Over-50

If We Get Lucky, We Will Find Redemption, Like Earl Stone in "The Mule"

In the film 'The Mule," glad hander Earl Stone enjoys things his way. 

For decades, not surprisingly, that didn't include his wife and daughter. He prefers focusing on his flower business and being a somebody in the community. 

Like most self-absorbed people, he doesn't understand why they won't let him back into their lives when he is ready to pop back in. 

But, he feels the need to keep trying to connect.

The big money he starts earning as drug transporter, when almost 90 years old, provides an opening. He pays for the flowers and an open bar at his granddaughter's wedding. You bet, he gets to attend. After he finishes strutting around, he does sit next to his ex wife. She endures his tedious presence. Yeah, he's a talker.

Then he ponies up the cost of the granddaughter's cosmetology course. Again, there's an invitation for him to join the family at the graduation. His daughter, whose wedding he had missed, refuses to sit next to him. His wife thaws a bit, though. The granddaughter beams at him. 

Meanwhile, federal Agent Bates is pursuing him. Bates mirrors Stone's self-absorption. He forgets his wife's anniversary. His obsession is on catching a big fish in order to climb the ladder at the federal agency. 

The big win is delayed when Stone risks being offed by the cartel to be with his dying ex wife. Millions of dollars in coke are in his truck for more than a week. His phone is off and the members of the cartel have no idea where he and the coke are.

Choosing to help his former wife navigate the death process is both his moment of redemption and will be his undoing.

On the one hand, the family welcomes him back. At his ex wife's funeral, the daughter extends an invitation for Thanksgiving. 

On the other, the cartel had been chatting about his disappearance on the phone. Bates tracks the conversations. That's the major break he needs.

After the members of cartel beat Stone up when he returns to work, the feds start to move in. Along the highway, he is arrested.

During his trial, Stone makes a stunner of a guilty plea. Members of the family say they will visit him regularly in prison. 

Earl Stone seems to be so many of us aging who find we are being pushed by some internal forces to search for redemption.

The self-justification is over.

We experience a compulsion to make things right, both with ourselves and with those who should have been important to us. 

As W.B. Yeats put it: The centre cannot hold. 

Stone was lucky. He got to make things right.

But, for many others who become older the resolution of the inner conflicts doesn't happen. At least not in time to prevent suicides.

"The Mule" offers perspective on the turmoil which takes us over as we age. The rate of suicide for the middle aged is soaring. 

The hunger for some kind of salvation could be the suicide trigger. The volunteers at the Samaritans, a free 24-hour hotline for those in despair, might explore that possibility with those over-50 who call. Its number is 212-673-3000.

"The Mule" is the film with the most insight about human behavior by Clint Eastwood. He also portrays the Earl Stone character.

"The Mule" is even more powerful than Eastwood's other genius creation "The Unforgiven." 

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

 

Neil Armstrong's Sons Probably Never Sang for Their Father - "First Man"

History and the outsized characters who made will continually be reinterpreted. 

The U.S. mission to land a man on the moon has been reinterpreted by film director Damien Chazelle. What he gives us is the political agenda to beat the Russians in space, imperfect technology, and the haunted and driven man who pulled that off - Neil Armstrong. 

The film is "First Man." We meet Armstrong when his two-year old daughter Karen is dying of brain tumor. His grief is so profound that it even distracts him from his passion which is flying. His superiors ground him and that professional setback catapults him into applying for the space program. 

His wife Janet notes that it's a fresh start for them. But there are really no fresh starts for Armstrong.

He can't or won't shake the grief. On the moon, he leaves Karen's little beaded bracelet. One also wonders if he was able to nurture relationships after that with Karen's older brother and the boy born later. 

As expected, those in the space program are a close-knit group. All the families socialize. So, when several die on duty Armstrong is overwhelmed. 

Throughout his personal emotional turmoil he holds on to his drive. Despite serious brushes with death, he sticks with the space program. He is his job.

In many ways, though, that represents the typical personality type of the professional men in the mid 20th century. Wives rarely saw their husbands. Children essentially grew up fatherless.

Maybe that's why the 1950s television series "Father Knows Best" was so popular. Jim Anderson was always home for family dinner, emotionally accessible and attentive. That provided a model of family life we Baby Boomers longed for. 

Back then, the Janets in America stuck with their distant husbands. The one portrayed in the film was somewhat more assertive than most. She demanded, for example, that Armstrong share with his sons the possibility that he might not return from his quest to reach the moon. 

