A New Yorker's take on Egypt. (Borscht Belt edition.)

Q. Have you heard what's happening in Egypt?
A. I live in the back. I don't hear anything.

This is complicated, so stay with me.

Like most people, at times I dread Mondays. There's a long week of work ahead of us, and not much of a way out of it. So here's what I propose.

Start the week with Thursday. The next day is Friday, and that ain't so bad. From Thursday, make the second day of the week Wednesday. Yeah, I know we're going backwards, but Wednesday is hump day, and at least we're halfway to the weekend. Then from Wednesday, go to Monday. I know, that sucks, but you'll get through it, besides in my system, the day after Monday is Friday. Yee ha! The weekend is almost here. Except that after Friday comes Tuesday. Which sucks, but after Tuesday comes the weekend which makes it all palatable.

Last night.

Last night I was dragged to a poetry and fiction reading in the damp basement of a Greenwich Village restaurant. The space, cramped and dark, was stuffed to the gills with friends and family of the people reading their work.

Almost all of the people reading--that is, the writers--had had their work published in a small literary magazine I had never heard of. They had a list of published credits all from small presses and from magazines and anthologies with names like "Clogged Drain: An Anthology of Fiction about Plumbing Problems."

The work, some of it anyway, wasn't bad. There were intermittent laughs and a moment or two of genuine emotion. But what occurred to me was how much this reading reminded me of the "awards-industrial complex."

Those listening to the work being read were other people who were reading. Those being published in "Clogged Drain" were the only people reading it. In other words the group was closed, self-supporting and, to a degree, solipsistic. What was going on was important to those attending but had little or no relevance to anyone else. It was all extremely circular and ego-driven.

There's nothing wrong with any of this. No one is being hurt in the process. And, to be honest, it's not that much different from me assiduously keeping a blog very few people actually read.

But despite all that, I somehow left the joint in yet another shitty mood.

Edward Hopper at the Whitney.

My wife and I dropped in on the Whitney, the perfect thing to do for an hour or so as the first sun and mild temperatures in about a week begin to slushify the city. Admission was even free because my wife and I both work for Interpublic agencies--a rare holding company benefit. The Whitney owns a total of 2,500 Hoppers (they must multiply like rabbits) and this show showed about 75 of them, including "Early Sunday," and "Mobil Gas."

There was also work by George Bellows, "Dempsey and Firpo," photographs by Steiglitz and some Ben Shahn's.

I always had a weakness for Ben Shahn, maybe it was the radical socialism of my mother, maybe the indelibility of his green-faced "The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti." In any event, the Shahn shown here wasn't in the Hopper show, but seemed the perfect painting for a day with allusions of Spring in the air.

Boxes and their contents.

This is pretty simple. And it applies to jobs, relationships and more. In advertising and outside of advertising.

Bad jobs, bad relationships have a box and they look for someone who fits in that box and then they cram them in that box. Good jobs, good relationships look for someone with a lot of qualities they like, and they let them breathe, the box be damned.

Here's a for-instance. Say you have a job that demands that the person who does that job can count from one to five. You have two candidates. One who can count from one to five and another candidate--same price, same everything--who can count from one to one-thousand.

Bad businesses will hire the "right" person for the job. And that person will likely do the job with competence, but little more. Good businesses will hire the person who can do more and they will allow that person to do it. The person himself will grow as will the organization that hires that person.

Boxes are almost always bad things. They can only carry so much and don't allow for expansion. That said, most organizations have org charts. Which are filled with boxes.

Cairo, 2009.

Two summers ago I went to Egypt on vacation with my wife and two daughters. We stayed in Giza, the city across the Nile from and contiguous with Cairo. Cairo was a sprawl, a city hemmed in by a vast necropolis, the tombs of the dead, the placement of which has added to the density of the city. Every twenty feet or so in the city are bony and well-uniformed paramilitary police armed with high-powered American-made rifles. Military service is mandatory for Egyptian males and checkpoints manned by armed soldiers are frequent. My younger daughter who left Cairo to go scuba diving in Mar al Salam, 24 hours by bus south of Cairo on the Red Sea, told me that a lot of the boys and young men she met took one college course a year so that they could avoid being conscripted into the army.

