Getting out of tricky situations isn't easy. But along the way, I get to hang out with princesses (they never wear their crowns), camel jockeys (literally!) and famous (well at least quasi-famous) people...all for the love of media and travel.
I was born in 1968, meaning when I was in junior high school (yes it was junior high school back then, not middle school), computers were word processors with green characters and manual typewriters ruled the day. If you grew up at around the same time, you probably remember typing class, where we learned some useful things, like the how to use your pinky finger when you type. We also learned some terrible, life-altering things, such as double spacing after a period.
If you still do this in your emails or reports or other things you send to me to check-over before sending them up the food chain, I do empathize with you that this is what you were taught. And while you and I are busy empathizing, you should fully understand that you need to knock it off immediately. It’s a creative monstrosity, it’s an irresponsible added keystroke, it wastes space, it pollutes the page, and it makes dogs cry.
Some heroes are helping to change the world for the better. The good folks I've worked with at two companies over the last 15 years, don’t allow us double space after a period.
One thing I do know they had back in junior high school and high school were dictionaries and Expos Comp classes where they taught us how to use homophone properly and differentiate commonly misused words. Those of us not completing slam books or writing notes to pretty girls in class remember these lectures.
For those of you who were, there are a dozen or so words you need to stop misspelling or misusing...here's my top ten.
I'm watching the the "Help Me, Help You" scene from Jerry Maguire for the 2,000th time. 22 years after the release of Cameron Crowe's great movie and this scene never gets old. It's the perfect embodiment of working with a stubborn client that needs to hear the truth and doesn't really want to. It settles me in way nothing else can because almost every client and relationship is the same when you are so frustrated that the truth must be said.
Every time I watch it I think about Jerry's Memo that got him fired and on the path of enlightenment. I thought you might want to read Crowe's original Mission Statement (only briefly covered in the film). Here’s the entire 25 pages...it's worth a read, and could change your life...
THE THINGS WE THINK AND DO NOT SAY
Thoughts of a Sports Attorney
Miami Hilton, 1 AM
It’s 1 AM and this might be the bad pizza I had earlier talking, but I believe I have something to say. Or rather, I have something to say that I believe in. My father once said, “Get the bad news over with first. You be the one to say the tough stuff. Well, here goes. There is a cruel wind blowing through our business. We all feel it, and if we don’t, perhaps we’ve forgotten how to feel. But here is the truth. We are less ourselves than we were when we started this organization.
Sports Management International began as a small company. I was hired by Jack Scully in 1981, I was fresh out of college, I didn’t even watch much sports. But a young man came to me, and his name was Bill Apodaca. He asked me to look at a contract he’d acquired to play football for the Atlanta Falcons. Before long I was overseeing the business of another member of the Falcons, and two baseball players. The nuances and the small miracles of professional sports would soon hook me — there was something simple and perfect about the way a stadium felt. The way vou felt when a player you’d helped and represented made his stand in front of 54,000 people. And I remember the conversation Mr. Scully and I had by an elevator, standing next to one of those sand-filled ashtray posts, right before he hired me as one of the first agents in this company. “You and I are blessed, he said, “we do something that we love.”
Tonight, I find those words guiding me back to an important place, and an important truth. I care very much about the fact that I have learned to care less. Now our company is one of the top three in this business, and we represent over a thousand athletes. Over sixty agents work at our huge new office, and I still haven’t met all of you. The business of sports has never been bigger, or tougher, or more written about. And we are at the forefront. But I wonder tonight, as we leave our 13th annual conference… we’ve talked a lot and partied a lot over the last three days, but I dare say that not one of us, our diet Pepsis and sheaf of papers in hand, have said what we really think.
It is beyond the easy arguments waged against sports, and our business on the editorial pages of the New York Times. It is beyond the huge salaries, the endorsements all our clients now want because “I’m a better actor than Michael Jordan.” Beyond the globalization and merchandization of the games. It’s more subtle than the baseball strike, more about loyalty than the Colts moving to Indiana, the Rams going to St. Louis, or the Cleveland Browns moving to… someplace. I’m talking about something they don’t write about. I’m talking about something we don’t talk about.
We are losing our battle with all that is personal and real about our business. Every day I can look at a list of phone calls only partially returned. Driving home, I think of what was not accomplished, instead of what was accomplished. The gnawing feeling continues. That families are sitting waiting for a call from us, waiting to hear the word on a contract, or a General Manager’s thoughts on an upcoming season. We are pushing numbers around, doing our best, but is there any real satisfaction in success without pride? Is there any real satisfaction in a success that exists only when we push the messiness of real human contact from our lives and minds? When we learn not to care enough about the very guy we promised the world to, just to get him to sign. Or to let it bother us that a hockey player’s son is worried about his dad getting that fifth concussion.
There is a good bet that I will erase all of this from my laptop, and you will never read it. But if you are reading it, and you’re reading it right now, it is only because I was unable to stop. I was unable to forget the quiet questions in the hallways, when some of you, usually the younger agents, or interns, asked me on the side: “How do you keep all these lives, all these clients, separated in your mind?”
Chances are, I didn’t say much. I might have told you “it’s easy” or “you’re not working hard enough.” Chances are, I said something that you expected, maybe even wanted to hear. But it wasn’t the truth, and it wasn’t what I felt. And if you ever wondered about the drawbacks of being quiet about important things, talk to yourself in the mirror some time, say the truth. Yell the truth to yourself, when no one is listening. See how good it feels?
My father worked for the United Way for 38 years. We lived in San Diego for many years, before I left to move up the coast to Los Angeles. One of the things my father said was: “Every time you allow a problem in your life, you are actually at a point of transformation. Crisis is a powerful point of transformation.” (Never mind that he sat at the same chair for 38 years, and when he retired said only that he’d wished he’d asked for a more comfortable place to sit.)
We are now at a point of transformation with this company. But this is not something to fear, it is something to celebrate. Because I come to you tonight, looking out at the dark Miami skyline, not only with a challenge. I come to you with answers too.
But first let us define our position.
Right now we are a breaking point with our client list. We are not so huge that we must hire more agents, and not so small that we have not experienced huge success. We are at a point of nuetrality. We are all, right now, nuetral. Nuetral, as in not black or white. Not bad or good. Even. Nuetral.
