Soul off Ice.

As we are nearing the July 4th weekend, I feel compelled to write about a book I finished a couple of nights ago.

Built from the Fire is mostly about the Greenwood Massacre of 1921. Thousands of white people--including hundreds deputized by civil authorities, burned to the ground the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma, a neighborhood--for its vitality and success often called "Black Wall Street."

Review here. Buy here.

It took almost a century to begin calling what happened in Greenwood a massacre, not a riot. There's a big difference and not just semantically. Civil authorities turned truck-mounted machine-guns on people. They killed babies. They looted and killed indiscriminately and heaped people in unmarked graves. Then they lied. Claiming a couple of dozen houses and a couple of dozen people were killed.

The true numbers will never be known. But consensus is hundreds of people were killed. Hundreds of homes and businesses were destroyed.

But to my eyes, Built from the Fire is not about one massacre. It's about three or four.

The first came before the fire. 

When oppressed people's were driven from the Jim Crow South to Oklahoma--which was "free" and "Indian country." It was a massacre of behavior, social mores and history that forced this movement.

It continued in Greenwood.

Then it continued after the fire. 

When insurance was denied. Real estate developers tried to steal the land. When suppliers wouldn't sell to Black people so they could rebuild. When the very history of the event was denied. That's a massacre, too.

The massacre-ing continued during the Great Depression. When Black residents were denied Federal relief. It continued during World War II, when they were denied the right to work in federally funded defense plants. It continued in segregated and underfunded schools. It continued through a brutal criminal justice system and an unmonitored police force. It continues by means of gerrymandering and systemic hate, today.

Remember, Tulsa was to be stop-one on trump's 2020 campaign for the presidency he soiled. That stop was scheduled for Juneteenth.

But this post isn't about defeat.

Or even hate.

Or even race.

It's about humanity. 

For almost as long as there's been a Greenwood, there's been a Black newspaper in the community owned by members of the Goodwin family. It's still publishing. Still in the family. You can, and should read a bit of the paper's history here. And see its web page here.

Eighty years ago, Ed Goodwin, Sr., started putting these words on the front page. A bit like The New York Times puts "All the news that's fit to print." He wrote: “We Make America Better When We Aid Our People.” 

In "Built from the Fire," Goodwin's son, David said this of the tagline: “Every week, we put it on. That’s why people come to the Eagle. Because we have a soul.”

That's the key.

Client, creative, account, planning, media, CPA, intern human.

Because we have a soul.

So much of life in advertising and the world, seeks to eliminate soul through lies, dishonesty, half-truths, hatred, short-cuts, convenience, expedience and worse.

Our work has to have soul.

Integrity. Truth. Information. Even, kindness.

When people come to what we do, it's not because of new cheesier Doritos. Or old people walking on the beach in a pharma spot. Or second-rate comedians sitting on a giant logo and shouting spurious claims at innocent viewers.

They come when we have soul.

Soul.

This is a lot for a Friday.

Blame it on soul.

Mary Warlick and Her Art.

 

Because I am connected in social media to a lot of luminaries in the ad business, I heard the buzz about Mary Warlick's book pictured above, many months ago. 

As much as I already have just about every book on advertising ever written, I didn't much need one. However, intrigue got the upper hand on practicality and I went to order it. At once, I was a little knocked back in my seat because of the price. 

I'm used to spending money on books. 

I think nothing of dropping $35 on a Kindle edition of the latest best-seller about the disappearance of the rare Norwegian variegated mealworm. I don't usually put financial limits on self-improvement. But "Selling Creative" was listed on Amazon at almost $60 and it seemed like something I could live without.

But then I read Ernie Schenck praising it. 

Luke Sullivan praising it.

Joe Alexander praising it.

Gary Goldsmith praising it.

These are people I've admired for, literally, decades. Some of whom I count as friends.

Suddenly, "Selling Creative" turned from being an "expense" to being a "competitive edge." If I bought it, I thought, I might have an advantage over the 9,600,045,879 other copywriters who are fighting for the same advertising assignments I am. We're all out there tryin' to make a living an' doin' the bes' we can.

As Baseball Annie said in "Bull Durham," "A man will listen to anything if he thinks it's foreplay," I'll read anything, or watch anything if it helps me get business. You'd have to be stupid not to abide by that stricture.