Cairo was about the craziest, most hectic city I've ever visited. It was filthy--the Nile seemed over-flowing with plastic bottles and garbage, and your eyes burned from the ever-present smog. City services, the likes of which we take for granted, traffic laws, trash removal, even pollution controls, seemed non-existent. That said, to a man, the people were friendly and warm, even when I revealed that we were Jewish. Still, even to a life-long New Yorker, the presence of heavily-armed soldiers, of having to go through metal detectors to enter your hotel, is off-putting and more than a little frightening.

The final thing that struck me is that a lot of people hadn't much to do. In New York everyone seems to be rushing somewhere. In Cairo on every corner there are clumps of men smoking cigarettes and talking. And of course being watched by the ever-present police.

Bloom's deli and the first time I was fired.

In the crush of Manhattan snow, my wife picked up dinner last night at a deli around the corner from her office, a deli called "Bloom's." I knew the place well. 15 years earlier I had worked in the neighborhood and my boss took me to Bloom's to warn me that if I didn't shape up, I would be fired.

In any event, bagels from Bloom's got me thinking about being fired and the fear and joy that comes from it.

I was fired, the first time, for "insubordination." That's what HR called it, as if I needed any more reasons to hate HR. But I was being fired, I was a father with two young kids in New York City private schools, so I had to think about what was being said to me. I had to wonder if they were right.

The fact is, I've never stopped wondering if they were right. I remember two things that I said to the President of the agency that I suppose you could say were insubordinate. I told her that I believed the Federal Express "Fast Talking Man" commercial was the greatest direct spot in history though it had no explicit call to action or a phone number at the end. My assertion annoyed the shit out of her because it violated the shibboleth of best practices.

The other thing I did was say to her, "you hired me to be a creative director, but you don't let me create anything or direct anything." (She was more interested in having senior creative people go to meetings and coerce timesheets out of people.)

In any event, since that time, 15 years ago, I've always warned the people I report to, or the people interviewing me that I am insubordinate. That I don't do well with orders, rules or direction. Most people are taken aback when you tell them you are insubordinate. They smile a crooked smile and laugh uneasily, unsure whether I'm joking or not. No one has ever questioned me further about my insubordination. They're afraid they'll be considered insubordinate, I suppose.

The truth of the matter is that at its best, our business is meant to be about insubordination. It's meant to upset the dominant complacency of the human mind. In the words of Carl Ally, we're meant to "afflict the comfortable or comfort the afflicted."

That's all for now, except for this: dinner was delicious.

A bit more Feynman.

After working so intensely on the Manhattan Project, Feynman was hired by Cornell University as a Professor of Physics. He was burnt out and depressed. He had, he claimed, no ideas. Here are Feynman's own words:

"Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing--it didn't have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether is was interesting and amusing for me to play with."

Later, Feynman was in a Cornell cafeteria and someone, fooling around, throws a plate in the air. "I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate...It came out of a complicated equation!"

Feynman relates his enthusiasm to fellow Nobelist and physicist Hans Bethe and Bethe replies, "Feynman, that's pretty interesting, but what's the importance of it? Why are you doing it?"

Feynman ignored Bethe and kept playing with the idea of the wobbling plate. "Then I thought about how electron orbits start to move in relativity...Everything flowed effortlessly...There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was. The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate."

I write about this today because there are parallels to our business. When the holding companies and their rapacious hordes of MBAs and project managers took over our business, they systematically eliminated play. There is no downtime to be allowed. Every hour must be billable. We do not have permission to not be productive and we are, therefore, not productive. But our meetings are met, our forms are filled in and our timesheets are neat as a pin.

This is obvious to everyone but the people who run our businesses.

Definitions.

One of the things I've noticed in the world today is how definitions--that which should bring clarity--have become increasingly un-clear.

