I got an email a few hours ago from an ex-big-wig from Ogilvy that I still work with. That's an indication of one of the things that made Ogilvy different. There was something about the place where friendships--even work friendships--went from the usual "transaction-based" sort, to real respect, even, I'd say love.
The email told me and a few dozen others that Steve Hayden had died.
I never wanted to think of that eventuality even though I knew it was coming.
As a boy who grew up essentially without a father, Steve was like a father to me. That means, of course, I loved him. And at times wanted to strangle him, and not in a nice way. Sometimes those feelings were packed as close together as commuters on a rush-hour subway.
I was brand new at Ogilvy, maybe four-weeks in, and really homeless. Somebody, not me, had screwed up the creative on a dot com account that was new to the agency and Steve phoned me up and put it all in my lap.
It was the beginning of November, and we were meant to have spots running by Thanksgiving. I went in that weekend, and not wanting to let Steve down, I wrote maybe 75 scripts. Somehow I summoned up the courage, or stupidity, to hit the send button and send them to him.
The next morning, a Monday, Steve called me in. He liked what I did. He was more than a little amused that in my fervor to be good I had written not just :30s, but :15s, too. I needed to make sure they would work. I couldn't let Steve down.
In less than a week I was in a van with Steve, Susan Westre and Lee Weiss, our producer. We were heading out to location in New Jersey to shoot the first of three spots. Steve was in the front passenger seat. I think I was sitting in a wheel well, feeling completely intimidated and more out-of-place than usual.
Steve's cell rang.
A moment later he turned to me and said, "the client just killed the spot. Write a new one."
Not only did I have to do this in media res, in a pothole-seeking van, Steve worked on an IBM ThinkPad, and I had never worked on a PC before, or with that little red track ball. I was sure Steve was about to find out two things about me.
1. I suck.
2. I don't even know how to type.
But I wrote. We were getting close to the location. And I felt like I imagine someone feels putting his head in the aperture of a guillotine just to try it out. I handed Steve's IBM ThinkPad with my script on it back up to him.
Then I stopped breathing.
Two blocks went by. Steve showed my script to Susan Westre.
"This is good," he said.
Steve taught me so much during that van ride.
That it's ok to be nervous, to feel like a fraud, to even think you suck. That's all normal for creative people. But Steve taught me more. That you can allay, if not conquer your fears, by writing, by trying, by thinking and doing. By typing.
Thank you, Steve.
--
Steve wasn't young when he died.
But I couldn't sleep last night for sadness.
I kept thinking of this from Housman's Shropshire Lad. I'm not sure if Steve was an athlete. And he sure wasn't young.
But certain lines played on repeat in my sad cerebellum:
"And home we brought you shoulder-high."
Steve never wore his honors out.
He never withered quicker than a rose.
The name will live on after the man.
Today we are all "Townsmen of a stiller town."
To An Athlete Dying Young
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.
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