My boy Luke can write 50 ads in an hour.

"MY BOY SAYS HE CAN WRITE
50 ADS, HE CAN!

YEAH, MAN, HOW LONG?

AN HOUR.

I'LL TAKE
PART OF THAT WAGER."

I sat in hours upon hours of meetings yesterday with people saying they needed more time to do something. More time to write a brief. More time to come up with a future vision. More time, more time, more time.

I had the best training you can have in this business. I started out writing catalogs and then shifted to writing ads in-house at Bloomingdale's. There were days in which you had to write 10 ads. If you didn't write the ads someone else would and you'd be
canned.

It was pretty simple.

Today we are so minutely specialized that there is very little fear of death. And very little real accountability. I don't really fathom "usability" or "interaction design." I'm dumb enough to think that a brief should be written in simple English. So obviously I'm not aware enough to understand why everything is so difficult and takes such a long time.

Next time I have some copy to write, I'm going to tell the account people I don't use the letters p, n and f. We need to bring in a specialist for those letters. "My part is almost done," I'll tell them, "but I haven't found staffing to help me with the modalities of p, n and f."

"But you promised the copy two days ago," they'll say.

"Well," I'll parry "I can have a vision of the copy for you by the end of the week."

"You've known about this copy for two weeks. We've had a schedule."

"Listen. I can't get any help on this. Mike can help out on the p's but he doesn't do n's and f's."

"Can't we present the copy without those letters? Can't I fill them in?"

"No, Sheila says we'll get help on n tomorrow then f early next week."

And so it goes.