So I ordered Mary's book. 

And when it arrived at my apartment, I devoured it like Yom Kippur just ended and it was a lox and bagel sandwich. I was impressed with the people Mary selected to write about. I was impressed with the work she chose to represent those people. But most of all, I was impressed with the quality of her writing about those people. 

I started reading about people I worked for. Ron Rosenfeld. Amil Gargano. Mike Tesch. By extension Patrick Kelly, who I was about to shoot with before he died.

Mary seemed to capture them in a just few pages better than I had after working around them for a few years. Quickly I sent Mary a note, and some 7th-grade school newspaper questions. Almost as quickly, Mary wrote back. 

Here's a bit of our Q and A.

GEORGE:
When I read about the people of Ally, particularly Tesch and Amil, I was stunned by how you captured the tenor of the place, the sadness of its fall and its mercurial lifespan. How many interviews, who, etc.

MARY:
I interviewed Mike Tesch, Ed McCabe, Jim Durfee, numerous times. I read Amil’s book. I met Carl Ally before he died, and interviewed him, but it was before I began work on the book. My sources for the tenor of the place were dozens and dozens of contemporary trade articles, which followed the rise and fall of the agency.

2.

GEORGE:

Do you think anyone today has a Hall-of-Fame oeuvre? Not one or two stellar ads. But hundreds of ads over decades that have created and cemented brands in consumers' heads?

MARY:

I continue to be surprised that Bob Barrie is not in the Creative Hall of Fame. His work over the decades has proved to be classic and has the strength of the earlier members of the Creative Hall of Fame. His work for Time, Hush Puppies, and United Airlines are classic examples.

3. 

GEORGE:

In the past, there seemed to be great brands associated with the agencies that worked with them for decades.

DDB-VW.

Ammirati--BMW.

Scali--Volvo.

Ally--FedEx.

Chiat--Apple.

Wieden--Nike.

Do you think that alliance/allegiance between agency and clients still exists?

MARY:

The work from the long-time agencies often depended on the personal relationships between the heads of agencies and their clients. This was apparent in the work from Bill Bernbach’s agency and the VW client, Ralph Ammirati and Martin Puris and their BMW clients, and UPS client. Certainly, Carl Ally and Fred Smith bonded over the Federal Express account, as both men had a vision for the overnight delivery service.

Mary Wells married her top client, Harding Lawrence at Braniff Airlines. Phil Dusenberry had a good relationship with his top clients, Jack Welch of GE. And of course, Dan Wieden and David Kennedy had a strong relationship with Phil Knight of Nike. These personal relationships opened the doors for trust and creative work.

4. 

GEORGE:

Was your book--like One Show Annuals--merely nostalgia for old people like me? Or can young people and clients learn from what was.

MARY:

It is important for young people to know on whose shoulders they stand. I tried to capture the personalities, and the backgrounds of the creative giants that went before,

so that young people can understand there is no direct route to good work. It depends on confidence, determination and passion for the business.

--

Many years ago, when I abandoned my dream of being an academic and decided to pay rent instead, I was a classically trained scholar with an advanced degree in English Literature.

My training taught me to study and learn from writers who were fundamental to all that came after them. Homer. Sophocles. Chaucer. Petrarch. Dante. Shakespeare. And so on. 

My love of film has led me to study Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Renoir, Pressburger, Welles, Sturges, Wilder, Lean, Reed.

My love and respect for advertising led me to study and, yes, memorize the work and the lives of many people in "Selling Creative."

I'd imagine the giant holding companies spent upwards of a combined $10 million sending legions of people wearing loafers and no socks to Cannes. Who knows how much they spent on foot powder. For probably two-percent of that money, they could buy a copy of "Selling Creative" for everyone employed in advertising and every CMO in the world.

If our industry objective behind award shows is truly to educate and uplift, the ROI gained from bestowing Mary Warlick's book to people throughout the industry would be a much more effective way to improve the industry--our respect, our craft, our relationships and our output.

"Selling Creative" is one of the most expensive advertising books I've ever bought. In terms of value, however, it is by far the cheapest.

There's something to learn on every page. And it's fractal. The closer you look, the more you see.

Thanks, Mary.

For all the help. And all the business.

War and Pizza. (Not Tolstoy.)

Of all the many things that frustrate me about the world today, three stand out.

