The joys of blogging.

I am a writer--consigned to advertising, but a writer nonetheless. As the year comes to a close, I have done what writers are meant to do: I have written--on deadline--virtually everyday this entire year--over 600 blog entries and a fair bit of copy.

If you're reading this--this inconsequential entry--thanks. And Happy fucking new year.

This explains a lot.

I'm reading now a book called "Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration" by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto. Basically (I love when historians bring order to the world with one giant, cosmic bolt of clarity) humanity has searched for diversity since its very beginnings. We've looked for different people to co-join with, to trade with, to profit from, to procreate with. This has been the force that through green fuse drives the flower.

It's easy for us in Plastic-land to see increasing homogeneity. In fact, contrary to how we may feel when we are barraged by an onslaught of processed everything, we likely have a greater fecundity of trade, thought and chromosomes than in any time in human history.

OK, no real point here. Or maybe a bit of life affirmation from a misanthrope of the highest order. Today, if you need to know when Bogart was born, how old Bacall was when they married, what the word vitiate means or do you suck the venom from a cobra bite before or after dousing the wound in milk, that information is virtually at your fingertips. I suppose that access to a diversity of information and in a sense culture that is unparalleled in human history. That's amazing.

(Bogart was born in 1899--he died at 57. Bacall was 21 when they married, he was 45. Vitiate means to make faulty or defective. And suck out the venom first, rinse your mouth with milk and be sure to spit.)

34 years ago, I rebelled.

And inn a fit of pique--in a rage against the machine, I left the US and joined the Nicaraguan navy, which was liberal and progressive at the time (being dominated by Ortega's people._ Right now, I am down for my annual two-weeks of training. Posts will be sporadic until my return.

--Catp. (reserves) Jorge "El Toro" Tannenbaum

This is from Arthur Miller.

My introduction to Arthur Miller was a little red paperback that had four or five of his plays in it, including "Death of a Salesman," "The Crucible," "All My Sons," and something I've forgotten. It also had a poem as kind of a coda at the end of the volume that I've never forgotten.

LINES FROM CALIFORNIA
by Arthur Miller
They meet for purchase or sale
and to trace their bounds through rosebushes.
There is a catechism: What's your name, what
do you do, how do you feel, and where you from?
Like people on a perpetual cruise, and the dead
go overboard into a lawn. It's a deck,
part of which is always on fire.
Anything inconsequential makes them serious.
Some teach parakeets to climb ladders; they also
have Malted Milk Specialists.
Tragedy is when you lose your boat.
Life is a preparation for retirement.
The sun is good for business.
Al Jolson left a trust fund which pays
to floodlight his tomb at night forever;
even in death a man should have bills.
The second-largest industry is sporting goods.
To succeed as a woman you have to have a car.
California is Christianity plus the conveniences.
Driving from town to town one wonders what will
happen if neon gas ever runs out; some may
have to learn to read paint.
When a man admits failure he becomes a pedestrian.
Brotherhood is when two men have the same mother.
Sacrifice is a car sold at a ridiculous price.
Society is when people listen to classical music;
or a Savings & Loan.
Law is order, Justice a decent return on money.
Progress is anything turning on and off by itself.
Beauty is teeth, deep skill, and the willingness.
Freedom is the right to live among your own kind.
A philosophy is a keen sense of land values
and the patience to wait.
War is peace waged by other means .
They know they are the Future.
They are exceedingly well-armed.

I wonder.

Alas, a true lover of mankind, I am not. But as I fly through LaGuardia and then Atlanta/Hartsfield I wonder if Mother Teresa, St. Francis Assisi or, even, Mr. Rogers could make it through a day in "Economy" without rage.

Let's start with the "Breezeway," the name Delta's chosen for its unmoving line onto their aging jets. My row had no window--evidence that they jammed more seats in the vessel than originally intended and I could not cross my legs. My knees were flush against the seat in front of me.

On the PA system, they piped in the sounds of crying babies--if only to muffle the sounds of crying babies. The pilot took delight in calling terminal T terminal "tango." Do you tango? I don't and would have preferred T as in Terpsichore.

