Hasta La Creative!

A number of years ago, during one of those upfront seasons when the negotiations come to a standstill in mid-June and nobody seems in much of a hurry to get back from lunch, I received a most valuable piece of advice while standing at the bar at the Four Seasons.

I’d been summoned by an ad sales exec who’d been waiting out what would prove to be his final upfront. After a recap of a recent calamitous round at Shinnecock Hills (“goddamn seventh green’s a billiards table!”), the sales boss got to the matter at hand. “The way this upfront’s going, everyone you talk to is going to try and make a mushroom out of you,” he said, as if reciting some kind of Zen koan. “You know: Feed you bullshit, keep you in the dark. Don’t be a mushroom.”

Now, if you’re going to impart some wisdom to someone in a bar, the Four Seasons is the place to do it — largely because it’s so expensive that it’s nearly impossible to get forget-stuff drunk. While so much other sage counsel has been left in the back of taxicabs and crosstown buses, the “don’t be a mushroom” thing has really stuck.

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