HOW TO SELL A SOW'S EAR .. AND THROW A GREAT PARTY

           




     Okay, after months of sloth, I’m back to speculate about bad ideas.
     It’s often said that good ideas are a dime a dozen. But if that’s so, wouldn’t bad ideas be even cheaper?
      Nope.
      In 1958 the Ford Motor Company decided to name a new automobile after Henry Ford’s oldest son. It flopped big-time; and the name ‘Edsel’ became a synonym for failure. Bad idea.
     Decades later, the Coca-Cola Company inexplicably decided to re-name the world‘s most famous product. They called their regular Coca-Cola ‘Coke Classic‘, and replaced it with a different product called (can you believe it?) Coca-Cola. It went flat instantly and the company quickly retreated back to Square One. Another bad and very costly idea.
      And remember recently when Hewlett-Packard brought out a Touch Pad to compete with the iPad? If you don’t, it’s okay. The poor little thing was euthanized after only forty-eight days on the market:  very much like the Blackberry Playbook, another ballyhooed baby barely born when it was flushed with the bathwater.
      And how about the Netflix debacle in 2010? After announcing that it was unbundling its service, its customers rose up en masse and smote the company a mighty blow. Red-faced to match its packaging, Netflix re-thought, rescinded and retreated. And finally, just the other day mighty Microsoft wrote off $6.2 billion for an online ad company it bought in 2007. That’s over a billion bucks a year down the toilet!
    So no matter how technologically advanced you are, or how deep your corporate pockets, bad ideas too frequently take on a life of their own. I’ll explain why later on.
   
     But first let’s cut to a phone call I received many years ago from a small Michigan company with very big ambitions. The company was called University Microfilms and the caller was its founder and president, Eugene Power.
      Mr. Power believed that microfilm was the wave of the future for information storage and retrieval. Nothing could touch it for convenience, flexibility, easy storage and quick accessibility. If anyone thought otherwise, Mr. Power told me, his head was in the cloud (my present pun, not his). And to prove his point -- and to draw national attention to his company -- he had microfilmed and then reproduced in facsimile form every issue of a magazine I’d never heard of, bound them in ten fancy hardcover volumes and was selling them in a limited edition of 1000 sets for the astronomical price of $1000.
        Now that was my idea of a bad idea; breathtakingly bad.
       The magazine was called Vanity Fair and, as I subsequently learned, it had once been a cultural icon with regular contributors like Dorothy Parker, Aldous Huxley, T.S. Eliot, Thomas Wolfe, and P.G. Wodehouse. It was also the first magazine to reproduce the fine art of icons like Monet and Picasso. All in all, it molded the tastes of an era and became a cultural star of the first magnitude.
      In its day, that is.
      And its day -- begun as a fashion magazine in 1914 -- ended in 1935!
      No wonder I’d never heard of it. It had been dead for three and a half decades.
      And dead too was Mr. Power’s idea. He and his staff had canvassed  bookstores everywhere -- even in his hometown of Ann Arbor -- and nobody but NOBODY wanted to carry a $1000 facsimile set of old magazines.
      So he was calling in the hope that I could breath life into what he should already have known -- and into what I was sure --was a corpse.
      Sorry, I said, what you’ve got is a sow’s ear. And although I’m good at some things, I don’t have the faintest idea how to make a silk purse.
      But he wouldn‘t take no for an answer and begged me to take a look.
      Since he sounded like a pleasantly sincere, if slightly desperate man, I agreed. In part to placate him and also, I suppose, to confirm my own judgment.
       The set of books arrived a week later and I found myself skimming with delight every eight-pound, silver-bound volume. It was a captivating history lesson, a nostalgic odyssey, a graphic bible, an arrogant, funny and thoroughly wonderful chronicle of values found and values lost. As presented, however, it was nonetheless a dinosaur; a fossil in silver bindings. Nothing, in my opinion, could resurrect it.
       But on a whim, I showed it to my partner, Phil Bloom, an ex-Broadway press agent who was at least twenty-five years my senior. We’d recently formed an odd-couple partnership because I knew the business of corporate writing but knew nothing about publicity while he knew nothing about corporations but a lot about press coverage. The theoretical buzzword in those days was synergy.
       In any case, I figured he might remember Vanity Fair and be amused by Eugene Power’s naïve effort to attract attention to his company.
       
       Several weeks later, after I’d almost forgotten about it, Phil burst into my office beaming like a troll that had just eaten Hans Christian Andersen.
        I sold it! he shouted.
        Sold what? I asked.
        The Vanity Fair books! Can you believe it? I sold ‘em!!!
         Whaddaya’ mean you sold them? I asked.
        Bergdorf Goodman! BERGDORF … GOODMAN! They took it.
        He was literally sputtering with excitement. So I waited him out.
        They’re gonna’ sell the books! Get it? Berdorfs is gonna’ sell the books!
         Phil, calm down. I said. Bergdorfs doesn’t sell books.
         No, no, listen to me. They looked at them and loved them. And they’ve decided to do a huge Twenties thing for Christmas this year. They’re not only gonna’ offer the books for sale, they’re gonna’ feature them in their windows. It’s huge .. I mean, HUGE. They’re giving us all eleven windows for the whole Christmas season!!!
      It was a major coup; and to this day I’m not exactly sure how Phil did it. But I’m nearly certain it was through what I came to call the Society of Tasteful Men (STM):  an unofficial and almost subterranean community of well-educated and talented men drawn to New York for obvious and not so obvious reasons. It had established itself in the arts, music, fashion, theatre and related fields and its members tried to help each other whenever they could. My partner was a member and -- as it turned out -- so was Bergdorf’s chief window designer.
      In those days --unlike today -- successful gay men stayed in the closet. Being homosexual was not only criminal in many states, but was considered -- even in liberal circles --  to be an illness or an unfortunate aberration. Moreover, it was rarely if ever discussed publicly. So the Society of Tasteful Men was discreet, careful and almost invisible except to its members.
      But, of course, that’s how almost all systems work. Gay or straight, it’s who you know.
     

       Unfortunately, just as I’d never heard of Vanity Fair, Eugene Power out in Ann Arbor had never heard of Bergdorf Goodman. So it took a while to light the fire of enthusiasm under him. Once lit, however, he was, as they say, all in; and enthusiastically backed our idea to hold a launch party at the store to unveil the windows and the books.
       Fine. he told us. You know what they say: In for a penny … right?
       I was tempted to tell him New York doesn’t do pennies. And although Phil was thrilled, I was still skeptical about the whole thing. How could an upscale department store that had never sold a book possibly sell a set of books that were really a bunch of magazines that hadn’t been published since the Jurassic age … and hawk them at Christmas time for a price that nobody ever heard of?
     
       Then, much to my surprise, Andrew Goodman -- the owner and king of the Bergdorf empire -- got into the act. How and why I’ll never know. But instead of launching the windows in the usual manner, he decided to hold a big black tie dinner in his private penthouse on the top floor of the store. Phil was ecstatic and I was beginning to think we might at least achieve half of Eugene Power’s objective: namely, some national press coverage.
       And that’s where we hit a snag.
       Who could be invited to the party who was rich enough to actually buy a set of the books? That’s what Eugene Power -- suddenly cautious -- was asking. He sensed that Bergdorf’s traditional client list, while certainly affluent, were not quite what we were looking for. And although he was happily in for a penny, the pounds were starting to mount up. And press exposure, of course, has no calories.
         Being totally unqualified to address the question, I pondered it for several weeks until the Society of Tasteful Men again rode to the rescue. George Trescher -- another of Phil’s  acquaintances -- was Director of Development at the Metropolitan Museum, a right-hand man to Thomas Hoving -- the museum’s adventurous director -- and a frequent escort of Brooke Astor, one of the Met’s great benefactors. In other words, he was as ‘connected’ as anyone could be and was willing to develop an ‘A List’ for us of New York’s  high and mighty
        There was only one problem, he said. We needed a lure to attract them. He loved the idea of the Jazz Age and Roaring Twenties windows, but where was the exclusivity? Everybody walking by could see the windows .. and the people we wanted weren’t just anybody. We needed a ‘hook’ on which to hang the invitation.
      So a meeting was set up with all involved, except of course Andrew Goodman who was above such concerns. A number of ideas were thrown around, none of them inspiring, until facetiously and impulsively I said:
       Why don’t we hire Benny Goodman for the night? Then we could call the party ‘Goodman at Bergdorf’s’.
        The room went dead silent.

