Apocalypse later.

If you’ve been in the business a long time, or spun around the sun a few score, or if you read a lot of history, you come to realize that there’s never a shortage of Apocalypse.

We’ve lived through gas shortages.

Sugar shortages.

Chocolate shortages.

There were even, late last year, rumors of a bacon shortage.

But there’s never a shortage of Apocalyptic thinking.

There’s a Boom in Doom.

Whether you think about it from a macro or micro pov, we pretty much go through life with the fear of something impending that’s just about to happen.

When I grew up it was the H Bomb. Or communist takeover.

Now it’s our seas no longer being able to sustain life, our planet warming and the looming Sixth Extinction.

At work, we’re apocalyptic about this deadline. Or that client meeting. Or losing the business altogether if you can’t hatch a viral video in 30 minutes.

Life happens.

Accounts walk.

Snail darters die.

Jobs even get lost.

Nevertheless, we go on.

Too busy.

Hey, I'm too busy writing this morning to do any writing. I'll try to write later, if that's alright.

Have a Nice Day.

It's 6:47 in the morning and I'm in a yellow taxi on my way to work. Assuming there's no traffic, which there usually isn't at this hour, I should arrive at the hallowed halls about ten past seven.

I must say, as I woke myself around 5:30, a half hour before my alarm was meant to ring, I wish I could have stayed in bed. First of all, I'm tired. Second of all, I'm really tired.

But 'Dig We Must.'

Shit needs to get done, and whatever the vagaries of my freelance world, I have to do it.

I know I have a tendency to run to martyrhood, but that said, I don't really mind getting to work before everyone else.

I feel like an old fisherman who stakes his schooner's claim in the Grand Banks and fills his hold with cod before his rivals arrive. That's me and the clanging of a bell buoy out in the misty distance. I'm getting it done while you're asleep.

A freelance friend told me when I left my previous place, "never say no to a gig. Make it work somehow." I'm trying, right now, to do that without too many extenuating circumstances.

I'm streaming downtown as I scribble this, using an internet connection through my cell phone. I've just passed 72nd Street and will be in in ten minutes.

As they say, Have a Nice Day.

On the beach.

The weather yesterday was, compared to the day before, relatively balmy. The temperature was in the mid-30s and nothing was spitting from the skies. So at the ripe, yet dark, hour of six am, I hustled Whiskey into the back of my 1966 Simca 1000 and drove up to Rye--a small town on the Long Island Sound just about 20 miles from my apartment.

The horseshoe shaped beach is about 3/4ths of a mile long and girded with the nearly-empty boardwalk of an old and struggling amusement park called Playland. There's nothing in the world so desolate, I think, as a baseball diamond covered with snow. But an out-of-season amusement park comes close. And this one wouldn't see life again till the thaws of April, when the squat Italian men come in and begin the seasonal rejuvenation of their rides.

Whiskey and I spilled out of the car at around 6:20. I had made it through long, sad portions of the Bronx faster than ever and sped through quiet Westchester county. I parked the Simca in an empty lot and we walked the silent beach.

The tide was low and there was nothing on the littoral but single sea birds looking for a stray mussel in the muck or a clam. Up ahead, at the far end of the beach, I saw two men standing on the edge of the brine. We walked toward them.

"Debroye utro," I said to them, using just about all the Russian I know. "Good morning."

They nodded back to me and began taking off their large down overcoats. They were each wearing a small tight swimsuit and they were preparing for a dip in the sea.

"Polarneyy medved," the taller one said. "We are polar bears."

With that they ran with speed into the surf. Whiskey looked askance at them. She seemed to be saying, "It's too cold for your species. They must be crazy." I agreed with her, but couldn't take my eyes off the Russians. 

They swam strongly out to a man-made breakwater about three-hundred yards distant, then they turned and swam just as strongly back. Then they emerged from the wet, dried themselves off with the old beach towels they had with them that they had pulled out of small, beaten gym bags. In just seconds they each had their down coats on and their feet had burrowed inside their fur-lined boots.

"You will have a drink with us," the taller one said in a Boris Badenov accent.

"We will drink to health. To the sea. To the old country."

"Long may she wave," I joked.

The taller one removed a Thermos of coffee from his gym bag and the shorter one brandished a pint of Russian vodka. They drank their concoction quickly and shot me a "do svidaniya."

Whiskey and I do svidaniya'd back.

Then we headed back to the city.

Love and Hate.

It seems half of the advertising industry is at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. My Facebook feed is more full than usual of people cavorting, of pictures of steak and unshaven men sitting on elevated chairs behind microphones.

There are people wearing augmented reality goggles. There are people playing with models of electronic toys which may or may not ever have an impact in the market. There's also the usual spate of articles from the so-called trade press.

What no one seems to want to answer is this: what does any of this have to do with advertising? If I worked on an automotive account, I probably wouldn't fly out to the International Tire Exhibition in Akron, Ohio.

I happen to think that one of the troubles of our industry is that so many people in our industry hate our industry.

They hate TV. They hate commercials. They hate messaging and "interruption."

