Crawling Out From Under the Bushel

OK. I've been advised to "not to hide my light under a bushel." Something I was entirely unaware I was doing. (A bushel of what, exactly?) However, it was explained to me that there may very well be companies out there that would be interested in hiring my company, if they only knew, 1.) My company existed and 2.) My accomplishments. Toward that end, here are some of my accomplishments. Please feel encouraged to share this information. b

Bruce Lee Career Accomplishments

• Masterminded the development of a large relational database and used it to generate many millions of dollars in incremental sales.

• Directed an annual of media budget in excess $10 million.

• Created from scratch an in-house advertising department that grew from three people to twelve, at a time when sales grew from $7 to $150 million, and markets grew from one to six (Seattle/Tacoma/Everett; Spokane; Portland: San Francisco; Santa Rosa; Sacramento). Contributed to media strategy for Los Angeles, but left before actual store openings. Developed and administered media strategies in all markets.

• Developed media strategy and created all concepts and copy for print, outdoor, direct mail, radio and television, which resulted in the company for which I worked becoming the top volume cellular phone dealer in Washington.

• Was in charge of advertising for many consecutive years of monthly double-digit sales increases (with occasional increases as high as 40% over the previous year).

• Developed an ongoing system for precisely tracking advertising effectiveness.

• Wrote, produced and directed over 1000 radio commercials.

• Wrote hundreds of direct mail pieces.

• Wrote many thousands of newspapers advertisements. (For a number of years, the company for which I worked was the third largest advertiser in the Seattle Times and Seattle Post Intelligencer.)

• Wrote and produced approximately 30 television commercials.

• Created and maintained a successful company employee newsletter.

• Wrote all issues of a quarterly consumer newsletter.

• Responsible for all decisions relating to the purchase of all computer hardware and software for advertising department. Also all photography department purchases.

• Responsible for hiring and managing all department employees.

• Worked regularly with media representatives.

• Worked regularly with outside service providers, including database, print, radio and television production facilities.

• Worked with many outside service providers on development and execution of market research projects.

• Worked closely with counterparts in the PRO Group, at the time the second-largest buying group in the American consumer electronics industry.

• Worked extremely closely with a counterparts in purchasing and administration.

• Spent countless hours on in-store merchandising, signage and display.

• Assisted in countless negotiations with vendors for market development funds.

• Worked closely with Girvin to develop new logo. 

• Aided in training hundreds of salespeople.

• Developed strategy, creative and handled all placement for Jorve Roofing.

• Continue to create all direct marketing, newspaper and magazine advertising for Bjorn’s Audio Video in San Antonio.

• Wrote television scripts for Puget Sound Health Partners.

• Wrote, produced and directed radio spots for Windermere Realty.

• Wrote, produced and directed radio spots for Franciscan Health System.

• Developed brand identity and web site for KARA Imports.

• Wrote web site content for Susan Youngsman & Company.

• Wrote content for web site for Groundingpoint Financial Consulting.

• Wrote content for web site for Bill McKay Consulting. 

• Wrote content for web site for Ken Carson Creative.

• Wrote content for web site for High Dive Marketing, Research & Design.

• Wrote content for web site for Lenora Edwards Business Development Consulting

• Created magazine ads and catalog content for Time Warner.

• Wrote “infomercial” scripts for GB Woodcock packaging.

• Created print, online and radio for Definitive Audio.

• Created radio spots for HD radio.

• Created newspaper and magazine advertising for Entertainment Solutions.

• Created magazine advertising for Wilshire Home Entertainment.

• Created marketing materials for Pentabosol.

• Created web content for Envision Response.

Off With Their Headers!

I remember a conversation I had with an older fella back in the Seventies. He claimed that, growing up, he could sit on his front porch with his eyes closed and identify the make of nearly every automobile that passed by, simply from the distinctive sound of its engine and exhaust note. I had no reason to doubt him. I had been a semi-serious motorhead from grade school, and believed I could reliably discern, if not a Chevy from a Pontiac, at least six- from an eight-cylinder-powered car. (And maybe a GM product from a Ford from a Chrysler.) Of course there was no problem blindly identifying the loose-chain flatulence of a VW.

