AdGuyManifesto.com

OK guys. Every couple years I feel the need to send this out.

I don’t even know how I came across it. It was published in DrunkardMagazine.com back in 2004, and I probably shouldn’t be reproducing it here without permission from lawyers and such, but sometimes ya gotta just beg forgiveness. Anyway, it’s a brilliant piece of writing and there are things we should all take with us.

———

“It took me a long, long time to learn what I now know, and I don’t want that to die with me.”

—Frank Sinatra

Pundits often speculate why the Rat Pack remains so deeply embedded in popular culture.

Some reckon it was because the heart of the Pack, the holy trinity of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr., were peaking in their respective careers precisely when they forged their fateful union. Others claim their rise hinged upon the testosterone-fueled reaction of the fading Macho American Male against the encroaching, decidedly un-macho hippie revolution. Yet others believe it was the diabolical work of vast media conspiracy—the newspapers fed on scandal then, as now, and the Pack gave them all they could stand and more.

Then there are those, myself included, who believe the well is much deeper than that. That the Rat Pack wasn’t just a gang of hard-drinking, easy-loving, high-rolling celebrities who happened along at the right time, but also something much bigger and much more difficult to define—an idea, an ethos, a subconscious creed whose roots extend all the way back to ancient Greece. The Rat Pack was the primal embodiment of the notion that we are not put on this earth to toil until death, but rather that we are here to swing.

Admittedly, their timing couldn’t have been more perfect. The conformist 50’s were colliding headlong into the gooey flower-power movement, and red-blooded Americans were at a loss as to how they were supposed to behave. They were desperate for leadership and suddenly a group of very confident cats climbed up on stage in a small desert town in Nevada to deliver a soused sermon of sheer unadulterated fun. And the world sat up and took notice.

It was January 1960 and they called it the Summit at the Sands. There would be other Summits later, but this was the opening shot of the Swinging Revolution, the party that was heard around the world. After a few straight songs, the show would devolve into something best described as a very public stag party. Songs were perpetually interrupted by wisecracks, political correctness was made a pariah, the sacred audience was cajoled and rousted, the performers openly drank deep from a bar centered on stage like a sacrificial altar. Much of the act was ad-libbed and riddled with inside jokes, and the audience—and the army of press that had gathered—suspected the performers were having more fun than those they were supposed to be entertaining. And they were right.

When they drank the whole swinging world drank with them and drank them in, taking cues as to what was square and what was a gas. Their waves of joy rippled around the globe as they staked out an island of cool in a confused cultural landscape. And, what’s more, they made it look easy.

Even now, decades after their heyday, the ripples are still spreading. Catch the wave, baby.

From funerals come flowers.

It was only after Ava Gardner shoved him into a black sea of despair that Frank was able to transform from a washed-up bobbysox warbler into the undisputed master of the boozy saloon ballad. Dean’s acrimonious (and most thought career-ending) break with Jerry Lewis allowed Dean to step out of the shadow of playing straight-man and into the light of master entertainer of all trades. The traffic accident that cost Sammy an eye lent him a fresh perspective on life (literally and figuratively) that gave him his final boost into super stardom. They’d all been to bombsville and they knew there was always something in the rubble worth taking with them.

Always act like you know what you’re doing.

Even if you don’t. Especially if you don’t. “We ain’t figured out what the hell we do up here,” Frank admitted onstage at the Summit, but by sheer force of gall they not only pulled it off, they made their off-the-cuff goofing around seem like a cool new way of doing things.

Work hard, but make it look easy.

Never let them see you sweat. Swagger beneath the spine-crushing yoke. Never let it appear your limits are being tested because, as Sammy pointed out, once the bastards know your limits you stop being larger than life and start being about the size of an average schmuck.

You get the kind of friends you deserve.

Frank learned that the hard way. During his first rise to the top he behaved very callously, willing to cut throat if it meant a step up the ladder. When he eventually fell off that ladder, very few hands reached out to catch him. During his second climb up, boosted by his Oscar-winning performance in From Here to Eternity, he was not only careful not to step on any fingers, he pulled up a lot of cats with him. His reward? The Rat Pack, baby.

Anytime is the right time for a party.

“Let’s start the action!” was Frank’s eternal battle cry. The Pack didn’t believe in down time, any possible moment was fertile soil for a wing-ding. “I may run for the office of president,” said Frank. “I’ll have a slogan on billboards all over the country: ‘Gimme a bottle and a glass and I’ll get America off its ass.’”

Drink like a man.

Wine was fine with dinner, beer was great for watching a baseball game, but it was hard liquor that powered the Pack. Jack rocks (Frank called it gasoline) was the primary fuel, supplemented with dry martinis and scotch.

There’s always a higher peak.

