Fear and Loathing on La Croisette – Part 3

David Nobay (left), founder and creative chairman, Marcel, Sydney is sitting on the Outdoor Lions jury. In Gonzo style, he reports exclusively for Campaign Brief.

Part Three:

No-one bothers to warn you about your nipples when you sign on as a judge for the Cannes Lions Outdoor Jury. That said, according to Jay Furby, my Sydney-based Samoan attorney, there has been more than enough warnings pinging over the equator with my name attached over the last 24 hours, ever since I touched down in this pagan repository for over-priced gut bacteria and high-stakes trophies.

It appears I may have woefully underestimated the jungle telegram that runs constant loops between the Croisette’s Gutter Bar and Lord Savage’s underground HQ in the secret caves below the Hotel Du Cap, 20 Km’s down the coast.

What began as a colorfully Machiavellian, if undeniably illegal, strategy to recoup the EURO 72,000 I had been urged to drop on luxury threads by my attorney down-under, has now rapidly escalated up to a global threat alert that, according to the messages clogging my voicemail from Phil Thomas, Lord Savage’s debonair, executive leg breaker, have every probability of “undermining the ongoing credibility of the entire Festival”.

In fairness, it had seemed like a simple enough plot. At least at 3am outside the Martinez, sprawled across the gutter that passes for an open-air bar and poisoned fly-trap for the industry’s hard-core underbelly.

“How much is a GP worth on the open market these days?” I loudly mused as I puffed on the third Monte Cristo of the night.

“For instance, is an Outdoor Grand Prix worth, say twice that of a radio GP? Or, for that matter, half a Titanium?”

All undeniably pivotal questions that demanded a precise, mathematical response, if I had any hope in hell of surreptitiously convincing the Worldwide CD’s of all the major holding groups to bid overnight and clear my hideously bloated slate before my own Regional Publicis CFO gets wind of my sartorial hedge fund activities and I find myself, for the second time in as many years, far out to sea on the choppy open job market, faster than you can pop out a buttery, hot escargot.

Alas, at 3am, my immediate audience comprised of only three near paralytic Chinese executives from a nondescript government media buying conglomerate, none of who appeared to speak a word of English, other than “Robert De Niro”; whose name they repeated with Gatling gun rhythm at least 400 times between girlish giggles of high pitched mirth, whilst excitedly prodding my belly and pointing feverishly at the curls of bluish smoke emanating from my magnificent stogie. Perhaps best, in retrospect.

In just a week’s time, that same fetid corner of La Croisette will be heaving with a damp, urine-stained swell of approximately 3,000 of Adland’s most debauched marcom warriors; swaying as one to the primal boom of the disco throb slowly dying across the beach, as they spit harsh nonsense into each other’s tortured eardrums at decibels that will never register a response, on subjects that can never ultimately matter.

But that is then, and this is now. And, right now, at this very second, according to my attorney, the status of my Publicis Corporate Amex account is certainly the very least of my worries.

Lord Savage is, allegedly, on the war path. A fierce path that threatens to lead up the stairs to my very own Donnie Deutsche Rooftop Suite at the reasonably-priced Grey Albion hotel, and beyond that, most probably a court room. Possibly in Brussels, according to Jay, but in all likelihood, given the tone of the messages my now Doberman-loyal concierge Michel is stuffing under my door with alarming regularity, Nuremberg is where this folly will screech to a deafening halt.

“Nobby, I specifically told you not to trust them!”

In my panic, I have forgotten that Colleen DeCourcy is still bobbing in my jacuzzi. By now, showing definite prune-like discoloration.

Dear god, why didn’t I take her sage advice ten hours ago, when she begged me not to group-text my promotional proposition of “a guaranteed outdoor GP for just EURO 75,O00, no questions asked” to six of the industry’s most powerful and ethically relaxed worldwide creative directors?

“Someone grassed you up honey. Big Terry probably rewarded them with a locked-in Prez spot on Titanium next year.” Colleen winces, as the Riviera’s dawn sun prods into view through the pagoda.

“But who? I hand picked that list? Every one of them.”

“It was always going to happen. This business breeds sharks. You know that. Now throw me a towel: Jesus Christ, what the hell did you put in this water?

“That’ll be the Tiger-balm. I doused it liberally on my nipples yesterday, to overcome the brutal, icy rush of the air-conditioning in the Palais’s jury room.

“Tiger balm?? You perverted lunatic! No wonder my bits are on fire!” She screams as she explodes out of the jacuzzi, skidding across the polished roof deck and crashing into my waterbed.

“It’s an old judging trick that Bob Isherwood taught me back in the day.”

“You maniac! Whatever it is, my lady parts feel like they’ve been napalmed.” Colleen is suddenly robed in an elegant, bejeweled, ankle length Arabian kaftan.

