Idea Man

by T.M. Doyle

Conductor, when you receive a fare, 
Punch in the presence of the passenjare! 
A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare, 
A buff trip slip for a six-cent fare, 
A pink trip slip for a three-cent fare, 
Punch in the presence of the passenjare! 
Chorus. 
Punch brothers! Punch with care! 
Punch in the presence of the passenjare. 

I know what you're thinking. 

You might say that's because I'm an ad man. That's right, Madison Avenue. The full nine yards. One of the best. VP at Scratchum & Scratchum. Good salary, but it's those stock options that really do the trick, you know. Retirement fund chugging away, chugging away like the Ultra Line to Boston -- not that I'll ever need it. 

I'll keep this brief, 'cause I know you don't really care much about the explanation at this point, and I'm used to getting my message across in less than two minutes. I'll give you the tag line up front: it wasn't my fault. It wasn't even that stupid asshole Joey Zanol's fault. I'm not trying to fix blame here. Just stating my case for posterity. 

Anyway, about a year ago, there's this annual meeting of the S&S executive board. We're in full sync video conference globally. Our glorious CEO, who looks, emotes and speaks like a komodo dragon in a suit (though I'm assured is genetically human normal), has the floor. 

"First, salesss figuresss and client acquisitionsss." I've had a pretty good year. That asshole and fellow up and coming VP, Joey Zanol, also had a pretty good year. Kudos for me, kudos for Joey. Joey's sitting across from me, not virtual but in the tanned flesh, all Armani with lots of hair and teeth that I would like to kick in. All form, no function. But that hadn't hurt him in the ad biz. Yet. 

Couple other guys and gals had o.k. years, so the pterodactyl of death passes them by. Reaching our less fortunate comrades, our merciful tyrant king CEO smiled. I always hated when he did that. "All other Vice Presidentsss will please be out of their respective officesss within one hour." The smile broadened. "Yesss, I'm quite seriousss." 

He didn't need to add that. No one had ever heard him tell a joke that was actually funny, unless it was for an ad. 

So on through the various corporate formalities and reports. Media presence is full saturation, viewer exposure to our impulse tied slogans is up, effective delivery (ignoring mental space considerations) is up. But our shrinks say overall mental space available is shrinking exponentially, and though our slogans were strong overwriters, they themselves have an overwrite half-life of only two months and falling -- which was fine for now for small impulse purchases but lousy for big ticket items. Maybe soon delivery would be generally ineffective, an almost instant wash among competing slogans. Bottomline: What the market would see is that we are making plenty of money. What we know is that we are going to have trouble keeping up with the treadmill. 

Then, as if he could have afterthoughts that weren't forethought six months previous, our honorable reptilian CEO, who studied corporate management under Goebbels, comes up with a great one as he's about to sign off. 

"Frank, Joe, you've both done wondersss with the current technology, but we need something more. In the next year, we need a revolution in meansss of delivery. I want you both to come up with something by the holidaysss for Farkle fruit drinksss. Something new. Something wow. In time for Super Bowl broadcassst, of courssse. Report directly to me." 

His beneficently cold image shimmered (or slithered) away, leaving me staring at Joey like the asshole he was. 

I know that there was no imperative for cooperation in our sleazestack boss' mandate for new slogan delivery. Far from it. I've seen his Roman emperor with the gladiators antics before. But I'm a reasonable guy, a downright cold fish when I have to be. Pure professional. A cooperative approach would be best for the firm, and Joey and I might obtain more progress (both in the product and on the ladder) together arm in arm than separately spy vs. spy. So, I start talking to the human cloaca across from me. 

First an oily olive branch. "Congrats on your year Joey. I know your team hustled hard for you." 

Joey showed me more than his usual wealth of teeth. "Yes, well I suppose you know their dinner selections for the previous year too." 

This is not perfectly fair. I had kept tabs on Joey's progress, no friggin doubt -- corporate survival demanded it if only for self defense. But I hadn't actually appropriated any of Joey's stuff. Didn't feel the need. So I let it go. Another try, with some sycophantic candor. 

"Yeah, well, your packaging is signature. No way I could touch it without everyone knowing. But hey, my tech team is nothing to sneeze at. Perhaps we should consider a joint venture for this one project? Plenty of time for renewed hostilities later . . ." 

Joey yawns, trying to seem full of ennui or some other European emotion. "Hardly seems worth the effort. I've been working on some tech ideas of my own lately, and I've recently found new assistance. I think we'll just have to go this one on our own, if that's alright by you." 

