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Make Damn Sure You Know The Horse Is Going To Drink The Water.
Regarding the creation of advertising, I’m very good at three things: copywriting, creating big ideas and presenting them. Even my detractors, bless them all, would grant me that. If pressed they...
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Creative Leadership and what it could mean to your organization.
Over the years, creative leadership has meant different things to different people in different kinds of agencies. The following is meant to clarify what it could (and probably should) mean to an...
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Creating the perfect manifesto. Let’s compose one for you!
Two giant companies are merging into a behemoth. They hire me to write a manifesto honoring the union. It must be celebratory but reassuring too. People from both sides are scared, fearing...
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The New Channel: Lush & Salty!
One of the many reasons I started this blog (way back in 2004) was to develop my skills in WordPress. Blogging had taken off as a ‘thing’ and I wanted in. Nothing works better than working it out for...
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It’s not Advertising but it’s Lush & Salty. Will you help it grow?
I’ve parlayed my passion for freshwater and saltwater aquariums into a YouTube channel: Lush & Salty Aquariums The channel is only a few weeks old – a wee fry. But I’ve been going at it pretty...
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Extraordinary writing from an extraordinary man: Reexamining MLK’s “Letter...
When I was in college, I took a course on rhetoric and debate in 20th century America. In it, we looked at numerous famous speeches made by famous people: Lincoln, Jefferson, King, etc. Learning from...
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Saturday Night Fever. The morning after.
When I was a teenager I didn’t see this movie because of the music and the fashion -not my thing. Last night, I finally watched it with my wife and daughters. Honestly, I was stunned by the movie’s...
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Author hustling for attention…
The author in delicto… For the last two years I’ve been diligently writing a new book, my fourth: a deeply personal work of autobiographical fiction written in the vein of Karl Ove Knausgaard and...
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The Yearning…
The non-addict asks what is the meaning of life? The addict asks: Is this all there is? You called this many things: frustration, dissatisfaction, expectation… the yearning. Desiring something else....
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Fire & Ice.
As a child you feared an impending ice age more than global warming, like the one you were taught befell the dinosaurs. You remember winter in Chicago as eternal, the city defined by it. Wind chill....
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Mist
Everyone experiences situational depression. Conflict. Unresolved resentments. Sometimes it really is just the humidity. Having a bad day. You either accept the situation or change it. Regardless, it...
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Singing in the Rain / Whistling in the Graveyard
You walk through your house singing U2 or humming the theme from I Dream of Genie. Inane or sublime, the content literally could be anything. And often is. Usually it’s just the chorus. Rarely do you...
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Back to School.
You’re studying to be certified as a drug and alcohol counselor. After 30 years, back to school. At Berkeley no less! Is this the end game: parlaying your alleged gifts as an AA speaker into a...
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55
“I’ve never been this old before.” You heard a man say at an AA meeting. He wasn’t trying to be funny, but it was good line. You guffawed into the circle of chairs. Sitting outside your home in the...
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Politics
The current President of the United States, Donald Trump is an idiot and a bully. What is the saying? We reap what we sow. A scary thought. Still, you believe Trump is an aberration that will soon be...
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How to save a life.
My philosophy as it relates to recovery has evolved since I first became clean and sober in 2003. While I began (and continue) my path to recovery as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, I have never...
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Eve Babitz
Overlooked as a writer for being a looker, the bombshell author, Eve Babitz. You discovered her while reading a biography of Jann Wenner, the mercurial founder of Rolling Stone magazine. She was...
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The Game
When you were barely a teenager, you imagined the death of your parents to see if it would cause you any pain. Lying in bed, you would create details in your mind to make it seem as real as possible....
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The Man in Black
You sit with twenty or so others around two connected folding tables in the basement of a musty church. The usual cross-section, they’ve nothing in common save for a desire to stop drinking. It’s...
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A Chorus of Sirens
Everyone, you think, is some kind of addict. Be they active, recovering, or on the brink. Passions which are good become obsessions which are bad. People are self-seeking. This is the human condition,...
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