This morning, on my way to the office on 33^rd Street, three things happened that I found weird, ironic and touching, although not necessarily in that order.

Weird

I decided I needed a haircut. Since my usual barbershop closed in Grand Central Terminal, I needed to find a new place. So today, I walked into a barbershop on West 35^th Street. This place was a throw back to a time where men would hang out in the barbershop all day. The only difference was that instead of Floyd the barber, the men sitting around the shop all looked like Russian Mafia. You know, guys that you don’t want to owe money.  Lots of black leather. The smell of cigarettes, which are not local. Interesting accents that reminded me of watching Boris and Natasha cartoons from my childhood. (Would you like glass tea?)  And of course, when Serge pulled out a straight edge razor, I thought I might have said something to offend. Instead, he proceeded to give me a very nice haircut.  He couldn’t have been nicer.  I think I’ve found my new barber.  I’ll have to ask a friend to teach me a few choice words in Russian for my next haircut.

Touching

No more than 15 steps outside of the barbershop, someone calling my name, stopped me on the street. I look up from my phone and I see an Art Director I worked with for a short time. “Peter? Wow it’s been a long time – how are you? What are you up to?” We stood there for a few minutes and exchanged work stories for a few minutes. I asked if he kept in touch with anyone, he asked how I liked my current job. You know those sort of questions you ask people who haven’t seen in 10 years. Then, just as we were about to walk in our separate ways, he stops and says the nicest thing anyone can say to a creative director. “I’ve always wanted to tell you something, when we worked together, you had an incredible influence on my career. You kicked my ass in ways nobody ever kicked it. You made me dig deeper than anyone before or after. Thank you. I’ve always wanted to tell you that.” I was floored. You always hope you have a positive influence on people. I was touched beyond belief.

Ironic

I continue my walk to work, and I popped in my earphones to listen to music and mute the outside NYC noise. Right near my building were two women giving away bibles. Their display asked, “What can the bible tell you?”  I found it ironic at that exact moment I was listening to REM’s “Losing my Religion.” I laughed to myself.

That all happened during my 10 block walk from Grand Central to 33^rd Street. Perhaps I’ll kick someone ass today. But hopefully only in a positive way.

01.04.13

For months my family and I have planned on taking a ski vacation to New Hampshire this week. Unfortunately, Mother Nature didn’t cooperate – and the mountain where we were going to ski closed two days before our arrival.

That’s when my wife announced that we were still going away, just not to New Hampshire.

After 12 hours of research, cashing in some American Express and Delta miles, we were on our way to Lake Tahoe to ski at Northstar, Heavenly Valley and Squaw Valley. In some ways I can’t believe that we’re really here. I’m a planner. This no planning thing doesn’t work in my Virgo mode.

But on the other hand, I have to admit its pretty cool.  This morning, we woke up early and were on the mountain by 8:30 AM.  By lunch we had already skied over 10,000 vertical feet. And by the time we stopped for the day, we had hit 17,500 vertical feet.  Keep in mind, at Butternut were we ski in the Berkshires, we average about 4,000 vertical feet on a good day. So it’s fair to say, we are a little tired.

Today was amazing. With one exception. I think I broke my thumb. I slipped on some ice and took a hard fall. Jammed my thumb. From the first knuckle to the tip, my thumb is completely black and blue. Actually, it’s more black than blue. And it hurts. And it’s  throbbing.  But I don’t plan to stop skiing. My goal is to ski 125,000 vertical feet this week. (I’ll post my ski pictures and statistics every few days)

Broken thumb or no broken thumb.

2.25.12

I love print. The perfect image. A tightly crafted headline. Beautiful design. Great ideas.

I’ve decided to attach some of my favorites from the past few years. I like the simplicity. I like the fact that someone actually sold these ideas to a client. I love that they all have an interesting simple idea. And that they happen to be beautifully executed. Enjoy.

HIV and AIDS
This is a very simple idea using striking visuals and ‘stealing’ a device to get the message home with today’s digital generation.

MEDICAL ASSISTANCE FOR TRAVELERS
A global campaign to get the message across — get sick overseas — we can help. Take a look.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
This organization has had a history of doing great work. I love this campaign. The thought “write a different history” is simple and powerful. I hope you like it.

GREENPEACE
Love them or hate them, this organization did a great job with the “David versus Goliath” campaign from my sister DRAFTFCB office.

I hope you enjoyed these campaign. All great. All award winners. All effective. I’d love to know which one you preferred. Please fill out the poll below. Have a great weekend.

I don’t know exactly when I decided I hate e-mail. But sometime over the course of the past few years, I’ve decided it’s the one thing I hate more than just about anything.
I hate that people send an e-mail with an attachment verses coming by and showing me work. I hate that I get plenty of ‘cover your ass’ e-mail instead of people telling me what’s really going on. But most of all, I hate the volume of e-mail I get every day. If I sat and really read and responded to every e-mail, I would have time to do nothing else.

This morning, I turned on my computer and looked down at my e-mail. Today I have 2910 items in my in-box, of those, 99 are unread. So I decided to look at the 99 unread e-mails. Of those, 25 we’re automatic reminders to approve expense reports, 12 were second reminders to approve expense reports, 5 were PTO requests, 10 were online receipts for lunch orders (while eating at my desk so I can read e-mails), 3 agency wide e-mails that I wrote (which I don’t have to read) and some stray promotional e-mails from photographers, production houses and retouchers.