I nod, controlling my anger admirably I think, and leave the conference room. I'm not angry about being turned down -- I expected that. I'm furious because I know that "new" tech assistance could mean only one thing: he's stolen one or more of my team members. He probably has anticipated the mid-brain thoughts of our CEO (informants? favoritism from on high?), and may well have a jump on me by a couple months. Damn damn damn. 

Cooperation is now outta the question. 

Back in my office, I check up on team status. I confirm two defections. One guy was a little flashy for my squad anyway -- Gucci shoes, form over function. Joey was probably destined to have him by birth, so good riddance. But he snaked charmed one of my best envelope pushing interface developers, and she wasn't a kick in the head to look at either. Ken gets Barbie, details at 11:00. Damn damn damn. 

I guess I'm still pissed a bit on the way home, because I neglect to take my usual anti-exposure precautions. So my eye catches an ad from a store-front monitor right at the moment of delivery. One of Joey's ads, poetically enough. Boom, the slogan's in my head, something about some nasty imitation meat product. So, I'm stuck doing the anti-slogan mantra techniques. If I can help it, I never watch the product. Ever. Not since we figured out how to make the shit stick. I chose my drugs more carefully. 

There's this Mark Twain story (not that you'd remember him) about this guy who hears something like an ad jingle: "punch in the presence of the passenger." Can't get it outta his head, until he passes it on to someone else. Wish I could just give this virus back to Joey Zanol, but they don't work that way, so I mutter the usual formulas internally and concentrate. Damn, these things have gotten hard to tame. 

I'm pretty wound up by now, between the day's betrayals and the slogan exorcism, so I stop in my favorite dive bar (function over form) for a drink and a seat while I arrange for some relaxing entertainments for my evening. 

That night, I'm in my luxury Manhattan high-rise love pit (some-I-don't-want-to-know-how rent controlled), and I'm dead on my back, appropriately unwound and exhausted from an evening of entertaining Marlene, who's the body in one of our beer commercials and now is snoring gently next to me. I try to remember the last time I felt so thoroughly juiced, and I think it was with a girl just last year, but I can't for the life of me remember her name, which believe it or not is not like me. I remember the good ones. So now it's starting to bother me -- "What, am I getting so old that my mind is going?" --and I can't get to sleep until I figure it out. I'm going through the whole alphabet, and it isn't until I get to the "M"s that I realize the problem: that girl went by the name Marlene too! Her name got bumped by the new Marlene just like a slogan. Must be a popular name in the biz, I'm thinking, as my brain is dropping backwards into the blessed dark well of know-nothingness . . . 

. . . when all of a sudden, I'm up like Dracula at sunset, with this crazy idea. So, I get out of the oxy-hydrobed (careful not to wake the blissed out Marlene, a name to which she still does not naturally respond) and go to the comp-vid thinghy and start laying out the plan of attack. 

Yep, I can spew out copy as fast as a laser printer (faster even than Zanol a.k.a. .asshole), but that isn't what makes me special at the firm. My superpower is that I'm a meme theory buff with a knack for computers and human interface. 

To remind you (as I believe you may have forgotten by now), in the old days, what us ad guys did (though we didn't describe it that way) was to spread certain memes related to our clients (say catchy slogans) as fast and furious as possible. We did this by trial and error, 'cause we had very little idea about how the brain really adsorbed the slogans. 

Then we figured out the brain's software, it's programming. The brain is an extremely complicated piece of machinery, but in the end it still has programs, just very tricky ones. 

Using that knowledge, what the latest techniques gave us was a guaranteed transmittal. Exposure equaled memory. However, the tricky brain still had some deeply entrenched defenses. In adults, all these ads apparently were overwriting each other in the same area of memory. This limit didn't apply to very young children, who could be over-exposed. In the protests vids against our ads, I had the 
misfortune of viewing children over-exposed in infancy by negligent careproviders, drooling and babbling nonsense slogans of products long extinct from store shelves. But that isn't immediately relevant to my story. 

There were at least two different approaches to solving the limited ad capacity problem. Imagine you have a lake in the savanna, like they show in the museums. All kinds of wild stuff lives off the lake. Zebras, elephants, wildabeasty things. What's the best way to make sure your particular beasty dominates all the other beasties? 

Why, make it a lion of course. Make it eat the other animals. Then it wouldn't have a problem keeping its lake shore property. 

That's what I'm going to design my ad-meme to do. It's going to eat other ad-memes. A meme eating lion. A meme phage. And I think I have an idea of how to make it work. 

