Partied out!

I sometimes hear friends complaining that they no longer can handle partying two days in a row. Well, get back to me when you've hosted two birthday parties for a whole bunch of five year olds two days in a row. Yep, yesterday it was the friends from day care. Today the friends outside of day care. It all seemed like such a good idea about a month back... None the less, in hind sight I actually have to admit that it probably was, except the fact that I'm beyond exhausted both mentally and physically right now. And so is my vacuum cleaner which probably aged about ten years in the last two days...

For those of you without kids I'll share a relevant youtube clip with you that was sent to me by a friend from work.

Very entertaining.

And if you're wondering why I keep on going on about this, thinking doesn't he have anything else in life to write about, the answer is simply no. This is about it...

Good night!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRDhx8Lo37E

D-day

Today was D-day. In every sense of the word. It was the big day of Diana's fifth B-day bash. Throughout the process of organizing this event it felt in many ways like I (and Diana's mother) was organizing a wedding. I actually have some experience of that being involved in a little wedding thing a couple of years back, so I know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, the finale today was executed as well as one can expect when your home is invaded by an army of fun loving, super energetic and in general awesome kids.

I'm not sure how it's possible, but it felt like the total amount of kids that were present , were populating each and every room in the apartment at the same time. They must have cloned themselves as they entered through my doorway.

The trick when it comes to hosting an unavoidable chaotic happening like this however, is to on the one hand have it all well planned before, but on the other hand to just go with the flow and roll with the punches as the set agenda pretty much is blown apart within the first ten minutes.

Above all my belief is that the ultimate key to success is to let loose and allow yourself to have as much fun as they are having. And I sure as hell did! And what about the subject of the celebration herself? Well she was one happy client as she hit her pillow and was asleep within seconds...

...just as I will in a few.

In the spirit of Milan vs Barcelona

If you at all are passionate about football tonights CL game between Milan and Barcelona will have been something you've probably looked forward to for a while now. I know I have been at least. Barcelona are the big favorites with Messi in better shape than ever. Milan with Ibra in excellent shape too, will have to play at their very best and beyond to pull this off. I could go on forever pre talking this game. The lacking speed of the Milan defense, Ibras relationship to his old club etc... But since it will be difficult to add to anything that has already not been said I'll choose a different angle...

...a completely totally irrelevant angle.

The team I go for tonight is Milan. Milan is from Italy. Italy i famous for a great number of things. One of them is Ferrari. I'm going to talk Ferrari instead. Farfetched, sure... But I'll do it anyway. If nothing else it will make the time go quicker until the game...

Ferrari has built a number of cars over the years that have become iconic classics. Most fans will say the 250 GTO is the most iconic. I could agree with that, but if I don't count the rarity of it, or how crazy expensive (recently sold for $28 million) they sell for, I would rather own a different Ferrari.

The 250 GT California Spider.

To be fair, it's quite rare and expensive too (recently sold for $11 million) so it's not really like it's within reach but anyway.

When it comes to car design I'd say you'd get a whole bunch of coupés at the top before you'll se a convertible on the list. Regardless of make. But for me it's not only about pure design. It's about feeling too. It's about how it would feel to drive the car on highway 1 on a magical summer morning as the sun rises. Then the GT California Spider would be my weapon of choice. To feel the power under the hood, the direct steering, the roaring engine, the salty whiff of the ocean, the warm sun in the crisp morning air and almost feeling like I'm flying a world war II Spifire rather than driving a car...

Leaving LA, driving north towards SF. Stopping along the way at Santa Barbara, Big Sur and Carmel. Hanging out in SF for a while and then head to wine country... and then back again.

Yep, all of that I would do in the great Italian Stallion the 250 GT California Spider.

One hour to go, forza Milan!

The 250 GTO. Not bad, but not my choice.
And since it auctions at $ 28 million that is
just as well.

Ok, it may not be of the same caliber as those above,

but my Firebird will do for now.

The original Mad Man getting mad about Mad Men

I was quite a late adopter when it came to the show "Mad Men". I obviously did not miss all the buzz about it when it first aired. How the cast was on the cover of every single magazine, how people started to dress accordingly or that Mad Men was the theme for every second party or so one was invited too.

