Halloween Meal Prep

When stepping back and assessing Halloween with the clear eyes of Lasik-powered adulthood, a number of problems appear. But it’s not what you think. The ghouls and the goblins, they’re mostly all right. The emphasis on death and offensiveness is unsurprising. While candy consumption is not a sin, in and of itself, there is something truly troubling about the accumulation of copious amounts of delicious sugary treats.

And it’s not what dentists think either that troubles me. If your teeth rot, every party store on the planet sells those plastic Dracula dentures, which, appropriately enough, ought to do the trick, delaying total gum decay. At least until Veterans Day. But no, what’s disturbing about Halloween traditions concern the lack of gastronomic diversity. The greatest sin of October 31^st is its halfhearted attempt to be defined by a tiny sliver of available food. 

Have you ever heard of a meal consisting solely of candy? What's a civilized person meant to do with all those wrappers? Collages, frankly, are quite passé. More trash, more garbage, more work. I can understand a banana, a melon, even an artichoke – which all require genuine effort to eat. Or genuine apathy to eat, if rinds are your way of getting the most out of your daily nourishment. 

 

The greatest holidays are defined by food, or more accurately, by feasts. Then how come Halloween, a day devoted to eating, is relegated to snack food that fits in your pocket? If it was a night revolving around dessert – I might be tempted to look the other way. In that case, you’re talking about the capstone to any fancy night out. Plus, with dessert, you have cakes, pastries, and most anything that’s bakeable. 

What would we think of Thanksgiving if the whole day amounted to sharing a packet of turkey jerky with famished family members? I can tell you. We wouldn’t think much of it. That’s Halloween. 

Right here and now, I’m calling for Halloween to expand its narrow scope. A treat is hardly defined as a sweet. Why can't a treat be savory? Imagine the look on a young child’s face (that's if you can see it through the poorly-ventilated rubber mask) upon getting a meticulously foil-wrapped BLT, to join their plastic pumpkin overflowing with Twix and Snickers bars. Candy corn doesn’t come on the cob and only a madman would try and smoke a candy cigar. 

When the little ones arrive home, they'd be treated to a tasting menu – a huge ten course meal with minimal parental prep. Anyone participating in the holiday’s natural evolution, is open to handing out napkins, silverware, zucchini flowers. Anything goes now. Trick, or treat yourself to the whole menu. 

And for those who want to cancel Halloween this year, who simply can't be bothered. I’ll say only this - we’re already wearing masks.  

Lorem Ibsen

  

Print ads, for a great many in the industry, represent the de facto pinnacle of communication. Ergo, whatever you need to say, you should be able to say it in two dimensions.  Spread out flat on terra firma (or on the kitchen table), between puddles of maple syrup and used spoons. Television commercials are not as pure as print ads, per se. 

But the most common source of agita concerns how to fill in the remaining copy blocks – those hefty paragraphs towards the bottom of the page, where you're supposed to explicate the headline even if it means employing a rhetorical non sequitur. It’s a balancing acta, I guess. In the early stages of any ad’s life, art directors take it upon themselves to fill in the space left over by their partners, toiling over every last syllable, wishing they could copy the great ads of yore verbatim. In a pinch for time, especially since they aren’t working pro bon, many resort to some sort of computer generated fake Latin. While admittedly much better than whatever bona fide English usually replaces it, we could, as a business do better. 

Would it be so hard to write corpus copy in Latin? The only homo sapiens who say it’s a dead language are those who refuse to learn it. They are contributing to the tongue’s deadness, set in their ways, unwilling to acquire useful knowledge, yearning instead for a sizable per diem. Having studied Latin in high school for two strenuous years, I fully understand the status quo. 

Latin would imbue advertisements with a sense of realism that they often lack – tabula rasa would be more desirable than whatever trendy nonsense is in there now. If you really want to know about the ad ad nauseum, what toothpaste to use or what dogfood to buy, you should do like our ancestors did and learn Latin. If it was good enough for Imperator Augustus, it should certainly be adequate for you. The headline will still semper be in English, but that’s as clear as things should get. 

 

It wasn’t that long ago when the Catholic Church held services in toto like the Ancient Romans. People are always saying how the United States of America is just like Rome, mirroring its postmortem and barbarian-induced rigor mortis. With our gladiatorial street fights, idol worship, and unhealthy obsession with sandals, we might as well be that ancient empire, and vice versa.

Although, as president I’d veto any request from a senator wishing to wear a toga. Cui bono from seeing Mitch McConnell dressed that way? 

Nemo.

American Croesus

It’s never too early to start celebrating. There are friends of mine with tinsel on the brain, who start wrapping Christmas presents and picking out trees during the doggy days of summer. They write long missives to St. Nicholas shortly after the last bottle is recycled on Bastille Day. For them, to celebrate any other way would be nuts. What’s the use in waiting around for one day a year to enjoy yourself when the rest of the calendar provides ample opportunity for joy and revelry? They wish people “happy birthday” months in advance, ignoring basic social norms and commonly-held superstitions. These are the sort of folks who change their clocks whenever they want to.

They aren’t anxious or upset about jinxing themselves, completely unconcerned that their acknowledgement might somehow doom things on a cosmic level. This is how they live their lives. And they’re not alone. 

In the past, there were plenty of individuals who refused to wait until the credits rolled to decide whether the film was good or bad. They were born with a certain skill, allowing them to foretell the outcome. Not a bad thing in love, war, or when contemplating the complicated chore of counting chubby cooped-up chickens. Because by the time they hatch, you might have a regular contretemps in your midst. 

