The End of the World. Again.

I bought a bag of peanut M&Ms this afternoon, opened it and started to eat. I bit into the first one. It had no peanut inside, just chocolate! Bit into the second. No peanut! Same with the third!!

“F**king Mayans.” I said. “So this is what it comes to.”

You’ve got to hand it to them. They were on our minds. Off the radar for a thousand years but they still managed to craft some serious millennium-bounce buzz to pop up on us – if you can call the end of the world “serious”.

I can imagine them sitting around a stone table there sometime around 1104 or 5 somewhere in the Yucatan and they’re talking:

Main Mayan: “Well guys, we’ve all noticed the wheels are coming off the wagon around here and we gotta do something about it.”

Some other Mayan: “Maybe we should invent the wagon.”

Mayan next to him: “Maybe we should start with a wheel.”

Long pause.

Then another Mayan (no point in naming names here out of respect for the dead) says:

 “Look boys,” he says, “Ain’t no wagon or wheel or any other dumb idea is going to work for us. I move we prank our way out. Gimme a hammer and a chisel and I’ll rough it out for you.”

So the perpetrators, all world-class stonecarvers and the finest comedy minds of their time, worked up a calendar and closed it out with an expiration date.

The expiration date.

Fast forward to now, to where most of us can take a joke, having survived several ends of the world ­with some of them on the same day. Some ends were predicted by "experts". Some of them anyone with brainpower equivalent to poultry could have seen coming like the time I nearly ended my world on a motorcycle topping a blind hill too fast on a hot day on the road to St. Omer trying to insert myself into the cooling system of a French potato truck. That would have been IT for me, but as I recall, the irony did not escape me.

But it wasn’t IT then and it wasn’t again this time. The world may well end in a fireball or a big flood. It can also, on a personal level, end in a tsunami of stupidity.

We all have different endings. We just have to keep a sense of humor about it, like the Mayans.

The AAF Thought Leadership Forum: Doing the After-Math

I enjoyed this AAF forum (see Press page). Everyone who participated enlightened me about something – exactly what Thought Leaders might be expected to do.

We all got together for a drink afterward, with the exception of one panelist who had to catch a plane and both representatives from the AARP. At the time, I didn’t take it as a sign – there was no applicable math that could sum up a show/no-show factor.

But something has emerged since.

Ten emails and phone calls to my fellow panelists from AARP later: zero response. I thought I had some interesting things to say (the Forum is linked here so I’m open to criticism). Maybe there are other factors:

1. I actually added nothing of value to the discussions, so there’s no point in further communication.

2. My Senior Creative People partners (all of whom were Event participants) were equally unimpressive.

3. We’re too Senior (old) to merit notice. The AARP representatives who participated in the Forum with us were barely in their 50s.

I tried to contact these folks to get their reaction to some thoughts I had about the new “Senior” minority and its issues with ageism. OK, I also wanted to offer our services, thinking that since AARP’s mission was to advocate for seniors, they could use some help from our kind. They do need help. Their messaging is bland and unimpressive and not likely to motivate the 60s generation who are already trashing AARP invitations – mostly because they’re “too young” to join.

Whatever the case, a return mail or call from AARP would have been appropriate.

During the Forum I offered one word that could sum it all up: “Respect”. But, by AARP’s calculations, it seems to have come out “Disrespect”.

Maybe I should run the numbers again.

The Last of The Gray

I watch a fair bit television. Somehow it helps me think about things that have nothing to do with what’s on the screen.  It can also be a great nonprescription sedative. Unless I see something that grabs my attention.

“Senior-product” commercials obviously written by 30-somethings bring out attitude and the remote.

Some are just awful.

I don’t know who can tolerate the threadbare “golden years” crap – the trite little slices of life that some 35-year-old Copywriter thinks a 55-year-old should be living. Some are just lame, like a suburban white kid trying to vocalize (a.k.a. “represent”) The Hood and tripping up on his “YOs”.

Hair coloring product messages can punch all of my buttons at once. “Nice ‘n Easy is running a spot featuring a guy who ‘s telling us that he’s going gray as opposed to his wife who’s "still herself", still cool, hot, relevant -- or something else fabulous.

