Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

They told us so: Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods, me and you

by // 5 Comments

You show me a hero and I show you a bum. —Pappy Boyington, WW II fighter ace
Images-6



I was never a big Lance Armstrong fan. He smelled arrogant to me, and the implication that he "beat" cancer, while emotionally useful to many, always seemed intellectually dishonest to me.
Images-5

But as someone who made a hero of Tiger Woods, another athlete who many others found aloof but who I once saw as a role model for living an intelligent, organized, focused, confident life—I'm not feeling like telling Armstrong fans, "I told you so."

Images-7Though my fascination with Woods the Person has waned, I still root for him to win tournaments, for the same reasons I always did: so I can bore the bejeepers out of my grandkids, the way people who saw Babe Ruth in his prime must have bored theirs.

But I've mostly stopped having dreams about meeting Woods and having heart-to-heart talks with him in which I offer him insights about his life that rock his world. (What? You have no dreams like that about anybody? I played a quiet round of golf with Barack Obama not too long ago, just me and him. We didn't talk politics, just golf. I won, and he was gracious about it. And the whole thing was better for you not having been there.)

With Armstrong, the letdown must be more severe, because his integrity is not the only thing in question; his actual achievements have been officially stripped away.

But such distinctions are only pedantic quibbles next to the power of our feelings for our heroes—feelings that overwhelm facts.

Our very mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and lovers all let us down at one point or another. And we still adore them. Why would it be different with our heroes?

So Lance Armstrong fans, as a Tiger Woods fan (and for that matter as a Kurt Vonnegut fan who found the recent biography true-sounding and crushing), I'll be the last to harangue you about your guy. And I reckon that you'll be less likely to harangue me about mine.

That Pappy Boyington quote above: I read that in his autobiography when I was in fifth grade. I understood what it meant.

And I rejected it.

Dopey as it will sound to some, I still do.

Do commercials ever approach art?

by // 10 Comments

The other day a friend and I were arguing about whether TV ads ever have their own internal artistry, separate from the art of the sale.

The loyal son of an adman, I acknowledged it happens rarely, but claimed that it does happen, and cited the old 15-second Lifesavers video poem (the first of the two contained in the following video):

And then Nike came out with this ad, yesterday.

Readers, do you have any other examples for my friend Paul?

All a Tiger Woods fan needs to hear

by // Leave a Comment

My dad was in advertising, which he considered real communication. He looked down his nose at public relations people, who he thought had "a magnificent grasp of the obvious," and who presented their commonsense advice in fancy packages over three-martini lunches and called each other "sweetheart."

Spending my days writing about public relations and my evenings watching TV commercials, I often beg to disagree with Dad's point of view. For one thing, I've never been called "sweetheart."

But Dad does chuckle from the grave when we hear PR counselors massaging their whiskers and telling newspapers what Tiger Woods "needs to do" with his statement.

As if they know something we don't.

Yes, it would be better if Woods answered questions from reporters.

Even better would be if Woods disarmed those questions, by offering an emotionally candid, exhaustive, Fidel-Castro-length explanation for everything that happened, how it came about, and how he and his therapist believe it came from a stolen childhood and an insatiable need for nurturing that he was starved for, as golf's early-anointed ubermensch, a young celebrity even as he entered college.

It would be great to get real insights about how he's sorting all this out and will be for a long time, how he thinks he'll be able to balance all that with his golf career and how he's almost grateful for the whole episode because it has shocked him into long-overdue introspection, and may give him a chance for a happier, more honest life.

Blah blah blah.

He's not going to say that, even if he has it in his bag, because if Woods does have one good impulse, it is the instinct to protect of his inner life from the media.

I'm a big Tiger Woods fan, still as interested in his career as ever, still wishing him the best, still looking forward to boring the living hell out of my grandchildren with tales of his golf exploits. He is my Babe Ruth.

So I'll be watching eagerly, of course, hoping that Woods convincingly communicates, or at least vaguely suggests a couple of things: 1. He's been on a journey and not just a forced march for public relations purposes. 2. He's learned something and really hopes to be a better human being.

Honestly, that's all I need to hear to be four-square behind him as he returns to golf and goes after Jack Nicklaus's records. And honestly, I'm not even sure I need that.

(Jack isn't the most charming guy in the world, you know; he's admired for the same reason Tiger is: It was inspiring to watch the bastard will a golf ball into a hole.)

After the Woods session, I'll post an analysis here, however brief, and however magnificent a grasp of the obvious.

***

Analysis: Yep.