HISTORY - the long version
RENAISSANCE FAMILY
Born lucky, into an artistic and accomplished family with professional musicians, writers, actors, graphic artists, world class athletes, a US Navy officer, an Illinois Congressman, a fashion model and even an FBI Agent. My paternal Zempel grandfather was a big fish in his small pond, and my maternal grandfather Balhatchet was a big fish in Chicago's big lake.
My mother insisted we be Renaissance Men like her father who sang opera and played violin with the Chicago Symphony and on Chicago radio: Required to make honor roll grades, be capable at drawing, playing musical instruments, 2 varsity sports, speaking 2 languages, excelling in college, and creating a successful career. She died in 1980, my Spanish is rusty and I don't play soccer or water polo anymore. I was her favorite. I mean look at that little booger. And I took care of her for many of her last years. 15 years later, when my dad lost his second and third wife (same woman) we brought him up to STL and cared for him til his death at 95.
EDUCATION
Mom put us in the St. Louis Institute of Music for two years in the late 1950's. And this 6 and 7-year old hated all that theory and piano polyphony on old pianos that had ivories missing. The place was a creepy old building worse than the school in "To Sir with Love." I was the littlest kid there and got picked on when my older brother, Chip, wasn't around. And when he was around .. Wait - I remember now. He was their ring leader! My piano teacher told Mom I wasn't reading the sheet music and playing by memory instead. She thought I had a learning disability.
Dad recognized I was playing "by ear" and suggested the clarinet as better for a jazz musician. Wetting my pants and the piano bench at my first public recital cinched the deal and I left the Institute. For the next 5 years I played the clarinet and bass clarinet in school orchestras and in 1966-67 I toured Missouri High Schools, playing bass clarinet in a classical sextet. Sextet? There was no sex, I was 14 and I thought I had been cheated.
In school, I really liked storytelling, and making art. Mom said I was always starting my ideas with, "What if..... " And I told stories as if they were true, hence my reputation as a bullshit artist. (artist?)
At Ladue, I was often compared to my older brothers and their National Merit Scholar, straight A Varsity Sports Team captains and leads in the big annual school play. Yikes!
I was a shitty student until expulsion on the last day of eighth grade had my mom and her lawyers forcing my absentee dad to pay for a private school. It worked. Whitfield was small and free from the Zempel high-expectation curse. I hated sports but played them anyway, as it was expected. Mom was a national champion swimmer in the 1930's and we had a big pool and swimming was always my primary sport, but Whitfield had no pool, so I got my varsity letters in soccer and rugby. I graduated from Whitfield at the top of my class (of 30 spoiled brats - big woop.)
At WHITTIER COLLEGE/Los Angeles/UCLA classes and SIU./Edwardsville, Ill.
I eventually almost ... really nearly completed BAs in Mass Communications and Studio Fine Art, and 2 minors in Psychology and Philosophy and held a 3.85 GPA. I made the waterpolo team at Whittier, but we had only two games and the team dissolved due to lack of interest. Varsity Waterpolo is laughingly on my transcript. Not on the transcript is the green belt I earned in Tae Kwon Do, and the Navy Seals pre-BUDS course I took. Nor is the cartooning for the Whittier school paper, working as a stage manager for my oldest brother, Larry and his production of Akira Kurasawa's "Roshomon" at the Pasadena Pacific Arts Center, or auditing 2 film classes at UCLA, impersonating Ladue friend Louis Seyfried, may he R.I.P.) I was expelled from Whittier, Spring of '73, for pushing an attacker through a picture window while working as a concert security guard.
At E'VILLE, I was one of only two double major Mass Comm. and Fine Art Majors (with my man, "Flim Flam").
I was shooting a lot of still photography and set up a duct tape heavy darkroom in the ancient ramshackle farm house I was renting for $55/mo. I managed to "withdraw" the only pro level Bolex H-16 film camera for 2 years and began developing my motion camera and cel animation skills.
I created the "5-minute Album Hour" for WSIE-FM featuring new album releases edited down to 5-minutes. Several fellow students used it in their radio shows. I joined the Cougar (live mountain lion mascot) guard, not for a sense of school spirit, but for a desire to play with big kitty cat, Chimega, and we soon had a strong relationship.
