• by Jack Feuer , August 4, 2009

You probably already knew this, but in California, it is illegal to cry on a witness stand, lick a toad or wipe your car with used underwear. And sunshine is guaranteed to the masses. By law.

Some things are too good not to be true. And then, as every communications professional knows, there are an amazing number of painfully unpleasant things that are too dumb not to be true.

Inevitably, for example, we are now told that the recession--not a Depression, of course--is already over. Sure. Thanks. Then why are the cat and I still sharing Science Diet because I can no longer afford people food?

Here's another thing even a junior buyer would know is too distressingly predictable not to be true: Something is going to change everything.

See, last year, digital was going to change everything. Right after DVRs changed everything. Which would occur immediately after cable TV changed everything. And before that, I don't know, Guttenberg? Whatever. Now it's that ubiquitous "recession" that will change consumers, agencies and clients forever.

Sure. Right. And 9/11 was going to end cynicism. And clients and agencies are so good at learning their lessons. And Americans have really gotten that savings bug now. No chance any of those worthies are going to go right back to their old flamboyantly irresponsible and inexcusably lame ways the second--I mean the instant--the shit stops rolling downhill.

Meanwhile, we have TweetDeck, which I'm sure you cognoscenti are already aware is an app that organizes brain farts. Even more horror show, I had the misfortune of reading the word "Twittersphere" for the very first time this week. Sure. Absolutely. It's that big. You do know that even eMarketer says the Twittering class is, in toto, only about 6 million people, right? Iran notwithstanding, that is not a global communications revolution. That's New York. Without Brooklyn.

Mark Twain said you can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

I grew up in Tenafly, which is Dutch for "Ten Swamps" and was rated the 65th best place to live in New Jersey. Doesn't sound so good. But Tenafly is a picture-postcard pretty upper-middle-class suburb. Populated today largely by Koreans. So go figure.

Things are rarely exactly what they seem. And anything is possible. Yet, despite the communications industry's incessant nattering about innovation and imagination and escaping from boxes and such, every campaign, plan and strategic brief is--inevitably--a variation on the same old hoary themes.

We don't ever just...daydream. Maybe that's a consequence of digital life, which is to imagination what Amy Winehouse is to erections. But what if you all went home tonight and thought about your business and asked: "What if?" What if each and every one of you came into the office tomorrow morning with one completely original, entirely new idea?

Now that would change everything.

As for me, I'm off to take in some rays and go outlaw, grab a cat food and toad sweat sandwich and soap up a girlfriend's panties. Then when I'm hauled before the judge, I can cry on the witness stand.