At the end of the film, it's clear that there is something left in the marriage. But what is also obvious is that something was sucked out of it on the way to the moon. 

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

 

A Very Different Time - We Baby Boomers Were So Sure We Understood What "Courage" Was

Are those female law firm partners, ranging from Kerrie Campbell to Dawn Knepper, courageous for suing BigLaw for alleged gender discrimination?

Or, are they simply piggybacking on third-wave feminism which, in turn, has become a platform for #MeToo?

Or, horrors, are they reckless" 

In these unusual times it's a struggle to get our heads around what is "courage."

On Twitter, public affairs thought leader Richard Levick praised an instance of courage.

In coaching a 40-year-old woman in her personal essay for law school I am having her dig deep to describe how her unique version of courage listened, looked, walked, and talked.

And, among those in a recovery group in central Connecticut there had been an undertow of criticism that a lawyer shot himself in the head instead of having the "courage" to embrace the consequences of his third DUI.

There, of course, is no shortage of templates of courage.

President John Kennedy published his book "Profiles in Courage."

Mr. Smith went to Washington.

And, in "Stuart: A Life Backwards," there is the real life character alcoholic who chooses to live his life on the streets. 

There are also templates of downright stupidity.

The classic example is the teacher in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" who encourages little girls to become political heroes. 

In between, there are so many questions. Unfortunately, most of the answers have been filled with 20th-century platitudes. 

Where can we find insight to help sort out even some of this?

Litigation Communications

Making points of law, policy issues, and politics accessible and engaging for the public, media, investors, and more. Complimentary consultation. Please contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

Blackface - Dark-Skinned Ethnics Also Suffered

Megyn Kelly isn't the only one who has been oblivious to how offensive - and hurtful - blackface can be.

In Iowa, the Davenport School District is investigating a first-grade teacher who wore blackface at a Halloween party.

That particular district is being reviewed because it seems that an excessive number of minority students might have been channeled into special education.

Therefore that teacher at Walcott Elementary School should have been sensitive to the issues associated with blackface. However, she didn't connect the dots.

Megan Lulfoff put blackface on her face, arms, and legs to portray a character out the 2004 movie "Napoleon Dynamite." According to the coverage in the Daily Mail, no one at the event reacted negatively to the depiction. 

Teachers are usually expected to be hyper vigilant about what their behavior could be communicating. Yes, they are held to a higher standard. That's the way it is.

Incidentally, it isn't only African-Americans who experienced the pain of not being white.

Those of us who were officially "white" but from dark-skinned ethnic groups also suffered. Back on the mean streets of 1950s Jersey City, New Jersey, the fair-skinned WASPS, Irish, Germans, and Polish harassed us Italians. The nuns in St. Boniface grade school seemed to favor the cute little blondes, both girls and boys. 

In psychotherapy when I was 25, one issue I struggled to sort out was "being dark." 

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

 

We Baby Boomers Have Been Through This Before

The Internet has failed to live up to the early promise that it would create a level playing field in just about everything.

Instead, the Barbarians are at gate.

That everything the internet was suppose to usher in ranged from universal access to media attention to being able to succeed in business without a huge budget or even a gold-plated network. 

Like the leaders of the emerging counterculture in the late 1960s, the front lines of the internet - the Netizens - were positioned and packaged as spiritually, socially, and intellectually evolved. 

And, the obstacles of class, gender, language, and geography in connecting with other human beings would no longer exist. 

Little of that has come to pass.

In Vanity Fair, Maya Kosoff documents the failure.

Sure, all voices can be heard. But the loudest ones on the internet tend to promote hate or seek to confuse.

Businesses using supposedly low-cost Facebook advertising are now suing Facebook for allegedly inflating, up to 900%, the user metrics associated with video. The higher the metrics, the more Facebook billed. And, how many lawyers have been badly burned by web con artists? 

As in Orwell's  "Animal Farm," many of the Netizens considered themselves more equal that other Netizens.

Some of those more equal than others seem to have the darkness and myopia of human nature of William Shakespeare's classic characters like King Lear. 

Yeah, as the counterculture movement hardened it seemed to mutate into propaganda endorsing sex-on-demand, drug-taking, cult thinking, violence, and throwing away a career. 

The impediments to connecting seem to be increasing, not melting away like the Wicked Witch in "The Wizard of Oz."

