I am a Member of the Chain Gang

I've plunged into Web3 by arranging to buy my first NFT.

So you might say I am a member of the chain gang.

As in "blockchain."

It feels like a fad, but so did Web1, at least for a month or two.

If it is a fad, soon I'll be a fugitive from the chain gang.

Which reminds me...

If you've never seen the 1932 film Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, check it out.

It won the Academy Award as Best Picture that year.

And, no, Edward G. Robinson didn't slap Groucho Marx at the award ceremony.

Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang was "pre-Code," meaning it's raw for its day.

The script came out of the pages of True Detective, and was as racy and hard-boiled as that pulp.

And better still, it was based on a true story.

In 1991, the Library of Congress chose Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang for preservation in the National Film Registry along with the likes of Vertigo, The Godfather, and Airplane!

It doesn't get better than that.

Sleaze Merchants

Once a decision is made to be tasteful and risk-free,
sleaze goes right out the window.

— Cintra Wilson

Cover by Al Rossi

My first exposure to sleaze—I was age eight—was the paperback tower at the front of our corner drug store.

 

It was six or seven feet tall—dwarfing me—and pentagonal and would rotate unsteadily on a hidden axle when you gave it a whirl. 

Top heavy from its burden of potboilers, the tower always threatened to fall on me when I spun it. At the very first squeak, my inattentive mother would glance up from her shopping and siss at me, "Robert, leave that alone."

The book tower's presence in the drug store suggested to my eight-year-old mind that its weird offerings must somehow relate to grownups' healthcare (although I would soon discover a comparable rack of sulfurous paperbacks in the confectioner's store down the street—where absolutely nothing healthy was sold).

Although I had no clue at the time, three of the artists who created the covers for many of the books on display were among the finest illustrators of the day, rivals of the famous Norman Rockwell.

They were Norman Rockwell's lurid twins.

Al Rossi was a prolific magazine illustrator and a masterful merchant of paperback sleaze. He was the original cover artist for Junkie, a 1953 novel by beat writer William Burroughs (published under the pen name William Lee). The Bronx-born Rossi was a prominent supplier to Balcourt, a New York-based stock house that provided cover art to paperback publishers in the 1950s and '60s. A professional jazz musician until World War II, when he served with the Army in Europe, Rossi was compelled after the war to try his hand at illustration to make ends meet, attending Pratt and the Arts Student League to learn the craft. Before associating with Balcourt, he worked for several publishers of pulp magazines, the forerunners to paperback books. Rossi liked to use his male neighbors and their wives as his models.

Cover by Ben Stahl

Ben Stahl was exposed to fine art in the seventh grade, thanks to a scholarship he received to attend Saturday morning lectures at the Chicago Art Institute. After high school, he landed a job at a commercial art studio in Chicago that provided illustrations almost exclusively to The Saturday Evening Post. His success as a studio artist prompted Stahl to move to New York and go freelance. There, he began illustrating paperback book covers, as well as continuing to supply artwork to The Post (he illustrated more than 750 stories for the magazine during his career). Stahl soon earned a reputation as a serious fine artist and, along with Norman Rockwell and Connecticut illustrator Albert Dorne, co-founded the Famous Artists School, a mail-order course whose graduates include Pat Boone, Tony Curtis and Charlton Heston. In 1965, as his career was reaching its zenith, Stahl painted 15 life-size pictures of the stations of the cross and opened his own museum in Sarasota, Florida, to house them. But the paintings were stolen four years later and never recovered. Stahl was left nearly penniless due to the theft.

Cover by Paul Rader

Paul Rader, at age 16, was one of the youngest artists ever to have an art museum exhibit his paintings. His early mastery of portrait painting earned him awards throughout the '20s and '30s and brought him commissions to paint wealthy judges, lawyers, and businessmen in his hometown of Detroit. Rader switched to illustrating pulp magazines after World War II, finding the work more lucrative, and moved to New York, where he became another leading supplier to Balfour. When painting paperback book covers, Rader liked using professional models and actors, supplied to him by talent agencies. One of his favorite male models, Guy Williams, went on in the mid-1960s to play Dr. John Robinson in the TV show Lost in Space. 

Whether Rossi, Stahl and Rader set the floor of our society's sleaze index, I don't know; but I do know their art depicted truths—truths most Americans, Puritans at heart, wished to deny in the 1950s.

