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  Out of the bleakness of his vision of pool-side apocalypse, Hal found the perfect pitch to call Dane to action. In short, he was a professional ad man.

  “I’ll give it all I have,” Dane promised.

  Brimming with pride and conviction, Dane phoned the creative director who had seen his book to set up a second interview. Dane was teaching mornings at a business school, so the creative director agreed to meet him at 2 PM. Dane arrived twenty minutes early to show that he had learned lesson #1 about being on time. At two o’clock the receptionist dialed the creative director’s extension. No answer. “He probably hasn’t returned from lunch. He should be here shortly.”

  By 2:30 the creative director was still out.

  His assistant emerged. She said she had no idea what happened to the creative director. Dane saw this as a test and chose to wait. At five o’clock, agency people rushed through the reception area. They glanced at Dane with curiosity and pity. The creative director’s assistant came out in her coat.

  “You’re still here?” she asked.

  “I was supposed to meet the creative director and no one called to cancel,” Dane replied.

  “He was out for the afternoon,” she said. “So I guess the meeting’s cancelled.”

  Dane left with the assistant, who seemed neither shocked nor sympathetic about his predicament. Dane, however, was confused. What message was the creative director trying to send him? Should he phone the man and ask for another meeting? As Dane grappled with these questions, he asked himself a more general one: how did he feel about the way the creative director treated him? Was this the norm in advertising?

  Dane did not let the creative director’s brush-off deter him. He continued to peddle his portfolio to find that elusive first job. He interviewed with a rising woman copywriter, who asked him to converse with her in baby talk for a car ad she was working on. Dane said he did not know baby talk and left her office without a job. He was actually fluent in baby talk, but for him it was the language of love and he spoke it only with Becky.

  Advertising remained an impassible frontier for Dane. He found a teaching position. In three years, he and Becky married, and five years later, they had a daughter.

  Case 1-C

  MADISON AVENUE COCKTAIL

  4. THE ORACLE

  More than a decade had passed since Dane’s last pass at advertising. It was always a tough field to break into and probably no easier now. Dane ransacked his memory for one advertising professional he could call to advise him how to proceed or whether to proceed at all.

  One name came to mind. Thor Kevorksen was someone Dane knew marginally from college. They became better acquainted at an alumni cocktail party after they graduated. During their 40-proof conversation, Kevorksen revealed how he landing his first job—by imitating a seal at an interview. At that time Dane wanted to write books and movies. Kevorksen chortled that books and movies were more elaborate forms of advertising—money-making entertainments devised to exploit human emotions.

  If Dane reached Kevorksen, he would tell him, “You were right,” and Thor would surely help him because people like nothing more than to have their judgment validated. But since the debate occurred twenty years before, Kevorksen had probably retired. Even if he was still in the industry, the odds were against finding him at the same agency.

  When Dane phoned Kevorksen that afternoon, he viewed the call as an instrument of fate like I Ching or a Ouiji Board. If Kevorksen was the rare person who stayed at the same agency for twenty years, Dane would read this as a sign that his cockeyed plan could succeed. If Kevorksen was unreachable, Dane would seek another career. He phoned the agency and asked for Thor. Without hesitation, the operator connected him, and half a ring later Kevorksen picked up and blurted his name, “Thorkvorksen!” so fast that he did not swallow the two names so much as rear-end one with the other.

  It was a miracle that his one contact was the most stable man in advertising and Dane could not contain his euphoria. In this one sign, Dane read his destiny and his success. He identified himself with a dramatic gasp and pause, as if his name were the answer to Kevorksen’s unspoken question. Kevorksen recalled Dane but before he could abort the conversation, Dane’s mouth went into overdrive. He told Kevorksen the entire back-story behind this impromptu interruption of his day. Thor responded with rapid, caffeinated “Uh huhs,” and “Yeah, yeahs,” which anticipated a redemptive punch line to a long setup. Dane sensed that the conversation was going well but he had to deliver his message. Closing his eyes, he dropped his bomb.