Judging from the historical record, there’s never been a shortage of people who wanted to celebrate on the early side. It’s understandable, I guess. Since we’re always talking about how short life is, why not say Happy New Year whenever you wish. Many basketball fans, even diehard ones, argue the 4^th quarter is the time to watch. But not for our target audience. They prefer the first half, satisfied with what's likely to happen, quickly heading home to beat the traffic - totally at peace. 

There was a French commander, Paul Présomptueux, reporting to Napoleon himself, who decided to write an advice book for budding megalomaniacs. He finished the manuscript the morning of Waterloo, hoping for a Bonapartian blurb to entice haughty publishers. Who can forget the priest working on his toughest sermon to-date during the height of the Black Death, tentatively entitled “Plague Schmague.” It was eventually delivered to empty, putrid pews. Or how about the weatherman, Al Rokerius, who, on October 24, 79 AD, told his Pompeii audience that the forecast was, and I’m quoting now, “… perfect. More proof of benevolent Gods.” Not that umbrellas would've helped all that much.

All of these men were dreamers. And none of them took kindly to opposing viewpoints, stubbornly soldiering on amid countervailing opinions. They felt confident in their assessments at the time, and it’s just not fair to quibble centuries after the fact, pointing out in bold letters and red pen where they might have gone wrong. 

In our time, there’s “un uomo,” who decided the best way to combat this year’s colossal impact was to publish a book. Maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s not too soon. Too late? The freshest perspective is none at all. 

Merry Christmas and mission accomplished. 

C'monopoly

Like any good writer, I read as little as humanely (or, if my replacements enter the fray demanding refreshments and better pay, robotically) possible. When I must read, either for work or to impress neighbors on a plane, I accomplish it without ingesting too much knowledge. The last thing you want is to overwhelm your free and empty mind with facts and words, inducing a mile high brain freeze. Skimming, scanning, skipping. Those are the tools at the ready whenever a glossy periodical makes it way onto my lap. To read, you don’t need to actually read – you just need to appear to have read. 

However, I do read the instructions to board games, going line-by-line, parsing every word like a tax cheat looking for a divine loophole. How do you play?

It’s why when I see the word “monopoly” in big, bold letters at the top of a long story I plan on ignoring, my mind wanders to thoughts of the Parker Brothers and nothing else. In their infinite, fraternal wisdom, these gamified gurus of the boardwalk saw to it that a man personified their greatest ambitions. We should all be fortunate enough to traipse through life with a top hat, twirlable mustache, and matching bowtie. Top hats are essential when showing respect or embodying humility. You can’t tip your hat if you’re not wearing one.   

Morbidly obese felines in our nation’s capital want nothing more than to bust trusts. I see right through them. They do it for the same reasons Barry Sanders liked to shake and bake or Emeril Lagasse preferred to fry and cry – the rhyme. There was no higher purpose than that because the world revolves around rhyming. From Shakespeare to Seuss, rhyming remains a rarefied skill. So open your ears. HR personnel laugh and staff. Mountaineers climb and mime. Sailors fish and wish. Plumbers flush and blush. Hunters trap and yap. Late night talk show hosts bore and whore. Investigative journalists pester and fester. Morning talk show hosts listen and glisten. Teenagers mope and hope. Babies wail and flail. Line cooks mince and rinse. Actors pretend and descend. And writers deceive and aggrieve.   

Before sending Zuckerberg to the poorhouse, consider this: would we have a problem if our billionaires dressed the part like good Uncle Pennybags? Sneakers, t-shirts and a corduroy blazer may work for Silicon Valley, but here in the real world, we like our rich folks dressed for the part. I implore Bezos and his ilk to grab a cane and rub the smudges out of those cobweb-covered monocles in the bottom of their desk drawers. And I know a good haberdasher if necessary.

Meteorship Programs

While many scurrying around certain nameless departments will have you believe that mentorship programs began with the advent of the dial-up modem, the real story is far richer. What would these people call Sherpas, leading jet-setting European novices, decked out in phosphorescent parkas with more trail mix than the planet has trails, up onerous Himalayan peaks into oxygen depleted euphoria? Sorry, but that’s what I call a mentor. Someone who’s looking out for you in the most intense of circumstances. Maybe it’s not one your university’s career office will find, but if you can’t learn life lessons at 28,000 feet above sea level, there’s no point in helping you down the mountain. You might as well take your boots off right there and have a snowball fight.  

Climbing Mount Everest is one of many examples of something that you cannot do alone. The stakes don’t have to be as high, of course. You can’t walk a dog alone. You can try, frolicking through neighborhoods with a leash and no pooch. See how long that lasts. You’ll end up getting more questions than you can answer. 

Personally, I find mentorship tricky. Maybe it’s the process that’s too daunting. The “hey, how are ya?” The fear of rejection is strong, although tension should be part of any productive relationship. You could adopt mentors from another time, like say, Sir Walter Raleigh or Marie Curie. But they won’t be as responsive as you probably need right now. 

I’ve replaced mentorship with something I call meteorship. Through a large telescope jutting out of my living room window, I scan the night sky looking for movement. Stars are too possessive and frankly, too old. They don’t do a lot, until their help is no longer needed. When trouble arises, they implode. What I like about using a passing meteor as a mentor is that I know most take on a pretty hands-off approach to counseling young recruits. However, should one show up on my doorstep, I’m prepared. This way, I’m not stressing over face-to-face meetings, trying to find the perfect thing to say. My whole goal is to get my career in a good place before that. Given their age, most meteorites are solid authority figures, though ones that I can still relate to. But they are a spontaneous bunch. Meteorship means accepting that your mentor may arrive tomorrow, in ten years or in another epoch. They are on a different path, which of course, gives them the proper perspective that earthbound mentors can’t possibly possess.   

I should caution you. I’m not the first living thing to get their life goals blown up by sudden mentorship.