The risks they took in defying mores and good taste and giving free reign to sleaze may not have contributed to the world's trove of art, but these three artists helped millions of Americans remain literate members of the book-buying public, which is a lot more than you can say about today's media consumers.

Above: Cover illustration for The Bump and Grind Murders by Al Rossi. Cover illustration for The Creepers also by Al Rossi.  

America's Most Hated Man

We were fighting for an idea, and somebody who realized that had to say it and keep on saying it until it was believed.

— George Creel

Before there was foxification, there was creeling.

Named for adman George Creel, the flack who ran White House communications during World War I, creeling means to repeat a lie incessantly, expecting listeners to buy it—which they usually do. 

Propaganda experts also call Creel's trick the ad nauseam tactic.

Creel made no effort to disguise his creeling, which he defined as "propaganda in the true sense of the word, meaning the propagation of faith.”

Lacking the broadcast technology Fox exploits, Creel relied largely on an early form of brand advocacy to weaponize his palaver.

He dispatched a 75,000-man army of public speakers he called "Four-Minute Men" to "meet customers where they are"—or were, in 1917.

The Four-Minute Men would stand up in the nation's movie theaters between reel-changes—which took four minutes in the day—and mouth the White House's lies.

They lied about German atrocities, the fairness of the draft, the urgency for rationing, and the value of US savings bonds, over and over and over.

Creel supplemented his army of brand advocates by distributing millions of garish posters, booklets and films that demonized the enemy and glorified us, insisting, "America must be thrilled into unity."

To do any less, Creel believed, was to let the Germans win.

"The printed word, the spoken word, motion pictures, the telegraph, the wireless, cables, posters, signboards, and every possible media should be used to drive home the justice of America’s cause," he said. 

"Not to combat disaffection at home was to weaken the firing line.”

Historians haven't been kind to George Creel, calling him, among other things, a "warmonger," "petty tyrant," and "irredeemable villain"—even though his intentions might have been patriotic.

But, well intentioned though he be, Creel perfected the propaganda tool that bears his name—creeling—and handed it to the dybbuks at Fox.

For that, we can hate him.

Silver Girl

Sail on Silver Girl,

Sail on by.

— Paul Simon

On this day in 1968, I stood on the mobbed platform of my local Penn Central station to watch "Silver Girl" take Robert F. Kennedy's body to Washington for burial.

My 15-year-old self came to think of RFK's funeral train by that name 18 months later, when Simon and Garfunkel laid the soundtrack of a brand-new song over film footage of it. 

We're now all-too familiar with that mournful song.

Sail on Silver Girl,

Sail on by.

Your time has come to shine,

All your dreams are on their way.

See how they shine.

Although the song became a smash hit, Simon and Garfunkel's televised sermon didn't suit most Americans' tastes in late 1969. A million viewers switched off the duo's TV special after seeing the train.

Camelot was out. Nixon was in.

On History.com, historian Steven M. Gillon recalls why RFK's cortege drew so many people trackside 18 months earlier, on June 8, 1968.

A true humanitarian had been slain. Not a poser, but a rich, once-ruthless Cold Warrior who'd been reborn a hippie; a peacenik, labor leader, friend of the middle class, and civil rights spokesperson—and the only man in America who could fill the shoes of the just-murdered Martin Luther King.

"RFK was the only white politician in America who could walk through the streets of both white and Black working-class neighborhoods and be embraced by both," Gillon writes.

Shot by a Palestinian who opposed his stance on Israel, RFK had died on June 6, at the age of 42. The Kennedy family immediately arranged his funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York on June 8, and his burial the same day at Arlington National Cemetery. 

The family then enlisted the Penn Central to shuttle the body and 700 family friends between the two cities. The railroad cobbled together a train composed of two locomotives and 21 passenger cars. RFK's casket rested in the last one, on top of red velvet chairs.

The idea of using a funeral train seemed right, "because his people live along the tracks,” John Kenneth Galbraith said at the time. 

But none of the family or friends expected what would happen.

"As they emerged from the tunnel under the Hudson River into the bright sunshine of northern New Jersey, the passengers got their first glimpse of the enormous crowds gathered to view the train," Gillon writes. 

"In the marshlands of northern Jersey, hardened workers stood atop trucks with their hands placed over their hearts. One man knelt in prayer by the trackside. In New Brunswick, a lone bugler stood on the station platform sounding taps. In rural areas, girls flocked to the railroad on horseback, and boys looked down from trees. Outside Philadelphia, a junior high school band played 'America the Beautiful.' At the Philadelphia train station, onlookers linked arms and sang the Civil War anthem 'Battle Hymn of the Republic,' one of RFK’s favorite songs.