There were a few weirdoes in junior and high school who posted on their bedroom walls photos of foreign “sports” cars. Those cars were OK I guess, but never gained mental prominence among my peer group, certainly in part because we rarely if ever saw them in our small town. (I don’t think I saw a real Ferrari or Maserati until I was in my twenties, when I moved to the Big City.) No, to those of us who wore out our copies of Car Craft, Hot Rod and the JC Whitney Catalog (with its extraordinary line art), there was nothing like Detroit Iron.

The cars we loved had names, not cold Teutonic model numbers. Quien es mas macho? Super Bee or Super Bird? ‘Cuda or Cobra? Charger or Challenger?

What grabbed at my loins were the rough trade twins Horsepower and Torque. 

The modest little 1997 European sports sedan (with just a model number) I now drive to the store for pinot gris comes within a half-blink of the quarter-mile time of a 1969 335-horsepower Cyclone Cobra Jet (Cyclone Cobra Jet! Can you imagine being in the meeting where they decided on that name? They must have been doing flaming shots of pure testosterone) and would quickly lap it on a road track. But back when I had lots more testosterone, I didn’t care one whit about shit like braking and steering. What grabbed at my loins were the rough trade twins Horsepower and Torque.

I clearly remember getting into the passenger seat of a friend’s canary yellow Challenger. It had the optional Hurst shifter with the faux-wooden handgrip. As he released the clutch, I looked over at the instrument cluster. The tachometer needle rushed toward redline. The speedometer showed we should be moving at forty miles per hour or so. But we weren’t. Instead, we were nearly stationary, scraping hundreds of miles of tread off his Wide Ovals, creating an opaque cloud of brilliantly white smoke. The tires didn’t squeal like some whussy girl. Instead was a submissive “whoosh” nearly masked by the roar of air entering three two-barrel carburetors (a “six pack”) and passing through glass-packed mufflers and exiting from dual exhaust tips, each of which could swallow a dozen of those puny chrome fifes that stuck out the back of a Bug.

Mach 1? Hurst/Olds? 

Boss 351 (with “Shaker” hood)? 

We hardly knew ye.

Just as guys like me were beginning to land jobs where we might possibly be able to afford the payments on a used Road Runner, the oil embargo and Earth Day happened. And Detroit did something for which we never forgave them: they stopped making the cars we wanted.

Now, let me clarify something: With few exceptions, Detroit never made really good cars, at least not during the fifties and sixties, the period with which I was obsessed. We knew that a Mustang was just a Falcon with a different body style, and that a Camaro and Firebird were twins. Hood scoops were rarely functional and plastic wheel covers weren’t magnesium. We recognized the hideousness of the tonneau roof and the ridiculousness of stuffing a 426 cubic inch Hemi into what would have otherwise been our parents’ Dodge Satellite. We saw the misaligned body panels of even new cars and the doors on two year-old models already beginning to sag. Didn’t all cars squeak?

But this was the time of planned obsolescence. I knew many successful people who traded-in and bought a new family car each and every year. My high school parking lot was full of Buick, Oldsmobile and Studebaker hand-me-downs.

Most important, Detroit was giving us what we wanted. Big cruisers for the old people. Plain vanilla boxes (Falcons, Novas, Darts, Ambassadors, etc.) for the plain vanilla people and muscle cars for those with unthinking passion.

I don’t remember anyone asking Chevrolet to build the Vega and Chevette or American Motors to bring us the Pacer.

Whether Detroit and Madison Avenue were jointly responsible for creating that market is a separate (very interesting, maybe even important) question. But the reality was: We asked, and we received.

However, come the Seventies, I don’t remember anyone asking Chevrolet to build the Vega and Chevette or American Motors to bring us the Pacer. Or for the Corvette to be emasculated (better it should have been discontinued than to suffer the indignities of the Seventies.) I swear I saw Mercury Marquis (single the same as plural?) and Ford Fairmonts disintegrate before my very eyes. No, I don’t recall market surveys indicating that Americans wanted overweight, underpowered, filigreed, unreliable and just plain ugly cars. Was the best solution to meeting C.A.F.E. standards improving gas mileage or bolting on a bunch of heavy, performance-killing anti-smog devices? Just how disconnected from reality do you have to be to produce an abomination such as the Cadillac Cimarron? The answer: Pretty goddamn disconnected.

