her Uncle Miles’s shoes to Los Angeles. She knew she was not pretty. Or skinny. Or a good dresser. But she knew she was smart. And she knew that it didn’t matter where you came from in life as long as you believed you had a gift and were willing to work hard to get what you wanted. She was willing to overlook the simple fact that the only reason she was working with a great mind like Dick’s was because of nepotism. Of course, that little detail was not overlooked by Dick who, when he hired her, put it quite simply: “I wouldn’t hire you, but I want this job so don’t fuck it up for me. You start on Monday.” Yes, Dick was a dick and even gullible, naïve Addison wasn’t immune to that. And, as she walked out of the interview, his parting words to her, in no uncertain terms were: “Get some makeup and a new wardrobe. This is Los Angeles. Not Hodunkville.” She swore she could feel the actual sting of his words reach out and slap her in the face. She allowed the door to shut behind her and thought to herself, “Someday, Dick, someday.” Every dog has his day, she knew.
With his paltry team of three fully assembled, Dick was ready to help make Crispin & Jones an “it” agency. He had hoped it would be for a car manufacturer or a chain store of some kind. So when Miles and Kenny approached him about a potential client in the food service industry, Dick started to feel his creative juices stir. He had hoped for something big, and this just might be it. When Miles and Kenny informed him it was Burger Barn, his reaction was that of most: “What the hell is Burger Barn?”