  “I want to get into advertising!” Pause. “But I’m probably too old to start, right?”

  “You’re not too old. Your timing is excellent,” Kevorksen replied. “Remember, the largest audience is our generation.”

  Of course! Why hadn’t Dane thought of it? They were baby busters, the baby boomers’ younger siblings, who tagged along to demonstrations but were too young to be drafted, who listened to ‘60s music but were too young for love-ins, who inherited the counterculture like a cool hand-me-down only to store it away in the conservative era of deflated expectations and conformity that ensued. They missed the war but suffered its aftermath—an economic slowdown fueled by higher gas prices, a larger workforce and fewer jobs. They were underachievers, regardless how hard they tried.

  Now by a brilliant twist of history, the demographic that made it hard for Dane to get a job at 22 might sustain him when he was 42. Once Kevorksen confirmed that Dane’s hunch about an advertising career was not delusional, he offered to review Dane’s “book.” Thor proposed and cancelled many meeting times but delay did not discourage Dane. It enhanced his intuition that he had made a powerful contact. A date was finally set for a month later. Dane fantasized, against years of contrary experience, that one meeting with Kevorksen would land him a job.

  5. THE AGE OF TIN

  Exhilarated by the possibility of a new career, Dane poured over books about advertising, including the classics—Reality in Advertising, Confessions of an Advertising Man, and From those Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Pearl Harbor. He learned that he was not falling into a volatile and tawdry business, but a venerable industry with a long tradition, aesthetic standards, and a canon of lore. With his new field came fresh purpose and a new Valhalla of heroes. His enthusiasm grew as he discovered that advertising was more than non-stop drinking, spouting headlines between belches, and hallucinating brand characters before passing out. It was psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology. This widely reviled field rewarded hard work, respected intelligence, and indulged the eccentricity and freedom associated with creativity.

  Dane’s neighbor, Doris, was an advertising copywriter. Doris looked perpetually harassed. However, given the embryonic state of his fresh ambition, Dane took care not to infer her unhappy appearance from her occupation. Doris had studied puppetry and Cro-Magnon semiotics, not writing or business. She started on Madison Avenue comparatively late in life, taking night classes at The Institute of Design and landing her first job in her late 30s. Yet, despite her belated start and brief career, Doris had some prestigious positions on her résumé. Since Dane was past his 30s, knowing another late-starter made his goal seem tangible. The most inspirational and irrelevant of questions doubled his resolve, “If she can do it, why can’t I?”

  How many ill-fated plans start with this competitive query! So many reasons may explain why another person is doing what you are not—aptitude, viewpoint, a personality trait, family background, an academic pursuit, or work experience that provides special insight about a product or marketing, in general. Or luck.

  When Dane encountered Doris in the neighborhood, he rhapsodized about his advertising aspirations, brimming over with all he was learning about the field. He shared anecdotes and theories from books he read and asked Doris to describe her experiences. She responded to his exuberance with a pitying expression that implied, “You poor fool!” She told the fable of her big break, how after four courses, she had
a teacher who liked her work and recommended her for a position. Doris recounted this without affect as if ticking off events that led to a coronary bypass.

  “I don’t get it,” Dane said. “You’ve got the best job in the world and you’re miserable. You’re paid to think and write creatively every day and always about something different. Advertising is the most creative profession. Writers use words. Artists use colors and design. Movie-makers use film. But a copywriter uses them all and writes ads, billboards, letters, brochures and commercials.”

  Doris stared at Dane through her large glasses with a buzz-killing gaze. “You’re excited about a new career. You read about advertising in its golden age. But I’m in the trenches, doing car dealership ads. Believe me, it’s no golden age. It’s the age of tin. And I’m the goat.”

  Doris’s disillusionment was no antidote to Dane’s ardor. He thought she was “playing it cool” because she was in a club he wanted to crash. He envied his neighbor’s nonchalance about something he craved so badly. A perquisite of getting what you wanted was that you could be cynical about it. He wondered if the day would ever come when he would be blasé about advertising. He promised himself it would never happen. If he was ever hired as a copywriter, he would never take the job for granted.