Even in my own life, after 35 years, I feel that I have never done that one thing, that noble thing that defines a life. Even writing this Mission Statement is odd for me. I am used to flying below the radar, enjoying my life and friends. But I have not been truly tested. I have not gone to India to explore my life, as my brother has. I have not been in a major car accident, or fathered a child. I have not created a life, nor have I killed anyone. I am nuetral. I haven’t started a war and I haven’t stopped a war. I have broken even with my life. I have a nice home, a nice car, a fiancee who makes my heart race. But I have not taken that step, or risk, that makes the air I have breathed for 35 years worthwhile. I once had a yellow couch. I got rid of it because it was nuetral. My life is now like that yellow couch.
And yet, as I sit here in the wonderful Miami Hilton, I have never been so happy to be alive. I have said “later” to most anything that required true sacrifice. Later I will spend a weekend reading real books, not just magazines. Later I will visit my grandmother who is 100 and unable to really know the difference. Later I will visit the clients whose careers are over, but of course I promised to stay in touch. Later later later later. It is too easy to say “later” because we all believe our work to be too important to stop, minute to minute, for something that might interfere with the restless and relentless pursuit of forward motion. Of greater success. Make no mistake, I am a huge fan of success. But tonight, I propose a better kind of success. I could be wrong, but if you keep reading and I keep writing, we might get there together.
Random Fact #128:
Sports Management International, founded in 1981, was dedicated to the then-rock solid notion that athletes deserve a decent home with decent pay. The original client roster existed of four athletes, one of them was the first American Frisbee Champion, Chester Savage, who was actually born in Australia.
Now of course we all know that we possess the job of the decade. Last year, when a poll of college students was taken, our occupation, Sports Agent or Sports Attorney ranked number two to Rock Star. But rock stars, like sports stars, have a limited time in the spotlight. Nobody likes an old lineman or a bald rock star. But sports representation can give you a career into your 80’s, like the original sports agent Dicky Fox, who died on his way to a Chicago Bulls playoff game in 1993. He died gloriously, right by the B gates, a happy man who had actually written a book called A Happy Life. Taken by a heart attack, he left a loving wife and family, and a home next door to his first client. And we won’t talk about the two guys who stole his playoff tickets, right out of his pocket as he lay on the cool floor of the ‘O Hare airport. They were yanked from Dicky’s seats in the first quarter, and two guards kept the seats empty in tribute to him.
A Happy Life.
And to those young agents who never met him, Dicky Fox always said the same thing when asked for his secret. “The secret to this job,” he said, “is personal relationships.”
We are agents. To some, that brings with it the image of a Slickster. A Huckster. Someone profiting off the efforts of others. For many of those we’ve met or observed, that is what we are. I know an agent operating in this very state who regularly gets the phone numbers of college athletes by calling school offices and posing as a tutor who has lost their student’s contact number. He is often successful in acquiring athletes, but none for very long. Privately, an agent can be a father, a friend, an inspiring force in the life of a young man or woman. We are sometimes as important as priests or poets, but until we dedicate ourselves to worthier goals than getting a illegal phone number, we are poets of emptiness.
Somehow all this has been bubbling up inside me. A man is the sum total of his experiences. And it is now that I am interested in shaping the experiences to come. What is the future of what we do? Give me a goal, and I will achieve it. That has been my secret design for most of my life. Perhaps you are the same. We’re all goal-oriented, so I hereby present a goal.
How can we do something surprising, and memorable with our lives? How can we turn this job, in small but important ways, into a better representation of ourselves? Most of us would easily say that we are our jobs. That’s obvious from the late hours we all keep. So then, it is bigger than work, isn’t it? It is about us.
How do we wish to define our lives? So that when we are sixty, or seventy, or eighty and we’re sinking down onto that cool floor of ‘0 Hare airport, with playoff tickets in our pockets, perhaps we too can know that we led A Happy Life? Is it important to be a Person and not just a slave to the commerce of Professional Sport? Do we want to be Remembered?
Or do we just want to be the guy who sold the guy who sold shoes that came with the little pump?
Recently I was asked by the son of a client, in so many words, “what do you stand for?” I was lost for an answer. At 14, I wasn’t lost for that answer. At 18, I wasn’t lost for an answer. At 35, I was blown away that I had no answer. I could only look at the fade of a 12 year-old boy, concerned about his dad, needing my help, just looking at me for the answer I didn’t have.
The look on that kid’s face is a part of me now. And the feeling I had, and have now, is pushing me forward, writing this Mission Statement.
1:17 AM, Miami, thoughts:
What am I doing? I must erase this entire document. I’ll write a little more, save it and go to bed.
My dad was one of the good guys. He studied at West Point, went to Korea in the conflict there. Later, he left a glittering life in the military to move to California, because my mother did not take well to the army life. My father never complained about it. He was prone to tell his war stories, but never in a beery “you gotta listen to me” way. He was graceful and he was funny, and he didn’t complain. For the late part of the sixties and the early seventies, even while doing volunteer work for United Way, as I previously described, he was an operator of Telephone Answering Services. He had two of these businesses. Long rooms filled with telephone operators who cooly answered your phone for you when you were away from home.
“Can I take a message?”
Almost as soon as he began this business, the first automatic telephone answering machine was introduced onto the market. Our conversations at the table were often about the future, and whether the world would accept these new machines.
“I just can’t talk to one,” said my mother.
“Neither can I,” said my older brother. “Nobody wants to talk to a machine.”
“They’ll never last,” said my dad. “People only like to talk to people.”
Within three years, mechanical answering machines were everywhere. The whole idea of a human answering your phone while you were away was no longer important. People were talking with machines, regularly and familiarly. Making funny phone messages, personalizing the machine of forward motion that had arrived in their homes. There was no way back. The machine was a part of life, but only when everyone learned to personalize it.
The same thing is true of sports. Sports may never be the Pute and simple thing that older men pine for. That ball park in the corn fields of Field of Dreams is, of course, a fantasy that lives in the mind. Sports is a huge operation, always was, but now that fact is no longer a secret that lives in the luxury boxes of ownership. The secret is out of the bag. Way, way out. Everyone knows that Sports is a machine. The Endorsement is now in danger of overshadowing the game. The commercials are often more interesting than the telecast. Money sits on the bench, right alongside the players. The players know, the owners always knew, the fans know. The machine has moved into our homes.
