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glenmenlow · 4 years

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How One Small Agency Changed Advertising

Jon Bond and Richard Kirshenbaum are trying hard not to be seen, hiding in plain sight at the Pen & Pencil restaurant, an upscale eatery in Midtown Manhattan.

It’s the lunchtime rush and the waiter, dressed in a crisp white shirt and black trousers has come over once, twice, to take their order but again they push him away. The two ad hustlers work at different advertising agencies but have a side gig that lets them meet during lunch hour to collaborate on freelance projects.

The projects pay just enough to buy the duo lunch at the most expensive restaurants in town.

They only have the lunch hour to come up an idea for a full-page print ad for Kenneth Cole footwear. There’s no agreement to run an ad — this means that Kenneth Cole himself has to feel like the ad is good enough to spend the money.

The year is 1986. Ronald Reagan is President of the United States. Madonna is singing “Papa Don’t Preach,” Cyndi Lauder has her hit “True Colors.” The movie “Top Gun” starring Tom Cruise has not come out yet, but the off-kilter Australian rom-com “Crocodile Dundee” is playing on movie screens.

In the Philippines, dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda are getting headlines as jet-setting bootstrappers. Their country is besieged by enormous poverty, yet the couple plays on the international party circuit. News flash: A newspaper article reveals that shopper Imelda Marcos owns thousands of pairs of shoes.

A couple days later advertising creative director James Patterson walks through the sad hallways of the legendary J. Walter Advertising agency (this same James Patterson will later become famous author James Patterson). In the 21st century JWT will become one of the templates for the T.V. show “Madmen”, but in 1986 the agency reeks of mold.

Patterson steps inside every office of the JWT creative department and holds up a page in The New York Times, before startled art directors and copywriters.

It is a full-page ad for Kenneth Cole shoes. The advertisement is two simple sentences in black and white type. No photograph. No picture of shoes. Executionally, it’s the least expensive advertisement you could produce in The New York Times. In fact, the only thing less expensive than this ad would be to run a blank page. And the ad is a simple one-liner.

“Imelda Marcos bought 2,700 pairs of shoes. She could’ve at least had the courtesy to buy a pair of ours. — Kenneth Cole.”

“This is the kind of work we should be doing here!” Patterson declares, then stomps down the hallway to the next office and then the next. It’s a long hallway. “Why can’t we do this kind of work here?” “Why aren’t you doing ads like this?”

Finally, Patterson reaches copywriter Richard Kirshenbaum’s office and leans in. “Why can’t you do this kind of work?” he roars.

Kirshenbaum looks at the ad, then at Patterson and laughs. “There’s no way we can do that kind of work here,” Kirshenbaum replies. “This place sucks. Kenneth Cole is my freelance client!”

This sparks the beginning of legendary advertising agency Kirshenbaum + Bond. Gone now, nearly forgotten, K+B (which later became KBS) ignited many of the themes, executions and thinking that still run through social, digital and traditional advertising and marketing today.

The first pop-up store.

Using real people instead of actors in television commercials.

The real-life video look of “Reality TV”.

Brilliant ideas that have so much fun, sense, and inexpensive baked into them that clients cannot resist buying them. And people could not help but talk about them.

Kirshenbaum + Bond promoted Word Of Mouth (WOM) not as a by-product, but as an intentional outcome. Twenty years before the twitterstream.

Kirshenbaum + Bond’s Kenneth Cole print campaign became a New York thing. In the 1990s, everyone in Manhattan — consumers and industry folks alike — watched and waited for the next ad to appear.

“There was no media plan,” recalls Jon Bond. “We waited for events to happen and got Kenneth’s opinion.”

Loaded with puns, double entendres and winks to the Manhattan tribe, Kenneth Cole ads were culturally relevant, deliberately cause-ridden, outrageously not as much about the footwear as they were about the values of the people who wished to wear Kenneth Cole shoes.

Importantly, Kenneth Cole advertising gave modern issues their voice: AIDS, homelessness, political frictions. When Lorena Bobbit cut off her husband’s penis, there was an ad for that. When Vice President Dan Quayle publicly embarrassed himself by misspelling a word, there was an ad for that. When conservatives ignored the AIDS epidemic, Kenneth Cole ads boldly supported research and funding.

In a time before “purpose-driven” K+B’s Kenneth Cole ads pointedly proclaimed pay attention, this matters. The ads were funny, cute, ballsy, tone smart and full-page news in the most culturally diverse and actionable city in America. Kenneth Cole ads served as activist prompts to help push societal issues forward.

The DNA for Nike’s Kaepernick advertising lies in Kenneth Cole. “Kenneth Cole was definitely at the forefront of purpose-driven marketing,” nods Bill Oberlander who was art director on the Kenneth Cole account.

Companies large and small started pointing to Kenneth Cole ads as the thing. “We started the agency with that one client,” says Jon Bond.

Fast Forward

Colleen Broomall was in sixth grade when her mother told her that she didn’t want to take her to Take Your Daughter To Work Day. Mrs. Barbara Broomall was at an alternative high school teacher in New Jersey where she taught emotionally disturbed students. She didn’t want daughter Colleen to get caught up in the complexities of her students.

“I was 12 years old,” recalls Colleen. “I’m a feminist and so when my mom said ‘No,’ I asked the Snapple lady if I could go to work with her.”

The “Snapple Lady” was Wendy Kaufman, a Snapple employee that Kirshenbaum + Bond had written into television commercials.

Snapple management had seen the Kenneth Cole campaign and wanted Kirshenbaum + Bond to do something just as smart, funny, breakthrough for them. At the time, the brewed tea company Snapple was a regional, family-owned business — an outlier in a beverage industry dominated by Coke and Pepsi.

