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. 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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