But there was something in me that was so reluctant to check this show out. Maybe it was because I work in the industry and just didn't want to watch a show about work. But then again I think I was the only one at the agency who did not follow the show. I don't know, I just was not intrigued...

But then finally I gave it a shot. I watched the first season (actually, not sure if I completed it), and I hate to say it, but I did not like it at all. I just thought it was forced, contrived and actually quite boring.

Since it seemed like I more or less stood alone in my opinion of this, it was very refreshing to find an interview on the great site of the even greater hotel "The Standard", done with the man who the show in many ways is based on; George Louis.

For me he is the real deal, and based on what he has to say about the show, I finally have found someone who shares my opinion. And not just anybody for that matter.

Below I share with you the very entertaining George Louis interview done by the "The standard".

George Lois in 1965

The season premiere of Mad Men this Sunday provided the perfect opportunity to catch up with our old pal George Lois, the legendary creative guru who redefined the art of advertising. (If you’re familiar with the slogan, “I want my MTV!,” orEsquire’s dazzling run of covers in the early ’60s, you know at least a portion of his peerless work.) George’s brilliant new book from Phaidon, Damn Good Advice (For People With Talent!), is an indispensable trove of hard-won wisdom from one of the world’s greatest communicators. Buy it today for a friend (with talent)! Then read what he has to say about Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce …

Standard Culture: Excited about the new season of Mad Men?

George Lois: [Laughs] It’s funny. The other night Tina Brown and Newsweek had a little party for it and she asked me to come down. So I go down and I walk up to [Mad Men creator] Matthew Weiner—who has said a lot of things about me, like, “Oh, George Lois is a legend, but the show’s not talkin’ about him!” He doesn’t know anything about anything. So I went up and I said, “Mr. Weiner, my name is George Lois.” He almost had a fuckin’ heart attack. I mean, he backed up about a foot. He was almost afraid of me, so I said something to calm him down so he knew I wasn’t coming there for an argument. I congratulated him on the show and he was just like, “Oh, no, George Lois, you’re great! You were so important to the show!” I mean, come on. He’s full of shit.

Sounds pretty intense.

It was. But listen. Then I go up to Jon Hamm and introduce myself and I mean, my God, was he nice. The guy was like, “Wow, you’re terrific,” and he really meant it. He was thrilled that he was meeting the quote-unquote original Mad Man, ya know what I mean? He was so sweet and so excited about meeting me and after twenty minutes I was leaving and he ran after me and said it again. He kept calling me sir! Hey, I’m eighty. I’ll take it.

You hadn’t met Weiner before?

Nope! I got a phone call. This was before they started the show. They were shooting the pilot and everyone in town knew there was going to be a show about advertising in the ’60s called Mad Men. I got literally dozens of calls from people saying, “Hey George, they’re doing a show about you!” And I’d say, “Nah, I don’t think so. I think I’d know!” But then, finally, I get a call from Weiner’s guy and he said, “Mr. Lois, we’re doing a show called Mad Men.” And I said, “Yeah, I’ve heard.” And he said, “We’re talking to people who were the original Mad Men and everybody we’ve talked to said, ‘Did you talk to George Lois? Because he was advertising in the ’60s.’” At this point, I said, “Whoa, whoa, time out: You’re doing a show on advertising in the ’60s and you’d never heard of me? You’re fulla shit!” By then I was kinda pissed, so I said, “If you wanna know what happened in the ’60s, I wrote a book when I was 40 called George, Be Careful. Read the goddamn book and you’ll find everything you need to know.” Then I hung up. So then out comes the show and it’s exactly what I expect it to be: a show about a normal, asshole, fuckin’ hack ad agency that’s smoking and drinking like it’s no big deal. I mean, people didn’t drink at ad agencies, even the agencies he’s talking about.

It didn’t feel real to you?

