Simpatico on the M101.

I have a 9AM meeting this morning and even though I'm running a trifle late (I'll probably get there only 15 minutes early rather than my usual 30) I decided to hop on a Limited Bus I saw waiting rather than get on the Black-Hole-of-Calcutta-like six train.

New York's 2nd and 3rd Avenues used to have elevated trains but they tore those down just before World War II, and for the last 70 years or so, Manhattan's Upper East Side, arguably the wealthiest conclave in the world, has been served by just one wheezing line of over-stretched mass transit.

This is due to change in two years or so when the 80-years-in-the-making Second Avenue Subway opens, but as we say in New York, I won't hold my breath.

In any event, I got onto an M101 heading downtown and found a single seat about two-thirds of the way back. Near me were three African-American girls, about fifteen-years-old I'd judge in all their teenage and Friday ebullience.

One young lady began singing.

"I don't want to go to school today.
I don't want to learn.
I don't want to go to school today.
I don't want to learn."

The other two girls erupted in laughter at this and began singing along. In my day, had I been as boisterous on a bus, my old lady would have whacked me in the head with a rolled up newspaper, but it's Friday and they were young and full of life.

In fact, I laughed along with them.

At one point, one of the girls made eye contact with me, as if to gauge my appreciation of their virtuosity. I spoke to her, one of those un-New York-like habits I have.

"I don't want to go to work, either," I said.

With that, they erupted into howls of laughter. For one brief shining moment, I was the King of Comedy. The Borscht Belt on Lexington Avenue.

The young women de-bussed at 79th, I presume to make their way to Robert F. Wagner school on 76th Street and I opened up my Mac to scribble this.

But let it herewith be reiterated:

I don't want to go to work today.

Bad language.

I had a slight case of contretemps with a client last week. She changed every instance of the word "phone" in my copy to "device." (Mind you, I grew up in an era when the Pentagon decided to sanitize the word bomb. They insisted on calling H-bombs nuclear devices.)

Anyway, the word device, I told them gently, is not a word normal humans use. I've never heard someone say, call me on your device. Or my device is ringing. Or I just got the iDevice 6.

"Please change the word phone to device," they said.

"No," I said. "It's marketing speak. It's not the way people talk."

"Please change the word phone to device," they repeated.

Then we came to a bit of instructional copy. It had read "click on the phone icon." Dutifully, I changed it to "click on the device icon."

"Change device to phone," they said.

"But you just told me to change phone to device."

And so it goes.

Some Macro Thoughts.

There was an article recently in "The New York Times" that talked about how some huge percentage of economic gains are concentrated on the 1% or even the 1% of the 1%. The fact is, what was once called the Middle Class is, in real dollars, earning less income now than they were 15 years ago.

What's happening, or rather what we're seeing, is the results of the shift of power from Labor--where it rested during the 30s-60s--to Capital. Unions, which despite all their corruption, did give Labor a certain degree of power, have been eviscerated. We live now in an economy where worker-productivity rises and wages fall.

I've been wondering if the much-gabbed-about decline in advertising creativity is also impacted by this trend.

It seems to me that the balance of power between Clients and Agencies has shifted much like the balance of power between Capital and Labor.

Simply put, Clients have all the power now. And it seems to have gotten exponentially more pronounced in the last five years. They regard the bulk of agencies--maybe all but Wieden and Kennedy--as commodities.

So, accordingly, they squeeze Agencies on wages, on timing, on "changes of direction." We are as disposable as yesterday's "Lunchable." This is almost diametrically opposite to life during the Bernbach "Creative Revolution" Era, when we had something unique to offer--a unique, insouciant way of talking about business that made it generally attractive to viewers.

Today Agencies have, like Labor, virtually no way of fighting back. Accordingly, I believe, Client agendas, dictates and decisions rule the airwaves. Today, we don't produce work, we survive it.

Things will swing back.

But, I'm afraid, not in my lifetime.

--
To those reader who blame all the crap of our industry on the fragmentation of the mass market, I don't buy it. I think it contributes, yes. But fragmentation is all the more reason for strong--seminal even--defining creative that works like a bludgeon in all channels.

The past tense of "Gig" is "Gag."

It seems that after six intense months of work, one of my two simultaneous gigs is coming to a gagging halt.

Which means it's time for a short advertisement for myself.

If you need someone who shows up early and stays until the job--more than the job--is done, I'll be available starting Saturday.

I'm fast, funny, prolific and most important, I think, I can take mounds, heaps and piles of complexity and spin it into sterling copy. Copy that makes things simple, attractive, human and emotional.

