A brief case for sanity.

When I was a kid my father, like most of the fathers in the neighborhood in which I was raised, went to work every day carrying a leather attache-case. Since my closest relations were in the business-case business, growing up I spent some time thinking about these cases.

Though they were built to look good and last, function came before form. They were meant to organize you and help you carry the things you needed to transport to and from work in a paper-based world. Inside there were expanding envelopes for paper, a place for pens, a place for the “Times,” and a place for your keys.

They had intrinsic value—that is, an inherent worth related to the function they performed.

Around the time everything in the world changed—say 1973—my old man put aside his leather briefcase, the functional the type he had been schlepping for twenty years. Someone had given him a vinyl Louis Vuitton attache. 

I remember looking at it, inspecting it, wondering about it. I grew up in an era of wide-lapelled polyester clothing, imitation wood paneling, and vinyl roofs on cars. Yet this Louis Vuitton briefcase was among the ugliest things I had ever seen in my life.

I asked my father about it and he said it was very expensive—about five times the price of the bags my cousins made. And the LV initials design, which to this day I still find detestable, was considered the height of fashion.

This new attache of my father’s had extrinsic value. It’s worth assigned by external factors such as style and prestige.

I think about my old man’s brief-case transition a lot when I think about how the world and the advertising industry has changed.

How we have become motivated more by extrinsic value, less by intrinsic value. A $20 pair of jeans costs $300, torn virtually to shreds.

More and more we are driven by external accolades and recognition. More and more we are motivated by “becoming famous.” More and more awards have become the measure of all things.

To be clear about it, we seem to care more about what others think about our work than we care about how our work helps those people and companies paying us for it. As Bernbach said:

“Our job is to sell our clients’ merchandise…not ourselves. Our job is to kill the cleverness that makes us shine instead of the product. 

“Our job is to simplify, to tear away the unrelated, to pluck out the weeds that are smothering the product message.

“I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to choose the plain looking ad that is alive and vital and meaningful, over that ad that is beautiful but dumb.”

Much like my father’s briefcase.

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By the way, some weeks ago, in my travels I stumbled upon a book published by DDB back in 2011, called "Bill Bernbach said..." It's about five-inches square and only 49 pages long.

I found it here for about the price of two cups of extrinsically-valued coffee. It's right now on my desk, hidden beneath a ream or two of paper lest someone steal it, or worse, ask to borrow it.

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Human progress. Not a one-way process.

Late last week I read a really good opinion piece in "The New York Times" by a guy called Michael Goldfarb. It was about a couple vacationing in France who stumbled upon an 11th Century Chateau that was, slowly, being rebuilt by a family of four. You can read it here.

The Darnas family, the Chateau's current residents, had been spending every summer holiday, every Christmas, every spare weekend for the last 20 years rebuilding the castle. 

Some of its original protective walls were made of finely chiseled stones that fit together and needed very little mortar to hold them in place. In later years, those advanced stonecutting skills had disappeared. Stones were randomly placed on top of each other. The newer the wall, the more poorly constructed it was.

Here's the part of the column that really got me, Goldfarb writes: "Human progress isn’t a one-way process. We can forget how to build things. We can go backward as well as forward...And, of course, it isn’t just technological innovation that can go backward. Societies can forget the social and political innovations that allowed them to flourish."

I think about this as I think about the agency business. Have we forgotten how to build things? Have we forgotten how to treat people?

Have we forgotten how to make work that imparts useful consumer information in an executionally-brilliant way. More, have we forgotten basic human truths--that people, if we ask loyalty from them, should be praised, rewarded and made to feel secure. Not made to work harder, faster and for less money and less security.

In short, have we as an industry forgotten and gone backward?

If I were running the circus, here are five things of the first things I would do.

1. A room of one's own. Admit that the open-plan mania that every agency fell for was nothing more than an attempt to cram more people per square foot. It was never shown to increase collaboration and communication. It was to increase cash-flow. Give people quiet space once again and they'll be happier and their work will be better.
2. Bring back traffic and schedules. When I started in this business there were traffic people. They would darken your door and say "George copy is due to the Client Thursday. You have to get approval from Harold on Tuesday." You knew what you needed to do and you didn't need a trellis of Trellos to get you there. Then, there were client schedules. They'd get first review. Second review and final review. Not 37 reviews in three days, or even three hours.
3. Eliminate email and slack and text messages. Walk down the hall and find someone. It's worked for roughly 200,000 years of human presence on earth. It might work today if everyone slowed down a notch or two.
4. Bring back job jackets. I know, you don't even know what a job jacket is. It was a giant envelope kept by traffic with every bit of information on the assignment, and every version organized and at your fingertips. It was about 900 times simpler than going through your email, your sent mail, your downloads, your desktop and your files to find a previous version.
5. I'd make everyone watch this. Yes, I know those days are gone. But it makes sense to me for everyone to be aware of the thought, craft and care that goes into making something. It's lost today and most people think things happen instantly and without consideration. 