No matter how high you’ve climbed, no matter how many accolades lay at your feet, you should always be packing for the next expedition. Resting on your laurels is akin to greasing the rails of a sled balanced precipitously on a long, steep slope that goes nowhere but down. Trade in those comfortable slippers for a grappling hook. At different points in their careers each of the Pack had the opportunity to cash in his chips and say, “Man, that was one wild, swinging ride.” Instead they informed the dealer, “Sling ‘em, baby, I’m feeling lucky.”

Broads come and go but pallies are forever.

Romantic love has it’s place, but abandoning your pals for your current fling was akin to selling the ranch to go play a bit part in an Off Broadway western. An army of women marched through the Pack’s circle, they even married some of them, but the circle remained unbroken.

To be a good leader sometimes you have to be a bad man.

Nobody truly respects a thoroughly nice guy. Every great leader has a mean streak and Frank certainly had his. Glad-handing might earn you good will, but respect won’t follow unless they understand that hand knows how to ball into a fist. Frank could be the most giving, generous, and kindest pal in the world, but his clan understood that if you crossed him you’d better know how to duck.

When in doubt, swing.

In both senses of the verb. The Pack were firm adherents of the idea that there are few situations a good right hook or wild party won’t make more interesting.

Learn to take a punch.

Punches come in all shapes and from all directions: emotional, vocational and, yes, physical. Somewhere along the line it became standard behavior to admit your hurt, to cry over your pain, to bemoan the meanies who would do such a terrible thing, and finally to solicit hugs to make the hurt go away. The Rat Pack had a whole different idea. They understood that anyone who steps into the ring of a life worth living is going to get hit. A lot. And when you did, you didn’t run to your corner and weep, you rolled with it and angled for a vicious counter-punch.

Never sweat the small stuff.

The Pack lived within the big picture, they understood that if you were reaching for the stars it didn’t matter if your shoes were untied. Today’s troubles became tomorrow’s punchline. Case in point: When Sammy became suicidally depressed about losing his eye, Frank outfitted the rest of the Pack with matching eye-patches. Sammy cast aside self-pity and got on with his life.

Only take a shot at a pal when he’s in sight.

Trading barbs with pallies is a very important part of the male experience, but repeating the same insults when they’re not around is forbidden. Case in point: Sammy would trade the most insulting of wisecracks with Frank and Dean on stage, but when he took a shot at Frank during a radio interview, the Leader wouldn’t talk to him for two months. Sammy never made that mistake again.

Money does no good sitting in your pocket.

“You gotta spend it,” Frank said. “Move it around.” The Pack knew you earned a lot more interest spreading it thick (the recipients of their legendary largess were especially interested) than letting it sit in a bank. Whaddya angling for, pal, a solid gold coffin?

A lady ain’t a tramp.

A paradox, isn’t it? They called them broads on stage and in each other’s company, and Lord knows they womanized, yet they were very nearly Victorian in manner the rest of the time. Not only did they go for the sending-flowers, opening-the-door, helping-her-into-her-coat routine, they were also more than willing to defend a lady’s honor with fisticuffs. “I may sound old fashioned,” Frank said, “but I think all women should be treated as I’d want my wife, daughters and granddaughters treated.”

There’ll be plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead.

Some broads, as Frank liked to say, look better from the rear, and he felt the same way about the dawn. Throughout his life Frank waged a very personal war against sleep, he hated the very idea of it, he considered it a miniature form of death. It was when the action stopped, when the pallies staggered home, that dark thoughts started seeping in. Avoid it as much as possible.

Never apologize for your pals.

Sinatra mixed with mobsters, Dean associated with that thug Sinatra, and Sammy, for crissakes, palled around with Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan. They, for whatever reasons, saw something in them worth bonding to and never felt the need to explain why. Hey, they may be fuck-ups, criminals and reprobates, but they’re your fuck-ups, criminals and reprobates.

Never rat on a rat.

Bogart, the original Alpha Rat, established that phrase as the gang’s motto and Frank enshrined it. “Pray silence,” was the Pack’s byword, the idea being, we’re all in this shady enterprise together, so who’s going to point fingers? Leave that to the press.

Make the most of your weaknesses.

Frank’s lack of classical training lent him the audacity to experiment with the form until he ended up creating a whole new way of singing. Dean’s ingrained misanthropy allowed him to cut the ties that would have bound him to a single genre of entertainment. You would have thought the entrenched prejudices of the day would have prevented a short, one-eyed, jewish, black man from rising to the top of the entertainment world, but Sammy used the stark spotlight of controversy to showcase his monumental talents. Noted Sammy: “Fame comes with its own standard. A guy who twitches his lips is just another guy with a lip twitch—unless he’s Humphrey Bogart.”

Nobody owes you a good time.

Except you. If you find the company you keep boring, maybe it’s because you’re putting them to sleep. If no one’s ring-a-ding-dinging the bell, get off your butt and do it yourself. It didn’t matter if they were stuck shooting a movie in a small Ohio town or the middle of a Utah desert, the Pack always brought the party with them.

Once you stop moving, you start dying.

