Bad mood Tuesday.

I write a lot in this space about the over-blown proclamations spouted by various branches digital advertising. As far as I can fathom, I've never willingly clicked on an ad on Facebook or Linked In, never responded to a sponsored post, never reacted to a tweet, or viewed a frame of syndicated content and never once witnessed or participated in a 'conversation about a brand.'

That said, I suppose I've been giving mass media a free ride. I haven't excoriated it the same way I've disparaged digital work.

It seems to me that :30-second spots can proceed one of two ways. They can be so entertaining that they make you feel good about the brand or about your relationship with the brand. Or they can impart useful information that prompts you to act.

Most spots I see do neither of these. They aren't entertaining enough to be entertaining. And they aren't informative enough to be informative.

They fall somewhere in the middle. 

They are either a stand-up comedian with bad jokes.

Or a college lecturer with no notes.

Painful. Or empty.

Last night, I suppose wallowing in this thought, I happened upon another type of advertising failure: the 'help wanted' ads on the site "Working, Not Working."

These ads try hard to be hip, funny and au courant. But they fail. They fail in every fiber of every phoneme.

Here's just a bit of the poison I read. If you're this tone-deaf in advertisements for yourself, what hope do we have that you'd produce astute work for others?

"We know what you’re wondering…is this one of those job posts where XXXXXXXXX is looking for a Copywriter/Art Director dynamic duo in theirNew York office where everyone is a part-time magician and some of them have blue hair? Yes, yes it is."

Here’s the deal: XXXXXXXXX is looking for an experienced Senior team to take all this unicorn hair and turn it into magical site/content designs in our New York office. Yup, unicorn hair. 

If you wake up everyday screaming, “IF ONLY I WORKED AS AFREELANCE SENIOR COPYWRITER AT XXXXXXXXXXXXX IN NEW YORK I COULD STOP HATING MYSELF AND MY LIFE WOULD BE INCREDIBLE!!! BLERG !!!” we can help.

We know what you’re wondering…is this one of those job posts where XXXXXXXXX is looking for a Senior Copywriter in their New York City office where everyone is eccentric and some of them wear Warby Parker glasses? Yes, yes it is.

Same brief. Different results.

Frank Capra, William Wyler and George Stevens were three of Hollywood's top directors when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and in short order, America was at war with the Axis powers. All three enlisted and all three created notable wartime films.

When the three returned home, they each responded to the horror and the carnage they had witnessed and experienced. They each made a personal picture that reflected their world view as we struggled to get back to something resembling normal.

Capra came out with "It's a Wonderful Life." He wanted his simpler America back. He wanted the good guys to win. He wanted a world where faith would strengthen us and would help us prevail against hard-heartedness and greed.

Wyler created "The Best Years of Our Lives," the story of three returning vets and their struggles and their family's struggles with peace-time. Wyler returned home gravely wounded from the war. He lost his hearing filming while making a documentary about P-47 fighter planes. He cast Harold Russell as one of his returnees. Russell wasn't an actor, he was a soldier who lost both his arms in the war.

Stevens was most devastated by the war. He had spent his last six months or so in Europe filming death camp after death camp, chronicling the depravity, sadism and racism those camps carried out. He captured it all, including the lampshades and the ashes. His films were introduced as evidence at Nuremberg. Even Nazi lawyers gave up defending their clients after seeing the films.

Stevens had been a director of light comedies before this experience, including dozens of Laurel and Hardy shorts. He returned from Europe in late 1945 but didn't make his war movie until 1953 when he made "Shane."

Shane, of course, was a Western. But it was Stevens' view that it was his war movie. He felt that killing one person was the same as destroying the world. But sometimes, sadly, we have to kill.

The movies mentioned here are three of the best ever made.

They stemmed from the same crucible of horror. And they're all three very different. But they're all enduring, even if they are, today, somewhat dated.

There's more than one answer to a brief. There's no one right way.

It's finding how to express what's important that matters.

--
PS.  I love "It's a Wonderful Life" and no matter how often I view it, it seldom fails to bring tears to my eyes. But "Shane" is, to my eyes, something wholly magical. Palance's murder of Elijah Cook Jr., and Alan Ladd gunning down, in turn, Palance are as good as it gets.

Jorge Navidad.

Short-stop Emilio Burrito, 3rd from right.

Just an hour ago I got an email from a friend of mine from almost forty years ago. His name was Emilio Burrito and he was a star short-stop and my best amigo back in the 1970s in the Mexican league. He would be in town, he was laid over in JFK, and was it possible for me to visit him while he was waiting for his next flight.

I’d have done anything to cab it out to Kennedy, but my wife had made plans that I couldn’t extricate myself from and, I assured him, we’d have to do it the next time he flew through town.

