Nightmare On Madison Avenue.

Usually, I try to keep these misadventures firmly on the ground, or at least rooted in some form of reality. I mean this business has taken enough flights of fancy over the past two or three decades without me adding to fantasy trips and imaginary feats of grandeur. But this week I just couldn't resist. This, was just too good to keep. A recurring nightmare, no less. With the Stars of Young & Rubicams Gilded Age, in full attendance. But first, the recurring part.

VOLUME
THIRTY-EIGHT
WEDNESDAY
MAY 24, 2005

I'm sure Dr. Freud would say that the fact that Young & Rubicam's Offices at 285 Madison Avenue have been regular venues in my nocturnal wanderings for the past few years would have something to do with the fact that I've worked there during three traumatic points in my life and the company has had a significant impact upon my career achievements, to say the least.

I lovedyour piece on "Fight Club." I think it is a mistake to stop teaching. You're obviously better suited to it then you are to advertising.- Dale W. Ft. Myer, Fla

Eat me, Dale-HW

I know that somewhere ensconced on a beach chair or walking through the gentle rolling surf of the Jersey Shore, my mentor and confidant Mike Becker ( CO-Creator of "I'm Stuck On Band-Aid Brand and progenitor of "Earth Day") is smiling to himself and muttering "oh this is gonna be good." Mike is a long time vet of Y&R and is probably one of the three people living that could pull it out of it's current nose dive. But I digress. This isn't about the real nightmare that is the once great Y&R. This is about the metaphysical Y&R that I am sure has haunted the peaceful slumber of such advertising icons as Alex Kroll, Dom Rosetti, bob Giraldi, Stan Dragotti, Steve Frankfurt, Henry Holtzman, Thom Thomas and John Ferrell and now Ann Fudge for more than a few nights.

That Y&R was where I found myself this past Monday evening, roaming the cork tilled hallways, in what was a truly macabre journey to the past, strangely alive in the present. In most of my previous visits to the metaphysical Y&RNY the situations are strikingly similar. I've returned to the agency at the behest of some powerful, yet unseen "force" in "senior management" to achieve some life or death, do or die task in a timeframe, unthinkable by mere mortals. Always, the plot twist is the same. Everything is riding on my ability to pull off the impossible, yet here I am, wondering aimlessly through the halls of 285 Madison, unable to find my office.

I told you this shit was classic Freudian. So that's been the storyline in dream after dream. Sometimes, I throw convention to the winds and commandeer an empty office and proceed to do what must be done. Of course this invariably results in said office's occupant returning just in time to receive all of the accolades worthy of absolute and total victory, as I return from the bathroom, recording session, photo shoot what have you, just in time to bare witness to my own missed opportunity and co-opted kudos. Strangely, the recipient of my glory is never apparent to me in these disturbing dreams, which is one of the reasons the dreams are so disturbing.

But this particular dream was different. Way different. This time the personalities were identifiable. The unseen "force" in Senior Management was the ever-popular Ed Ney. Not the elegant, whisper soft spoken Ed Ney that built Y&R into a global powerhouse, but a much younger Ed Ney with a mega-steroid energy level and a malevolent George Gumares sidekick playing psychotic Robin to his imperious Batman. In this dream, I found a Y&RNY at DefCon Five. As I roamed the halls the klaxons were blaring and the troops were scrambling to man their battle stations.

The bizarre difference was that the troops were being marshaled by Field Commanders from the past, who were putting their best efforts ever into launching a modern day offensive, with the same antiquated tactics that have institutionalized themselves at agency networks like Y&R and McCann and BBDO year after year after year. And supposedly, I was being recruited to add my talents, whatever they may be to the valiant last ditch effort to "save the farm." And that was the unique aspect of this particular dream, as opposed to its predecessors. I was being "recruited" as opposed to being already there and committed to saving the day.

