Harper Lee and Heroes.

There's a big hubbub--at least in some non-Kardashian circles--because Harper Lee's novel "Go Set a Watchman," is about to come out. Rumor has it that Gregory Peck, I mean Atticus Finch isn't the paragon he was in the movie. Rumor has it that Atticus is human. Of an era. Flawed. And racist.

Mark Harris, the great unknown American writer of baseball tales such as "The Southpaw" and "Bang the Drum Slowly," once wrote that "the only hero is the man without heroes."

I think each of us would do well to remember that wisdom. And if you can't remember it, at least write it on a sticky note and leave it somewhere prominent. Like over a picture of Kim Kardashian's ass.

We invest too many people and places with an esteem they don't deserve. Atticus can be a great man and he can be flawed. He can be a good man, without being wholly good. He can be a positive force but still hold some of the negative thoughts of his era.

The point is one of nuance and, I think, reality. We need to moderate our absolutes and bring them more in line with human expectations.

No agency is ideal. No account. No person. No ad. No media.

We live in an imperfect world. A world infested with asinine pseudo quotations purported friends post on LinkedIn that they somehow attribute to Gandhi, or Steve Jobs, or Einstein, or some other idealized form.

In "The Captive Mind", Czeslaw Milosz's memoir/essay/study about artists and intellectuals living under Communism in the early 1950s, he attributed the epigram below to an ancient Jew from Galacia. 

"When someone is honestly 55% right, that's very good and there's no use wrangling. And if someone is 60% right, it's wonderful, it's great luck, and let him thank God. But what's to be said about 75% right? Wise people say this is suspicious. Well, and what about 100% right? Whoever says he's 100% right is a fanatic, a thug, and the worst kind of rascal."

Beware heroes. Beware rascals. 

Hemingway changes my copy.

Two men came in and sat at the table next to me. The first had a small white face with close-together features as if his nose had a gravitational pull and everything was sliding toward it. The second man looked like the first, as if they were brothers.

They wore bowler hats. Their overcoats were buttoned across their chest and pulled. They were a size or two sizes too small. They each had on black leather gloves that they did not remove.

“Hey bright boy,” the first one said.

“Good morning,” I answered.

“Oh, a real bright boy. ‘Good morning,’” he sneered.

“Come over to the table.”

“Why?” I said.

The second one pivoted in his seat and looked at me. “You’re a real bright boy,” he said. They still hadn’t removed their gloves.

“Come over to the table,” the first one repeated. “We need to talk to you.”

“We’re talking now.”

“Come over to the table.”

I rolled my chair over to the round table where they were sitting. They each had black bowler hats on, matching their dark herringbone overcoats and black leather gloves.

“Your laptop,” said the second one. “Bring it.”

I wheeled back to my table and then back to where they were sitting.

“We need to change some copy. Now.” He stretched his right hand in the tight leather of his glove.

“What’s wrong with the copy?”

“We need to change some copy,” the second one repeated.

I opened my laptop and pressed a key to light the screen.

“What’s wrong with the copy.”

“Oh, you’re a bright boy,” the first one said.

“You should listen. Not argue.”

“I can’t make changes to the copy if I don’t know what’s wrong with it.”

“You’re a real bright boy.”

The second man reached into the pocket of his overcoat. He took out a sheet of paper. There was typing all over it. The typing was crossed out and marked.

“Here are the changes, bright boy.”

I looked at the paper. If there were 20 typed sentences on the page, the hand-written marking had made all 20 worse.

“Be a bright boy and make these changes.”

The two men stood up. Their black gloves were still on and their overcoats still buttoned.

“By noon, bright boy.”

They left as silently as they had come.

Of cabs and agencies.

If you've taken a basic course in macro-economics you've learned a bit about inelastic demand. That's when you have a product that is so essential that you can raise the price or reduce service, or both, without having a negative effect on demand.

Cigarette and liquor companies can do so, for instance. Because you're not about to give up your tobacco and booze. Cable companies, telcos, the subway. They're all pretty inelastic.