Blank Sage

As any suspendered and pinky-ringed comb-over connoisseur will tell you under enhanced interrogation, your new car starts to depreciate the second you drive it off the lot. It’s why I park mine at several dealerships across the city. They didn’t think of that, now did they? The only risk here, aside from obvious criminal complaint, is that some car dealers may actually enjoy abject humiliation and borderline torture. It may have inspired them to enter the business. Where else would they have free access to jumper cables, car batteries and enough freon to turn Lady Liberty into a Queen size glowstick. Yet it’s still true that you’re destined to devalue your wheels after purchase. There’s no improving upon the lord’s (or Detroit’s) handiwork.

Copywriting falls into a similar trap. There are few more sublime sights in the western hemisphere than a completely blank page. On an empty sheet, your possibilities remain infinite. They are all there and you don’t even have to squint to see them. Close your eyes if you like. Open them if you must. No matter your preference, there’s nothing that page can’t do for you. Because the moment you put ballpoint to bald paper, the dream disappears. Your words are the problem. When leaving something open, you’re showing compassion. Why ruin it with a couple puns and one long run-on sentence? We know that too much copy is a thing, but too little? No chance. 

Filling a page is like putting a condominium in the middle of the Amazon. It’ll help people for a while. Give them a refuge on aimless ambles through the thick brush. Might even create a mild tourist attraction. That’s until an uncontacted tribe picks this day for a little contact. Quite overdue in that department, you now have a full-fledged insurrection on your hands (and if they have good aim, in your hands). Do you know what it’s like dodging arrows when you’re the target? I hope not. 

The advantages to submitting blank pages should be obvious. You can skip the arduous task of proofreading. Honestly, you can skip reading altogether. You don't have to condescendingly instruct people to read between the lines and focus on subtext. There are no lines, there's no text. If you’re worried that one page isn’t enough, then cut it in half. Repeat this process until you have enough to satisfy the most demanding foil. So you might want to invest in a paper cutter. The client will ask you if this is some sort of joke. Just like toga shopping, it’s best to consult the Ancient Greeks. 

“Do you think it’s a joke?”

“Umm, no? Maybe. I guess not.”

“Why do you think it’s not a joke?”

This will go on and on, but never, and I repeat never make a declarative statement. The client will start to write a few lines on the fly (which, I might add, they’ll do whether you fill the page or not) and in doing so, you can whittle things down socractically. 

Some may accuse you of being an empty vessel. But even that insult can be turned around quickly into a positive. There’s plenty of room on such a ship, since no one’s blocking the exits. Spread out, kick back and enjoy the space. 

You should know that the first draft of this blog was much, much shorter.  

Last Resorts

When you’ve been in this business as long as I have (which in geologic time isn’t that long, just ask Devils Tower National Monument when you get the opportunity), you learn ways to rouse yourself from a creative slumber. At times, that means banging your forehead against the glass conference room door until a hairline fracture appears (on both your hairline and the door) deeming the workspace “unsafe” and sending you home for the day to finish Sir Winston Churchill’s History of the English-Speaking Peoples. You may prance into work the next day claiming you read the girthy tome, but you did no such thing. You slipped into an intellectual coma in a bathtub full of ice and expensive bottles of champagne, while some disembodied voice read it to you. Whatever that is, it’s not reading.

Your team sits there channeling their inner Burt Bacharach, wondering, “when will good ideas suddenly appear?” Let’s say the headbanging doesn’t work. You could try humming bars from the greatest jingles of the twentieth century. It won’t be enough. 

But you always have one final option. Many creative directors prefer not to go there unless it’s absolutely necessary. They call it, aptly enough, the Last Resort. It’s what you do when you’re all out, spent, dried up, unable to string a sentence together without breaking down in tears. You’re rotting - your team can see it and your bosses can smell it. It’s time to leave.

Without saying a word, you pack up and head straight to the nearest travel agency. Maybe you didn’t know travel agencies were still around, putting them on the same plane as fax machines. But they are and here's your chance to find out. Like a goose, you must go south. I’m talking far south, way past Delaware even. Out of the country and ideally, into the Caribbean. That’s right, you’re headed for a vacation resort. The land of pool noodles and sunglasses, surrounded by loungers lathering sunscreen on their noses and nothing else. The sound of a flat sandal hitting the concrete around the pool should be music to your uninspired ears. Once you arrive, you have a few weeks to figure things out. Have a tropical cocktail, attend a pork roast, line up for conga. The specifics of your trip are interchangeable. As long as you’re away from the office and never too far from a steel drum, you’ll be just fine. There are a list of pre-approved resorts at most agencies. Take up the request with HR. 

Here’s the catch – this is your last resort, remember? So after this scuba diving sojourn, there are no more Caribbean getaways in your future. No more return trips – don’t bother saying "see you next season, mon," to the friendly surf pros. You want to hit a resort again after this, try Resorts World Casino on Rockaway Boulevard. Because that’s as close to the ocean as you’re going to get. You called in a favor and opted for the last resort in the service of creativity. What'd you expect?

The good news is that from now on you’ll be swimming in ideas. Either that or you'll drown in them until they finally sink your career.

Fizz Off

Unless you’re living under a rock, mossy and worm-covered, there’s nowhere to hide from hard seltzer. The advertising push is reminiscent of the allied invasion of Normandy. Although, your rock home may be close to an as of yet undiscovered carbonated geyser. And if that’s the case, then the sheer dominance of hard seltzer knows no limits. For me, the whole thing is hard to figure.