The question is, how do we personalize that machine? It is a question we must now ask ourselves at S.M.I.
I propose that, like the world embraced those telephone answering devices, we talk to the machines. We deal with the future that is already here. It isn’t even the future, it is now, so let us talk to the Machine and see what it says to us.
Let’s bring soul and character to what is already there.
I propose that we recreate everything that we’re currently about. Right now we’re at the top of our game. Traditionally people do one thing at this point in their success. They try like hell to maintain what they did to get there. Their personal and intense road to success, their original inspiration (which is at the heart of every success) is now lost in the pursuit to keep the money machine smoothly rolling forward. Delivering crisp green sheets of greater and greater amounts of fortune. But there is a problem with this stage in the success game. In so doing this maintain-success cycle, they forget the original glimmer of passion that got them there.
And historically, no one successful ever pauses to think that they might tumble like everyone before them who forgot. The whole success cycle dooms the very thing that causes the success in the first place — it puts shutters on the windows of reality. It makes us all forget that monetary success comes from something very pure. It comes from a desire to do well, to make life better, not just to do well with financial regularity.
Recent telephone conversation with a Client who had been accused of “selling out” by a local columnist:
“Of course I sold out. My old problem is, I sold out before there was any money in it.”
It is not easy to hide a winning formula. Take a successful t.v. show. The following season, you see twenty others just like it. Same goes for our company. Sports Management International was, of the first great success stories of our business. But the great ones all do one thing at the time of their greatest success. They change the game. They make it harder for themselves. They raise the bar. They work not just harder, but they work smarter. That is why the great athletes, politicians, musicians, philosophers all got stronger instead of more weary. We must do the same. And for those wondering when I will propose an answer to these many questions, I must ask you simply to hold on. Because it’s coming.
I have just poured a pot of coffee. Maybe I’m crazy, maybe it’s just tonight, but I really do think I’m onto something here. And, as I said earlier, if you’re reading this, it means that I didn’t conquer this statement with my own fears of rejection. If if you knew me, and many of you do, you know that “rejection” and “fear” are not words I say easily. But this is more than a Mission Statement. This is not the equivalent of one of those magnetic “poetry kits,” you know the ones you buy at a stationery store, a mess of words so you can assemble funny poems on your refrigerator door. This is from my heart. This is a love letter to a business I truly love.
Miami, 2:37 AM, Thoughts:
Coffee tastes different at night. It tastes like college.
I’m back. just checked the messages at home, and sure enough one of them was a man I will call Client X. Client X was watching ESPN and he saw Athlete Y talking about the many many millions he has in contracts both in football, baseball and product representation. We have all been on the receiving end of a message like the one I just picked up on my answering machine.
“Why aren’t I making what Athlete Y makes,” said my client. And the truth is obvious to everyone but Client X. Athlete Y is a superstar, and is more talented. But to tell this to Client X would be asking him to become Ex-Client X.
And so begins the game of flattery, of lip service, of doing everything possible to soothe and stroke. It is part of our lives, and part of our jobs. The game of agenting. The tapdance. Not only will Client X be a tapdance, but there will be a tapdance involved in explaining why I didn’t return the call and begin the tapdance earlier. I know it is a tapdance, and so does he. I have seventy-two clients, and over sixty of them are full-time tapdances. I sign ten or twelve new ones a year. As many of you know, it is going in the wrong direction.
But as I sit here in the darkness of this hotel I room, the answer to the future is rather obvious. If the tapdancing becomes less constant, less furious, less necessary, what will the result be? The result will be more honesty, more focus, fewer clients, but eventually the revenues will be the same. Because the new day of honesty will create a machine more personalized, more truthful, and the client that wasn’t bullshitted this year, has a greater chance of greatness next year.
And now we get to the answer that Dicky Fox knew years ago. The answer is fewer clients. Less dancing. More truth. We must crack open the tightly clenched fist of commerce and give a little back for the greater good. Eventually revenues will be the same, and that goodness will be infectious. We will have taken our number oneness and turned it into something greater. And eventually smaller will become bigger, in every way, and especially in our hearts.
Forget the dance.
Focus.
Learn who these people are. That is the stuff of your relationship. That is what will matter. It is inevitable, at our current size, to keep many athletes from leaving anyway. People always respond best to personal attention, it is the simplest and easiest truth to forget.
Love the job. Be the job.
The phone calls will still come in at 2 AM, but on the other end of that phone at 2 AM will be someone deserving of your time, and you will be honored to share their time. And that will be what the road to greatness feels like. A little rocky at first. But think how good it will feel to wake up in the morning and know that when the phone rings, it is not Client X demanding the tapdance. It will be Client K, whose life we know and share in.
Let us be honest with ourselves.
Let us be honest with them.
Forget the dance.
Focus.
I propose this as the very heart of the Mission Statement that is flying across my screen. I am not a writer but I can’t stop from writing this. It is something pure, from the deepest part of me. It has to be right, and as one of the Senior Agents at this company, I ask to be heard. And if I am wrong, then grab me by the collar and tell me why you disagree. And I will happily talk with you because we are talking about something that matters.
Down below on the Promenade, I see a young girl skating in the night. The simple beauty with which she cascades across the smooth cement, the intelligence with which she uses this path that is crowded with shoppers and businessmen in the daytime. At night, it is hers. She owns it. I feel the same pride of ownership, owning this world that allows me to type this message to you. And perhaps save the future of this company. It is a great feeling, not just that wretched desire to survive, to outswim the huge wave that may drill me into the sand below the water, but to seize this time. To set the agenda. To say what I feel.
Miami, 3:13 AM, Thoughts:
I have the distinct feeling that what I have written is “touchy feely.” I don’t care. I have lost the ability to bullshit.
I feel so good about not erasing this Mission Statement. There is so little that we are able to create in this business.
Most of the time, we are creating nothing. We are shoving digits around. But to address the growing pains of our business, and to create a new way of looking at what we do… because these growing pains could easily be dying pains. But we are meant to live at this company. Our work actually does have an effect on people. In a cynical world, we make people happy. We let them know that one athlete can make a difference.