         ‘Goodman at Bergdorf’s’ was one of the most memorable nights of my life even though, paradoxically, I don’t remember that much of it. What I do remember vividly -- as I mingled (not very comfortably) with all the wealth and power in that spectacular penthouse apartment -- is sitting on the carpeted living room floor after dinner. I’d taken off my rented patent leather shoes, my black tie was hanging loosely around my neck, and I was literally resting at the feet of the most famous musician in the world; the man called the King of Swing. He and his quartet floated from room to room and the lilt of his clarinet meandered like a musical stream, creating ponds and eddies of warmth and excitement everywhere. To this day, I’ve never seen an audience so rapt; so thoroughly hypnotized. It was magic.
       
        Two days later, Bergdorf Goodman called to say they’d sold the last set of Eugene Power’s limited facsimile edition of Vanity Fair. All forty tons of it were gone.

          The lesson of this story is not that a silk purse can be made out of a sow’s ear.
After all, Mr. Power‘s company, when all was said and done, undoubtedly lost a good penny or two on the deal. It did receive some good press coverage, however, which I suppose is still pasted in somebody’s scrapbook in a dusty Michigan attic or, more probably, preserved somewhere on microfilm.
           No, the real lesson here is that a bad idea takes on a life of its own when the big boss likes it. It’s that simple and that sad.
           So … how soon do you think Microsoft will write off its $5.3 billion investment in Skype?
   
     
                                           AFTER DINNER MINTS


         
Vanity Fair was folded into Vogue in 1936, but was born again in 1983 as a celebrity/public affairs magazine. Its editors have included Leo Lerman, who was an editor at Vogue; Tiny Brown, ex-editor of everything except her own life; and now Graydon Carter who owns The Waverly Inn and The Monkey Bar in Manhattan while journalistically exploring the private lives of celebrities.

My partnership with Phil Bloom lasted only three years. It was oil and water all the way, with the generational difference too great to overcome. And although he taught me a great deal, he was in the end disinterested in my knowledge and skills. So much for synergy.

I eventually repaid George Trescher’s help by introducing him to the CEO of Xerox. The introduction led in turn to the company’s sponsorship of ‘New York Painting and Sculpture: 1940-1970’; the first contemporary art exhibit ever mounted by the Met.

With the analog and digital ages infringing on its hopes, University Microfilms must have taken cover in some small recess of the information warehouse. I can find no record , no evidence, that it ever existed. But at least on one night, in one bright place, its star shone more brightly than a meteor in the firmament.
             I’m glad one person still remembers.




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LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS ... A FOOTNOTE

　
　
　
　

　
　
　
     How about a bon-bon for the Holiday Season?
   
    When I was growing up in an isolated New England mill town, I had no concept of ’rich’ other than the abstract rich in fairy tales, But as I grew a little older I became conscious of another ‘rich’ who lived on the high ground in big houses under big trees on the other side of town. They were mythical and mysterious and separate, but I was able to glimpse them occasionally driving by in their shiny Buicks and Pontiacs. They seemed to drive fast through our neighborhood and their eyes always looked straight ahead.
     Then, in my first month of high school, I got an inkling that we might just share the same planet. Kids I didn’t know -- but who seemed nice enough from a distance --were described to me as ‘His old man’s a big shot at the mill.’ or ‘Her old man’s really rich’. Rich is what defined them at first .. that and they wore nicer shoes.
     And finally, at seventeen, I fell in love with a banker’s daughter from the high ground, and she with me. I found out her family had fights just like everybody else, but they were nonetheless worlds apart from anything I‘d known. Instead of ‘supper’ they called it ‘dinner’, and instead of ‘dinner’ they ate ‘lunch‘. They also ate in a dining room, not in the kitchen, and used cloth napkins. And their garage could fit two cars! But most baffling of all, there was no clothesline in their back yard.
     I was in awe of them.
     Less than a decade later, and long after my heart was broken by that first love, I migrated to New York City with a guitar, a sleeping bag and thirty-five dollars. By that time, my attitude toward the rich had become ambivalent. I sang anti-capitalist folk songs in Washington Square, but secretly lusted after the good life which I defined as an apartment with an elevator. After a further ten years of many ‘ups’ and a some deep ‘downs’, my career as a writer and consultant began to blossom. I embraced capitalism and became -- for want of a better description -- reasonably affluent. But if I were no longer in awe of the rich, I still carried a lingering and deep-seated envy of them.
     That is, until one memorable night in London.

     In the early Seventies, London was the hottest (or ‘coolest‘, depending on how old you are) city in the world. It basked in the excitement of the Beatles and the Stones, John Osborne’s plays, John Schlesinger’s wonderful movies, and the madness of ’Monty Python’s Flying Circus’; not to speak of Twiggy’s antics and Mary Quant’s miniskirts and hot pants. It was also enjoying an explosion of new clubs, and restaurants like Mr. Chow‘s, San Lorenzo, and a very fashionable spot called ‘Menage a Trois’ which served dinner in portions of three: three carrots, three fingers of veal, three cookies for dessert. (Peas, thank heavens, were not on the menu.)
      Among the private clubs, the ultimate in chic, snobbery and exclusivity was Annabel’s in Berkeley Square. With a superb kitchen and after-dinner dancing, it had a dress code as precise as a military manual and prices (cash only) that would make your eyes water. It was so upper-echelon that whatever happened there not only stayed there, it was entombed there. I became a member after being nominated by the chairman of the Rank Organization, for whom I’d done a serious favor, and seconded by the titled granddaughter of a British prime minister. Yeah, me .. the hick kid from a mill town!
     But having a big expense account is not, of course, being rich.
    
     In any case, I decided one night to invite my favorite client, Herb Schmertz of Mobil, to dinner at Annabel’s. I also invited a German model, Heidi Keine, whom I’d known in New York and who’d recently moved to London. Heidi was bright, beautiful and had an acerbic wit that I thought would add spice to the evening. Neither she nor Schmertz had ever been to Annabel’s and each was excited by the opportunity to see what it was all about.
     We were seated near the dance floor in the elegant, dimly-lit dining room; low-ceilinged with mirrored columns and bouquets of orchids at each table. The room was nearly full with ’the beautiful people’; although there was an subtle space at one end separating a table of five: an old man, a middle-aged woman, two very attractive thirty-something girls and a guy who I assumed was a husband or boyfriend.
     Over dinner, Herb and Heidi got along famously, leaving me to drink more wine than was wise and to ponder what to do with the remainder of the night. Finally, when the dancing began, I said:
     Do you think anybody’s ever picked up a bird in Annabel’s? (That’s what girls were called in those days.)
     I was looking at what I now considered ‘The Gang of Five’.
     My friends knew exactly what I had in mind.
     Don’t do it, they said simultaneously. And Herb added: They’ll throw us out.
     So I brooded until he and Heidi got up to dance, and then made my way across the room. One of the girls saw me approaching and gave me a tentative ‘Do I know you?’ look. It was less than a smile, but more than simple curiosity.
     The best I could do was: Is a fifth permitted to dance with a third?
     Then she did smile, glancing at her table mates, and said: Why not?
    
