For the past several months, Underdog Copy & Creative has been forced to move underground. In other words, we've been buring the midnight, weekend and early morning oil. (Don't tell Al Gore.)

As freelance and consulting projects ebbed in this high and dry economy, I was lucky enough to parlay a great gig contributing to PartnerMD's marketing efforts into a full-time job as the healthcare company's marketing director.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Underdog has been chugging along. Our Great Place to Work submission was enough to land client SnagAJob.com a repeat finish as the No. 3 Best Small Company to Work for in America. We partnered with a Richmond-based ad agency to churn out copy for a high-end car dealership. And movie reviews and blogs on Media General-owned Richmond.com continue to flow.

In the coming weeks, we'll be working on a national hich school science fair initiative, getting ready for for Oscar season and whatever else is necessary to pay for my dogs' vet bills. No, that's not a metaphor.

                                                      

According to Amazon.com, I’m a published editor. Then again, someone also “edited” “Don’t Hassle the Hoff.”

“Help Wanted & Help Found: The insiders' guide to recruiting & hiring hourly workers” was a nine-month self-discovery about what it really takes to make a book. I gained a great appreciation for the monotonous, unsexy, calculated stuff that goes into making a book. And the fun stuff, too.

I think it turned out great and thank SnagAJob.com for having me be part of it.

You can buy the book on Amazon.com here. Next up is a children’s pop-up book, “Sammy and the swine flu: One boy’s donkey ride to hell.”

This best and worst part of my life is unwinding after a long day of lollygagging around the office, singing show tunes to my pooches and flipping on the TV news.

From teleprompter scripts strewn with comma splices to bad hair and worse fake voices, it’s a sacccharin carnival madness that will drive you insane but still make you feel oh so better about your own life. As much as we hate local TV blabber, we need it. And here are five ways to save it:

5. Understand the concept of “breaking news.”
If something happened at 3 p.m., odds are we found out about it online, on the radio or at the barber shop. If you’re selling this story as sizzling hot at 10:30 p.m., I have some Circuit City stock I’d like to sell you.

4. Stop pawning off national news stories as your own reports.
We know you’re not in that anonymous third world country in the midst of genocide; you’re getting your news from CNN.com just like all of us.

3. Set the teleprompter on fire.
It’s not helping. Just wing it; you’re professionals for god sake. I prefer the old school approach of shuffling papers and smoking on air.

2. Don’t let anyone who goes to bed at 8 p.m. do the 11 p.m. news.
If you’ve eaten a Salisbury steak at 4 p.m. at Shoney's, it’s time to retire unless you have your own segment on “60 Minutes" talking about doorknobs and celery.

1. Clone Geraldo
Can you imagine hard news stories being broadcast at Hooters for no apparent reason. Or five-pound mustaches on every gumshoe reporter? We can make this happen together.

Yes, I’m a writer, and by and large, we’re an annoyingly pretentious bunch. I apologize on behalf of all of us. And this is me commiserating with you…

First off, why the middle names in the bylines? Who cares. What, is the Debbie Autumn Smith in Spokane nervous that the Debbie Summer Smith in Fargo will try to take credit for her story about fashion trends at school board meetings. Just give it up.

Second, whaT's Up uninTENtionally inconsiStent CAPS??? stop it. NOW! 

Next, explain the dark-framed glasses that look like they were stolen from a coffee shop lost and found after Poetry Slam Night - 30 years ago.

This is fun, let’s keep going. Why do writers insist on pawning their fav authors off on everyone? Just because you like an obscure transgendered scribe who pens first-person essays written from the perspective of various flora and fauna - in stream-of-consciousness – it doesn’t mean we care.

Finally, let’s talk about an industry standard dress code.  If you can afford not shopping at thrift shops, let’s save the discount clothes for these who really need them, OK? Like bums. The only ironic thing about your monogrammed sweater vest is that the “thrown together” style you’re aiming for took longer to cultivate than someone primping for the prom. You're worse than rich teen surbanites who hire panhandlers to wear their Abercrombie threads for three weeks before the big Phish concert so they ..."blend."

I love writers, too. Seriously. But just worry about the goddamn words you’re getting paid to write and not the words people use to describe you.

Welcome to the 81^st Annual Oscars…and my 5^th Semi-Annual Oscar blog!

I’m here LIVE from my Lakeside bungalow with a veritable A-List crowd, including my fiance and two mutts, Bonsey and Gloria. They have a Ouija Board set up and are attempting to communicate with the ghost of Mickey Rourke’s dead Chihuahua.

I’m ready to type away wearing my tuxedo T-shirt and Jack Nicholson trademark shades. Hollywood may be toning down the pomp in the face of the recession by losing the diamond-studded heels and uber-posh parties, but not us. We’ve just popped the cork on a bottle of Barefoot Bubbly, a 75-cent upgrade in class and taste over our usual Andre.