For my entire lifetime, until now, New York City taxicabs have fallen into the inelastic camp. Right now for instance, every fare--depending on when you take your ride--is hit with a $1.80 to $2.30 surcharge for some statefied reason. A $7 fare quickly becomes a $10 fare but you shell out because you're in a rush, or you're a mile from the nearest fetid subway line.

Of late, New York has seen the rocket-like ascent of a new ride-share company called Via. They charge just $5 anywhere in the city--river to river from 110th Street to 14th Street from 6:30AM to 9PM.

It's a pretty sweet deal. I've taken Via to and from work virtually every day since I heard about it six weeks ago.

The cabs in the city are in a panic. Their top lights are on. They honk at you if you're standing on the corner. They are desperate for fares.

They used to think and act as if they were inelastic.

All at once they're realize they're elastic.

Their price rose so high, their service got so bad that when competition came in, the elastic finally snapped.

Medallions--the right to own a city cab--has for almost a century been limited to 11,000 in number. That artificial shortage drove the price of the medallion up to over $1 million. That guy you've tipped $2 may have been a millionaire. With the advent of Via and Uber the price of a medallion now hovers below $700K.

This little essay on cabs and macro-economics has an advertising point of course. I can't help but think that traditional ad agencies were acting very much like yellow cab drivers. Haughty, arrogant and expensive when all at once, new media and new agencies came in, the pixelled-equivalent of Via.

Eventually, the yellows--if they are to survive at all--will improve their offering. And eventually, the Via's--as they continue to prosper--will get arrogant and more expensive. Before long, the industry will stop acting like demand is inelastic and will put an emphasis on accountable work that works.

Maybe that's a pipe dream.

Like finding a cab in the rain.

Perfect.

I slept late this morning, 8AM.

So by the time we pulled Whiskey's things together and piled into the Simca, it was already 8:50. We hit the road and checked the tide by the level of an inlet of the Sound off the Hutch adjacent to Co-op City in the Bronx. We saw the water was high, and so headed toward a beach we found in Rye where no one seems to bother us.

Whiskey was bouncing in the back seat. She was ready to take over the wheel. Anything that would get us into the water sooner. I pushed her off with my upper arms and she settled in the back.

When the water is low, we head to Larchmont. But the beach there shrinks to living-room size when the tide is up. So we head to Rye, where there's a long, but perilously rocky littoral. Rye is better when the water is up. Fewer rocks to turn your ankle on.

Today, for whatever reason, the cops were out. They were looking to push people off the beach, though the beach was virtually empty. They would drive over in sturdy ATVs and scowl and ask you to leave.

I had a strategy for handling them. Dead on eye contact. I stared them down, looked unintimidated and they let us stay. They pulled back from harassing me.

So Whiskey got two hours in the water. Two hours of running along the sea and fetching her duck decoy out of the water as far as I could sling it.

The cops flew off like fireflies in a summer night.

Another day in the water.

Perfect.

A phone call from an old friend.

A friend called me yesterday afternoon, an old friend, an advertising friend. We were partners in the early 90s at an advertising agency called Ally & Gargano. She's somewhat left the business, but her husband's remained in. That is until Tuesday or so when he was axed from his high-level job.

It sucks to be old in this business.

To have grey hair.

To make a decent wage.

Each one of those qualities is another circle on your back. A circle that eventually makes up a target. If you're feeling particularly somber, you might want to view these scenes from one of the greatest movies ever made, Preston Sturges' "The Sin of Harold Diddlebock." view.

There are some places that are kinder and gentler. Some places that are colder and meaner. But the fact of the matter is, five--and probably soon to be four--holding companies control 75% of the ad jobs in the city. There is no doubt collusion driving wages down and older people out. That's what happens in virtually every industry. Why would ours be more virtuous.

My friend and I talked a long time.

That evening I followed up by citing a post I had published long ago. I hope it helps her husband. It's what I've always tried to do and it's helped me.

How to get fired.

Getting fired is an advertising inevitability.

It happens to the best of us.

It happens to the worst of us.

It happens to big salaries.

And small.
And in-between.

It happens to those who deserve it and those who don’t.

Regardless of all that,

there’s a right way and a wrong way to get canned.

