This Is My Face

Dear ^KK,

I had a lot of fun doing this and I learned a lot. If I could do the whole thing over again, I’d certainly do some of it differently. Mostly though, I hope I conveyed to you, dear ^KK, how passionate I am about advertising and how direly I want to be a Campbell Mithun “Lucky 13” copywriter. 

I hope my tweets and related posts were interesting without being too repetitive. I tried to avoid famous quotes, life lessons, Mad Men references, triteness, pompousness, and words ending in -reative, -uccess, -ation, -ition (actually all of the -tions). Instead, I tried to weave aspects of my personality into elements of my physical self. I made a lot of negative statements, a couple of my posts were a little lengthy and, yeah, I wore an eye patch sometimes. Hopefully the whole thing wasn’t too obnoxious. 

You should also know that I did a lot of reallybad writing while putting this together. Most of it ended up on the cutting room floor, though I can’t promise that all of it did. Also on “the floor” is other stuff that wasn’t that terrible—I just couldn’t make it work (a “Video Haiku-monial” starring my brother with so many cuss words bleeped out you can barely understand it is but one of those axed ideas).

Anyway, thanks so much for your time, ^KK, as I’m sure this whole process gives you and the other ^Initials a lot of extra work. I will miss your joyful commentary on my future tweets. I hope that some lucky day in the not-too-distant future we can meet, you know, face-to-face.  

Respectfully,

Mike Reisenauer

P.S. In case you missed anything: www.mtreisenauer.com

OF COURSE YOU DO! Do you find that sometimes, often in the middle of the day, your giant brain swells and pushes up against the back of your face, causing undue face pain?It might feel like a headache but IT IS NOT A HEADACHE!!!

Let us help you save your face!

Quickly clear your address bar and fill it with the following life-saving information: www.MYFACEISINTROUBLE.com!*

Hurry, your face is depending on you!

*Residents of North Dakota Not Eligible

Night Riders

we are the ragtag future chauffeurs
of that
unknown feeling
midnite prophets
peeling
down streets
dark deep and wide
reversing down
American driveways
and filling up its highways
with no panic
and no fear
we are
the sons and daughters
of mechanics
teachers
and cashiers
snow and sleet and rain
throttles through our veins
we will see
your point of view
we will know
right from wrong
just
don’t
talk
through
this song,
man

If you’re hiring interns, this means more “Abe” for the same great low price. 

My proudest accomplishment as a songwriter is easily missed. This triumph occurs in a pretty-much-straight-to-Netflix movie called Last Night starring some French guy, that dude from Avatar, Eva Mendes, and Keira Knightley. A jam I wrote plays during a scene in this movie—you can barely hear it over the dialogue, but I swear it’s in there.

Gimme the absent expectations of neon-lit Budweising bartenders
and unstraight pool cues.
Gimme a long night’s work of
Cricket, Cutthroat, & 301.
Gimme a decent conversation—with an okay lookin girl.
Gimme the sliding on of jeans
that first beer
and hair that is
just right.

In 1949 
Guy Lombardo
Tommy Dorsey and
Doris Day each
told
a post-war generation
to “Enjoy Yourself,
it’s Later Than You Think!”

Nah,
we got all night

Obviously, there is nothing wrong with going to ad school; it just wasn’t for me. Instead, I became an American Studies major because I wanted to learn more about myself and the people who fill up this country. This American Awareness informs my thinking at all times—when I’m watching two boys fight in the backseat of a ’96 Lincoln Continental while their mom pumps the gas, when I see people patiently waiting in line for a vanilla ice cream cone at Ikea, or even as I’m getting my picture taken in front of a brick wall while wearing an eyepatch and a thumb-splint. So no, I don’t have a portfolio. But I think that’s okay because I believe good copywriters are just thoughtful people who work hard to solve the problems their big ideas create. And I like to think I’m one of those thoughtful people. 

Make it. For it. Nice!

We live in an exciting age. The Internet is transforming everything—making life easier, faster, richer, harder. Musicians no longer need labels, advertisers no longer need “ads” or “space”, and employers no longer need to call “References”. Instead, boss people can quietly discriminate against prospective hires with one or two clicks of their mighty mighty mice. With this in mind, if you should Google my unique name you will find few Michael Reisenauers living in this country today. One of them is my uncle (a good man), another is yours truly (has face/arm), and the last one is from North Dakota. North Dakota Mike was recently sentenced to prison for shooting and killing his best friend with a shotgun. A man’s identity is comprised of the things he is and the things he is not. I just want to be clear: I’m not from North Dakota. Though I do have a shotgun.