     What followed was the most uncomfortable ten minutes I’d ever spent. Everyone in the room -- including the maitre d’ and the sommelier -- was staring at us as we danced to the Bee Gees. And when I say they stared, I mean they stared unashamedly and openly. It was apparent that I’d trampled on British protocol and would probably be hanged at dawn. When I looked at Herb and Heidi, they were shaking their heads in dismay. Yet, oddly, my dancing partner seemed oblivious to it all.
     Finally, readying myself to face whatever punishment was coming, I escorted the girl back to her table. We’d only spoken a few words, so I was surprised when she said:
     Why don’t you join us? I’m sure your friends won’t mind.
     I’d like that, I replied. But I should tell you my name. Which I did.
     Hello. she said, offering me her hand. I’m Ann Getty. And turning to introduce me, she added: This is my father-in-law, Jean Paul .. this is …
     The other names sailed past me. I couldn’t absorb that I was being introduced to the richest man in the world -- the famous and infamous miser/founder of Getty Oil -- and that I’d crashed his table. Like an ill-mannered lout, I’d walked right through the invisible barrier that separated the mythical Gettys from the madding crowd. And people were still looking at me as if I were about to be struck by lightning.
     The next few minutes are lost in the haze of memory. But I did manage to register that the older woman was a nurse/companion and that the other girl was another Getty daughter-in-law. The guy with them was obviously well-connected, but just the girls’ escort. He was clearly furious that I‘d joined the party and couldn’t resist throwing me dirty, surreptitious looks. As to the patriarch, I don’t remember him saying a word to anyone.
     Eventually, after the usual chatter about who you are and where you’re going (The girls were on their way to Gstaad for a month’s skiing.), Ann said to me:
     Why don’t you ask your friends to pay their check and join us?
     Puzzled by the conjunction, I said: What does paying their check have to do with them joining us?
     I’m sorry, she told me, but you don’t know how people try to take advantage of us.
    That was the second memorable moment of the night; and I wondered whether the mega-rich might be mildly afflicted with paranoia.
     I said: Doesn’t that happen mostly with people you know .. rather than people you don’t?
     She looked uncomfortable with the question; and since it was more a statement than a question anyway, I changed the subject .. kind of.
     Is it true that your father-in-law took all the phones out of his castle and put in a coin-operated pay phone?
     Well, first of all, it’s not a castle, she answered. It’s a Tudor manor .. and yes he did. Everybody was using the phones to call long distance and the bills were getting huge.
     So how many bedrooms does it have? I asked.
     I don’t really know. she answered. I’ve never tried to count them.
     I wanted to inquire whether the ’Tudor manor’ had a moat, but thought better of it.

     Moments later, after quietly briefing Herb and Heidi and paying our check, I led them over for the appropriate introductions Everyone was in a festive mood (except the escort who was still sulking and surly) and conversation flowed easily. Heidi told a few anecdotes about her modeling career, Herb chatted about our relationship with the BBC. Only the old man, who seemed barely awake, remained silent.
     Then at one point, Ann Getty leaned toward Schmertz and said: I understand you’re with Mobil.
     Yes, I am. Schmertz said.
     Ummm … that‘s nice. she cooed. We have an oil company too.
     To this day, I’ve never heard a more patronizing or more condescending remark. But Schmertz, who’d helped elect JFK to the presidency and who, if called upon, could name-drop with the best of them, took it in stride. I, however, did not .. and eventually coined a new word to describe what I’d encountered that night. The word was ‘arronoia’: a combination of arrogance and paranoia. It managed to destroy whatever residual envy I had for the rich, whether they were billionaires counting pennies or small town bankers with well-brought-up daughters.
      It was a final lesson well worth learning.
     Although, as an old friend of mine has always said: Rich or poor .. it’s still nice to have money.
　
　
　
                                       HOLIDAY CHOCOLATES: SOME BITTERSWEET
　
Ann Getty and her husband became prominent public figures and philanthropists in San Francisco. I believe she still lives in the Bay area.

The surly escort eventually revealed himself to be a rising executive in the British subsidiary of Armco Steel, a large American company. When I delightedly informed him that Armco’s CEO was not only a close friend but in many respects my mentor, his attitude changed as if by magic. I promised, of course, to mention our meeting.

Heidi Keine and I stayed in touch until 1982 when she disappeared off the stern of a sailing yacht in the Caribbean. Her remains were never found.

When he died, Jean Paul Getty left over $625 million to establish an art museum in Los Angeles. Yet in 1973 when his youngest grandson was kidnapped, he refused to pay a $3 million ransom, relenting only when the boy’s severed ear arrived in the mail. Then, agreeing to pay $2.2 million because that was the tax-deductible maximum, he lent his son -- the boy’s father -- the remaining $800,000 … at four percent interest. Go figure.

Much to my surprise, the staff at Annabel’s treated me with deference and great respect after the Getty ’incident’; obviously confusing my ignorance with bravery. The club, by the way, is still going strong; and -- man or woman -- one must still be properly dressed: tie and jacket, tailored trousers, no casual footwear, no suede or leather clothing, and for women, no ‘undergarments’ showing. Some things never change.
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HOW TO BALANCE THE BUDGET .. AND UNBALANCE THE CONGRESS

 http://keywestwind.blogspot.com. If you think it’s worthwhile, show it to a politician or a political journalist and ask what they think. Thanks for reading me.
　
　
　
　
　
　
     Enough with odd and funny stories. I feel the need to get serious. To say something important!
But what?
     Well, how about HOORAY FOR WARREN BUFFETT!!!!
     Maybe not. In fact, for sure not.
     He recently wrote in the New York Times that he pays a smaller percentage in income taxes than his secretary and nineteen others in his Omaha office. He then recommended that the rich pay more .. as a simple matter of fairness and to help balance the federal budget. His article produced a flash flood of discussion that lasted nearly five minutes before receding back into the river of half-truths and outright lies that has become American politics.
     Pffft .. and it was gone.
     Then, a few weeks later, he announced an investment of five billion dollars in the Bank of America (a disgraceful, despicable and dysfunctional organization if ever there was one.) The B of A -- which claimed it didn’t need the money -- will pay Mr. Buffett three hundred million dollars a year in interest for money it supposedly didn’t need, plus giving him a fistful of warrants that delete the value of every other shareholder’s investment.
     And now President Obama is asking the rich (including corporations) to pay $1.2 trillion more in taxes for the same reason: fairness. Surprise! Surprise! ‘The Buffett Rule’ -- as Obama has labeled it -- has risen to flood stage again.
     But I’d rather call it ‘The Bluffett Rule‘.
     So what’s really going on here?

     Well for one thing, asking the rich to pay more taxes is disingenuous nonsense. Making it happen is about a hopeless as measuring Michele Bachman’s IQ. Mr.Buffet, who is no dummy, and the President, who is no longer an innocent, know it as surely as they know simpler ways to balance the budget and reduce the national debt.
     But before we get to that, I’d like to ask what took The Oracle of Omaha so long to speak up? Where’s he been for the last ten years? As he and his peers were enjoying the Bush tax cuts, and going from filthy rich to mega-rich, didn’t he notice that the country -- especially working stiffs like his secretary and ’The Nebraska Nineteen’ -- was being driven into crippling debt, disillusion and despair? What kind of oracle is he anyway? He seems a lot like The Wizard of Oz: amplified but ineffectual.
     What he and the President aren’t admitting is that the problem with getting the rich to pay more taxes lies not with the rich themselves, but with politicians, impure and simple. If the truth be told, the core problem is campaign financing. It’s all about getting re-elected.

     Here’s a little riddle: what cost five billion three hundred million dollars and resulted only in confusion, gridlock and a national migraine?
     Answer: the 2008 election. The presidential candidates alone spent two billion four hundred million dollars!!
     Furthermore, it now costs an average of a million dollars to get into the House of Representatives (two million or more in bigger cities) and seven and a half million to get into the Senate!
Look at it this way: if you’re a freshman Congressperson elected for twenty-four short months, you not only have to find the caucus rooms, the lunchroom, the lavatory and the gym in the basement of the Sam Rayburn building, you also have to find a at least ten thousand dollars a week to have any hope of re-election.
     No wonder you’re all sound bites and glib slogans. You don’t have a lot of time to do much except raise money.
     Of course, money isn’t everything, is it?. How about principle, and policies, and how you stand on the issues? Aren’t those things crucial too?
      Maybe. But politics is like playing Texas Hold’em. If the issues are the cards that go face-up on the table for everyone to see, the bigger bucks are like aces in the hole: IN ALL RACES FOR CONGRESS IN 2008, THE CANDIDATE WHO SPENT THE MOST MONEY WON NINETY-THREE PERCENT OF THE TIME!!!
     Money doesn’t just talk, it shouts.
     And it corrupts.

     And where does all the money come from? Despite all you might read about Obama’s grass-root support or the Tea Party’s populist appeal, eight of the ten largest contributors to the 2008 presidential campaign came from Wall Street, including two foreign-owned banks!! What a surprise!! And what a surprise that politicians are terrified of offending their principal sources of cash.
     So is there a cure for this monstrous and metastasizing cancer?