Now I sit in a processed food court that is lit brighter than the surface of the sun, the smell of refried grease permeating the refried people. The Cashew chicken is back at Panda Express. I hadn't known it ever left. My daughter says, "We could sit at Friday's but then we'd be sitting at Friday's."

Is this America today, I wonder, where everything feels processed, synthetic, cheap,run down, of low-quality. The staggering thing, I think is that amid all our choices, there are really no choices. What rotten airline do you want to fly, what lousy airport do you want to connect through, what lousy food do you want to eat, what mediocre candidates (or at least candidates who pander to the lowest common denominator) will you vote for?

Sallow black men in prison-style pants down around their knees sweep lazily pushing big grey petrochemical buckets and jawing with one another. Everyone, everyone seems to have latex gloves on, why? Is there still phantom anthrax in the air or is it AIDS or is it petrochemical companies adding yet another billion to their coffers?

Off to Mexico. But first, a one-liner.

What kind of defense does a Mexican basketball team play?
Juan-on-Juan.

Is 3-time Pulitzer-winner Thomas Friedman an Ad Aged reader?

This is from his column today--19 months after I drew the analogy. (In fairness to Tom, I was writing micro and he is macro.)

"For all these reasons, our present crisis is not just a financial meltdown crying out for a cash injection. We are in much deeper trouble. In fact, we as a country have become General Motors — as a result of our national drift. Look in the mirror: G.M. is us."

A moodle. (My mood + a doodle.)

A bit more on creative productivity.

If you read books about geniuses you learn that often times they work spasmodically--and in ways that defy, or baffle, or perplex the great timesheet police that now seem to run the world.

One such creative genius was Albert Einstein. When he worked as an obscure clerk in the Swiss Patent Office from out of nowhere wrote in less than a year five papers that went on to become his General Theory of Relativity.

But for the purposes of this post I'll focus on Preston Sturges. Sturges wrote and directed seven hits, seven classics in four years--an output that I can't imagine will ever be matched. Four of the movies listed here made the AFI's roster of top 100 American Comedies. I've double starred those.

Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)
**The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944)
**The Palm Beach Story (1942)
**Sullivan's Travels (1941)
**The Lady Eve (1941)
Christmas in July (1940)
The Great McGinty (1940)

Now, finally, I get to my point. Sturges was notorious for working his own way. He rehearsed like mad and didn't start shooting until he loved what he saw. Then he'd shoot one take, maybe two. That's not the way films were shot. So when the studio producers saw that Sturges had been shooting for a week and had less than a minute of film to show for it, they went nuts. Sturges was wildly productive--he just shot when he felt ready to shoot.

I'm no genius--far from it, but personally, I am the same way. My least productive hours are the ones I spend in the office. My best ideas and my tonnage ideas all come when I am walking the dog, or taking a shower or walking the dog in the shower. How do you put that on a timesheet?

We will be bludgeoned this year with the false imprecation to work longer--the unappreciative will equate hours with your arse implanted at your desk with productivity. If this creative browbeating persists hours in the office will rise. Productivity, at least mine, will plummet.

Faster! Cheaper! Faster! Cheaper!

As we sink deeper and deeper into our economic come-uppance we will endure more and more assaults on workers--how they're over-paid, lazy and laden with benefits (like healthcare) that only the Lords of the manor deserve. (It was ever thus, by the way. I recently read a book called "The Black Death: A Personal History" by John Hatcher. After the plague wiped out 30%-70% of the population, demand for manure-shovellers and the like outstripped supply, driving wages up. Of course, the Lords petitioned the King and their fellow Lords and won the right to limit wages. But I digress, as usual.)

My experience is that the workers are not revolting--they're productive, or at least they're somewhat productive. Unfortunately the systems of most agencies--the second-guessing, the approval by committee, the endless meetings about the work, are what really inhibit productivity.

I do a goodly amount of freelance with similarly-tenured art directors, you know, Old Guys. Almost invariably, no, invariably, we sit together for eight hours or so and create 18 ads. Then we go home. They finesse layouts and I write a dozen or so pieces of copy. All of this is done in 24 hours and at an admirable qualitative level.

It's easy to blame others for inefficiency. It's easy to demonize the workers. It's what the oligarchs always do, always have done, Ijust I don't buy it.

I gotta go.