Who hasn't been flamed on the internet because they were different from those who had figured out how to attract, hold, and grow followers?

The gang of earnest freelancers at Mediabistro.com put me under attack for two days.

The fans of Gawker explicitly tormented me for about four years. Included were weekly executions in which the decision would be made if I would be granted clemency. 

Unfortunately, being on the internet, both web and mobile, is a necessary evil. The snail mail mode of developing business is dead. Attending conferences in-person to network and job hunt has become too expensive at this time of stagnant wages and fees.

Yes, google has become the resume for individuals. That's what Richard Bolles hammers in the 2019 edition of "What Color Is Your Parachute?"

Google also has become the homepage for businesses. It overrides websites. And in his book "The Four," Scott Galloway predicts it will eliminate the concept of branding. Instead of sticking with brand choice Planet Fitness when we move to Ohio, we know to key in on google "fitness centers - Eastern OH." A lower-cost fit might pop up on the first page of google. 

Here's an analogy to the wonderous potential of the internet: baby boomers' access to a college education.

That seemed like the exit from being regulated to low-status, low-earning work.

Then, soon enough, it became obvious that not all school credentials were equal. That is exactly what the current trial "Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard" is about.

The stink that stuck on our realization that the game was still rigged hasn't diminished. But, we tell our grandchildren that they must go to college - and beyond in higher education. 

Likewise, we are locked into the internet. 

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

Families - Most of Us Are Lucky We Survived Ours

It was Tolstoy who talked about unhappy families. 

Now, that concept seems way too tame.

The media outlets continually report about broken families in which violence is the common mode of communication. That's how the members transmit messages.

Today, that violence took the form of a suicide of the father.

That was following the charges filed against the mother for an alleged horrific beating given to one twin. He - Kian - is in critical condition in a New York City hospital. The other twin - a girl named Elaina - has been found dead in a basement. 

Drugs might have set this tragedy in play. Allegedly the father got the mother, a law school dropout, hooked.

The father - Mohammad Torabi - jumped to his death from the roof of the Renaissance New York Hotel today. His body was found on the third floor. 

The mother - Tina Torabi - is in the midst of serious criminal problems. Here are more details from the tabloid the New York Post. 

This kind of scenario has become increasingly common.

The one most in the public's mind are the murders of the wife, the unborn baby, and two young female children in the Watts' household. The father, a suspect, had been on suicide watch in jail. 

In Americana, the family is perceived as a revered social system. That is one of the reasons many anticipate the new justice on the U.S. Supreme Court - Brett Kavanaugh - will be successful in blowing up "Roe v. Wade." 

The Roman Catholic Church, in its heyday, reinforced that image of the good family. A motto back in the old days had been: The family that prays together stays together.

Nightly, on our knees, my immigrant family did the rosary. However, that ritual didn't keep it together. Five members committed suicide. Of course, back then, those deaths were made to appear not like self-deliverance. All were permitted to be buried in Catholic sacred ground.

And, painter Norman Rockwell provided graphic props to the gospel of family joy such as the iconic Thanksgiving dinner. 

When will supporters of family finally get out the message that such a social unit is difficult to manage - and grow up in? That might release some of the extreme expectations about what life inside a family is supposed to be. 

Perhaps there should be a GoFundMe site for hiring a top public relations agency to position and package the meme: Families are fragile entities. Treat each and every member with care and respect. Were care and respect missing in the Torabi's and Watts' households? 

Full Disclosure: Once I could make my own living, I created a family of rescue cats and dogs. Clinically depressed since age 11, I could hang on by accepting their love. A wonderful film with that theme is "Alpha." 

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

 

PR Agencies - Are the Digital Natives Stealing Your Business? - Push Back on Halloween

One of the time/interactional burdens of being in professional services, such as public relations, is the requirement to attend or host so many client events.

Yet, it's at those in which new business is developed, client churn is prevented, and fresh strategies are floated for feedback - and acceptance.

That's why what costumes public relations players put together for their clients' (probably multiple) parties are critical to the agency's survival and scaling.

According the Holmes Report, in the U.S., the public relations industry only grew 2.6% in 2017 versus 4.6% in 2016.

Right now, the game is mutating into a zero-sum one. 

Competition is coming not from only other established agencies.

Digital natives graduating from the Ivies with degrees in communications are hanging out shingles. With their influencer sites and social media fast talk, they are dazzling clients. That's pulling market share from traditional firms. 

