Nothing changes.

Almost 40 years ago, well anyway, 35, I was a graduate student in English and Comparative Literature. Through my reading I developed a belief--a thesis--that was sure to get me excoriated, excommunicated and expelled just for uttering it.

I believed then, and I still do, that there is something I called "The Literature of the Oppressed." That is, whether you are an African-American in the Jim Crow South, an Irishman in British-occupied Ireland, or a Jew in the Czar's Russia, certain consistencies exist in the stories of these oppressed people. Of course, the particularities vary from ghetto to shtetl, but the basics of the story--the weak coping with the strong, have a great deal in common.

I had this thought right at the coming of age of African-American studies in the US. And my belief in the universality of the human condition was flat-out heresy.

A decade or so later I was teaching, but not English Lit at some ivy-covered campus. Instead I was presiding over a concept class at New York's School of Visual Arts.

I always started the term this way. I would take 10 or 15 award-winning ads, a couple each from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. These ads, as you can imagine, looked and felt dramatically different. We would then spend the entire class and most of the term discussing the commonalities of good communication. And how that didn't change through the decades.

Every so often among the few comments I get on Ad Aged, I get one that reminds me how "out of it" I am. How things were the way I described maybe decades ago but they're not that way now.

I suppose these comments come from the same people who spout idiocies like "that will change everything" and "blank is dead."

The basic arc of a story hasn't changed. Nor has the "value exchange" of people in love.  Nor have a trillion other things. If I were a little smarter and a little more talented, I would take "Gilgamesh," written over 4,000 years ago and write the screenplay. You won't find a more riveting story on the big screen and in the hands of a Cameron or a Lucas, Gilgamesh would surely be a blockbuster.

I get tired of people who don't understand the past.

A walk uptown.

At 2:35 last night I was jostled awake by Dame Insomnia.

"Come on, George," she beckoned. "Let's fly! Leave the warmth of your bed. Leave the sanctity of your home and visit with me. Leave behind peace and quiet and comfort and routine--leave behind all you know and love--leave it all, and come with me."

I had no choice but to comply.

I pulled on a pair of heavy flannel-lined jeans, a hooded sweatshirt of the type they now call a hoodie (because everything is today reduced to baby-talk) my waterproof hiking boots, my insulated oilskin and my Astrakhan hat. I snapped on Whiskey's leash and the three of us headed out into the darkness.


Usually, I head over to the East River Drive when I walk with Whiskey and the Dame at night, but this morning, for some unknown reason, I was drawn west. Whiskey and I walked to Central Park--so frightening when I was young, so somnolent now, and then turned north and walked the bridle path up to Harlem, where the park ends at 110th Street.

I had lived up in that neck of the woods when New York was brutal, in the 70s and 80s. I had a night job then and would walk swiftly across the Columbia campus with my keys laced between my fingers, ready to slash back if I were accosted. Whether by dint of luck or my lumbering, bear-like mien, I survived my years in the darkness fairly without incident--having never been mugged and pick-pocketed only once, though that was while I was underground at the huge subway complex underneath what was then the New York Coliseum at 8th Avenue and 59th Street.

The Coliseum is gone now. Replaced by the Time Warner Towers and mall. Yes, New Yorkers, you have let a mall into your midsts. The mammon of shop shop shop has eradicated all. All character. All humanity. All life. All low life. And all bookstores, the cavernous and obtuse Coliseum Books having been ploughed under like an Okie's land, more than a decade ago.

I walked west when I exited the park at 110th and 8th. I walked west to my old haunts and went to visit my friends, the smiling gargoyles who adorn 527 W 110th Street. Maybe they would know the answers--after all, they had been watching New York since they arrived on the cityscape back in 1909.

It was well after three now and the rain was beginning the fall. I asked them for answers. But they merely smiled. They smiled as they do.

And sat there, as they do, stone-faced.

Nemo.

The song tells us that New York is the "City that never sleeps," and that may be so, but on certain days, the City is magnificently, gloriously, beautifully, luminously, soporifically quiet.

This season's first "Storm of the Century" is upon us. It's called "Nemo," which in Latin means "nobody." Nemo is what Odysseus said to the Cyclops when the Cyclops asked, plaintively, who blinded me? Nobody.