Just like sharks. Frank considered impatience a virtue, fully understanding that lying in a rut is an invitation for someone to start shoveling dirt on you. When recording an album, Frank would tell the conductors, “Let’s keep it moving please, because if it bogs down, it’s deadly.” Inertia, he knew, is the death of creativity.

If you can’t do it with class, it isn’t worth doing.

That goes for drinking at a bar, taking a broad out on a date, throwing a party or walking into a room. What exactly is class? It’s the details. Tip like a king and deliver it like a secret. Formal attire but never overstated (Sammy sometimes bent this rule). Never let a pallie wonder where his next drink is coming from. Never yawn in front of a lady and always be quick to light up her smoke.

Better a proud thief than a humble beggar.

Frank and Dean stole from Crosby, Sammy stole from Frank, and the whole world stole from the lot of them. They never asked for permission and they never made any bones about it. They took what it was, made it better and passed it along.

Work to live, not the other way around.

“We’re not setting out to make Hamlet or Gone with the Wind,” Frank asserted in the midst of shooting Ocean’s Eleven. “The idea is to hang out together, find fun with broads, and have a great time.” During the shoot they would drink ‘til dawn, pass out, show up fantastically late on the set, start drinking again, execute each scene in one take, booze it up on stage at the Copa, then, finally, another date with the dawn. “The satisfaction I get out of working with these two bums,” Dino would say, “is that we have more laughs than the audience.”

Rules are for suckers.

“When your opponent’s sittin’ there holdin’ all the aces, there’s only one thing to do: Kick over the table,” advised Dino. Fences are for sheep and the Rat Pack soared above them like eagles. How will you ever know if the rules are even real until you give them a good kick?

Loosen up.

A lot of us should get those words tattooed across our knuckles, as a reminder we’re taking things too seriously. A light heart is the grease that makes uncomfortable situations slide right on by. Frank said it: “If you ain’t loose, you can’t swing.”

Regrets are a dangerous rearview mirror.

Spend too much time staring into that ugly little reflection and you lose sight of the road ahead. Regrets? The Pack had a few, but apparently too few to mention in their collected interviews. Best to just twist that mirror until your gorgeous mug is smiling right back at you. Now, isn’t that a better view?

Love the man in the mirror, because he’s the best pal you got.

“The only person who can hurt you is you,” Frank said. So treat him right, treat him with respect, and most of all, show him a good time. He’ll pay you back in spades.

The world breaks everyone, and those who break sometimes end up stronger in the broken places.

Hemingway preached it and the Pack were true believers. Frank’s post-Ava crackup, Sammy’s automobile crash, and Dean’s multiple divorces all made them more resilient, more eager to win, more willing to lay it on the line. Once bitten, twice bold.

You will know a true pal at first sight.

“You bypass the acquaintanceship stage immediately,” Frank explained. “Either your currents are different and the chemistry isn’t there or else you’re hooked and you’re a friend immediately and in most cases permanently.” Though their personalities were miles apart, Frank, Dean and Sammy hit it off right from the start, and over time they found enough common ground to build an unbreakable union.

Better two pals than a two hundred acquaintances.

Politicians, princes and bigwigs of every stripe vied for a place in their circle and were roundly rejected. Frank, Sammy and Dean understood every human being has only so much emotional energy to pour out and you could either give a crowd a small taste or get a couple pallies loaded. Which sounds like a better time?

Take care of the little guy.

They’d insult powerful politicians, punch out career-mangling newspaper columnists and pick fights with fellow celebrities, but they always took care of the guys who mixed their drinks, dealt their cards and carried their bags. They’d all worn those shoes and knew exactly how they fit.

A man without enemies is a man without character.

Let’s face it, if you stand up for anything, and I mean anything, someone is going hate you. Even saints like Lincoln and Gandhi got whacked. The Rat Pack, the original players, certainly had more than their share of player-haters. They shrugged it off, they knew it was part of the gig. Frank’s favorite toast? “Here’s to the confusion of our enemies!”

Women are, and shall forever remain, a mystery.

Said Frank: “I’m supposed to have a Ph.D. on the subject of women. But the truth is I’ve flunked more often than not. I’m very fond of women; I admire them. But, like all men, I don’t understand them.” And if the Chairman of the Board couldn’t figure them out, what chance do we mortals have?

Live in the now.

The past was where you screwed up and the future is where you die. The now is where you swing. “You only live once,” Frank noted, adding, “and the way I live, once is enough.”—Frank Rich

Copyright 2004 Modern Drunkard Magazine

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Chances are, whatever you know about Harley’s isn’t about the Shovelhead. The Shovelhead was a kind of Harley engine that powered all their bikes throughout the 70′s. They dressed them up a lot of ways, but the engine was basically the same.

They were terrible. They were wonderful. And most likely, if you were taking off before sunrise on a Saturday morning to ride up Route 1 with a couple buddies from Long Beach to San Francisco for the weekend, you’d experience both sides of that bike.

