BACK STORY

In 2009, I was on a press trip to the lovely St. Regis Punta Mita in Mexico and met a dynamic bolt of lightning known only to me (and only me) as Lola. That’s what she told me to call her while we awaited the hotel limousine to shuttle us to the hotel with eight other people we didn’t know. She let me know at that moment that I would be “Jeffy” for as long we would know each other.

After series of group tequila tastings, champagne sabering rituals, and tours around the property, Lola revealed her true identity: Loni Albert, associate beauty editor at Cosmo magazine. Since then, our friendship has spawned two great columns with over 140,000 reads here on The Media Guy Struggles:

2013: The Continuing Adventures of Lola and Jeffy
81,000 page views

2011: Los Angeles vs. New York with Cosmo’s Associate Beauty Editor
64,000 page views

A lot has changed in the last four years. Let’s dive in…

MEDIA GUY: When you were at Cosmo and OK Magazine and the like you were the “Coffee-drinking, lipstick-wearing, punk-rockin’, retro-obsessed, Marilyn-loving, NYC girl.” Now you are a San Francisco girl and a BK Babe. First…what’s a BK Babe and how is the adjustment to the Left Coast?

LONI VENTI: Ha! IG bios are really embarrassing, no? A BK babe is a Brooklyn girl–duh, Jeffy. The Left Coast is beautiful. Sunny, gorgeous scenery, and lots to explore. But it’s a huge adjustment as a born and raised New Yorker.

MG: How do you expect me to know what a BK babe is? I only spent three years in New York and if you remember, last time I didn’t even know who Karlie Kloss was! What’s the biggest difference between New York and San Francisco and what does a BK babe do in SF to make a living?

LV: You totally pucked up in New York, Jeffy [winks]. New York has a ton more energy, realness, stuff to do, late night fun and food options, people dress better, and it’s where I lived for over 30 years–so I’ll always be biased.

San Francisco is a breathtaking place. It’s surrounded by mountains, the fog (named Carl btw) is the coolest and creepiest thing ever, and the weather is pretty much perfect. But it’s not New York. And it takes like 10+ minutes to get a coffee. I spend a lot of time in LA, too, which definitely doesn’t suck.

MG: New York was a grind. I mean literally. I worked in the days of drinking lunches and no Starbucks. Corporate housing was sweet, but that’s another story. However, I think my move back to Los Angeles was validated when the Kings beat the Rangers for the Stanley Cup and I haven’t needed a scarf since then. Yet, I digress… So, what does a BK Babe do in SF to make a living?

LV: I wish we lived in New York at the same time!!! I was actually just in New York City. So tough to be back here–makes me miss it so! I came out here to be the Editorial Director of ipsy, a beauty startup. It’s a crazy, exciting, challenging experience and everyday is an adventure.

MG: ipsy is pretty baller, right?!

LV: Dude, ipsy is baller as f**k. And by baller I mean it’s slaying the competition. We’re growing like crazy and are at three million subscribers with a wait list so long that we’ve been brainstorming how to get more people that Glam Bag faster. It’s only five years old and it stepped into beauty right when a lot of change was happening.

MG: I just read something about the Battle of The Beauty Bags: PLAY! By Sephora vs. Ipsy Glam Bag. Which bag is better, PLAY! or ipsy Glam? If you were to create your own bag with your favorite products what would it contain?

LV: My personal Glam Bag would have CoverGirl lipstick in Hot, DHC’s liquid eyeliner, a travel sized Dolce fragrance, a square of chocolate that makes you never get wrinkles and also gives you the power to make everyone around you happy, and a lifetime pass to borrow anything I want to wear from Barney’s. (What? You didn’t say it had to be realistic.)

MG: Are there Barney’s in San Francisco? Personally, I just want every pair of Louis Vuitton shoes in my baller ipsy bag. Is that offered?

LV: I think there’s Barney’s in San Francisco, but Google can confirm.

MG: Tell me, what would be in Marilyn Monroe’s bag?

LV: Marilyn’s fave products were: Vaseline for moitsturizer, like 30 shades of lipstick that she used to get the perfect red, Erno Laszlo skincare (she was friends with Dr. Laszlo and he created products just for her), and Piper Heidseick champagne–which she drank morning, noon, and night.

MG: Would Marilyn subscribe? How do you get so many people to subscribe?

LV: Two things that make ipsy magical: 1) we work with influencers instead of advertising, so that’s how people learn about it and try it. 2) we have an amazing algorithm that customized the products you get. Every time you get a bag, you review how well it matched your  preferences, and the algorithm gets stronger. What’re you doing these days?!