And they never woke up. Even with the Japanese and Germans openly pilfering their lunch, a seemingly comatose Detroit continued to produce the cars we never asked for and never wanted. Instead of looking to innovation to provide long-term profitability, they cut quality even further and rode the gravy train of legislation that gave suburban soccer moms driving humongous SUVs tax breaks intended for truck-driving farmers. Why come up with a new car, when it seems all you have to do is put different body styles on the same old chassis and drivetrain? Have you driven a Ford lately? I have, and it feels remarkably similar to my first car, a 1956 Victoria. (Which shouldn’t surprise me, as there’s a likelihood that many of the parts are identical.)

I read an article recently about the 2009 New York Auto Show. The pretty girls hired to add eye candy to the displays were having to field the chides of hecklers. One attendee, in front of a Chrysler electric car display, exclaimed: “Why now? How come you’ve got to nearly go bankrupt before you come out with a car like this?”

Me? I think there have always lonely voices deep within the halls of Chrysler, Ford and GM. Voices that proposed ways to beat back the invaders through clever use of domestic brain- and manufacturing-power. But these voices weren’t in a position to lead. And the leaders never listened.

As far as I’m concerned, the trust is broken and at this point I honestly can’t think of a way that The Big Three can get it back. Maybe they should be combined and reorganized to produce something such as bullet trains. You know, big, heavy things that carry a lot of passengers and go really fast.

Why I listen to conservative talk radio

I live in the most indigo blue neighborhood north of San Francisco's Castro district:  Seattle's Capitol Hill. "Baghdad Jim" McDermott is my congressman. Everyday, I still see dozens of Obama campaign signs and bumper stickers (and absolutely none for McCain). My daughter is a student at uber-liberal The Evergreen State College. I greatly admire sex columnist Dan Savage. I want drugs decriminalized. I am an atheist. 

And I also enjoy listening to conservative radio talk show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt , Bill (Poppa Bear) O'Reilly all the Michaels:  Medved; Savage; Gallagher. (However, even I have my standards, so I avoid Hannity and I haven't yet been able to figure out Glenn Beck, who seems more like a harmless buffoon being pulled along by forces much larger than he can comprehend.  And is it merely a coincidence that I've never seen Ann Coulter and Montel Williams in the same room together?)

Now, you may be thinking "Ah! Know Thine Enemy." That I'm eavesdropping on the "other side" the better to anticipate their nefarious plots and prepare a counter strategy. Honestly, I suppose there's a bit of that, but the fact is I tend to agree with a number of positions championed by traditional conservatives (e.g.:  economic frugality; the sanctity of individual rights; a deep appreciation and trust in the concepts laid down by the Founding Fathers; a genuine love of country). Tuning in, I often find myself nodding in agreement (especially with Hewitt). 

But the main reason I tune in is the same reason most folks do:  it's entertaining. The talk show hosts listed above command huge audiences, and certainly (hopefully) all the folks who tune in are not accurately represented by the brainless wingnut "Dittoheads" who make it past the call screener. No, we of the masses tune in because it's fun to listen to the wingnuts and fun to hear how the host bats them around like a cat toy. It's fun because it scratches satisfyingly against the rash of political correctness from which so many of us suffer. It's the illusion of danger–without the risk–that we enjoy. And the danger here is represented by how close the host and his callers will get to taboos such as racism, sexism, and advocating the armed overthrow of the government. 

Make no mistake, I have a lot of admiration for the talents of these radio hosts. Sure, they stack the deck a bit. They have call screeners who know in advance the position of the caller. They have admins who evaluate those positions and quickly feed related statistics, quotes and headlines to the host's video monitor. The result is that the host can sound always in control as the authority, the Wizard who has deigned to allow the Simpleton Strawman to address him. And, of course, the host can curtail the call anytime it threatens the host's position or (worst of all) gets boring. 

Because the most important part of a talk radio host's job is to keep listeners listening. But let's boil that down just a bit more. The only job of the talk radio host is to convince people to listen to his show. If he doesn't do that, advertisers won't give money to the radio station, and the radio station won't give money to the radio host. Simple as that. 

But let's put this in 

proper perspective:  

Just because John Wayne played 

a Marine doesn't make him one. 

I'll single out Michael Medved here, for no other reason than that he lives in Seattle, has a show on Bonneville's local KTTH ("The Truth") and appears to be willing to be the shill of any advertiser. Seriously, there are ad "clusters" (those logjams of radio spots you commonly hear every seven minutes or so on talk radio formats) where you'll hear MM as the featured voice/endorsement in nearly half the spots. Now–good on him. He has to pay for his kids' tuition same as me and there's not the slightest thing unethical about him selling his services like this. (I do, however, sometimes question the judgement of the advertisers who want their spots to sound virtually indistinguishable from others). 