Halloween parties demand the performance of a lifetime.

Here are the 5 coolest costumes. They align with the key flashpoints in the public relations industry.

The Ghost of Branding Past. Should a client invest so much in building a brand?

After all, the current loudest voice in communications is Scott Galloway, author of "The Four."  Search engines and Alexa, Galloway hammers, have killed branding. The best at search engine optimization (SEO) and who's embedded in the Amazon empire get the business, influence, and power, not the biggest brandname. So goes the gospel according to Galloway.

The public relations representative's elevator speech at the party must contain statistics. They must deal with both the positive outcomes from branding and the results achieved through the great SEO firm the agency partners with. 

Robot-Like Figure. As the current cliché goes, today Don Draper from "Mad Men" would be a data guy.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a must-have. Both for predicting how and when clients could get into trouble and for identifying opportunities for influence and sales. 

In addition, it's imperative that a public relations agency indicates it knows its way around this tool.  

That demonstration entails chatting up at the Halloween party both the pros and the limitations of AI.

Hype scares. Overselling, forget it. The most effective approach is starting the conversation with the question: Have you been wondering if your competitors are using AI?

Logo of Digital Media. There is plenty of confusion about earned media vs. paid media (including sponsored content), old-line news centers such as The New York Times vs. digital hotties such as Axios, and focusing on media vs. just turning whatever over to influencers. 

Being dressed with the Axios logo opens up the issue of emerging realities in influence and marketing. No one wants to be sold to. After all, trust is so 20th century.

Therefore, the discussion dances around concrete examples of outcomes. That provides an opening for prospects or clients to confide their own angst. Have prepared a loosely constructed proposal. Keep stopping for yes-buts.

Symbol for Frugality. That could be coming to the party dressed as Ebenezer Scrooge before he had been born again Christmas eve. Or it could be as a budget graphic.

A dog fight is going on over pricing. A few agencies at the top of the food chain can still bill like everyone did pre-crash. But even that comfort zone can be blown into a million pieces by upstarts leveraging low-cost digital tactics and bypassing expensive traditional media strategies. Their signature is that they are the go-to people for over-performing and under-billing. 

More requests for proposals are stating: Individuals only, no agencies. 

Crisis Shaman. The costume will require some imagination. The challenge is to be able to communicate instantly that the public relations representative can cast spells on all those bearing down on the client. Yes, the game is the art of voodoo and the science of perception management.

One outfit could simply consist of a Gene Grabowski mask. A partner at kglobal, he has established the aura of being able to transform an organization's problems into opportunity.

That's not new, of course. Turbulence as platform for scaling dates back to management consultant Peter Drucker in the 1980s.  

What is new is being totally present in the moment. That's what establishes the platform for how organizations can emerge more than whole from the crisis. So, forget templates from a less volatile era, as Grabowski explains here in PR Week.  

Another outfit could be George Bailey's guardian angel Clarence Odbody from "It's a Wonderful Life."

That's a wrap on costumes. And, no, you can't wear the same costume to multiple parties. 

Along those lines of opportunity, focused public relations professionals can extract seminal case studies from the Halloween parties as how-tos for orchestrating special events. 

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

 

A Beer Will Never Again Be Just a Beer

She said. Then he said.

After a week, the FBI might be able to share with members of the U.S. Senate data and sworn statements which support some of the contentions or defenses. In journalism, we are trained to have at least two sources before going public.

So, right now, we know nothing. The great emotion which has gripped the nation essentially is based on speculation.

The exception might be that it is a safe bet to assume this: No beer company, at least one which values its branding, will make a job offer to Brett Kavanaugh to promote its product. Repeatedly during his sworn statement in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee he praised beer.

However, the tone and content were, well, brittle. The persona was nowhere near a Harrison Ford or David Muir type we love explaining how he enjoys the simple pleasure of a beer. Or, on the female side, the over-90 Betty White kind of phenomenon attributing longevity to X brand of beer. 

Actually, in his seeming belligerence and lawyerly way of not directly answering questions, Kavanaugh might have delivered a setback to how the nation perceives beer-drinking. 

Likely ad agencies are already factoring that in for their clients' SuperBowl ads.

Full Disclosure: I had been a barmaid on Calle de San Francisco in Barcelona, Spain. Human beings connect with the label on their drink.

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes paid sponsored content.

Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

 

Yes, There Was a Time When Life Was Bigger, Wider than a Career Path

In 1983, the beginning of the yuppie ethos, the movie "The Big Chill" explored that new world through the suicide meme.

Former college friends take time from their professional preoccupations to bear witness to the one of them who offed himself. At the time, the formula worked. The message, at least as I got it, was: Life is bigger and wider than the career path. 

This evening, on ABC, the new series "A Million Little Things" leverages the same prop - a suicide. But, this time around it misses the mark.

The three 30-something friends, are too far gone emotionally to pull anything out of the suicide by their supposed best buddy Jonathan. Not this evening. And probably not for the rest of the season.

Also, given that they are so locked into themselves, it's no surprise that they never picked up on Jonathan's internal stress.

In addition, they are clueless that one of them - Eddie - has been having an affair with the deceased's wife. It's possible Jonathan knew about that. Since his administrative assistant Ashley is keeping his suicide note secret, we actually know little what was going on internally and externally which pushed him over the guardrail on the balcony.

Meanwhile Rome, a commercial producer, was orchestrating his own suicide through pills when the call came in about Jonathan's suicide. The note had been written. A handful of pills were already in his mouth. He halted. For now. 

For now, Gary is a male breast cancer survivor. But the possibility of breaking out of remission hovers over him. No, he can't grasp onto a philosophical something to guide him through. What he does grasp onto is a clinical psychologist who is in the support group who is also in remission. They not only have sex but attend the funeral mass together. 

The era taking shape in "The Big Chill" has hardened into relationships-as-usual in "A Million Little Things." Friends have lost the know-how of being there for friends. They have turned inward, even when, like Eddie, they haven't hit it big as professionals. It is Eddie's wife, whom he is fleeing, who personifies the total pursuit of success.

The show struggles to connect with an audience who is likely also experiencing the despair and perhaps suicides of those in the lives. But there is no takeaway. Those of us who have experienced the actual suicides and attempted suicides of members of our personal and professional lives know damn well there are signals of deep distress. 

As a senior in high school I picked that up. The winner of a national spelling bee contest, who was a classmate, was being fawned over by the administration and faculty. Since the public school - Snyder - was in the hood, that was understandable. However, I felt how wrong that was to do to any teenager. But, I didn't understand how to reach. In his freshman year at college he hung himself. That was no surprise.

In my own family five members took their lives. Those deaths were also no surprise. And in only one situation did I regret not intervening. The rest just couldn't grab hold of the tools which could manufacture hope.

Professionally, a lawyer I did business with committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. Despite so much support, he couldn't stay away from the booze. When he talked about his recovery, I got it that he was mouthing the party line, not committed to changing his life. The only surprise was that his suicide wasn't the passive kind - that is, a fatal car accident.

"A Million Little Things" is an insult to human suffering, especially among the survivors of suicide.

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission. Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

"Animal House" Was Tame, Compared to This Allegation by Julie Swetnick

The day before the career-make-it-or-break-it Senate hearing for Brett Kavanaugh, there is the biggest disclosure bombshell of all.

It comes from Julie Swetnick. She knew Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge from high school days (1981-82).

As Ruth Brown reports in the New York Post:

" … [Swetnick] alleges she saw them [Kavanaugh, Judge] and their pals spike punch at house parties so that girls who drank it could be 'gang raped' by a "train' of boys." 

Swetnick states that she had been among the victims.

In addition, she notes that when intoxicated, allegedly Kavanaugh did unwanted touching of females. Than allegedly including "grinding."

Timing, as the old saying goes, is everything.

Give the high-profile of the Kavanaugh chaos, this series of allegations will be on the minds of everyone, including those directly in the loop, during the hearing tomorrow. That is, if Kavanaugh doesn't step down from the nomination before.

We can anticipate skits on late night shows this evening.

There will be someone simulated to look like the high school version of Kavanaugh adding substances to the punch bowl. Then he will stumble, drunk, to the balcony and throw up over the railing. A good time will be had by all who stay up late tonight.

Tomorrow is another situation.

If any of the allegations by the three women who have stepped forward are perceived or proved to be true, then supporters of Kavanaugh should be furious. With that kind of baggage, he should not have accepted the nomination. Even a history of out of hand drinking in his youth should have convinced him to stay out of the limelight and not go for the nomination.

And, of course, the question on everyone's minds is: Why is the vetting process for high-level appointments seemingly so flawed?

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission. Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com