The company advertised Snapple on local NBC radio shows starring Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh (fledgling brands themselves). But when those celebrities made on-air mentions of Snapple, many in their audience didn’t know who or what “Snapple” was.

“Before those commercials started airing it was just a spunky little beverage company,” says Broomall. “People would write to Snapple, but no one would answer the letters. Wendy appointed herself the PR lady and started answering letters.”

“I was working with the truck drivers handling orders,” explains Wendy Kaufman, arguably the first “real” person to star on television screens (so-called “Reality T.V.” did not appear for another decade). “I assigned myself to public relations, because I could relate publicly.”

On the morning of Take Your Daughter To Work Day, a black limo pulled up outside Colleen Broomall’s house in New Jersey with six cases of Snapple. Likewise, Colleen spent her day helping Wendy visit people’s homes and brighten their days with free Snapple.

“People related to me because I was 100-percent natural advertising,” recalls Wendy. This was in the middle of the Cola Wars, when rivals Coke and Pepsi were flaunting supermodels like Cindy Crawford and Christy Brinkley.

“I was overweight, I had foibles. I wasn’t beautiful,” says Kaufman. “I was not perfect and not listened to. It was a radical move for them to hire me. And it paid off — the fans loved me.

“K+B had this wonderful opportunity to grow their brand while we were building our brand,” continues Wendy, who currently is quarantining in Western Massachusetts. “We were these crazy people ending up in the mainstream. We were the outsiders, the underdogs. We were making people happy. We were building together. We were like a big family.”

“Wendy brought so much kindness and joy because of her spirit,” says Colleen Broomall. “And I wanted to be like her.”

“The goodness that we did for other people,” recalls Kaufman. “If people didn’t have money, we gave them Snapple. It was a life changer for people.”

“The idea behind Snapple was that trust is more important than being ‘perfect’,” says Jon Bond. “There were no scripts. Everything was real. A dog wandered into the frame, we kept it in. We were honest.”

(Snapple is one of the great success stories in advertising. It is also the saddest. Snapple was a $23 million business when they hired K+B and a $750 million company three years later. When Snapple sold to Quaker Oats, they promptly dumped the Wendy campaign.)

There Are Other Stories

Hennessy cognac sales were declining because people were giving up after-dinner drinks. K+B visited their local bar across the street to experiment. They found that by chilling the cognac and adding a drop of lemon, it made the product lighter and more suitable for pre-dinner cocktails. Then they poured it into a Martini glass because it’s cooler (even though ‘martini’ at the time was defined as a drink with vermouth and vodka or gin). But what happened next was inspirational.

“We hired dozens of actors in key cities to invade bars that didn’t serve Hennessy,” recalls Jon Bond. “We staged mini dramas inside the bar — typically where the attractive couple gets into an argument and then makes up and orders Hennessy for everyone. No one knew it was staged until years later when an Esquire article outed us.”

Meanwhile, Hennessy sales grew from 400,000 to 2.5MM cases. Hennessy won Spirits Marketer of The Year twice.

Today, Pop-Up stores are a ubiquitous part of retail, but until K+B christened them by creating snap retail spaces for Delta, “The Apprentice” and temporary retail space for Target on the barges of the Hudson River, the pop-up concept was an outlier idea that did not really exist. (K+B also helped upgrade Target from price shopper to designy chic.)

In 1992, legendary rock music group The Rolling Stones wanted to launch a clothing brand called Rockwear. (Polo shirts that looked a lot like Ralph Lauren — except The Stones’s iconic tongue logo would replace the Polo Pony.) The perfect middle finger to establishment fashion designer orthodoxy.

Kirshenbaum + Bond presented a launch advertising campaign to Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger while he was on the Steel Wheels tour. They met at the Ritz Carlton bar in Naples.

Mick had attended London School of Economics, so he often acted more like a brand manager for The Rolling Stones franchise, than the band’s lead singer.

Jon Bond and Richard Kirshenbaum showed Mick a magazine advertisement that included a photograph of the band members on stage with no clothes (music instruments were strategically placed).

Jagger stared at the photo. And stared some more.

Finally, Mick looked up and said, “Well. That’s ok for me because, well, I keep myself pretty fit. But have you had a good look at the other guys?”

It is difficult beyond words to describe how irreverent, shocking, funny, outrageous and heartening K+B work was within the tonality of 1990s America. The world was flat. Not even “Saturday Night Live” was particularly funny. This was a time before sex in the White House. Terrorists hijacked airplanes, not cities or countries. Everyone could name The Beatles.

Playing in the amphitheater of 1990s media, commerce needed hard dollars to be seen or heard. Startups existed, but only after they had secured millions of dollars in funding. Advertising was targeted toward an ideal consumer, primped and ready for Prime Time, not for the great sloppy consuming proletariat.

Emotional, personal, or social were adjectives reserved for greeting cards. All other advertisers geared up for polished full-frontal assaults.

By contrast the Kenneth Cole campaign was not only an efficient use of media, it became a megaphone for social issues, current events, human rights, values and social justice. Transparency? You could see right through them. Their value proposition in trendy New York City did not come from the shoes, but from the people who wore them. (To answer the question whether or not purpose-driven brands succeed: Kenneth Cole went from $2 million in sales to over $500 million during the life of the campaign.)

On the other side of town, the consumable Donny Deutsch was doing similar things (example: a real person bit to help launch IKEA’s entry into Long Island) but they did not derive from the same provocative spinal tap.

Kirshenbaum + Bond held unfair advantage because the agency was driven by its culture.

The culture of the agency was overt acceptance — if they were gay, the odd person in high school, the person who didn’t fit the mold — for the first time in their lives they felt that they fit in. K+B was a place for outcasts. At the agency’s 10th anniversary party, the receptionist, a huge black gay man, lay down in Jon and Richard’s lap and sang “Mister President”.