Here’s the right way:

1. Always have your “book” ready. That is, always have it up-to-date. The last thing you want to do when you’re axed is find files, pull favors and get things together. Preparing for you next job is an important part of your current job.
2. Keep active on social media. Don’t connect to random people but keep tabs on where people are and what they’re doing. Stay friendly. Stay interested. Stay informed. Keep your name positive, out there and active.
3. Cultivate your memory. Remember people you’ve worked with. Clients. Editors. Colorists. Partners. These are people who you may need to lean on.
4. Be a good person. I happen to believe that in all of advertising there are maybe ten people good enough to be assholes. If you’re not one of them, be nice. Help people. Work hard. Pitch in. Return emails and phone calls. You’re more likely to be lent a hand if you’re not a prick. So don’t be a prick.
5. Stay current. It makes sense to me to be a student of the industry. Know who’s winning accounts, who’s doing good work, who’s pitching. These are likely to be the people and places looking for help.
6. Do good work. This needs no explanation. The best way to recover from being fired (which most-often has nothing to do with the work you produce) is to have good work in your book.
7. Publish a blog. It’s the best way to keep your name in front of people. Use your blog to show the business (and whoever else reads it) who you are.
8. Don't spend money on foolish things. Really. Grow up. You're going to need that money when you're schmised. And you can live without $150 canvas sneakers.
9. Thank the people who fired you. Be gracious. Thank your boss, your partner, your planner, the account guy for the opportunities you've been given. Don't be bitter. That said, be firm when it comes to severance.
10. Have some champagne. At all times keep a bottle, chilled, in your fridge. Celebrate when it happens. Better days will come.

Running of the bull in Saltillo.

Occasionally during the long, hot summer of 1975, the Saraperos de Saltillo would hold a special “day” at Estadio Francesco I. Madura. Most often these days, or nights, would resemble those held in the majors. There’d be a cap day where fans under 12 would be given a free lid. Or there’d be a ladies day, where distaff acolytes would need pay half price for admission.

In the mid-70s, baseball attendance was slipping and clubs tried all sorts of tactics to keep fans coming in through the turnstiles. The Chicago White Sox, for instance, held in 1979, something called “Disco Demolition Night.” They expected 25,000 fans would show up to see thousands of vinyl records blown-up. They drew instead twice that number and wound up having to forfeit the second game of their scheduled double-header when the drunken fans started Frisbee-ing records onto the field and eventually rioted.

Nothing that madcap happened when I played for the Saraperos, though I suppose their “Noche de los Toros” came close.

I’m not sure how popular bullfighting is now in Mexico, but forty years ago, bullfights would routinely sell out stadiums seating 100,000 people or more. The Sarperos decided to capitalize on that popularity by holding a Night of the Bulls.

Before our night’s game, they set up a small bullring in the center of the diamond. Our guest for the evening was one of Mexico’s most famous matadors, the Pride of Guadalupe and three-time winner of the coveted “Golden Sword” award, the little giant, Eloy Cavazos.

Eloy presided over a short bull-fighting exhibition in which neither he nor the bull were wounded, a good thing.

Next was the part that perhaps will strain credulity.

There was a celebrity bull in attendance called “El Rapido.” He had earned the reputation of being the “el toro más rápido en todo México,” that is, ‘the fastest bull in all of Mexico.

Hector came to me, “How does this sound? ‘El Rapido versus Jorge Navidad’?Man versus toro in an epic battle.”

I laughed.

“There’s no bullfighter in me,” I said, picking up a bat and getting ready to protect myself..

“Not bullfighter,” Hector said. “Bull racer. You against El Rapido—30 yards, from home to first.”

“A foot race? Me versus El Rapido?”

“You are the fastest of the Saraperos. El Rapido is the fastest of the toros.”

And so, some minutes later, I found myself in a three-point stance in the batter’s box at homeplate. El Rapido in the left-handers box, had a slight advantage over me—being closer to first. Besides that, he was a bull.

At a given moment, Cavazos, the Lion of Guadulupe, would raise his red flag and El Rapido and Jorge Navidad would take off for first. Wilmer Bauza, the Mexican League’s head of umpires, would declare the winner.