The appeal of carbonation is understandable though. It’s the same reason you become transfixed on gymnasts during gymnastics competitions. All that tripping and hopping, flipping and flopping. We like to see stuff bounce back and forth. It's practically human nature. But for most of us, the time to concentrate on chalked up people jumping to and fro is, at most, once every four years. Now we’re supposed to imbibe bubbling beverages each night, filling our bodies with air. Where do you think balloons come from? You assume they aren’t erstwhile human beings, stretched to their anatomical capacity after one too many evenings in the sofa, chugging bottle after bottle of a borderline liquid. That's just a hunch. You haven't seen the evidence of the lack of broken down and deflated balloon people, stealing the show at parades all over Main Street.

Look, you want to eat air? Fine. Eat air. Then grab a knife, a fork and an open mouth. I’ll even provide the place settings while you lap up whatever’s in front of you. But if you want to drink water, drink water. That’s it. Products like seltzer, hard or otherwise, are bottled with hubris. I’m no fan of labels, but liquids and gases should be separate. When we start futzing with science, we get in trouble. 

You want a nice drink? One that’s in no way obtrusive but may lack a certain cultural cachet? Try flat water instead. Is flat beer that bad? Bubbles imbue beverages with a sense of unwanted urgency. What if I want to nurse this glass over the next four hours? Flat drinks, like people, remain unchanged. Consistency you can count on from pour to pour.

Flatness is a virtue. We can argue about the efficacy about certain geo-centric theories. But one thing is clear, whether or not the earth is flat, the earth should be flat. Who wants hills or mountains, valleys or gorges? Give me a straight line to the horizon and a full tank of gas. That's a planet I can get behind (or on top of).  

Are you in that much need of entertainment that you have to look for it in the bottom of your pint glass? If you simply must indulge in tasteless air eating, do it once every four years. 

 

Keep Your Pants On

Everyone started working from home without so much as receiving a phonebook-sized manual from employers, detailing the infinite dos and don’ts (with a few cautionary no-he-didn’ts sprinkled in). After spending years in an office, how are you supposed to know that the casual slurping of scalding shark stew leaves a bad taste for colleagues unaccustomed to the sounds of lip whimpering with every last boiling bite? The time to examine your coin collection is off stage. It’s not like anyone can appreciate the luster of a Standing Liberty Quarter designed by the great sculptor and Queens resident, Hermon A. MacNeil, under poor lighting and pixilation. So why is it a shock that the transition from office to home office hasn’t resembled a shimmering silver dollar? In other words, the whole thing hasn’t been smooth. 

We’re still finding our groove at the moment. You don’t expect a brand-new buccaneer, fresh off a menial job in a windowless factory, to find their sea legs right away. It takes swabbing the deck to gain essential experience – that of uncontrollable retching after a steady diet of spoiled salt-pork and scurvy-preventing citrus. Maybe you possessed superb balance on land, installing a pommel horse on your property for routine exercise. Some good that’ll do you now. Twirling and hurling your body about, envisioning how you’d slide across the parquet floors inside European palaces, surrounded by well-coiffed bon vivants, golf clapping at your every pivot. But many great dancers have been humbled by the cruelty of the sea. You can spend your whole life dancing on stages and in studios only to humiliate yourself with a single slip on a ship’s gangplank. It’s as if you’ve never really danced before. Because in a way, you haven’t. Not like this.

Some people aren’t born to dance. Let’s call the preternatural klutz in question, a truly exceptional schlemiel, and a literal schmuck, Joffrey Toobad. His name isn’t important, since that’s not really the story. But when the light turned on, he flopped like a bad Broadway show. With no plot, terrible acting and one memorable second act cameo that had everyone in the audience rolling their eyes and heading for the exits. To be frank, not everyone is equipped to withstand a public beating. Who among us would like to feel the massive flogging and judgmental grip from entire Fourth Estate? 

Some want to show colleagues their true colors, hoping against hope that no one holds it against them. This is especially a problem for paid talking heads - those popular pundits swollen with pride and completely detached from the healthy body politic. They follow polls, rely on measuring sticks, and remain fearful of becoming a lightning rod for hate. Critics chafe at second chances, but all you need is a simple stroke of luck and maybe a little hard work to reenter the fold. Plus, no one's getting off scot-free here. Once a pillar of the community, always a pillar of the community. At least until someone razes to the occasion. To paraphrase Mike Corleon, "it's strictly business, not pleasure."  

This is all a way of saying that some people should never be on camera. Why give your well-adjusted colleagues the shaft? They aren’t exactly there for a meet and greet. The reason to wear pants at all times is obvious – because it’s become a tired cliché not to. A writer should know better than to choose such a hacky send off. There are other, far more original ways to end your career. 

Zoom out and zip up.

Shortcuts

I’m constantly looking to cut corners. Turn the wheel with such panache that I pop onto the curb and flatten a tiny patch of grass, making it clear to the future curbside gardeners that botanical intrigues are best left on the other side of the sidewalk. I take wide turns, okay? It’s the one thing still ingrained from years of baseball. The problem is, of course, that plenty of pedestrians enjoy taking a wide lead, too. But hey, I suppose therein lies the fun. 

Our lives aren’t nearly as efficient as they should be. But they could be. If only I was in charge. There are obvious time wasters, sucking precious sand from the many hourglasses resting precariously on sills, ledges and fridges scattered around our multi-surfaced homes.  

I misspent my younger years as a young fashioniste – poring over periodicals with glossy covers and thick double page insets seeking inspiration. But who can keep up with the whims of style? The German and French accents are usually much too thick to understand.  It’s why I wear one outfit all the time now, showering fully clothed with big dollops of both shampoo and detergent. Outdoor carwashes are my summertime salvation. I hang myself out to dry for a bit afterwards, which takes longer than you think, especially in the colder months when the heat isn’t working to the best of its ability. But the net net saves me about 15 minutes a day - which is definitely worth it. Plus, I give off the eerie sartorial superiority of a superhero.