A New, Disruptive Agency

Traditional, conservative advertising agencies considered K+B to be like a spit in the face.

“At K+B the culture was ‘Best ideas win,’” sums up Rosemarie Ryan, former president of K+B. “There was no such thing as ‘we can’t do that.’ It was a meritocracy. People didn’t care about titles, we cared about what work we put out into the world. I was 31 when I became President. People were very young and tapped into the culture.”

These days, Joe Doucet is head of his own design firm JDXP and listed in Fast Company as one of the century’s top industrial designers. But he got a head start as Partner and head of the Design group at Kirshenbaum + Bond. Doucet remembers the intensity, the desire to do great work, the closeness of the people who worked there. “We were the underdogs pitching against much larger agencies,” he recalls. “We were very small, very nimble.”

“We didn’t think about advertising in traditional terms of the 30-second television commercial — although we did plenty of those,” recalls Rosemarie Ryan. “When I started we were three people and our clients didn’t have huge budgets. So we had to learn how to make the most of what we had, which forced us to think more creatively about how we went to market.

“PR was fundamental. We were integrated, word of mouth, experiences (chalk on pavement) that added to the other work we were doing. Strategically placed media that could get a lot of interest. We were way ahead of that — that’s what made us successful. It was a very modern way to think about going to market.”

“At the time we were very much media-agnostic — we didn’t think (the formula) print ad, tv spot,” agrees Bill Oberlander, who today is founder and executive creative director at his agency Oberland. “For Snapple, I think the assignment was a B2B ad and we wondered how to connect with the audience. Period. That became the idea for Snapple Stickers — we put stickers for Mango-Flavored Snapple on mangoes at the grocery store (and also on apples and other Snapple fruits).

“For Bambu lingerie we put ‘stickers’ on the sidewalk: ‘From here it looks like you need a new pair of underwear.’ We used watercolor paints so we wouldn’t get in trouble with the city.

“How do we touch the consumer at an emotional level — and let’s just make it up as we go?”

Even The Stories Have Stories

Anything you need to know to explain Jon Bond can be summed in a single sentence: His mother was a psychoanalyst and his father was a film and theater star. After going to Washington University in St. Louis, Jon went back to New York City and took a job as a messenger. He dropped off packages at swanky advertising agencies and during one delivery spotted David Ogilvy’s “Confessions of an Advertising Man”. He became enthralled and decided to become an advertising copywriter. He put together a portfolio. He worked at Trout & Ries, the team that came up with the concept of “Positioning” in the 1970s (a ubiquitous marketing term ever since). Then he met Richard Kirshenbaum.

Shortly after James Patterson flashed the Kenneth Cole Imelda Marcos ad in front of Richard Kirshenbaum, Jon Bond met Bill Tragos, one of the founders of advertising agency TBWA, at a party in Greenwich, Connecticut. Jon Bond asked Bill Tragos if he should start an advertising agency. “Do it,” said Tragos. “You’ll make a lot of money.”

Where Are They Now?

Graduates of K+B have spilled out into the universe and become directors, photographers, designers, and builders of their own agencies.

Jane Geraghty is in London running Landor. Strategist Domenico Vitale helped to create People Ideas + Culture, a new kind of creative company. Account executive Felicia Stingone helped rebrand 92nd Street Y into 92Y and then went to work with legendary New York City restauranteur Danny Meyer. Creative Mike McGuire became a dynamite film director. Rosemarie Ryan started co-collective. Jon Bond is still in Manhattan, and even today is a serial entrepreneur with companies like Media Kitchen, Big Fuel, Lime, The Shipyard, and more.

“Jon Bond is basically the guerilla marketing pioneer,” says Geoff Colon, head of Microsoft Advertising’s Brand Studio. Colon reminds us from Seattle that human behavior has become simplified to data points and attribution; intuitive judgement is out of bounds. “Jon was a trailblazer in the space we now consider to be disruptive or guerilla marketing, when in fact he was just thinking, This is how people behave — let’s capitalize on that somehow.

“People in the tech world think that’s not important anymore,” remarks Colon. “We take for granted the things we do today. We forget that they were once original thoughts.”

Which is probably the best way to remember Kirsenbaum + Bond.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Patrick Hanlon, Author of Primal Branding

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mastcomm · 4 years

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Your Friday Briefing – The New York Times

Coronavirus cases soar in China

Health officials said that 564 people had died from the virus and that there had been more than 28,000 confirmed cases, an increase of more than 35 percent in just a few days.

Outside of China, 225 cases have been reported, and a death in the Philippines. But the World Health Organization said that no new countries had reported cases.

Here are the latest updates.

Wuhan: A 34-year-old doctor who tried to raise the alert about the coronavirus has died of it. The authorities in the city, the epicenter of the outbreak, will begin rounding up the infected into mass quarantine camps. People are scrambling to muster help in Pittsburgh, Wuhan’s “sister city” of 40 years.

Quarantines: The number of coronavirus cases aboard a cruise ship quarantined off Japan doubled to 20. And Australian evacuees taken to Christmas Island, a former detention center for asylum seekers, were given sunscreen, sandals and video games, but some complained about conditions there.

Celebrating acquittal, Trump calls his impeachment ‘evil’

In a long, stream-of-consciousness speech at the White House on Thursday, President Trump said the Democrats who impeached him were “corrupt” and “horrible” and claimed vindication following his acquittal a day earlier in the Senate’s impeachment trial.

“It was evil,” he said. Some of his remarks veered into profanity.

While thanking his allies, Mr. Trump said “top scum” at the F.B.I. had long plotted to end his presidency.