“It’s not my fault.  The hotel specifically described the jacuzzi as one of the latest self-cleaning models. Apparently, Donnie insisted on it?”

Colleen is patently unimpressed by my flimsy defense:

“You goddam freak! How am I meant to preside over the Cyber Jury today when my skin is blistered and charred? This is the last time Nobay, I mean it. I’m not going down with this ship!”

Colleen is not a lady to mess with. I’ve been through some savage burns with her over the years and if history has taught me anything, it’s to never underestimate the ferocity of her tongue or the dexterity of her mat-work at the wrong end of an all night pool party.

“If it wasn’t for that lightning in a bottle angle you threw me at D&AD, I’d rip your fucking throat out, right here on this deck!”

She is, of course, referring to her now widely shared and much admired speech from last month’s D&AD lecture in London, entitled “How to catch lightning in a bottle”. To many in the global advertising industry, a timely, brilliantly drawn and utterly inspirational analogy on the wavering trajectory of our business’s mission and the urgent need for a hasty recalibration of our creative talent’s combined focus.

Only myself and the now frowning, still ruddy and prune-faced vixen before me know the real truth about the genesis of her recent, evangelical epiphany…almost a decade ago, at the final-night rap party in Colleen’s suite after an especially raucous last day of judging my beloved Andy awards in Hawaii. Back when the booze and pills still had their demonic fist around my fast-dissolving grip on reality and the exotic locale seduced us all to not just hit the mini-bar hard, but utterly exhaust the alcoholic supply of the entire hotel.

Predictably, it had all ended sour after an epic session of karaoke, led traditionally by the curly topped prankster Keller, who, after worthy praise for a phonetically precise rendition of “Love on the rocks”, had bounced so high off the double bed, he clean cracked his skull on the ceiling; spared from an early death only by his unfeasibly dense pillow of blonde mane.

For my part, the adventure escalated to unimaginable agony when, in a frantic attempt to visualize my own, personalized theory on
quantum physics and the fragility of the Big Bang concept to my baffled audience, I had unwisely inserted my penis into an half-empty bottle of 12 year old Laphroig single malt, in a valiant, if tragically misguided effort to illustrate the process of an inverted, parallel universe, passing through a black hole only to be ripped asunder by extreme negative gravity.

The resulting vacuum near tore my own, now spectacularly swollen member clean off, save for the swift intervention of Pete Favat who, famously, never travels without an emergency tube of KY jelly close to hand.

In, what I still personally believe to be, a genuine effort to save my withered manhood, Colleen had viciously lashed out and struck the scotch bottle hard with a heavy, brass bed-side lamp. The power of her muscular, downward swing, shattered the thick glass; effectively freed my member, but simultaneously lacerated it with a thousand jagged and wafer-thin shards.

That specific part of a man’s anatomy effectively pumps blood like a 75,000 gallon North Sea Esso drilling rig and within seconds the $2,000 a night suite was transformed into a gore-soaked, military triage. I still credit the quick witted creativity and elegant finger-work of the achingly handsome Jose Molla for my ability to father a child five years later. Thank the heavens his Patagonian grandmother had schooled him to lovingly crochet authentic woven Argentinean mountain shawls as a young boy. Only his masterful skills with the hotel bathroom’s complimentary sewing kit succeeded in stitching the awful, bloody mess into something roughly resembling a mammal’s reproductive organ.

Frightening physical scars aside, the horrific incident badly traumatized me, but succeeded in forming the catalyst for what would later become DeCourcy’s magnificent London soliloquy “catching lightning in a bottle” many years later.

Bowing slightly, I obediently hand her a hotel pillow case stuff two dozen bottles of high-end hand and body moisturizer I lifted from the Emirates flight on the trek over here. Given the circumstances, I feel it’s the least I can do. Colleen accepts them with a scowl and slams the door with a pronounced grunt as she exits the suite.

The tension is violently broken by the vibrating hum of my iPhone.

I peer down to spot an incoming text from my attorney:

PAYMENTS RECEIVED FROM ALL MAJOR AGENCIES…ONLY JWT HELD OUT. AM BOOKING FLIGHT. DON’T EAT ALL THE CHÈVRE. JF

It has been over three, full days since I have slept. My addled brain is jazzed to the max with a dangerous cocktail of bitter Nespresso and full-fat goat cheese. Questions ricochet around my battered skull like a manic pin-ball:

“Why did Matt Eastwood shop me to Lord Savage? And worse, how am I meant to deliver 5 GP’s to the rest of the swine who coughed up the ransom?”

There’s suddenly a furious knocking at the door. I recognize my Concierge’s rich, silky rasp:

“Monsieur Nobbly. You have to open the door. It’s Le Gendarme and they want to speak with you very urgently”.

It’s at times like these you fully appreciate the French people’s total love of Le bidet.