Up

The Uncola.

— Advertising slogan

In 1919, St. Louis adman Charlie Grigg saw big money in soda pop.

So he quit advertising for sales and joined a beverage company.

An innovative guy, before long he invented two successful soft drinks for the company, "Whistle" and "Howdy."

But it was his third invention that made Grigg's name.

In 1929, Grigg—now heading his own beverage company—introduced "Bib," a name he would change seven years later to "7 Up."

The "up" in 7 Up came from lithium, a mood-enhancing substance used to treat depression in the early 20th century.

Grigg added tons of it to 7 Up, to distinguish it from other lemon and lime pops.

A well-known picker-upper, lithium was a popular ingredient in patent medicines at the time; and doctors would advise depression-sufferers who could afford it to vacation at spas near lithium-rich springs, where they could drink and bathe in the mind-altering waters.

Grigg’s formula was perfect.

His timing was also perfect: 7 Up appeared just two weeks before Black Tuesday, the event that triggered—no pun intended—the Great Depression.

Sales of 7 Up soared.

Consumers believed Grigg's claim that the pop buoyed flagging spirits (7 Up is a "savory, flavory drink with a real wallop," his ads said).

They also liked to use 7 Up as a hangover cure (it "takes the ouch out of grouch," the ads insisted).

Grigg's invention became the third best-selling pop in the world—until the federal government intervened.

In 1948, the feds banned lithium in all foods and beverages, determining it to be a cause of birth defects, kidney failure, and death.

Without lithium, 7 Up's sales tanked.

But in 1968, with the help of ad agency J. Walter Thompson, 7 Up staged a comeback.

JWT tapped into the counter culture, labelling 7 Up the "Uncola" and positioning it in ads as if it had been concocted by The Beatles.

The agency hired designer Milton Glaser—famous for his Bob Dylan poster—to create campaign graphics and rented thousands of billboards alongside America's busiest highways, where college kids would be sure to see them.

JWT also launched a TV campaign that featured a genial Black actor who explained why kola nuts were inferior to lemons and limes.

The ads worked so well, 7 Up's sales skyrocketed. 

The pop reclaimed its rank as the third largest-selling soft drink and at the same time became inextricably linked to America's "rebellious youth."

By the 1990s, however, those youth were in their 50s, and 7 Up became, in the words of one Wall Street analyst, "what old people drink."

Today, the brand has less than 1% market share.

Above: The Seven Ups by Robert Francis James. Oil on fiberboard. 8 x 10 inches.

Exceptions

 Exceptions are so inevitable that no rule is without them—except the one just stated.

— Eugene Rhodes

Among Ralph Waldo Emerson's many contributions to Philosophy Americana is the oft-cited "Law of Compensation."

You get what you give, it states in a nutshell.

"Nature hates monopolies and exceptions," Emerson says. 

"There is always some leveling circumstance that puts down the overbearing, the strong, the rich, the fortunate, substantially on the same ground with all others."

If only this were true.

It's not.

Nature may hate exceptions, but exceptions—the overbearing, the strong, the rich, the fortunate—always win the day.

Always.

Consider these injustices:

• Pretty people are paid 15% more than plain-looking people.
  
  
• Blonde women are paid 7% more than brunettes and redheads.
  
  
• Educated workers of color are paid $10,000 less than their white colleagues.
  
  
• Rich people enjoy lower income tax rates than other earners.  
  
  
• Poor people die in wars; rich people do not.

Try all you might to level the playing field, exceptions will always emerge to take the lead. 

And so rich parents cheat to get their kids into Ivy League schools; advantaged whites fabricate degrees and credentials; and the super-rich lie to the IRS about their income.

Emerson notwithstanding, the Law of Compensation applies to schmucks only.

Exceptions are exempt.

No one has better depicted this truth than Woody Allen in his 1989 film Crimes and Misdemeanors.

In Crimes and Misdemeanors, a rich ophthalmologist (played by Martin Landau) arranges the contract-killing of his mistress, only to escape any consequence, while a smart, devoted documentary filmmaker (played by Allen) must kowtow to a slick, fast-talking TV producer, only to lose his love to him.

The exceptions win. 

The nobodies lose.

C'est la vie.

Pride of Workmanship

To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace.

— Doug Conant

Lunch this week at the Wildflower in Tucson reminded me that employees thrive on hard work, when it's demanded of them.

Expecting her to answer "higher wages," I asked our waitress at the end of the meal why the restaurant was able to attract good help.

She responded by saying the owner held every employee to impeccably high work standards—a brisk form of accountability that she found refreshing in the food service business.

"The owner has an 'employee first' approach, if you know what I mean," she said.

I did.

"Employee first" is a business ethos. 

New York restaurateur Danny Meyer pioneered it.