The same can be said of one company.
Random Travel Tip #434:
When using a hang-up bag, whenever possible pack clothes in dry cleaning bags. The extra layer prevents wrinkling.
I propose also that we step up our concerns to build in non-profit areas of our contracts. It is something that we often talk about, sitting in those athletes’ living rooms, but often we let these factors slip away. How often have we advised clients to move to Florida, this very state, where taxes are lenient? Let us use the same sharp thinking not just to set up Charity Golf tournaments, but to help build schools in the communities where many of our finest athletes first found the inspiration to helped them onto greatness.
It is important to tweak the greater concerns of our athletes as well. Because the ability to forget social causes happens easily, in the night. Suddenly the desire to survive obscures the quest to give back to a community. If we don’t exercise the muscle of charity, one day it is dead. It doesn’t respond, it’s just a fiber in your body that serves no purpose. And the next thing that happens is the lack of depth that comes with financial prosperity. How many rich people have said this in our presence: “I thought I would feel better when I was rich, but I don’t.”
That happens when we don’t listen to the loud sound of the quiet voice inside. Life, I believe, is not a country club where we forget the difficulties and anxieties. Life is the duty of confronting all of that within ourselves. I am the most successful male in my family, but I am hardly the happiest. My brother works for Nasa, helping grow blue-green algae that will one day feed the world. He was originally targeted as the “successful” one in my family. But he gave up early, for a quieter kind of success. He was once tortured, now he is quietly making the world a better place. He learned earlier what I am just now starting to wake up to. He sleeps well at night. And he doesn’t worry about being too preoccupied or too busy to get the dance right. He dances for something greater.
3:32 AM, Miami, Thoughts:
Next door, someone named David is having sex. I know because his girlfriend or wife just yelled something out in the throes of ecstacy: “Put the top back on, David!” I pause and wonder. What did David open, and why does he now have to close it?
You can e-mail the President, you can get sushi in a supermarket in the middle of the desert, you don’t even have to read a book anymore, you can buy a tape where it is read out-loud. But where is the simple truth about how to live a quality life? I hope that I have not overstepped my boundaries by writing this to you. This is an attempt to reach out, and say loudly the things that have been festering within. And once you begin to speak these things, it’s hard to stop.
I have decided to tell you about Mimee. A few days ago I got a phone call from a friend. Mimee Senadetta had died. I barely knew her, she was the girlfriend of a friend. They broke up in the middle 80’s, but Mimee and I had the attraction of two people who might have been together, had circumstances been different. We lost touch. And now she is gone, dead from a car accident, and I find myself thinking about what I could have done while she lived.
Last Christmas I felt the tingle of a thought — call her. I delayed calling, now it is too late. I think that tingle, the small voice inside, is always the voice of what is right. And how much sound and fury exists in our life determines how we easy it is to listen.
I miss you, Mimee. You and I both know. We had something that was never followed up on. I wish you well on your journey.
Random Airport Fact #23:
Denver International Airport is a converted cornfield that sinks 3/4 inch deeper into mud every year. This airport also contains the best gift-shop, with adajacent ATM access, in the continental United States.
I have never been a writer, but I can see how this great lost art will never truly die. Putting words to paper is a sacred thing. It’s more than a phone conversation, it is a document. It is something you are putting on paper. The relationship between a phone call and a letter is the difference between a magazine and a phone book. One you leave on a plane, the other you save.
I am too excited to sleep. I want this Mission Statement to last to the light of day. Outside, a passing car plays a snatch of an old Pink Floyd album. “Money…
I am wondering what that exact moment is when we truly, truly love our jobs. Is it during the day, or at the end of the day, or is it years later looking back on all we accomplished? I think perhaps truly loving something is the ability to love it at that moment. It is an elusive ability, something I have never been able to quite accomplish. I must go home, and take my experiences like a squirrel, and consider them, before I can truly enjoy them. I must work on this. The daily journey is everything. Being able to enjoy enjoyment while it is happening. I might erase this part.
4:45 AM, Miami, Thoughts:
Whatever David opened, the top is now back on and not much has changed. Does sex really sound this silly? And if it does, why don’t people laugh more when they’re having it?
Why do I feel more alive for having written all of this? Some of you are younger than me, some of you are older than me. Right now I have one foot in each of your worlds. I am thinking about marriage, and the future, but I’m old enough to have a past that I (hopefully) have learned from. In another hour or so, a USA Today will plop at the door, phone calls will come in, and provide a whole new set of distractions to keep me from the central issue, the issue that we have discussed all this week, in various ways and in various forums, but have we really discussed it?
I have now written far too much on the subject of our future, the future of this business. But the beauty of this proposal, I think, is that it is only a slight adjustment, an adjustment in our minds. An adjustment in attitude. An adjustment to point where we can discuss the things that really matter to us, and our many clients. This coming holiday season, that time when we all know we must work harder to let our clients know what we’re doing for them, that difficult time when big decisions are made and agents are often fired, let us really reach out. Let us celebrate the clients that have meant more to us because of this small adjustment.
Let us work less hard to sign the clients that we know won’t matter in the long run, and work twice as hard to keep the ones who will. I believe in these words, and while they may not yet be true for you, they are true for me. And I ask that you read this with that in mind. I am dictating not what I want us to be, but what I wish us to be. There is a difference. You can only get there if I have written this correctly, and if you are inspired. I am reaching out to you, personally. I choose to be passionate again. I choose to reclaim everything that was once exciting about this job. I wonder if this might just be the best idea I’ve ever had. I hope you understand. In the words of Martin Luther King, whose suit I suggest you all visit before they move it from its display in the Atlanta airport: “A life is not worth living until you have something to die for.”
A life is not worth living if you are sleepwalking through it. Because that is what feels like death. That is what causes athletes to, out of despair, get drunk and wrap their cars around a pole. Or lash out at someone they love. Or that is what might have caused Mimee to careen into another car in an oncoming lane of traffic. It is the feeling of sleepwalking. Of others living life around you, keeping their fists tightly wound around whatever dollars they can muster, caring little more than nothing about those around you. We cannot sleepwalk. We cannot just survive, anything goes. We can take control of our lives, we can quit sleepwalking, we can say — right now, these are our lives, it is time to start living it. It is time to not second guess, to move forward, to make mistakes if we have to, but to do it with a greater good in mind.
