After I left art school, I went down to pier 28 in Brooklyn and signed on a Danish tramp steamer.
It was going to South America, and the guys I got on best with on board were the Brazilians.
Like me, they were just deckhands, the bottom of the pecking order.
I liked them because they were more fun.
Whenever the ship docked, the Scandinavians would just head to the nearest bar and get drunk and moan.
But the Brazilians would want to party, laugh, dance, drink and find women.
So I hung out with those guys.
In charge of us was a Norwegian bosun, the equivalent of a sergeant-major.
He was a tough, hard, experienced seaman.
But he was also the meanest, nastiest, angriest man on the ship.
He made our lives pretty miserable.
One night in the Gulf of Mexico, I was sitting on deck drinking beers with a few of the Brazilians.
One of them said it was time to do something about the bosun.
They all nodded.
I asked him what he meant.
He said “There are four of us here, that’s enough.
We go to the bosun’s cabin and we take him out of his bunk. Then we take him to the side of the ship and throw him over.
In the morning we turn up for up for work as usual.
After awhile, the First Mate asks where the bosun is.
We say “Isn’t he in his cabin?”
And he shrugged innocently.
And I thought, Nah – they don’t mean it, they wouldn’t really kill the guy.
Would they?
And then I thought, hang on, these guys are sailors, they’ve spent their lives at sea.
This is how it works.
It’s a different world out here.
And I said “Nah guys, count me out. I’m not up for that.”
And they shrugged and we changed the subject.
A month or so later the ship docked in New York again.
The captain was drunk and passed out, and couldn’t sign me off.
So I jumped ship.
The ship left Brooklyn and headed up the St Lawrence Seaway to the Great Lakes.
Some time later, I heard it was back in Brooklyn.
So I went to see if I could find any of the guys in one of the bars near the docks.
I found an old Italian deckhand I’d worked with, and asked him how things were on board.
He said “No problem.”
I asked him what happened about the bosun.
Again he just said “No problem.”
I said, how come?
He said the Brazilians had paid some New York longshoremen to wait until the bosun was drunk in one of the bars.
Then the longshoremen beat him up.
Then they broke his arms and legs and threw him in the dock.
Obviously the bosun couldn’t swim like that, the plan was that he’d drown.
But he didn’t drown.
Eventually he was fished out, and he was almost dead.
So he was sent to hospital and the ship left port and carried on without him.
As the Italian said “No problem.”
For me it was an insight into a different world.
The problems were exactly the same as in my world.
The same as we all deal with in doing our job every day.
What Bernbach called ‘simple, timeless human truths’.
But the solutions were different.
What a great post. And what fantastic training for agency/client relations…
Pearse McCaughey - 20 February 2013 10:19 am
Pearse,
I thought their second solution was more creative than their first though.
Dave Trott - 20 February 2013 10:28 am
Dave, are we honestly expected 2 believe that there’s no one aboard the good ship CSTTG that u secretly wish 2 break the arms + legs of before throwing into St Katherine’s Dock?
Grilla Login - 20 February 2013 10:39 am
St Katharine’s Dock has been gentrified Grilla.
There are no longshoremen around anymore.
Dave Trott - 20 February 2013 10:42 am
Longshoremen are in short supply…
Grilla Login - 20 February 2013 11:39 am
Brooklyn ain’t what it used to be. Today they’d break both his bicycle wheels and throw him in a vat of monofloral honey.
bob hoffman - 20 February 2013 12:18 pm
That actually made me laugh so I spit my coffee over the laptop screen Bob.
Dave Trott - 20 February 2013 12:39 pm
When the weather warms up there’ll be less tramp steamers about.
john p woods - 20 February 2013 4:46 pm
Wait, are we the crew or the Bosun? I’m scared now
Eoin - 21 February 2013 2:21 pm
Eoin,
That is indeed the question we must each ask ourselves.
Are we the bug or the windshield?
Dave Trott - 21 February 2013 5:59 pm
Brazilians are always creative, be it footballers, musicians, ad people, and even deckhands.
Irfan - 22 February 2013 9:49 am
Thanks for the advice Dave. Monday morning I’m killing my creative director.
Cal - 22 February 2013 6:55 pm
Cal,
The creativity of the Brazilians was to pay someone else to do it for them.
Try some south London pubs.
Dave Trott - 23 February 2013 12:11 pm
I thought better of Brazilians. Instead of ‘outsoursing’ that immense pleasure, they must have coped in a much more imaginative way. After all, beating up somebody is not enough of a moral and can be a short-term solution.
Angelina - 23 February 2013 4:09 pm
Angelina,
For me the creative part was getting someone you don’t know (and who doesn’t know you) to do it.
The bosun won’t be in any shape to be able to identify the attackers.
Or to suspect someone on board the ship paid them.
And even if he did, the attackers won’t be able to identify you because the boat will be miles away.
Much more of a rational than emotional response.
Dave Trott - 23 February 2013 5:09 pm
Is Advertising’s ultimate m.o (modus operandi) to get people to do what you want without them knowing it (Hidden Persuaders) or is it more a case that the best advertising lets the consumer know that their chain is being pulled and then they are happy to be put in the final position of making the choice to purchase?
john p woods - 23 February 2013 7:00 pm
John,
Bad marketing people think it’s the first, but anyone who’s any good at all knows it’s the second.
Dave Trott - 24 February 2013 2:24 pm
Dave,
Would you say ‘conversations with brands’ is an example of the first?
john p woods - 24 February 2013 5:18 pm
Yup.
Dave Trott - 24 February 2013 5:46 pm
I thought as much. Thanks for the clarification.
john p woods - 24 February 2013 6:50 pm
That said, would you say then that there is a point to engaging with the consumer with a ‘conversation’ but only at the point of purchase stage whether it be offline or online and doing it at the ad stage is just a throwback to the snake oil days?
john p woods - 24 February 2013 6:57 pm
” the best advertising lets the consumer know that their chain is being pulled and then they are happy to be put in the final position of making the choice to purchase”
Dave Trott - 24 February 2013 7:08 pm
You’d be William Munny out of Missouri. Killer of conversations with brands.
john p woods - 24 February 2013 7:14 pm
As the ’36 strategies’ so beautifully puts it: “Use a borrowed knife to kill”.
Shanghai - 27 February 2013 1:09 pm
Shanghai,
I didn’t know about The 36 Stratagems so I just looked it up.
You’re right, it’s absolutely brilliant.
Thanks a lot for letting me know about it.
Dave Trott - 27 February 2013 1:24 pm
http://styled-comments.blogspot.ro/2013/02/333.html
Anca - 28 February 2013 3:37 pm