Lots of comments on my “Important questions for aspiring Mad Men” post of yesterday. Apart from a stroll down memory lane and reminisces about great bars and restaurants, many of which no longer exist, the big question raised was, was the work better, and did we have more fun doing it? Yes, I think the work was better, and I know that will raise a shitstorm from young fucktards who think creating stuff for digital, viral, WOM, CGC, and whatever else is flavor of the month is harder and requires a greater range of skills. To which I answer, you are probably right, but that’s not the fucking point… It’s still all about ideas and great content… Not fucking execution. There seems to be a great deal of confusion on this. Do it on the back of an envelope (or better yet, a cocktail napkin) before you spend fucking hours tarting it up in Photoshop and Illustrator, or whatever you create incredibly finished layouts in these days. If it doesn’t work on the cocktail napkin, it certainly wont work on your 42 inch monitor. So, order another drink and start over. Which brings me to part two of the question. Yes we drank, smoked and fucked our brains out… Some of us still do, well, the drinking and smoking bit! And yes, we had to deal with arseholes on both the client and agency side. But what we did, we actually believed in and fought tooth and nail to get it through, and if you worked in the right shop, management supported you. Today, everyone is fucking terrified, all the time. With a couple of notable agency exceptions, no one fights for anything, everyone fucking caves. And they don’t even have the balls to go out and get fucked up after they do. You can read a lot more on this and how things used to be in my next fucking opus… “Confessions of a Mad Man!” Yes, the title is an homage to David. And yes it will be full of drink, sex, drugs and rock&roll… ‘Cos it’s my memoirs… Stick that in your gnarly old pipe and smoke it!
Parker's working on another book... Fucking shitasmic!!!