He personally attacked top Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Representative Adam Schiff, and mocked Senator Mitt Romney, the only Republican to vote to convict him.

Context: President Bill Clinton reacted to his own impeachment acquittal in 1999 by calling for reconciliation.

Dead heat, and more errors, in Iowa count

Senator Bernie Sanders drew nearly even with Pete Buttigieg after the release of almost all results in the Iowa caucuses, the crucial first contest in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The state party has been delivering results piecemeal since Monday amid delays attributed to “quality control.” But a New York Times analysis found a slew of errors and inconsistencies, raising doubts about whether there will ever be a definitive outcome. Here are live updates.

Response: With 3 percent of results still outstanding, Mr. Sanders declared victory, while Tom Perez, the Democratic National Committee chairman, called for the Iowa Democratic Party to “immediately begin a recanvass” in order to “assure public confidence in the results.”

Iraqis doubt U.S. accusation against Iran-linked militia

Just six weeks ago, an attack killed an U.S. contractor in Iraq. The U.S. blamed an Iranian-backed militia and, at the peak of a series of retaliatory exchanges with Iran, killed the country’s top general, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.

For a time, the U.S. and Iran were at the brink of war, and Iran accidentally downed a Ukrainian passenger jet, killing 176 people.

But Iraqi military and intelligence officials now say they believe it is unlikely the militia — which denies responsibility — carried out the attack that killed the contractor. They say that circumstantial evidence points to a different culprit: the Islamic State.

Our correspondent in Iraq investigated.

Grounds for doubt: The volley of rockets that killed the contractor on Dec. 27 was fired from a truck in a Sunni Muslim part of Iraq’s Kirkuk Province. The area was notorious for attacks by the Islamic State, but would have been hostile territory for the Shiite militia the U.S. blamed, Khataib Hezbollah. That militia has not had a presence in the area since 2014.

If you have 7 minutes, this is worth it

The Oscars tell a story of their own

Ahead of the Academy Awards on Sunday, our critic Wesley Morris discussed the nine films nominated for best picture, eight of which are about white people.

“Couldn’t these nine movies just be evidence of taste? Good taste? They certainly could. They are.” But after years of threatened boycotts and diversification campaigns, he writes, “the assembly of these movies feels like a body’s allergic reaction to its own efforts at rehabilitation.”

Here’s what else is happening

Boeing investigation: The company and U.S. safety officials are refusing to cooperate with a new inquiry by Dutch lawmakers into a crash near Amsterdam in 2009 that killed nine people and had striking parallels with two more recent accidents involving the manufacturer’s 737 Max.

Night sky: Like SpaceX, the telecommunications company OneWeb plans to build a constellation of internet satellites for beaming internet back to earth. Astronomers fear that the satellites will seriously mar their view of the universe.

China: For years, the Thousand Talents recruitment plan attracted U.S. scientists with grants. Federal prosecutors now say China used the program to purloin sensitive technology.

Snapshot: Above, a selfie by the astronaut Christina Koch in October. She is back on Earth after completing three all-female spacewalks and setting a record for time in space. We looked at an even broader range of her accomplishments.

Cook: Finish the week with a hearty one-pan meal of roast chicken and mustard-glazed cabbage.

Listen: “I’m the Man” is the first single on “To Love Is to Live,” the debut solo by Jehnny Beth. The longtime frontwoman of the post-punk band Savages spoke to The Times about going solo.

Read: “Why We’re Polarized,” by Ezra Klein of the news site Vox, debuts this week on our hardcover nonfiction and combined print and e-book nonfiction best-seller lists.

Smarter Living: Our advice column Culture Therapist suggests ways to solve your problems using art. Today’s question is about opening oneself to new romantic relationships.

And now for the Back Story on …

Covering the Oscars

The Oscars are just two days away, and that means it’s crunch time for Kyle Buchanan, The Times’s Carpetbagger columnist. He spoke to Sara Aridi of the Culture desk about what it’s like to cover the awards show.

What stands out about this year’s season?

After last year, where Netflix was so ascendant, people are very excited about movies in the theater. “1917” is one of those movies that you need to see in a theater, and “Parasite” became such a massive word-of-mouth hit in the theater. Those movies provide that encapsulation of what we go to the movies for.

We go to see something on a gigantic screen that moves us in a gigantic way. We go to be transported into an experience that startles and shocks us. Streaming has its virtues and its pleasure, but I think those are two unique testimonials to what the theatrical experience can be.

Do the Oscars still carry weight in pop culture?

Absolutely. If the Oscars reflect Hollywood in 2020, it says that we’re still going through growing pains about the streaming era and that we still have a lot of ground to make up when it comes to representation and whose stories we take seriously.

How have you been preparing for the big night?

I’m trying to get a full night’s sleep. In the campaigning phase, from November to the Oscar nominations, you can go to a brunch for a certain star, and then to a lunchtime screening with a Q. and A., and then to an afternoon performance of a song contender, and then a premiere and then an after-party.

What else have you seen that readers might not know?

Joaquin Phoenix [who’s up for best actor for “The Joker”] has been a fascinating figure on this circuit. He’s trying to both play the game and stay out of it at the same time. All these awards shows have bent over backward to attract him.

I never would have thought I would miss the boiled chicken breast I usually got at these shows, but they have converted to a plant-based menu in the hopes that Joaquin will attend.

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Penn

Thank you To Mark Josephson and Eleanor Stanford for the break from the news. You can reach the team at [email protected].

P.S. • We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is about Senator Mitt Romney’s vote to convict President Trump. • Here’s our Mini Crossword, and a clue: What the Earth revolves on (four letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • The 1619 Project is the centerpiece of a new wave of ads from “The Truth Is Worth It,” a Times campaign. Those with access to YouTube can preview our latest TV commercial, which will air during the Oscars on Sunday, featuring the singer, actor and producer Janelle Monáe.

