I’m just branching out into all sorts of new fields of endeavor since becoming a Mad Man and joining ADCO — exploiting latent talents I didn’t even know I had.
Here’s the latest: Hand model. Soon, you might be seeing my hand on a billboard down in the Lowcountry. That’s because we needed background art — of anonymous hands operating office equipment — for a board we were doing for a client. Karen and I ran over to the client’s showroom to shoot it earlier this week, and she shot a bunch of exposures of my hands pretending to push buttons. I shot some of her doing the same, but it was Karen’s camera (a very nice Nikon SLR) and she’ll be picking the image we use, and in my experience, when given a choice, photographers prefer their own work.
So this is my big shot. A number of years ago I pressed The State to include in a billboard campaign several boards highlighting the faces of my associates Cindi Scoppe, Warren Bolton and Claudia Brinson. I thought then that someone in Marketing (The Stateactually had a marketing department back then) would say, “We need one of Brad, too!” But they didn’t, drat the luck. So my colleagues got famouser and I didn’t.
But this is my big break. And I’m going to be really careful with my hands. I’m not going to mess them up the way George Costanza didhis. (Yes, now I, too, have “hand,” George!)
And in a way, this kind of notoriety is sweeter than having people know your face. I won’t be pestered for autographs. I’ll be able to sit in a restaurant, for instance, undisturbed and overhear women at an adjoining table:
FIRST WOMAN: Have you seen that wonderful new office equipment ad?
SECOND WOMAN: Those hands! They’re so… so hot!
FIRST WOMAN: Yes! They make me all quivery…
… while I smile enigmatically, perusing the menu.
Just please — don’t hate me because my hands are beautiful.
— Brad Warthen
Here's pointing at YOU, kid...
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