Let us start a revolution. Let us start a revolution that is not just about basketball shoes, or official licensed merchandise. I am prepared to die for something. I am prepared to live for our cause. The cause is caring about each other. The secret to this job is personal relationships.
Back in 1992, a young Media Guy teamed with an old art critic to dive into some amazing work at the Australian National Gallery. Here's an excerpt from one of my favorite passages and works.
Jackson POLLOCK
United States of America 1912 – 1956
Blue poles 1952
oil, enamel, aluminium paint, glass on canvas
OT 367
signed and dated l.l., "Jackson Pollock 52";
(originally inscribed with a "3", subsequently painted over with a "2")
Blue poles was first exhibited in Pollock’s solo show at Sidney Janis Gallery in1952 where it was titled Number 11, 1952. Later christened by Pollock Blue poles, today the painting is usually referred to as such.[1] Although the date of the painting is definitely 1952, Pollock appears to have mistakenly dated it ‘53’, then changed the ‘3’ to a ‘2’.
In 1973 Stanley P. Friedman wrote an article in the New York Magazine in which he reported that he had been told by Tony Smith, that Smith and Barnett Newman had painted on the canvas that subsequently became Blue poles.[2] No-one that Friedman interviewed for his article denied the possibility that Smith or Newman contributed to the early stages of the work. What they all emphatically denied is that these initial exercises on the canvas contributed in any way to the work which Pollock then built up on the canvas to become Blue poles.Any trace of earlier involvement by Smith or Newman was covered over by the painting which Pollock subsequently made on this canvas.
The canvas is of high‑quality Belgian linen with a commercially oil‑primed ground. The earliest visible layer of paint is black, thinning at the edges to a green which appears to have been formed by the mixing of yellow and black. The first layer of paint was applied, as was customary practice for Pollock since 1947, while the canvas was stretched out on the floor. Fragments of the glass basting tubes, which were used to apply the first layers of paint to the canvas, are embedded in this layer of paint. Subsequently the unstretched canvas was tacked to a beam that ran along the wall of the studio; liquid, white paint was then applied and allowed to run down the canvas.
For the next campaign on the painting, the canvas was returned to the floor. Using his characteristic method of pouring fluid paint from above in a continuous stream onto the canvas, Pollock employed sticks, dried brushes and syringes to build up a web of rhythmic, linear accents using yellow, orange and aluminium paints. He then left the canvas alone for quite some time. When Pollock next worked on the painting, he created the blue poles with the ‘2 x 4’ length of timber that he apparently positioned to act as a straight edge for painting in the poles.[3] The poles are an unusually definite form in the ‘all‑over’ configuration of Pollock's poured paintings and various figurative connotations have been attributed to them—from totems to the swaying masts of tall ships.[4]
Pollock integrated the poles by lacing them into the composition with fine dripped skeins of white, black and blue paint. In this final operation, the artist used brushes and rags as well as poured paint. Careful adjustments were made. For example, a thin white dripped line, that might have faded at the left edge of the canvas, has been fastidiously painted over at the edge in black.
Michael Lloyd and Michael Desmond, European and American Paintings and Sculpture 1870–1970 in the Australian National Gallery,Canberra: Australian National Gallery 1992, pp. 240–45, revised Anthony White 2003
[1] Sidney Janis, correspondence with the National Gallery, 17 January 1986, NGA file 72/1198-03, f.5; Pollock himself referred to the painting as ‘Blue poles’ in a conversation with B.H. Friedman in 1955, see B.H. Friedman, Jackson Pollock: Energy made visible,New York: McGraw-Hill 1972, p. xvii. [2] Stanley P. Friedman, ‘Loopholes in “Blue poles”’, New York Magazine,29 October 1973, pp. 48–51. [3] Lee Krasner Pollock recalled seeing this piece of wood near the painting covered with wet blue paint, see O'Connor and Thaw, vol. 2, p. 193. [4] In his biography of Pollock, Bryan Robertson attributes both connotations to the poles, and also suggests a cruciform and an anchor; see Bryan Robertson, Jackson Pollock, London: Thames & Hudson, New York: Harry N. Abrams 1960, pp. 23–24.
I'm up so so late brainstorming on a new Smokey the Bear campaign for our friends at the USDA Forest Service and I was thinking about my former Tarzana neighbor, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (née Meghan Markle), would be struggling to stay awake if I were the Queen of England and Meghan wanted to retire to bed. Apparently the Queen and I would get along very well at Buckingham Palace whipping out ad copy to late night champagne toasts. A boy can dream, right?
Queen Elizabeth II, legend.
(Uhhh, you do know who Smokey the Bear is, right?* If you don't scroll to the bottom and read up. Read, read, read.)
These late nights get me thinking about dedication and perseverance. I work in a profession where many of my colleagues show up every day, do what's asked and go home. Day in and day out. You would be surprised at the resistance you get you ask for a certain level of dedication. The labored response is something like this:
"Oh you want a press release written?"
"You want the framework of that media buy flushed out this week?"
"I can go hard hard this week if you need me to."
Yeah, not that many in the advertising workforce are working hard. In fact, maybe 2% of our industry are working at top speed. I'm talking the total, absolute commitment where you take it home with you...
...Live it...
...Dream it...
...Master it.
Pop-Tarts, legend.
Most everyone just gives you the minimum required. These people are the reason I've had to listen to motivation speeches from the account managers over the years.
You know the Man upstairs hands out the DNA, but if you get lucky and you have the gift that's not enough. Once you mix in the complete obsessive, compulsive behavior, then you're onto something special. But then the commitment to maintain this greatness might actually be harder that becoming great.
Every morning I wake up and read the trades and watch what the greats are doing. Hone your craft through research, mind exercises, and an relenting passion to keep climbing. Read, read, read. It's okay to be the modern day Sisyphus and let the rock roll back over you. Get up again and keep pushing.
(Uhhh, you do know who Sisyphus is, right?** If you don't scroll to the bottom and read up. Read, read, read.)
It's that extra effort that makes you great. That thing you read today will be a tiny seed that germinates into that big idea one day. The extra work is the one thing that will separate you from the pack. I know this to be fact, you should too.