     Unfortunately, no.
     The ‘financial class’ will continue to control elections and exert undue influence unless we limit campaign expenditures and limit the time available to spend them.
     Ideally, all primaries, caucuses, straw polls, etc. should be banned in national election years until two weeks before the nominating conventions; and no campaigning for those primaries should be allowed until two weeks prior to the actual nominations..
     Once the national conventions are held and the nominees named, no political advertising in print or on television or through direct mail should be allowed, and no other forms of campaigning permitted, until six weeks before the November election.
      If you can’t get across to the people of America in six weeks, you shouldn’t be running.
     Second, specific limits should be put on the total amount of campaign spending by each candidate for the House, the Senate and the Presidency, and the same time limits imposed on all campaigning. No more tricky end runs by so-called ‘Super PACs’ that ladle unlimited funds into the money pot.
     If the British can conduct a general election with only three weeks’ notice, we should be able to conduct one in ten weeks. And as a consequence, substantially reduce, if not erase, the influence of big money.
     If that could be achieved, tax reform would come much more easily.
    Everyone, including Mr. Buffett and the President, knows that a flat tax on income is the best answer to our budget and deficit problems. The concept is far from new: Jack Kemp offered the idea in the 1980’s, Steve Forbes in the 1990’s and now the cowboy governor from Texas has adopted the idea. I personally believe that a graduated flat tax ranging from five percent on lower incomes to twenty-five percent on all gross personal and gross corporate income would put the federal budget back into the black. Of course, it would mean no more tax breaks for anyone: no personal deductions for mortgage interest, property taxes, education; no corporate deductions, weird tax credits, percentage depletion allowances, tricky foreign earnings deferrals. No loopholes, period.
      Right now, our tax code is longer than the Holy Bible: 3.4 million words long. And it grows more grotesque and frightening every year, like a monster in a child’s dream.

     But, alas, all this is but a dream also. Campaign financing will remain the same, tax reform will not happen in any meaningful way, and big money will continue to control and corrupt the political process.
     So let’s get back where we started. I think Warren Buffett should write another article and pledge to pay the same percentage in income taxes as his secretary. That would be putting his mouth where his money is, and vice versa. That would be something for all to see and maybe even to follow.
     Deeds, not words, are what is needed, Mr. Buffett. Otherwise, all is a ‘bluffett‘. And this country and its hard-working people -- without courageous leadership -- will have to ‘roughett’ for many years, perhaps even for generations, to come.


　
                                                
                                                   AFTER DINNER MINTS
　
If you have any doubt that our tax code has been twisted and tweaked beyond reason, consider this: In 2010, three of the largest corporations in the world -- General Electric, Exxon Mobil and Bank of America -- reported profits totaling 55.4 billion dollars and paid exactly ZERO is federal income taxes. I wonder how much they spent on lobbyists and tax accountants,

Here’s another idea: if a flat tax were adopted, people who are convicted of tax evasion, avoidance or tax fraud should automatically be relegated to the top tax bracket for the rest of their natural lives.

American companies right now are holding $1.4 TRILLION overseas in unreported profits. Those companies include Microsoft, Proctor and Gamble, and Pfizer. They’re waiting for even lower taxes to bring the money home. Come back, Shane!

And finally, I can easily understand the anger of the Occupy Wall Street movement. But they’re shooting blanks at the sky. A better approach would be to target one nationwide institution like, say, Bank of America. Picket its branches, camp outside its offices, encourage its depositors to go elsewhere, start a website called BUBBA. Break Up The Big Bank of America. That, I believe, would yield more than just noise and press coverage.

In sum, I believe ..
THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH THE AMERICAN ECONOMY THAT AN HONEST CONGRESS AND A DEDICATED ADMINISTRATION CAN’T SOLVE. SADLY, WE HAVE NEITHER.
　
The link to this blog is

THE POWER OF ONE: HOW A VICIOUS BIGOT UNINTENTIONALLY CONTRIBUTED TO EQUAL RIGHTS

　
　
　
　
　
　
　
     1968. What a year!
     The Detroit Tigers won the World Series (Honest!), Rod Laver won Wimbledon, the United States won the most gold medals at the Summer Olympics in Mexico. And the Beatles started Apple Records. Such are the memories of many. Memories of wins, memories of songs still sung and loved. Memories of glory.
     But I also remember 1968 as The Year of Hatred. And of terrible loss.
In January the Vietcong began the Tet offensive. Countless thousands died on both sides, proving we were in a full-blown war. The following month -- in our domestic war -- three college kids were killed during a civil rights protest in South Carolina; and student riots broke out all across the country. On March 31, Lyndon Johnson said he was finished with the presidency, paving the way for a man who personified hate: Richard Nixon.
     Then, less than a week later, national shame.
     Martin Luther King is assassinated. Two days after that, a shootout occurs in Oakland between the police and the Black Panthers. Three die, including a sixteen year-old boy It’s a precursor to another gun battle between black militants and police in Cleveland. There, ten are dead, including three cops; fifteen are wounded.
     April’s shame is followed by June’s calamity. .
     Bobby Kennedy -- campaigning in Los Angeles -- is also assassinated. The nation is thunderstruck; ripped apart by the Vietnam war on one hand and by violent civil rights battles on the other. Two of our most respected and dedicated leaders have been killed, and entire segments of society are grieving.
For the moment, hate seems to be gaining the upper hand in America.

     Early in the year, CBS called me about a documentary series it was going to broadcast prior to the Republican and Democratic nominating conventions. The seven-part series was titled ‘Of Black America’ and would begin with a one-hour program called ‘Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed”. The narrator would be the only black ever to star in a dramatic TV series (I Spy), the actor/comedian Bill Cosby. Subsequent programs would cover blacks in the military, in education, in entertainment, etc. Basically the project would be presented as a comprehensive survey of African-American life and culture.
     No-one had ever undertaken or even proposed such a bold and innovative idea. And given its scale and the volatility of the times, it was bound to create a ton of controversy and be seen as overtly supporting the civil rights movement.
     It was no surprise to CBS that its regular advertisers wanted no part of it. Toothpaste and toilet paper makers, beer companies and cupcake bakers, were not going to be ‘part of the solution’ as Eldridge Cleaver would write later that year. So half-apologetically, and with feeble hope of a favorable response, CBS asked me whether Xerox -- a young, fast-growing company known for not being afraid of controversial programming -- might be interested.
     Although -- like a majority of Americans -- I was never actively involved in protesting the war or in supporting the civil rights movement; ‘Of Black America’ seemed to awaken something in me. Suddenly I wanted to be involved and to involve Xerox as well. But I couldn’t see how.
     Most of the company’s annual TV budget had already been committed. And aside from the political implications and the budgetary problem, the marketing people would automatically reject anything broadcast during summer re-runs; not a prime period for leasing copiers. Then the Xerox PR people -- always skittish and overly cautious -- would surely find other reasons to reject it. So despite CBS dangling a significant discount if I could entice Xerox into sole sponsorship, I simply couldn’t persuade myself that the company could afford an investment at that level of risk and resistance.
     Then a new and very different possibility occurred to me. What if I could arrange dual sponsorship with an old-line conservative company like the Great Northern Railroad, United States Steel, or Standard Oil of New Jersey? What if we could align ourselves with the ghosts of the robber barons? That would be like saying all of American industry -- from one end to the other, new and old, basic and advanced -- endorsed the movement for equal rights. Xerox would sponsor half and the old-line company the other half. Together they would make a statement no-one could ignore and no-one would dare dispute. Or so I thought.
     I cautiously floated the idea with the new CEO of Xerox, Peter McColough, who -- aware that I was ignoring normal channels -- gave me a qualified go-ahead.
     I went to United States Steel first. I couldn’t get my foot in the door. Next I tried Ford Motor Company. Same story, but more polite. To say Pan Am and The Pennsylvania Railroad were uninterested would be an understatement.. But finally, through a friend, I got an appointment with Christian Herter Jr., Vice-President of Public Affairs for Mobil Oil Corporation which, originally, was Standard Oil Company of New York (Socony). Herter was a ‘Boston Brahmin’ of impeccable background: son of a Secretary of State, social lion, ex-legislator and long-time public servant; the kind of patrician whose trousers didn’t dare wrinkle when he sat down. I sensed I was dead the moment I began pitching him.
     But I hung in there, explaining the benefits that could accrue to Mobil, until he interrupted me:
     ‘I’m sorry.’ he said. ‘But we could never do anything like that.’
     ‘And why is that?’ I asked.
     He looked at me as if I were possibly of limited intelligence.
     ‘What if .. after the first Black America show .. somebody threw a brick through one of our service station windows?’
     I looked absently for a few seconds at photographs hung on the wall behind him. There were presidents and cabinet members, heads of state, Middle Eastern kings and princes, captains of industry. None of his family.
     Then I said: ‘What a great idea! Do you know anybody we can hire to do it?’
     With the most humorless thin-lipped smile I’d ever seen, he dismissed me.
     ‘Thank you for thinking of us.’ he said.
     In the end, the message was clear. No industrial giant and no consumer goods producer would go anywhere near ’Of Black America’. So I went back to McColough with my tail between my legs and told him I’d failed. He leaned back in his chair and put his forefingers to his lips, thinking it over.
     ’Well,’ he said. ’I guess we’ll have to go it alone.’
     Those few words guaranteed him my absolute loyalty until the day he retired fourteen years later.