When I was 17 and had just graduated high school, I was one of the better baseball players in the New York area. Much to my parents’ anger and rage, I decided to forgo college, so I could continue playing ball and perhaps achieve my dream of making it to the major leagues.

My parents did their harshest to harangue me out of such a plan. First they threatened to cut me off without a cent. Then they reminded me of how few ballplayers actually make it to the majors and how few of the few that do earn a good living at it.

This was the mid-1970s, pre-free agency where a good insurance salesman could make more than a major league utility player.

Nevertheless, I am as stiff-necked as they come. I insisted on pursuing my dream. And so after weeks and weeks of fighting, we somehow reached a compromise.

I would defer my admission to Columbia in New York for one year. And I would try out for teams in the rough and tumble Mexican leagues. Not only could I live relatively cheaply south of the border, the quality of competition was high and while I was there (this was my mother’s idea) I could pick up Spanish fluently.

On June 17^th, 1975 I arrived in Mexico City with a letter my coach had written and my Spanish teacher, Senor Cowan had translated. It described my strong and resilient arm, my speed on the base-paths, knowledge of the game, as well as the local acclaim I had earned as a high-schooler. Mostly, however, it described the prodigiously long home runs I had stroked throughout my years as a Rye Wildcat.

I headed to Saltillo in Coahuila, Mexico, where their team the Sapareros had just entered the league only five years earlier. I arrived at the small stadium, found the coach and requested a try-out.

He handed me a battered helmet, had me pick out some lumber and had me go up against the Sapareros’ star pitcher Carmine de Sapio. De Sapio was throwing aspirin pills that morning and I immediately swung hard and missed at a couple of his fast ones. That futility earned some laughter from the onlookers. But I stayed dug in and lashed a line drive, then another and another.

De Sapio pulled out the stops and I lined one into the short rightfield stands. The hit another long one that fell just short of the seats in center.

The coach called me over.

“Su nombre,” he said.

I told him and he choked on “Tannenbaum.”

“It will be better,” he said, “if we give you a Spanish name. George, Jorge.”

That was easy enough. Jorge was already my high school nickname.

“Tan nen baum, arbol de Navidad.”

“Yo soy Jorge Navidad,” I confirmed.

Jorge Navidad. Second from left.

I played for the Sapareros for the remainder of the season, 66 games in all. And I did ok, batting in the low .270s with good power. I was never much of a man with a glove but I held my own.

But I’ll admit, the charm of life as a ballplayer in the Mexican leagues quickly wore thin. It was obvious that I was not going to be the next Mickey Mantle and as the season closed, college beckoned and I returned to the States, retiring Jorge Navidad and hanging up my spikes once and for all.

Emilio, if you're reading this, next time you're in town, give me a little notice and I'll show you a good time.

But as for now, mi amigo, vaya con dios.

Gabriel Marquez Garcia. A memory.

Years ago my partner Craig and I had enjoyed an amazing string of advertising success in the fast-food category.

For a fast-feeder called El Pollo Cubano, we created and introduced the chain's first fish sandwich. We named it after El Capitan himself, Fidel Castro, and called it the "Fidel o' Fish." Not only did that effort win us gold from a variety of shows, we each received a box of Corona Corona cigars from the great man.

Some years later, we introduced the chain's Korean BBQ sandwich with a tribute to Kim Jung Il. That effort was launched with the line "The Kim Jung. The Il-est Korean Barbecue Sandwich." It won us award after award and a free pass anytime we wanted to visit Pyongyang.

The next meal we introduced for El Pollo Cubano was their Mexican Taco sandwich. Craig came into the office with one of his typical brainstorms.

Without a word he started working the phones. He was bent on getting through to Gabriel Marquez Garcia. With the stamina of a seasoned marathoner, he got through after a few hours.

"Yes, your eminence," I heard Craig say, "we want to promote El Pollo Cubano's new Mexican Taco sandwich in your honor."

Craig held onto the blower and withstood an onslaught of rapid-fire Spanish. Fortunately, Craig's high-school knowledge of that language carried the day.

"It's a simple line, Gabe," I heard him say. "100 Years of Salsa-tude."

I heard through the phone the old man chortle, then guffaw, and then issue a vociferous "si, si!"

We ran it up the flagpole with the client at El Pollo Cubano, and before long, we had yet another hit on our hands.

A New York rat story.

I just had one of those crazy New York subway experiences that do so much to liven up life and this blog.

I was taking the Number One train downtown and, I suppose because it’s Easter week plus kids are off from school, New York is far more crowded than usual. You could push a hotdog with your nose from York Avenue to Broadway and still manage to beat the crosstown bus.

