Fighting fire.

I was up at 5:30 this morning, earlier than I usually wake up. I have a client meeting out in the wilds of New Jersey that starts at nine, and, therefore, a 7:12 train.

I guess you could say I've been busy of late. Working bits of three or four full-time jobs.

A lot of what I've been doing is, I think, not what I like doing best, but what I may do best. That is I extinguish fires and calm nerves. Someone can't get something done, or there's 20 minutes to do it, or it's complicated and there's no brief and someone needs to figure it out.

After literally a lifetime in the business, I am handy with a fire extinguisher. I'm not afraid of the smoke or the heat. I put the nozzle in the center of the conflagration and I handle matters.

I'd be lying if I didn't say I was jealous of the cool kids who seem to get the big jobs and their pictures in the trades. I'd like to, every once in a while anyway, strike a pompous pose and have a holier than thou attitude. I'd like to say, every once in a while anyway, 'you got us into this mess, you get us out of it.'

I'd like to say a lot of things, about the advertising equivalent of the legal profession's ambulance chasers--award chasers.

But I'm a freelancer now and it makes sense to try to button, not flap, my lips.

There will be a time when something stinks to high heaven. Or there's a nut that can't be cracked. Or a client who is cracked.

I'll get the call then.