I'm really pumped up now, so I wake up Marlene for another round. Figure it might be awhile before I have the time and energy for such gentleman's entertainments again. 

Next morning, find that Joey's gone into full security lockdown with his team. Like Willy Wonka (remember Willy Wonka?), "Nobody goes in, and nobody comes out." My team has already responded accordingly, but I'm too easy going a guy, and give them the morning to make the logistical family friends lovers arrangements that they need for the next couple months before going into deep lockdown. 

I admit it, I get a big buzz from the big pushes, even without the stimulant cocktails. And we're doing the big push to end all pushes to get the idea practical before the Super Bowl. Even though I'm not subject to full lockdown, I'm wired up beyond belief, no time or functional capacity for Marlene or any of her friends. 

My idea revolves around the problem of timing. Our current tech delivers slogans to the ad receptive area, or ARA, of long term memory, where if the room were full it would bump something else out (these days usually another slogan). The new slogan would settle in as long term memory, but would thereby become just another "old" memory, capable in turn of being overwritten by an incoming slogan. So, keeping the slogan alive turns out to be a problem of making the slogan both "new" and "old" at the same time; in snail hand, a settled long-term memory that, when it encounters an new slogan, would bump it aside or copy itself, writing over some other long-term memory in the ARA. Of course, eventually the ARA would fill-up with the new fangled competitive slogans, but we could cross that bridge when we came to it. In the meantime, we would raise the effective half-life of the slogan to "indefinite," which would make our big ticket item clients very happy, and make folks like Farkle fucking ecstatic. 

This was all anybody should have wanted. 

We get our working demo up and running. Very simple ad. Image of the Farkle fruit drink bottle. "Drink Farkle fruit drinks" as the slogan -- just enough words to show it works. The client usually wants to discuss slogans in person anyway. Lowest tech on the team totem pool is the guinea pig. She's a nice girl from MIT, but watches too many vids, so her ARA had filled up a long time ago. Jeannette (two ns and two ts, burned in my head like a slogan) could still feel a purchase impulse from slogans five years old. We map all her slogans in her ARA out -- not much need for a scanner, since she can recite them all for us. I'm watching this and thinking "young, tender and goofy with smarts. Another time, another time -- busy busy busy, just like all the other adults." Then we line up her square in front of the monitor and run the ad. It delivers. 

We run through the ARA map. "MS2025 is the power and the glory, amen" has been replaced (damn, that's a personal fave of mine!). We aim a bunch of old fangled ads at the tech. Everything gets replaced but Farkle fruit drinks. So it works. Everybody cheers themselves hoarse, including myself. But, after a minute, I shush everybody up. I've got another idea. 

We sit our hapless MIT grad down in front of the monitor again. Then the coup de grace: we repeatedly deliver the Farkle fruit drink slogan. We map the ARA again, but this time, there's nothing to map. It's all just "drink Farkle fruit drinks." Everybody is really still now, somewhat awed, like they've just seen the first atomic bomb go off. 

Our poor tech guinea pig now has a serious jones for Farkle fruit drinks, but seems otherwise o.k. I tell folks to set up a "don't drink Farkle fruit drinks" ad to deliver to her repeatedly until the ARA is a net wash, 'cause I'm out the door and up-tube with the news. 

I report to our working scale demo to our fully scaled CEO. He gives me a big sharp toothed grin, pat on the back. Says "I take thisss project from here. You should get some sssleep. We'll discussss your salary and new position when you return." 

Team Frank Parks is quietly exultant and exhausted on my return, Not too much success on the counter-programming, 'cause the new slogans resist other new slogans pretty well, but no great harm done. Everybody has champagne (except the guinea pig, who tries and fails to enjoy a Farkle fruit drink) and goes home to sleep for most of the next week, me included. 

After two days practically comatose in stimulant withdrawal, I call up Marlene again. She's busy, but she recommends a couple of friends. I call them both. After another three days I'm checking up on work from home. Usual stupid messages from idiots, wanting to push my buttons for a position on my team. Nothing about my project though. That bothers me. 

So, next day I'm at work. It's a bright sunny but crispy winter's day. My assistant has put some exotic engineered blooms on my desk, forgetting that I'm allergic even to the engineered stuff, but that's o.k., 'cause it's a great day and (as we like to say in the ad biz) it's the thought that counts. Check the inbox again and find some cryptic congrats from on-high and equally vague references to salary and position review, which is all I expect from the lizard king until the project actually works. But on the project itself, silence. I don't hear nothing. That doesn't make sense. There's meetings to be had with the client, an actual ad has to be developed, and the potentials and limits of the tech should be discussed a bit more. 