One, is the acceptance of statements as facts. Many people seem to lack the curiosity to want to find out more. Or their cognitive faculties are so subsumed by the power of the corporatist world that we have stopped questioning statements or practices, no matter how unfounded or unprincipled they are.

Two, and related to one, is the gradual disappearance of investigative journalism--or journalism that is more than just the "flak" press, playing back PR and hype under the guise of reporting.

Third, is the slow and steady disappearance of facts. In our so-called data-rich era, real information is increasingly hard to come by, in part for reasons one and two above.

There's a lot I could rattle on about on this topic, but I need stray no farther afield than this week's news.

I read three newspapers and the Economist on Saturday morning, trying to get some sense of wtf was going on in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus--traditional Tannenbaum homelands. My people were being pogrommed there long before that was au courant. 

I could find nothing that wasn't sanitized to within an inch of complete sepsis, including the origin of the moniker "Wagner," for the insurgent mercenaries. Very little about a heavily armed and supplied set of billionaire adventurers named after Hitler's favorite composer, many of whom are tattooed with Nazi runes. 

Say what you will about Putin. I'd rather have him in charge of Russia than a horde of washed-up Hitlerite wannabees.

What's more, something major is going on out there with Wagner and Putin and the putative takeover of half a dozen countries on four continents by Russian proxies. Are we, the former united states, employing the same mechanisms in parts of the world we're bent on looting. Is this what's become of Blackwater, Xi or whatever the DeVos family is currently engaged in? [BTW, here's the website of America's second-largest, after Walmart, private employer: 650,000 mercenary soldiers posing as consultants.]

I come to all this, though, because of the news, or lack of news, from Cannes.

--

After rabbit-holing about Russia, Wagner and Nazis for a good hour or so, my social feeds blared that DDB was named Network of the Year at Cannes.

That struck me as odd--and I'll admit I'm an outsider here--because less than a month ago, DDB New York merged with Adam & Eve. This after a couple of years of wholesale executive changes, with senior leadership lasting at DDB for about as long as Trump can keep a lawyer or a merkin. To be brusque, I had considered DDB a relative non-entity in the agency world. Distinguished neither by creative nor business success. They seem, and I could be completely wrong, to have fallen off the agency radar.

When I came across this in a late-May issue of Ad Age, my suspicions were somewhat confirmed: "Adam&Eve has roughly 40 employees and DDB New York has about 140, according to a DDB spokeswoman, which suggests the merged entity will have about 180 employees."

If the flagship agency of the "Network of the Year," is down to 180 employees, something doesn't add up. To steal what Gertrude Stein said about Oakland and apply it here, "There's no there there."

So, I went searching for data.

How much annual revenue does DDB earn? What's their increase over previous years and their five-year trend? What client wins have they seen? What client growth have they contributed to?

Empty.

The advertising trades used to publish this sort of information. No more. I can find nothing about the things that matter when you're evaluating the credibility of an agency or network.

• Revenue.
• YOY revenue.
• Client retention.
• Employees.
• Employee retention.
• Account wins.
• Account loses.

I realize my tendency is to make things simple. It's my training. I believe in simplicity and strive for it

But if I were evaluating a baseball player for Most Valuable Player, I'd demand access to similar metrics.

• Team performance.
• Batting average or win-loss pct.
• Game-winning hits, or wins.

Of course, not everything can be counted. And not everything that can be counted counts. But in baseball and advertising and world affairs, we seem to be operating in a data-less void. 

When it comes to awards at Cannes, I see the ad industry giving out over 600 awards to the film industry's 25. I haven't seen 600 good ads in the last decade, much less the last year--and I seek them out. I can't help but think that something nefarious is going on here. That there's some sort of pay-for-play scenario operating. Clearly someone is making money on the Cannestravaganza. And I'm not sure who's paying, how much, or what they get for all that expenditure.

Regardless of the answers, we have the right to ask the questions.

Right now, it makes me think that awards shows are operating like the Michelin Guide might if they decided to monetize their asses up that wazoo. So to make more money they'd offer awards and recognition to the best gumball machines. Not only would such an award denigrate the value of the awards given to restaurants, you'd never be told what made a gumball machine award-winning, just that it is. Revenue trumps all but the pursuit of more revenue.