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A night five years ago.

Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of the car crash that nearly ended my life.

I was sick (it would later turn out that I had pneumonia) but I had flown out to Minneapolis to present some TV boards to my client's CEO anyway. I was the only one at the agency who the CEO would see and getting on his calendar was like getting on the Pope's. So, sick or not, I went.

Flying back to New York, my flight was delayed for three hours. I had thought about leaving the Minneapolis airport, taking a car-service and checking into the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, about an hour and a half away. But just as I was leaving the airport, my flight cleared and we'd be taking off in an hour.

So I boarded my flight and moaned the whole way back. When I landed at LaGuardia at midnight, it was raining and the taxi line was hundreds of yards long. 

Combing the line were gypsy cab-drivers. I went with one to his 1995 Lincoln Town Car. I knew I was making a mistake (the driver was walking barefoot) but I was desperate to get home.

We were driving fast west on the Grand Central. I was just about to tell the driver to slow down when we spun out of control and crashed headlong into a concrete barrier, then rebounded off that barrier and crashed backward into another one.

I was, thank goodness, wearing my seatbelt, but was knocked out anyway. I woke up and it was snowing in the car the white particulate that's spewed when an airbag inflates.

My driver's face looked like Chuck Wepner's after 15 rounds with Ali. I climbed out of the car bleeding from my hand and aching, waiting on the shoulder of the highway for a cop car or an ambulance.

An ambulance came first and I turned down his demand to take me to the hospital. Somehow the idea of going to a hospital in Astoria held no appeal to me. My bloody driver called me another car and that car took me home.

I toughed it out a day at home, and then went to my doctor who sent me to the hospital. It took me about six months to fully recover.

It's five years now, and naturally, I'm five years' older. I finally feel better, and finally don't get the chills when I drive by that section of the Grand Central. Though about twice-a-year I have a bad dream about the accident and wake up with a collision that takes my breath away.

I drove a lot this weekend. I hit four of the five boroughs and dodged 40 or 50 seriously homicidal New York drivers--you know, the guys that make left exits from the right-hand lane with no turn signals at 87 miles per.

I don't take anything for granted now.

Uncle Slappy's Extra-Cynical Slap-of-the-Week.

Seeing double.

When I think about the business today, the hard, mucky slog of getting a body of work through the agency, through ten or twenty rounds of client review, back through the agency, back through the client and onto the air (or on the web, or in --heaven forfend--a newspaper) I think the best advice I can give is quite simple.

Develop two sets of eyes.

One set of eyes is there to look at the details. They're there to measure and evaluate and see and weigh every bit of input you get along the way. They're eyes that can turn a broken sentence or some insistent jargon upside-down. They're eyes that can see what the various bodies reviewing work are asking you to do, and can find a way to accomplish what's asked without sacrificing your meaning, intent or the quality of communication your eyes demand.

Your first set of eyes are the eyes that sweat the small stuff.

Your second set of eyes are equally important.

They're the eyes that lock-in like a fighter plane on the bigger picture. They see how your work fits into a bigger campaign. They understand that, like Buddha said, every person (and every account) carries its own burdens. How can we address issues, win points and keep work moving forwards--never taking our eyes off the prize, that the work must be good, must impart useful consumer information in an executionally-brilliant way.

So, your eyes have to see in two time frames--the short and everyday, and the long term. 

The trick in this business (after 34 years I think I can say this) is to develop double vision.

Seeing only day-to-day problems without seeing the big picture will eat you alive. And seeing only the big picture without seeing the things that get you there will brand you as a dreamer and idealist--a guru of sorts. You'll be good for inspiration, but not so valuable when work needs to get done.

Hey, Marc Pritchard, call my friend Marsha.

Dear Mr. Pritchard,

I read an article about you yesterday decrying the lack of equality as it appears in advertising and as it is evidenced in ad agencies.

You said, “[P&G reaches] five billion people on the planet every day and we’re the world’s biggest advertiser. We have both an opportunity and a responsibility for changing perception.”

You've done a lot, I'll admit advancing the causes of diversity and inclusion.  

As you put it, “We’re furthest along on gender equality in terms of building it into our business and our marketing. But diversity and inclusion is another major pillar and we are focusing on racial equality, LGBTQ and people with disabilities. We’ve done some good work on racial equality but we need to do more.

“As a company, we’re now focusing not just on millennials but boomers as well. That’s the next area – the age portion is probably the next frontier.”

The age part is what really hit me. The big four holding companies which account for something like 75% of the advertising jobs in the US—yet fewer than 7% of their employees are over 50 years old. (Nearly 33% of the population of the US is over 50.)

So, if equality leads to an “increase in trust,” and, even, “sales growth,” I’d thought I’d lend you a hand getting there—in finding people over 50 who know their way around the ad business:

Call Marsha. After 30 years at some of New York’s top agencies, Marcia works out of her home in Arizona now.

