Recollections of a Mad Ave VP Ad Biggie ... etc.
["TRUTH" in Advertising]
Turned out that at the time I wasn't enough of a committed student in college to even pass the MCAT medical school qualifying admission test. A blessing in disguise. Knowing what I know now; about actually working in the medical profession, and what I know about myself. Ick! Blood and guts!
So then, what to do?
After college graduation I took some evaluative tests offered at my university, the University of Detroit. Advertising was what rose to the surface. My generalist temperament fit well within a milieu with so many moving parts. And, the idea of working in the Mecca of advertising in New York City was also very alluring. Martini's at lunch. Broadway. Downtown. Lutece. [That last place, where the chef hisself, Andrรฉ Soltner, came out of the kitchen to make it clear to us that his joint was not a place for a working "business lunch". Put the papers back in your bags, boys.] Babes. Evenings with cocktails and dinner aboard the Forbes yacht making a full circle around Manhattan. Sushi. And the big draw, being in on the action. Shaping the world, if you will. I could fill a book.
Eventually I set up appointments in the Big Apple and drove out by myself on the turnpike for interviews. It wasn't going so well. My last meeting was at J. Walter Thompson; then, the largest ad agency in the world, and oldest. Long story short ... the personnel interviewer asked me how my other meetings were going. I said, "Shitty". I was hired. My Mother always would say, "Honesty is the best policy". But, Ma! In advertising? Huh? Before being hired, I was flown out by JWT for a round of interviews with the top brass. They liked me! They really liked me. [At a junket week with a major client in Miami I won the "Big Fish" award. We went out on a charter and I caught a Tuna! Big fish, get it. Somehow I also thought that there was a metaphor at play. Like, I got hooked myself. Active paranoia gene.]
Fast forward twelve years later I'm walking to work at Doyle Dane Bernbach on Madison Avenue, and I say to myself, "I don't want to do this anymore". Simple as that. A small handful of months later I was out of it. Fired. Happily so. My supervisor took me out to dinner to fire me. I stopped him short for any explanation he was going to give. I told him that was bullshit I didn't need to hear. And, I wanted to get out anyway. As in, your fired! No! I quit. There was a Hand-of-God quality to this as I saw it. Just also like the ending of the marital blissard that was soon to follow.
So happens that at the very same time I took off the gray flannel suit my marriage of ten years also ended. That's a whole other story. Tragic, and sad. But, for me, necessary in retrospect; ultimately like it seems to have had to be. Let's just say I woke up in a sleeping situation. Wised up. Nothing against marriage. Just not something for sleeping assholes. Which, I was. Until, I wasn't. Or, so it seemed to me. Others may disagree on my current status. Funny how people can continue to see you out of their memory of you from a past time. Forgiveness. That's another matter. I could fill a book.
On with the story ...
So, now what to do? I hadn't prepared for living stripped of my very familiar roles and relationships. But, like I said, I did wake up. Woke up to the honest impulse within me to be true to myself, and be true in whatever it would be to be doing in the world. Instead of a career which to me boils down to getting-people-to-part-with-their-money, I wanted to get behind something that offered value. Real value. Not just a sip of pop to put a smile on your face. Something more than just a job to win the bread.
Interesting, this thread of "truth" running through my story. After more than a little soul searching I decided to train to be a Rolfer. My own experience of the results of that work was a big "WOW!" Not just a good idea, a great experience. One that lasts a lifetime, I might add.
Now, in my 43rd year as such a "shaker and mover" I'm struck with how I finally wound up in a career that is all about integrity. It's called Structural Integration. 'Rolf" for Dr. Ida P. Rolf, the originator and teacher of the craft.
Adding ... in that interview I was asked what was my goal in the Advertising business. I said I wanted to get my career good in the middle. Low and behold, when I left the biz, I see now that in fact I did achieve my goal. VP Account Supervisor. With three management tiers above me. Interesting too, that the career I moved to next is all about balance; which, in order to be, needs a middle. Wow! Talk about foreshadowing!
So now ...
Integrity, you ask? How's this for integrity?
Dr. Ida P. Rolf Method ... The Approach to Human Structural Integration. Balancing the Body With the Gravitational Field of the Earth.
There's the stamp of "truth" in that work. Like the line of Gravity matched up with the line of the body. Simple science really. Anatomically and according to Basic Physics. "Plumb & Square." Kapische?
In case it is lost on you, see how the Ad Man in me still goes for the pitch? As in, go ahead ... get in balance yourself. I could fill a book on this subject. But, for now, just consider how it might be if you live with your body in alignment with the prevailing Gravitational "wind". Easy, upright, present, vital, capable, responsible, true to yourself. To list a few.
Don't need no doctor's prescription for that, either. Besides, most likely this possibility of fostering such balance in the makeup of the Human body isn't something about which most doctors even have a clue. Yet. Big obstacle to that, the medical industry don't make no money on the cure; the money's in the medicine.
Balancing your body, that's curative. And, I have the book on that! True dat!
For all the other stuff from The Wronski ...