Take speed limits, for instance. If a highway is marked at 55, most cops and most drivers assume that they can "get away with," or allow speeds in the low 60s. In baseball, the strike zone--clearly defined on paper--is subject to the caprice and whim of whomever is umpiring. One last example. Online job sites that list jobs under the heading of Creative Director. The title means nothing. Salaries seem to start at the low 40s. And often as few as five year's experience is demanded.

Years ago I went to a client meeting at a huge corporate client--a financial institution. We were about to present our creative when the client--who had been rubbed the wrong way by our account guy--asked to see the brief. The account guy had failed to bring it and so, in the language of our era, was "ripped a new one."

I learned from that and never go into a creative discussion without having the brief with me. These are my instructions. I should either know them in my sleep or have them to refer to.

Yesterday, I presented work internally. The account people were so ready to collaborate, so eager to do my job (which is to create), so eager to add their two cents. Of course, they brought no brief. (the brief they had provided was devoid of insight and had no information hierarchy anyway.)

This business should be pretty simple. Do your job, well. And leave me to do mine.

Hierarchy.

About 15 years ago, before I had spent more than a couple of hours online, I got a call from a digital agency for a job as a copywriter. I was intrigued, as I almost always am, by things that are new, so I went over to the agency to have a chat.

Before I did, I talked to a wise friend of mine who handed me this insight. "Geo, the problem with the internet is that there's no hierarchy. No organizing principle. It's not like a book or even a magazine. Everything is equal."

I think about that today because I think the web's lack of hierarchy is hampering the development of digital agencies. What I mean by this is simple. Digital agencies will spend as much time, man-power (or human resources if you must) on developing work that will reach a few dozen people as they will on work that will reach millions.

An agency I know spent months and hundreds of hours creating a Face-schnook page for a particular client. To date, that page has 47 people who like it. Much like the You Tube videos posted for the same client whose views are in the low hundreds.

Wise advertising agencies, whether they're digital or traditional, would do well to, in the parlance of account people, "fish where the fish are."

In other words, spend the most time and effort on work that reaches the greatest number of people or the most important people.

That concept should not be hard to grasp.

Richard Feynman and advertising.

Of late I've been reading a brief little book of essays by Nobelist Richard Feynman called "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman." Nearly every anecdote relates some upsetting of the status quo, some insurrection, some new way of thinking about an old problem.

Last night I read a speech re-printed in the book called "Los Alamos from Below." Feynman relates that he was a young, unknown scientist without even an advanced degree and he was surrounded by some of the biggest and most notable minds of the 20th Century. Of all the scientists at Los Alamos, perhaps the most famous and the most intimidating was Niels Bohr. In Feynman's words, "Even to the big shot guys, Bohr was a great god."

One day after Bohr's arrival, his son called Feynman.

"My father and I would like to speak to you."

"Me? I'm Feynman, I'm just a---"

"That's right. Is eight o'clock OK?"

"So, at eight o'clock in the morning, before anybody's awake, I go down to the place. We go into an office in the technical area and he says, "We have been thinking about how we could make the bomb more efficient and we think of the following idea."

"I say, 'No, it's not going to work. It's not efficient....Blah, blah, blah.'"

"This went on for about two hours, going back and forth over lots of ideas, back and forth, arguing..."

"'Well,'" he said finally...'I guess we can call the big shots now.'"

"Then his son told me what happened. The last time he was there, Bohr said to his son, 'Remember the name of that little fellow in the back over there? He's the only guy who's not afraid of me, and will say when I've got a crazy idea. So next time when we want to discuss ideas, we're not going to be able to do it with these guys who say everything is yes, yes Dr. Bohr. Go get that guy and we'll talk to him first.'"

So much shit is approved, processed and propagated in our business because people "know" who they're talking to. And they know they'll get schmised if they're thought of as being contrarian.

My greatest career success stems from an occasion where I was stunningly blunt with a powerful corporate big shot.

Of course, not every big shot is big enough to accept or welcome dissent.

Which, I suppose is why so much insipid crap survives.