That said, I am not particularly easy. I challenge briefs and, while not argumentative, I will defend my work. I do not roll-over like a golden retriever. Or a pillbug.

You'll also find that I can listen to C-level clients and, gently and persuasively, guide them to more attractive grounds. They learn to trust me. Not because I am compliant. But because I am candid.

All that is available for the asking.

Speaking of asking, I'm asking you to spread the word.

I work onsite, from afar, nights and weekends.

It's not that I need the money.

I love what I do.

I'm sorry.*

"I see you're working with Rob now," my ECD said to me. "He's a pretty good guy."

"He might be," I answered. "But he's not nearly as good as an account guy as he is at apologizing."

My ECD bid me to explain.

"Well, when we first met, he handed me a brief and then he said, "Don't really follow this. We're not sure what the client is thinking."

I nodded and started to ask what, then, we were looking to do.

"Listen, a lot of things are on the client's mind. Why don't you come up with a range of ideas."

"A range," I repeated.

"Yeah, I'm sorry. We don't know what the client's looking for. So come up with a few things. He'll know it when he sees it."

"Ok," I answered compliantly. I'd been there before.

"I hate to tell you this, but we need things quickly. The client's coming in on Thursday."

"Thursday," I said. "That's the day after tomorrow."

"We have a meeting scheduled and we can't miss it," he said.

"So, a lot of ideas and have it done in two days."

"I'm really sorry about that. Oh, one more thing. We need some guerilla ideas."

"Guerilla?"

"You know, ambient. Experiential. The client wants to see them, even if we never run them."

"I got it," I said and I began walking back to my cube.

"One more thing," he said. "And I'm sorry to say this. We're running hot on this. Try to get this all done in about 15 hours."
--
*This is merely a joke. No harm intended. Just a joke.

Time and tide.

So much of what we do in our business is meant to save time and improve efficiency. We rush to deadlines. We sit on conference calls. We write things overnight, or edit them, or shoot them, taking less time than we need, because we can.

I remember years ago filling up my Ford Capri with gas at a gas station in Vermont. My wife was with me and uncharacteristically impatient. She snapped at the gas-station attendant, "can't you pump faster?" She asked.

"That's as fast as it comes out," the attendant answered, correctly.

Here's my two cents.

Most things have a natural cadence.

Tides.

Day to night.

Life and death.

Crops grow and probably shouldn't grow any faster than god, water and sunshine intended.

Relationships happen and good ones take time to develop and unfold. They, too, probably shouldn't be rushed.

And dumb everyday things, like layouts and copy and taglines and :30s, they too have a cadence.

We have the capability, of course, to do everything quicker. And we often do.

But I think when we do, we get out of step with the way things should be.

Synapses are instantaneous but they shouldn't be impulsive.

Thoughts should be lived with, not blurted.

Life should not be constantly on over-drive.

Stickball. Then and now.

Fig. 1.  Every city should have a stickball Hall-of-Fame. Only New York does.

It's been a year since my 1966 Simca 1000 has entered my life. And since last September when we got the car, we've done two basic things with it. 1) We take Whiskey to the beach in Westchester nearly every weekend, and 2) We wander around New York, finding restaurants and neighborhoods we'd be less likely to visit if we had no car.

The Simca keeps on ticking.

Less than a mile from some $20 million apartments, not one or two but dozens of 21st Century palaces built and bought by a new generation of malefactors of great wealth, sits the gritty street shown above. (Fig. 1)

According to "The New York Times," the street was renamed back in 2005 in commemoration of the game. Mayor Bloomberg was on hand, as was ex-Yankee, Brooklyn-born Joe Pepitone.

Pepitone, a three-time All-Star, was no Willie Mays.

I suppose stickball was always a city game. You needed only a broomstick and a "Spaldeen," which could be had--depending on when you grew up--for 15-cents, or a quarter or half-a-dollar. Manhole covers or sewer grates served as bases. No other equipment was necessary.

I'm not sure if stickball is played by kids anymore. I don't see rectangular outlines painted on brick walls like I did when I was a kid, and I suppose the game has been hurt by the rise of video games and the declining popularity of baseball, as well as today's absolute mania for basketball.

From back to front, Jack Sands in the outfield, Chris Palatucci pitching and me at bat. 

Back in the day, of course, when the Polo Grounds still presided over Coogan's Bluff in upper Manhattan, Willie Mays, the great Willie Mays might take a swing or two with the denizens of West 155th Street. I can't quite imagine A-Rod or even Jeter doing the same today, unless they were sure it were either sponsored by Nike or would go viral on YouTube.