     ‘Of Black America’ debuted -- with Xerox as sole sponsor -- on July 2, l968. If I remember correctly, several CBS affiliates in the South refused to broadcast it. Nonetheless, it was by documentary standards a great success. The critics were nearly unanimous in their praise; the overnight Neilsen ratings were good and its share of audience held steady throughout the hour.
     But I was deeply worried that the audience would slip away in the coming weeks. For one thing, the second program -- about black soldiers -- would be up against the Major League All-Star game on NBC. For another, the competition would surely start ‘stunting’ with special programs to shore up their own ratings. We needed something, anything, to draw more attention to the series after the first flurry of publicity.
     And it came, fortuitously, like a deus ex machina descending from the heavens
     The Xerox branch in Atlanta got a letter that said::

                                             Dear Sirs:
                                                    Due to your sponsorship of the Black America series,
                                                    we are cancelling our Xerox 813 machine effective immediately.
                                                                                                       Sincerely.
                                                                                                 

                                                                                                   Robert Shelton
                                                                                                   Grand Vizier
                                                                                                   Ku Klux Klan
   
      It was perfect: the Power of One. Better even than Christian Herter’s brick. I nearly fell out of my chair with gratitude. Copies were sent immediately to the Associated Press and to Reuters, and within hours the story was being distributed around the world. Every newspaper in the United States -- whether daily, weekly, tabloid or broadsheet -- published it; and every television news program -- whether VHF or UHF -- gave it prominent play. Columnists and commentators wrote about it and people from all walks of life -- in barber shops and diners, in four-star restaurants and expensive boutiques -- talked about it. In the following weeks, no matter what the competition threw at us, the ratings stayed high and the series remained powerful and persuasive.
      In sum, the KKK letter generated crateloads of newspaper clippings and TV transcripts. So when the series ended, I filled two large packing cases with press coverage of all kinds and prepared them for shipment. But rather than send them to the Grand Vizier, to whom we owed a perverse thanks, I sent them to Christian Herter, to whom we owed nothing.
     He never acknowledged their receipt.

     It’s odd how unpredictable life can be. Less than a year later, I was a television consultant to Mobil. A new management had taken over and Herter had left. His successor as V-P was Herb Schmertz who had helped manage the presidential campaigns of both Kennedys. Schmertz was young, bright, bold, and charismatic. (He was also Jewish; probably a first in the oil industry and certainly a first for an oil company with heavy Arab interests.) We took to each other instantly and within months Masterpiece Theatre, underwritten by Mobil, was in the final planning stage. (see my earlier blogs).
     In discussing its promotion possibilities. I happened to tell Schmertz about Christian Herter’s brick and the subsequent letter from the Ku Klux Klan.
     ‘Never underestimate the Power of One.’ I told him.
     ‘We should get so lucky with Masterpiece.’ he said, chuckling.
     And we did .. in a way.
     On the morning after Masterpiece Theatre‘s debut, I was in Schmertz’s office for an informal ‘post mortem’. We were reviewing overnight ratings, critics’ reactions, response from friends and colleagues, etc.
     Things looked very good, but the icing on the cake came from Mobil’s CEO, Raleigh Warner. That morning -- on his commuter train from Princeton, New Jersey -- a stranger had introduced himself and had enthusiastically complimented him for ’sponsoring’ Masterpiece Theatre. Then someone nearby -- who had overheard the conversation -- added his own compliments. Warner, both pleased and flattered, called Schmertz the moment he got to the office.
     ‘That’s the Power of One again.’ I said.
     ‘In this case .. two.’ Schmertz observed.
     ‘Yup .. and I’ll bet they were both well-dressed young executives.’
     ‘What else would they be on that train?’ he said.
     But when I was leaving, and halfway out of his office, he stopped me.
     ‘Wait a minute. Those guys weren’t actors, were they? I mean, you didn’t hire them to be on that train and …’
      I turned on him, looking hurt and putting my hand over my heart. I may even have fluttered my eyelashes. And with a word that would soon be made famous by a porcine princess on Sesame Street, I said:
     ‘Moi?’
     And left.
　
                                                                 AFTER DINNER MINTS
　
　
‘Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed’ won an Emmy for its writer, a relatively obscure staffer at CBS News named Andy Rooney. Yup, the same!

The Xerox ad agency created a wonderful photo image to advertise the series. It was a color close-up of clasped hands holding up a tiny American flag between the thumbs. The two hands were perfectly matched, but one was black and the other white.

In 1975, Xerox was forced by the Federal Trade Commission --in an anti-trust action -- to license its entire portfolio of patents to outsiders, principally the Japanese. Eventually, under the pressure of new competition, the company became just another industrial giant guided by unimaginative and uninspiring leadership. Sic transit gloria mundi.

‘Of Black America’ generated hundreds, perhaps thousands, of complementary letters addressed to the company. My favorite was also one sentence and came from somewhere in Alabama. Unlike the KKK letter, it was unsigned:
                               Dear Xerox,
                                       From one who is black and beautiful to
                               you who are white and beautiful .. Thank you.
　
Thank you also for reading this blog.

Until next month, I am No Nonsense at http://keywestwind.blogspot.com.
　
　