No, my point is that Michael Medved, et. al are first, foremost and unequivocally entertainers. I don't know what any of these guys really thinks in their heart of hearts. They're playing the role of conservative pundit right now because that's what sells. But let's put it in proper perspective:  Just because John Wayne played a Marine in the movies doesn't make him one. His job was to sell movie tickets. Rush's job is to sell advertising. For all I know, Rush clandestinely contributes to Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and the Al Franken senatorial campaign. 

I don't want to be stupid about this. I know that these guys have influence beyond bumping up sales of the advertiser's products they hawk. That what they say can feed fear, hatred and desperation to people who already have enough fear, hatred and desperation to float a boat. I don't yet know how I feel about bringing back the Fairness Doctrine (which would probably result in these guys losing their jobs). But I suspect that they also might fulfill some valuable purpose in this raucous democratic republic. 

And I like a lot of John Wayne's movies.

b

Super sensitive smell

I wrote about this experience and submitted the story to Dr. Oliver Sacks (author of books such as Awakenings, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Musicophilia), but, understandably, I've not received a response. (I'm certain he receives thousands of stories each year.) I hope that readers here might provide some insight. 

Some years ago, I was in the habit (as virtually all inhabitants of Seattle are) of stopping off at an espresso shop on my walk to my downtown office. To this day, I greatly regret not taking closer note of the chalkboard behind the counter, which indicated the name and source of the “coffee of the day.” I do recall clearly, however, that I had to wait a few moments as a new pot was prepared, and the cup I was given held the very first 12 ounces to drain through the grounds. I seem to recall noting to myself after the first sip that the coffee seemed exceeding rich.

I suppose I had downed about half of the drink when I got to the office. As I entered, I was immediately struck by the odor that seemed to emanate from the hallway-adjacent room that held the copy machine. I had never smelled it before. After a few steps, I found myself distracted and a bit put-off by the odor of unclean carpet. There was a runner of carpet in the hallway and I made a mental note to suggest a cleaning. Like the copy machine, this again was an odor I had not sensed even the day before.

It was when I headed toward my desk that things started getting weird. It’s hard for me to believe myself, but I could clearly smell the difference between the computer at my workstation (a Macintosh) and those on nearby desks (PCs). Suddenly I could easily distinguish other odors at the different workstations, and associate them unmistakably with the people who usually occupy them. (I was as yet the only one at the office.)

I tried very hard to concentrate and restore mental order, but within moments became literally overwhelmed by the “cacophony” of smells around me. I needed fresh air. On exiting the office through the backdoor into an alleyway, I was not met with relief. Instead, I was accosted by an extraordinary range of smells. Even with a light morning breeze blowing, I could smell rodents, the contents of broken bottles, chipped brick, oil and wet paper as clearly (in fact more clearly–much more clearly) than if I had held each item within an inch of my nose.

But what was most astonishing was the breadth and complexity of the odors. Many things were familiar, but more were not. Or perhaps I should say that I was sensing them with a degree of detail that I had never before experienced. It was so acute, I could almost believe that I could distinguish, not just wet paper for example, but even differences among a variety of wet paper types, or the kind and quantity of ink printed on them. At the risk of sounding psychedelic, I can say that it seemed as my nose could distinguish odors as well as my eyes can discern color.

I sought out a public balcony that overlooks Puget Sound, hoping that the sea breeze would offer some degree of relief and, thankfully, it did. The smell was a bit more homogenized, although I could still pick out distinct “notes” of ships, seagulls and the like. I stayed there for twenty to thirty minutes, during which time, the acuity of my olfactory system slowly returned to normal. Incidentally, this corresponded closely to the length of time that I associate with the “lift” I get from my morning coffee.

I want to emphasize that I never had the feeling that I was experiencing phantosmia–if I correctly define that malady as smelling things that aren’t there, or having smell trigger other memories or senses. Instead, this seemed to be a case of genuine super-acuity. (Although of course I had no way to test that idea scientifically.)

I would be greatly interested to learn if others have come forward with similar experiences and–of greatest significance–if they had been able to determine the trigger for the event. (In my case, I can’t help but feel fairly certain that a compound in the coffee was responsible, but I have continued to be a coffee drinker and have never again experienced any episode remotely similar to the one I relate here.)