"Gazing out the window, journalist Jack Newfield witnessed 'tens of thousands of poor Blacks, already bereft from the loss of Martin Luther King, weeping and waving goodbye on one side of the railroad tracks.' And alongside those Black mourners were 'tens of thousands of almost poor whites on the other side of the train, waving American flags, standing at attention, hands over their hearts, tears running down their faces.' 

"'Inside the train, you couldn’t hear anything,' said journalist Art Buchwald. 'But on the platform, you could hear the cheers, and the people crying.'”

Oh, if you need a friend,

I’m sailing right behind.

The trip lasted for eight hours—twice as long as it should have—because more than a million people had massed along the tracks to say goodbye. Journalist Russell Baker noted that "not a single face in the crowd smiled.” It was a million-man catharsis.

Like a bridge over troubled water,

I will ease your mind.

Like a bridge over troubled water,

I will ease your mind.

"Dave Powers, who had been part of the Kennedy Irish mafia dating back to JFK’s first campaign for Congress in 1946, did not want the train ride to end," historian Gillon writes. 

"'I wish this thing could go through every state, just keep going.'"

Sail on, Silver Girl.

POSTSCRIPT: Find an album of contemporary photos here.

The Week Whataboutism Wore Out

You're a criminal for not reporting it.

— Donald Trump 

Historians will describe this as the week the American press rediscovered its cajones.

It refused, at long last, to dignify another piece of Kremlin-backed propaganda, in the process causing Trump to go ballistic.

The reason for refusing?

The story stinks. So much so, Facebook and Twitter both blocked it. Even Fox won't cover it.

It stinks because: (1) the story's principal character is a computer repairman and QAnon follower with a history of lying to the public; (2) the story's source is the Kremlin's own Rudy Giuliani; and (3) the one reporter in America vile enough to touch the story is a Trumpster and former Hannity producer, now working at the New York Post (fish-wrap for morons).

The story is so obviously Kremlin-backed, the FBI is birddogging it.

Today, an IT guy reports on Facebook that, on a hunch, he traced the serial numbers of Hunter Biden's laptops—if they are his laptops—and learned the machines were manufactured four days after the date on the "receipt" produced by the computer repairman (the repairman's alleged "proof" they belonged to Biden).

The story's pure poppycock, from Russia with love. Over 50 former senior intelligence officers have signed a joint letter warning it's so.

Historians will also pronounce this the week whataboutism wore out.

A Russian invention, whataboutism lets propagandists divert our attention from an inconvenient truth by equating it—falsely—with something else. The Soviets perfected the tactic during the Cold War.

Whataboutism is Trump's go-to ruse when faced with criticism:

Yes, 400,000 Americans will likely die from Covid-19 before year's end, but what about Hunter Biden's laptop?

The press is done with Trump's whataboutism. 

And so is the American public.

POSTSCRIPT, OCTOBER 23: The Wall Street Journal asserts Hunter Biden’s former business partner—a sketchy investor in Chinese startups—has supplied the paper emails that "corroborate and expand on emails recently published by the New York Post, which says they come from a Hunter laptop.” Likely, reports NBC, a white-nationalist website named Revolver News is behind the effort to hornswaggle America. Meanwhile, deaths from Covid-19 in America as of today has reached 228,423.

POSTSCRIPT, OCTOBER 25: Politico reports Giuliani's "evidence" originated in the Kremlin, in all probability. The Atlantic muses that we're not supposed to understand the Hunter Biden's actions—but only fear them.

POSTSCRIPT, OCTOBER 27: The Hill reports that a White House lawyer pitched the story about Hunter Biden's laptop—without success—to the Wall Street Journal before Giuliani took it to the New York Post.

POSTSCRIPT, OCTOBER 29, 2020: Rudy Giuliani turned apoplectic on Fox Business yesterday when a host suggested the Hunter Biden laptop story originated in Eastern Europe. Fox News' Tucker Carlson also claimed he had “real, authentic and damning” documents proving Hunter Biden had committed crimes, but they had mysteriously disappeared. And NBC reported that a month before the purported discovery of Hunter Biden's laptop, right-wingers circulated a phony document asserting Biden was enmeshed in an elaborate conspiracy. The document is pure fiction and its alleged source a fake "intelligence firm" named Typhoon. Somebody's a windbag, for certain.

