If You’re a Professional Writer …

I made the transition from being a journalist to working in marketing. Well, if you’re a professional writer you ought to be able to write anything. First I did the writing for a company called Soloflex. They were the home weightlifting company. I wrote the most successful infomercial/brochure one-two-punch in the company’s history: 5.6 percent conversion rate. Those were the days of flying around the country for five years on private jets, staying in four-star hotels and eating our way down the list of the top rated restaurants, and being surrounded by models (male and female) with, literally, perfect bodies. It was weird.

Getting off one of the corporate jets in Malibu. Photo by Tara Wefers

After the days of jetting around and hanging out with beautiful people, I started an ad agency with some other guys. We called it the Quarrymen, after John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s first band. We even bought the URL quarrymen.com. Nobody else had thought to. We made mostly car commercials and infomercials for several years. I didn’t fly around on private jets anymore. But I did buy a great, huge vintage Caddy (the longest car made in America) from one of the car guys. And the “Gray Ghost,” though as long as an aircraft carrier, was INVISIBLE to the police. Amazing. Nuff said.

On the set of a Soloflex infomercial I had written. With Janie and Rennie. Being that close to that much half-clothed, perfectly proportioned cheesecake and beefcake for 12 hours a day will either make you feel terribly inadequate, or terrific. I felt great. Photo with my Nikkormat by Jeff Cameron.

Then, after several years of that, with the World Wide Web (we called it then) coming on, I joined Arve Overland (an early innovator in the space; well, he’s from Norway) in the Overland Agency. We do just digital, primarily. Though we have done some traditional advertising now and again. And we’ve done a ton of video (mostly for the web, though one big-budget documentary. I run all the video work.). We also do branding, mobile apps, a host of innovative stuff. It’s fun.

On this site you can see a bunch of my advertising/branding/digital work. Feel free to contact me if you are interested.

Our Quarrymen logo, designed by my then business-partner, Randy Wilson.

Picture I took on the set of Janie and Rennie. Now, really, why should I have had to put up with this for five years?

This was the home page for the Quarrymen Agency. I took the photos. Art director was Denise Wallace.