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tryingtobelitaf · 7 years

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I slept with a pastor

We had planned to meet within just 2 days of talking. This must have been one of the fastest meet-ups I’ve ever done asides from hook-ups, I thought. For starters, his profile was a long-ass cheesy essay about life, passions and about understanding relationship dynamics. I was surprised myself that I actually read through the whole thing.

Ah, a short look into our conversation history also showed that he complimented my smile 4 years ago on the very same platform. How funny.

But he made a move again (a conversation starter, I mean), and while he did not introduce himself to me it wasn’t like I didn’t know who he was. He was prominent, perhaps too prominent. I have seen his Facebook posts, articles about him, campaigns which he spoke out for, the news, and it was odd that a nobody like me who only came across his writings on social media was now talking to a somebody. I admit, there was that novelty. I guess I understood and saw how being a huge ambassador for a controversial issues in this country could potentially bar one from finding dates. After all, I did read that article, about how being in his place in this society has largely been detrimental to his dating life. But I cannot deny, there was a bit of a pressure thinking of meeting him.

Coming from an oddly liberal but also conservative Christian family, my general impression of Christians and Christian leaders have largely been skewed, mostly in a negative way. It didn’t help that there was all this anti-gay counselling or worst still, parents spewing out bible verses word after word, sentence after sentence at you everyday through whatsapp. I mean, I understand it’s their way of showing concern but for someone who’s a “backslider” and have completely lost interest in learning about the Bible or staying in church, these things can be more than just a drab.

But I digress.

So I started off my day with waking up late. He had invited me to his house for lunch and I readily agreed, which was rather bold and daring for me to do so. Loads of things could go wrong, I thought to myself on my journey from my house to his. He could be like my parents, he could have used this as an evangelical move, he could be a weirdo, he could be awkward, he could have been someone with evil intentions that I just haven’t been able to see through yet, what if he poisons my food, what if he locks the door and doesn’t allow me leave. Of course I had all these thoughts. But I figured, someone of a certain social status probably wouldn’t dare be too bold in action. And yet, I also knew he was a pastor. Is there then a certain way I have to act in front of him? Is it gonna be all about God, would I have to sit through a sermon within the comforts of his home (wasn’t even sure if it was gonna be comfortable), is it not weird that he’s both gay and a pastor and i’m at his house? Me, a young adult that’s probably about 20 years younger than him. He’s closer to my parents’ age than he is to mine. He was midway through the army when I was born. So many thoughts.

He lived in a mature estate. Quiet, full of greenery…and loads of senior citizens. Upon turning down the street, I honestly wondered if I was at the right place. I felt out of place, being the only seemingly young one out of a bus full of adults who looked at the very least 55 and above. A stark juxtaposition catches my eye, a new block of HDB flats against the mature estate which encompassed the surrounding geography. It was slightly comforting to know that perhaps I wasn’t the only one who stood out, that the architecture was my solace for that fleeting moment. I mean, this whole thing felt very out of place to begin with. It was so different, and even he sticks out in this small Singaporean community.

Against the backdrop of old apartments and moss ridden walls, his house was vastly different. A door, with an electronic sorta lock. No shoes outside (he later explained that there were shoe thieves lurking about). His house was a balanced mix of white, brown and black. It was actually very aesthetically pleasing and my eyes were indeed very comfortable with its sight. The walls were full of frames of pictures, over at one corner lies a shelf full of Star Wars collectibles (I made a reference to my dad’s mini collection of Star Wars items which pales in comparison with that of his…also probably not a good idea to bring that up since the whole age thing could have been iffy). No bible verses at all, that was perhaps the thing which stood out the most to me. His study was connected to a rather alright-sized living room. Books, everywhere. And a Mac sitting on a table at a corner against the bright light of the windows which were stifled and trapped by the blinds. I was impressed, and also very surprised.

He explained that his ex helped him with the interior design of the place. After all, “he knows me quite well”, a fact which I found slightly difficult to swallow just because I’m not at a point in my life where I’m friends with any exes. To begin with, I’ve only had one creepy ex (whom I rather not come into contact with) and a gazillion other dates that have gone awry. This conversation took place in his kitchen, which I also commented had a very modern look on it. I actually quite liked it, and again he did mention how his ex knew that he would like loads of space on the table tops.

So there he was, a man 20 years older than me, standing taller than me. He wasn’t muscular or anything, physique wise there was nothing that was that stunning to be really honest. He looked just like you and me, just like everyone else who had a job, who could cook (I can’t but you get the point I’m driving). And even in his state of maturity and experience, he seemed to possess a sense of child-likeness which paled in comparison to my pre-conceived impressions of who he was and what he did for a living. It was not only a refreshing sight but also a deeply riveting and quirky one. He was cooking pasta, and was pouring out mentaiko which he bought. I asked if I could help with anything but he was hospitable enough and politely declined. Then again, I wouldn’t trust myself with any kitchen equipment either. The bright pink shade of the mentaiko was very compelling, almost like his character. He briefly mentioned that he didn’t know why the mentaiko was bright pink, but also interrupted it with some roasted vegetables and an egg on top. Upon cracking open the egg, he realized the texture wasn’t what he really expected, but quickly dismissed it with the fact that he hadn’t let it out of the fridge for a long enough time. Basically, there was nothing very odd about this scene. Like most kitchen scenes, it was what you expected. Except, I felt a bit awkward as I didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t like we knew each other very well and I wasn’t exactly comfortable with the silence precisely because of that.