I had three of these creatures from 1977 to 1995. I figure I put maybe 200,000 miles on the three bikes and I know them inside and out. One never figures ahead of time that one could become an expert in something so odd, but it happens.

Like I said earlier, if you know of Harleys, you probably know of modern Harleys. The one’s that actually run and have some rather sophisticated engineering. They are also complex enough that when they do break, you’re taking it to a dealer.

The Harleys I’m talking about were NOT like that.

Shovelheads were big, heavy, slow, loud, cumbersome, they didn’t turn or stop and they shed parts at random times. THAT’S the kinds of beasts I rode all over California all those years. Greasy, rattling, engineered by monkeys… That’s the Shovelhead.

But what does that goofy machine have to do with the concept of User Experience?

User.

Experience.

As simple as that. Really.

What defines the user experience for a motorcycle. Sure, it’s a basic form of transportation, but in its finest form, its entertainment. Its a total body video game that grips every sense and involves every ounce of your being.

It also takes you around and lets you cheat when it comes to parking.

But for me, those miserable bikes were a ticket to anywhere, any time. They were a drug, a therapy, a friend, a party waiting to happen.

Or in the immortal words of a tattoo forever blazed on a good friend… “I seek a great perhaps…”

So if we see a motorcycle in it’s highest form as all those things, the Shovelhead was a perfect User Experience.

You HAD to be fully entrenched in it’s eccentric ways to feel that way.

The rear exhaust pipe would rattle loose. You needed a long allen wrench to keep it attached. The brakes would fade, you need a can of brake fluid, a couple small wrenches and a piece of clear tubing to bleed them… The carb would get out of adjustment but if it was idling funny at a stoplight, or the insides of the pipes were too black, you could adjust the carb with your gloves on at a stoplight. Just reach down and turn the idle screw till it sounded better… if the tappets got loud, pop off the covers with a screwdriver and pull out an open ended 9/16th and 1/2 inch wrench and use the kickstarter to get the jug to its bottom position and get the pushrod to a firm turn…

Over the years I got developed a small leather toolbag that had everything I needed to keep it running. A dozen or so tools, wire, extra sparkplugs, some points and a handful of nuts and bolts. I could tear it down on the side of the road and put it back together, usually without many parts left over.

My User Experience was total and complete. I knew exactly what it would do all the time. I knew when it would break and how to fix it. I knew how fast I could take a turn. I knew when it’d lock up or stall or come up with some other diabolical excitement, and I knew how to solve the problem.

It was so easy to work on that I could get to problems easily. There were no covers or plastic goodies to get in my way. Everything was hanging out in the air and common backyard tools could pull anything off and put it back on.

So I was at home with the greasy beasts.

And every time I got out to start it, dump it into gear with a resounding chunk and roll back the throttle, I’d smile. The sound filled any space I was in and every pop of the V-Twin could be felt throughout my whole body. It owned every experience and allowed me along for the ride, but there was always a cost. It gave very few free rides. Something would need a little tweak, but once we both understood each other, we got along just fine.

200,000 miles of just fine.

Thats a million miles in Bike Years.

I finally realized my Bike Karma was way used up. Very few people can ride that far on machines that WANT to kill you and survive. I’m lucky or crazy or stupid or brilliant. You can decide which. I sold my last Harley and bought a BMW for a couple years, then bailed on two wheeled entertainment. Family. Business. Reasons to stay alive.

But about that User Experience thing.

Really good UX means full involvement that’s easy and engaging. My old Shovelheads that that in spades.

If we can build Web sites to be that engaging, we’ll be very successful.

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It was a grand experiment.

I went Vegan for almost two years. No meat. No cheese. No nothing that was ever part of anything that walked, crawled, swam or waddled. I felt so proud. I felt so socially responsible. I fell asleep at odd hours.

Ya see, while it’s a grand gesture, it’s a serious pain in the ass.

For the past year, I’ve been traveling a LOT doing Dozen engagements all over the country. That means a day of travel, three days with clients and back on a plane. So that meant sometimes living on nuts and berries in airports. Picking meat out of dishes. Eating catered sandwiches that ended up being bread and lettuce.

It’s a serious pain in the ass.

But I pushed on. Made it almost two years and I finally caved. And the first thing I noticed is that I had a lot more stamina. I didn’t have to eat every couple hours. I felt stronger. I felt BETTER…

Go figure.

Not to say that it’s bad. I guess we all find out what works for ourselves. I guess I’m just a bit of a carnivore. Hell, I was in a restaurant and asked the waiter if he had a vegan menu and he looked funny at me and said “you don’t LOOK like a vegan.”

Maybe he was a lot smarter than he looked.

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I love great design.

And so does the whole world. Look at Apple. They’ve done very well competing in a business where everyone thought the cheapest would win. But they approached the market with the idea of making truly beautifully designed products and do you ANYONE that doesnt own an Apple product?

I bet you know plenty of people who don’t own a Dell product. And the ones that do, probably brought a laptop home from work and WISH they had a Mac.