This storm is far from a nobody. It's predicted to dump a foot or more on New York and two feet on Boston and Western Massachusetts. Governor Cuomo of New York has declared a state of emergency and Governor Patrick of Massachusetts closed all state roads at 4 PM.

Of course, the needs of Whiskey, my 10-month-old Golden Retriever, trump any weather system. And with my wife working late once again, I went out with Whiskey for a long walk along the East River. I left the house around five and didn't return home until nearly two hours later.

Some of this was selfish. Walking Whiskey now would get our long exercise romp over before the brunt of the storm is due to hit Manhattan. And it's expected to be fierce, with biting cold and driving winds.

Carl Schurz Park, a 14.9-acre park reconstructed by Robert Moses in 1935 and home of the Mayor's residence, Gracie Mansion, is where I walk Whiskey, nine nights out of 10. It's a peaceful place, just a block from my apartment and adjacent to the river.

Along the river runs the East River Promenade with its elegantly curved wrought iron protecting pedestrians from the water. The promenade extends unbroken down to 61st Street where it is interrupted by the Queensboro Bridge and up to 122nd, where the Triboro interferes.

Whiskey and I headed uptown, stopping at the hill of "Hoorn's Hook," a hill overlooking the wide water expanse of the Hell's Gate. Hoorn's Hook was named by an early Dutch landowner, Siebert Classen. I find this fact amusing since my long-time art-director partner was named Claesson.

On Hoorn's Hook neighborhood kids were sledding, using all sorts of conveyances--traditional sleds, plastic saucers, corrugated flattened boxes and big black garbage bags. A couple dogs were out as well. Their owners, like me, bundled up against the cold. Whiskey ran up and down the hill with a mongrel named Layla.

Nemo kept coming.

But nobody could keep me out of the city on a night like tonight.

Advice to young people.

Young people need jobs and jobs, whatever career you're pursuing in whatever economic climate, are hard to come by.

I get a lot of young people reaching out to me, looking for work. So I thought I'd write a few lines on what I've learned about job hunting.

1. Don't be afraid of people like me. Yes, I am old. Yes, I've had lofty titles. And yes, I'm extremely busy. But many people remember how hard it is to break into our business and will therefore answer your call or e with empathy. Also, understand that for every 10 or 20 notes or calls you send out, you might get just one response. That's one more than you'd get if you do nothing.

2. Do something. I cast a bunch of commercials once with the famed director Errol Morris. We saw hundreds of actors--all beautiful and accomplished. Morris' direction to each of them was always the same. "Do something," he'd say as they planted themselves on a strip of tape. Those who did something bold, humble, authentic or funny got considered. Everyone else was sent home.

3. Ask about my friends. Most people in hiring positions have friends in hiring positions in other places. Never leave an interaction, whether it's in-person, by phone or via e, without another name.
This is called networking. And it works.

4. Write notes. If you see work in a trade magazine that you like, write to the creatives and compliment them. Tell them you want to work for them. Tell them you want to meet them and show them who you are. It couldn't hurt.

5. Wash windows. Be willing to do anything to get work, to get closer to where you want to be.

6. Write a good story about who you are. People hire books. But they also hire the people behind the work. Make sure your values and attributes are evident.

7. Take ten extra minutes. Wait ten minutes before you send anything or post anything anywhere. Today's instantaneousness of expression means people send out notes with the word "hopefully" spelled "hoefully." Make sure you're letter perfect. And assume people will look at your FB and LinkedIn. So don't be a dick.

8. Figure out a "Touch Strategy." Assume that finding a proper job will take six months. Think like a direct marketer (which is what you are at this point) and figure out how to write to your target over that time period without being obnoxious or cloying.

There's more, I'm sure. But this is enough for now.

De-Coding, Part 2.

My friend Tore Claesson sent me something from a blog I don't read called "digiday." In it they asked a bunch of people to write a job description of what their job really is, not just the title.

An Editor wrote this about his job:
“I send emails to people telling them what to do. I send those emails after my boss sends me an email telling me to send those people emails telling them what to do. If you think about it, my boss could send those emails directly to those other people, and I could just stay home. But then I’d miss all the meetings where no one listens to each other but just tries to show how smart they are or that they read last Sunday’s Times and that we should copy what they did.”

I wondered what would happen if agency people took up the challenge and wrote descriptions of their job as it really is. 