Lunch was ready pretty quickly and we ate over his dining table, against the light which seeped in so readily without the blinds stifling over its luminosity. The conversation took a bit more momentum here. It started out slow but gradually picked up its pace and moved along. The only thing that remained slow was my eating speed as for some reason, a combination of nerves and trying to adapt to that new environment and a new person sitting right in front of me had caused me to feel less hungry than I usually am. It was mildly torturous but the mentaiko pasta did help me along with that to a certain extent.

We talked about life, about university (and how NUS has changed largely from when he was there), about life in hostel, about my passion. Honestly, at one point in time I just felt like I was talking too much, almost too eager about what I’ve done. I know at that moment a conscious thought did cross my mind, that I should ask more about what he does and more about his passions as well. But a part of me did not want to know that either. It was as if I felt awkward asking that question, while another part of me already kind of knew what he worked as. Maybe it was just my body and mind’s natural state of defence against talking about God and christianity. On hindsight, it would have been good to talk about that, but I also vaguely remember attending a talk of his back in Utown a couple of months back and slowly zoning out as I did not completely understand what he was saying, nor did I completely agree with some of his interpretations. They felt…very deliberately milked out of itself. I didn’t want to admit to myself later that I might be at a false prophet’s home. We talked about my parents and my life, and when I came out, and basically the entire shitty life I had a couple of years back. His response was oddly enough almost the same as everyone else whom I had recollected this story to. I thought that his pastoral outlook would have overpoured me like Jesus’ sweet blessing at the altar at this point but that wasn’t the case. He maintained a concerned but kind posture and was a very good listener. Probably also a result of his job, I presume.

We talked about expectations with dating, about my horrid dates and all. I haven’t dated anyone in a while, at least not seriously. But I also did explain that I wasn’t exactly in a rush to find one either. There are moments at night where I mope and I wish I had a partner, but more often than naught, I’m pretty self-sufficient and have clear goals and ambitions to work towards and live for. I’m not at a point in my life where I feel the intense urge to settle down. I’m 20 years younger after all. But of course, the case was slightly different for him. He was ready to settle and probably wishes to settle. He probably was very eager to date since his job hasn’t exactly encouraged any momentum in his dating life. He expressed explicitly, interest for me, about how he would have jumped at the opportunity of dating me if he was 20 years younger. Not that he won’t know, he just says there are a couple of things he has to check to see if it’s in place since we are at different phases of our lives after all and that can be hard to reconcile I guess? It was interesting to hear that, once again, especially coming from a pastor. You would think that pastors are the holy sort, the sort that seemed very calm and saintly, with a knack for leadership in a religious sort of way, very composed and at the very least, very mindful of the way he or she acts in front of others. He is not like that, he’s just like one of us. And maybe my impression of what a pastor should be has always been inaccurate since pastors are people too. Just like how celebrities are people, researchers are people, construction workers are people. But against what has been inculcated into me regarding how pastors should behave, this stood out the most to me. His eagerness and enthusiasm might unfortunately not be met with the same amount of energy as I have yet to come to terms with the fact that I might potentially be seeing a pastor. In my head, I am unable to wrap my thoughts around that because what I know has already been etched in me and that is hard to change. Personally, I also felt like there would have been a lot of pressure dating someone of such prominence as well, not that outsiders have to matter but when you’re a figure a lot of people look up to, you need to be mindful of your actions. I don’t want to have to fit myself within the confines of such pressures, and I don’t want to have to know what others’ will think of me. Yet, that might almost be inevitable because an overthinker will always be wondering what the christians will think of me, what my parents will think of me, what my family will think of me, what my friends will think of me and what the community might think of me. These thoughts scare me enough to pull away large amounts of my strength and energy, enough to stop myself from a risky investment.

After about an hour and a half of conversation, he stopped to ask if I had wanted alcohol, to which I declined because there was no way I was drinking in some place I was mildly uncomfortable, and I also had to sing after that. He decided to have a bit of whiskey, and I assumed the conversation would have gotten back. After all, he did say that he didn’t quite want this to be a hook-up either since I’m apparently better worth in my personality and conversation topics. He was also again, a pastor, so I wouldn’t have expected a hook-up. Maybe he did do hook-ups, but maybe it won’t happen to me. I wasn’t that boggled down by that anyway. A good conversation might just be better above all things else. Besides, the hospitality which I have received have been great.

But after his small dosage of whiskey, he came over to my side of the table and sat right beside, stretching his arm out right by my waist. Now two things were distracting me, his whiskey breath as well as the fact that a prominent pastoral figure was about to get intimate with me. Don’t get me wrong, there was consent, it wasn’t that I didn’t want it, but on second thought, I think it would have been better if it didn’t happen. He started getting real close to me, close to my neck, he started tongueing and kissing my neck and my ears (ok, this one I don’t understand, so many guys have done it to me too I don’t understand what’s the craze tbh). I lay in for a bit of a kiss. We stop and we head to his bedroom, continuing the making out process on his bed. Then the clothes off, and the rest is history.

It was a pretty quick one, primarily also because I felt an intense urge to pee. But at the end of it, whilst dressing up he leaned over for a hug and was more than hospitable during the last moments I was in his house. I continue to note how big of a Star Wars fan he was whilst I use his bathroom to wash up. That gets him started but thank goodness not long enough to warrant another hour of post-cumming conversation. After all, I had other plans after that. As I put on my shoes, I engage in small talk, so small I cannot even recall what I talked about. I was slightly eager to leave the place and have my thoughts to my own for a while. It was a lunch that had seemingly broken all the expectations I had of a certain person, a certain figure and a certain profession. It’s so odd to recount this story with the title “I slept with a pastor”, but that was also the truth.