·       Call Tom. He’s been freelancing since he was let go a decade ago. Tons of experience, tons of awards.

\  Call Allison. Alison’s worked on some of your brands for over 20 years. She’s currently looking for work—preferably at her old salary.

·       Call David. 30 years’ experience. Currently working at a Barnes & Noble.

·       Call Edna. Let go yesterday after 12 years as a senior creative, 32 years in all.

·       Call Joe. Won awards. Lost his job.

Marc, I probably know 50 people over 50 who after long and storied careers were turned out on their ears. Or their asses.

I probably know 50 more people, or 100, who are over 50 and hanging on, so afraid of unemployment they’re quietly eating spiritual shit, or worse, they’re underemployed and earning a fraction of what they used to make.

Marc, if you need the full-names, links and phone numbers of these people, just give me a call. No charge. Just one consideration: be kind to me when my time comes.

A good/bad day down in the Mexican League.

Orestes “Tito” Puente, who was my teammate so many long summers ago when I played my single season of professional baseball for the Seraperos de Saltillo in the Mexican Baseball League, was just about the best pitcher I ever saw.

Sure there were guys who threw harder, El Pulpe, for one, or Machado who came with a high heat that could freeze you in the batter’s box. And there were pitchers who had more pitches—Candy Cardona had a fastball, a slider, an in-curve and an out-curve and a drop-the-bat-and-take-your-seat change-up. And of course, there were pitchers who were control specialists and could knock out the flame off the candle on an old man’s birthday cake blindfolded, like Nelson Barrera.

But in putting the whole assortment of pitching tools together—and add to that brains about the game, there was no one in the entire circuit who measured up to Puente. That Puente never made it to the big leagues you could attribute to a few things.

One, he was short, only 5’8” and baseball scouts most often prefer pitchers who are big, long-limbed and barrel-chested. Two, Puente spoke little English, and showed no inclination to learn the lingua franca of the big league game. And finally and most important, Puente seemed to choke when there were scouts from El Norte in the stands.

The scouts were in the stands, three of them, exactly 43 years ago tomorrow. One was an old guy from the Cards, called Georgie Sisley. Everyone knew who he was, recognized him because he wore a World Series ring from 1944 when Sisley's team, the Cards beat the other St. Louis team, the Browns, four games to two. The other two I couldn't place--they could be recognized as scouts by their cheap ties, their heavy shoes, their short-sleeved shirts and their hang-dog looks.

I remember the afternoon because for all my mediocrity as a ballplayer, that day I tore the cover off the ball. I hit like a runaway train. No matter what they threw my way, I walloped it hard, getting four hits in five at bats, ringing up six RBIs, two doubles and a homer.

And while I had the best game, by far, of my benighted career, Puente, steady Tito Puente, had maybe the worst. Against the Diablos Rojos, Tito didn't get out of the first inning, and was sent to the showers after giving up four straight doubles and five straight hits.

Looking back these 43 years, I wonder about those games so long ago. Might a meaningless game have any meaning?

We were never going to make it to the bigs. Me, I hadn't the talent. Puente had the hex.

So we were playing at being men playing a boy's game. We were playing at being free. We were playing day in and night out at playing games that didn't matter if you won or lost. The standings had no consequence. We were a bad team, in a bad league playing far away from the glare of what matters.

Some days you are the Babe. And some days you smell like week-old fish.

That's life, in my opinion, in a peanut shell.

What matters is that you do what Puente did when Hector gave him his next start four days later.

You go out there and throw your hardest.

Nobody asked me but....Post Bastille Day Edition.

Nobody asked me but...is my period homage to the great New York sportswriter Jimmy Cannon. He'd write one of these when he could find nothing to write about.

Nobody asked me but....

...When you see little kids selling lemonade on the corner you should always buy at least one cup and leave them the change. It's the decent thing to do....

...I bet Donald Trump never bought a glass of lemonade from a kid...

...I don't trust anyone who declares something is "broken." It seems a melodramatic way of saying something can be improved....

...In fact, if everything that people have declared broken were really broken, we'd have nothing left....

....My guess is Cicero declared Rome broken in about 30BC and the empire lasted another 500 years or so....

....No one knows who Ogden Nash is anymore, though I grew up reading him, and on occasion miss him....

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....The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks 
Which practically conceal its sex. 
I think it clever of the turtle 
In such a fix to be so fertile....

....It ain't Shakespeare, but 50 years later it still makes me smile...

....One hour on the beach undoes one-day in the office....

....If you want to drive a nice road in the New York City area, try the Sprain Brook Parkway on a cloudy Sunday.....

....Though I'm not crazy about the name. It sounds painful...

...Whatever you do, stay off of the New England Thruway.....

....Next to the Long Island Expressway, it's a great place to be killed...

....As bad as Trump is, imagine this: President Ted Cruz....

...Speaking of which, why do people take an instant dislike to Ted Cruz? It just saves time....

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