Fortunately, I held on to a lot of my assignments. Here are some of the better comments/number three references . . .

This is a piece we had to write describing a US city without stating its name. The title makes perfect sense, right? And, by the way, this one has comments from Reva. She corrected my Spanish in class . . . only to correct herself later.

Another title that makes a lot of sense:
Some of my classmates were beginning to realize that I was fixated with diarrhea:

Reva was growing tired of my IBS:
This guy wasn't in our quarter, but he was pretty funny:

This is clearly after I was "kicked out" of class. The smarter ones were jealous:

This guy is a complete tool, but I do like his radical editing style:
The school as metaphor assignment especially went over well:
This one's from Reva (in the packet of work I received at the end of the quarter). Did I mention that she didn't like me?
Apparently, I wasn't the only one who thought this class sucked:
Nuff said:


Weeks later, I received my report card in the mail. And this is where it all came together. The report cards are all handwritten and, typically, a teacher comments on your strengths and weaknesses. Constructive criticism, if you will. Well, Reva, commented on a bit more. And she gave me a grade that I couldn't be happier about. It has graced the fridge of nearly all of my addresses. This is why:

A D with 6 minuses after it? Why stop with 6? Why not put one of those infinity signs above the last minus to let me know that my below average performance is eternally below average? Maybe after that 6th minus she was sidetracked by a Popeye's commercial. Only Reva and Popeye know the answer. By now, I'm sure you're saying to yourself "I bet Keller is an ass to have in class." Well, you're not entirely wrong, but I present you with these to disprove your understandable hypothesis:

Maybe I'm not such a bad guy after all . . .

This report is after the whole mess - it's a class I took from the head of our school. What's funny is that my behavior didn't change one bit. His perception of me did, though.

I don't know who this guy is, but he didn't hate me:

This teacher had our quarter nailed down. There were about six of us who knew what was going on. Most of the others made sitting through a class almost unbearable.
And, yes, I comment on Reva's weight too much. But you have to see her. It's hard not to focus on it. I typically don't find much humor in weight, but when it's from laziness, I say it's open season. Frankly, I don't know the "lady" well enough to make fun of much else. She's extremely insecure, that's safe to say. Ultimately, I think we were both to blame for the mishap. I exploited her insecurities. And she resorted to the only card she had left at her disposal: the 8 of rats. Isn't that a suit?

So this is a letter I received from Mike Jones-Kelley after going to the beach for a week with my family. Reva convinced him to really start hating me. Technalities like the one below - even when I was doing well - were MJK's best friend. Well, next to Reva The Hut.


So what have I learned from all of this? Besides how to get some serious mileage out of a report card? Let's see. I learned that $28,000 is a lot of money to spend on a diploma that a woman prints off on an Apple Stylewriter during her smoke break. I learned that the Dot Bomb affected us all, even if we had no stock in Kozmo. When I started at the Circus (it's affectionate name), people with "crazy" books and wild ideas were moving to California to work for 28 year old CEOs. They were doing ads that featured wolves attacking school bands. They had sock puppets as spokesmen. They bought 30 seconds during the Super Bowl and filled it with their companies URL on a black screen. It was promising for young creatives. But at the end of two years it was a very different landscape.

I left the Creative Circus with a few good friends, two of whom I talk to on a regular basis and would consider among my best friends. I tell them both that they were worth the tuition alone. They say the jury's still out, whatever that means. I also left with the desire to do something for myself. Soon after, I started my card company. It's paid off almost as well as that Kozmo stock.

How did the card company actually come to be? After visiting McKinney Silver in Raleigh - and I call it a visit because they never entertained the idea of hiring me - I needed to write some thank-you's. I scoured the card aisles and was disgusted by what I saw: loads of crap. Shelves fillled with cards that said nothing. Bland. Bland. Bland. So I sent some graduation cards, some thinking-of-you cards, some happy-birthday-grandma cards and a few other inappropriate cards in the hopes that I might be remembered. Hey, remember me? I'm that white guy with no connections or buzz or awards, who wore some jeans and a smart jacket and talked about how the drive from SC wasn't so bad. You gotta remember that! I've been trying to forget it. With that "interview" and few others that went maybe marginally better, I decided to create some cards that Hallmark forgot to cover. That theme made up my first 18 cards. My belief was that if you opened a card on your birthday, it was pretty safe to assume that it was a birthday card, even if it read "You've got crabs." I left it up to the sender to write the sentiment. Who am I to know how you feel about the people in your life? Not everyone got that. So I created some more that were a bit more appropriate - or less inappropriate. Still, I wasn't selling enough. That led me to Spoonfed Greetings. The name says it all.

I'm still waiting for my ship to come in.

Maybe I'll go back to school.


The events that I've written about are exactly as they happened . . . to the best of my knowledge. The order in which they happened may be off a bit, but this was 6 years ago, so that kinda goes without saying. Suffice it to say, all of this did happen. I know James Frey and I'm no James Frey.

I did, however, eventually get a "job" in "advertising". I lasted almost three years there. And if you're reading, Reva, they offered me more money to get me to stay. What saddened me was the lack of creativity. And it's not just in South Carolina. It's at about 95% of the agencies out there. Open a magazine. Turn on the TV. Hit the highway. It's depressing. But there are a lot of great people in the business. So if expressing yourself isn't a priority, it's a great career. And if you're lucky enough to be at one of those places that respects the highest common denominator, and challenges you while at it, I'm sure it's a great life, too. Just please stop it with the gnomes and with the fingers to the eyes thing that Meet the Parents made so damn popular. And with short sleeved work shirts with brown ties. And talking animals. And dance numbers. And maybe stop filming on that hilly street in San Francisco.

Enough of that. I'm sure you're wondering what's happened to the other characters. A few of my classmates have great jobs in NYC - in that 5% even. One of our quarter's best writers is actually working in Oglethorpe's Athletic Department in Atlanta. And a guy from a couple of quarters above me is losing to me in a fantasy football league in Charleston. And I mean getting his ass kicked. As for the ones who never really "got it", I have no idea. I never really got their email addresses.

But what about Reva and MJK? The only thing I could find about Reva . . .

And there's something about the water that bonds people, Oresti notes. She says her classes are a great outlet for people who might not have many other opportunities to socialize. It's really collegial," says Reva Ezell, who chats with Ratthaus and Cook while the women wait for class to begin. "We're sharing this experience." Shedding the pounds?

I don't know who I feel more sorry for . . . Ratthaus or Cook. Or the water that has to touch every nook and cranny of the almost-never contributor to the AJC's body.

An interesting note on Mike Jones-Kelley, the man who purchased a Chrysler Prowler and had his stomache stapled with our tuition money: Turns out he is no longer at the school. I hear he was ousted. I searched for him online and found a hostel in Mexico owned by a guy named Mike Jones-Kelley and a bunch of crap relating to airplanes. Is this the same man? Have you seen a Prowler on the streets of Mazatlan? Were you accosted by a Lord of the Rings extra on your last flight from Budapest? He gave us this speach at his annual 'dinner with the professor' night. I use dinner pretty loosely, as our dinner consisted of some sort of loaf made of meat and fruit. Dude, I like meat, I like fruit and I like loaves. I just don't think they should ever be in the same orgy.

If it doesn't go well and the employer says do it or you're fired, then so be
it. Leave. The talent that got you hired to begin with will get you hired
again. Our talent is our safeguard in advertising, our ethical lifeboat. We
can never actually be forced into doing something to which we object
morally. We can acquiesce or we can take a stand, but the decision is always
in our own hands.

You're right. The decision is always in our hands.