But Just For Men’s “The last Gray-Haired Man on Earth” is in a class by itself. It comes on the screen and I’m scrambling for the clicker and pointing it at the TV set, wielding it like a taser. The manufacturer wants us to believe that our society frowns on all gray-haired men and sees them as drifters into senility, incompetence and impotence. The concept is stale, the execution is weak and the Big Finish – dropping the product from a helicopter to a guy on a tiny desert island – is just dumb.

Hair dye. Just what a guy who's marooned -- alone -- on a desert island would have at the top (or anywhere) on his wish list.

What, no condoms?

I have no issue with the fact that some men want to get the gray out, feeling that it makes them look better, younger and more...whatever. That's cool. But these kinds of messages do promote some radical follicular adjustments. Some guys overdye their “doos” and get a kind of Darth Vader black helmet-effect which fools nobody but the fool under it.  Then there’s the screaming hairpiece, a “toop” that looks like a chunk of scorched Astroturf. Maybe the Astroturf folks will see a niche market here and line-extend.

I want these “Last Man” mutts to know that I’m a guy with gray hair on my head, face and ...elsewhere. If they’re on a mission to rid the world of my kind I invite them to come and get me.

A word of caution: I’m an old hockey player. Wear a mouth guard. And bring lumber.

A Port You May Be Missing

Some minds grow old before their time. But it always was the way that we tended to form most of our core beliefs when we're young and hung onto them. The 60s generation ushered in a massive change. There are a bunch of ex-hippies out there who threw the doors and windows of their minds open and let new ideas in. 

Once open, those windows are damn hard to shut.

So, ambling along in the direction of that analogy, let’s say the mind is like a laptop’s CPU  (Central Processing Unit or "brain") and it has a huge number of USB and Firewire ports. None of us can use all of the ports. There are just too many. But some of us allow access from more ports than others leaving us open to more input. Ideas that come from unanticipated directions gain access to the processor, while other brain/CPUs shut the data out.

In any profession, that’s one definition of a creative mind. It can process data that the isolated CPU cannot. I’ll call it “Asynchronous Port Syndrome” (“APS”).

Most political discourse is driven by APS. Liberals are more inclined to accept and promulgate ideas they hear from Liberal sources. Conservatives process and retain information exactly the same way. So, Rush Limbaugh’s pronouncements can be absolutely true – or totally false, depending on APS. Same applies to anybody named Kennedy. It’s APS that qualifies their credibility, even though the eyes and ears that receive the input look pretty much the same and have all come from the same Creator.

Fashion is a good example. If a  fashion statement is addressed to a non-working port, will it not compute? If an old person wears something that’s fashion-forward is it "brilliant"? Or an early signal of dementia?

All depends on APS.

IMHO, I see two people seem to be processing an obscure data stream. Ari Seth Cohen decided one day while walking on the street that elderly women had major fashion statements to make. His Advanced Style blog features ladies of advanced age. Few others could recognize this. So a 20-something fashion blogger has locked his trendsetting eye on ladies in their 80s and 90s and made them stars of an amazing film. All because he has that open port.

Then there’s Tavi Gevinson, crowned The Oracle of Girl World by The New York Times (a port, like The Wall Street Journal, that should always be open). She’s 16, been blogging as The Style Rookie since preteens and once dyed her hair gray to start the “faux-old movement" that she wanted her readers to take further, drawing lines on their faces to replicate wrinkles. Wrinkles got cool.  

Wrinkles? As a fashion statement? What planet did that come from?

Ours, actually. Did something happen to it on the way to your CPU? Test you ports. You've got one you can open there somewhere.

"Faded" Beauty

I was going to write a review on a film: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’s documentary “About Face: The Supermodels, Then and Now.”

One problem. I haven't seen it.

I do try (pretty much) to avoid writing on subjects about which I know nothing as opposed to pontificating at length on them verbally.

So I'll write a review on a review: When Beauty Fades by the New York Times' Ruth La Ferla. Ms. La Ferla is an expert on beauty. At least one kind of beauty – the physical sort that anyone with a working eyeball can recognize. But what does she know about the way beauty ages and how wide are her sympathies on the subject? Especially in her business where wrinkles are not seen as beauty marks?

In her review of Mr. Greenfield-Sanders’s film Ms. La Ferla reports that Isabella Rossellini complains that she “is not invited to the ‘A’ parties any more” and comments that she then “erupted into peals of laughter touched with rue”. Is the “rue” Ms. La Ferla hears an editorial opinion based on misinterpretation? Maybe not, but I didn’t hear any empathy for Ms. Rossellini’s regret.

