I think what’s funny about this modern world of ours is how hard we’re working to be noticed. To make an impression. To be remembered. I mean, we know it but do we know it-know it? I think if any one of us were to disappear off the face of the Earth tomorrow and we thought the general takeaway would be “she was good at Instagram” we’d walk into a shark-infested sea wearing a seal-steak suit.
You might not know who David Kennedy is. Was. That word, was. An absolute bitch, that word. But you actually did, in a way. David Kennedy was the co-founder of Wieden + Kennedy, best known to the regular world as Nike’s advertising agency. I wrote a little bit about Wieden + Kennedy in one of the essays in my second book, it was the backdrop for much of my life clicking into place in my mid-twenties after I moved to Portland, Oregon. I even spent a little time earlier this year trying to track down the negatives from my W+K employee photo for possible use in the cover design.
A very beat-up Polaroid from my W+K employee photo session with Todd Eckelman
David Kennedy died on October 11th and ever since that moment a massive, worldwide network of folks have been remembering his kind, soft-spoken, mischievous, and creative spirit across social platforms I assume he never used. The news of his death started to stream out more widely the morning of the 12th, fittingly on Indigenous Peoples’ Day. It was also the morning of my birthday, this news being the very first thing I saw when I picked up my phone while I was still in bed, the absolute worst most loathsome habit of this modern world of ours. This whatdidImiss whatdidImiss world of ours.
Turns out after spending a week, a month really, well honestly two years, up my own ass, writing and then promoting my second book about myself of all things, what I had missed most of all was the point.
People think that ad agencies are ad agencies are ad agencies but they’re wrong. Some ad agencies (precious few) are far more influential than your four years of college, they will set your feet upon each and every path you’ll take for the rest of your life, hell, they’ll show you that those paths exist in the first place. And they will, hopefully, set at least one or two good examples for you. One of the best examples was Wieden + Kennedy becoming the pro-bono agency of record for American Indian College Fund.
Cheryl Crazy Bull, President and CEO of the American Indian College Fund: “David Kennedy has been our colleague for over 30 years bringing his creative heart to the story of Native students so that we become more visible as the First People of this country. His creativity and commitment contributed to thousands of Tribal students accessing post-secondary education, particularly at our Tribal Colleges and Universities.”
From the first day I met David I always thought of him as somehow both one hundred years old and immortal. There are some people in this world you just don’t expect to die, maybe because they’re otherworldly like David Bowie or they just seem better than that like David Kennedy.
I was never a rock star at Wieden + Kennedy, I don’t have all the cool stories about being on shoots with David Fincher or Joe Pytka or Spike Lee or Dennis Hopper or literally anyone because I never went anywhere for my job. I was a traffic manager (what would now be called a project manager or KEEP THE TRAINS RUNNIN’ CHOO-CHOO VIBE GURU or some such tedious shit). But what I did do was get put on American Indian College Fund after David got fed up with people playing hot potato with an account that mattered deeply to him. He left a short note on the department head’s desk, in his instantly recognizable handwriting, that then ended up on my desk. It said something like: WE NEED A REAL TRAFFIC MANAGER ON AICF. I still have that note somewhere, 25 years later.
You know you didn’t go anywhere or meet anyone for your job when you still have a completely full box of business cards 25 years later
Working with David is how I learned that being creative is not a job or a title, but it’s a way of being in the world. I’m not claiming that I knew David especially well (I didn’t), only that as someone who was in her early twenties, who had landed at her dream agency by being a temp and answering phones and typing copy up for other writers, David was a welcome and quiet presence in a world I found exciting but also incredibly intimidating.
I was surprised that morning — and every moment since — to not be able to write or talk about David without crying or feeling like I’ll come damn close. You, newsletter reader, might be thinking hey ok but why does any of this matter to me. It matters to you, friend, because I’m offering you a chance to look back, poke around, and think about some of the people who connected some of the little dots in your life. Not the big obvious people, the major mentors (if you were lucky enough to have one or several), but perhaps the quieter people, the people who didn’t take a starring role in making anything specific happen for you personally, but who helped create the conditions for magic. We don’t reflect on that enough, I think.
