THE INCREDIBLE FLYING MADMEN

When I was a teemager in the sixties I already knew what my career trajectory would be. After graduating high school I was going to study commercial art in art school and then somehow migrate to NYC, work my butt off, and become a Madison Avenue illustrator! I wanted to conceptualize and illustrate out-of-the -box ads for the biggest advertising agencies. Well, that lofty dream ultimately took another direction; but that's not what this blog is about.

Of course, at that time I didn't know what a Madman was until fiteen years ago whwn PBS released its documentary called "The Madmen and Women of Madison Avenue", and the next one called "Art & Copy". They featured radical giants of the American advertising industry back in the fifties and sixties, the likes of whom will not be seen again. They were Promethean in their originality. Like the Greek Gods they breathed the fire of creation into their art and ads, and sometimes sowed a little mischief among us mortals by manipulating our senses - but that was to be expected of a Zeus or Hera. They could be forgiven, because their charms were siren-like, and their power to sell was magical.

Foremost among this Pantheon (to my mind, at least), was the master of group psychology, George Lois. He was brilliant, dogged and as forceful as a Cerberus. Like Cerberus he would go for the client's jugular to prove his point - and his point was that his campaign would sell the client's product, and make them rich beyond their wildest dreams. It frequently did. The story was that he had threatened to jump from a multi-story office window when the client proved obstinate. The client was then convinced. Lois was as crazy as only a Madison Avenue madman with his kind of brains and passion could be. The more I watched him in action, the more I found him to be so compelling and riveting. He had classic American Moxie! While he was being interviewed for the documentary he plucked a ball point pen out of his breast pocket, held it up and pointed to it and said, in a thick Bronx accent, that he could create a campaign that would sell it like hotcakes. I believed him, such was the power of his charisma!

Nowadays we've got AI, manipulated through various computer programs by anonymous little keyboard character pushers; no more creative gods or rock star artists. How dreary...