Our host for the night is Aussie Hugh Jackman, who promises to be boozing and shirtless by the end of the night, which is sure to be a fetching consolation prize for “Milk” fans if Sean Penn doesn’t hoist an Oscar amid awkward political grand-standing. Meanwhile, Billy Crystal is training for future hosting duties at an unnamed location by doing push-ups and beer bongs.

So for the next three hours and 15 minutes, let’s bring Hollywood down to our level: The average Joe’s who shelled out our hard-earned money only to be told we were supposed to like “Slumdog Millionaire" a lot more than we did.

Read the rest of the Oscar blog Monday morning on Richmond.com and InRich.com.

For weeks and weeks, I’ve been listening to nationally syndicated, satellite radio hosts Opie, Anthony and Jim Norton make French Toast out of the upcoming, sure to be awful “Pink Panther” sequel. Yes, Steve Martin is top-shelf hack.

Friday morning, I was stoked to find out they found my Richmond.com review and hyped it on their show. I guess mentioning them in the story helped.

Yes, I’m a shameless movie review prostitute.

 
Here is the "Opie & Anthony" audio…

Ane here is the online review.

The other day, CNN published an article about a couple struggling with debt in this crappy economic climate like everyone else. The father swallowed his pride and took a job delivering pizzas. That’s pretty much all that happened; they’re making it just fine, but the entire family was heart-broken. (At least give us a subplot about how his wife had an affair with the Noid). And apparently, according to the hack writer, we were supposed to feel sorry for him, too.

As a self-admitted lib, I’m embarrassed of CNN. What else does the cable news network need to do to prove that it’s more out of touch with America? Stage a Bernard Madoff telethon? Have Ted Turner televise a biographical gang-b*ng with the cast of “The Real Housewives of Orange County?” Maybe.

We’re all hurting. We’re all making sacrifices. And the homeless are happy the line between thick and thin continues to fade. Heck, I have a wedding coming up in four months. I quit a ridiculously great job a few months ago to start my own business. And now my fiancé is a victim of Circuit City’s fumbling, bumbling nonsense. And we’re among the lucky ones.

So CNN…if you want my empathy or sympathy, it’s gonna cost you more than one pepperoni sob story. At least Fox News can offer up looped video of a surfing squirrel.

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There are a few things I’m miffed about not finding out about until 30 years into my life: Dirty vodka martinis, winter rules golf and Charles Bukowski.

As a writer, Bukowski romanticized the alcoholic, derelict lifestyle before it was made famous by annoying hipsters. After reading “Post Office” or “Factotum,” you want to impulsively buy bottom shelf muscatel, get hammered at a crappy job, get fired, and then hit on slurring barflies. Bukowski’s prose is punchy and unpredictable. His wit and moxy are addicting. And his hard, hard life is overflowing with rancid anecdotes ripe for a good bathroom read.

So if you’re going out for New Years, give a cheers to Bukowski. Drink something awful, do something much worse, and don’t be afraid to repeat it the next day.

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Underdog Copy & Creative is seeking a part-time, Richmond-based graphic designer to work as a subcontractor on select projects in an ongoing capacity. Only unpretentious types looking to do more than bad album covers. Should have experience with the Web, direct mail and more. Students welcome. Please send link to online portfolio, hourly rate and resume to Mike Ward at mike@underdogcopy.com.

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When you tell most people you work from home, they instantly hate you. Seriously, you strike a strange note of rage that spurs visions of sterile cubicles, stubborn vending machines and stirrup pants-wearing bosses simultaneously in their heads. You might as well have told Buzz Aldrin that the moon landing never happened – then braced for the cold cocking.

Office dwellers imagine the work-from-home professional holding a huka in one hand and the remote in the other, wheeling and dealing with Montel Williams and Judge Judy. It’s not true. In fact, I’ve found I’m slowly losing my mind, too.

For example, instead of anxiously pacing the halls of a real workplace, I have to expend my nervous energy walking the streets of my lower-middle-class neighborhood during the day. During my little walks, I’ve stumbled upon a certain tendency of my North Side neighbors to really decorate for the holidays…I mean really decorate. From the feral cat nativity scene to rooftops lit up with 5,000 bulbs from 1983, it’s very festive...and likely to cause all the neighbors to surround an inferno in robes one night around 2 a.m. And lots of this stuff isn’t cheap. It’s also good to know some of them are spending $200 on Frosty the Snowman blow-up dolls, and then having to shotgun stolen spoiled dairy creamers from Dunkin’ Donuts down their newborn’s gullets.

Then there’s the constant need to talk to people, which was easy to satisfy in a real workplace. I’m actually debating picking up the headset the next time one of these Skype hookers randomly rings my fake phone line and making her listen to my takes on the stock market and regurgitating “US Weekly” content. (I mean, can you even believe what Shannon Doherty has done with her hair???) Instead, I talk to my dogs. OK, I don’t really talk to my dogs, what I do more closely resembles a Lincoln-Douglas style debate. Yesterday Bonesy made such a strong rebuttal that the Alaska was almost annexed back to the Russians.

But I should stop complaining. I need to get to work, right after the next commercial break. And I should probably shower before Bonesy cites me for an HR violation.

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