Hyperbole

“Truthful hyperbole" is a contradiction in terms.

— Tony Schwartz

Spartan. Dangerous. Terrifying. Nightmarish. Horrific.

Too often in recent days, I've heard these words used by journalists to characterize the temporary hospitals that are propagating the country.

Spare me.

Valley Forge was spartan. 

Vietnam was dangerous. 

The Blitz was terrifying. 

Aleppo was nightmarish. 

Auschwitz was horrific.

In fact, the temporary hospitals are havens for the sick. 

And the job our military is doing is nothing short of herculean.

There's a hyperbole you don't hear enough.

Americans and the Media: Disappointment and Distrust

Most Americans expect the media to inform them, but a majority (58%) think it's harder than ever to rely on the media for objective news, says a new study by Gallup and the Knight Foundation.

TV programs remain Americans' primary news source, relied on by two-thirds of the adult population. Websites are the next most-popular source.

Equal proportions of Americans (41%) rely on social media sites as rely on newspapers to stay informed, according to the study. Reliance on newspapers is most common among older Americans and Americans with graduate degrees.

Only a quarter of Americans are confident they can distinguish facts from opinions. Age, education and party affiliation affect that confidence. And a quarter of Americans admit they get their news only from sources with a clear political bent.

The Real Reason 'Bewitched' was Cancelled

Democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.

— Isaac Asimov

I've had it with the truthies, trash and trivia that's vying for my overtaxed attention.

Once intriguing, the big news sites and social media networks have become cyber cesspools.

My New Year's resolution: to boycott them.

The last straw was a click-bait headline that dogged me yesterday: "The Real Reason 'Bewitched' was Cancelled."

I don't need—or care—to know why ABC executives scrapped a TV sit-com 46 years ago.

Worse, I resent being told the "real" reason was adultery, when in fact it was low audience share.

It's time for all good people to call a halt to America's romance with anti-intellectualism—the willful "dismissal of science, the arts, and humanities and their replacement by entertainment, self-righteousness, ignorance, and deliberate gullibility," as executive coach Ray Williams puts it.

We should take no pride in the fact Americans choose to be gullible and uninformed.

We should only take comfort in the fact that millions of the most gullible and uninformed are killing themselves with drugs, alcohol and guns.

Killing Marketing: Dead on Arrival

I'm a fan of Joe Pulizzi, coauthor with Robert Rose of the new 260-page book Killing Marketing. 

So I wish I could recommend it.

I can't.

The big idea behind the book―that businesses can convert marketing from overhead into profit―is preposterous; not because it's so wrongheaded, but because it's so thoroughly unrealistic.

Were the idea not preposterous, you'd find more real-world examples than the handful the authors can cite (although I'm flattered they include mention of the magazine I launched for the Society of Fire Protection Engineers, Fire Protection Engineering.)

The "killing" in the title, by the way, is word-play. The authors want you to kill your marketing operation and replace it with a killer media company. (That, or the authors are targeting Bill O'Reilly's audience.)

Killing Marketing argues you can profitably sell the content that drives your marketing, like any media company does.

Sell your content? At a profit? Hell, most organizations can't give it away.

The book further argues you can transform your in-house marketers into crackerjack journalists and media moguls who can "monetize" your audiences.

Fat chance.

When it comes to marketing their products, most businesses indeed "throw good money after bad," as the authors say: they deploy tactics without an underlying strategy; invest in tactics that do not work; and drop successful tactics without forethought.

But to ask every business to "create and distribute non-product-related content" is like asking your auto mechanic to produce Cars, your barber to stage Hair, or your lawnmower to publish Better Homes & Gardens.

Ain't gonna happen.

Yes, LEGO profits from LEGO Club Magazine; Red Bull, from Red Bulletin; and the Society of Fire Protection Engineers, from Fire Protection Engineering. 

But could a single additional organization in those markets replicate that success? Probably not.

A logician would say the authors have written an entire book based on the fallacy known as the "argument from small numbers." Arguments from small numbers go like this:

After treatment with our new drug, one-third of the mice were cured, one-third died, and the third mouse escaped. So if we treat 1,000 mice, 333 will be cured.

The gist of Killing Marketing goes something like this:

Marketing-campaigns-turned-into-media-ventures by six organizations became profitable. So if you mimic them, yours can be profitable too.

With apologies to Hugh Fullerton: Saying it don't make it so, Joe.

