Dour day.

Ever since I was a kid and I saw my old man's once-high-falutin' career crumble like a sandcastle at high tide, I've perseverated on the Willy-Loman-ization of the workforce.

Lately, perhaps it is a pre-vacation miasma, I am feeling particularly lugubrious. Too much work is too often dumped on me. Too vague assignments allotted too little time. It all leaves me with the feeling that the world, in Wordsworth's words, is too much with me.

Willy, like my father, was done in by old age and his belief in the old, stale blandishments of the Powers that be. Willy believed the promises of his boss--that he'd always have a job, that his dedication and toil was appreciated and would pay him life-long benefits.

My old man grabbed that bait as well. Reckoning that he deserved recompense for years of labor. But when new management came in, for both Loman and my father, both were tossed out on their asses. Leaving them, really, with little more, in the words of Arthur Miller, "a handshake and a smile."

No conclusions to be drawn from any of this. No real point, just--time for another literary reference--a tale of sound and fury, told by an idiot, signifying nothing.

That's me in spades.

CALL FOR ENTRIES!

The Awardies.

The first Award Show that gives Awards for entering Award Shows.

The Awardie Primo—The Award for Work most-entered in Award Shows.

The Awardie Good— The Award for Work purported to do the most social good if it ever actually was produced but wasn’t.

The Awardie Self—   The Award for Work best-created to get the creative team a new job or promotion.

The Awardie Math— The Award for Work that allows you to list 100 awards on your site.

The Awardie Grande Zero—The Award for Work you found a client for after you produced it.

The Awardie Zero—  The Award for Work you produced but never had a client and never ran.

The Awardie Zero+—The Award for Work you never even bothered to produce.

The Awardie Lucre—The Award for Work on which the most money was spent to enter Award Shows.

Uncle Slappy's every-so-often bi-weekly Slap of the Week.

Today's stupidest use of the word "experience."

From trying to sign into my MSFT Office. 

Their new "sign-in experience" consisted of typing my password into a rectangle.

I heart Milton Glaser.

It’s hard to have grown up when and where I grew up and not be a fan of Milton Glaser.

He is as New York as the New York Yankees—but without the Yankees arrogance and bombast. Between having designed the I [heart] New York symbol, New York magazine and the Grand Union supermarket chain, he is all New York, but humble, self-effacing and kind. Those attributes are embodied in Glaser's work.

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Last night, Milton held court in front of 500 fans in an interview by Steven Heller. The ostensible topic of the discussion was the republication of Glaser and Mirko Ilic's 2005 book called "The Design of Dissent."

For our current political and social sump, Glaser's updated the book. The 2017 version is subtitled "Expanded Edition: Greed, Nationalism, Alternative Facts, And The Resistance."

Glaser is a passionate man but a man without anger. He believes that anger--in protest, in politics, in the interpersonal makes communication less effective.

And perhaps there is no anger in the man. But there is surely passion. Passion and a belief that old-fashioned New York liberalism is a better, fairer path than the avaricious, kleptocratic oligarchy which rules so much of the world--our world today.

Years ago, I was asked to work on a poster and brochure for an elementary school Columbia University was establishing on the upper west side. 

I was the copywriter on the assignment, and, good-fortune shined on me, Glaser was the art-director. I ran down to his office and had a cup of coffee with him at his big work table. 
We batted ideas around for about an hour--and talked about a headline I had come in with.

When it was time to leave, he said these words to me about the work we had sketched out together.

"Let's let it marinate a bit."

I think that is Glaser's Talmudic advice for the ages. Do something. Work hard. Be outraged. Be pasionate. Be, even, angry. Then Think. And write. And draw.

Then let life marinate a bit.

The world, upside down.

Macbeth

ACT I  SCENE I	A desert place.
[Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches]
First Witch	When shall we three meet again
	In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
Second Witch	When the hurlyburly's done,
	When the battle's lost and won.
Third Witch	That will be ere the set of sun.
First Witch	Where the place?
Second Witch	Upon the heath.
Third Witch	There to meet with Macbeth.
First Witch	I come, graymalkin!
Second Witch	Paddock calls.
Third Witch	Anon!
ALL	Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
	Hover through the fog and filthy air.