PART TWO: HOW TO CONQUER A CONTINENT ... AND BEFUDDLE A BEAN COUNTER

　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
     Okay, here’s the problem in a nutshell:
     In the early 1970s, Xerox Corporation -- a newly-global company and one of the fastest growing in the world -- was suffering from a migraine. The Spanish-speaking people of the world -- principally those in Latin America -- couldn’t pronounce its name without sounding like they’d been shot up with novocaine at a dentist’s office. They pronounced it something like ‘Share-oosh’, a slurpy distortion of the letter X, which is rarely used. (Unless you want to include the x in Mexico where its Spanish pronunciation is like a quiet asthmatic exhale.)
     Anyway, just imagine saying: “Please make me four share-oosh copies of this and two share-ooshes of that.’
     So the Xerox CEO, Peter McColough, asked me to come up with a solution. Find a way to get them to say Xerox like we do, he said. He then agreed to pay me an outrageous fee which befuddled the company’s auditor, and gave me a guilty conscience because I thought the problem was insoluble right from the start. But McColough -- who considered it a major roadblock -- insisted I take a crack at it anyway.
     Why me? Well, I’d worked with the company as a free-lance speechwriter, written its annual report for six or seven years, created a widely-quoted ‘mission statement’ of its long-term goals and ultimately became responsible for choosing and negotiating the television programs it sponsored. So, as an outsider, I knew Xerox from top to bottom and had earned the trust of its senior management by making a few decisions no inside subordinates wanted to make. (See my blogs about Alastair Cooke and an Arab League boycott.)
     Moreover, I was thought to be a ‘creative type’… a useful reputation if justified, but frightening if you’re bereft of ideas. And that’s exactly what I was. Five months after taking the assignment -- and after having done a ton of homework -- I was stumped, frustrated and brain-blank. I felt as if I’d hung myself from a rafter and was waiting for someone to kick the chair out from under me.
　
     One day, out of the blue, Mike Dann invited me to lunch. Dann -- the mythic guru of television programming -- had guided CBS to the top of the Neilsen ratings and kept it there for years. He’d resigned from CBS unexpectedly, but had re-surfaced as a vice-president of the Children’s Television Workshop (CTW) which produced the new kids’ program, Sesame Street. His responsibilities with CTW were vague; and cynics figured he’d just taken on something ’soft’ to occupy him between breakfast and dinner. Besides, they joked, Mike had never known a child and a ‘workshop’ to him had something to do with basements and Budweiser, not with elves and the North Pole. (It was a bad rap. Mike had three young kids at home and a number of detractors elsewhere.)
      I’d met him casually once or twice; but certainly not enough for him to pick me out of a lineup. So I assumed the invitation was just an ambassadorial ’thank you’ because -- months earlier -- I’d arranged for Xerox to sponsor a Sesame Street promotional program on NBC. It aired a few days before the show’s formal debut on PBS, and marked the first (and probably last) time commercial television promoted public television. But PBS was still in its infancy, and NBC probably figured it was good PR and would do no harm to its ratings.
     In any case, I was glad to meet with Dann. Despite Sesame Street’s instant success, I felt it wasn’t reaching a significant portion of its intended audience: namely, inner-city children (a white euphemism for Blacks, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans). In those Cro-Magnon days, not only did cable television not exist, but many educational stations were limited to ultra high frequency (UHF) channels which delivered terrible reception and required a different antenna from the usual VHF ‘rabbit ears‘.   Consequently, the underprivileged kids in big cities like Detroit, Cleveland, San Diego, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. weren’t receiving Sesame Street at all.
     So it was my intention to use Dann as a messenger to Joan Cooney, the head of CTW. I wanted her to consider going commercial (VHF) in urban areas where the public TV system was ineffectual .. which, incidentally, also included most of semi-rural America, Georgia, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama.
     That it was none of my business never occurred to me. Nor did I ask whether the people at CTW were addressing the problem, although they were surely aware of it. But since I’d played a very minor role in helping them, I considered myself part of the family and therefore deserving of an opinion on how things should be run. (That’s seems to be how an inflated ego works if -- on the one hand -- you’re young, bold and insensitive .. and on the other .. secretly unsure, apprehensive and bereft of ideas you’re being paid to find.)


     Over lunch at an Italian restaurant, Dann listened to my opinions while stabbing at a Caesar salad as if the croutons were alive and escaping. He was clearly disinterested in what I had to say and impatient to move on. Which he did the moment I paused for breath.
     It’s impossible to recreate, or even to imitate, his speech because he talked in long, complex sentences that seemed to circle back on themselves or to disappear down a dark, twisting arroyo never to re-emerge. Yet in some odd manner, a careful listener -- a patient ear -- could distill what he was saying and find cogency and a keen intellect. I couldn’t help but wonder whether his style was conscious; perhaps designed to keep his audience puzzled and off-balance as he was going for their jugular.
     But that wasn’t where he was going with me. After a while I realized he was pitching me for seed money, elliptically at first but then with baited outriggers deployed and trolling. And the project he was pitching -- the ’little experiment’ CTW was toying with and wanted a modest contribution for -- was a pilot of Sesame Street in Spanish.
     Clang! Clang! Clang! Judy Garland bells exploded in my head again. I was suddenly riding on the top deck of her trolley and drunk with excitement!!
     It wasn’t easy to interrupt when Dann was on a roll, but I managed it.
     Mike .. MIKE ..to hell with a pilot, I said. Why not Sesame Street for all of South America?
     Without blinking an eye, he said: That’s exactly what we’re planning to do. A hundred and thirty Spanish programs a year .. just like here.
     At the time, I thought he was lying, a practice not uncommon in television circles.. But in retrospect, I was probably wrong because his real job at CTW -- as I later found out -- was to ’internationalize’ Sesame Street.
     If you can put a package like that together, I said, .. a year’s worth in Spanish .. not Puerto Rican Spanish but South American Spanish .. I might be able to get Xerox to spring for the whole thing.
     I know .. I know .. I added, .. we’re talking millions of dollars, but I think they’ll go for it .. if …
     Dann cocked his head slightly.
     If what?
     If .. there’s a ten-second underwriting credit at the beginning and end of each show.
Maybe something like .. uh .. say .. an animated blackboard with a child writing a wiggly X-E-R-O-X in chalk and saying in a child’s voice .. in Spanish, of course .. that the program is presented as a public service by Xerox.
     (I didn’t mention that it would be pronounced with Z as in ‘Zee-rox’. In fact, I never mentioned it to anyone except McColough.)
     I’ll see what we can do, Dann said.
    Obviously he could be succinct when he wanted to.

     I have no idea how CTW did what they did as quickly as they did it, or how they did it so well. But less than eighteen months later, Plaza Sesamo -- the kissing cousin of Sesame Street -- went on the air. It was produced in Mexico City by Latinos, written, directed and acted by Latinos and ‘supervised’ by educational experts from different Latin American countries. The only thing ‘Gringo’ about it was the sponsor -- Xerox Corporation -- with opening and closing credits in each segment.
     But nobody objected because Plaza Sesamo hit the continent like a tsunami; sweeping away local prejudices, drowning out regional rivalries, washing away government suspicion and undermining entrenched bureaucracies. It was watched loyally by countess millions of children and adults alike who found it infinitely more entertaining than endless re-runs of Gunsmoke. It was enjoyed in mountain villages, in the central squares of fishing towns, in bodegas and orphanages, in the favelas and barrios of big cities, by the rich, the poor, and by everybody in between. It penetrated to the soul of Latin America because it taught and nurtured its children.


     And, not accidentally, the continent began pronouncing a certain X word almost exactly as we do .. all the way from El Paso, Texas, to the Straits of Magellan.





                                                   AFTER DINNER MINTS
　
　
Soon after its introduction, Plaza Sesamo was dubbed into Portuguese for Brazil. Within a few weeks of broadcast, the Big Bird character -- transformed into a sympathetic half-dragon/half-bird named Abelardo -- finished third as a write-in candidate for mayor of Sao Paulo, the country’s largest city. His original name -- Filiponio -- was hurriedly changed on the eve of production in Mexico City when the producers found out it was used in several countries as a homosexual slur.

The Law of Unintended Consequences was affirmed when -- a few months after the program’s debut -- several Xerox subsidiaries reported that the ‘special fees’ usually demanded by corrupt customs inspectors for importing Xerox equipment had been dropped. No ‘official’ reasons were given, but it was not uncommon for Xerox employees to be asked if they could get Abelardo’s autograph or that of Paco, the grumpy equal of Oscar the Grouch.

Oddly, the definitive and ’complete’ history of Sesame Street, titled Street Gang by Michael Davis (Penguin, 2008), contains no reference whatsoever to Plaza Sesamo, or to Latin America itself, although it does refer to Mike Dann making deals for Sesame Street with Bermuda, Trinidad/Tobago, Barbados and other English-speaking dots in the Caribbean. Seems a shame.

Peter McColough was so impressed with CTW that he asked, through me, whether Joan Cooney would be interested in joining the board of Xerox. She was, and did; serving for a number of years until McColough retired.

Finally, I don’t know what happened to the bean counter/auditor or whether he ever worked up the courage to question McColough. But I trust his career ended without further confusion and that he never again had to grapple with epistemological issues like how much an idea costs or how long it takes to have one.

Only The Shadow knows.

　
　

Thanks again for being with me. Please send my link to people you like (or don’t like). The more the merrier.
I hope next to write about the future of public television; that is, if I can get anyone in public television to talk to me.

HOW TO CONQUER A CONTINENT .. AND BEFUDDLE A BEANCOUNTER

     Here's an extraordinary phone conversation for the ages, from ages ago; specifically from early 1971. It came into my office in New York City; and the caller was calling on behalf of my favorite client. I remember it almost word-for-word because .. well, how could I forget it?