I think if you go back to the founders of modern advertising, Bill Bernbach or David Ogilvy or even Rosser Reeves, you'd find that they believed advertising contributed to the greater good. It helped people make informed decisions.

As Carl Ally said, at its best advertising helps impart useful consumer information in an executionally brilliant way. At its best.

I still believe that.

I wish more people in the industry acted as if they did too.

A cold morning in New York.

It's as cold as a witch's teat this morning in Manhattan. Even the hipsters, who usually only wear hats in the warmth of the summertime, are considering putting something on their heads. Many of them have exchanged their flip-flops for wooly mammoth-like footwear. The second ice-age is coming. Global warming be damned.

It's warm in the office, and bright. The whoooooooooooooooosh of white noise and HVAC is about all there is to hear. There's only me here now. And one other similarly-inclined writer I know from the old days.

I knew when I was away on vacation that the first couple of weeks of 2015 were going to be hairy. I feared I had too much to do and not enough me to go around. But though we're only a week in, I seem to be managing, and managing well.

When I was a kid, when Con Ed had to come in and dig up a street, they'd put signs and sawhorses around that read "Dig We Must."

That's become my mantra.

That's life as a freelancer.

Dig. Then dig some more.

Not much to say this morning. Maybe my blood's running a little thick. Besides I have to get down to business.

That's all for now.

Stay warm.

Yes country for old men.

It's rare to see grey hair in an agency these days.

It is the mark of Cain.

Or the Scarlet Letter.

You can shoot a cannon down a hallway at lunchtime and not hit anyone over forty.

No one likes to talk about this.

Least of all the people it affects.

But I've noticed something.

At seven in the morning, when I usually get in, there are sometimes a couple of other people around. Like me, they're usually halfway immersed in a cup of java and fully immersed in their keyboard.

Like me, they're over 50.

One of the greatest assets in our industry--or almost any pursuit for that matter, is filtering out the noise, blather and crap that bounces off the walls and ceiling tiles. It's the ability to focus. It's the ability to do. To get shit done. Good shit.

Get in. Do the job. Go home.

It's like a good relief pitcher.

He might only throw 11 pitches a game but he gets you out of a jam.

It's the concentration of energy, experience and talent.

I think us old guys are making a comeback.

Life direction by way of Errol Morris.

Years ago I had the great good fortune of shooting with the director Errol Morris. Perhaps the best part of the experience was hanging with him in some crappy casting room in Santa Monica. While there, I got to see his genius.

When and actor came in and stood on the line, they'd invariably wait around for lines to read, waiting for something to say.

All Morris did was give them the most simple and painful direction, "Do something," he would say. If he liked what they did, he'd give them more direction: "Do something else."

It occurs to me that "Do something," is about the best advice--the best direction you can ever be given.

As I enter my 10th month of freelance, I think about it often.

Usually when you're called in to work there's something dire in the air. A pitch. A shootout. A crisis. Or an unhappy client.

You don't get a lot of time.

There's nothing fun, funny or leisurely about it.

It's Tuesday, say, and you have to show work on Wednesday.

Not one or two boards, eight or 10.

You have to do something.

You have to trust your experience, your know-how, your track-record and your talent and bring them all to bear quickly.

In this era of "selfies," it seems that half the world is taking pictures of themselves doing nothing.

Selfies won't get you hired. They're polishing your own turds.

Doing something will.

Home.

My wife and I got through the cattle-drive that is modern air travel and by the time we got to LaGuardia, it was nearly one am and we still had to get our bags off the Soviet-inspired screaming carousel.

After I got two bags, with one left to go, my wife headed for the cab-line. Two people working in concert can take ten minutes off of the airport ordeal. Bag number three arrived and I balanced the five bags (including carry-ons) I was charged with and headed through the Scylla and Charybidis of people with strollers and oblivioids staring into their cell phone screens.

Outside, I found my wife about ten passengers from the front of the line at what I call, from now on, LineGuardia.

We finally made it to the front and the cab that was designated as ours (a Ford Explorer with a back seat that's dead solid perfect if you're 4'8") drove up on a concrete island in an effort to make the one lane of traffic two lanes of traffic.

The dispatcher pointed me over to the miscreant cab.

"That's yours," he screamed. He'd have woken the dead--but they preferred their slumber.

Thinking back to my cab arrears of two summers ago, I muscled up to my full 6'2". I thought about my children. My wife. My puppy. And most of all my incipient new kitchen. I wasn't going to risk stainless steel appliances on a crazy cabbie.

"No way I'm taking that car. He can't drive."

"It's your cab," he threatened.

"I don't take cabs that drive on sidewalks. I'll take this one," I threw my crap into the trunk of a Toyota Hybrid and hustled my wife in like a New York City perp.

We sped from 0-60 at approximately the speed of a Gemini rocket and in about 14 minutes we we're pulling in front of my building. The old Toyota had managed not to lose too many nuts and bolts and both bumpers had managed to stay on.

My clean, well-lighted building.

The doorman even put down his crossword to help me with the luggage.

We got the mail.

We hugged the pup.

We had made it home.

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.