EMOTIONAL EDUCATION: My high school "sweetheart?" finally finished breaking my battered heart and that helped moved me to start playing my Dad's 1934 alto sax with a hard core, authentic blues band lead by an ex-con and two old black bluesmen. Thanks to masterful blues guitarist, Jeff "Dog" Breihan (R.I.P.) i tagged along with him to sit in with Ike Turner and Chuck Berry. And that's when the biker stuff started, too. A motorhead since childhood, befriending and riding with the hard core bikers in E' Ville was a real education.
WHAT IF? With the above college course mix, an SIUE counselor told me I should try "Advertising Creative." I thought Advertising was a sleazy first cousin to used car sales, but he convinced this hippy that I could get well paid to have multi-medium fun saying, "What if." I had been poor long enough, and I'd heard of a family friend who worked at D’Arcy Advertising in St. Louis. So I got my foot in the door. First the foot, then the brain, mouth and ass followed for the next 40 fun and crazy years.
WORK
I worked for the world’s largest and smallest ad agencies: The best and some of the worst. First hired as a creative department intern at D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles/St. Louis, headquarters for the world's sixth largest ad agency, and where I got the best training.
It was 1977 and my timing was again - lucky. They wanted young and crazy and I obliged, and worked like a workaholic.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Co-Created Natural Light "Just Say Natural" comics campaign and wrote most of the campaign ads, spots, radio for 4 years.
- Lead writer on SWBell Business Multi-media Humor Campaign for 4 years.
-Created Skittles "Taste the Rainbow" Campaign including writing, producing live action/animated European TV campaign in London
- Appointed as lead writer/director for the Budweiser Music Artists Radio Campaign, creating over 60 spots with legendary music artists over 10 years, plus other major A-B music projects.
- Promoted to VP Creative Director on Budweiser Contemporary Adult Campaign (18-24 yr old target) for 7 years
- Wrote, produced the majority of music tracks for Bud, Bud Light, Natural Light, Michelob, Bud Ice, Anheuser-Busch Corporate, Jack Daniel's, Phillips 66, and assorted small music projects from 1979 thru 2008.
- Loaned out to Labatt's Budweiser campaign in Toronto for a month.
- Fired by D'Arcy for threatening to kick a client's ass and then hired freelance to win back Michelob account. Long story.
- Co-wrote/produced large, 7 spot Int'l TV campaign for Jack Daniels
- Cast 9-year old Britney Spears in Maull's BBQ TV spot (highlight?)
- Co-Founded Schupp Co. as VP Exec. Creative Dir. Exec. Producer, hired the creative and production staffs and instituted procedures.
- Lead $35 Mil./yr Bud Light Spotlight Localized TV/Radio campaign in 62 markets.
- Won $19 Mil.O'Douls acct. created "Gimme an O" campaign.
- Freelance wrote, produced Bud "Ants" and "Recycling Ants" TV spots for Superbowls at Jim Cameron's. Digital Domain in LA.
- Created Bud Light LIVE $50 Mil/year campaign :60 live TV spots across 58 markets and developed first 360 degree interactive site.
- Hired by Momentum as VP Creative Dir. on Buick, Enterprise Rent-a-car, GM and new business. Group CD was psychotic so I left.
- Freelance wrote/produced TV for Heath and PayDay candy bars
Phillips 66, Chilliman Chili, Johnsonville, Nat'l General Insurance.
- Produced and directed TV campaigns for St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Patrick Willis for Rawlings Sporting Goods.
- Agency PR people told me I held the St. Louis record for winning the most national and international advertising creativity awards. Surely short-lived.
- Along the way I was able to go Renaissance by drawing layouts and storyboards, shooting film with the top cameras and direct many spots and complete the full circle of writer/art director/ producer/director/and editor. None of which I could do as well without the wonderful and horrible examples of my mentors and partners.
- One craft that attracted many ad agencies to me was my presentation/pitch winning skills which earned my agencies over $750 Mil in client billings and is the skill pictured in the cartoon above, "How do you do? Put her there, Good to meet cha."