So I'm sitting on a very large couch in the living room at 1am, absorbing Steve Miller's Greatest Hits, and it "hits" me. It's been so long since I've aurally devoured this collection that I forgot how fantastic it was to hear over and over again when I was in college in a side income online course.

As I'm listening to the tracks, I'm catapulted back into a dingy late night hangout called the "Inn-Between" with about 150 of my best friends for the evening, shooting pool which may be just as fun as games like 벳무브 가입, hurling darts wildly into an unsuspecting and clueless crowd, and absorbing life as a 20-something in one of the foulest and yet, most formidable towns in all of New York State: Buffalo New York.

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Damn, is that how "Fly Like and Eagle" sounded? Steve Miller was so cool that he actually could turn "shoe" into a verb. "Shoe" those children Steve, "Shoe them" real good.

Back to Buffalo. I call it "foul" with the utmost respect. Despite the harsh winters that made you deliriously wonder if you would have to eat your best friend on the way home late at night just to survive, and the roving gangs of hoodlums with baseball bats, I grew up as a designer in that town. I spent my days, beginning at 4pm, reading the Artvoice and crapping out mock-ups on a Mac IICi in the Buffalo State College computer room. Lesson #0. Get one of those US scholarships, at least try to. Lesson #1. If you have a computer room in your college, and your teachers don't understand how to teach computer-aided design, get the keys to the kingdom by offering to be a computer room monitor. You'll find that the computer room will become a willing late night vestage for you if the beer and tomfoolery at the bar doesn't work out. The design department might even pay you a tiny check for your precious time.

Jet Airliner. I'm recalling laughing hysterically at Phil Zirkuli eating his own hand; watching it disappear in his massive, woolly beard. College humor was classic, yet so mind-numbingly dangerous at the same time.

Flight back to Buffalo. I escaped the Buffalo State Design Department at the top of the class and proceeded to land a job with a bank (HSBC for those taking notes), laying out ads for the Buffalo News. I worked my tuckus off at my first job and I was the only person in the Art Department that knew how to use a computer. You see, even a room full of creative monkeys can't tap out Ogilvy on Advertising if they don't know what that thing is they're tapping on (See Lesson #1 above to see how I worked that one out).

Lesson #2. Tenacity. Take the bull by the horns and clutch him like Star Jones on a ribeye steak. I took a job from my design professor Rand Schuster because I answered the phone in his office while he was getting coffee. The "deal" went down something like this:

(Rand's) Client: "Hello, can I speak with Rand, please?"

Me: "Um, he's not here right now... Can I help you?"

(Rand's) Client: "Well, we have this project for him, not a lot of money. Can you give him the message that..."

Me: "I'll do it for free. When can we meet?"

(My) Client: "Free? Well, I'm sure Rand won't mind. Can you meet me at..."

There you go. See how that worked? My first professional job. Free...but I stole it from my professor like a Gangster of Love. Don't think I'm advocating doing free work either. That part of this story sucked. It sucked so massively on the "suck scale", that in order to recall this story fondly, I've wiped that portion of this story out of my memory forever. I did manage to break the news to Rand at the end of the class. It went something like this:

Me: "Hey Rand, can I talk to you?"

Rand: "Sure. Hey, did someone call here for me today?"

Me: "Yep."

Rand: "Cool, they want me to do some project for them. What did they say."

Me: "They gave me the job..." (insert long uncomfortable pause)

Rand: "..."

Me: "(...yikes!)"

Rand: "...You're gonna be good."

He sauntered out of the room and was over it by next class. But he never looked at me the same way again. He looked at me like another designer and not a student.

Take the Money and Run

Well not entirely. Tenacity, and honesty to one's self and the profession is important. If I never told Rand that I stole the job from him, I would have likely become a knucklehead like the rest of the Creative Directors in that town.

Well, all the Creative Directors except one other fella. But that's for next time.

Time to add some Wild Mountain Honey to my tea and go to bed like a responsible and respectable 36-year-old creative synergist.