Somehow, I guess the aggressive New Yorker in me emerged in full fury, I found a seat and the second the train pulled out of the 79^th Street station, I felt something crawling up my leg. This crawling of course came a week after half of New York saw a You Tube video of a rat that had invaded a car on the A train.

I kicked my leg furiously, fully skeeved and checked under the seat, but there was nothing there. The well-dressed woman seated next to me said, “What was it.” I explained I thought it was one of New York’s furriest.

Then she told me a story about how a friend of hers announced the death of her pet rat on Facebook. Double-weird. 1) Having a pet rat in a city of millions. 2) Announcing any sort of a death on Facebook.

“Now,” she said, “here’s the really weird part. My friend’s daughter’s name is Leila and her rat was named Layla. So when I read on Facebook at Layla was dead and she was in mourning, I immediately was horrified. Her daughter dead at 20. God Forbid.

“I called her and she clarified that it was her pet rat Layla, not her daughter Leila who had passed.”

“Why would you name…”

She cut me off.

“Your darn-tooting. Why would you give your daughter and a rat essentially the same name?”

I was left to ponder that as she exited at Times’ Square.

A Thursday poem.

Whatever happened to hashtags?
They were going to takeover the planet.
You wouldn't just read an ad.
You'd interact and scan it.

Whatever happened to Google Plus?
The new, new new thing,
A couple years later
It's just a prayer and a wing.

What about Facebook "likes"?
Proof that people cared.
Did they add to the bottom line?
Was anything really shared?

And Tumbler, and Instagram,
As marketing grail.
Did they ever do anything,
Or lead to a sale?

And what of the posers
Who strutted and led?
Who said you have to do this,
Because TV is dead.

Their forecasts were wrong.
Their predictions fell flat.
But they all moved on.
And forgot about that.

Let's not be accountable.
What we say doesn't matter.
As long as our careers
Move straight up the ladder.

We're not really interested,
In brands and enhancement
All this new media is
Just for our advancement.

I spout therefore I am.
So speak before thinking.
And don't pay attention
To that thing we left stinking.

Walking West.

I walked west this morning, following the advice of Horace Greeley and the wagon-ruts of pioneers from centuries gone by.

I walked west, past Third Avenue, once home to Ally & Gargano, Grey, Scali, Needham, Benton and Bowles. I walked west past Madison Avenue, home to so many agencies, it gave our industry its nickname.

I walked west this morning, nearly to the Hudson.

Agencies used to be important to clients. So they were paid fairly, justly, and could afford the rent on Madison Avenue, on Park, on Lex.

Today, our services and our offices have retreated to the fringes.

Geography is destiny.

We are a side show.

In just the 30 years I've been in the business, we've gone from Madison Avenue
to Halfway House Avenue, Homeless Shelter Avenue, Honda Dealership Avenue.

The semiotics of our move west are damning.

We are no longer central to making businesses work.

So we are located in no man's land.

The past isn't dead. It isn't even past.

I've been a little slow out of the gate the last few days. I guess it's the result of being at at least arm's length from the vagaries of life in an advertising agency. The quotidian bullshit, the daily grand proclamations, the back-stabbing and credit stealing have been missing from my routine. What's more, I've been running hither and yon and haven't been exposed to much of what's on TV. No full-frontal dumbness assault has risen in my consciousness and made this space.

I guess the most seminal things as we are nearly 20 years into the "this will change everything" era, is how little has changed. I mean how little has changed even from pre-industrial times. Last night, just 24 or 48 hours removed from 80-degree temperatures in Manhattan, we got a light dusting of snow. It was, I suppose, this winter's last gasp, and it went out with a half-inch fizzle.

Of course, all over Facebook, it was the Apocalypse come to bear. My friends bemoaning the weather every bit as fervently as farmers did two centuries ago.

What's changed?

The channel is more digital than a bunch of coots congregating at the local general store. But the conversations were the same.

So much of the vaunted social media revolution is really just the binariation of conversations we used to have in bars, in barbershops, or wherever people met.

People need these conversations. They need shared space and to connect with others. I'd say Facebook does a good job making such connections easy.

What it has to do with marketing is yet to be revealed.

You can say the same thing about dozens of other technological advances. They're cool. But mostly they recreate something we already liked in the analog world. Behavior hasn't changed. Channels have.

Whenever I hear friends gush about data-fed contact lenses or the yet-to-be-articulated splendors of 3D-printing, I always respond the same way.

"That's terrific. But what does it have to do with selling stuff?"

Even apps that make online commerce easier only replace what we would have bought anyway in an analog way. They're not new mousetraps or better ones. They're only mousetraps a bit closer to the mice.