Cavazos waved his flag. The picadors poked El Rapido and Hector Quesadilla screamed “Vamos, Jorge.”

The crowd, a large one thanks to the “Noche de los Toros” was split, I’d say, right down the middle. Half rooting for El Rapido, half for me.

I got out of the box ahead of El Rapido and quickly gained a two or three yard lead. But just as quickly I heard the heavy galumphing of El Rapido’s heavy hooves. At fifteen yards the bovine had caught up with me. He hit first base a good five yards ahead of me.

Then things took a turn for the worse, as El Rapido took a turn for me, confusing me and Cavazos. I veered off from first base and beat the beef to the wall that separated the field from the stands. In half a second, I was three or six rows into the seats. Soon thereafter, El Rapido’s handlers wrangled him, saving both Cavazos and me.

Hector escorted me out to the mound, and Cavazos and El Rapido’s handlers led him to the mound. I tipped my hat to the crowd and received a nice round of applause. Somehow, El Rapido bowed his enormous head and Cavazos waved and the crowd absolutely erupted.

Two times that day I lost a showdown to a bull.

Went 0-4 that night. And made an error. 0-6, counting the bull.

The Summer of Wonder sales event.

There's a Volvo commercial running now that I can hardly believe. 

As my old boss, Ed Butler, might have commented, "it's flat as a plate of piss." Except that would be unfair to plates and piss.

It shows the requisite thin and attractive people--get this--going somewhere in a--get this--Volvo. There are oblique shots of the car, perhaps enough to give you an oblique sense of what it obliquely looks like.

Along the way, there's a VO that sounds like it won third place in a junior high poetry contest. I suppose it said something about living life and following dreams and new roads.

Some years ago after Ford sold Volvo to the Chinese, their new owners said they were going to sell 100,000 cars in the US by 2016. Today they sell less than half that. My guess is by 2025 or sooner, they will leave the US market, failing to attain critical sales mass.

Whereas they used to stand for safety and Swedish non-conformist sensibleness, today they are just another blandmobile with no distinct identity or qualities. They used to be sturdy, sensible, safe boxes. Now they are as devoid of character as a filing cabinet.

It bothers me to see such work. For two reasons.

One. Volvo used to do such great work. People of my vintage and older in the industry studied Scali's Volvo ads, and before that Ally's Volvo ads, and from overseas AMV's Volvo ads. A brand was built that's all but disappeared, that's all but meaningless.

Two. Work like this is bad for our industry. It says to the world we are little more than pretty plasticine pictures and are empty emotional-esq platitudes. There's plenty of craft--the commercial looks good--but no meaning.

There are some reading this, I'm sure, who will perhaps take exception. They'll trumpet something about having to sell in a new way for a new audience and how TV is merely a vestige of a former superpower.

I don't buy any of that for a minute. With the exception of Amazon and Google, no brand has been built to viability without TV. And Amazon doesn't yet make a profit.

Einstein said, "god does not play dice with the Universe." Well, I don't think the universe is all relative. There is absolute good and absolute evil.

Our job is not hard when you break it down.

Get attention.

Communicate a benefit.

Persuade.

Too much advertising fails on all three marks.

Somber Tuesday.

I spent some time last night looking at various Cannes winners. As a consequence, I also spent some time wondering if I still belong in this business.

I've written before how when I was a kid in the business (when print was much more important) I used to go through every magazine and newspaper I could get ahold of and cut out the ads I thought were good, that I thought I could learn from.

I'd throw these ads into a big corrugated box and when the big award annuals came out--the One Show and the Art Directors' Club primarily--I would compare my taste to that of the judges. I was,  I think in alignment with the poobahs of advertising, I'd say, roughly 90% of the time.

Today, I'll admit, I don't understand.

Last night I saw a Titanium-winner for a Argentinian beer brand where lost teeth were replaced with dental implants with which you could open a beer bottle. You can see that effort here. I saw an video about tattooing yourself with a different kind of hamburger than the one you usually clog your arteries with.