The greats (and by no means am I calling myself "great") have a sickness. The sickness is called compulsion. If you're punching a clock, you'll be good, but never great. You have to be obsessed with it all. It's that simple.
You know what get's a bad rap?
"OBSESSIVE."
Jerry Seinfeld, legend.
When you say "obsessive", people say, "WHOA! That guy is obsessive." Obsessive, my friends is the difference between great and legendary.
I was on the New York Times website this morning (yes, read, read, read) and saw that Jerry Seinfeld was asked how long does it take for him to create a 90-minute comedy set. He said, "I don't know. I go to bed thinking about jokes. I wake up thinking about jokes. When I walk my dog I think about constructing jokes. There is not concept of time there."
(Uhhh, you do know who Jerry Seinfeld is, right?** Jerry Seinfeld is not some regular comic, he's a legend. $600 million net worth. Co-creator of a Top 10 television show of all time. Arguable the best stand-up act ever. There's a thousand of slap-happy comedians at the local stand-up place with a great set trying to make rent, but Seinfeld is legend. Yet I digress...)
In the New York Times article, he talks about writing a joke about a Pop-Tart. It took him two yearsto get is right. He talks about every comma and every syllable, and how he's never thrown away a joke. He keeps them written on yellow pads. Here's a quick excerpt about his Pop-Tart process:
"Two years is a long time to spend on something that means absolutely nothing. But that's what I do. In comedy you think of something that you think is funny and then you go from there. It's a fun thing to say...Pop...Tart. I like the first line to be funny right away. Then I talk about shredded wheat that's like wrapping your mouth around a wood chipper. You have breakfast and then you take two days off for the scars to heal so you speak again. Then I had to figure out how to end the thing and that's the hardest part if you have a long bit, the funniest part has to be at the end. It has to be. It can't be in the middle or in the end. 'It can't go stale, because it was never fresh," that took a long time. I know it sounds like nothing, and it is..."
But is was something, it was a joke: His craft.
And, he was obsessive about it.
Now, I'll go back to being obsessed with finding the next big idea for a legendary bear...
* - About Smokey the Bear:
For those of you not aware, created in 1944, the Smokey Bear Wildfire Prevention campaign is the longest-running public service advertising campaign in U.S. history, educating generations of
Smokey the Bear, legend.
Americans about their role in preventing wildfires. As one of the world's most recognizable characters, Smokey's image is protected by U.S. federal law and is administered by the USDA Forest Service, the National Association of State Foresters and the Ad Council. Despite the campaign's success over the years, wildfire prevention remains one of the most critical issues affecting our country. Smokey's message is as relevant and urgent today as it was in 1944.
Smokey’s original catchphrase was "Smokey Says – Care Will Prevent 9 out of 10 Forest Fires." In 1947, it became "Remember... Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires." In 2001, it was again updated to its current version of "Only You Can Prevent Wildfires" in response to a massive outbreak of wildfires in natural areas other than forests and to clarify that Smokey is promoting the prevention of unwanted and unplanned outdoor fires versus prescribed fires.
** - Who is Sisyphus?
In Greek mythology, Sisyphus, the cunning king of Corinth, was punished in Hades by having repeatedly to roll a huge stone up a hill only to have it roll down again as soon as he had brought it to
Sisyphus, legend.
the summit. This fate is related in Homer’s Odyssey, Book XI. In Homer’s Iliad, Book VI, Sisyphus, living at Ephyre (later Corinth), was the son of Aeolus (eponymous ancestor of the Aeolians) and the father of Glaucus. In post-Homeric times he was called the father of Odysseus through his seduction of Anticleia; cunning obviously provided the link between them. Sisyphus was the reputed founder of the Isthmian Games. Later legend related that when Death came to fetch him, Sisyphus chained him up so that no one died until Ares came to aid Death, and Sisyphus had to submit. In the meantime, Sisyphus had told his wife, Merope, not to perform the usual sacrifices and to leave his body unburied. Thus, when he reached the underworld he was permitted to return to punish her for the omission. Once back at home, he continued to live to a ripe old age before dying a second time.
I know the world is a lunatic cesspool full of bad people, but why do we need so many superheroes? When I was a kid, even until 1989, we got by with the Big Two: Batman and Superman. Now, I am getting all geeked up for Ant-Man and The Wasp (a sequel no less to the original Ant-Man that made Paul Rudd a superhero)...yes Paul Rudd.
Yet I digress...
Things were a lot easier when the Big Two were battling the same super villains over and over again. Now every superhero is a superstar. Take Thor from the planet of Asgard. He wanders around with a mini sledgehammer and was the the ace in the hole in the latest Avengers movie. We all know what happened to him (right?). Batman or Superman would never let that happen.
Blank Panther made a big splash at the box office recently. Until I was dragged to the theater I thought it was a biopic about Bobby Seale or Huey Newton. Everywhere I look there are super heroes getting their own movies, Silver Surfer, Aquaman, The Thing, The Green Lantern. Speaking of the Green Lantern, his power is in his ring, yet the ring is hooked to a battery. I mean, you cannot make this stuff up.
(I guess you quite literally can.)
Serious question: Are the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles super heroes? It's almost like asking if a hot dog or a wrap is a sandwich. You might get a 50-50 split, yes or no, if you asked 100 people Family Feud-style.
Really, the only super heroes you ever really need is Batman or Superman. And, if you live in the real world, Margrét, My New Favorite Amazon Model is all you need.
Okay, so where am I?
I'm meeting Margrét in South Central Los Angeles, helping her out with a western hat ad comp she's trying to get off the ground. I mean, who am I to say no?
(For those of you wondering why she's a big deal in The Media Guy lore, scroll to the bottom and take the primer and read the three previous columns, including the first one from 2014 which still remains the top post of all time.) And, for regular readers, catch up with the queen of the birthday suit.
Media Guy: I heard a bunch of stories about your showdown with Betty Rage, how did that go down?