The truth is that even if you’ve had a beauty-based career, if you trust your identity and self-worth to the kind of people that invite you to those kinds of parties you have put your fine self in the wrong hands.

Fashion is big business and its modeling icons can become “super” in their mid-teens (sometimes running a gauntlet through low-life types who abuse children) but it’s a business that lives in the moment and if those moments are all the Supers will ever have there’s likely to be a hard fall into supernova at the end of the runway.

The business needs -- we all need -- an updated perspective.

There’s a whole new generation coming on the scene and they’re going to force their own definition of beauty and fashion. We’re going to be yanked up to speed with the rest of the world. Wrinkles, in many societies, are seen as lines that mark the division between those who’ve gained the wisdom that comes with experience and those who haven't. And wisdom -- along with a lot of other remarkable things -- shines with its own kind of beauty and it comes from beyond the depth of skin.

Any woman who gathers that wisdom and cultivates those other alluring traits can age gracefully. And beautifully. And that beauty, Ms. La Ferla, doesn’t fade.

It evolves.

We need to get past the surface, look deeper and find the things there that are worth admiring. It’s not an impossible mission. In fact it’s become obvious to some of us. Even a few in the fashion business.

Both Sides Now

Always loved Joni. Her voice was ours, young and bright and knowing and her song made a lot of us who came of age in the turbulent 60s feel like we knew a lot because we'd seen it (even experienced it) first hand. We bought the concept.

"Ya, I've been there myself".

But that wasn't the truth at all. Maybe we weren’t listening to her closely enough and hearing the caveat: “I really don’t know life at all”.

There was a lot more to see of the sides of  a lot of things that "both" just didn't cover even with the peyote perspective factored in.  Joni wasn’t old enough to guess. I know I wasn’t. When you're 20-something you think you know a lot. Maybe you do. At least about a little. But "both sides"? I think not.

But eventually the sides are revealed and you find that “both” and “up and down” are only part of the perspective and even when your knowledge base grows it suffers shrikage with the growing awareness of the tip of the iceberg – no, the massive glacier of things you know little or nothing about. So your world grows smaller while the universe expands and you do the best you can to master that little world. Which would have satisfied most people from a different generation.

Less so the children of the 60s.

There's always the Other Side and the only way you can see and know it is to go where it is. Adjust your perspective. Or attitude. Or latitude. So said the Prophet Buffett.

Joni found the truth. A few years ago I heard her rerelease of Both Sides and heard in her voice what she'd learned and it was a whole different scene of clouds and love and life.

The changes of place and perspective and the awareness of life that living it a long time brings constant revelation. If you drive a certain set of roads for a long time and learn where the potholes and the shortcuts and the scenes of beauty are you can understand the ease of movement through life that some of the aged have mastered.

"I Get Around" The Beach Boys sang back then.They didn’t know the half of it.

They do now.

Mad Men: The Work

The Senior Creative People discuss Mad Men. I read and pass on some of blogger Nelle Engeron’s observations. The theme that recurs -- in the midst of the highest standards of creativity we see in the show (and Nelle’s synopses) -- is the lack of creativity in the agency’s product. “The Work” sucks.

In the May 13 episode it seems to be both nastily and nicely put into context.  Pete rails because the hour he spent with a Times reporter yields no mention in the published piece.  He jolts Don Draper out of bed who opens the magazine to the story. The most noticeable ad by far on the page is Volkswagen. 

I recall a line Don fires at Pete: “Don’t bother me with your failures”. In The Times’ context there’s a good chance that The Work is the reason why SCDP didn’t make it. Hacks are not “hip” and SCDP’s mediocrity is on the CD’s head.

Critiques of the ad product are frequent and usually sharp in the blog's Comments. The story invites us into The Work. One viewer saw Don as “a corny old geezer” with a corny campaign.  I’ll buy his “corny” campaign comment but he missed the mark with that “geezer” thing. The fact that Don is a hack has nothing to do with his age.

Also, the fact that I'm almost twice the Don character's age may be a trigger point here.

But here's the real point: This is not a show about a great agency or great creative work, it’s about wonderful characters beautifully detailed in a finely-etched setting. SCDP could be the Ted Bates of its time. In the 60s Ted's name alone horrified more good creative people than Norman of the same surname. Does anyone remember the little Bufferin “Bs”  threading their way through a crudely-animated digestive tract ahead of Aspirin “As”?