That is what people will know this story as, even if I started it off with no indication of his career. But at the end of the day, whether or not you’re Christian enough to count homosexuality as a sin or count adultery as a sin, all men do fall at one point in time or another. I’m not saying that this should be an excuse for us to continue doing things against our beliefs - religion after all is a social construct in my opinion. But what I’m saying is that, pastor or not, we are all people, we are all human beings of the same species. We have different circumstances, predicaments and background but we’re all human. And maybe this wouldn’t have even warranted a long reflection post at 3am if we weren’t so fixated on expecting things of others when we barely know what they do. Of course, one could argue that a pastor is of a certain calibre, sensitivity and piousness to his religion and the respective divinities central to the existence of this religion. Yet, these idealogies and expectations have caused us to categorize people time after time, sometimes in ways we really shouldn’t. And went something out of the regulations occur, it’s a heinous crime to believers and a novelty to non-believers. At the end of the day, it’s his job to keep his own family of people in his church safe. I truly believe he has no evil intentions in that, and from what I see, it seems he’s doing a good job at helping people with their struggles and needs when they really need them. He fights for what he believes despite knowing the backlash he could face and continues still step up as a leadership figure nonetheless. Again, you could argue that Christianity is a lifestyle and relationship, not just a job which you can quit or switch off once your working hours over. Yes and no, I believe everyone has their own interpretation of the Bible and God, and everyone believes in God for a reason. That argument is not invalid, but, I might then have to ask, if it’s their relationship with God, why does it matter with you then?

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mastcomm · 4 years

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Wuhan Coronavirus, Impeachment, Kobe Bryant: Your Monday Briefing

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Good morning.

We’re covering the first cases of the Wuhan coronavirus in Europe, the results of a key election in Italy and the death of the retired basketball star Kobe Bryant.

Coronavirus outbreak intensifies and spreads to France

As of this morning, the outbreak of a mysterious coronavirus has killed at least 80 people in China, sickened thousands and spread to at least 10 countries. That includes three confirmed cases in France, the first European country on that growing international roster. Here’s the latest.

Almost all of the worldwide infections involve people who traveled from China. A top health official in Beijing warned on Sunday that the spread of the disease was accelerating, partly because it was being carried and transmitted by seemingly healthy people.

Yesterday: Five million people left Wuhan, the Chinese city where the virus originated, before travel was restricted, the city’s mayor said — a stunning disclosure that intensified questions about the government’s delayed response.

Related: China’s flawed response to the outbreak may be another sign of how President Xi Jinping’s political dominance hampers internal debate over key policy decisions, analysts tell our correspondents based in Beijing.

What’s next: The Chinese government has extended the end of the weeklong Lunar New Year holiday by three days, to next Sunday, in an effort to to temporarily limit travel.

Italy’s League party loses a key election

The party of the nationalist leader Matteo Salvini lost a regional election on Sunday that he had hoped would set the stage for his return to power — a prospect that once thrilled Europe’s populists and menaced its establishment.

Mr. Salvini had campaigned feverishly before the vote, in the northern region of Emilia-Romagna, in the hope that a victory would provide ammunition in his calls for early national elections. But voters there, who have typically supported communist and leftist parties, rejected his anti-migrant League party’s candidate by a margin of around five percentage points.

Go deeper: Five Star, an anti-establishment party in Italy’s governing coalition, was humiliated in the election, raising more questions about its viability in the wake of its leader’s resignation last week.

How Iran covered up its deadly mistake

Come clean or I’ll resign. That’s what President Hassan Rouhani of Iran told top commanders who had been covering up the accidental downing of a Ukrainian passenger jet over Tehran.

It was only then — three days after the plane crashed in early January — that the country’s supreme leader ordered the government to acknowledge its fatal mistake.

We have an in-depth report on the cover-up and its political implications. Key takeaway: The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, an elite force charged with defending Iran’s clerical rule at home and abroad, effectively sidelined the elected government in a moment of national crisis.

How we know: Our reporter interviewed current and former Iranian officials, ranking members of the Revolutionary Guards and people close to the supreme leader’s inner circle.

In Baghdad: In a protest organized by an anti-American Shiite cleric and armed groups with ties to Iran, an estimated 200,000 to 250,000 Iraqis gathered on Friday to protest the United States military presence in the country. (An American drone strike that killed a top Iranian commander in the Iraqi capital on Jan. 3 has prompted widespread public anger.)

How solid are Europe’s post-Holocaust values?

World leaders and dignitaries will gather today for a solemn ceremony at Auschwitz in Poland to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the former Nazi death camp.

But these days, our Warsaw bureau chief writes, some worry that Europe’s post-Holocaust values are being eroded amid a surge of anti-Semitism and dehumanizing political rhetoric on the Continent and in the United States.

Even the memory of Auschwitz — where 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, were murdered — has been weaponized. Case in point: A ceremony at a Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem last week was clouded by a bitter dispute over World War II history between Poland and Russia.

Yesterday: Mark Rutte of the Netherlands became the first Dutch prime minister to apologize for his country’s role during the Holocaust and its lack of action against the persecution of Jews.

Related: In the first installment of “Beyond the World War II We Know,” a new Times series, a United States Navy veteran looks at how her family fled Nazi Germany weeks before Hitler invaded Poland.

If you have 8 minutes, this is worth it

The risky journey to Europe

After the great migration of 2015 — in which more than a million undocumented people landed in Europe — the authorities in Turkey, Greece and Hungary responded by reducing undocumented migration by more than 90 percent.

Now, migrants who risk the journey to Europe travel up and over the icy hills and mountains that line Bosnia’s border with Croatia.

The terrain, pictured above, contains land mines from the Balkan wars. And the Croatian authorities typically force all who cross safely to turn around, without letting them apply for asylum.

Here’s what else is happening

Impeachment: John Bolton, the former U.S. national security adviser, writes in a book draft that President Trump wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there investigated his political rivals. The revelation could complicate the case that Mr. Trump’s lawyers plan to make at his impeachment trial.