Feynman puts it this way. I wish we could learn from him. "I was always dumb in that way. I never knew who I was talking to. I was always worried about the physics. If the idea looked lousy, I said it looked lousy. If it looked good, I said it looked good. Simple proposition...I've always lived that way. It's nice, it's pleasant--If you can do it. I'm lucky in my life that I can do this."

Agency math.

In the time it took them to cut and paste a new brief, my partner and I wrote five scripts.

The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Agency.

There's a book called "The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother," by Amy Chua that has generated a great deal of publicity for itself and has just risen to #5 on "The New York Times'" best-seller list.

The book, and Ms. Chua, are being portrayed as examples of "obsessive" parenting. Chua's own kids were not allowed to get less than an "A" on their report cards, had to perform Bach flawlessly and we're threatened with banishment when they were as young as three: “You can’t stay in the house if you don’t listen to Mommy.”

It occurred to me while reading this that our industry may have given rise to what I'll call the Tiger Creative Director. This is the sort of tyrant so smitten by the fame that comes from doing great work for "Scrubbing Bubbles," that he creates work, or demands work that is over the head of anyone not as cinematically enlightened as he.

The Tiger Creative Director doesn't worry about work that works, or what the viewer thinks of the work. He is beyond all that. He is even above the realities of the time-space continuum. He thinks nothing of uploading his 33-second cut to awards sites. 30-seconds is the limitation of fools.

He is creating art of a higher order. High concept.

Pasted below are two spots. A good example, I think.

One, my guess, actually ran.

The other was created by a Tiger Agency.

Fritz Lang.

The Film Forum, the great revival movie house on Houston Street in Manhattan, is running a 22-film retrospective of the films of the Austrian director Fritz Lang. By the time Lang emigrated to the US, he was already regarded as a film genius, having directed "Metropolis" and "M."

Lang came to Hollywood and initially tried to hold out against "Hollywood-style hooey." Eventually, he gave in to the hooey that the public wanted to see. He directed hackneyed scenes where good guys hide behind the curtains and the Nazis don't find them.

In one movie "Hangmen Also Die," his writing collaborator was the great Bertoldt Brecht. Brecht had this to say about the movie “What an infinitely dismal fabrication this hostage film is that I have to occupy myself with these days. What a load of hackneyed situations, intrigues, false notes!” That was the good news, Brecht went on “I feel the disappointment and terror of the intellectual worker who sees the product of his labors snatched away and mutilated.”

No real point today. Except that art is hard. Even the art we do in advertising.

The two ad industries.

There has been, in the parlance of teenagers affecting ghetto talk and hipsters affecting teenagers affecting ghetto talk, a lot of "smack" lately about goings-on at Ogilvy. They've had a few high-visibility departures and bloggers--with nothing much better to do, and those who comment on blogs, who really have nothing better to do, have latched onto these departures as evidence of Ogilvy's entropy or demise.

Last night, a friend who was my client on IBM while I was at Ogilvy, sent me links to two videos Ogilvy helped create around IBM's 100th Anniversary. This one was shot by Mr. Pytka. http://www.youtube.com/ibm#p/c/0/39jtNUGgmd4 And this by Errol Morris: http://www.youtube.com/ibm#p/c/1/XrhDaAmn5Uw

This work is compendious, big, important and moving. It captures the heart and soul of a company, evoking pride and promise. A company that's changed the way the world works. As an Ogilvy friend once said to me, "our work is meant to move the Presidents of countries, not the presidents of award shows."

Now what's happened in our industry is that the awards-industrial complex, unable to satiate their egos by doing work that's actually important, has created a set of criteria that rewards and awards the non-sensical, trivial and scurrilous to the exclusion of work that's really important.

As an industry, it seems to me we spend a lot of time gassing about what is the role for an advertising agency in modern times. Some have said agencies don't matter, that big ideas are obsolete.

Agencies, because they are outsiders and most often populated by outsiders, add value because they have a different point of view. They can be intimately involved with the inner workings of their clients but maintain a necessary distance.

Good agencies don't just tell jokes. They know and understand the workings of their clients and can articulate those workings to consumers in simple and compelling ways.

Rambling.

