The funny business of change

     I've been freelancing and when I'm not freelancing I'm networking and trying to meet nice, smart people. To confess, the next stage of my career isn't all worked out yet, so I want to learn all I can; I want to gain some perspective; I want to see how other people are doing it. But, my god, it takes work. Before you can have a regular conversation, everyone wants to complain. I don't know if I'd call it cathartic, because when it's time to move on, there's no indication that anyone feels any better than Steven Wright on a rainy day; and, if it were not for an inner sense of timing to send us back to work, I get the feeling it would go on for hours.

     What do we complain about? We complain how the industry sucks, and generally, we get right to the point.

     ME: Hi.

     AD PERSON: The industry sucks, doesn't it.

And just try to start the conversation off on a different note.

     ME: Hey, what about those Yankees? Shame about Jeter, huh?

     AD PERSON: See that, every industry sucks.

     So far I've concluded there's not a single person in the industry that doesn't believe it sucks. Even the maintenance people believe it sucks, but they're not complaining, because if it didn't suck they wouldn't have the high turnover rate of workstations to keep them busy. From what I hear, here's what sucking:

     -Advertising is not what it used to be.

     -Holding companies don't work.

     -Holding companies are run by bean counters.              

     -Holding companies promote account people who don't know how to work with creative directors.

     -Holding companies are the root of all evil.

     -Creative directors are expendable and everyone knows it.

     -It's all about speed over quality.

     -Technology has everyone's head spinning.

     -There are no leaders.

     -Clients don't know how to be partners.

     -The pitch process isn't about finding a good partner; it's about finding the next campaign.

     -The smart ones lost sight of the fundamentals.

     -The dumb ones still don't know the fundamentals.

     -The kids coming out of ad schools don't know the fundamentals and yet know everything.

     -There isn't enough art.

     I could easily go on, but what's the point. We all know there's a lot to grouse about. And believe me, I don't let all these people grouse alone.

     Which brings me to today. Just this morning, I was returning a book to it's place on the shelf – Louise Gluck, Poems 1962-2012 – and I decided to read a poem first – just one poem, any poem. I flipped through some pages and stopped. I could have been presented with page 452, but I got page 361 and these 3 lines:

     "The master said You must write what you see.

     But what I see does not move me.

     The master answered Change what you see."

I quickly set the book on the shelf. Fine, maybe I should shut up and do something about it.

      

The Beaver Who Could Have Written a Sonnet

         A short time ago, a Beaver saw a pretty female preening by the stream and thought she had the cutest set of bucked teeth he had ever seen. Though he had always been a fussy romantic, and quite a rare bird in the animal kingdom, where animals are almost as animal-like as young male humans indigenous to college fraternities, it was true: The Beaver was in love. And his best friend, Bardy, was excited for him.

         “How will you win her over? How will you move her with your passion? Will you carve her a sonnet?”

         “Not me,” said the Beaver, “everybody does THAT!”

         Though the Beaver belonged to the species of New England beavers known as the Beaver poets, he had no intention of doing what the others did when they were in love. Chiseling a poem into the wood of a maple tree seemed unoriginal. He was determined to make an indelible mark on the world. He didn’t know exactly how he would do that, only that he had to do something new.

         He thought and thought and racked his brain until he remembered having learned in history class about the American Indians who sent smoke signals; and then he thought, ‘Now THAT was cool.’ He believed immediately that with his paddle tail, he could send the clearest smoke signals the world had ever seen – an appendage would surely be more controllable than a wet blanket.

         So the next day the Beaver waddled all the way to the top of the mountain, gathered some dry leaves and twigs, sparked a fire and kept his eyes peeled on the valley. When a couple of hours later he spotted her strolling with her girlfriend along the east side of the stream, The Beaver laid his tail over the fire, waited a few beats for the smoke to build up and then unleashed his love into the clean mountain air. The thing was, while a beaver’s tail may not have the nerve endings and hence the sensitivity of the rest of the body, it is not, unfortunately, without feeling, so it burned the Beaver quite a bit more than he anticipated.

         The young females heard an “OwwwOwwwOwwwOwwwwww!” echo across the valley (http://bit.ly/Ynatm3). Recognizing the sound of a beaver in pain, they craned their necks toward the mountaintop and saw a small cotton ball of smoke – and beside the fire, the Beaver, his mouth agape and his incisors to the sky.

         “I have no idea what that crazy beaver is up to. He lifted his tail and smoke came out. Oh my god, I think he farted!”

         The beautiful beaver was repulsed. “Ugh! Can you imagine what that smells like if it smokes!”

         The girlfriend wondered, “Do you think a camper left behind some refried beans? I wonder why it was so painful?”

         “Who cares!” she exclaimed, “Ugh!” And she kept uttering, “Ugh.” Once she elaborated, “That thing could burn a hole through the ozone,” but she followed it with a quivering, “Ugh!”

         And so it was that the connection the Beaver had made was so disgusting, it indeed left an indelible mark on the girl's brain. 

Moral: Be true even if not new; be untrue and they go, "PU!"