If something has such value as a tool of evaluation, we ought to have some idea of its standards and the metrics behind its judgments. Without that, we've all just turned into moniker mongers. Whatever that phrase means, it ain't pretty.

Making a Spectacle of Ourselves.

There was an important op-ed by David Brooks in The Times on Friday, called "The Age of Spectacle is Upon Us." You can read it here.

Brooks' op-ed isn't about advertising. But after a week of watching what seemed like half the industry celebrating its own success in Cannes, I can't help but read it that way. I'm not much for public masturbation, but the ad industry this week seemed to be fully engaged and in full view.

The subject-object split in advertising, where almost every ad you see sucks and then hundreds of ads you've never seen are given hundreds of awards is an absurdist show, like something by Ionesco or a urinal by R. Mutt. I don't really understand the celebration. The disconnect between what we do and what matters to putative consumers seems very complete.

Now, as promised, over to David Brooks' essay. While you're reading it, think of Cannes and the Cannesization of our industry. 

Brooks writes:

"In a healthy society, the early-20th-century Dutch prime minister and theologian Abraham Kuyper observed, there are a variety of spheres, each with its own social function. 

"There is the state, the church, the family, the schools, science, business, the trades, etc. Each of these spheres, he continued, has its own rules and possesses its own integrity and correct way of doing things. Each sphere is a responsible zone of flourishing...

"Society grows unhealthy, Kuyper argued, when one sphere tries to take over another sphere. In our country, the business sphere has sometimes tried to take over the education sphere — to run schools like a business. But if you run a school or university on the profit-maximization mentality, you will trample over the mission of what a school is for... 

"Today, the boundaries between spheres are collapsing. You go into an evangelical megachurch and it can feel like a political pep rally. Some professors now see themselves as political activists. You open your email and find corporations taking political stances on issues that have nothing to do with their core businesses.

"Some days it seems every sphere has been subsumed into one giant culture war, producing what Yuval Levin described in Comment magazine as 'a vast sociopolitical psychosis.'

"...politics as spectacle that has taken over everything.

"Spectacle is the sphere that achieves public
titillation through public combat. In Rome, gladiatorial combat was spectacle. Professional wrestling is spectacle. Reality TV is spectacle. Donald Trump — the love child of professional wrestling and reality TV — is spectacle. Tucker Carlson presented TV news as spectacle. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence perform activism in the form of spectacle.

"The point of spectacle is not to resolve differences; it is to attract attention. In spectacle you thrive by offending people. Narcissism is rewarded, humility is forbidden..."

 

I see the fanfare.

I see the back-patting.

I see the PR and the awards.

Yet...
I know the notion of AOR has withered.
Attrition rates are high.

The best and the brightest aren't entering the business.

And it wasn't long-ago that the Wall Street Journal reported, "Marketing budgets have fallen to 6.4% of companies’ revenue this year from 11% last year, according to the annual CMO Spend Survey by research firm Gartner Inc. The new level is the lowest since the survey began in 2012 and the first time it has dipped below 10%, Gartner said."

 

Still, we celebrate.

We spectacle-ize.

 

We focus on everything but doing good work that helps brands and that people care about.

 

Er, I mean real work. That actually ran. That was made to move a needle. Not just tame a lion.

 

 

Nu? Business.

On Friday afternoon, someone I didn't know, a CMO at a company I never heard of commented on one of my LinkedIn posts and then sent me a message on LinkedIn.

This isn't unusual for me.

Half my business I get from ex-Ogilvy people or clients who prefer my brand to Ogilvy's.

Half I get from my industry-wide reputation for excellent brand-and-business-building work.

And half I get from my ads on LinkedIn.

(I realized that's 150%. But like most well-run businesses, GeorgeCo., LLC, a Delaware Company is over-subscribed.)

Our conversation continued like this:

Starting my own business after getting fired from Ogilby at the age of 62 for being old and for "harkening back to the 80s," was not easy. I was brought up with an abusive and borderline mother and an absent father. My life has not been a tip-toe through the tulips. In fact, I don't know anyone whose life has been.

Often, I say about the last four years that I've had to reinvent myself.

That's not exactly true.

I've had to rediscover myself.

