Getaway Day.

We woke up early, unfortunately. Because we went to sleep late. We woke up early for a seven-o’clock ferry from a small island, Bequia to a slightly less small island, St. Vincent.

It’s going to be a long day of travel. Cab to the ferry. Ferry to St. Vincent. Cab to the airport. Flight to Barbados. Barbados to Miami. Then Miami home. Arriving, with any luck, just before midnight.

That’s all right. Seventeen hours to go 1700 miles isn’t all that bad when you think about it. And besides, there’s no easy way. Unless you are filthy rich.

As I was leaving New York, work on three assignments was coming to a crescendo. Accordingly I had to do some work while on vacation.

Mostly this consisted of thinking of ideas by the pool and rejecting 99 out of 100. When I got one that I couldn’t find reason to reject, I’d hustle back to my room and type it up. Then I’d send it to my partner. If he couldn’t find cause to kill it, it went into the idea column. In all, during the week—not counting today—we came up with seven boards. That ain’t bad for a holiday week.

I read one of those dumb articles over break. I think it was called “The 30 most creative people under 30.” Maybe I’m jealous. But for the life of me I swear a lot of the people on the list had made their way onto the list based on work that never ran for clients that never existed.

I don’t think advertising is a card trick.

And I don’t think it counts if no one sees it and no one pays for it.

Of course, as usual, I am vox clamantis in deserto.

A voice crying out in the desert.

Those people on the list will go onto greater jobs for greater income. Maybe, soon, I’ll be working for them.

Preston Sturges said in “The Palm Beach Story,” that one of the tragedies of life is that the men who are most in need of a beating are always enormous. 

It seems to me the world is full of people who could use a cold fish slap across the face. Bankers whose $9 million starter apartments price ordinary people out of their neighborhoods. People who talk too loud in restaurants. And people who propagate fake work and don’t get called on it.

It’s a modern-day example of generational appeasement. It's Neville Chamberlain meets Hipster, not Hitler.

No one has the balls to say, “that’s a marvelous student assignment. Now on Tuesday we have a brochure due on Unit Load Optimization. Have at it.”

In the war between substance and bs, bs has scored a resounding victory.

The Four Horsemen of our Current Apocalypse are: Decoration. Masturbation. Pontification. And Obfuscation.

Maybe my mood matches the weather as we ferry away.

It’s raining.

Hard.