So good design works.

Well, recently I was on the hunt for a new coffeemaker. My last coffeemaker had lasted five years and was failing. Lots of bells and whistles that stopped ringing and whistling. So I decided to find out who made the best coffeemaker in the world and WHY it was better.

It was a short study.

Technivorm.

Terrible name. But maybe not if you’re Norwegian. Maybe it means “World’s Best Tasting Coffee…”

So here’s the secret. Coffee tastes best if it’s brewed right at boiling and brewed quickly. So most coffeemakers fail because they throw in a lot of silly gadgets but get cheap on the hearing element. The goofy, science experiment looking Technivorm has NO gadgets but a really big, overbuilt, copper heating element.

It heats up the water uber-fast and uber-hot. You brew a pot of 10 cups in 6 minutes.

And it tastes as good as a fresh cup at Starbucks. Really. Not kidding.
It’s fantastic and there is nothing to break or go haywire. Pour the water in, turn it on and you get a full stainless steel, insulated pot of fantastic coffee.

It’s not cheap. It’s $300 and looks pretty bizarre next to the techno models with all the grinders and timers and facial recognition scanning devices. But it should be making great coffee for many years to come.

Hurray for great design. It wins again.

Now maybe Technivorm should send me a box of coffee filters or maybe a trip to Norway in the summer.

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Some phrases stay with forever for reasons we’ll never fully understand.

“Whither goeth thou America, in thy big black car, in the night.”

Some phrases make us laugh and get used over and over again.

“You fucked up. You trusted us.”

“Yes Madam, I am drunk. And you are ugly and tomorrow I will be sober”

And some phrases we’d give anything to have authored.

The job of an Ad Guy is to understand this and be the dark soul that comes up with this magical drivel.

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I sold out. I sold The Ad Ranch.

My baby.

My ad agency.

That thing that defined who the hell I was (well, kinda).

I had the agency for more than a dozen years.

A dozen years.

A dozen years. Had to repeat that.

For an Ad Guy, that is several centuries.

We Ad Guys have very short attention spans. We can’t survive any other way in this business. Or maybe it’s the other way. The Masters of Concentration do other things. They design bridges or financial plans or own insurance companies. They can love One Thing and feel good every day doing that One Thing.

Us Ad Guys cant live like that. Sorry.

And not that that is bad. Big world. Need all the talent we can get to keep it spinning.

But us Ad Guys have short attention spans. We can dive deeply into a thing and know enough about it to somehow, in a short time, to feel it in our souls. Feel it enough to find that thing hidden inside that will make people care about it.

And if we didn’t have that skill to move quickly in and out, we couldn’t survive this bizarre business.

One day we’re selling medical equipment.

The next day we’re selling urinal cakes.

The next day we’re selling software.

That afternoon, we’re selling cookie dough.

Who knows, maybe urinal cake cookie dough is next.

And if we had to only care about ONE of those things for any length of time (day, week, month, 40 years)… We’d implode like a poodle in a microwave.

We’re an odd race.

But we’re fun at parties and the world needs us.

That’s why “in house” ad agencies die.

You just can’t expect great ad minds to care about the same shit every day. They dry up and whither and blow away like so much fireplace ash.

Wait. What did I start writing about…

I was talking about selling out.

Back to the beginning.

I sold The Ad Ranch. Sold it to an Austin company called Catapult Systems. I actually took a Real Job.

My first Real Job in those dozen years.

Where to start.

Catapult.

They’re a Microsoft consulting company based in Austin with a half dozen offices and around 300 people. They build Microsoft systems, customized for big companies. Sharepoint is a big one. They also build custom apps for companies need to solve a problem that nobody else has.

An odd company to buy an ad agency one might think.

But maybe not. They work with some pretty impressive technology from some pretty impressive companies. They build huge sites, both internal and external facing.
But everything they do is based on a marketing problem. Every web site is there to be a marketing tool, even if only your employees see it.

So it was a good fit. And it’s been a blast to make the transition.

After a dozen years as a stylin little boutique agency, moving to becoming a part of a large company has been an interesting transition. And one I’ve enjoyed very much.

So I’m looking forward to the next couple years. Change is good. Good change is better. I’ll be writing about this transition more and more unless I’m working 30 hours a day.

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OK. I’ve never been a football fan. Never got it. Who cares. It’s a game. Games are silly wastes of time. The world will keep spinning if we win or lose. I’ve just never been competitive that way.

Blame my upbringing I suppose. I grew up in LA. A city of several billion without a pro football team. I grew up not on the Pop Warner field, but riding my bike to the beach to surf or heading to karate practice. Not big team sports.

So football was something other people cared about.

That was till TCU came along. My daughter is now a sophomore there and her first semester, TCU came up out of nowhere to become one of the nations top teams. Many thought THE nations top team. A little private university in Ft. Worth with only 7000 students was suddenly on the national stage. Last year they had a perfect season to land a spot in some obscure bowl named after greasy snack food.