That commercial generated more headaches than it helped cure.

Mad Men is a well-told tale about an ad agency with a consistently poor-to-mediocre creative product. That means The Work is tailor-made to the firm.

Someday, when we have the time, the Senior Creative People will take a shot at a campaign for an SCDP pitch. I’ll post it here.

We’ll let this audience of consumers (of the show) be the judges.

Engoron's Mad Men Blog

The 60-Year-Old Candy Bar

A few days ago I went looking for an Oh Henry!. I’m not sure why. There are a few reasons why I should not have been looking for an Oh Henry! not the least of them having to do with type-2 diabetes. Nevertheless I found the bar, bought and ate it and reconnected with a lot of things that had disappeared into the nether regions of my braincase.

I remember buying the candy on my way home from school and taking care not to exhale in the direction of my mother who could detect peanut breath at preternatural distance. Failure to cloak it meant a short pithy speech titled “Spoiling Supper” that often included ominous references to dentistry. The peanuts were clearly the triggers that blew my cover and I considered short-circuiting the alarm by picking them out, but the Oh Henry! experience would not have survived. The bar became an Oh Henry without the punctuation.

So why, 60 years later, with total awareness of blood sugar issues and the danger of dental consequences was I suddenly out looking for that Oh Henry! experience? I guess I had other things lurking in the braincase.

Like Hank Aaron. Hank was a great ballplayer. I didn’t follow his teams but I had tremendous respect for his skills long before his run for The Record. Babe Ruth’s 714 homers stood for nearly four decades and seemed beyond human capacity in the doing and even harder to match. Impossible – until Hank stepped up to the plate on April 8, 1974 and hit number 715. That shot went much farther than over the wall. It penetrated deep into the heart of racism in baseball – an unsustainable hatred to which not even a hard-core bigot could cling. A great player topped The Babe’s record. So he was black and The Babe was white. It’s done. Get over it.

I already had a deep, personal appreciation of the value of black players in baseball. Without Jackie Robinson my beloved Brooklyn Dodgers would never have won the ’55 World Series. Any Brooklyn fan knows what that means.

Back to the candy.

Sometime during Hank’s run for the record the bar’s manufacturers tried to reposition the bar in his image. Babe Ruth had his Baby Ruth. Now Hank had Oh Henry!. I was already buying, but I bought more. Then I stopped. And then I came back a few days ago after a 30+-year hiatus.

I’ve read about the reasons why we buy. Some of it is dense and complex and dips into the Dispositional Theory of Moods, Mood-Congruent Cognition and stuff like that I refer to when I get too deep (over my head) into theory. I do know some of it is beyond research and reasoning. But more than one generation is recalling what they bought “back then” and driven by distant memories are buying again.

All I know is that an old brand reached out to me from half a lifetime ago and brought back the good and the bad of baseball, race relations and peanut breath.

Infographics: Following the Money

How we spend, what do we owe and how we're scored. Courtesy of Experian.

Infographics: Seniors and Facebook

This week's infographic is also on seniors and Facebook (similar to our March 13 post), provided by AllAssistedLivingHomes.com. Amongst the interesting facts are the different ways senior's use Facebook, the length of time they're logged on, and the amount of interest seniors have to Facebook – enough to fill hundreds of 80 people training classes.

The Definitive Mad Men Blog

Mad Men returned last night – and what a great episode it was! This is going to be a great season! With that in mind, here's a link to the definitive Mad Men blog by Nelle Engoron at Salon.
http://www.salon.com/writer/nelle_engoron/

Nelle will be writing amusing and insightful running commentaries for each new episode. You can view her previous Mad Men episode summaries here:
http://open.salon.com/blog/silkstone

Missing Mad Men

They were a long time away. And now they're back. But they still seem to be some distance from the place where the real-life madness was happening just across town. The contrast might have looked something like this:

The scene opens with Roger Sterling walking into the lobby at 20 West 43rd Street. He’s on his way to join a golfing buddy–an Account Management Supervisor with Doyle Dane Bernbach–at his office. They’re going out for drinks. Roger steps onto the elevator and after a moment he’s joined by a Jewish Copywriter and an African-American Art Director. He knows the Jew is a Copywriter from the way he’s talking about writing the end of a TV commercial. He knows he’s a Jew from the yarmulke on his head (holy days are on). From the conversation and industry jargon he guesses the black guy is an Art Director. The ethnicity he doesn’t have to guess.