First Cut

US advertisers last year spent 21 cents of every ad dollar targeting radio and print audiences; 38 targeting cable TV viewers; and 41 targeting mobile phone users, according to Kleiner Perkins.

No surprise here.

Americans over 65 still love their cable TV. In fact, they devote 58% of their waking hours to it, says the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But Americans under 65 don't—and they're cutting the cable for the ad-free TV streamed by Netflix and its competitors.

Where ads once enriched many companies, only two—Google and Facebook—are reaping cable cutting's windfall.

And it's Netflix's fault, media reporter Derek Thompson says.

Netflix launched subscription-based TV, robbing large screens of viewers—and advertisers of prospects. As a result, advertisers are targeting viewers under 65 on their phones, where Facebook and Google have a duopoly.

"If the dynamic tech duo could go back in time and design the perfect ally to push advertising from TV to mobile phones," Thompson says, "it would look exactly like Netflix."

Cashing in on Events

Bloomberg is doubling down on events, according to Politico.

The business media giant has hired veteran exec Stephen Colvin to expand its two-year-old global events division.

"As with many media companies striving to develop new revenue streams, events are becoming a more prominent component of Bloomberg's journalism lineup," says Politico's Joe Pompeo.

A spokesman for Bloomberg says the company is "well positioned to be the leading convener of business and financial events around the world."

Sponsorship revenue from Bloomberg's five events is up 30% from 2015.

When will associations cash in on events?

Celebrate!

Dylan is a reminder of how America used to talk to itself.

— Lili Loofbourow

"A great poet in the English-speaking tradition," Bob Dylan became a Nobel Laureate yesterday.

Killjoys will kvetch. "Someone who performed in Las Vegas the same day he became a Nobel Laureate doesn't belong to the club of Lewis, O'Neill, Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Bellow and Morrison."

I refuse to accept this.

In his Banquet Speech, Faulkner said:

I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

Newshounds' Loyalty on the Rise

Consumers' loyalty to specific news outlets is on the rise, according to a recent poll by Gallup. 

Among consumers, 48% identify a specific medium (TV, Internet, radio, newspaper) as their main news source—down 10 points from three years ago; while 42% identify a specific outlet (Fox, Huffington, NPR, The New York Times, etc.) as their main source—up 12 points from three years ago.

"The shift in thinking on the subject is partly powered by Americans' increasing ability to gather news from a single organization on multiple platforms," says pollster Jim Norman. 

Loyalty to social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) as news outlets is also on the rise—particularly among Millennials.

According to the poll, 15% of Millennials identify a social media site as their main news source, up from 3% three years ago.

While the shift in media habits will affect news outlets in their battle for customers, it also could spill into politics and social behaviors, Norman says.

Consumers may shut out viewpoints not presented by their favorite news outlet, and be more apt to mistake entertainment for news.

Bezos Rekindles Old Paper

Amazon founder and newspaper owner Jeff Bezos' thumbprint continues to appear in the online version of The Washington Post.

Having trouble finishing long articles? You can now use a gadget to enter your email address at any point. The Post will send a URL that lets you pick it up later where you left off.

We can expect more Kindle-like add-ons to appear in The Post, as Bezos dabbles deeper in journalism. 

"The transformation may not be apparent on the surface, but the Internet billionaire has ripped up and revamped the technology underpinnings at The Post since buying the storied daily in 2013, while investing in the newsroom with more journalists, video offerings and tools for digital storytelling," AFP reported in January.

Bezos' investments might be paying off.

Last December, readership of The Post's website overtook that of The New York Times.

Marketers Using More Agencies Less

Today's marketer farms out projects, not accounts, according to a survey by RSW/US.

RSW/US found that 74% use more than two agencies; and 17%, more than five.

They're also keeping project-work in house, hiring specialists galore.

And 40% of marketers expect project-work to increase this year.

While agencies may cringe, RSW/US sees an upside.

Marketers can no longer brush them off with "We already have an agency."

"With more marketers potentially using multiple agencies in the coming year, that objection becomes less of a hurdle, even potentially advantageous," says Lee McKnight, vice president of sales.

Marketers say they're wearied by agencies that claim they're full-service, but aren't, the survey reveals.

Marketers also say they're troubled by agencies "defaulting to digital." Too many have abandoned creativity, customer insight, and expertise in traditional media.

With more opportunities before them, agencies can win business by pitching novel projects, deep category knowledge, or know-how in a particular channel.