I don’t pretend to understand the whole BCS, BCS Buster, Bowl thing. Beyond the boundries of my life. I should care now, but there are plenty of other people out there to care so I don’t have to.

But little TCU has been relegated to the back of the Bowl Bus. The big guys don’t want to deal with them. Hows it going to look when a school just twice as big as my fricken high school beats a monster program like UT.

So little TCU got ignored. So did Boise State and a few others.

But TCU will not be ignored. And for the Horned Frogs to go to the Rose Bowl and come home winners with true class, was amazing.

But back to that “why I’m a football fan and I get it” thing.
And why an Ad Guy would finally get it.

It’s GREAT marketing!

Marketing is seduction. Seduction starts in the mind and works it’s way down to the pants (which, in this case, means the wallet).

Since TCU started this big-stage football rise, their place on the national platform has risen dramatically. Everyone loves a winner. Everyone wants to BE a winner. And football is our modern day gladiator. Not as bloody or full of lions, but the same thing. (I found NASCAR to be the same thing… amazing experience. Louder and bigger and more likely to explode).
Now their applications are through the roof. Suddenly this little obscure “Christian” school is a destination. Big programs don’t want to tangle with them. Purple and white are great colors to be seen in.

The idea of Horned Toads isn’t, well, whatever the hell it was before. (OK, quick aside here… I grew up with a Horny Toad as a pet. They are extinct or something now. But you could buy em in pet stores when I was a kid. They were flat lizards that sat there till they sprinted off and vanished and you had to bug your Mom to buy you a fish or hamster or something. Well, they do have little horns, but they’re not really toads. They’re lizards. And toads are NOT frogs. Toads are toads. So they were misnamed from the start. But nobody ever called them Horned Frogs… They’re NOT frogs… THEY’RE LIZARDS!

Someone explain this to me.

Trivia. Horny Toads can squirt blood from some little duct in their eyes. Probably a good reason why they’re extinct or something.)

Had to get that off my chest.

Back to this football thing.

As I crawl through my 50’s, I become aware of many things. This must where enlightenment comes… or something.

I’ve learned to accept football and sports in general as a “spectator” thing. I never felt I had time or mental capacity to waste on that crap.

But now that I’m paying for the damn team, and I have a dog in the hunt (Texas phrase. Sorry), I care.

Not care enough to get in a fight, or watch every game, but I can appreciate the whole experience. And watching my Horned Frogs WIN the rose bowl (row 11, right behind the far right tuba in the TCU band baby) was an amazing experience.

To me that is the equivalent of a religious experience.

That same “we’re all ONE against whatever (satan, the other team, whatever)” thing is powerful juju.

And great marketing.

I just spent a couple thousand dollars to join that church. And on my flight back to Austin, I’m proudly wearing my ghastly purple TCU baseball cap. And I high-fived others wearing purple. I bought Southwest cocktails for 20+ others wearing TCU garb. I got the “horny toad fingers” from an old lady in a wheelchair and purple shawl (loved that… moment of silence please).
Hell, I love the whole concept and I didn’t even to go school there.
I went to school at Cal State Long Beach.

We don’t even have a damn football team. Women’s volleyball is the Big Sport there.
Mmmmmhmmmm.

So I get football. I get baseball (went to see the our Texas home team win) and watched TCU in the College World Series.

Hell, I even appreciate rugby.

I’ve moved beyond my “screw everything” LA Surfrat Thing.

I do have friends who shake their heads and wonder if I’ve been possessed by demons. I’ve always been the guy that poked holes in whatever they cared about. But now I’m starting to care about stupid shit.

Go figure. Guess it’s Middle Age. But really, at 52, this aint the middle. This is the Home Stretch. Guess everything tasted good eventually.

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OK. So I never actually MET Hunter S. Thompson. So he’s not actually a “friend,” not even in the Facebook kinda way.

But I’ve always admired how he though and how he communicated his thinking. His communication skills always amazed me and I’ve read nearly everything he’s ever written. I think had he not been who he was, he’da made a great Ad Guy.

A friend sent me this link this morning and I had to share it with whatever world is out there reading my blatherings. This is a cover letter HST wrote back in 1958… The year I was born…

He sent it to the Vancouver Sun looking for a job. I don’t think he GOT the job, but it’s the best cover letter I’ve ever read. I get cover letters from prospective Ad Types all the time and for the most part they are college course drivel… “My goal is to work in a team environment blah blah blah cutting edge blah blah empowered to excell… gag me now…”

It’s about guts. If you’ve got guts, you’ll do unsafe things. You don’t have to be stupid, you just have to have guts. HST had guts… And he did a lot of stupid things, but he had the guts to have an idea and jump over the cliff with it.

That kind of thinking makes great advertising.

If you’re afraid of offending someone or standing out, stay the hell out of this business. Go work in a bank here safe matters more.

