STANANDLOU MARKETING/ADVERTISING

After spending a year working in Houston, Michelle was ready to return to her life in New Orleans. But oh, how plans change. In October, Michelle and Lou entered into an equal partnership when Michelle purchased a 50% stake in STANANDLOU, for an undisclosed sum, of course. (Rumor has it, however, that Lou did lose a mean game of foosball to Michelle just prior to her purchase of half the company).

Now STANANDLOU is steered with care by the creatively crafty Lou and the strategically savvy Michelle. We don’t know who is the Yin and who is the Yang.

It doesn’t really matter. They are quite the team.

Look forward to more great things from STANANDLOU. And in 20 years, you’ll get 20 more emails, assuming email is still the dominant form of communication.

When Hurricane Katrina devastated the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts, Houston stepped up and gave those were displaced from the Hurricane a place to go. Lou followed suit and gave Michelle Reed a place to work.

Michelle was working at Keating-Magee Marketing in New Orleans when the storm forced her evacuation. Lou offered her free office space, and Michelle offered to take some of the business-type work off of Lou, who had been running the company by himself for a few years.

It was soon clear that there was something special in this new working relationship, something that would grow and be bolstered by proximity, necessity and vodka martinis.

To mark the significance of Lou having been on Earth for half a century, the gang at STANANDLOU decided to pull one over on “the bearded one.” Bill Penczak, then No.2 in command, took Lou to an “emergency meeting” with a client, claiming that the agency was suddenly under review and had to present immediately. After a well-setup ‘grilling’ over lunch, Lou and Bill returned to the agency, which was now packed with clients, vendors and friends waiting to surprise Lou upon his return.

And “Lou-a-Palooza” was a raving success. Lou was very impressed with his party, but, of course, STANANDLOU staffers were severely reprimanded shortly thereafter for spending too much company time working on a non-client project.

In a moment that can only be compared with the movie, “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” (not the remake) Lou joins the Democratic Party only to be very bummed to find out there was no beer. Undaunted, Lou was elected chairman of the Houston Ad Federation.

Now, little Lou, the boy kids made fun of in gym class would have real power and his enemies would cower in fear!

Lou’s first decision as “Grande Jefe” — introducing karaoke at the monthly board meetings.

The Quinceanera is more than a big celebration — it is a deeply spiritual event given to those girls, and bearded men, who have maintained a standard of modesty throughout their childhood.

While it can be argued, well-argued, that STANANDLOU followed no standard of modesty, let alone decency, throughout its childhood, the staff felt that dressing Lou up in a gown would somehow mitigate Lou’s habit of flexing his muscles when going over headlines and constantly challenging the female employees to arm-wrestling matches.

Despite the well-known fact that Lou had to be persuaded not to wear make-up, namely eye-glitter, for the event, Lou contends that he only wore the dress to appease the staff.

But the pink satin does bring out the gray in his hair, don’t you think?

With an iron fist that squashed pedestrian headlines and proletarian layouts, STANANDLOU marched on to win Best of Show at the ADDYs for their work for Boaka Bar. It was the first time in ADDY history that the coveted Best of Show was given for an entire body of work.

“We have conquered!” belted Premiere Congelio after the award show, “The workers have done their part to create ads that speak to the masses and transcend class — they have very little class, in fact.”

Worker Scott Brinkmeyer, the art director responsible for the award-winning designs, could not be reached for comment. He apparently misplaced his sickle during the show and was due for some reaping.

Czar Congelio went on to speak about the inspiration for the ads, “My inspiration comes from the hard-working workers of the STANANDLOU party. It is their dedication to the cause that really inspires me. They all put aside issues of raises and bonuses, each one enjoying the same, low hourly wage as the other, all creating revolutionary creative products day in and day out. They are really very happy.”

When Lou discovered that interweb URLs didn’t recognize ampersands, he did what any proud owner would do — he changed the name of the company and created a new logo.

And so STAN&LOU lost the ampersand and became STANANDLOU, confusing customer service agents and Internet search engines everywhere.

The transformation was stunning, rivaled only by the name changes of the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation, Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web and, of course, the great Lawrence Turead.

Still sporting the curly locks and holding on tightly to his hair’s Samson-like powers, the leader of STANANDLOU wanted to keep some things the same and claimed that his hairdo gave the employees a sense of stability.

He did change his wardrobe, somewhat…

Of minor importance: wee little intern, Scott Brinkmeyer, is hired on as a full time art director, not knowing that in one short year, he’d make STANANDLOU award history.