I stop watching movies at around the 90-minute mark regardless of plot. I never eat anything larger than a pear. I’ve given up explaining anything to anyone. I skip napkins altogether, preferring curtains and my own hair instead. I never say please, thank you, or goodbye. 

I’d much rather be a life hack than hack life. 

Emily in Baku

  

I’m not a screamer. Nor am I a schemer. I don’t take coffee with creamer. I stopped skiing to protect my femur. If I got another pet, it wouldn’t be a lemur. I don’t have to visit Rio to admire Christ the Redeemer. And despite my generational attitudes, I’m no streamer. But there is this new show I’m watching with tepid approval. I haven’t done all that closely, so it’s quite possible I’m missing major plot points. I find clear narratives are usually just out of reach. I think I get the gist though. You may have heard of it? 

It’s called Emily in Baku. The show takes place in the Azerbaijani hotspot towards the end of 1907. Of all the obscure European port cities, Baku stands alone. Good for Netflix for embracing a wild, wild place. Back then, the metropolis was a magnet for eccentrics, lunatics, and ambitious young people studying marketing communications. Think of it like Deadwood on the Caspian Sea. Cowboys, criminals, and graduates of SUNY Purchase. There was minimal law, hardly any order, but lots and lots of fun. From what I understand, shooting a series is a bit cheaper there than in the more famous regions of western Europe. Like say, Paris.

Emily grew up in Savannah, Georgia, fixated on geometric city planning. A overabundance of town squares will do that to a child. Her love interest was a fellow Georgian – Joey Stalin. During the pilot, he arrives in town on a robber’s high, after fleecing banks throughout the Russian Empire. This was when banks still kept rubles in huge sacks. When money was something you could still run your fingers through. Joey needed a place to lay low for a bit, until things up north blew over. The Tsar ignored Baku at his peril. Over the course of the first season, Emily and Joey are love interests, though the historical record is mum on the subject. 

But it makes sense if you know either person, as I did – even in passing. What was more important to the growth of the Soviet Union than marketing? Perhaps famine. Think of all those iconic posters and wild slogans we still remember years after the Berlin Wall collapsed. They put sickles, an overlooked tool of the people, on the map. Preening proles all over Brooklyn and Berkeley plastered famous symbols of the USSR without knowing a bit of Cyrillic. It was hardly necessary. It looked cool. The font, the colors, the bald dome of Lenin ushering in a new day. Stalin came to understand kerning and ledding, but Emily, through her studies, already had a firm grasp on the keys to messaging. 

It’s revolutionary programming. Only the truly bourgeois would skip the opportunity to Nyetflix and chill. 

 

 

Charlie Side Hustle

It’s either a fact of life or an article of faith that you can’t prosper in the modern world without cultivating a legitimate side hustle. The time when a single vocation fulfilled your every aspiration is no more. This is a message to promote multitasking. Success is only possible if people think of you as an interesting, complicated, ambitious worker. The techniques to achieve this are quite varied. 

There was a time, not too long ago, when you could do one thing and one thing only. There was no need for the mechanic to work as an artisanal pickler – brining everything and everyone in sight. In those days, words like artisanal hadn’t yet taken hold of the popular consciousness, forcing people all over to rethink their life choices. Does the world really need another software developer when archery is suddenly trendy? Why did I become a doctor when there’s so much gluten-free baking to be done?  People went where they felt needed, instead of where they kneaded. That would change over time. 

Astronauts weren’t podcasting during the apex of Apollo. You can’t really moonlight when you’ve literally walked on the moon. But that was then. Advertising was similarly full of single-minded individuals, unmoved by the inevitable hustling tide. They were awash in a rip current of ambition. An undertow of action. They believed that being a copywriter or an art director was enough responsibility. The thing is, we might remember Helmut Krone more today had he opened up a cycling shop in his free time. Helmut’s Helmets? Would it have ruined the reputation Bill Bernbach had he done something other than advertising? Just imagine if he dabbled in the chiropractic arts. Bill Bernback anyone? Instead, these men are relegated to tiny subcultures, unknown by a wider swath of people. It didn’t have to be this way. 

There was one person who understood the importance of side hustling decades before everyone else. His name was Pete Rose. Sure, he played baseball for the Cincinnati Reds, but he wasn’t merely a ballplayer. He also happened to be a degenerate gambler. That was his side hustle. Getting hits was what he did for a living, while trying to beat the spread was what kept him alive. Breaking Ty Cobb’s hit record didn't do it. But seeing a subpar kicker shank one to ensure he covered did.

There have been a lot of great hitters over the years. But only one Pete Rose. While his side hustle prevented his induction into the Hall of Fame, he’s easily the most famous non-member. We could all take a page out of Charlie Hustle’s sports book.  

Fiddlesticks

 

The book on Nero was simple – don’t bother him before breakfast. He was, to put mildly, not a morning person. Frankly, it wasn’t always clear to me that he was a person at all. But I’ll leave that to the experts insisting on an autopsy a few thousand years too late. Nevertheless, his post-meal grumpiness, though legendary, couldn’t hold a candle to the lunacy in store for anyone barging in on him pre-sunrise. He had a ritual, a routine that couldn’t be disrupted involving figs, grapes, and maybe a probiotic or two. If you got him sated and wished to bring up the subject of oh, I don’t know, fire safety, you had about three minutes to get your point across.

The story that everyone knows concerning his fiddling while Rome burned is, at best, a gross exaggeration. Because any of us who were there know that such behavior was wildly out of character. Had he been in possession of a wooden stringed instrument, he would’ve used it for kindling. For centuries historians have treated this myth as fact and this fact as the worst thing a ruler could do. I don’t see it. Let’s say he did play a few tunes during the great blaze. Fine. What’s so bad about that? If anything, he was counteracting the horror with a sweet melody. Nowadays, all we get are sirens. 