The letter.
————-

TO JACK SCOTT, VANCOUVER SUN

October 1, 1958
57 Perry Street New York City

Sir,

I got a hell of a kick reading the piece Time magazine did this week on The Sun. In addition to wishing you the best of luck, I’d also like to offer my services.

Since I haven’t seen a copy of the “new” Sun yet, I’ll have to make this a tentative offer. I stepped into a dung-hole the last time I took a job with a paper I didn’t know anything about (see enclosed clippings) and I’m not quite ready to go charging up another blind alley.

By the time you get this letter, I’ll have gotten hold of some of the recent issues of The Sun. Unless it looks totally worthless, I’ll let my offer stand. And don’t think that my arrogance is unintentional: it’s just that I’d rather offend you now than after I started working for you.

I didn’t make myself clear to the last man I worked for until after I took the job. It was as if the Marquis de Sade had suddenly found himself working for Billy Graham. The man despised me, of course, and I had nothing but contempt for him and everything he stood for. If you asked him, he’d tell you that I’m “not very likable, (that I) hate people, (that I) just want to be left alone, and (that I) feel too superior to mingle with the average person.” (That’s a direct quote from a memo he sent to the publisher.)

Nothing beats having good references.

Of course if you asked some of the other people I’ve worked for, you’d get a different set of answers.

If you’re interested enough to answer this letter, I’ll be glad to furnish you with a list of references — including the lad I work for now.

The enclosed clippings should give you a rough idea of who I am. It’s a year old, however, and I’ve changed a bit since it was written. I’ve taken some writing courses from Columbia in my spare time, learned a hell of a lot about the newspaper business, and developed a healthy contempt for journalism as a profession.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag-ridden with myopia, apathy, and complacence, and generally stuck in a bog of stagnant mediocrity. If this is what you’re trying to get The Sun away from, then I think I’d like to work for you.

Most of my experience has been in sports writing, but I can write everything from warmongering propaganda to learned book reviews.

I can work 25 hours a day if necessary, live on any reasonable salary, and don’t give a black damn for job security, office politics, or adverse public relations.

I would rather be on the dole than work for a paper I was ashamed of.

It’s a long way from here to British Columbia, but I think I’d enjoy the trip.

If you think you can use me, drop me a line.

If not, good luck anyway.

Sincerely,

Hunter S. Thompson

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If you’re an Ad Guy you probably know about this ad. I remember reading it back in design school somewhere back in the early 80′s. It inspired me and, really, has been the driving philosophy for everything I’ve done since. So I got to thinking that maybe I could find the original piece that I’d badly quoted for the last thirty years.

Well, I did find it. And it reinspired me all over again. I dont know if Bud is still with us or not, but I raise my hat to you sir. Your words have helped me create genuinely effective advertising for the past thirty years. Thank you. If we ever meet, beers are on me.

“Looking for the Capo d’astro bar.”

By Bud Robbins

Back in the sixties, I was hired by an ad agency to write copy on the Aeolian Piano Company account. My first assignment was for an ad to be placed in The New York Times for one of their grand pianos. The only background information I received was some previous ads and a few faded close-up shots…and of course, the due date.

The Account Executive was slightly put out by my request for additional information and his response to my suggestion that I sit down with the client was, ‘Don’t tell me you’re one of those? Can’t you just create something? We’re up against a closing date!’

I acknowledged his perception that I was one of those, which got us an immediate audience with the head of our agency.

I volunteered I couldn’t even play a piano let alone write about why anyone would spend $5,000 for this piano when they could purchase a Baldwin or Steinway for the same amount.

Both allowed the fact they would gladly resign the Aeolian business for either of the others; however, while waiting for the call, suppose we make our deadline.

I persisted and reluctantly, a tour of the Aeolian factory in Upstate New York was arranged. I was assured that ‘we don’t do this with all our clients’ and my knowledge as to the value of company time was greatly reinforced.

The tour lasted two days and although the care and construction appeared meticulous, $5,000 still seemed to be a lot of money.

Just before leaving, I was escorted into the showroom by the National Sales Manager. In an elegant setting sat their piano alongside the comparably priced Steinway and Baldwin.

‘They sure look alike,’ I commented.

‘They sure do. About the only real difference is the shipping weight—our is heavier.’

‘Heavier?’ I asked. ‘What makes ours heavier?’

‘The Capo d’astro bar.’

‘What’s a Capo d’astro bar?’

‘Here, I’ll show you. Get down on your knees.’

Once under the piano, he pointed to a metallic bar fixed across the harp and bearing down on the highest octaves. ‘It takes 50 years before the harp in the piano warps. That’s when the Cap d’astro bar goes to work. It prevents warping.’

I left the National Sales Manager under his piano and dove under the Baldwin to find a Tinkertoy Capo d’astro bar at best. Same with the Steinway.

‘You mean the Capo d’astro bar really doesn’t go to work for 50 years?’ I asked.

‘Well, there’s got to be some reason why the Met uses it,’ he casually added.

I froze. ‘Are you telling me that the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City uses this piano?’