Not only do I wonder how a viewer would find these efforts--there was no paid media behind either effort--I found each effort wholly unappetizing, in fact, stomach-roiling. In short, each effort was merely a stunt, with no reach or scale and with little, I think, obeisance to the voice of the brand.

Generally speaking it's not an great idea to intimately show a dental implant in action in juxtaposition with having a beer. Likewise, I think showing un-showered people is not a good long-term strategy for a hamburger company.

I think the industry (and the world for that matter) has hopped on a solipsistic merry-go-round. Self-serving, self-referential, selfish and insular. We have come to a dangerous place: that is, our work appeals not to consumers but to the arbiters of taste and award shows. We are chasing our own tails into oblivion.

Like Alban Berg, however, I am vox clamantis in deserto. A voice crying in the wilderness.

Were I at the lead of an agency, I would respond to a different brief. As an industry, we have lost our relevance and importance. Big companies no longer respect what we do and our ability to drive brands forward. Once we were valued enough to be able to afford office space close to where our clients dwell. Today, we are a low wage industry pushed to the geographic fringes.

Way above is my nutshell view on awards.

To the left is arguably the greatest general in American history, David Dwight Eisenhower. To the right, is General Petraeus, an adulterer and betrayer of national secrets.

We know who was more valuable.

Just look at their awards.

July 4th in the Tempus Fugit.

I had a wedding to go to on Saturday night, the 4th of July. As you can imagine from someone who dislikes weddings, no matter how I feel about the bride and groom, or, in this case, the bride's parents, I was less-than-enthusiastic about going.

In the first place, it was in New Jersey, a place I never want to go. In the second, the radio news was pretty clear that every drunk and stoned driver in the tri-state area was going to be out and looking to smash their car into mine, or at the least make a series of rights from the left hand lane, requiring me to brake and swerve and whatnot to avoid their idiocy. Third, and most important, it was day two of a much-needed three day weekend, and the last thing I wanted to do was to put on a too-tight monkey suit and chat up a bunch of people I don't otherwise know.

Besides, there's not a wedding anywhere that is modulated. I mean where the food isn't served to excess, where the gestalt isn't Viennese over-the-top and where the lousy selection of music isn't six or eleven volume settings too high. What's more, in my opinion, every sound system I've ever heard sucks and plays way too much bass and you can't hear the lyrics even if they're worth hearing, which they usually aren't.

All this to say, we drove back to the city on Saturday night appreciably worse for wear, dodging the drunks and the beer-soaked vomit flowing in the gutters, making into the lower bits of the city sometime after one.

I pulled over to the side of the road near the craters off exit 14 at 96th Street and told my wife to drive the rest of the way home. I was going to the Tempus Fugit for a nightcap. God knows, I needed something to cut the anger, the gloom and my don't-drink-and-drive sobriety all of which attend, as I stated above, a wedding held on day two of a three-day weekend.

In minutes I was walking down the hallways, unlit and dusty, up and down stairways, through steel-fortified doors, arriving at the Tempus Fugit just before 2AM. The bartender, all-seeing and all-knowing, began pulling me a Pike's (the ALE that won for YALE) before I even parked my keister on the worn red leather of my favorite stool, one in from the end.

"A tuxedo," he observed.

I drank a long swig of my beer, nearly draining the six-ounce juice glass. "They're not exactly slave clothes," I remarked with some bitterness "but they're close."

He hustled from around the bar, then behind my stool. In a moment he was helping me off with my coat, and vest. In a moment more, I was sitting there in just my tuxedo pants and a t-shirt. Back behind the bar, he pulled me Pike's number two.

"Why don't you tell me about it," he said. "I've seldom seen you in anything but a sweat shirt and jeans."

"Wedding," I said as caustically as you can say one word. "In New Jersey," I said, as caustically as you can say two more.

"Sunrise, sunset," he lilted, speaking the words that are sung at so many Jewish weddings. "We are in the sunset of our lives and don't so much enjoy seeing the sunrises, I suppose."

"This was a lovely young couple, full of love and promise," I admitted. "And I'm happy for them. But to tell you the truth "Duck Soup" was playing on television, and I'd have rather seen that and sent them a bigger check."