I wait gracefully as long as I can, which is about half a day. But the Super Bowl is coming up soon. So I'm back up tube to Jurassic Park. 

The view from the top is truly spectacular on such a clear day. You can see the curve of the earth, and imagine (even with a limited forebrain) that you're in charge of all you survey and beyond. Our CEO's chair is turned toward the view. He must be basking in the sun like he's on a Galapagos rock. He swings the chair around, and gives me that sharp toothed smile. His sun-drenched complexion still seems a little green to me. 

So I ask the CEO what's up with the project. He says "Your effortsss are fully appreciated. Everything isss fine, not to worry." I worry. But I keep my thoughts to myself. 

Finally, breaking out of my habitual self-involvement, I start thinking about Joey Zanol. What's that asshole been up to? Hmm, he's still in full security lock-down. I try squeezing in through the company system, but no dice. Joey ain't as big a geek on programming as I am, but he's one paranoid motherfucker about security. 

I try another tack. Something less secure, but which would at least give me the general story. I'm able to get their logged working hours. Same profile as my team's -- push, push, push, and then nada for awhile. So, his team was done too. Shit. Then more push, push, push. Double shit. Their idea had won. Now Joey was doing his forte of "packaging." 

I remember thinking how funny it would be if Joey's idea had beaten mine. Hah, the memephage eaten by Joey's meme. Of course, what actually happened was much more fucking hysterical. 

I try getting back to the Land of the Lost to see what's up. Voice message, vid-mail, hanging out by CEO's office. Just trying to figure out what Joey's come up with, or at least be certain if his idea has beat out mine. No response. 

Again, miraculously, I manage to gaze up from my own belly. It's not 
just me that the CEO is darting away from. Now nobody's able to get 
hold of him. That's really weird. 

I crack the system again for conference room reservations for client meetings. Ah, there they are, lots of meetings with the Farkle people. And from the firm, CEO, some folks from my team (including Ms. MIT with Farkle on the brain, Jeannette of two n's and t's, young and tender), and some cannon fodder from Joey's team. No Joey though. Looked like he had gone home for another round of R&R. 

I'm not an idiot. What I see looks like a third team formed from elements of mine and Joey's teams. So my idea is part of the final product. Phhwww. That's a relief. But what did they get from Joey's team? It couldn't be just packaging, could it? My memephage was about 100% effective, so it couldn't be an improvement along that line. What could it be? 

Super Bowl is now less than a week away. It doesn't look like Joey will come back to work before the game, but something about this whole hybridization between our teams has me a little nervous, so I do the unthinkable. I call Joey at home. 

A woman answers, video mode on. It's Marlene, looking deshabiller -- even though I can't see below her neck, I'm sure she doesn't have much on. Joey has my name and number displayed, so it's no accident who answers the phone. Nice touch. Ken once again gets Barbie. I would pause to admire it, or get angry or have some other emotion, but once again I am the consummate professional. GI Joe to Joey's Ken. I get Joey in front of the phone. 

Joey's surprised (and not completely trusting) when I tell him that people from both our teams are working directly with the CEO, who has even less technical background than Joey. I take a deep breath, then I tell him the gist of my team's accomplishment (my reasonable side says it's too late for him to get any use outta it anyway). He just laughs, showing me his teeth. "That's nothing," he says. "You're still thinking inside the box." 

"Aren't you a little worried about how these bozos are going to combine our work? They might screw something up. I had a completely effective idea, and I'm sure yours was too, but who says they're going to work together?" 

"You worry too much Frank. Now, let me get back to my well deserved rest." And he hangs up. 

One last try. A priority vid-mail to the CEO (not supposed to disturb the dragon, but this is important). "Concerned with efficacy and safety of hybrid approach to Farkle campaign." I receive a reply, "Concern noted, effort noted, please do not discuss again." Oh, but this as a bone, "P.S., hush hush, top secret: prime delivered slogan will be 'Drink fuzzy fizzy Farkle fruit drinks.'" 

Nice alliteration, but pretty simple really. Must have run up against some limits in the new tech. Joey's usually had more pizzazz. I give up mucking about, and hope I haven't screwed up the promised rewards for my selfless efforts. 