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We are living in the world of Macbeth. Where fair is foul and foul is fair. Where everything, in other words, is backwards and upside down. Where the prevailing order, is no order.

We have an uneducated, uncouth letch as president. And are about to elect an even worse example of the human species as Senator in Alabama. We pretend more guns will bring us more safety--ignoring all facts and figures to the contrary.

We tax the poor to lavish the rich. We eviscerate education and the environment, and all other social welfare expenditure because we can no longer afford them, though we add nearly two-trillion to the deficit and pour a trillion a year into unwinnable wars that cause unspeakable carnage.

Even our business, we eradicate experience, we ignore truisms that have worked in the marketing industry since merchants sold figs in ancient Sumeria. We pretend and grin fuck in meetings that people don't or can't read, though "content is king," and more books are published each year than ever before in history.

Most of all, we upside-down, topsy-turvy Bernbach and Gossage and Ogilvy, ignoring simplicity, ignoring in more cases than I care to, or can enumerate, ignore what's worked, what's common-sense, how people think, act, consume, learn, buy.

Then we wonder why things don't work. We issue specious and unfounded proclamations about audiences, based on anecdotes at best, and when, once again, things don't work,
we wonder, once again, why.

One night in the Tempus Fugit. A repost.

My wife, who just on Tuesday had her hip bionically replaced, returned home from the hospital yesterday afternoon. Though I consider myself a decent person and a more than moderate husband, I'll admit, I am not the most solicitous of people. I'd rather be waited on than wait on. Alas, now, I have no choice. Though my wife is no termagant, I am fairly at her whim and caprice.

Naturally amid all this turmoil, insomnia chose that very moment to strike. So, at approximately 2:47 in the morning, Whiskey and I made our way through the city to the invitingly dim incandescence of the Tempus Fugit.

"Did I ever tell you," the bartender began, as usual, without any pre-mumble or salutation. "Did I ever tell you of the haunt that haunts these latitudes?" He swung gingerly around the bar and placed a small wooden bowl of cold water in front of Whiskey. Then, back behind the mahogany, he pulled me a Pike's Ale (the ALE that won for YALE) filling the requisite six-ounce juice glass.

"Haunts," I said, with my typical sagacity.

Violet Klotz, 1903-1930. Photo taken shortly before her murder.

"Haunts," he repeated. "Haunts that to me, resemble one Violet Klotz, the hatcheck girl in 1930 when the Tempus Fugit was still a speakeasy."

"A hatcheck girl. The place had class, huh?"

Ignoring my feint at cynicism, he continued on his way.

Hymie "Iambic" Goldstein. An artist's rendering by Patrick Hamou.

"Klotz was a looker, and the inamorata of one Hymie "Iambic" Goldstein. Goldstein was one of the roughest muggs in the Jewish mob."

"Iambic?" I asked.

"He spoke, believe it or not, Hymie did, in perfect iambic pentameter. It was the most uncanny thing I ever saw."

"Short syllable then long syllable. Uncanny to say the least."

"Iambic made fortune for the mob, stealing cars and losing them. The gang would collect $100 insurance per, and Iambic would make $10 of that. Things went along fine until he got too clever by half."

"A stressed syllable that should have remained unstressed," I added.

"You could say that. Iambic, instead of ditching those cars, he brought them to a junk dealer. Together they stripped the cars and Iambic made another $10 bucks."

"You can't blame him," I offered, "it was the Depression. Who didn't need the extra scratch."

"Well the mob didn't see it that way. They pushed Iambic off the roof of a 17 story building."

He pulled me another amber and offered me a bowl of salted Spanish peanuts. As always, I dismissed the goobers and drained the suds.

"Violet was checking coats when the boys that pushed Iambic came in. They were feeling good and laughing. One guy--I can't remember his name--kept repeating 'He got metrical feet, but he ain't got no wings.'"

"Quite a mouthful," I said, starting on Pike's number three.

"Violet got wise. She realized Iambic was no more and she pulled a small pearl-handled on the guys who offed her man. They beat Violet to the draw and gunned her down right over there, next to where there was a signed photo from Gene Tunney wishing me all the best. It was a veritable fusillade that did Violet in."

Gene Tunney, World Heavyweight Champion, 1926-1928.

"Wow," I said. "So now she haunts the place."

