In case you didn’t hear, a few weeks ago I fell unconscious 15′ from my roof without injury. I’ve never choked before. Until tonight. Woofing down a garlic knot, I was screaming at all the kids in my kitchen when it got stuck over my air pipe. I tried to cough to dislodge it. Couldn’t. Tried inhaling. Couldn’t. Panic sets in pretty fast when you can’t draw breath. My wife comes over and pats me on the back. I hear…
My first gig in advertising was working in-house for Citibank. A department they aptly named N-house. A year before, Citibank hired a copywriter-art director team from Saatchi & Saatchi out of Manhattan, and brought them down to their operations campus in Jacksonville, where the tandem headed all direct marketing correspondence for the bank, and lived like kings. It was my first experience with the idea of an in-house creative department. Nearly 20 years later I’m here to tell you that by 2020…
There was once a time, not long ago, when we’d yell “Love!” as my wife drove the kids away. First me. Then them. Then me again. Then (faintly) them. Then once more for good measure I’d cup my hands around my mouth and yell “LOVE!” at the top of my lungs in the direction they were traveling. Then, in my mind, they’d return the call one last time from the bottom of our street, having picked up on the cadence…
It’s 2016 and we’re deep into another political season in the United States. It’s fun, isn’t it? Like the Olympics. It’s actually not fun. It’s a four year reminder of why I have so little hope for the future of this once great nation. And this year’s political season is worse than ever. I believe we expend entirely too much energy on politics when we could be using that energy for more productive things that affect our lives, and the lives of those around us…
Do you know how hard it is to keep creating when so few seem to notice? Not that hard, actually. Not when you have almost no control over it. You can’t be concerned with how what you create affects others. Or whether anyone even notices. You just reach into the knife drawer and cut open a new vein. And let it bleed until it scabs. The trick, I think, is to ignore the scars. *** jmitchem
I’ve heard it said that when a loved one is injured, your thoughts go right to them. Even when the loved one is maliciously injured. That all of your energy goes to your injured loved one to keep them hanging on. To protect them. I know for a fact that this is true. But for some of us, the energy shifts. Quickly. Especially when they’re maliciously injured. Last week, during the coordinated attacks by al-Qaeda across the United States…