  As Dane absorbed the lessons of great advertising thinkers—Rosser Reeves, David Ogilvy, George Lois, and Jerry de la Femina—he created new concepts to supplement the best ones from years before. He asked his university students to pose for him in jeans, sneakers and boots for a new apparel campaign to update his portfolio. He wanted to impress Thor Kevorksen.

  6. THE EVALUATION

  After several postponements, Dane went to the fabled ninth floor of one of the top ten advertising conglomerates in the world and sat on the low, black leather couches that sucked his body in like quicksand. The receptionist, a woman in her 70s, regaled him with stories of her fashion model youth back in the day. Thor Kevorksen emerged, nervous, spindly, with a pot belly and thinning blond hair. He raced toward Dane from across the lobby, his hand extended stiffly like a poker. He shook Dane’s hand and led him back to his corner office.

  “So it’s been twenty years,” Kevorksen said, “How’ve you been?”

  “I’m alive.”

  “So I’m not hallucinating. Quelle relief! So…let’s look at your book.”

  The warm segment of this reunion was over. Kevorksen was letting Dane know that their remote connection was good for a professional assessment of his work and some advice. Dane fumbled to open the portfolio. Kevorksen flipped the pages with nervous fingers; his eyes gave each concept intense scrutiny; they were not looking at or over, but into and behind, like x-rays. When he liked something, he asked Dane about it, or went, “Umm, nice.” When he disapproved he made a terse remark. When he came to Dane’s GAS-X ad in which Dane was photographed wearing a gas-mask, he said, “One rule in the antacid category is ‘Don’t make fart jokes.’” When Kevorksen came to Dane’s toothpaste concept—of a great toothy dinosaur fish suspended from the ceiling of the Museum of Natural History—he declared, “Dinosaurs are death. They make products seem out of date.”

  Within two minutes, Thor had reviewed Dane’s twenty pieces of creativity and closed the book. He looked at Dane seriously.

  “So, you want to be in advertising.”

  “Yes,” Dane replied, unbearably eager for Thor’s appraisal.

  “You want to sell soap and suppositories.”

  “More than anything.”

  “We go back a long way so I’ll give you my short speech. When I started looking for a job, one interviewer asked what my college major was. I told him it was American Studies. ‘Ah, good,’ he said. ‘Advertising is American studies.’ He told me I’d learn more about America than I ever wanted to.”

  “What did you learn, Thor?”

  “That America is a land of hemorrhoids and halitosis, of dry hair and oily skin, of bad gums and tooth decay, of high blood pressure and low energy. So why do you want to be in advertising, Dane?”

  “To make money?”

  Thor blinked and pondered for a moment. Dane wondered if it was the wrong answer.

  “That works. So…your book…Half of this is amateurish drivel. A quarter of it is semi-decent and derivative. But a quarter of it shows promise. I like the bus ad.”

  “It was the first one I ever did—”

  “—what you have here won’t get you a job,” Thor interrupted Dane to prevent him from feeling good about himself, “My advice is keep working on your book and take a course at The Institute of Design.”

  Dane was disappointed that Kevorksen would not even offer him a low-level, hands-on, junior job, but he could not argue with his one contact.

  “Can I show you my new stuff when I create it?”

  “Any time,” Kevorksen said. “Come back in a few months.”

  7. SCHOOL FOR ADS

  “How good do you want to be?” The Institute of Design challenged Dane on the subway train every day in January. Another ad with a sad harlequin consoled him, “Are you lost? We’ll help you find yourself!” while another series of ads featured everyday artists—a man covered in tattoos, a graffiti artist with a spray can and a public wall, and a woman in a cluttered, wildly decorated apartment—urging him to “turn (his) genius into a job.” Registration for the city’s colleges and universities was in full swing, and The Institute of Design, widely known as ID, always produced the most compelling ads with messages that penetrated the static in the brain and stirred it with desire.