The Art Director, a big guy, wearing a dashiki and standing a head taller than Roger, nods to him, bobbing head accentuated by a huge Afro:

“Hey, man. Howyadoin’?”

This does not put Roger at ease. His rides up with these two, but since he’s a bit flustered he gets off one stop too soon, steps out of the elevator and into the Creative Department. He heads for the Receptionist (also black) and into the path of an Asian Art Director, identifiable as an Art Director by the way she’s talking to the Copywriter with her.

But it’s the Copywriter that really rattles Roger.

The guy’s head is shaved (except for a scalp lock at the back), he has a large white mark in the middle of his forehead. He’s wearing full-length saffron robes. He is barefoot. Hari Krishna!! AMC does not permit profanity, but we all know that Roger is a profane man. “WTF!??!!!” Roger says, now leaning against the wall and clutching at his chest. Another copywriter (shoulder-length hair, torn jeans and sneakers) comes out of his office and asks Roger if he’s OK. Offers him a joint.

Cut to Roger in the ICU at Bellevue. He has tubes coming and going. Fade out.

This scene – the fictional world of Sterling Cooper meets the real world of Doyle Dane Bernbach – will never happen. But the clash of cultures is true-to-life. The 60s world of Doyle Dane was incomprehensible to the Roger Sterlings of the time, and largely unreachable by his agency’s creative people. We wonder if the series’ creator is aware of this.

Matthew Weiner is brilliant and obviously obsessed with his amazing creation and the story it pulled us into. But along with kudos come abuses. Creative people of his caliber are always being “interpreted.” Often by people who don’t know what they’re talking about. But an environment so realistically fashioned in such minute detail invites – demands – observations from the real world in which it's set by the people who do know what they’re talking about. If the haircuts and the lamps and the ladies underwear and the behaviors are so true-to-life, then true life as it was then will step in to observe the fantasy.

Mr. Weiner was on CBS This Morning recently. He was asked if the 60s were “The Golden Age of Advertising”. His response was: “According to them it was.” Interesting. “Them” who? His advisors, we assume, since Matthew wasn’t there himself. And who are his advisors? Obviously the people who in broad strokes shaped the world of Sterling Cooper, a place that (to this point in the story) has had no part in – or concept of – the “creative revolution”, a place of “rigid rules” that bore no resemblance to the Doyle Dane of that or any other day.

In fact it was Doyle Dane Bernbach that started the “creative revolution”, turning the advertising business and a part of our society on its ear. Doyle Dane called a client’s car “ugly” (it was). Also “defective”. The Volkswagen ad “Lemon” highlighted the defect and turned it into a perfect reason to buy a VW. The agency demeaned another client’s service as lesser than its competitor: “Avis. We’re only number two”. They were.

Business boomed.

In 1964 the team of Sid Myers and Stan Lee created “Daisy Girl”, the TV spot that changed political advertising forever. And Doyle Dane people created positive political ads for other candidates that continued to win campaigns and make news. All of this came from a place far more freewheeling and wilder than “Sterling Cooper”. No rules. Everybody welcome – if you had the talent to do Doyle Dane-caliber work.

So, is it possible that Mr. Weiner is unaware of all of this, his eyes locked on a “rigid rules” workplace where Doyle Dane work isn’t possible? Or even conceivable? Or maybe he’s just being coy. He’s skilled at that too.

All of these scenarios may be advanced in the new season. Peggy Olsen is a Copywriter on the move. My guess is that sometime during the coming weeks she will be asking herself if she has the talent to work at Doyle Dane Bernbach. She will put her book together and come knocking on our door. Don Draper? The powerful presence and good looks wouldn’t get him in the door and he’s smart enough to know it. So he rolls on at Sterling Cooper, a Creative Director perhaps with a creeping suspicion he isn’t all that creative.

In an earlier episode Don didn't understand "Lemon". In fact, he "hated" the ad. In the first episode of this new season he covets the American Airlines account. Back in that day when rumors were flying that the airline was looking for another agency, Doyle Dane created this ad (full-page, New York Times) for its client, American. Compare it with Don's lame "Equal Opportunity" gag. It comes from a far distant planet and totally different level of the craft. 