Last night I went to see "La Traviata" at the Metropolitan Opera. A thing of perfection. The Verdi soaring and gripping. The performances mesmerizing.

But what really stood out was the post-modern staging. They had reduced things to their elemental best. Everything was limbic and primal. Black, white and red when there was life in the dying Violetta, and merely black and white when death was present.

At one point, the essential inanimate character in the performance, a giant clock was lit in such a way that it reminded me of the melting clocks in Dali's "Persistence of Memory."

Somehow towards the middle of the opera I thought of an anecdote I once read about the great French film director Jean Renoir. He shot, during World War II, one film for famed Fox producer Darryl F. Zanuck. Things did not go well. Renoir left with this remark: “Goodbye Mr. Zanuck: it certainly has been a pleasure working at 16th Century Fox."

Milton Rogovin, 1909-2011.

I just read an obituary in "The New York Times," of a noted photojournalist who died last Tuesday in Buffalo at the age of 101. You can read the obituary here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/arts/design/19rogovin.html?hpw

Here's a bit of what the Times had to say about Rogovin: "Mr. Rogovin chronicled the lives of the urban poor and working classes in Buffalo, Appalachia, and elsewhere in the world for over 50 years. His direct photographic style in stark black and white evokes that of the socially minded work that Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and Gordon Parks produced for the Farm Security Administration during the Depression. Today his entire archive resides in the Library of Congress."

What I particularly liked in reading about Rogovin's life is that he was an optometrist while he was establishing himself as a photographer. In fact, he didn't even have his own camera until he was 33.

So many of us in the advertising business forget along the way that our non-advertising work will probably never make us a dime. We have to keep our "optometry" businesses going. But that doesn't mean we should give up that which enriches us emotionally.

W. E. B. DuBois, described Rogovin's Church front photos as “astonishingly human and appealing.” Unfortunately, sometimes our paying work doesn't allow us to act that way.

To all the people who tell me it's time to leave the business.

Listen, I like to complain. I don't like accepting things as they are. I don't like accepting stupidity, pomposity, bombast. And there's a lot about our industry that sucks.

But I have fun in this business. Doing good work, helping clients, colleagues is enriching.

Complaining is our right.

Lay off, ok.

O tempora! O mores!

Some times you just have to throw up you arms.

Yesterday I had a less than fruitful meeting. The work I was presenting was summarily sullied, schmised and otherwise murdered.

Naturally, I started fighting for the work. Using those so often overlooked techniques, logic and common sense.

It was my account guy who cut me off. He did it with this gem: "Let's leave that snowball at the top of the hill for now."

What more can I say?

Hiders and Seekers.

I've been hit with a spate of rejection of late. Some work I've done has fallen on hard times, my ideas rejected for this reason or that. It's given me pause.

It's given me pause and this is what I've come back with.

In our world, in the agency business, people and companies can be divided, roughly, into two camps. There are the Seekers and the Hiders.

Being a Hider is safer. They are pooler-outers. Keepers of the status-quo. Their creativity and innovation is expressed in fillips and refinements. Nuances and touches. Waves, they don't make. They can, as Yogi Bear used to say, "meld into the forest."

Being a Seeker is a pain in the ass. A pain in the ass to everyone around them. They try new things, Seekers do. They come forward with work and ideas that nobody asked for. Often Seekers are loners. Sharing with no one until they're ready their dissatisfaction and disdain for business as usual.

As you've probably guessed, I am an eternal Seeker. A stranger in a strange land, always looking for a more ambient place. As ye Seek, so shall ye be rejected. You deal with it. And you keep trying.

Straight lines.

I did a lot of scuba diving on my vacation. 19 dives in all on reefs and walls that are considered some of the most beautiful in the world. I was guided on these dives (I'm not confident enough to dive solo) by some very intelligent and experienced dive masters.

During one dive, our dive master noticed an ancient, sea-life encrusted anchor, dating from some well-bygone century, probably from the days of sealing wax and sailing ships. When we got back on the dive boat, I asked the dive master how he noticed the anchor. He replied, "I have a friend who told me 'there are no straight lines in nature.' And I saw a straight line and knew there was something man-made."