  ID was an unavoidable proving ground for a job in advertising. Various people in the business had advised Dane that he must go there to learn the craft and make indispensable connections. Dane balked each time. ID classes were taught by Madison Avenue professionals, a notoriously cynical and vituperative cadre. They had seen it all and would have the power to anoint or destroy people for sport. Dane was never willing to put his ego in this all-or-nothing situation, but now that he faced unemployment, his ego would have to fend for itself.

  Dane attended an open house for the advertising program at ID on a cold January night. The auditorium was SRO. Most of the crowd was in business attire, heading home from work. The mood in the room was fraught with anticipation, exhaustion and discontent.

  The program was supposed to open with a short video describing the vaunted advertising program. Lights, titles, music—darkness. After a few failed attempts to resuscitate the obligatory, ice breaking, crowd-inspiring video overture, the lights came on and two speakers were introduced. The first to speak was a creative director of art: a bald, intense man, modestly dressed and soft-spoken. The expression in his eyes suggested that he spoke to his audience from a great distance—the far end of a long career. He delivered a succinct account of his long, circuitous path to his current position and admitted that on most days he performed tedious, uncreative tasks. But after a day of “killing work” he sometimes had time to immerse himself in a creative project that redeemed the tedium.

  The art director concluded his talk with a short discourse on the use of pattern and discontinuity in art direction to make ads “pop.” It was an unassuming and persuasive performance.

  The second speaker, a copywriter in his late 20s, slouched in his seat and never left it. His shaved head hung from his neck and he shielded his eyes from the lights to protect a hangover. His cheeks were mottled by razor burns and stubble and a wrinkled shirt billowed over his torso and the wide, tomato-stained thighs of his jeans. His appearance, so far exceeding studied neglect, suggested that rules of business appearance no longer applied to him since he belonged to an elite caste, obeyed a higher authority, and possessed a freedom that exempted him from cleanliness and sobriety.

  The copywriter stumbled and mumbled through his introductory remarks as if talking gibberish to himself, and punctuated each inarticulate passage by scratching his crotch. On first impression, this lack of preparation was calculated to offend his listeners with how li
ttle they would learn from him. The ultimate effect, however, was to reach deep into the longings of his audience, trapped in their serviceeconomy conformity and restraint. He held out an elusive promise—that if his listeners were good enough they could also be slobs with impunity. In advertising, how you looked meant nothing and what was in your head and in your heart, everything. Through studied sloth, the copywriter conveyed another less appealing truth: a creative had no time for personal grooming. One must turn over one’s soul day and night to market-driven demons. This was performance advertising and he was an animated billboard for the life and lifestyle of an advertising creative—The Rock Star Copywriter.

  Suddenly, like thunder rumbling in a fog, the Rock Star Copywriter raised a strong voice steeped in righteous belligerence. “I, too, was once, confused about my career path!” he cried, startling the dormant crowd. “I was bitter and angry. I drank too much. I was desperate for a job that didn’t make me want to kill people, including myself. Was it possible to pay bills and express my inner being? I had no idea but I was willing to die finding out. I was like you!”

  He squinted and pointed out into the semi-dark auditorium in an accusatory manner that made Dane respond, “I hope not.”

  “My father was a fireman,” The Rock Star Copywriter continued. “Maybe that’s why I had a burning need to create. I lived at home, worked as a traffic guy in an agency, and schlepped all day, pushing jobs around from office to office. Man, was I pissed! I wasted a lot of time and money in bars, drinking and carelessly throwing darts. Some actually hit people and I had to do community service.”

  The Rock Star Copywriter paused for the light, nervous laughter that rose from the audience like the last carbonated bubbles from a flat soda. “But then one day my life changed. I was reborn. My mom started it. She said, ‘Sonny, you always had a way with words…why don’t you write for a living?’ So I bought a book called So You Want to Be a Creative, by Margaret Dumont, the Hall of Fame creative recruiter. I read it cover to cover and then backwards. Yeah, that’s right! And if you’re not totally brain-dead when I’m finished talking you’ll get your butts over to the nearest Barnes and Noble and buy it, too.