Mr. Willie Mays back in the day.

My father, a child of Philadelphia's immigrant west side, taught me a version of the game called "half-ball," though I'm not sure anyone back during my old man's time was educated to the point where they hyphenated compound adjectives.

Half-ball was the same as stickball except you cut the ball in half with a knife and then taped it closed. That reduced the chances of hitting one up on a roof or breaking a window with a line-drive. In those impecunious times it also let you use a Spaldeen after it should have been, by rights, cosigned to the ash heap of history.

109th Street was barricaded off when I drove by this morning and a couple of games were going on. I craned my head to catch a little action but saw nothing.

Of course, I could not play. Not only am I nearly as ancient as the game itself, I am still suffering from a torn right rotator cuff, which I am holding off repairing until I am no longer working for a day-rate.

Further, what with the ongoing crush of uptown traffic and the general automotive mayhem of Manhattan I could neither stop nor park the car and watch. And then, of course, I had more important things to do.

When do we not?

Jewish-ish.

Tonight marks the beginning of the holiest of Holy days for Jews, Yom Kippur.

I'm not in the least religious. I stay out of Temple with a vengeance. And, I'll admit, if there is a god, I will never forgive him for that thing called the Holocaust. I've read a fair amount of Theology in my life, trying to find a rationale, a way of reconciling horror and divinity, but I find none of them even remotely convincing. So, we'll just leave it at this: I am not a religious Jew.

But I am a Jew. There's no denying it. It's in my corpuscles.

And of all the Jewish Holidays, Yom Kippur is the one the affects me the most. It has, if you want to get all high-falutin' about it, the best semiotics.

The idea of taking pause, of reflecting, of thinking about the deeds you did and didn't do, about the slights you slighted, the things you said that you shouldn't have. The things you should have said that you didn't.

These are good things to think about.

The people you've hurt, intentionally, and unintentionally. The wrongs you did. The mistakes you made. The half-truths you may have told, or even the lies.

These are good things to think about.

It's also good to think about tomorrow.

How can I be kinder, fairer, a better husband, father, brother, neighbor, co-worker, citizen of a wounded planet.

These are good things to think about.

Whether or not you're a Jew.

All this to say, I'll be leaving early today.

Sorry.

On the way home.

It felt like I worked two full-time jobs yesterday. That’s not necessarily hard from an accumulated hours point of view, the difficulty was due more to the intensity of each different day. The production line kept moving relentlessly and no matter where I was there was stuff from the other place hanging over my head.

I suppose I shouldn’t admit it or someone somewhere will get ahold of it and accuse me of being old, but I get tired at the end of days like these. I start early and I go hard, and so when the end of another day in advertising collapses around me, I usually head for the nearest taxi cab, as opposed to the subway or a bus.

I’m not being lazy. It’s just that I live nearly a mile from the subway and my office is almost as far, and I simply don’t have the time or the inclination for the trek.

Ergo: taxi!

Last night it seemed New York was celebrating Chaos Week, not Advertising Week. Bikes were streaming in and out of Park Avenue traffic like hornets on a bender. And nearly every black-car driver, or cabbie, was only paying half attention, the other half was dedicated to a screaming relative in Uttar Pradesh.

We just missed a biker at 24^th, and another barked at 27^th, alerting my driver that he, the biker, had decided to run the light ahead of the crosstown traffic which was gridlocked. He just missed hitting my cab, blaming that, of course, on the cab’s very existence.

Add to all that the persistent blare of an approaching squadron of firetrucks and you have a general idea of the mayhem. It was Pearl Harbor at half past seven on December 7^th, 1941.

Traffic began to thin out as we passed under what today we call the Met Life Building. It will always be the Pan Am Building to me. It was built as such and my old man worked there for the first 15 years or so as its life. For me changing the name of an icon will never take. It’s like changing the Eiffel Tower to the Louis Vuitton Spire or appending a bank’s corporate moniker onto Yankee Stadium.

I’d no more call my wife, Laura, “Wendy” than I’d call the Pan Am Building the Met Life Building. Call me old, and too fixed in my ways. As the kids like to say, that’s how I roll.

Speaking of rolling, we rolled up the East Side, and over to my isolated neck of my Manhattan woods. Things are calmer in my redoubt. The yellow stream of bumper cars a bit more mannerly. There was even a bus once that used a turn signal. I kid you not.

Another day, a long one, notches on my freelance belt.

I’ve made it home.

A sad Thursday.

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