Parrish: the Thought.
Sometimes, I find myself staring at the mural in the dark mahogany clubbiness of the King Cole Bar on East 55th, imagining a conversation with the eponymous English nursery rhyme character who’s commanded the room since 1932.
If familiar, you know the painting was commissioned by John Jacob Astor IV, paying the then-princely sum of $5000 to Maxfield Parrish, stylistic master and ardent teetotaler.
Parish might have disdained the drinking, but apparently couldn’t resist the cash.
History records that Astor insisted on being the face of King Cole, and maybe it was a prescient quest for immortality: he famously had the unfortunate timing and worse luck to book a cabin on the maiden voyage of the Titanic.
History, however, doesn’t explain why the artist chose to depict his patron — at least based on the wrinkled noses and sour grimaces of the characters surrounding him — having a profoundly flatulent moment.
In any event, you can appreciate the fascination of the story: artistry, greed, egotism, denial leading to a collision with the predictable, all accompanied by a highly suspect odor.
No wonder this place has been an advertising mainstay since actual mad men and women prowled Midtown.
But then I think, why should the King, even a “merry olde soul who called for his pipe, called for his bowl, and called for his fiddlers three,” want to exchange bar banter with me?
Especially when you consider the legendary advertising butts that have doubtless sat in exactly this space, on predecessor stools, in decades past.
Bernbach, Lois, Wells, McCabe, Scali, Ogilvy, Krone, Don Draper. Okay, Mad Men mostly shot in LA, so just kidding on that last.
But still, the company is daunting. And from his lordly hang, I could easily imagine the sardonic grin that’s been on the King’s lips for the last 93 years turning into an outright sneer if I asked him to compare the industry of that era with today.
“As ambitious, aspiring, and, call it confident or arrogant as they were, they were far more honest about the difficulties in winning and holding an audience than you digital snake oil peddlers.”
“Harsh.”
“You know what’s harsh? When did the industry go all in on telling clients that programmatic digital, not creativity or even Coke, is the real thing?”
“About 15 years ago, give or take.”
“And when did advertising go from generating real year-over-year growth for major brands to largely flat?”
“About 15 years ago, give or take.”
“So now you’re singing the same siren song about AI. And I thought the idiotic captain of that last boat couldn’t find his ass with a magnifying glass.”
“You’re saying we’re making a titanic mistake?”
“I’m saying you’re mistaking the ducks for the blind.”
Which is when I realize that I might have been talking to myself and look around to see if anyone happened to notice.
Happily, no one has. Although I might sense the faint echo of ghostly laughter ringing in my ears.
And in the air, an even fainter scent.