Israeli politics: Middle East experts see the Trump administration’s long-awaited peace plan for the region — which the president is expected to lay out when he meets Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in Washington today — mainly as a “booster shot” for Mr. Netanyahu’s desperate campaign to stay in power.

Retired basketball star dies: Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter were among the nine people killed in a helicopter crash outside Los Angeles on Sunday. His death generated an outpouring of grief across the United States and beyond.

Surveillance in London: Privacy groups criticized a decision by the city’s Police Department to begin using facial recognition technology that identifies people on a police watch list as soon as they are filmed on a video camera.

Grammy Awards: Billie Eilish won record, album and song of the year, but Kobe Bryant’s death overshadowed the ceremony. We have live updates, a rundown of who won and a look at red carpet fashion.

What we’re reading: This Boston Globe investigation of the government’s inaction on E. coli outbreaks. The story of a 2-year-old boy who ate some of his father’s salad and developed the illness is “heartbreaking, terrifying and riveting,” writes our Times Insider editor, Jennifer Krauss.

Now, a break from the news

Cook: Slow cooker red beans and rice takes only about 20 minutes to set up in the morning.

Go: Our critic writes that the Berlin Philharmonic is playing with “enthusiasm and virtually flawless precision” under its new chief conductor, Kirill Petrenko.

Smarter Living: Wirecutter recommends five cheap(ish) things to radically make over your cluttered closet.

And now for the Back Story on …

Bill Clinton’s impeachment

We asked Peter Baker, our chief White House correspondent, to reflect on a major moment in the lead-up to the last presidential impeachment and compare it with the current trial. He has covered both.

Twenty-two years ago this week came a milestone moment in the last presidential impeachment drama. President Bill Clinton was on the defensive after The Washington Post, where I was working then, broke the news that Ken Starr was investigating whether he committed perjury to cover up an affair with a onetime White House intern.

Mr. Clinton took to the microphone at the end of an event, glared angrily at the reporters in the room, wagged his finger and, with Hillary Clinton standing behind him, forcefully said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.”

We were struck by two things: One, that he seemed to briefly blank on her name, referring to her as “that woman,” before summoning it. But the second was the intensity of his denial. He was white-hot mad. At that time, before the DNA and the grand jury testimony, we didn’t know if the story we were pursuing was bogus or if the president of the United States was lying to us and to the country. Of course, later we found out which it was.

Now, as Ken Starr re-emerges as a lawyer for President Trump in the current impeachment trial, and the administration’s explanations of what happened continue to fluctuate, it’s hard not to feel déjà vu.

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Mike

Thank you To Mark Josephson and Eleanor Stanford for the break from the news. You can reach the team at [email protected].

P.S. • We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is about how the issue of fracking could determine who wins the swing state of Pennsylvania in the 2020 election. • Here’s today’s Mini Crossword puzzle, and a clue: Chunk of ice (four letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • Monica Mark is our next Johannesburg bureau chief. She has covered some of the biggest stories in Africa for Bloomberg News, The Guardian and BuzzFeed News.

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mastcomm · 4 years

Text

Wuhan Coronavirus, Impeachment, Kobe Bryant: Your Monday Briefing

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)

Good morning.

We’re covering the first cases of the Wuhan coronavirus in Europe, the results of a key election in Italy and the death of the retired basketball star Kobe Bryant.

Coronavirus outbreak intensifies and spreads to France

What’s next: The Chinese government has extended the end of the weeklong Lunar New Year holiday by three days, to next Sunday, in an effort to to temporarily limit travel.

Italy’s League party loses a key election

How Iran covered up its deadly mistake

Come clean or I’ll resign. That’s what President Hassan Rouhani of Iran told top commanders who had been covering up the accidental downing of a Ukrainian passenger jet over Tehran.

It was only then — three days after the plane crashed in early January — that the country’s supreme leader ordered the government to acknowledge its fatal mistake.

How we know: Our reporter interviewed current and former Iranian officials, ranking members of the Revolutionary Guards and people close to the supreme leader’s inner circle.

How solid are Europe’s post-Holocaust values?

World leaders and dignitaries will gather today for a solemn ceremony at Auschwitz in Poland to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the former Nazi death camp.

Yesterday: Mark Rutte of the Netherlands became the first Dutch prime minister to apologize for his country’s role during the Holocaust and its lack of action against the persecution of Jews.

If you have 8 minutes, this is worth it

The risky journey to Europe

Now, migrants who risk the journey to Europe travel up and over the icy hills and mountains that line Bosnia’s border with Croatia.

The terrain, pictured above, contains land mines from the Balkan wars. And the Croatian authorities typically force all who cross safely to turn around, without letting them apply for asylum.

Here’s what else is happening

Grammy Awards: Billie Eilish won record, album and song of the year, but Kobe Bryant’s death overshadowed the ceremony. We have live updates, a rundown of who won and a look at red carpet fashion.

Now, a break from the news

Cook: Slow cooker red beans and rice takes only about 20 minutes to set up in the morning.

Go: Our critic writes that the Berlin Philharmonic is playing with “enthusiasm and virtually flawless precision” under its new chief conductor, Kirill Petrenko.

Smarter Living: Wirecutter recommends five cheap(ish) things to radically make over your cluttered closet.

And now for the Back Story on …

Bill Clinton’s impeachment

We asked Peter Baker, our chief White House correspondent, to reflect on a major moment in the lead-up to the last presidential impeachment and compare it with the current trial. He has covered both.

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Mike

Thank you To Mark Josephson and Eleanor Stanford for the break from the news. You can reach the team at [email protected].

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/event/wuhan-coronavirus-impeachment-kobe-bryant-your-monday-briefing/

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