MG: What am I doing? The normal – creating ads, winning awards, wearing fancy shoes at red carpet events like the Oscars and Golden Globes, and of course my lifelong quasi pursuit of Christina Aguilera and Jennifer Lawrence.

LV: I would LOVE to wear fancy shoes to the Oscars! How does one become an Oscar invitee?! Sounds like a dream life.

The Media Guy with the other crocs in the photographers pit.

MG: Oscars? I am so lucking to be on the red carpet (I even found a picture…). I was grandfathered in so to say from my work with Fox and ALO. I keep getting an invitation to shoot the the stars, but I don’t get to rub elbows with Jennifer, or George, or Penelope just yet. I did sneak across this year and take a selfie in front of the step and repeat. I hear you are running marathons…is that the key to good living? Can you run in winter in New York City?

LV: So yes, ipsy is built on the influencer movement. Our influencers share ipsy-related content to their highly engaged audiences and it spreads the word super fast. Influencers usually get paid for their work plus free stuff.

MG: What would you recommend for my daughter’s ipsy bag? She’s 20.

LV: I can’t believe your daughter is 20! She grew up so fast!! I don’t know what would go in her bag–she’d have to take our personalization quiz!

MG: How do you get one of those fancy blue checkmarks on your social media channels?

LV: I have no idea how to get the blue checks. I had a radio show years ago [for Cosmo] and I think the peeps at Cosmo set it up for me, because we had callers chat with through Twittter a lot. But I don’t have them anywhere else! I’d like to get one on Insta[gram] because they shut me down a lot saying that I’m a fake account and I think a check would help a sister out.

MG: You’re married recently. I see Artie and you happy and hanging out coast to coast. What his advice to the men out there with a kick-ass independent woman to keep her moving in the right direction?

LV: He usually says something like, “I guess try to be supportive and encouraging. Stay out of her way and make sure she stays out of her own way.”

MG: Tell me one thing about ipsy that maybe no one else knows.

LV: One thing about ipsy that maybe no one knows: our main office in San Mateo has something called “Lunch Roulette” where random staffers from diff teams are randomly selected to have lunch together at restaurants in town. Random but cool.

MG: Can you explain the Marilyn Monroe thing?

LV: What do you MEAN the thing with Marilyn?! She’s timeless! Iconic! I think what I love most about her is how flawed she was. And her story is kind of a Cinderella story with a tragic ending. She might be one of the most recognized images ever.

The post Reigning Queen of the National Beauty Scene appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

First off, if you didn’t work with me in New York (yes, most of you are gone—yes, really gone), that headline will mean absolutely zippo to you. You’ll have to read the book that I hope to finish by 2018.

Okay, so for now there’s some grey area. Now onto the countdown, uh, story…

It is true…

…I once fired an official NHL hockey puck through a tempered glass window in a fit of work rage inspired by an editor of a trade magazine with bricks for brains. Those of you who do not appreciate the fine art displayed on ice nightly from October through May every year, might not comprehend that throwing a six-ounce vulcanized rubber disk, sized one-inch thick by three inches in diameter is no easy task. (Read about how hard it is from the nerds here.) I whipped it through the window hitting the smokers outside with shards of glass and a heavy dose of rage. I did it in one motion. This was one of those incidents you hear about where someone has a huge rush of adrenaline and lifts a Cadillac. This temporary strength came out of anger, and I’m usually not that angry a guy.

I am not naming the characters involved. My prerogative. Nor will I deny or confirm the many conjectures I know are coming. Sorry, but I’m taking the high road. In the book I’ll probably name names (and there are some decent names in this mix).

I was an up-and-coming Media Guy still doing public relations, dialing for product placements and column inches. I was a moderate-sized agency working a train wreck of an account and capitalizing on my newfound success getting magazine covers for a computer with a 25 megabyte hard drive. Yeah, I know you have a phone with 64 gigabytes — which is about 2600 times bigger than that dinosaur — but back in the late eighties that was big news. Yet I digress…

Sometimes pucks hit nothing. Photo by Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press.

I was expecting a big product review to be dropping to further solidify my expected key to the executive washroom. (Yeah, back in the late eighties that was still a thing.) Imagine my surprise, when after holding for a full hour to verify facts, the writer of the big review decided that my client would not be in the review. You can also imagine the fever that built from there. Had this happened today I would have mentally blown an arctic breeze up my sphincter and cooled down. But I was younger and more inexperienced. (This is why you hire seasoned pros to run your advertising and marketing departments. Respond, don’t react.)

So I just seethed. This writer was know for taking gifts, cash, and girls for the right feature, but I was playing it straight. Taking my client out? Well, for me, that was the final straw. I slammed the phone down nearly breaking it. Not getting the reaction I desired from from mini-fit, I hurled the puck towards the window.