‘Sure. And their Capo d’astro bar should be working by now.’

Upstate New York looks nothing like the front of the Metropolitan Opera House where I met the legendary Carmen, Rise Stevens. She was now in charge of moving the Metropolitan Opera House to the Lincoln Center.

Ms. Stevens told me, ‘About the only thing the Met is taking with them is their piano.’

That quote was the headline of our first ad.

The result created a six-year wait between order and delivery.

My point is this. No matter what the account, I promise you, the Capo d’astro bar is there.”

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I love tea. I drink gallons of the stuff. Mostly green tea but lately a lot of those girly herbal mixes.

So a couple years back I discovered those electric teapots. Fill it full of water, set it on the base and it cooks your water up. Great invention. Given them away as gifts and have one at home and at the office.

Well, the office teapot gets a LOT of use and it finally died. I took it apart, couldn’t fix it. Realized I had to find a replacement for my favorite appliance. I was at World Market buying other stuff and found one. Clear glass, pretty classy unit, liked the idea of watching the water boil. Purchase made and took it home to make a pot of tea.

All was great till I took it out of the box and opened it. It smelled like swim fins inside. That weird chemical silicone/rubber smell. Not very appetizing and probably not adding a lot of important vitamins and minerals to my diet. I cooked some water. Same smell. Added baking soda, same smell. Added white vinegar (two drops deodorize a skunk!)… Same smell.

Sadly, I realized it was a badly designed product in my kitchen. I grabbed the receipt and put it away till I could make the trip back to World Market to return it. Because it’s out of my way, it was hard to get back to return it, but yesterday I did.

There was some confusion but eventually, some kid came out from the back and said I couldn’t return it because it didn’t have the box.

The box?

The box was fine. It did it’s job. But the product stunk.

I was pretty appalled. The box? What the hell? What does the box have to do with anything? They sold a lousy and possibly toxic product and I’m stuck with it forever because I didn’t bother to bring back the box.

I’ve spent literally hundreds if not thousands of dollars at World Market. I’ve bought furniture, wine, most of the dishes in my house, gifts and food at World Market. Now they’re going to dis me because I didn’t keep a box?

I was pretty disgusted. I just left the toxic teapot on the counter and walked away. My final purchase at World Market.

This is bad policy. And what happens when bad policy meets good communication.

Social Media. Blogs. Web site comments. Word of mouth. Bad JuJu.

We all have that power now.

It kinda reminds me of that 80′s movie Ragtime. The African American guy gets pushed around by the local morons in a fire department and he destroys the place. That was within his power to demand justice. But we dont need to go that far (but a lot of people do, look at that nutjob here in Austin that flew his plane into the IRS).

We have a new equalizer. The Web. When a corporate entity does us wrong, we can take to the Webwaves and tell the world. Corporations are aware of this and do everything they can to negate this. Good corporations allow comments on their web sites about the products they sell (a local Austin company helps this… Baazarvoice.com). That’s a great idea. When you see a company that openly allows their customers to honestly interact, you know you can deal with that company. You know they’ll be honest because everyone is looking.

As for the power we all have (and should use), I’m using it.

I’m blogging. I’ll Tweet. I’ll Facebook. I’ll tell my friends. Maybe I can cost World Market tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue. Maybe executives in charge of policy will start having bad dreams. Maybe their restaurant meals will come out bad and the waiter will say “Bummer dude, you already tasted it. We can’t sell it to someone else now…”

As a famous ad guy once said, “Great advertising is the fastest way to kill a bad product.”

I did a little research and found the CEO of World Market (the Web means there is no place to hide.) He’s making $800,000.00 a year with a bonus of double if he performs (doesn’t say what kind of performance he has to do though).

I also found a lot of negative press about World Market. Darest I share the links? Oh heck, why not.

http://www.rainforestrelief.org/Campaigns/Outdoor_Furniture/Cost_Plus.html

http://www.city-data.com/forum/cincinnati/549164-decline-fall-world-market.html

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Cost-Plus-RVW192382.htm

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2009/01/05/daily55.html

I connected to Barry Feld on Linkedin. He’s the CEO of World Market. You should too. Here’s the link

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/barry-feld/7/500/74a

Or email him at barry.feld@cpwm.com

I’ll tell him about his policies and the fact that they are selling products that nobody tested. Hell, they’ve probably got a dozen containers of the stinky little teapots shipped from some poison spewing factory in China. Something tells me he’s not using one in his office though.

Did I go too far with all this? Well, for one I was bored this morning. Woke up at 7AM on a Sunday morning and had nothing else to do. And I do have a strong sense of justice. We all know when we’ve been dissed and we all want justice. The web is a great place to demand it. It equalizes us all. It gives us all power to be heard.

So next time you get a bad policy tossed into your lap, or have a corporate decision wack you upside the head, make some noise. It’s your right and your responsibility to bring about justice.

Even if it’s for a stupid little $60 Toxic Teapot.

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