Margrét, My New Favorite Amazon Model: You may recall that last time I mud-rassled, I accidentally ingested some of the chocolate pudding “mud,” and was afflicted with terrible stomach flu afterward. Well, this time I knew better, so made sure to keep my lips shut, and to shower off thoroughly afterward. This rassling experience was better all-around than my last time, which you might recall was slightly scarring since I only got a $40 bid to be my towel boy — well, this time, some poor drunk guy bid $60 on me, and paid up….but he was so wasted that they had to escort him out of the bar before he had a chance to get in the ring with me. So they auctioned me off a second time, and this awesome British dude bid another $60 on me — and he was cool. He helped me defeat my first opponent, Kombat Kitty…but then I faced off against Betty Rage, and she beat me silly. Oh well, you can’t win ’em all!
MG: What a wacky gig! Surely there are better ways to drum up modeling gigs...
MMNFM: In this #MeToo #TimesUp culture, nude modeling has taken a real hit, which is a true shame. One is that historically, with a few exceptions, the nude is mainly a phenomenon of Western art. The other is that from very early on, the nude male and the nude female are treated quite differently and have different roles to play. The male nude body in Greek sculpture was used both for portrayals of ideal heroes - gods and idealized portraits of real heroes, notably the champions at the Olympic games. This brings up another basic aspect of the nude in art, its sometimes uneasy relationship to sexual desire. The entrenched homo-eroticism of ancient Greek society clearly has a good deal to do with the pre-eminence of the heroic male nude. In fact, around the 4th century BC, Praxitales and other sculptors did begin depicting nude females, notably the goddess of love, Aphrodite. But it remained indecorous for female portraits to depict nudity. More generally, a double standard where male and female nudity was concerned, persisted through the period of Roman sculpture and, indeed, right up to modern times, though its terms of reference frequently changed.
MG: So wacky gigs are the way to go?
MMNFM: One final wacky gig I did lately was act as concierge for this group of rowdy drunken Canadian guys who come out every year to play golf and cat around: I caddied for them last year, and they were so taken with me that this year they hired me to arrange everything. The first day, I set up a nude photo shoot with me and my fellow Goddess Collective members up at Red Rock Canyon — we drove the guys out there and posed for female-on-female art shots for a couple hours, and a great time was had by all. Then the next day, we all met up at a local golf course and proceeded to booze our way around the course, taking all manner of salacious photos and engaging in all kinds of naughty shenanigans involving strategically-placed golf tees and lots of puns involving the word “balls.” The final day, we were all supposed to get a cabana at one of the big pool parties, but the weather had turned shitty so we ended up just getting wasted at their hotel Jacuzzi, then going to the nightclub and getting messed up til all hours of the night.
Now, I haven’t set foot in a nightclub since the days when I was working at one…and guess what? It was just as abhorrent an experience as I recalled! This particular place was especially lame and unremarkable — they actually had the gall to hire that tired moron from Jersey Shore, Pauly D, as DJ! Even worse, all the star-struck, farm girls in the crowd were absolutely stoked, holding up their cell phones to capture footage of this momentous occasion. JEEZ!
Still, I’m not sure what happened but I ended up having a fantastic time — I was dressed really sloppily, in leggings and flip-flops (remember, we were boozing at the pool all day), but something happened and I went bat shit dancing, burning about 1,000,000 calories and having a really good time, despite the horrible DJ and lame-ass environment…so I guess it wasn’t all bad! The only downside was, after all that I felt like I’d been hit by a giant alcoholic Canuck bus — I mean, I was exhausted when those guys left! I don’t know how they did it.
MG: You used to be the belle of the ball, working every party which leads to me wondering if there have been any good parties lately.
MMNFM: The best party I went to lately was this amazing Burning-Man-themed bicycle pub crawl organized by one of my neighbors, called Blinking Man. Twice a year, about 300-400 wackos in costumes ride bikes covered in blinking lights all over downtown Vegas, stopping at four or five bars along the way for drinks and fun. This one group carts around a full DJ setup, and we basically have raves in all the parking lots we stop at along the way –
– it’s a RIOT! I went with some of my neighbors and friends, and even my roommate made an appearance, Rollerblading around half-naked in an Indian headdress and a G-string. NICE! All in all I was out til about 2am, pedaling furiously about the streets of downtown Vegas, dancing and drinking and getting merry like Christmas. NO WONDER I’M TIRED — that was my day off!!!
I'm waiting by the phone hoping Axel Schwan, the Global Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President of Burger King, dials me up so we can discuss their latest brain fumble. I mean, the FIFA World Cup is a great event to center an advertising and marketing campaign that will inevitably get their message out to the whole world. The World Cup is by far the most widely viewed sporting event on Earth -- with an audience reach of 3.5 billion -- and with that Burger King in Russia saw this as a prime opportunity to come up with a cheeky promotion, that maybe, just maaaaybe they didn’t think through all the way.
Burger King was trying to have it their way but trying to build up Russia's future in soccer by investing now by giving women a lifetime supply of Whoopers. But how would women be able to do that?
Above is the now delete post that translates like this:
"Burger King within the framework of social responsibility has appointed a rewards for girls who get pregnant from the stars of the world fútbol.
Each will receive 3,000,000 rubles and a lifelong supply of Whoppers. For these girls, it will be possible to get the best fútbol genes and will lay down the success of the Russian National Team for several generations ahead.
Forward. We believe in you."
Mr. Schwan, as much as I rack my brain, there is no real positive in this stunt. I mean, didn't you watch the Oscars? Or all the Harvey Weinstein news?
#TimesUp bro!
Seriously.
No matter, the bosses stepped up and apologies were issued blah blah blah. Which spurred on an interesting conspiracy theory: what is brands are putting out this stuff on purpose?
As a bunch, us ad folks are pretty self aware to what works and what doesn't. Most of us are fairly skilled and in many cases, have big budgets, and are under heavy pressure to raise their client's brand profile. In a crowded marketplace, these modern Mad Men need to do something (anything) to get their voices heard and seen.
Passionate Soccer Fans at the FIFA World Cup.
The ad industry is deliberately being provocative and it's trying to get the headlines. But, ultimately this is going to be much more damaging for brands than what they actually realize.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the UK's advertising watchdog, has received 2400+ racism complaints from 956 different ads since 2013. Of those, 12 cases were formally investigated and 10 of those had the complaint upheld.
The power to ban adverts it thinks breaches its standards, but that usually isn't necessary because brands usually remove the offensive ads once the bad publicity starts.