Fiddling takes practice, but requires very little extra effort. Had he wheeled out a Hammond organ or instructed the entire Roman philharmonic to join him for some blazing arpeggios, then I could understand the moral outrage. Although, even the greatest conflagration benefits from a musical accompaniment. But a little fiddling? Come on now. 

While there was no violin (and there wouldn't be for another thousand years or so), the man was an inveterate fiddler. He did it constantly. With his thumbs, pinkies, index fingers. When a prospective mate asked for his digits, he simply waved. But he had major trouble keeping his hands to himself. And this was long before the advent of pockets. During meals he would tap the plates in an annoyingly rhythmic patter. It wasn’t to get more snacks or the attention of the waitstaff. It was just because he didn’t know where to put his hands when they weren’t helping him shovel food.  

What do we expect from our leaders besides a little humanity? I wish more politicians would take a break from promoting legislation and executive actions in favor of a hobby like fiddling. What did people want? For Nero to put on a pair of work boots and grab a bucket of water? That wasn't going to happen.

So maybe it wasn’t his finest hour. But it still could’ve been worse. Imagine if instead of fiddling he was checking LinkedIn.

Dress Ode

Given the state of remote work in this country, many ad agencies are looking for ways to keep their employees on top of things. Because they know that focus is lost after reading the slightest click-baity headline or eating a piece of juicy fruit - not the gum, the fruit. There’s no going back to real work once you’ve read a compelling listicle or bit into something without any resistance. So it won’t be easy getting them to see the light.

Look at any photograph from 100 years ago or more and what do you see? But before you do that, how about recognizing what you don’t see? You don’t see people wearing cut off jean shorts, ironic t-shirts or really t-shirts of any kind. Dressing casually simply wasn’t done. Even jailbirds dressed sharply in those days. People dressed up no matter where they were going - to the privy, to the gallows, to the churchyard. They wore suits, ties, vests, slacks, and hats. Everyone looked the same back then, but that was sort of the point. It kept things in order - those who dress alike, think alike. 

I like the idea of a strict dress code for working from home. Where I part company with companies is a matter of degree. I don’t think mandating a uniform is adequate to subdue a bubbling, boiling, exploding workforce. You need to do a bit more than ban paisley and polka dots if you want your people to fall in line. There are books you must read, foods you must eat, things you must say. And your pets must wear clothes, too. The brainless acceptance of universal animal nudity is one of the great issues of our time. And it’s high time we placed ponchos over Pomeranians, skirts onto squirrels and balaclavas on birds. Where’s that platform plank in the talking points of either political party? Give it time and it will be there. When the sight of another naked pigeon sends a sanitation worker to the ballot box casting a vote for himself instead of some DC technocrat. Every issue starts somewhere. 

A job can tell you what to wear without telling you why to wear it. It's how fashion trends can take hold through cold business intervention. What if mullets were forced on all employees over the age of 15? For one thing, the world would be a better place. You'd start to see your employees as more than people. I want to be told what to wear and what to think. But if you want the latter, you must embrace the former. That the little camera at the top of your laptop is a mirror, too.

Get Lost

From dressing up like a turkey on Thanksgiving to reading haughty French sonnets on Bastille Day, we all have little tricks to best celebrate our favorite holidays. Like explaining to hyperactive children on an Easter egg hunt who Rabbit Maranville was and why we ought to remember him today – especially today. They are our own ways of making life easier. Traditions handed down from parents to children and from children to ground squirrels.  

 

Columbus Day, for obvious reasons, is obviously different. It’s a day that no one is quite sure how to properly celebrate. Should we honor the man with a plate of Genoa salami or salute his films? Should we curse him for his numerous atrocities or tear down his statues? It’s an open question, of course. To honor Columbus, I get in my car and just drive. Where to? I don’t know I never know. It’s hardly the point. Maybe China. Maybe the Caribbean. Either way, I’m emulating the great man with a confused route that will take me somewhere I don’t really know 

Columbus gives hope to anyone incapable or reading a map. But it’s not simply the mistake that set the Admiral apart from other bewildered sailors of the time. His makeup was significantly different. You’ve missed your exit before or turned down the wrong street. But what you felt– because you’re a normal person – was shame and humiliation. You bowed your head in disgrace, slowly backing out of a stranger’s driveway, praying to the lord above that they don’t notice you. Is stupidity a defense against trespassing? 

Mistakes happen on the road. You’re following signs that disappear or the weather gets too rough to read. The difference is that you know you’re in the wrong. You pull over onto the shoulder and call a close friend, explaining why you’re going to be late to their punctual religious ceremony. When attending a bris, it’s important to be mindful of time – a surprise party it is not. No one wants an unexpected knock at the door right at the moment of truth.  

But that’s you. And you’re not Columbus. Because if you were, you’d stay parked in that stranger’s driveway, convinced you were at the right house, going to your grave that everyone else was wrong. Just not you. Then you’d go back the next year and the year after that. When each time a man who you’d never met before would answer the door. You’d say, “Hello, Dante.” “My name’s not Dante, it’s Jason. And who are you?” “Sure it is, Dante [winking] You were such a kidder in college. So when’s the bris?” Without belaboring the finer points of circumcision, this exchange would play out for years, leaving you unmoved and unconvinced of your error. A dog would run up to you, licking your face and you’d tell the man, “your cat is quite rambunctious. What a lovely feline.” You’d do this sort of thing again and again, year after year. Why reflect when you’re right? People would follow you and some might even defend you. It’s one thing to get lost. It’s quite another to never admit it. 

So that’s how I celebrate Columbus Day. With a few wrong turns and a good amount of denial. It seems only fitting. Happy trails.  

