Remember Ugly George? In the '70s and '80s he was a common unsightly sight around New York, resplendent in a silver space suit with a giant Sony camcorder propped on his shoulder like a bazooka, hounding innocent women on the street, basically trying to get lucky.

Stop me if you've heard this one: A client and a creative director walk into a bar - actually, they get on the phone (without an account person lurking on mute) and talk through what's in and out, including multiscreen campaigns, conventional e-mail marketing and annual planning.

I hated the movie indecent proposal, but i did like one particular scene: When Woody Harrelson's character returns to teaching architecture, he holds up a brick and says, "A common ordinary brick wants to be something more than it is."

The state of our environment has been an increasingly hot topic, appearing more and more in media and political debates. As the 2008 elections get closer, it's no doubt an issue on everyone's minds.

In San Francisco in the 1960s, an iconic adman named Howard Luck Gossage declared that he would never recommend outdoor advertising to his clients because it was a blot on the landscape. It was typical of the errant genius of Gossage (who, if you're not familiar with the name, was the guy who introduced Marshall McLuhan to America). But I'm sure it was dismissed as just a crackpot move at the time.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and that global warming is all man's fault. At least according to Al Gore. Never mind the naysayers, skeptics or questioning few who believe a bit more investigation should be done. As Gore explains, "Those people are in such a tiny, tiny minority with their point of view, they're almost like the ones who believe that the moon landing was staged on a movie lot in Arizona, and those who believe the earth is flat." But believe is exactly what Al Gore is urging you to do. …

The biggest threat to the environmental movement might just be fire damage. "Turn off your lights and make love," is singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright's suggestion for saving the planet. The flaming heart uttered the words as he kicked off his "Blackout Sabbath" campaign with a March concert in a synagogue on Manhattan's Lower East Side, using no electricity at all. The all-wood, 150-year-old structure was illuminated by more than 1,000 candles - no small concern for the concert's organizers, who had nearly as many fire extinguishers on hand as candles.

If you are reading this column in the print edition of Media magazine, you may be holding the world in your hands - literally. Sound serious? I am. It is.

So, you've jumped on the greenwagon: You buy energy efficient light bulbs in bulk, pile up your groceries in a canvas tote, recycle religiously and sport only 100-percent certified organic cotton ironic T-shirts. But did you ever think about how much you'll destroy the environment when you die, greenie? Welcome to the natural burial movement. No, we're not kidding.

Maybe he's something of a cliché. Try as he might, he still can't peel that Gore-Lieberman sticker off the bumper of his Prius. There's probably granola from Whole Foods spilling out of the reusable canvas shopping bag in the back seat next to the book about bio-diesel. Just don't try to pigeonhole him, because he's as elusive as Bigfoot, or maybe, more aptly, the Jolly Green Giant. If there's one thing Janet Little, a nutritionist for Henry's Farmers Market, knows by now, it's that there's no such thing as a plain green shopper.