This just in... Breakfast drink commercial director held hostage by HezBullah...

Folks. A strange turn of events. I thought I was going to Lebanon, Oregon, not Lebanon... Lebanon. So I am in Beirut. Staying at a hotel, listening to somebody saw concrete in the next building which sounds exactly like somebody sawing concrete in the next building back home in Barcelona. The big news is that first day here featured according to CNN, "The Worst day of urban warfare in the last 30 years." remember... Beirut... the 70s... Civil War? Ouch.

Why am I in Beirut? Well I met a girl... no seriously... I met a boy. A boy named Gary. Gary reps me for places other than Germany and Spain and Belgium. Belgium... No that's not right, Belgium is available again. Gary is a great guy. Gary is a Scot. Which usually, in my book, automatically means great guy.

So I get on of Gary's calls. let me be clear about this, in a business seemingly teaming with scoundrels, nare-do-wells, charlatans and posers Gary is a true gentleman. OK he's not one of those prissy kind of gentlemen with lacquered nails and an extended pinky finger he's a Scottish gentleman. Which means that he waxes poetic, tells great stories, turns a phrase with exquisite delicacy is straight as a ruler and I suspect, drinks.

So he says he has some boards. Great! I say as slunk around trying to be a proper father, husband, adult white male and not freak out as the old financial gas tank hovers just slightly above reserve. May I send you an animatic? Sure I say. An animatic is this thing that agencies use to work out exactly how they will steal an idea they got from a Argentinean spot from 1982. But seriously an animatic is sort of an crudely animated series of drawings that the agency uses to convince the "Client" the guys who make the stuff and want to sell the stuff that their idea is sound and has a high enough percentage of frames in it that include the label of the stuff (roughly 97.672). Gary has always had huge problems with the Internet. I have no idea why but things like the provider's server suddenly goes down for 3 weeks because somebody plugged in the salad spinner and the hairdryer at the same time or some balkan trojan horse viral CPU suckering worm has run rampant through deepest reaches of their backplane, bootstrap, USB, ISO 12-0067(a) and caused a CRT, CPR, EEG heap panic. All I know is that it takes awhile to get things and that Gary has on occasion sent me screen shots proving that he indeed did send me a note telling me that the Latvian spot for a combination douche and hair removing product has gone to a Chilean Porn director solely because he said he would fly economy and promised not raid the mini-bar.

So days pass, Gary's ISP gets another hamster for the server and I get this really weird little movie. It has guys wearing funny clothes and speaking this strange language. I don't know what the hell it is. So it turns out it's a spot from an production company from Lebanon and their client and agency in Dubai and there stuff to sell... "Tang." To be continued...