Office Spacious

I dreamed I missed a call from St. Augustine, bored as you and me, reclining in his North African home, fattening up on grapes and heretical ideas, wondering what to make of his fellow automatons. The guileless hordes taking The Gospel as gospel. Not Augie. He was one of the first people to ask: do you really need a building to commune with the Big Guy? What does architecture have to do with salvation? Can someone wearing a funny hat explain what’s sacred about a flying buttress or an ionic column? Let me answer that in a word – no. In the Augustinian spirit, who says you need an office to work? It’s just a place to go, to pass the time. Fewer and fewer it seems, as more and more people have come around to the idea that offices reside in the heart and soul. Or at least somewhere in your lower extremities.  

The present moment has changed a lot of people’s minds. You don’t need to go into the office to be productive. But removing the office, despite the camaraderie that develops between rival colleagues and the dangerous euphoria felt after riding a rickety elevator, is merely the first step towards total work day absolution. 

Do you need a desk? If so, what for? To pile up papers you don’t read, scatter pens you don’t use, and fondle pencils you’re are too afraid to sharpen? This isn’t a kitchen. You don’t need space to rub a pork shoulder. Okay, so now that you don’t have a desk, why do you still have a chair? To sit in front of an empty void, gazing into the abyss, grappling with existential dread? No. Have you ever heard of a pillow? Sit on the floor, it won’t bite. Something may bite, yes. You can’t blame the floor for what lives on the floor, can you? It's an inviting place that offers room and board free of charge. What’s the carpet for? You’re not going to sleep there. Wood will do. Wood will always do.

Your computer’s a little large, no? And you have a monitor? Sheesh. Can’t you pretty much do everything on your phone these days? Would you be so kind as to safely throw that old thing down the company garbage chute? You don't have one? Some poor sap will take it off your hands. Why are you all dressed up and wearing a tie? In fact, why are you wearing a shirt? No one can see now. When you're not keeping up appearances, there's no one for you to appear to be.

When you think about it, do you really need a phone? Certainly not to speak to anyone. Do you need a job? Probably not. You don’t ideas to think. You just need an open mind and some decent square footage. And with all that space cleared out from where your office used to be, it looks like you’re in luck. Finally, a little breathing room to think. A job exists first and foremost in your psyche. Forget the rest of it. It’s only clutter. 

Casey at the Analytics Department

  

Baseball used to be a pastoral game played in cities. Fans, or “fantastical mental patients” like you, once listened in one ear on a transistor radio while still keeping a glazed eye on the field. You dug deep into a box of crackerjacks, only lightly licking your fingers beforehand. You’d eat cold dogs and hot pretzels, enjoy a beer or two, as long as the lines weren’t too long. You didn’t want to risk missing a single pitch. So you held it. Your bladder doing the important superstitious work of not disrupting the action. 

But that was a different game. A game that could be understood and watched by everyone, even the casual observer. There was a little joy in this Mudville. However, joy isn’t enough. We need data, statistics, and analytics. We crave more ways to remove the humanity from the game so it becomes akin to a video game simulation. Obviously, the goal is for robot umpires, robot players, and robot fans (the managers and broadcasters are already there), but we’re still far from total robotic domination. Actually, the cardboard cutouts are stand-ins for the humanoids of the future, mindlessly staring at the diamond never raising an objection. The piped in sound is a positive change, too. Booing, while protected under the First Amendment, is mean and poor play should be ignored or excused, not called out. 

Baseball was once played by tobacco-chewing, profanity-spewing sages. Lifers who understood the smell of the dirt, sound of the bat and a bunch of other weirdly sensorially intriguing associations. If only some of these geniuses could’ve been there at Waterloo. But that’s another matter entirely. Contradictions are part of the beauty. Valorize icons like Bob Gibson for pitching inside, but condemn anyone today for throwing up and in. Make sense? It shouldn't. That's the point.

What the mavens of the sport today realize is that the game is not for the players or fans, it’s for the research department. They are the real heroes of a revolutionized contest. You must outsmart your opponent – showing them you know why launch angle and matchups are important. You can’t simply play ball anymore. The things you thought mattered don’t matter. Batting average. RBIs. Rally caps. The players you thought were good aren’t good. And the players you thought were bad aren’t bad. What you see doesn’t matter. Your eyes lie. You need a higher degree to understand baseball now. You must realize that nothing is simple, especially not this game. 

 

Today’s game is about overthinking the obvious, belaboring the self-evident, trumpeting the absurd. Players play – for now. When will I know that Major League Baseball has succeeded in transforming the game for the better? When I’m not watching, having been replaced by an eerily similar robot version of myself (yes, with the same amount of hair) and when my favorite players are emotionless holograms. 

Infielders aren’t the only ones feeling the shift. 

Whistling Dogsie

  

“I’ll straighten this thing out. I know just what to say to him, especially to him. Okay? I’m gonna tell him you’re gonna go back to him and everything’s gonna be just the way it was when you first brought him home from the pound.”

While I don’t currently live with a dog, I’m often called upon by desperate owners to get through the thick skull of misanthropic mutts. When nothing else works, when all the training seems useless, all the fetchables are frayed and every last chew toy has been ripped to shreds, I enter the neck fold of a show shar-pei. The truth is, it was easier before. The conflicts usually stemmed from the destruction of a piece of pricey midcentury modern furniture or a cherished family heirloom. Frequently, owners ignore root causes, reacting only to the result. They don’t ask, “why did my pooch chew on a $7000 credenza instead of the cheap golf umbrella leaning against it?” It’s not a question they consider. When maybe it was done precisely to get their attention. Your dog isn’t so dumb, after all. 