I've had to expunge the intellectual and performative detritus that accumulates over the course of 35 years of working for others. The acceptance of Soviet-style protocols like patented processes for doing work. The technocratic hogwash and language of our corporatist advertising state. The purported efficacy of creating 98-page decks with less than half-a-paragraph of real thinking contained within. The gravestone seriousness of small-dicked pomposity. And maybe worse of all, the cockamamie notion that everything can and should scale.

Work comes and goes for GeorgeCo., LLC, a Delaware Company. 

I just wrapped a couple months with a Fortune 50 client. I had a phone call late Friday with a $10 Billion Market Cap client who I've worked for since I opened my doors. I just sent work through to a retainer client who came to me via Steve Hayden. And my account director in San Francisco is dotting the i's on various NDAs and corporate crapola from another client in the UK who also found me on LinkedIn.

Is this how I wanted to go gentle into my goodnight?

No.

I wanted to be an eminence gris. Helping out on troubled clients and pitches and training young people. 

Instead I'm working more than I ever have.

But I've rediscovered my craft.

I've rediscovered the simplicity advertising's technocracy has un-done.

And I've rediscovered friends who work with me and help me and make me better.

Like everyone else, I have my dark moments. Sometimes my brain has all the luminosity of a Hasidic's closet. 

But like a batter who is mired in a slump, I had the wisdom to go back to the swing that allowed me for many years to hit the ball hard. 

I didn't change.

I went back.

You can hit the ball hard and right at someone.

You're just as out as if you whiffed badly.

But hit it hard, be you, and sooner than later the hits get through.

That is what I've learned so far.

Knocked Out of the Park.

 One late afternoon late in the summer way back in 1975 when I toiled under the unforgiving sun as I manned third base for the Saraperos de Saltillo in the Mexican Baseball League, I was getting dressed in my warm-ups. Hector walked over to the worn wooden bench underneath the dripping pipe above my cubby. I was lacing up my black leather Riddell spikes which I had brought in my duffle all the way from New York.

"Jorge," Hector said, "Buentello is feeling sick. He said he is dizzy."

"He's not always dizzy?"

"You have a point. But tonight, he is more dizzy than usual and cannot catch."

Gonzalo Bustamante had just joined the team from the Yaquis of Ciudad Obregón, a lesser team in the Mexican Pacific league. Hector had shifted me to right field and put the newcomer at third. After eight games, Bustamante was batting an even .400 and had already amassed seven RBIs. 

"I would like you behind the plate tonight."

"What about Gordo," I asked. Gordo Batista was our backup backstop and our full-time bus driver.

"As a catcher," Hector said, "Gordo is a good bus driver. I will put either Andrade or Cervantes or Ibarra in for you. Whoever hits the ball best when we are warming up. And you will be behind the plate. Yturbe is pitching. He is steady."

"As a catcher," I answered, "I am a good third baseman."

"It is only for this one night, until Buentello recovers his balance."

Hector left my side and brought me a spare set of teal-highlighted catcher's gear. 

"Tonight you will wear the tools of ignorance."

"I didn't know it showed," I said, adjusting the straps to my left shinguard.

As much as I hated catching, I hated it less than playing in the outfield, where Hector had stuck me since Bustamante joined the squad. I hated being away from the center of the game, far away from the action. At least catching had me in the center of things where my mind had less of a propensity to wander. 

Right field was a notoriously lonely outpost, the Alcatraz of the baseball field. Xavi Liberto played there at the start of the season until his batting average fell below his weight. One night to pass the time he hid a small parakeet he had captured in his glove so he had someone to talk with. When a line drive was sent his way, without thinking he grabbed the ball and in the process crushed to death the small yellow bird he had hidden.

As most games did that long summer so long ago, this one faded into the ones before and the ones to come. Though Yturbe was strong that night and we were up by two going into the ninth, he faltered just when we thought we were home free. 

With two down, the Olmecs put two men on and their next batter hit a long one to right that took a hop over Ibarra's head. Two runs were in when Adame, in short right, relayed Ibarra's throw to me, unfortunately about two or four feet too high.

I leaped to catch it, and that's the last I remember until I woke up in the red leather  front seat of a white Cadillac convertible that belonged to Don Jorge Torres Casso, the owner of the Saraperos. The Olmec's runner had crashed into me, safe. And I went flying to the wooden backstop breaking through two of the old, dry planks, and was knocked out for a good fifteen minutes.

