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January 25, 2022
Storytelling.
Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
--Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)
Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
January 20, 2022
Hell's Kitchen, NYC
Jacob Riis photo of Bandits' Roost (1890)
Old neighborhoods, like old people, have strong personalities. And they are feisty as Hell.
The above photograph of an alley in Hell's Kitchen, then in its second century, was taken long before the midtown Manhattan neighborhood got cute and trendy again. The work, images and outcry of Jacob Riis were famous at the time. So was this photograph.
But Hell's Kitchen actually started out cute and even pastoral. Three hundred years ago there were farms. Then came suburbs, and it was not really a "bad" neighborhood until around the time of the Civil War. Movies and novels maybe over-covered that second 150 years. Hell's Kitchen kept changing but stayed famous: from Irish and German immigrant sub-city to gangland neighborhood to actors' quarter to, these days, more of a yuppie heaven.
People feared the second round of "cute"--the gentrification of recent years--would destroy it. It didn't. It's still authentic in pulse and atmosphere. A few (not many) old families could afford to stay. Real estate brokers years ago came up with the new labels of Clinton and "Midtown West"--but those did not work. They could never replace the real name, the one that no one can even trace.
Yeah, older neighborhoods, like older people, have personalities--and they are feisty as Hell.
Personally, I think of the area as smaller and more compact than most descriptions. For me, it does not start until just north of the Lincoln Tunnel at 40th and then goes up to 57th Street. Its width, of course: West of 8th all the way to the Hudson. Yet it always seems worlds away from Times Square, right next door, and Midtown East.
If you are in Manhattan some weekend, stroll around there on a Sunday morning early, when it groans, complains and even growls like its old self. You will not head east. You won't even think about leaving Hell's Kitchen for a while. Too seductive. The uneasy mixes of Irish, German, Italian, and Everyone Else that dominated it--especially in the last 150 years--left certain imprints and energies. You can still feel and hear them in the stone of the buildings and street.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
January 19, 2022
Three generations.
Local beach beauties in Miami.
Posted by JD Hull at 08:14 AM | Comments (0)
January 18, 2022
Redux: “All hat, no cattle...”
Everyone in your shop has to buy into CS like a cult, like a religion--like an angry sermon that lifted them out of their pews at The Church of the Final Thunder. If employees will not, or cannot, get rid of those stiffs first. And do feel good about firing them.
Real client service--i.e., know-how consistently delivered as an experience the customer likes and wants more of--is by now a global cliché. Hey, you must say you are "into" it--but do you even know what it is? It sounds easy, and intuitive to the speaker and listener.
"Client and customer service...how hard could that be?"
Very. Making a client be safe and feel safe at the same time is as hard an order to fill as we can imagine. Whether you're a lawyer, accountant, hooker, fishing guide, house painter, drug dealer, or mom-and-pop corner store owner, superior work alone won't keep a good client or customer coming back.
Clients want something more. You have to figure out what that is.
And then everyone in your shop--yes, everyone--has to buy into CS like a cult, like a religion, like an angry sermon that took them out of their pews at The Church of the Final Thunder.
"Yes, yes, got that covered." One problem is self-deception: (1) most service providers think they know what CS is, but they don't; and (2) if they really do know, they don't know how to discipline their organizations to make CS stick.
(WAC?, by the way, does know what and how; the reason we give away our "secrets" is that we are confident that virtually none of you will ever be able to get and deliver client service. Yes, we are making fun of all you. All you "smart" people--embittered that you are not rich or powerful enough--who don't get other humans. You folks are hopelessly "get-the-net" delusional about CS. No intuition, no guts, no gospel--and no discipline.)
"All hat, no cattle." The second and more immediate problem is deceiving clients themselves. At a minimum, even if you don't have a clue what CS really is, do you say you provide it when you don't? Is CS a little joke at your shop? A ruse, maybe? Something for the website? For that first pitch? Well, there are voices in the wilderness besides ours on that one. And one of our favorites is Tom Kane at The Legal Marketing Blog. See again his post from June 2008, "Don't Let Client Service Be Merely Lip Service" and the related links.
Original post: September 4, 2009 WAC?
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2022
From my law school classmate TJ O’Hara
Posted by JD Hull at 05:21 PM | Comments (0)
Villon.
Que beaultè ot trop plus qu'humaine.
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?--François Villon (1431-1463)
Poet, Drifter, Dreamer, Thief.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
January 12, 2022
Henry Miller's Heir.
Half the people you meet live from one day to the next in a state of such fear and uncertainty that about half the time they doubt their own sanity. Their boats are rocking so badly that all they want to do is get level long enough to think straight and avoid the next nightmare.
--HST, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Real Heroes: Parker Posey
They're picking up prisoners and putting 'em in a pen. And all she wants to do is dance.
--Danny Kortchmar/WB Music Corp. ASCAP (1984)
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Rent "Party Girl" (1995) and watch her dance in the last scene. Parker Posey is her own World: picaresque, funny and eccentric, all without being contrived. This is the intensely pretty Bohemian girl next door. Playing the floundering Manhattan girl-turned-librarian, Posey has you convinced by the end of the movie that, when she's nervous or uncomfortable in her real non-actress life, she automatically just starts to dance. It's like having Katharine Hepburn, Neal Cassady and François Villon in one person.
In 2006, I met Posey in the Newark Airport when I was on the way to Manchester, and would have been happy to miss my plane. She was headed to New Mexico to work. When she speaks, she has the slightest trace of an American southern accent, having grown up in both Maryland and Mississippi. She is unassuming and subtle, only fleetingly hip and ironic, and looks you in the eye. What surprised me about her in person the most was this: her authenticity and smarts cannot hide how gorgeous she is.
So there's lots going on here. It's easier to understand why for years Posey has turned down money and type-casting (urban bimbette was always a risk) in favor of brave, odd and "forward" roles. She's an actress first, and a celebrity somewhat reluctantly. And only then if it doesn't get in the way.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)
January 11, 2022
The horror of January 6, 2021. Never again.
Posted by JD Hull at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)
January 03, 2022
Proust: To those that make us grow.
Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
-- Marcel Proust, 1871–1922, French novelist and critic.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
January 01, 2022
Prediction: In 2022 The Weird Turn Pro
Posted by JD Hull at 03:12 PM | Comments (0)