     Good morning, sir. My name is Richard Kingsworth. I'm Director of Internal Auditing for Xerox Corporation. I understand you are our consultant for TV programs and report to our Vice-President of Corporate Communications. Am I correct?
     That's right. What can I do for you?
     Well, first, sir, thank you for taking my call. We certainly think you've done some wonderful things for Xerox. And they're much appreciated. In fact, my family watches everything we sponsor, including some of the controversial stuff .. if you know what I mean. But of course that's not why I'm calling. I actually wanted to ask you a few questions about ...
     Wait a sec, I say. If you're an auditor, shouldn't you be talking to my accounting department? That way you can talk bean to bean, so to speak. Why don't I just transfer you over there?
     (But I'm thinking: Why's the head of auditing calling me directly? It's like getting a call from the head of the IRS or the Internal Affairs Division of the NYPD. And what's with the compliments?
     I don't like this at all.)
     No, please! Don't transfer me! I'm calling about the recent invoices you've been sending to Peter McColough.
     (Ah ha! Now I get it. He's snooping into the expenses of his own CEO .. the big boss .. the capo di capos. That takes chutzpah. But he has to tread VERY carefully. That's why the butter-up.)
     What about them? As far as I know, they've all been paid on time.
     Slightly insulted, he says: Of course they have! But they don't seem to relate to anything .. and they're in addition to your television fees. I mean .. we can't find any documentation on what they're for. All they say is 'monthly retainer' .. and I'm afraid we need more information than that .. for our outside auditors also.
     Okay, I can understand that, I tell him. But there's nothing to find. I have a handshake deal with Peter .. all verbal. Nothing's on paper.
     Forgive me, but to do what exactly? And for how long? I mean, for what period of time?
     I pause, perhaps a beat too long, and tell him: I'm thinking.
     He pauses too: I beg your pardon. Did you say you're thinking?
     That's right. That's what the invoices are for. Thinking. It's a little unorthodox, but there it is. You know how the company has a long-term planning department? ... like an in-house think tank? Well I'm kinda the outhouse .. different but the same if you know what I mean.
      (Mr. Kingsworth, despite being a beancounter, is not an unintelligent man. So by now he senses I'm playing games with his function. And I know he'll be persistent because that's his job. But I have the ear of his ultimate boss; and I'm young and cockier than I have a right to be.)
       And call you tell me what you're thinking about? he asks. After all we're talking substantial sums here, aren't we?

     He's right and his question forces me back to a night six months earlier when Peter McColough and I had dinner at the Harvard Club; not exactly my idea of a gourmet restaurant but at least quiet ... and given the food, nearly empty. He'd just gotten off the plane from his first tour of new Xerox subsidiaries in South America. And while enthused about their potential, he was worried about one issue. In fact, more than worried .. because there seemed no way around it.
     There's no X in the Spanish language, he told me. People can't seem to pronounce our name right. All they do is make a hissing sound.
      He was mostly accurate, and only a little wrong. I'd lived in Spain for a while and knew that Spanish does have an X. But it's seldom used and when pronounced -- depending on the country -- sounds most like 'Shhh'. So Xerox would be pronounced something like 'Share-osh'. It sounded in my mind like a salt marsh at slack tide.
       I want you to come up with something, McColough said. I have no idea what, but we can't do business if nobody can say our name. And we can't change that. So I want you to figure something out.
See if you can find some way to get them to say Xerox like we do. Not like they're using mouthwash.
     Among other things, I liked McColough because he never demanded instant reactions from people. So I was able to push around the worst baked Alaska I'd ever tasted while I thought about the problem.
     Finally, I said: God, Peter, I wouldn't even know where to start. I mean .. I can't imagine what we could do. Every country down there has one or maybe two TV stations, but they're either government-owned or government-controlled. Half of them are banana republics or military dictatorships ... I guess there's a few democracies if you want to call them that .. but most of them hate each other. Mexico thinks Argentina is retarded .. and Argentina thinks Mexico is neanderthal. It doesn't seem to matter who .. Chileans .. Venezuelans .. whatever. They all think they're different or better than anybody else.
     I know all that, McColough said grumpily. But there's got to be a way around it. That's what I want you to tackle. You can deal with me directly and bill me for your time. Give me a rough number .. a ballpark figure .. so I can think about it.
     My reaction was that I wanted no part of it. For openers, even we pronounced Xerox -- a word derived from the Greek words for 'dry' and 'writing' -- in a weird way. We made the first X sound like a Z and the second like an X: Zee-rox. Pretty silly, huh? And we're going to teach trhe Spanish-speaking world how to say an invented word that we ourselves pronounce illogically? Fat chance!
     What McColough wanted from me looked like a lose-lose situation. What's the use of taking a job that can't be done? I asked myself. And then having to admit failure? And losing the credibility I'd earned with him? No thanks. I wanted to stick with what I knew: television programming on the American networks.
     That's when I decided on a sneaky way out. I'd quote him an outrageous number. Something sky-high and beyond reason.
     Peter, you'd have to pay me too much, I said. I was smiling, as if were a joke.
     How much? he asked again.
     How about $25,000 a month?
     Fine. Send me the bills marked 'monthly retainer'.

     I was re-living my shock when the auditor's voice recaptured my attention.
     As if clairvoyant, he said: I would presume $25,000 a month buys something more ... uh ... concrete than just thought. As I said, we'll need some specifics to fill in the blanks.
     Sorry, I can't give you any information without Peter's permission.
     Well, can you tell me generally what we're dealing with? Are you talking proprietary technology .. patent issues .. mergers and acquisitions .. new imaging processes? If I can call it something I may not have to question Mr. McColough about it.
      Now I'm beginning to feel sorry for this guy. It's no easy thing to question the man who ultimately controls your career. But I was already in for a penny, and thus for a pound.
     Nothing to do with any of that stuff, I tell him. All I can say is Peter asked me to come up with an idea for him.
     An idea? One idea?
     I don't answer because I've already done so .. and because I sense he's befuddled and grappling with an alien concept; something beyond his professional training and certainly beyond his personal experience. And I'm right because his next question stuns me. It's a voyage into the unknown; an epistemological miracle.
     How long does an idea take? he asks.
     And suddenly we're confronting something worthy of Aristotle .. or Albert Einstein .. or maybe even God!
     HOW LONG DOES AN IDEA TAKE? I'm tempted to ask 'just a run-of-the-mill idea or a really good one?' And I want to tell him 'somewhere between a split second and forever'. But I'm also wondering whether an idea is like a pyrophoric substance that explodes the instant it's exposed to air or whether it's like a compost heap whose long, slow fermentation eventually self-ignites.
     HOW LONG DOES AN IDEA TAKE?
     How the hell should I know?
     But the auditor himself recognizes the absurdity of his question and in his confusion tries to retreat to something more familiar; something perhaps quantifiable.
     Or should I ask how much an idea costs? he asks.
     Again, there is no answer and, suddenly, I want out of the conversation. So I apologize for taking his time and cut him short. My final words are, Talk to McColough.

      But to be honest, that specific question -- how much does an idea cost? -- has in its own way been bugging me for months. Because I still don't have the faintest idea how to make a salt marsh at slack tide sound like a modern corporation. I've done extensive research, read deeply, talked with experts, solicited diplomats, traveled, dreamed, hoped, cursed and gotten drunk more than once in the search for a solution. But nothing has surfaced. I've been paid a small fortune and still haven't a clue.
     What's worse, I'm being dogged day and night by an insidious and unavoidable sense of futility.
I simply hate my looming failure.

    Then, a week later, Mike Dann calls. Mike Dann .. of all people! The little Napoleon of CBS whose quick patter and elliptical monologues are famous for confusing everyone but himself. I never could have dreamed he'd suggest an idea that could solve 'The X Problem'. Never in a million years.
     But he did.
     And together -- with more optimism than good sense, and with differing interests but one complementary purpose -- we set about to conquer the land mass of our hemisphere all the way from El Paso, Texas, to the turbulent waters of Cape Horn.
      My next posting will tell how.

      Thanks for reading.

