Painting Mack?

Do you know this man?



Of course you do. John Mack. Of Morgan Stanley. Stepping down as CEO at the end of the year. Having a party, if I'm not mistaken, sometime in the next week. Saturday is my guess.

So I call somebody at Morgan Stanley's PR department. Being an old public relations guy myself, I feel like these are my people. I speak to a lovely person and pitch the idea of attending Mack's retirement party with a painting titled "The Annotated Mack" or something like that.

She, as is her function within the organism known as Morgan Stanley, sounds dubious. Polite but dubious. Takes a bunch of information. Says somebody will call me.

Me? I spend so much time standing around watching people write nasty things on my paintings...



...that I thought it might be fun to attend a retirement party where, presumably, everybody is going to write nice things. After all, I think he's staying on as Chairman of the Board (perhaps?), so who's gonna write something nasty.

What ends up happening to the painting is TBD. I don't care so much about that.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, The painting of the thing, not the selling of the thing, is the thing.

You know what the smart money is saying, don't you?
Yeah...that nobody is gonna call.
Naaaah. That'd be too easy.
Okay, what's the smart money saying?
The smart money says that they ARE gonna call you, but not until Friday afternoon.
Wow, that would be annoying.
Yes, it would. Because then you'd be faced with two options...
Those being?
Option one: politely decline, saying you don't have enough time to do the guy justice.
Okay.
Option two: just slap together some piece of shit at the last minute.
Wow--it's like Sophie's Choice or something.
Indeed.
Look at those eyebrows, though.
Yeah, I see them.
Hell, if you just got them right, the rest of the thing would just fall into place.
You, my friend, are an eternal optimist.