"She died amid the chinchillas and minks. And comes back every Halloween looking for Iambic. The holes in her corpus whistling in the wind."

"Grisly," I said getting up to leave. I slipped the leash on Whiskey and slid two twenties across the bar.

He pushed them back my way. "Happy All Hallow's Eve to you, says I."

All in perfect iambic pentameter. 

Truth.

About a month ago, I attended a panel discussion during "The New Yorker Festival" called "All the President's Reporters." 

It was an august panel, featuring four Pulitzer-Prize winners, Jo Becker of "The New York Times," Jane Meyer of "The New Yorker," and Greg Miller of "The Washington Post." The old man on the panel was the legendary Carl Bernstein (also of the Post) whose investigation into Watergate helped bring down Richard Nixon in 1974.

The audience smelled blood. We spent the 90 minutes waiting for some revelation about Trump, some "insider" knowledge that would finally bring our tinpot tyrant down.

Then, Bernstein, who had 20 years on the rest of the panel, took over the discussion.

"Look," he said, "Journalism won't bring down Trump. Journalism can only uncover the truth. And the truth will bring down Trump."

I've been thinking about Bernstein's wisdom since I heard him say it. What is truth? Truth in our business?

Too many people, in our industry and others, are rapid-fire quick in telling you how great they are, how much they do, and all about their general magnificence.

They're quick to talk about everything but actual work. 

I tend to take self-promotion and personal branding with a grain of salt the size of the Hoover Dam. 

As the oldest-working-copywriter in the formerly-free world, I can say the secret of longevity is not self-promotion. It is truth: the truth of your work. The truth of your dedication. The truth of giving credit to others. The truth of doing the little things. The truth of trying to be generous and kind.

There was a time in our business when agencies were judged by the brands they built, judged by the work they actually did.

DDB--Volkswagen.
Ammirati--BMW.
Scali--Volvo.
Ally--Fed Ex.
TBWA--Absolut.
Ogilvy--IBM.
Wieden--Nike.
Chiat--Apple.
BBDO--Pepsi.

Those agencies were built, in other words, on truth. On what they actually did. Not just their own press-releases. I find it hard, today, to find a similar relationship of consequence in the ad industry.

In other words, it seems to me there is more Vayner-like self-aggrandizement that Bernbach-like substance.

I'm old-fashioned, I know. And I'll steal a line from Lady Gaga, I was born this way.

And, I prefer it.

Advertising today in two charts.

The "Quote-o-Matic."

With Ad Aged's "Quote-O-Matic," you can be instantly interesting and quotable in the advertising trade-press. Be ready for any question incisive reporters throw your way about virtually anything. Never be at a loss for words again.

Try these: 

• This was a team effort.
• A great creative idea can come from anywhere.
• This one was a labor of love.
• We captured the essential truth of the moment in a unique way.
• The challenge was to show _________ in a whole new light.
• We connected with our audience in a new and unexpected way.
• This is all about storytelling.
• We brought storytelling to a new dimension.
• It made us a little uncomfortable, but that’s the whole point.
• We’re taking the brand to the next level.
• It’s next-generation marketing.
• We’re starting a conversation.
• This campaign will force people to lean in.
• It’s not just a TV advert. We’re starting a movement.
• Millennials aren’t connecting with brands like boomers.
• Boomers don’t connect with brands like millennials.
• It’s all about mobile.
• It’s all about digital.
• It’s all about second-screens.
• We know people have an emotional connection to _________.
• We get thousands of messages a day, we had to make sure ours cut through.
• It’s a tongue-in-cheek approach against brands taking themselves too seriously.
• We used a distinctive film-making style.
• We let the product speak for itself.
• Families today are busy.
• People want a brand that can laugh at itself.
• Our customers aren’t just viewers; they’re engaged with our brand.
• This isn’t just about _______—we’re inspired by the world around us.
• We’re helping people navigate the breakfast process.
• We’re harnessing the power of word-of-mouth.
• We couldn’t have done this spot a year ago.
• It took bravery on the part of the client to run this spot.
• I’m humbled by the attention this spot has received.
• The holidays are a time of family and togetherness.
• There’s no more important message right now.
• The film shows how __________ can enrich our lives.
• We’re giving voice to people without a voice. 

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