Deer Igibles:

Ever notice how some people are truly gifted at the art of name-dropping? They’re able to seamlessly insert some reference to a personal encounter with a person of note into a conversation in such a way that it’s interesting without appearing to be an attempt to bask in the halo of that noteworthy person’s celebrity, which, of course, is just what it is.

Meanwhile, the rest of us don’t even attempt to drop names, even if we have good ones, or else we do so clumsily, nonplussing those we’re trying to impress. I confess to having taken a stab at it now and again, seldom with the desired reaction. As a result, I have all this pent-up urge to drop names. I’ve decided to indulge that urge, to release all my celebrity brushes at once upon unsuspecting you, just so I can get it over with, get it out of my system, get on with my banal life. Forgive me. I know full well that you have a list at least as impressive, probably more so, (especially you, David R.), than this one, but, hey, it’s my meletter. So here goes.

Wait. First, a ground rule. No fair dropping names of celebrities you’ve crossed paths with in the course of producing TV spots. That’s too easy. For example. My list won’t include having directed Stacy Keach doing a voiceover for a TV spot, or shooting three spots with Mike Ditka ( which, of course, would be on pretty much everyone’s list.) Okay, now, here goes.

Last June, I spent the evening backstage at the DTE Energy Music Theatre in Detroit chatting with singer Dale Bozzio and rising guitar star Josh Brill, both of Missing Persons, as well as head Smithereen Pat Dinizio; my late uncle was John Lautner, a Frank Lloyd Wright disciple and architectural genius in his own right; I’ve shaken hands with Mick Jagger and Keith Richard, argued with David Orr and Burton Natarus (not at the same time), hung out in a bar after hours with Ray Davies, spoken briefly with Jim Spivey on the track, chatted on the phone with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, attended The Monterey Pop Festival (by my rules, name-dropping can include events, if they’re life-altering); shaken hands with Bill Veeck at around mile eight of the Chicago Marathon (no, he wasn’t running it, I was); offhandedly dismissed Charlotte Beers ( I didn’t know it was her), in an elevator as she attempted to compliment me on a TV spot I’d worked on (this during the era when Ms. Beers was shepherding (tending?) a remarkable crop (herd?) of young advertising executives, including, as I recall, AdWomen Legends Linda Garrison, Mary Baglivo and Dawn Hudson, all of whom I had the pleasure of working with during my adinfancy); compared notes with Marianne Murciano regarding Fargo, which we’d just finished viewing (we both enjoyed it immensely); caught a Keith Moon drumstick at the Electric Theatre; shared airplanes with Jon Bon Jovi and Bill Murray; talked with Linda Ronstadt’s backup band between sets at the Quiet Knight, while they explained to me that they were thinking of calling themselves the Eagles; sat next to Tom Berringer (back then he was Tom Moore) in Mr. Radcliffe’s high school English class; jammed on stage with Jack Bruce. Thanks, I feel better.

Speaking of feeling better, I have to say this whole Chicken Soup series has gotten way out of hand. This new one, Chicken Soup for the White Man’s Soul, seems terribly ill-advised.

Stoically,

 

“If we face a recession, we should not lay off employees; the company should sacrifice a profit. It’s management’s risk and management’s responsibility. Employees are not guilty; why should they suffer?” -- Akio Morita

“What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument you are advancing. If you don’t, you’re as good as dead.” -- Lyndon Johnson

“The realistic task for advertising is not to change what people think about your brand, which is always hard to achieve, but to have them think about your brand at all.” - - Andrew Ehrenberg

JOKE STOLEN FROM QUICK TAKES IN SUN-TIMES
Tourist arrives at a Boston airport,hails a cab.
Tourist: “Where’s the best place to get scrod in this town?”
Cabbie: “Mister, I’ve been asked that question a thousand times. But this is the first time I’ve been asked it in the pluperfect subjunctive.”

“There’s no trick to being a humorist when you’ve got the whole government working for you.” -- Will Rogers