I try calling Ms. MIT, young and tender Jeannette, to see if she wants to do something over the weekend besides watching the Stupor Bowl. As usual, my motives conflict. I feel bad for loading her ARA with Farkle fruit drinks, and figure I owe her a nice dinner, but hey, she's also kinda cute, and after Marlene and her pals I figure I'm due for a woman with half a head on her shoulders. But MIT's (two n's and two t's) out sick. Must've been all the work on my team and the CEO's, I figure. And I am oh-so right. 

Super Bowl Sunday comes and goes. I bet on the game, but I don't watch. Too many high resolution ads. Never watch the product if I can help it. 

Joey Zanol isn't so lucky. Stupid asshole was always watching the product to see how it did. Same with a lot folks at the firm. They weren't told they were watching the advertising revolution. 

I first realize something is seriously fugazi the next day at work, post-Super Bowl Monday, when the notice goes around that Ms. Jeannette of MIT is dead. No details, very sad, condolences. I do some checking on-line. She had escaped from the local loony bin, then had run out in front of a Farkle fruit delivery vehicle. Juggernaut -- the first of many sacrifices. 

This makes no sense. Jeannette wasn't that bad when my team was done with her. The third team must've used her as a guinea pig for the hybrid. And what is that hybrid?

Now I'm getting pissed, no pretense of the professional here. I pound feet over to Joey's office. His assistant tries to stop me, but he only gets out a "Farkle," then backs off looking confused. I'm already in Joey's office before the assistant's odd vocalization hits me. 

There's Joey, wide eyed, staring at me. The confident grin of teeth gone, the hair is a mess. Still, I'm right in his face, an inch from his well altered nose, growling. 

"One of my team is dead. So no more jokes, pretty boy. What did you fuckers come up with?" 

"Fuzzy . . . shit. Fizzy . . . shit shit!" He gritted his teeth and closed his eyelids so hard they looked like raisins. What the hell was wrong with him? "The other side of the coin, Frank. Outside the box. Your delivery ate slogans and . . . drink drink drink . ..anything else in the ARA. We were able to make delivery outside the ARA. I think . . . fruit drink . . . I think fearless leader simply combined the two approaches. Far . . . kle." The last was a long sigh of surrender. 

I'm no idiot. As I blitz back to the office, amidst the general random explosive exclamations of "Farkle" "fruit" and "drink," the whole situation assumes remarkable clarity. A memory eating slogan outside of the ARA, with the ability to copy itself when faced with competitive stimuli, combined with an acquisition impulse. No limits on the ability of the slogan to spread throughout the brain. Only one last thing to check. At my comp-vid, I bring up the now declassified specs on the Farkle ad, and look at slogan delivery. It was a two minute ad, with slogan delivery every second. One hundred and twenty times. Over a hundred million viewers. One hundred and twenty lions on the open savanna of a hundred million minds. One hundred million drooling and babbling just like those over-exposed kids. 

So you see, it wasn't my fault. It wasn't even that poor stupid asshole Joey Zanol's fault. If you were paying attention, you might have some opinion on who's fault it was. I sure did. 

So, as I was saying, the situation is completely clear to me. A quick scan of the news services shows that chaos is descending like a lead balloon. Already hordes of people are gang assaulting convenience stores and Farkle fruit factories, hoping desperately to silence the insistent, growing voice demanding that they slake their nonexistent thirsts with the rapidly diminishing supply of Farkle fruit drinks. Those happy few who aren't fucked up by the ad are going to be responding soon, first with medical teams, then with what remained of the law with lots of questions and lots of punishments. There isn't much time to do what I had to do. 

No, it isn't running away. I don't trust most modes of travel that particular day anyway. Again, I am remarkably selfless. I could go up to the CEO's office and made a big scene, I think, but that wouldn't be justice. I feel the coolness envelope me again. I'm a complete professional. 

I don't think the CEO knows what hit him when he opens that compressed vid mail. I packed up the full ad, and put it in a little hypno paralyser envelope I'd been working on as a side project to keep people absolutely still during delivery. So he gets the full dose. Good thing there aren't too many "s"es in the slogan. Though I'm sure he'll be back someday. He'll just shed his skin. 

You might be thinking, "two wrongs don't make a right," or "somebody's who's sane has got to hang for this, and it might as well be you." You might be thinking all kinds of angry, vengeful, and unforgiving things for this latest gift of Madison Avenue to the American people. 

But you see, I know what you're really thinking. 

"Drink fuzzy fizzy Farkle fruit drinks." 

It's on everybody's minds now. And I have no idea how to get it off of them. 