After years of watching restaurants he worked in fail, Meyer arrived at an important realization: the true customer of a restaurant is not the diner, but the restaurant worker. 

So Meyer designs restaurants that cultivate proud—and loyal—workers.

The keys to those environments are discipline and dedication. 

Slackers need not apply.

"Your brand is never better than your employees," Meyer once told executive coach Erica Keswin. "And your employees are never better than the degree to which they are engaged in the reason your company exists."

A new study by Gallup finds that most workplaces are "broken."

Six of 10 employees are "emotionally detached" from their jobs; and 2 in 10 are "miserable."

A mere 20% of the workforce is engaged. 

No surprise, organizations with engaged workers enjoy 23% higher profits than those with disengaged ones. 

They also enjoy lower absenteeism, turnover, and accidents.

In pursuit of those things, some misguided companies think they can instill "employee pride" through propaganda.

They remind me of the restaurant in "Office Space" that demanded its servers wore "flair" to demonstrate a "fun attitude."

Propaganda gets you nowhere.

High standards, on the other hand, appeal to employees' self-worth.

High standards separate the wheat from the chaff because they make the work worth doing.

They also discourage half-assing your way through the workday.

"There are people who try to look as if they are doing a good and thorough job, and then there are the people who actually damn well do it, for its own sake." novelist John D. MacDonald wrote.

The latter are the people you want in your organization.

But sadly, perhaps because they're run by insufferable assholes, most American companies have forgotten about pride of workmanship.

Which is why 80% of workers are either disengaged or miserable.

Razor Sharp

 

The pre-election torrent of GOP bullshit that's wafting across America has prompted many of my friends to promote the addition of critical thinking to the elementary school curriculum.

They're afraid for their children's future.

I'm all for introducing critical thinking into every classroom—but believe it's unlikely to happen.

So what's a parent to do?

Let your children play with a razor.

The handiest tool in the critical thinking chest is Ockham's Razor.

In logic, Ockham’s Razor, named for a 14th-century philosopher, is the "law of simplicity."

Ockham's Razor cuts through bullshit by insisting pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate ("plurality should not be posited without necessity"). 

As such, the law opposes complexity (plurality) and favors simplicity (unity): whenever you have two competing theories, the simpler one is the right one.

Ockham's Razor can cut bullshit positions to shreds in only seconds, which is why you should let your kids play with it.

Here are just three examples.

Trump's election loss

The GOP insists Trump lost the 2020 election because Democrats in swing states conspired either to alter votes for Trump, discard votes for Trump, inflate the number of votes for Biden, or some combination of all of the above.

The simpler explanation of Trump's loss: the majority of American voters favored his replacement.

Child molestation

The GOP insists all gays molest children because all gays are predatory. It further insists that anyone who molests a child must be gay. Lastly, the party claims any gay who denies that he or she is sexually attracted to children is lying.

The simpler explanation for child molestation: some men fixate on children as a result of developmental problems occurring in utero. Adult sexual preference has nothing to do with pedophilia.

Mass shootings

The GOP insists mass shootings result from evil and are an inevitable "price of freedom." They can only be curbed by increasing the number of armed "good guys."

The simpler explanation of mass shootings: the ready availability of guns enables aggrieved individuals to act out their fantasies. Boosting the supply of guns will only facilitate these acts.

Now it's your turn, parents.

Give your kids a razor to play with. It will make them razor sharp!

Doing Nothing

You can commit an injustice by doing nothing.

— Marcus Aurelius

To anyone with a speck of brains, it's now crystal clear Trump would have illegally seized the presidency on January 6.

If you're immensely rich, immensely angry, immensely psychotic, or immensely uninformed, you'd have been fine with a that.

The rest of us are not.

The question remains: in the name of democracy, what will you do about it?

My recommendations are simple: 

• Contact Merrick Garland and demand that Trump be charged with treason. Go here to send him an email. Mine read: The Congressional Committee investigating January 6 has already produced enough evidence to support a conviction of Donald Trump for treason. For the sake of our nation and our democracy, I urge you to prosecute him.
  
  
• Talk candidly about Trump's treason. The Constitution and case law define treason as "betraying one's own country by attempting to overthrow the government through waging war against the state or materially aiding its enemies." Don't mince words. Trump is guilty of treason. 
  
  
• Boycott Trump's corporate co-conspirators. Not just Fox News and My Pillow, but Chevron, General Motors and UPS. Go here for a complete list.
     
• If you encounter a Trump troll on line, complain to his employer. 
  
  
• Start carrying a patriotic pocket lighter. If on your travels you see a Trump 2024 sign, set it ablaze.

This is no time to be a bystander—self-interest should propel you.

Do something! Speak out against Trump.

As the oft-quoted words of Martin Niemöller remind:

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."