Changing the World is the Only Fit Work for a Grown Man.

Episode One: Most of my heroes don’t appear on no stamp.

Unless you are a real fan of 60s advertising, then you probably haven’t heard of Howard Luck Gossage (HLG).

Then why would you? Hardly anyone I have ever met has.

HLG is a personal hero of mine — a creative genius who harnessed the big ideas of his age and set out to reinvent advertising — and then change the world.

Everything he did was different. He zigged when everyone else zagged.

Way back in the 1950s, when he introduced the world to interactive, PR-generating stunts and social media -.

Then he used them to save the Grand Canyon, kick-start the Green Movement, free a Caribbean island and launch Wired magazine’s ‘patron saint’, Marshall McLuhan.

He used his words and ideas to help causes he was passionate about.

In today’s world of online communities, viral news stories, and the blurring of real and fake news, the story of HLG shows that everything new is actually bloody ancient.

That quote, “Changing the world is the only fit work for a grown man”, is the title of an excellent biography of HLG written by Steve Harrison; it really stuck with me.

When I first read the book (eight years ago), it resonated even more, to the point where soon afterwards, I was travelling back from Canary Wharf, from a pitch with a bunch of uninterested pricks whose egos far outweighed any talent they had, for three hours of my life that I will never, ever get back.

I came to the crashing realisation that I absolutely hated everything they stood for, and more importantly, I hated myself for using my ideas and creative zesticals to produce campaigns that basically encouraged people to either buy shit they didn’t need or potentially get into debt in the process.

It was then that I knew that I had well and truly sold the f*ck out just to fit into a world where I really didn’t, and my life was swiftly rotting away.

I wanted to be in a world where I could use my creative skills, words, ideas, and sheer bloody-mindedness to be part of the solution, not be part of the problem.

It sounds a bit w*nky when I put it like that, but it is exactly how I felt.

Not too long after this realisation, I left that world and went head-deep into a not-for-profit one — fuelled by a heady cocktail of random conversations and occurrences with some genuinely remarkable folks, more of which I’ll be going into detail about in future editions.

Anyway, these will, at some point, include:

• How meeting an old lady in a coffee shop led to me creating intergenerational raving and birthing the world’s oldest DJ (debuting at the tender young age of 97).
• How the story of Dad La Soul has been covered by The Guardian, the BBC World Service, ITV, and more than 140 other news titles internationally with ZERO budget.
• How being fed up with feeling lonely and angry at an outdated view of fatherhood led me to start a revolution, have the Prime Minister give me an award, and have a Professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta (USA) ask to launch DLS there.
• How an email requesting that I write about a Batman mirror worth about £20 led to a £10k contract, the very first dads’ playdate, and got covered in twenty different news titles.

And plenty more tales I have yet to remember from the last few years.

Anyway, back to the actual story.

Why am I telling you this tale?

I have to start somewhere, — And I wanted to reference why I called this the title of this newsletter.

You see, I’ve wanted to write for the last year or two but have always put it off.

But I have run out of excuses, so I am doing it now.

So if you subscribe, I can’t promise to share the secrets of eternal youth, how to 10x your salary or any of that old nonsense that so many others do.

But I can promise you:

• That you may be mildly amused or utterly offended, depending on your view of the world.
• How saying yes more often has to be a good thing; just ask my pal, Sam Thomas
• How to write what you want and what matters and actually help people (just ask my pal, Sam Delaney).
• How looking for partners and collaborators in radically different spaces can lead to incredible things happening.

I’ll also offer you an introduction to a few more of my heroes and heroines, both living and departed, that you should have in your thoughts and deeds.

And, in the words of Chuck D of Public Enemy,

“Most of my heroes don’t appear on no stamp”.

Sounds a bit too good to be true, doesn’t it?

Well, take a leaf out of the book of Mikey in the 80s kids’ classic movie, “The Goonies,” and ask yourself,

“What if? Just what if, you guys?” And just do it.

Until next time, comrades.

Your homework for this time:

Beg, steal, or borrow a copy of “The Only Fit Job for a Grown Man” and see what all the fuss is about. (Sam T, I want my copy back, please. :)

Subscribe and listen to Sam Delaney.

And if you are too young or haven’t seen “The Goonies,” you should feel thoroughly ashamed of yourselves and should rectify that issue immediately.

You can thank me later.