The fictional world of Sterling Cooper vs. the real world of Doyle Dane Bernbach.

Infographics: Demographics of Social Media

This week's infographic is from Advertising Age, showing a breakdown of social media user profiles according to age, gender, and location. Interesting takeaways? Millennials are by far the top consumers of social media – that's nothing new, but did you now the second largest country of Facebook users is Indonesia?

Donny D. and the Boomer "Bubble"

This segment on the Today Show managed to be both right on -- and far off the mark.

On the plus side we saw that M.A.C. Cosmetics, a forward-thinker in the beauty industry, is recognizing the fact that may older women are attractive and want to stay that way without the kind of radical, extreme and unsubtle surgeries that make them look like one of the “Real Housewives” -- who aren’t "real" by any definition. 

Kudos to Today.

Cut to Donny Deutsch. Now, I have enjoyed Donny, especially when he was in damage control mode on his show trying to counter Coulter Madness, which, unlike the annual NCAA basketball lunacy, tends to run on a 12-month cycle. But Donny got a few major things wrong here. He characterized the Boomer Generation with a weird and wildly inaccurate analogy: as a “bubble” passing through a “python”.  A  “bubble” bursts and disappears -- or following Donny's analogy -- is processed into Python shit. 

He's wrong. 

The Boomers are going to have an impact on generations to come. Donny's “follow the money” thesis is going to generate a host of new strategies for making the lives of older people everywhere much, much better. Also off the mark was his “we’re the most selfish generation” comment, probably because he was born in ‘57 and was talking about his generation (or himself?). My generation came of age in the 60s, a time when a lot of us became aware of the wider world and took to the streets to march for civil rights and against an ill-conceived war gone desperately wrong. Since many of us were too white to suffer discrimination and too old to be drafted it sure-as-Hell wasn't selfishness that drove us.

Donny said a lot of important, supportive things about respect for age, the natural beauty of older women and against the obsession our society has with everything "young". But if NBC is putting him out there for his expertise, they need to look at this segment for his lack of it.

Darkness on the Funny Side

I just heard that a friend has been ill. She's now getting better, so this one's for her. Personally, I like to get stuff like this when I'm feeling lousy. Well, maybe not in the ICU. Laughing the tubes out kills the joke.

Infographics: Seniors and Social Media

Here is a fascinating infographic from social media consultancy, Flowtown, about the use of social media by seniors. Who knew that seniors represent the largest growth amongst Internet users?

My Experience as a Senior Creative People Mentee

During the fall semester of 2011, I had the pleasure to work with Chuck Schroeder and Don Blauweiss of Senior Creative People. My work was part of a course at the Alberta College of Art + Design whereby 4^th year Visual Communications Design students are matched with real clients. With my strong interest and background in web design, and their need for a web presence for their newly formed creative consultancy, this was a perfect fit. But what also came out of the working relationship was the catalyst for the Senior Creative People mentorship program.

Throughout the project, I learned a lot about the process of developing a consultancy from the ground up, and the development of their brand in the process. I learned about their approach to work, especially collaborations with outside contractors and other vendors, and their experience working in an office-less environment and in different time zones.

And although my career goals are not perfectly inline with their areas of expertise – my career goal is to work as a designer in a digital agency, whereas their experience is within traditional advertising – a lot of their experience is still transferable to what I need to know. Content is king, not just in advertising, but also within any area of design. Their focus on the idea and concept was seen and apparent in the process of working with them. I also learned a lot about their time working at Doyle Dane Bernbach, the originators of the creative revolution in advertising.

I had an excellent experience and gleaned invaluable insights into the world of advertising and working as creative individuals.

Infographics: Redefining The Over 50s

Over the next few weeks, we will be sharing some infographics from across the Web that illustrate -- among other things -- the role of seniors in society.

Our first graphic is from Visual Evolution, a design studio in London, England. Enjoy!

Life Begins at 50? Testimony From People Who Oughta Know.

"Life begins at 50". One of the folks on CBS This Morning delivered the Good News to anyone who wasn't already up to speed, and then reassured the "junior" anchor that 50 -- and her Better Life -- is on the way.

Ms. King and Mr. Rose have survived the Big Five-0 and, like a lot of faces you see on CBS, still play at the top of their game and prove the high level of their worth on a daily basis. CBS (you may recall) was once mocked by rivals as "The Geezer Network." So now that the Boomers have made 65 the new 50 -- or 40 -- logic says CBS is better equipped to carry on a conversation with us than their rivals, right? 