So in effect, I was being "courted," which was certainly a refreshing change of pace from the normal Sword of Damocles position I generally find myself in during subsequent visits to the 285 Madison Avenue of my dreams. This time, I am invited in to sit on the sumptuous sofa in Ed Ney's office, which somehow turns into a luxurious waterbed with myself and six or seven other notable creative luminaries bobbing up and down as we each struggle at first to maintain some decorum, but instead just flop about like "Topsie." Finally, I pull myself to the side of the couch/bed just in time for Ed Ney to focus his attention my way just long enough to say, "I always thought you should write a book that defined Poverty for the American people." Unprepared, I sat their dumbfounded, until I got the nerve to ask Mr. Ney, " Why did you think that I would be the perfect person to write such a book?"

"Because you understand the genre so totally." Was his only response as he shoved past me. "I would like to spend 15 minutes with you," I blurted out. He turned and gave me that Colgate smile guys like Batman keep ready and waiting. He explained that he had a court deposition he had to attend to but that he would be back in the office by 2pm and he could give me 15 minutes at that point. 15 minutes with the new, improved Ed Ney was a big prize, even while asleep. I left the sixth floor office and went back to haunting the halls trying to kill the hour and a half of rem time until I figured out how to rock Ed Ney's world. I decided to do some scouting around before 2pm.

The Y&R of my dreams was a catacomb of amazing "affinity cells." Each "cell" was its own self-contained work center that specialized in crafting messages to precisely defined and targeted audiences. In my dream, these autonomous units created not only the advertising massaging but the products themselves and the media by which the products reached their intended audiences. One of the first of these "cells" I wandered into was run by noted creative director Carole Williams ( who in real life worked as a consultant to Y&R's Post Office Account) but in this reality ran a cell called "Vinious TV" that crafted messaging for Black Lesbian Vegans who worshiped Wicken Ways. When I say precisely targeted, I mean pin-dot precision.

The work space was a symphony of Art Neauveu greens and olives flowing from one workpod to the next, intertwined with organically designed, hydroponically grown jungle plant life. Between the illuminated, Goudy-esque furniture and the Rain Forest vegetation, the staff toiled in relative isolation. When I asked Carole how successful the unit had been in growing their client's business she offered that "success metrics" were not a part of the unit's function. I offered her a themeline for the Vinious TV unit. "Advertising that grows on you." She gave me that polite but dismissive smile that says "Run along now" and I followed my imaginary bread crumbs back to the halls of my imaginary Y&RNY to see what other "Affinity Cells," I could find.

It didn't take long to come across Y&R's legendary Lou DiJoseph's office. ( Lou was responsible for the Army Business's "Be All You Can Be" creative efforts in the waking world) In the world of my dream, Lou's office was in fact a Cabaret stage with Lou at an upright piano in fine voice and virtuoso wizardry of the keys. It was readily apparent that Lou DiJoseph had become master of all advertising and media that utilized Broadway Show tunes as its point of connection with the audience. For there, right before my eyes and the hundred or so Y&R staffers, Lou and his team staged a magnificent lunchtime medley of the show tunes of Sondheim, Bernstein and Lerner & Lowe. I stood there transfixed as the late great Jerry Orbach and a surprisingly melodious Jimmy Smitts, enhanced by the terpsichorean skills of Christopher Walken proceeded to take their hallway audience higher and higher until they became a jubilant mob of dancing singing maniacs of joy.

Somehow, I managed to pull myself away, just before the stroke of two. So as to not miss my appointment with the young, soap opera handsome Ed Ney. The interview only lasted a couple of minutes as he was rushing out for a deposition. "So what do you think? Can we sign you up as a member of the team?" came the question. And in true dreamlike fashion, some one's loud music, down the block at 3 am, woke me up before I could give an answer. How strange is that? Does all of this mean that Y&R will finally have to be gobbled up whole by JWT or Ogilvy before I can get a decent night's sleep? Does this mean that secretly, Im hoping for Y&R to offer me the opportunity to open the Taco stand of my dreams and serve up taglines with every Leo Carillo Special? If you have any idea what this dream means, please keep it to yourself. At this point in my life, I don't think I want to know.

Stay tuned.