There are no straight lines in nature.

It occurred to me then and there that in our business--on the creative side--we fight a battle against straight lines. Clients and groups often want them. Straight lines work in research. But story-telling, jokes, information is best delivered with a bit of crookedness--we need a twist to make life interesting.

Maybe all that diving gave me water on the brain.

The power of slow.

Most of what I've been doing on vacation is scuba diving. Two dives every morning, in fact. Here, moreso than any place I've ever dived, the guides are slow. Their movements are deliberate. They linger and examine their surroundings.

As a New Yorker I've always tried to get places fast. I know every shortcut. The best subway lines. I get things done and done quickly,

Until this trip that was always my approach to diving, too. But going slow has taught me a lot. You see just as much, and you see deeper into what you see. What's more, your air lasts longer so your dives are extended.

I don't know if I'll be able to abate my pace once I return to civilization.

But I may just try.

From the South Seas, a ditty.

Avast, dear readers. Here's sumthin' I picked up in a seaside tavern this hollyday.
Tis Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

"Who's that knocking at my door? Who's that knocking at my door?
Who's that knocking at my door?" said the fair Young Maiden...

"It's only me from over the sea" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
"It's only me from over the sea" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

" open the door, you pox-ridden whore!" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
" open the door, you pox-ridden whore!" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

"What if I should lock the door? What if I should lock the door?
What if I should lock the door?" said the fair Young Maiden....

"I'll smash the lock with my diamond-hard cock!" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
"I'll smash the lock with my diamond-hard cock!" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

"What if my parents should come home? What if my parents come home?
What if my parents should come home?" said the fair Young Maiden....

"I'll kill your pa and then your ma!" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
"I'll kill your pa and then your ma!" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

"Are you young and handsome, Sir? Are you young and handsome, Sir?"
Are you young and handsome, Sir?" said the fair Young Maiden.

"I'm old and rough and dirty and tough!" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
"I'm old and rough and dirty and tough!" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

"What is your intention, sir? What is your intention, sir?
What is your intention, sir?" said the fair Young Maiden.

"Oh, off with your shirt, so you doesn't get hurt!" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
"Oh, off with your shirt, so you doesn't get hurt!" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

"Will you take me to the dance? Will you take me to the dance?
Will you take me to the dance?" said the fair Young Maiden....

"To Hell with the dance! Now off with your pants!" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
"To Hell with the dance! Now off with your pants!" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

"Will you vow to marry me? Will you vow to marry me?
Will you vow to marry me?" said the fair Young Maiden....

" no, we won't wed. Getcher ass in the bed!" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
" no, we won't wed. Getcher ass in the bed!" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

"What's that thing between your legs?" What's that thing between your legs?
"What's that thing between your legs?" said the fair young maiden.

"It's only me pole to shove in your holes!" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
"It's only me pole to shove in your holes!" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

"What if I should have a child? What if I should have a child?
What if I should have a child?" said the fair Young Maiden.

"We'll smother the bugger and for another!" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
"We'll smother the bugger and for another!" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

"What if we should have a boy? What if we should have a boy?
What if we should have a boy?" said the fair Young Maiden.

"I'll take him to sea, teach him to like me!" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
"I'll take him to sea, teach him to like me!" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

"What if we should have a girl? What if we should have a girl?
What if we should have a girl?" said the fair Young Maiden.

"I'll dig a ditch and bury the bitch" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
"I'll dig a ditch and bury the bitch" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

"What if you should go to jail? What if you should go to jail?
What if you should go to jail?" said the fair young maiden.

"I'll smash down the walls with my forty-pound balls!" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
"I'll smash down the walls with my forty-pound balls!" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

"What if you should get the chair? What if you should get the chair?
What if you should get the chair?" said the fair young maiden.

"I'll absorb the shock" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
"I'll absorb the shock" said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

Vacation.

I am taking some time off from Ad Aged while I am on vacation. I'll be back Wednesday, January 13th.

Have a happy fucking New Year.