• I create decks that bore people
• I spend days and nights designing decks that bore people
• I work on ideas that never get produced
• I sit in endless meetings because so many people are lonely
• I mend things that other people break
• I am so busy going to agenda-less meetings that I can't meet with anyone
• I assign blame

De-Coding.

When they say: 
"This is our recommendation."
They mean:
"We like this ad, even though you'll never buy it."

When they say:
"This is out of scope."       
They mean:
"We wasted too much time on building a deck to have any time left for creative.

When they say:
"See if you can make the end-frame drive to an experience."
They mean:
"I'm in way over my head and need to say something incomprehensible."

When they say: 
"I'm a story-teller."
They mean:
"I'll keep talking until someone agrees with me."

When they say: 
"I'm sorry I'm late."
They mean:
"I'm sorry I'm here."

When they say: 
"Make it edgier.
They mean:
"I have nothing constructive to add but need to say something to save face."

Brevity.

Over the past two months I have conceived, written, produced and shipped nine commercials for two separate clients.

I am not pro any one medium over another.

But there's one thing I'll say in favor of TV over perhaps anything else.

You have to, quickly, in 15-seconds or 30, get attention, communicate something, and persuade.

To be successful you have to embrace brevity.

You have to be scrupulously reductive.

Taking everything out.

These are disciplines that are lacking in much of today's world. Yes, I know Twitter only gives you 140 characters. But that's a different kettle of fish.

When I was young in the business, I was often stuck.

I felt I had no ideas, no way to solve the brief I was assigned.

Often what I did was write.

And write.

And write.

Doing so allowed me to focus.

To start wide and then narrow.

Narrow down to a single sentence.

That usually became my headline or a tagline.

The discipline of brevity is a discipline there's too little of.

My advice?

Work long hours making things short.

Essie Mae Washington-Williams, 1925-2013.

Essie Mae Washington-Williams died on Monday. She was 87. And you can read her obituary here:obituary

She was the daughter of arch-racist Strom Thurmond--America's longest-serving Senator at the time of his death--and the Thurmond family's maid. The maid, Ms. Washington-Williams' mother was 15 when she gave birth.

He rewarded her, through intermediaries, $200. I assume for services rendered.

In 1948, Ms. Washington-Williams' mother died and Strom Thurmond, then Governor of South Carolina, ran for President as a "Dixiecrat." He carried five states and won more than one-million votes. He said at the time “All the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes...”

I like reading stories like this. 

Stories of colossal hypocrisy and sin.

They make me think advertising isn't so bad.

I need work.

I like to kick back as much as the next guy.

In the patois of today, I'll even take a moment or two to chillax.

But I need work.

I need to be busy.

I need to be thinking.

I need to be doing.

I need to be juggling assignments.

I need to be challenged.

I need to have a knot to untie.

It's not all noble.

I need to compete against others.

I need to find the answers sooner.

And better.

I need to win.

To surpass.

To win.

That's what work does.

That's what it's done since we were living in caves and hunting mammoths in groups. There was always one cro-mangon who led the way.

Work can be nasty.

It can certainly be unfair and petty.

Like life.

Because, after all, it's just like life.

But like life, what's the alternative?

Summer Soldiers.

Of all the types there are to dislike in our business--and there are many, I've decided I like Summer Soldiers the least.

I despise them more than I despise the bullies.

I despise them more than I despise the do-nothings.

I despise them more than I despise the blow-hards.

And the jargonistas.

And the know-it-alls.

And the haters of advertising.

And the ignorers of facts.

And the doyens of data.

Summer Soldiers are the types that are all over an assignment when the sailing is smooth, when the living is easy. They're the first to disappear, to meld into the forest, to show up missing, when the work gets hard. When the edit isn't working. When you're staring at disasters.

Summer Soldiers evaporate when the going gets tough.

Then, when the corner is turned, when sweat and toil and determination prevail and the work begins to work--there they are, triumphant, vain and glowing.

They've returned.

They're there.

There's credit to be grabbed.

Every assignment, or nearly every one, has an arc.

And most often part of the arc is that moment of terror when things seem to have taken a turn for the worse.

I've found that that's when the real work begins.

The ingenuity. The elbow-grease. The client modulation.

Those are the moments creatives show their true colors.

That's when you need to come through.

That's when it's apparent how different the real world is from ad school.

You can't just wash your hands and go onto something new.

You have to work.

And that means showing up.