View-Master Revisited

This week, I was treated to a rough-cut of a DMO's forthcoming virtual reality promotion.

The glories of the city's convention center and hotels were revealed in full and fabulous 3D.

Writing for Associations Now, Samatha Whitehorn claims VR is destined to become "a mainstream feature of association meetings and destination marketing."

Little wonder, Whitehorn says. "The power of VR is that it gives the viewer a unique sense of empathic connection to people and events."

DMOs will tap VR to give their cities an edge in event planners' eyes, and even offer it as an alternative to live streaming, so folks unable to attend an event can join in from afar.

But wait a cotton-pickin' minute!

"VR's going to kill my event," every planner's shouting.

Not in my book.

I may be a curmudgeon, but VR is only higher octane View-Master.

Don't get me wrong: I loved View-Master as a kid. But it didn't keep me from exploring the world beyond my bedroom.

I predict VR will indeed find its niche—alongside the Pet Rock and the Cabbage Patch Kid.

What do you think?

The One Percenters

Try as they might, the narcissists packing the 9/11 Memorial Museum during my visit this week couldn't palliate the place.

Out of a compulsion to vaunt their little lives, they vamped about Ground Zero as if it were Dollywood.

They never got the memo: One percent of people—tops—deserve attention.

Like the 3,000 workers who perished in the Twin Towers.

Like the first responders who risked their all.

Like the Flight 93 passengers and Pentagon employees.

The rest of us don't.

The Future of B2B Content Marketing

Videos are the future of B2B content marketing.

Seven in 10 B2B marketers already use them, according to Demand Metric.

That's little wonder, when one in two people watch marketing videos on line every day, as Liz Alton reports in Sales and Marketing Daily Advisor.

Videos' matchless power comes from their "immediacy and intimacy," Alton says.

She describes five kinds of videos B2B marketers use:

Explainer. Explainer videos are "short, focused videos that give an elevator pitch of what products and services you offer." They're often produced in whiteboard style.

Case studies. Case studies give customers "an inside look at your work," Alton says. They can be testimonials or project reviews that prove you deliver results.

How-to. How-to videos address FAQs you receive. Depending on the complexity of the topic, they can provide quick tips or in-depth guidance.

Real-time. Meerkat and Periscope let you connect with customers in the moment. "Companies are using the tools for live Q&As, to report in from events and trade shows, and to respond to industry news," Alton says.

Culture. Culture videos let you showcase staff, illustrate workflows, or give a glimpse of your systems in action. Many customers crave this “behind the scenes” look, Alton says.

But wait, there's more...

Besides boosting your brand, marketing videos attract more customers to your website, thanks to Google, says Swati Joshi in The Huffington Post.

"The fact that Google owns YouTube plays a role in video’s increased popularity," she says.

"Google has been constantly adjusting its algorithm to give its users a meaningful experience while searching. To satisfy user intent, they show a variety of results, and not just exact keyword matches. As a result, search results now prominently feature videos among top results."

The Delicate Delinquent

I grew up a mile outside Newark, New Jersey, home town of Jerry Lewis.

My mom, a school teacher, worked with an older colleague who'd had Lewis in her fifth grade classroom 25 years before.

Despite his fame as a nightclub, radio, TV and film star, my mom's coworker hated Lewis.

He'd been a 10-year-old thorn in her side that whole school year. 

A jerk. Smart ass. Wise guy. Class clown. 

She hated him.

In Originals, Adam Grant says the difference between an original and the rest of us boils down to whether or not that person "rejects defaults." 

Default behaviors. Default beliefs. Default systems. Default "worlds."

"The hallmark of originality is rejecting the default and exploring whether a better option exists," Grant says.

We tend to think originals are appreciated early, as were Mozart, Rimbaud and Picasso.

But that's not the norm, Grant says.

Social science shows school kids who are originals are the least likely to be appreciated.

In one study, teachers listed their favorite and least favorite students, and rated each group.

The least favorites were the non-conformists.

"Teachers tend to discriminate against highly creative students, labeling them as trouble-makers," Grant says. 

"In response, many children quickly learn to get with the program, keeping their original ideas to themselves."

But some people, for their own crazy reasons, can't sit still long enough to "accept defaults."

Happy 90th Birthday, Mr. Lewis.

Still rejecting defaults after all these years.

UPDATE: Jerry Lewis passed away August 20, 2017, in his home in Las Vegas. Love him or hate him, he was surely an original.