"There should be," he said pulling me my third glass of suds, "a National Law. Whenever "Duck Soup" is on, time should stop, even Raymour & Flanagan Mattress Sales, and we should be required to watch."

"You have my vote," I said. "I think the Greeks would be better off, to be honest, if now and again there was a national holiday and the whole nation watched "Never on Sunday." It beats talking about the Euro."

"At least they'd get to see Melina Mercouri deshabille."

"There are worse remedies for national malaise," I agreed.

I threw my jacket back on and reached into my pocket for my wallet. I slid him two twenties. He slid them back.

"On me," he answered.

I walked home in the still. Thinking of Melina Mercouri and Rufus T. Firelfy.

Mexican League bus ride.

We were on the bus, a five hour road trip down route 40, through the desert and the low mountains, to Torreon to play a four-game stand against the Vaqueros.

There were about 40 of us on the bus. 40 man-boys on a trip to play ball. 25 were like me, players. And 15 were coaches, equipment men, secretaries and hangers-on. 40 of us bouncing down the open road in the heat and the dust and the smell of 40 men.

I took the seat I usually took, about three in from the front behind the driver. For the most part--though I was a kid of 17, I sat up with the coaches and with Hector Quesadilla, my manager. It wasn't ass-kissing on my part. But to be honest, even back then, I was never one of the guys. 

You can ask anyone who knows me, I've always been more than a little bit diffident, and for the most part, though I got along with everyone, I've always kept to myself. To that end, I had a dog-eared book I was reading, something by Updike, I think, and I was going through it in a desultory fashion, in between bouts of looking out the window at the lack of scenery.

The back of the bus was raucous. German Barojas, a relief pitcher had taken up drumming, and brought three pieces of his drum-set and arrayed it in front of the long bench seat in the back. Leon Cardenez, another bench player, had brought his guitar and the two men played Mexican blues for hours.

Once in a while, Barojas and Cardenez would break into something that sounded vaguely like a popular song, and then the entire back end of the bus would sing and wail, using the handle-end of their bats as a microphone. Some version of "Guantanamera" went on for half an hour, at least, and then one of the boys--it could have been "Angel" Diablo, began with a nasty version of "Barnacle Bill, the Sailor," in gutter Spanish that could make your hair curl.

Quien llama a mi puerta?

Quien llama a mi puerta?

Quien llama a mi puerta?

Dijo la doncella justa!

There's might have been some liquor being passed around in the back, as well. The coaches chose to do what good coaches do. Let the boys blow off some steam and be boys. Besides, we weren't playing on our travel day and weren't scheduled against the Vaqueros Laguna until tomorrow evening.

It went on like this for a good three hours and somewhere along the way, I must have put down my Updike and fallen asleep. I woke up to the bus swerving nearly out of control and bounding through the sand, rocks and dusty shrubs of the Coahuila desert. I could swear as the driver, Edgar "Gordo" Batista tried to wrestle the ancient vehicle to a stop we careened on two wheels to avoid hitting a lonely scrub oak or to avert a calamitous arroyo.

I found out later that Diablo and Barojas, ringleaders always, had climbed through their windows, out of the bus and onto its roof. They then made their way along the roof--this was all as we were heading down the highway at about 60 miles per, to the front of the vehicle. Then, as they reached the front, they leaned down over the front windshield and made faces at the "Gordo," who veered off the road thinking he was being attacked by Mexican aliens.

Finally, the bus hopped to a stop, its brakes at last grabbing hold on the sand, and Diablo and Barojas pounded on the door demanding entrance.

Half the bus was laughing, half were screaming. 

Diablo and Barojas just kept singing.

Well, it's only me from over the sea,

Said Barnacle Bill the Sailor,

I'm all lit up like a Christmas tree,

Said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

I'll sail the sea until I croak,

Have my wimmen, swear and smoke,

But I can't swim a bloody stroke,
Said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

The two walked to their seats in, collecting high-fives all the way to the back.

If I'm not mistaken, we took three of four games in Torreon.