Seeing and hearing the glass shatter felt great, by the way. At the time I was doing it I had no idea this was a feat of Herculean strength. I might as well have been firing my Nerf basketball at the trashcan in the the corner of my office as I usually did. Even after I did it (and the faces of my colleagues revealed true horror) it didn’t seem like any big deal.

My department manager wisely decided that I should have the afternoon off. I was not clearly going to be of much help that day. He equipped my with a bottle of Jim Beam and sent me back to corporate housing for the night.

The next day I returned to the office, creeping around corners, hoping not to be noticed. Before I reached my boarded up office, the agency’s managing director called me in and the conversation when something like this:

MY BOSS’S BOSS [pouring himself a 9:05 A.M. cocktail]: I was looking for you yesterday because I heard what happened.

ME [gulping with obvious forehead perspiration]: It was unfortunate…

MY BOSS’S BOSS [interrupting]: …you know, I’ve been thinking…yesterday will be your last day in that department.

ME: [more sweating]

MY BOSS’S BOSS: We need passionate PR people like you here. Most of the staff on that floor would take the failure and move on with their day. Not you! You care! You cared enough to let the entire agency feel your rage. Your rage of failure. [hands me the 9:05 A.M. cocktail] I see big things for you. Cheers!

The culprit.

And with that cheers, I was promoted to Sr. Public Relations Manager above my old boss, reported to my new boss, i.e., my boss’s boss.

I should mention that a few weeks later I was out with my new boss on a daily basis at client luncheons drinking my liquid meals, three vodkas at a time in a ritual that demanded a strong liver and a gift of the gab. I had both. I lasted three years before going to Australia to work at the National Gallery…

More to come in the book.
Save up.
Buy it in 2018, or 2019, or 2020.

Final thought: Throwing that rubber disk is not something I’m particularly proud of (which is why I rarely bring it up). And even though it’s easy to get very emotionally attached to a project, issues should not be cause for losing your mind. It’s much easier to say now when I am pushing fifty. Back then, I had a mean slapshot.

And now for my next trick…

–>

The post The Infamous “Hockey Puck” Incident appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

”When you see me swerving and ducking, it’s got nothing
to do with being fancy or showing off,” she said. ”I’m the fastest there is
and a lot nicer than those ‘joes’ in Manhattan.”

The post Two-wheeled Creatures appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

As a lifelong Angeleno it’s difficult to always connect with the passive aggressive (and sometimes just plain aggressive) attitude of my New York counterparts. For them, they are more virtuous, better informed and, well, they reside at the center of the universe. Shoot, even most of the international flights are gatewayed through their Kennedy Airport.

LONI ALBERT: Angelinos should come hang in NY because it’s so REAL. I love love love LA, but it feels like one giant movie set. That may be fun and glamorous and “comfortable” — I get it. But sometimes you need more than that. NY is raw and random and diverse. Maybe all the ugliness makes the small glimpses of beauty that much more beautiful.

MG: I have to admit that it was rather comfortable last weekend poolside – 75 degrees – sipping on a freshly-blended margarita. Does that sound soft to you? I was thinking that in about four months that the power would be out on the East Coast as you shovel out from the 10 inches of snow. How do you deal with snow and the anger it produces? LA: Aside from a few days a year, the snow has never really stopped me from going to school, work, dinner with friends, etc. You just learn to deal. There are sucky things like being stuck on the bus for a few hours because the roads are scary and covered in ice, but it’s also kind of sexy to spend a snow day inside with your significant other with nothing else to do but…..stay warm

MG: Tell me more about spending sexy snow days. In L.A., the pretty people do Naked Sundays (a staple in the Christina Aguilera pre-divorce household). Speaking of her, did you see the picture she held up when accepting her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame – just kidding but a Media Guy can dream.

A boy can dream.

LA: Naked any day is always a good idea. West Coast, East Coast, wherever. You don’t need L.A. sunshine for that

LA: (a) I’m not 24 anymore, that was two years ago when we met! I’m a grandma now at 26!, and (b) my title at Cosmo is Associate Beauty Editor, but I’m thrilled nonetheless!

LA: It’s a lot like Sex and The City except I don’t wear $900 shoes, sleep with every waiter at every restaurant, and rarely take cabs. Okay, it’s not like Sex and The City at all. But I do drink Cosmos

One pink beauty…hold the Simpson!

MG: Lola…what do you recommend for anyone crashing a wedding in Vegas?

(L to R: Lola’s buddy Britt, Loni, and Heidi Klum)

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