Creativity Magazine.

I get in the mail, for free, mind you, Advertising Age's "Creativity" magazine, also known as the liturgy of the Church of Bogusky.

I find magazines like this masturbatory. New permutations of the trend du jour. Seldom do I find anything that leads me to remark "that's a smart idea." Instead, a lot of visual puns.

Now here is today's question: How is it possible that the game "Scrabble" inspires so many brilliant spread ads in countries around the world? It seems that Neil French practically made a career of doing Scrabble ads and in this issue of "Creativity" there's another. (And not event a very good ad if you ask me.) How is it that a board game seems to have a bigger ad budget than virtually any other advertiser? How is it that they run only spreads?

Dear Award Show Judges and Hagiographic Magazine Editors: Please don't print ads or give accolades to ads that haven't actually run. Thank you.

The last "ding" of doom.

The word I hear these days with vomitous frequency is "dinged." Oh, the client "dinged" us because we were late with the presentation. Or, I got "dinged" because my boss didn't like the copy. Or the CEO is on a rampage, you'd better do your timesheets or you'll get dinged.

Bull-fucking-shit.

This is the lowest form or pusillanimity. For Crissakes have the honesty to say your client's an ass for getting pissed your work is late. Or that you screwed up by not showing something to your boss or whatever.

Using the word "ding" is like an airline saying there's a "delay" when you sit on the runway for three hours. No, there's a major fuck-up. Ding is namby-pamby dangerous gentility.

I can't imagine a headline in a newspaper saying "6,000,000 Jews, Gypsies and Homosexuals Dinged by Nazis in Massive Network of Ding-Camps." "Car Bomb Dings 37 in Baghdad Mosque." "Katrina Dings New Orleans. 250,000 Evacuated."

Thinking of Chester Himes.

Chester Himes was the great black author of over 20 novels, the most famous of which, "Cotton Comes to Harlem," was made into a pretty good movie. His great characters Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones appeared in many Himes' novels, including "Blind Man With a Pistol" which was published 40 years ago.

Blind man with a pistol.

You ask me, it sounds like a management style.

Shuffling cinder blocks.

Last week according both to a company memo and an article in Adweek, DraftFCB "shuffled its leadership team." http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/agency/e3id27113ae043af5fc6b7eb4d39a400e99 OK, I said, reading the headline, finally someone at DraftFCB realizes they need a real overhaul. They have done nothing but lose business and revenue over the last two years. Even if financially DraftFCB were status quo, their work is lackluster at best. At last, I say, a shot in the arm is coming.

Then I read the article.

Now, I'll admit I am naive. I always thought shuffling involved seriously mixing things up. Apparently not at DraftFCB. What shuffling means in their context is that the C-level white men who have presided over DraftFCB's mediocrity have either added more grandiose titles to their business cards or swapped titles with each other. Howard Draft is no longer Chief Executive Officer, instead he is Executive Chairman. Laurence Boschetto, formerly Chief Operating Officer and President is now Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer and President. And Jonathan Harries, Worldwide Chief Creative Officer is now also a Vice Chairman. Draft praised Boschetto and Harries for their "Herculean efforts on behalf of the company." Herculean is great. But what if you suck?

Here's the way Ad Aged reads these well-deserved promotions. Management at DraftFCB has found a way, amid massive layoffs and business setbacks, to give itself raises.

The Steroidal States of America.

I am not a sports fan. I watch maybe ten hours of televised sports a year, though occasionally I'll run up to Columbia and take in a basketball or a football game which my alma mater will invariably lose, but sports don't matter a whit to me. Yet, out of habit I suppose, I still read the sports page, or at least I glance at it.

Today I read that one of the greatest baseball players of our age, Alex Rodriguez, was found to have been using steroids back in 2003. Somehow I coupled sports and steroids with Tom Dashcle, John Thain, and the seeming collapse of our economic system.

Steroids if you think about it are a get rich quick scheme played out through biceps. You don't need to do the work, but you get the rewards. And nothing is more important than success, certainly not integrity. The only thing that matters, in fact, is accumulation.

It occurs to me that this steroidal mania explains Dashcle. A man for whom nothing mattered in the end but his fast enrichment. Or John Thain. Or those millions of homeowners who got on the steroidal jag and forgot that homes are places to live and love, not just financial investment instruments. All of America has been on this jag. We can all get rich quick. No waiting required. The world will come to an end if your pizza takes more than 30 minutes to arrive.

We live in an instant microwave era. Everything must happen in a blink. Riches, relationships, even writing (witness "blogging," which is often writing without thought.") As a culture we are all on steroids and silicon. We want abs of steel and bulging, fantasy accomplishments with neither the risk of failure nor the sweat of hard work.

I'm not sure if any of this makes any sense. Or what to do about any of it if it does add up. Or if anything will change our love of the quick buck. It's just something that hit me between the eyes this morning. A Spring Winter's day in New York.

From the Times and excellent.

This is the artwork from an article called: "What's Your New Plan B?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/weekinreview/08segal.html

Thank you, Somerset Maugham.

I came across this quotation some years ago and it's stuck with me. It has always seemed a handy way to describe those agency and/or client "human resources" who don't get it--you know, the bulk of people.

"She plunged into a sea of platitudes, and with the powerful breast stroke of a channel swimmer, made her confident way towards the white cliffs of the obvious."

News Flash.

I don't want to go to my 2:30.

Consider the source.

Fasten your seatbelts, hold onto your hats, I'm about to be optimistic.

Everyday we are being besieged by stories of economic gloom and doom. Of the collapse of the world financial system. Of TEOTWAWKI (a genre so popular it has its own acronym) The End of the World as We Know It.)

I'd like to take exception. Undoubtedly the economic situation is bad. Maybe even dire. 598,000 people lost their jobs last month. These are serious issues. But consider this: the unemployment rate for those with a college education is less than 4%. And even at 7.6% unemployment, 92.4% of people have jobs. Obviously, this is no consolation to those without jobs, but hold on a second and consider what's happening.

The same people who create graphics and blare out drivel about the impending "perfect storm," or "a katrina like disaster," or "winter storm watch 9000" are the same people who are trumpeting about our economic throes. Yes, we are in serious straits. No, we will not all wind up eating from garbage pails.

In 1933, when FDR took office the unemployment rate in Toledo, Ohio was 80%. The national employment rate was over 25%. Children were working in coal mines for a dollar a day and large swaths of the country had no electricity. People were starving to death.

What's happening now is scary. I am scared too. But try, above all else, to keep things in perspective. And don't forget to be a mensch and help your fellow man.

The advertising economic stimulus plan.

All of us in agency-land are being told (usually by people who have never created an ad) that we must be more efficient, we must cut down our hours, that we must produce more and do it with fewer people. The holding companies, those monoliths that most-often are our true creative directors, are demanding it. So, they say, push harder, demand more, come up with your ideas quicker--as if we could microwave creativity.

Well, as my ex-boss used to say, "here's the thing." Here's the thing, there's one way to improve agency efficiency. Eliminate meetings. Or, if you can't eliminate meetings demand that the meeting caller writes a short brief on the meeting: What's to be accomplished, who will do it, when will they do it by, when will re reconvene. Limit the length of meetings to twenty minutes and have a concise agenda with real life objectives. Also, have meetings standing up. No chairs. People think better while standing and progress will be made quicker.

I spend seven hours a day, at least, in meetings. Most people of my ilk do. If you want to stimulate, eliminate.