“Do you suck?”

"Do you suck?" my student asked me. Everyone laughed, albeit uncomfortably, then anxiously awaiting my reply. I showed up with my Mathews Grip cart full of lighting equipment ready to teach this next generation of Gen Z creatives. "What do you mean?" I asked genuinely wanting to know what was behind the reasoning for the question from this nervous, ready-to-graduate college student who had taken all of my classes. “Well, you know they say that ‘Those who can - do, those who can’t – teach, and those who can’t teach – teach gym.’” Everyone laughed again. But now I understood the student’s question. As a university professor teaching digital media and visual storytelling and watching this Gen Z generation be stressed and anxious about a lot of things in life that I never even thought about growing up, my answer was simple. “I would hope that my clients and the people that enjoy the content I produce don’t think that I suck… but who knows!” A small chuckle. This was an honest question that needed an honest answer. Basically, my student was asking me, why was I here? I went on to explain that as an RTF major, I didn’t think I would be able to get into this business, so had signed up for Navy AOCS as a backup, but then had an amazing internship, with the phone company no less, that changed my life and helped me launch my first agency/production company while still in school. It took off. I explained how I had been mentored as I got into this whacky media business, and without those people, I never would have had a chance. (Many thanks to Fred L., Patrick M., Roger K., Bruce L. and the many others who influenced me in my quest for visual storytelling expertise!) So while I still work in the creative industries, producing and directing Broadcast Sports, TV Shows and movie projects, I have found myself becoming a university professor, purposely pouring into the next generation to raise them up in an apprentice-style of hands-on instruction (like I received)… so that they too, can become skilled in this thing we do in media; shooting, editing, lighting, etc., etc. Our time here is too short. Let me hear how your mentoring is going in your work for preparing the next generation of leaders.

Frank Sinatra has COVID.

A friend introduced me to the “Frank Sinatra has a cold” article written by Gay Talese for the April 1966 issue of Esquire. How wonderful! I had the distinct pleasure of doing an interview with Frank Sinatra back in 1988 when he was touring with Liza Minelli. Our client at the time was ARA Services (now ARAMark) and we covered a lot of high-end celebrity entertainment and sporting events where the food-service providers were catering these special one-of-a-kind events. We were in North Carolina and while my partner was shooting in the concert, I was invited to wait in Mr. Sinatra’s dressing room to do the interviews after the concert. About 15 minutes prior to the concert ending, Mr. Sinatra’s main PR guy, who was a classic small-man syndrome type, came barreling into the room to read me the riot act. “You’ll get 5 minutes. Do not ask him anything personal, do not talk about [blah, blah, blah].” It was Charlie Brown’s teacher all over. This guy went on about a ton of things that we could, and mostly couldn’t do for our interview. The room had some food brought in from ARA for Mr. Sinatra. “Don’t touch this food, this is Mr. Sinatra’s favorite food. He loves this food. It is not for you!” Then the guy stormed out like Napoleon on his way to Waterloo. About five minutes later, Mr. Sinatra came in and was the nicest guy ever – no at all the personality that Mr. PR Guy portrayed. Mr. Sinatra was glad for me to ask him anything and even mentioned, “Please help yourself to this food. They always bring this for me but I don’t really eat this stuff.” I immediately thought, “You should tell the little guy” but knew I should just get to my interview, what with only five minutes available. 30 minutes later, we wrapped up and exchanged friendly handshakes as we departed. I don’t know where Napoleon had gone, but he really missed a great time to see who Mr. Sinatra really was.  My point in all of this: we are all charged at one time or another with representing something, i.e., our family name, a product or service, a famous author or movie maker, some superstar athlete or entertainer like Mr. Sinatra. My suggestion? Make sure you are representing whatever you do in such a way that whoever you represent would be proud of your hard work. You don’t have to be a jerk to do it right.