The ratings say CBS is doing just fine with both senior and junior viewers. And, arguably, they're always respected their elders. The other networks are watching their viewers skew older every year. So, how are they going to stay relevant? 

Maybe by keeping an eye on CBS.

The Book About the Ad That Changed American Politics

Daisy Petals and Mushroom Clouds

LBJ, Barry Goldwater and the Ad That Changed American Politics

By Professor Robert Mann 

While he was an Art Director at Doyle Dane Bernbach in 1964, our partner Sid Myers teamed with Copywriter Stan Lee to create : “Daisy Girl”-- the most talked about commercial in the history of political advertising. Professor Robert Mann at LSU turned the talk into a book and the book -- in turn -- has generated a lot of talk. It’s been highly praised:

"Disguised as a slender monograph, 'Daisy Petals and Mushroom Clouds' is actually a political thriller."

        --Wall Street Journal

Professor Mann holds the Manship Chair at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University and is director of the school’s Reilly Center for Media and

Public Affairs. He is the author of critically acclaimed histories of the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War and American wartime dissent. His essays and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Politco.com, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Evolution: young bucks to old goats ;))

Who’s got mail?

A lot of people are ready to pull a shroud over the U.S. Postal Service.

Not so fast.

People of a certain age – make that any age – can remember what the mail carrier carried. Today it was love: a valentine. Sure, a lot of people sent and got “virtual” valentines and there was love in them but not much effort. Click on this, click on that, type a word or two and hit Send and move on to the next text message or Tweet.

The post office doesn’t Tweet but it has brought us generations of entertainment, affection and comfort not to mention catalogs full of enough dreams to carry a Northern kid like me through the darkness of a hard, cold winter. Across the globe or the backyard fence the post office was our contact with – and connection to – each other.

Why did Kevin Costner make a postman the hero and savior of the country in a major motion picture? Because the story resonated with us. It was believable.

Mail carriers brought us together as a people, starting with the pony express and on via flimsy aircraft barnstorming across the countryside at the beginning of powered flight. The mail put us into the stream of commerce, delivered the touches of family and friends and comforted lonely soldiers putting their lives on the line for us on battlefields far from all they knew.

Who but a soldier on a battlefield knows what a letter from home means?

So how do we bring that back? 

It never left. A lot of people got real valentines today. They came in the mail and they will sit on someone’s desk or mantle or dresser and they will still be there carrying a message of affection long after email disappears, buried deep in the Mail folder.

The post office isn't dead, it has just lost its way. And to find us again, it needs to dip into our memories and recall where it came from.

First post: Is this my stop?

I was on the bus many years ago on my daily commute from New York City. We rolled out of the Lincoln Tunnel and onto the local streets in Jersey and all of a sudden the guy sitting beside me who had not spoken since we boarded says “Is this my stop?”.

These were the days of popular recreational drug use, so the question needed careful thought. Did it come out of Reefer Madness or someplace on the right side of controlled substance laws -- maybe some textbook pathology that challenged higher brain function? Or was I the problem, one beer over the line myself? I had no answer so it came out something like: “I have no opinion on that”. Then he told me he was going to Englewood Hospital and it was just ahead so I rang the bell and the bus stopped and he got off and the bus rolled on. I recall feeling that the trip had gone well. He had chosen the right transport, been given good instructions and had arrived safely at his hospital-of-destination and where he wound up -- visitors lounge or rehab unit -- was outside the influence of either the bus driver or myself. We just got him there.

That's pretty much how it goes in life. There's no GPS unit that will help you choose the fork in the road you should take. You have to rely on your own wits and experience and ask the right people the right questions along the way.

The bus ride is a fine metaphor. “Get on the bus” the man said and he meant it to be a call to go somewhere and do something as opposed to nowhere and nothing. I’ve been on (and off) the bus for 68 years. I’ve been places I never in my wildest dreams thought existed when I was 10 and came through places in my 20s and 30s that I am not able to recall clearly.

Long ago we Senior Creative People chose the “go somewhere, do something” route and our resumes show it. We haven’t been everywhere and done everything but the Been/Done List is long and there is time left.

Now we’re off on a new adventure. If you’d like to join us, this is your ticket. Comment. Critique. Carp. You're invited. Get on the bus.