The rest – are probably really important e-mails that get lost in the sea of e-mails. Here are some that I probably should have read sooner:

Subject: Today’s presentation – Immediate response needed
Hmmm, I probably should have looked at that one when it was send last Thursday.

Subject: Call me before you leave the office
Opps that was sent to me two weeks ago. Interestingly, the person never called me to find out why I never called.

Subject: Touching base
OK, here’s a trick – if you’re trying to get my attention don’t send an e-mail that says ‘Touching Base.’ Because I view my e-mails by subject, every e-mail called ‘Touching Base’ gets lumped together. Right now, I have 7 e-mails all titled ‘Touching Base.’ I haven’t read any of them. Mostly because they’re from people I don’t know. But also because if you really wanted to touch base, you’d come to my base (my office) and ask me a question. The one on top of the pile that I didn’t read was from January 24th, “Hello (notice a form letter not personalized), I am in the marketing and lead generation industry …” Thank heavens I didn’t take time out of my day to read that one.

Subject: DEADLINE APPROACHING!!
I think I didn’t read this because of the use of ALL CAPS and the double exclamation point. Actually, the real reason is that it’s the 500th e-mail from my son’s school looking for a donation (which I already made on the first e-mail).

Subject: Richard, it’s your lucky day
A free subscription to an industry magazine that I already get for free is not what I’d call my lucky day. Perhaps Richard, you just won $100 million in the lottery – I would consider THAT a lucky day. Or maybe even, Richard, you just won someone to read all you unread e-mail – that would be an incredible prize.

But of all the unread e-mail this is my favorite:

Subject: Got a minute?
No, I don’t. In fact, this week I’ve received 19 e-mails all with the subject line ‘Got A Minute?’ Now, that doesn’t mean I won’t respond to these e-mail eventually. It doesn’t mean that I don’t care. What it means is that in my time stretched day, writing an e-mail that asks ‘Got A Minute’ is too easy for me to answer ‘no, I don’t.’ Now an interesting subject line should be, ‘What can I take off your plate?’

Anyway, enough ranting about e-mails. Oh, by the way, in the time that it took me to write this post, I’ve received 47 more e-mails. I read only two.

2.13.12

My son makes me laugh. He comes out with the funniest comments. I hope you’re not tired of reading these. I just have to share.

Birthday Party Stuff
Son: Dad, I need you to sign this release form so I can go to Jack’s party.
Me: I thought it was a bowling party.
Son: It is. I think they’re afraid we’re going to throw the bowling balls at each other and crack open somebody’s head.
Me: Well that wouldn’t be good.
Son: But come on, what are the odds that even if I hit somebody with a bowling ball that I would actually crack open their head?
Me: You’re not planning on throwing bowling balls, are you?
Son: No, we’re probably just going bowling, but you never know, we are boys.

The ‘F’ Word
Son: Dad, Katie was singing a song today that had the ‘F’ word in it.
Me: Which ‘F’ word?
Son: You know, the ‘F’ word, the swear word, the curse word, the ‘F’ word.
Me: Well, you know that word is not a very good word, right?
Son: Yup.
Me: And that you shouldn’t use that word, right?
Son: Yup.
Me: Do you think she was just showing off?
Son: No, she doesn’t have a very good voice.

Sex
Son: Dad, what’s humping?
Me: What?
Son: Humping. One of the boys was talking about humping, but I don’t think he knew what he was talking about.
Me: What was he saying?
Son: That he caught his cats humping in the basement.
Me: You’re right, he probably doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Son: It’s a sex thing, right, and you’re just not telling me until I’m older.
Me: Yes.
Son: OK, then I think he did know what he was talking about. But it’s still gross.

Grammy Awards
Son: Why do they have the Grammy Awards?
Me: They celebrate popular music
Son: Really? I thought it had something to do with Grandmothers.
Me: No – Grammy as in gramophone. It’s an old fashioned record player.
Son: Oh, that explains why they only pick old-fashioned music to win a Grammy.
Me: That’s not true. Lady Gaga is nominated. Taylor Swift is nominated. They’re not old.
Son: Yes they are. They’re so last year.

Well, that’s about it for today. Sex, Birthday Parties, the ‘F’ word and humping. That’s what’s on the mind of a typical 9 year old. God help us all.

1.25.12

Just for laughs, I created a word cloud from the past month of blog posts. Interesting. In one of my very first posts, I yelled at a student for using the word ‘like’ in a sentence 17 times. And look at my word cloud. The second most used word is ‘like.’ Maybe I owe someone an apology.

Most used words:
Day, like, song, woman, love, know, really, people, think, man.

Let’s see, what would a sentence look like using only those words – I know, I really like a day when people, man, woman, know a love song and think. Perfect.

I’ll probably create one of these every few weeks just to make sure I’m not using the word ‘like’ too much.

Oh, and by the way, I’m concerned to see ‘college’ and ‘fetish’ come up so closely together. That could be dangerous.

1.24.12 (PM)