We had no ambulance at El Estadio de Francesco I. Madura, so the boys dragged me to Casso's car and Casso drove me to the hospital in his car, cursing me for my dusty uniform against his clean leather seats. Dr. Jesus Verdusco, our backup shortstop, who was a third-year medical student in the off-season at   Tecnológico de Monterrey, held my hand from his place in the seat behind me.

Casso, driving blindly, cursed the 15 minutes to the hospital. "My seats," he said. "You ass and your dirt on my seats. Why did they not put down a towel on the upholstery?"

He cursed me and so reminded me that the world had kept on spinning though the spinning of my head made it seem like it had stopped while I was blacked out.

After that night, I never again caught, not even batting practice.

Like I said, as a catcher, I was a good third-baseman.

A Knockout.

One late afternoon late in the summer way back in 1975 when I toiled under the unforgiving sun as I manned third base for the Saraperos de Saltillo in the Mexican Baseball League, I was getting dressed in my warm-ups. Hector walked over to the worn wooden bench underneath the dripping pipe above my cubby. I was lacing up my black leather Riddell spikes which I had brought in my duffle all the way from New York.

"Jorge," Hector said, "Buentello is feeling sick. He said he is dizzy."

"He's not always dizzy?"

"You have a point. But tonight, he is more dizzy than usual and cannot catch."

Gonzalo Bustamante had just joined the team from the Yaquis of Ciudad Obregón, a lesser team in the Mexican Pacific league. Hector had shifted me to right field and put the newcomer at third. After eight games, Bustamante was batting an even .400 and had already amassed seven RBIs. 

"I would like you behind the plate tonight."

"What about Gordo," I asked. Gordo Batista was our backup backstop and our full-time bus driver.

"As a catcher," Hector said, "Gordo is a good bus driver. I will put either Andrade or Cervantes or Ibarra in for you. Whoever hits the ball best when we are warming up. And you will be behind the plate. Yturbe is pitching. He is steady."

"As a catcher," I answered, "I am a good third baseman."

"It is only for this one night, until Buentello recovers his balance."

Hector left my side and brought me a spare set of teal-highlighted catcher's gear. 

"Tonight you will wear the tools of ignorance."

"I didn't know it showed," I said, adjusting the straps to my left shinguard.

As much as I hated catching, I hated it less than playing in the outfield, where Hector had stuck me since Bustamante joined the squad. I hated being away from the center of the game, far away from the action. At least catching had me in the center of things where my mind had less of a propensity to wander. 

Right field was a notoriously lonely outpost, the Alcatraz of the baseball field. Xavi Liberto played there at the start of the season until his batting average fell below his weight. One night to pass the time he hid a small parakeet he had captured in his glove so he had someone to talk with. When a line drive was sent his way, without thinking he grabbed the ball and in the process crushed to death the small yellow bird he had hidden.

As most games did that long summer so long ago, this one faded into the ones before and the ones to come. Though Yturbe was strong that night and we were up by two going into the ninth, he faltered just when we thought we were home free. 

With two down, the Olmecs put two men on and their next batter hit a long one to right that took a hop over Ibarra's head. Two runs were in when Adame, in short right, relayed Ibarra's throw to me, unfortunately about two or four feet too high.

I leaped to catch it, and that's the last I remember until I woke up in the red leather  front seat of a white Cadillac convertible that belonged to Don Jorge Torres Casso, the owner of the Saraperos. The Olmec's runner had crashed into me, safe. And I went flying to the wooden backstop breaking through two of the old, dry planks, and was knocked out for a good fifteen minutes.

We had no ambulance at El Estadio de Francesco I. Madura, so the boys dragged me to Casso's car and Casso drove me to the hospital in his car, cursing me for my dusty uniform against his clean leather seats. Dr. Jesus Verdusco, our backup shortstop, who was a third-year medical student in the off-season at   Tecnológico de Monterrey, held my hand from his place in the seat behind me.

Casso, driving blindly, cursed the 15 minutes to the hospital. "My seats," he said. "You ass and your dirt on my seats. Why did they not put down a towel on the upholstery?"

He cursed me and so reminded me that the world had kept on spinning though the spinning of my head made it seem like it had stopped while I was blacked out.

After that night, I never again caught, not even batting practice.

Like I said, as a catcher, I was a good third-baseman.