Experience tells me that despite adverts being looked at by many many eyeballs before they make it to the public, a "lack of diversity" in advertising agencies means things can be missed. This is why marketing executives like Axel Schwan should be calling me. As I have ranted and raved in six previous articles and nearly daily in my own office, a simple pre-release phone call to the Media Guy can save you millions of dollars in bad publicity and wasted media buys. Reach out, I'll be there.
So did Burger King do this on purpose?
It's hard to say considering their track record. Burger King Russia division has a history of horrific publicity-baiting stunts. Last year it made fun of a teenage rape victim in an online marketing campaign, using the likeness of Diana Shurygina, who was raped when she was 16 at a house party, as part of a buy one get one free burger offer.
Ugh!
And it’s not just Russia...Burger King has a global track record of misogynistic advertising. In Singapore the company advertised a seven-inch burger with overtly sexual imagery and a tagline saying “It’ll blow your mind away.” The model featured in the 2009 advertising campaign later came forward to say she had no idea her image was going to be used in that way.
Double Ugh!
On the other hand, they come forth with a clever ad to commemorate that it's legal for women to drive in Saudi Arabia with free Whoppers (no pregnancy required).
For a entire month (June 24 to July 24), Burger King Saudi Arabia is giving its signature burger free to any woman in the driver's seat who pulls up to its drive-thru windows. The burgers will come wrapped in special paper, renaming the sandwich "WhoppHer."
So, will Burger King or Alex call the Media Guy? Remember this: one call to me will save could you a bunch of migraines and a boatload of cash...I advise you to strongly consider these words.
I'm preparing for the annual father's day trek to the new Pixar release. Only a couple of days away and I'm wondering if this will be the annual pilgrimage of sibling fighting that I have to referee or if my kids (now adults) will stop bickering long enough to make me feel like I did a good enough job as a dad raising them to get me to the next holiday. Like I say, media bonds the family and all you have to do is put in the time. I'm putting the odds at 50-50. Yet, I am already digressing.
Aside from the greatness that Pixar movies provide from an entertainment point of view, they go much deeper for the Media Guy. They seem to focus on the genesis of creativity and collaboration. It's hard to fathom that Pixar has drawn some of its finest inspiration from napkin sketches. The democratic collaboration methods that Pixar has chosen to adopt.
Design thinking enthusiast John Spencer has penned down 10 lessons from Pixar that touch on creativity and collaborating with other professionals.
People often romanticize creative people as loner types feverishly scratching papers each time they get an ‘aha’ moment. However, Spencer believes that the greatest creative ideas root from entire teams.
Pixar empowers its people to offer their input. Its non-hierarchical structure, “from the meetings to the decision-making to the fact that nobody gets a special parking spot,” is possibly one of the reasons why its ideas flow so smoothly but vividly.
Spencer describes that when you have trust and transparency, constructive feedback can inspire creative thinking. This is in line with what Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull famously said: “We believe that ideas—and thus, films—only become great when they are challenged and tested.”
Pixar first started as a technology firm before branching out to filmmaking. It’s characteristic for the company to focus on a concept, and then pivot out to new ideas until the overall result works.
“I loved seeing how movies like Monsters, Inc. evolved over the years of planning,” remarks Spencer, “…pivoting doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It means you are being flexible and willing to improve.”
Pixar isn’t an all-work-and-no-play enterprise—celebrations, parties, and retreats, are integral to its culture. The company even encourages employees to decorate their desks with little trinkets.
Some of Pixar’s greatest accomplishments are derived from producing short films. These shorts are typically avenues for testing out new ideas, as well as a means to having small teams pick up a wide range of new skills.
“If you’re working on a long project, you will get tired,” Spencer admits. “It will become a grind. But play allows you to find energy, reconnect with your group and ultimately hit creative breakthroughs.”
This theme popped up often but in a way that was much more meaningful than the typical “embrace your mistakes” mantras that you see on social media. It’s the idea of having a growth mindset and knowing that experimentation means mistakes will occur. This is such a sharp contrast to a story in the book where Steve Jobs fires an Apple employee in front of the entire company. By contrast, Catmull wanted Pixar’s employees to feel the freedom to make mistakes and grow as a result.
This was one of the earliest themes. I’ve seen STEM folks who bemoan the A added in STEAM. However, I am struck by the fact that there is artistry in science and so much science in the art of storytelling. A similar thought is that you can create something innovative and timeless at the same time. So, as students engage in creativity, we need to explore how your collaborative processes honor both art and science.
Creativity is scary. I have had moments in creative work when I felt terrified. I worried about what people would think. I worried about entering the unknown without any assurance that I would create what I wanted to create. What I loved about this book is the reminder that the fear never goes away. If anything, it intensifies with success. There’s a section in this book where they explore the fear that the directors face and the mental models they use to make sense of everything. This is important for creative collaboration because an entire group can get stuck and grow risk-averse in their creativity.
The goal of creative collaboration isn’t creativity. With Pixar, the goal is always storytelling and, I would argue, highly emotional myth-making. Creativity isn’t what drives the storytelling. Rather, storytelling drives the creativity. This, by the way, is why I rarely talk about creativity with students. I don’t assess it. I don’t place it on a rubric. I don’t tell students, “Go out and be creative.” Instead, I encourage groups to focus on the purpose and the audience and to feel the freedom to take creative risks.
There was a great quote here, “Ideas come from people. Therefore, people are more important than ideas . . . too many of us think of ideas as being singular, as if they float in the ether, fully formed and independent of the people who wrestle with them. Ideas, though, are not singular. They are forged through tens of thousands of decisions, often made by dozens of people.” This has a few big implications for creative collaboration. First, it means trust and relationships are more important than the products we make. Second, it means we need to be okay to abandon ideas without taking things personally. Finally, it means our success in generating ideas does not define who we are as people. Ultimately, the success of a group isn’t the product they create so much as the way that they relate to one another.
I was born in 1968, meaning when I was in junior high school (yes it was junior high school back then, not middle school), computers were word processors with green characters and manual typewriters ruled the day. If you grew up at around the same time, you probably remember typing class, where we learned some useful things, like the how to use your pinky finger when you type. We also learned some terrible, life-altering things, such as double spacing after a period.
