Fruit Salad.

I've never been a California guy, as tempting as the state can so often seem. I've always been and always will be more Woody Allen in Annie Hall than Tony Roberts. I lived in San Francisco for eight months but gave up on both the agency I was working for (Hal Riney) and the city like a one-night-stand the next sober morning.

All that being said, I love fruit.

I could live in California for the freshness of the fruit alone. 

In the world we live in now, where massively un-green supply chains circle the world, you can pretty much, if you're relatively affluent, get any fruit at any time. It wasn't always like that. In fact, if I remember right, JM Barrie, the author of Peter Pan once said, "God gave us memories so we can have roses in December."

We don't need memories or god anymore. We have intercontinental shipping.

As a lover of fruit and a marketing "I can't help it-ness-er," I think about strange things. 

It's early in the morning here on our last full-day in Laguna Beach. I had walked a few days ago to a run-down Ralph's market and bought a $14 bottle of "fresh" orange juice. 64-ounces for the same price as the hotel's six. My wife just asked me if I'd like a glass and I got here:

The orange people did good. They knew branding. The fruit and the color. They own orange. Mark Ritson would be proud.

You know who's dumb? The pineapple people. I love pineapple. But you guys need a naming agency. Pine? Unappetizing. And the tart explosion of your flavor? Nothing like a prosaic apple.

Cantaloupe might be even worse. A) it makes me think of either you can't run away and marry the lissome blonde at the pool who smiled at you or B) antelopes, which, if you're not a big cat or jackal on the veldt, have no appetite appeal.

The grape people did ok. Grape is short, sweet, succinct and pop-in-the-mouth-able, like the fruit itself. They got in trouble, however, with their line extensions. In an attempt to dominate shelf-space, the added green, red, white, and seedless and non-seedless. They brought like the Coca-Cola people, confusion into a simple category.

Of the berry people, blue and black knew what they were doing. Maybe they had hired DDB back in the day. Where as the rasp association went to Ace Hardware, or somebody's cousin for their naming. Who wants a "rasp" as a berry?

Rasps. Delicious.

Finally, two more melons. 

The water-people fucked up. I love watermelon. Above all fruit. But really? How could something so delicious have "water" as its adjective. They might as well have named Waygu beef, "Air Meat." Watermelon hasn't helped itself with its colorless and tasteless name.

The apotheosis of fruit names is Honey Dew. While it's hard to find a good one, especially among the albino piles in the supermarket, that name is nearly perfect. It nails the desire so well, it almost gets you to "mouth feel."

That's what it's like when you're a dyed in the wool advertising guy on vacation in Cali.