HOW TO STOP AN ARAB PLOT AND GET FIRED .. ANOTHER 'MAD MEN' STORY

   

      I've been fired twice in my life. The first time is worth mentioning only because it taught me how useless logic can be. I was in college at the time and working on a dairy farm. The farmer and I milked a hundred and ten cows at five o'clock in the morning and five o'clock at night, seven days a week. But I could never get up on time for the morning milking, although I was always right on the button at night. So the farmer -- a happy-go-lucky guy whom I liked -- fired me. Which I understood.
     But cows don't care what time they're milked as long as their teats are manipulated regularly. So -- in an attempt to save my job -- I said to him:
     Ya' know, if we could do the milking at nine o'clock in the morning and at nine at night, I'd never be late.
     Are you crazy? he answered. I'm in bed at nine o'clock at night!
     I dropped out of college not long after, figuring I might learn more from farmers than from professors.
     Metaphorically, that is.

     My second experience --years later -- was more dramatic. It stalled a career or two, humiliated an ad agency, infuriated a client, and nearly created an international incident. And, of course, it got me canned.
     Even without sex, that's pretty juicy stuff!
     The client was Xerox Corporation in the era when it was the only company whose machines made copies on plain white paper. (Yes, the late Jurassic period.) It was also one of the fastest growing companies in the world with affiliates and subsidiaries everywhere ... except in the Islamic world. You could travel from Casablanca to Algiers, through Tunis, Tripoli, Cairo, Amman, Riyadh and Damascus and nary a plain paper copy would you find. Only those crinkly, fast-fading, dun-colored, icky-slippery things produced by its competitors.
    Xerox had been boycotted by The Arab League.

     The back story of why is a little fuzzy. But when the company was a pup, it underwrote a series of semi-documentary films about the United Nations, including one about the founding of Israel, If I remember correctly, the films weren't very successful. But the underwriting credit alone was enough for The Arab League -- sort of a Middle Eastern 'mini-UN' -- to impose the boycott. And not unnoticed, probably, was that the chairman of Xerox, Sol Linowitz, was Jewish and prominent.
     In any case, the CEO of Xerox, Peter McColough, desperately wanted the boycott lifted. And he sure as hell wasn't going to unseat Sol Linowitz as a peace offering. It seemed as if McColough -- a Canadian, a Catholic and a liberal Democrat -- was deeply offended by the boycott. as if the Arabs were punishing him personally for having done what his company considered morally right and responsible.
     So out went the word. Lobbyists were dispatched to Washington, Congressmen and Senators were contacted, consultations were held with the State Department. Months passed.
     Nothing happened.
     Other political and diplomatic doors were opened through Xerox affiliates and subsidiaries in other countries. More months passed.
     Still, nothing happened.
     Eventually it became like a proverbial pea under McColough's mattress. He saw the Middle East as a huge potential market: twenty countries with a population nearly equal to that of the United States. It was almost worth wearing a burnoose and a dishdashah for! But he just couldn't crack the boycott.

     Enter the savior.
     He came, as most saviors do, in disguise: a documentary film producer from England who was introduced to the company by a Xerox advertising agency. The man had bona fide credentials; and after being gingerly handed up the chain of command, he reached trhe Xerox vice-president of communications who -- after listening to his pitch -- heard the bells of St. Peters ringing in his ears. This was it! If he could pull it off, he'd be a prince among pretenders! He'd be Peter McColough 'man' forever.
     The Brit proposed to produce a multi-part, non-partisan history of Islam for broadcast on PBS, the Public Broadcasting System. It was (and still is) a great idea and was certainly needed. If any nation were ignorant of Islam, it was ours. The proposed series -- objective and balanced -- would educate and enlighten the American public and be a contribution to international understanding. Who could possibly be against it?
     And there was a kicker. The producer -- although an independent -- was well connected to The Arab League and felt confident that the series would get Xerox off the boycott list. No guarantees, of course. But the promise, if not explicit, was nonetheless implicit and very exciting.
     It was hope amplified by imagination ... like a first date,

     I was brought into the picture a few months later. McColough had already been given an extensive briefing and had enthusiastically endorsed the project, asking for regular updates. The producer was ready to start pre-production, location scouts were standing by, and final contracts were about to be signed.
     But corporate enthusiasm had overcome common sense. Nobody had asked public television whether it would broadcast the series! That's a huge 'Whoops'! And that's why the Xerox vice-president finally let his hot-shot television consultant in on the deal. I had extensive contacts at PBS and knew its strongest stations well.
    But before trying to pull his chestnuts out, I wanted to review the bidding. I asked for everything Xerox had: the full proposal, script outlines, correspondence, memos, legal opinions, etc. Then, as an afterthought, I asked to see the contracts that were about to be signed. I was surprised at how many people had already managed to put their fingers into what promised to be a glory pie.
     Finally, I called a few friends at the BBC to double-check the producer's credentials. They told me he was an 'Arabist' -- an apologist for Arab causes -- but a legitimate and recognized expert on the Middle East. The apologist part was a little worrisome, but not much. After all, how else could he have gotten close to The Arab League?
     So after my first pass, the project looked good. In fact, I was getting enthused about it myself when I was stopped dead in my tracks. Buried deep in the fine print of the contract submitted by the producer, and apparently approved by the Xerox lawyers, was a sentence that gave final script and narration approval to 'appropriate authorities including The Arab League'. The sentence went way beyond the normal 'boiler plate' approval that legally belongs to the broadcaster. It was, in effect, a poisonous plant; inserted with forethought. There could be no other explanation. And whether the producer was a pawn or a conspirator didn't matter. If we went ahead, it meant Xerox would be ceding editorial control of the American public's airwaves to The Arab League. The company could be accused of underwriting propaganda in the guise of education. And all for its own narrow self-interest,
     If word ever got out, Xerox would be pilloried (I avoided the word 'crucified') and humiliated by the American government and its political establishment, by the Israelis, the world-wide Jewish community, and the international press ranging from The New York Times to Pravda.
     The deal had to be killed, and fast.

     Now came the melodrama,
     I called an emergency meeting of those involved and explained why the project was camel dung. There was much wailing, hand-wringing and flagellation. Everybody who'd plunged a finger into the glory pie was now pointing it at somebody else. But I sensed that much of the tribulation was because nobody wanted to give Peter McColough the bad news. In fact, the vice-president of communications, my boss, was flat-out terrified.
     You can guess what happened next.
     I tracked McColough down at a meeting in Phoenix, Arizona. It was seven a.m. his time when I called. He sounded barely awake and grumpy: not a morning person. I told him that the History of Islam project had to be killed, and that going forward would be like sitting on a bomb and lighting the fuse yourself.
     He was so angry he fired me on the spot. Definitely not a morning person.
      I then called the vice-president and told him what had happened. All he could say was: Oh God, I'm sorry. Honest to God. I am. I'm really, really sorry. His tone was dripping with relief that it wasn't him. Nor did he offer to intercede on my behalf. If the messenger were dead, he wasn't about to attempt a resurrection.

      The next day, shortly before noon, McColough walked unannounced into my office in New York.
He'd always had a wonderfully warm smile .. which spread across his face as I left my desk to meet him. He looked a bit bemused perhaps, but was in no way embarassed or apologetic.
     Quickly glancing at my watch, I took a chance. I asked whether I could charge him for the twenty-seven hours I'd been fired.
      He pursed his lips, as if thinking it over, and told me if I did, he might have to fire me again.
      I charged him anyway.



                                                 AFTER DINNER MINTS



The Arab League, for reasons unknown to me, eventually dropped the boycott. Perhaps they got tired of handling those crinkly, dun-colored, icky-sticky things.

To my knowledge, no history of Islam has ever been broadcast nationally in the United States. It's a shame because our ignorance of Moslem culture and beliefs, reinforced by mounting reactionary bigotry, is more dangerous than ever.

As the people, the vice-president of communications avoided as many decisions as possible for the remainder of his career. He never told me how he backed out of the deal or who he managed to blame for its failure. Nor did he ever try to bypass me again.

Sol Linowitz resigned as chairman of Xerox shortly thereafter to become Ambassador to the Organization of American States. In 1979, under the Carter administration, he negotiated the turnover of the Panama Canal to Panama.

Peter McColough -- who became a valued friend -- was CEO of Xerox for fourteen years. He died in 2004.
     I will never forget that smile.




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