WHEN WE HAVE ENTERED THE AGE OF THE DULLARDS

Was watching something or another the other day and thought to myself, “Have we run out of ideas?”

Did every creative idea that became reality run out of steam maybe twenty years ago and, like life itself, is this all one rerun- the music, the advertising, the inspiration to dare to dream, your heart knowing when you have fallen in love, and also knowing when you have fallen out of love and when love takes a backseat to things that are puerile?

Or, unlike Alice, did we stop being interested enough to be curiouser and curiouser and suddenly stopped looking beyond the obvious?

You name it and some of us- and this group is getting smaller and smaller until we’re eventually no more-have pretty much done it all and seen some great things unfold because we were there when there was this explosion of creativity.

As I was telling someone who was there at the time, but wasn’t, he and others never came close to even understanding what it is being said because they never had the opportunity to jump into the fire of it all and get baptised.

Being an ad guy, I was also fortunate to have a mentor In Keith Reinhard to give me direction and a couple of new places to explore which might have suited me better than advertising. 

I think he knew that I didn’t believe in advertising because, as Bob Dylan said, “Advertising, they do con you into thinking you’re the one, winning prizes that have never been won…”.

Pretty much something like that though even Bob needed advertising to sell his records. But we were so much younger then and naive and so up ourselves enough to think that everyone had seen some crappy piece of advertising that we might have produced. I was appalled and disappointed when they hadn’t seen my “great work” and despite me trying every trick in the book to bring the conversation back to me and some thirty second television commercial or print ad, they really didn’t give a rat’s arse.

If it was tough back then to have work noticed, where then does this place creativity during these days of scrolling and posting and checking on what the emojis are saying and how many “likes” something might have or how many “views” something else might have?

Unless a complete dullard, one realises how fatuous everything is and how there’s no point asking anyone about anything, because they are just glib talking to sound as if they know what they are saying when they don’t.

They have not experienced those days when everything was indie and new- the movies, the music, the television shows and series, the fashion, and just Being There.

None of any of this was not something to be learned going on Google or through Wikipedia wisdom or another round of copycat clutter.

Even love is for sale online or on an app these days and can be bought, but with no emotional attachment.

Love without any emotional attachment? It happens, baby, and very probably why things are so artificially inflated with hollowness.

I am seeing those whom I once looked up to as game changers floundering and drowning in the Dead Pool because, the game has changed or has become creepy and cringey.

It’s about not having any new ideas, and having regurgitated the old ones, these people in once exalted positions have now had to become adept at selling what their equivalent on the other side of the desk believes they need to keep their heads above water and hold onto their power bases.

This means hiring those who are not very smart and aren’t going to question anything said, because they are being paid to agree and just go with the flow because there’s nowhere else for them to go.

Going with the flow almost always means going nowhere. It’s the illusion of doing something when there’s nothing to do- nothing that’s meaningful, anyway, and so, it’s about influencers, and KOLs, and where the technology becomes the idea.

The problem is when there are no ideas that Break The Pattern, Appeal To Heart And Head and Generate Trust, three of six principles that meant everything to Keith Reinhard, Chairman of DDB, where I worked as a Creative Director and went through this tick list to see if my work met this criteria.

Often it didn’t, but how Keith could tell what interested us and offer possible new career moves was by bringing in different speakers to our advertising conferences- filmmakers, actors, musicians like Wynton Marsalis.

When visiting him at his home in Chicago and then New York with my wife Trina, he and I would talk about music and films and art.

Keith was very probably guiding me towards where I needed to go and which I did and also learned so much from those I met along the way because of the career I had decided was for me.

I’m still doing and am not done yet, but without the people there were back then, and mostly, the inspiration to, yes, Break The Pattern, with the most exciting and rewarding thing in my life being meeting and marrying the Wrangler girl with whom I have a daughter.

Though we’re not together anymore, the time that we were, she was the only person I needed on my team.

She appealed to heart and head, she generated trust and helped me break the pattern and understand how love has everything to do with everything, and where it doesn’t, I don’t need to be there.

That’s written in the past tense, but it’s as relevant today as it was then.

Some things never change and should not.

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