I consider every possibility when sitting down for a one-on-one with a problematic pup. I want to understand the why as much as much as anything else. Most owners only care about the damage to their rug or whether that smell will ever go away (it won't). 

The problem is that most owners cannot easily connect to their canines. Sure, they use words like sit, stay, and down. Monosyllabic commands that belie the dog’s true grasp of the English language. People talk constantly of dog whistles, how these high-pitched signals have pervaded our society, cuing in nefarious actors of sinister plans. That’s certainly possible. But why then are the dogs – the very animals who understand the difference between discordant sounds – excluded from the conversation? Folks who talk down to dogs, delivering patronizing imperatives and annoying head pats never think to ask their dog, “hey, did you hear that speech from the congressman from Mississippi? What did you make of it?” No, they have all the answers. Why would they bother?

Yet dogs are the ones who are supposedly lapping up all this hateful rhetoric. They are left in the dust, to moan with their bone, snarling at postal carriers, worrying that future drone delivery systems won’t satisfy their taste from pant legs. The same people who never ask a dog what they heard, somehow believe they can speak for all dogs. It’s  insane. 

I ask: how would you know? Are you a dog? No. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that many a dog within a mile of a television set or political rally would be sent into a frenzy, should these whistles be for them? You'd think so.

It’s not the only code. And why is it always a whistle? Never a wind chime or a dinner bell. Never a low-toned hum or a cuckoo clock clang. Wouldn’t a simple bark work?

Now there's something to chew on.  

Attention Sans

Long ago, I once possessed the rare ability to fend off distractions with a flourish - sparklers, a bouquet of white roses and enough fireworks to blow a trash barge sky high. My attention span was long, smooth and showy. It bothered people how little I looked down at my phone or lost my train (or was it a car?) of thought. But those days are…where was I? Now, I look to goldfish for guidance, lording over their cloudy bowls, hoping to glean a few tips through osmosis, before they take that final, fateful swirl.  

This behavior has become routine. People stop in the middle of dangerous intersections to review the latest meme, ignoring the semi-trucks barreling past them. They put off opening their parachute miles above the planet, puckering up for a duck-faced skydiving selfie. Atop the world’s highest peaks, they pose theatrically despite the oxygen deprivation to their brain. Or maybe they're posing because of the oxygen deprivation to their brain. Still, it’s rather remarkable to witness this type of fearlessness. Bravery is directly proportional to your number of social media accounts. But we know there are consequences. How many dinner parties have to be ruined before someone takes a principled stand? 

We could try and fix it, repairing society from the inside out, encouraging people to stare at a bulbous cloud formation whenever they are inclined to check Instagram. But that’ll never work. What do you do at night? There’s always something, isn’t there? And I’ve already lost interest.

Advertising is in the distraction business - has been for a long time now. Too bad 30 second commercials feel like the indulgent director’s cut of Once Upon a Time in America. A tad on the long side. Who could possibly sit still for that? No ad is too short to satisfy the attention deficient masses. It’s time we in the business got ahead of the problem. No longer will we surrender to the wandering eyes of capricious consumers. We’ll tailor creative work in a way they can digest.  

I’m proposing designing supremely micro-content, easily palatable by even the most distractible among us. Nanosecond commercials will leave the consumer in a position they aren’t at all used to – actually wanting more. Craving content like never before. They’ll blink, they’ll cry, they’ll bang their devices in rage, yelling out for the rest. 

Economically speaking. this will be a serious boon to the industry, finally giving it a way out of the darkness. You can shoot millions of commercials in the time it usually takes to produce three or four. Not bad.

It’s hard to skip something that only lasts one billionth of a second. But that doesn't mean people won't try.

Fail Foliage

Every October, millions of gassy-eyed city folk flee their concrete surroundings in pursuit of deeper meaning and deeper colors. They tend to find it among the bucolic environs of the Hudson Valley and New England. These leaf peeping Toms can’t get their foliage fix in the shadows of towering skyscrapers. The palpable sense of seasonal dread coupled with a constant aroma of industrial waste makes appreciating nature an impossible task in most American metropolises. 

So they pack up and go. Filling the roof racks of their rental cars with binoculars and blankets and their backseat with Kombucha coolers and pickled vegetables. They are praying for momentary respites from the action, giving themselves a chance to catch their breath. Summer beat them into submission once again. This is their saving grace. What’s the problem? 

The pastime of peeping glorifies the worst impulses of Mother Nature. What exactly are we celebrating? Does anyone dare to put down the melted gruyere and wine opener to examine it more closely? These interstate interlopers trek on, traipsing through the periphery of the forest to admire the rich hues of oak and maple. They’re not alone either. Practically everyone they know engages in some form of pornographic autumnal fetishization.  

Leaves are colorful cowards – not the foxhole types who will have your bark through thick branches and thin needles. These chlorophonies fall right when we need them most – wintertime. It must be nice to depart when the going gets tough. Either for Florida or the forest floor. The resulting emotion is loneliness and despair.

This is the part of their life cycle we admire. The aimless drift of gravity. The lazy dive of an organism out of ideas. But it’s pretty, you say. Is winter different from the rest of us, immune to craving additional green? And yet, the trees we ceremonially slaughter each December are verdant conifers. The blue-collar members of the natural world, who go about their business absent change or complaint. We reward them by slicing through their trunks, making them idols of a two-week worship, before they too, end up curbside, wallowing in the gutter with the winos, bottle caps and sewer rats. 

Leaves fall without honor or dignity. They entice us with their rainbow of personalities, convincing people to ignore their callous abandonment of simple aesthetics and good sense. Think of all the scenic routes that are suddenly barren come November. Who sticks up for them? Other than the slow drip of literal sap. And when we could really use their help, what do they do? 

They leave.