The smoking, sure. I mean, everybody smoked back then. But the drinking? I worked at Doyle Dane Bernbach in the late ’50s and that was fuckin’ unheard of! And by the way, there were twelve copywriters, and six of them were women! If you ran around harassing women? Impossible! I mean, maybe on the side, but when I started my agency women were treated with respect. The kind of agency they’re talking about? Maybe. They sucked, and they were hacks. We’re talkin’ about the WASP world. The ad world was driven by WASPs who were anti-Semitic, racist, male chauvinists …

Anti-Grecian?

Ha. Anti-ethnic, sure. There were no ethnics in the business. I never heard of one. But that all started to change when the ad guy Bill Bernbach had his epiphany after working with [influential graphic designer] Paul Rand. He realized that you needed two people to make great advertising, and created the world’s first so-called creative agency with the idea of a team of an art director always working with a writer.

What did they do before that?

Before that, art directors were nothin’. They’d sit in a room with their thumbs up their asses waiting for the copy writer and the account guy to come down to their office and give them a piece of paper and say, “Make a layout.” Not, “Design an ad.” “Make a layout.” They didn’t get involved in the creative process. Advertising had always had great writers but what it lacked was visual impact.

1) George’s most famous cover from the Esquire days. Warhol loved the image so much he traded one of his Campbell’s soup paintings for the original. 2) In 1962, Lois chose controversial boxing champ Sonny Liston to play Santa. Within a month, over 700,000 outraged readers had canceled their subscriptions. 3) The Nixon campaign was less than thrilled with this one. 4) His iconic Kennedy tribute 5) Years before the mainstream media was talking about Vietnam, Lois put it on the cover of Esquire. Recognize the model?

Which is where you came in.

Right. So, eventually, me and a few other guys from the agency got it into our heads that there was room for a second creative agency and on January 3, 1960, we started Papert Koenig and Lois, which, by the way, is the same week the goddamn Mad Men show starts! We took a space in the Seagram Building. We didn’t take any accounts—I wanted to start clean—but within a month we’d hit the jackpot. Everyone in the country was talking about us and looking for our ads. I was a fucking rock star. If I went somewhere in the streets people would stop me!

Shuddup.

Yeah, I’m tellin’ ya! Oh, and the womanizing thing: It was normal womanizing. It happens all the time. It wasn’t this culture where guys are sittin’ there trying to figure out how to schtup their confused secretaries. Everybody involved with the talented agencies was too busy working hard!

Were you ever a big boozer?

The only drinking I do is a glass of good wine with dinner. I’m Mediterranean. My mother would give me about an inch of red wine from the time I was four-years old. She’d put the glass down and say, “For the blood.”

Excerpt from Damn Good Advice (For People With Talent!)

What about cigarettes?

Ne-ver. I knew they were bad for me. People say, “Oh, we didn’t know!” But you had to be out of your mind to think that you could put smoke into your body and you weren’t hurting your body. You had to be stupid. Even when I was growing up and kids in my neighborhood were all smoking at nine or ten years-old. It didn’t make any sense to me. I also play basketball. I never even had a thing of marijuana in my mouth, either. Not that I’m braggin’, or nothin’.

What?

Never.

How is that possible?

Never, never. I mean, at one point in the ’70s it was like everybody you’re with was just handing it to you, but I’d always say, “Nah, no thanks.” [Bob] Dylan would say, “What’s the matter, George?” And I’d say, “No, I don’t need that shit. I create my own fuckin’ highs.”

So what happened after Weiner said that?

Right, that. So he was very cordial but also very uneasy. He’s backing off a bit and I’m sayin’ nice things about his show. I’m not sitting there bustin’ his balls. I’m a gentleman. But the harm the show has done is that it’s made every fuckin’ young person in the world think that that’s what the advertising world was like in the ’60s. And the excitement of the ’60s is that it was a heroic fucking period of these seven or eight creative agencies that changed the world of advertising. I’m outspoken, yes, but I’m just protecting my work and the advertising we did. That’s another one of my lessons, by the way: If it looks like shit, and it smells like shit, and it tastes like shit, you’re eatin’ shit, baby! And if you’re eatin’ shit and you’re working at a magazine, or you’re a fashion designer, or you’re a decorator—no matter what creative job it is—you know you’re eatin’ shit. And you know what? Stop eatin’ shit and go and get a better job and do something’ about it. Creating products, creating brands, creating companies—it’s instinctive. You know in every ounce of your body when something is right and the culture is ready for it. I don’t go to people and ask, “Gee, do you think you’d want something like this?” I mean, Steve Jobs did everything he did and didn’t give a fuck what anybody thought. He didn’t give a fiddler’s fuck.

Green Machine

There is only one car like the Fisker Karma: The Fisker Karma. It is the timely innovative revolution that simply is ahead of its time. Starting from a clean sheet of paper, rather than building a car, Henrik Fisker and Bernhard Koehler gave form to an idea. Unrestricted by the limitations of the existing automotive world and with a radical perspective of what is possible, Fisker Automotive have taken a well-needed leap into the future, making history in the process. And on Saturday I got the chance to take this giant eco conscious electric car (it's five meters long and a little over two meters wide) for a good and long test drive.


Beyond its stunning looks, it also feels equally amazing to drive. My initial fear was that although the design of it tells me that it's a sports car, will it (considering that it's electric) feel like, perform like and handle like a sports car? Well, it delivered on all of the above without complaints from me. The fact that it seats four adults and has four doors, also means it's a family car. My guess is that my car crazy kids would not complain if I suggested we go road tripping in it over the summer. As long as Legoland was one of our stop overs along the way that is...

Getting the most out of a one hour shorter day

I really despise when we turn the clock forward and loose an hour every spring. It's an age old thing that has something to do with the guys who went out super early in the morning to the barns to milk the cows or something. Well guess what, it's all automated today!

Anyway, waking up today "one hour late" I also realized the weather outside was to say the least very nice. I had already planned to get a lot done today, but as I was prioritizing in which order to do what, I completely changed the plan for the day considering how nice it was, and decided to hang out with the kids in Ulriksdals Slottspark instead. It was a decision that I did not regret.

We all used to live out there before and I know the park inside and out. My favorite destination in the park is Ulriksdals Slottsträdgård which is a Plant Nursery that is well worth a visit even if you are not intending to buy anything. I used to go there every weekend when I lived out there. Wandering among the abundance of plants of every sort imaginable one really reenergizes and gets filled with inspiration. The kids love it too as there are lots of fun activities for them as well.

And although I no longer have a garden to buy Magnolias or various exotic bushes for, I did leave there today with some flowers that Diana with great enthusiasm very carefully picked out and which will be planted in some urns for our terrace. Let's just say when it came to her colour choices that she is a strong believer in "more is more".

A reminder of why I love it

I enjoy what I do professionally. Essentially I guess it's what I always wished how it would end up. I've had parallel dreams when I was younger of either being an artist or an actor (I acted from the age of seven to when I was 19), but fate would have it that I am where I am today. And I really have no reason to complain.

However, regardless weather ones profession in part is what one once desired it to be, it's still a job. There are good days and there are bad days. The passion comes and goes, but with the experience and accumulated insights that one picks up on the way, what one delivers hopefully always is of a consistent high standard.

Now and again though, in the midst of all those things that come with the job that aren't always of a creative nature, a project will come up that really reminds me of what this is all about and confirms why I not only like what I do, but also love it.

One such assignment just came my way. The client was tough as nails and expected nothing but perfection, but she also came with a very clear, yet inspiring brief.

The client was my daughter and the assignment her birthday party invitation.

As I set about to solve the creative challenge at hand it became quite apparent that the time I had allocated to complete it was very much underestimated. But when you find yourself having already spent far too much time on something and then realize you have about twice as much to go, there really is no turning back.

The key here though, and the lesson learnt is that as a creative, when you are so into a project and love doing it, the time really does not matter. Work really becomes pleasure!

As previously stated it really is a healthy reminder of why I do what I do and why I chose to do it.

And the fact that after having spent half the night completing the assignment, to wake up to a very happy client does not make matters worse.

Yes, the words "Hello Kitty" were

included in the brief