Without Wieden + Kennedy, I wouldn’t have met my husband. I wouldn’t have these two kids, these two very specific wonderful kids. Without Wieden + Kennedy I wouldn’t have met Glenn Cole, way back when I was a temp copy typist. I’d go on to ask him to look over my copywriting work not once but twice, twelve years and several jobs apart. Because I wanted to know am I any good at this at all? Without Wieden + Kennedy I wouldn’t have met Scot Armstrong, who just 7 years ago reached out to me to meet up the next time I was in LA. He got me thinking about TV and about how perhaps I had a voice and a way of looking at the world that I should explore. This conversation was a major inspiration behind me working on my own writing again for the first time in over 20 years. Two years later I had an agent and a book deal. Without Wieden + Kennedy I wouldn’t have met Evelyn Neill. Although I don’t think we ever worked together on a single thing when we were actually at W+K, she’s been responsible for yet another new path in my freelance career. It’s been one that allowed me to do interesting, engaging work and also have a stable income that in turn allowed me to have the time and space to finish my second book. Without Wieden + Kennedy there would’ve been fewer door-openings and wild-possibility-wonderings and path-clearing moments like these. There wouldn’t have been anyone saying I know where you grew up and you probably have no concept of these other creative worlds but dream a little, because what if? There also would’ve been hella fewer hangovers, but I digress.
All those paths and dots and connections? That’s just me. That’s just one person. There are hundreds and thousands of stories like these for so many of us who worked there, especially back then. To call it a “professional network” misses the blood and the bullshit, the loyalty and love. The pain, the power, the way constellations of people can shape and change your entire life and also how you also forget that very truth. You really start to think it was all just you, you special, special thing. But it had been these little dashes and dots connecting and exploding, zipping across industries and around the world, pushing you and pulling you all along. I have been so lucky. Those of us who were there back then have been so, so lucky.
And without David, there wouldn’t have been a Wieden + Kennedy at all.
So. Although you might not know who David was, you did. He was absolutely the best of us, in an industry that can be full of self-satisfied pricks, unapologetic ambition, garden variety dumbassery, and toxic behavior.
The last campaign David worked on for American Indian College Fund was launched the evening of his death. I humbly ask you to consider donating to AICF either in his honor or in honor of someone who connected those dots for you, who helped create those conditions for magic in your life. I am ashamed to admit, even after working on the AICF account for years, I had actually never donated. That changed today and will be my ongoing commitment.
Today is the perfect day to remember we are all mortal. Unbelievably, disappointingly, undeniably mortal. We’ve lost a lot of Wieden + Kennedy people over the years, several who were quite young. My daughter is named after one of those good people gone too soon, Hawthorne Hunt. In honor of her and David and all of them, today is the perfect day to wonder:
Thank you David. Thank you, Wieden + Kennedy. For everything.
A SPECIAL DAVID KENNEDY EDITION OF THINGS FROM ELSEWHERE • A Look Back on David Kennedy’s Creative Legacy in Ad Age. Come for your favorite late 80’s/early ‘90s commercials and stay for the Selis video at the end which, even if you don’t know who the hell most of these people are you will definitely, definitely recognize some of them 👀 • This local news story that aired on Portland station KGW, yup, made me lose my shit all over again. A pretty lovely remembrance. • A time capsule from 1990 in The New York Times, “They Know Bo”. Gotta love this quote from Alvin Achenbaum, vice chairman of Backer Spielvogel Bates Worldwide in New York: "Major clients want proximity to the agency and, more importantly, they want available human resources," he says. "Cities like New York and Chicago have great talent pools to draw from; Portland does not. A small agency in Portland will never be a big player in this business." LOL OK BUD • The TLDR version of this newsletter is this wonderful short interview with David that Jeff Selis shared on Instagram yesterday. • American Indian College Fund Mourns David Kennedy • The ‘90s were a wild-ass time at W+K. This quote from David’s obituary in The New York Times says it best:
Ken Kesey, the countercultural figure and writer of the novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” attended the agency’s 10th anniversary fete and paid what Mr. Selis said became one of Mr. Kennedy’s favorite compliments: “You could teach the Hell’s Angels how to party.”
NEW FROM ME Gonna keep this section brief this time for obvious reasons. I just wanted to let you know that I’m on Everything is Fine podcast today, hosted by former Lucky magazine founding editor Kim France and author and editor Jennifer Romolini.
I was in a stress blackout when I recorded this interview and couldn’t even remember what I had said, but listening to it this morning I realized it’s probably my most favorite interview ever. We had a great conversation about BUT YOU SEEMED SO HAPPY, marriage, the choices we make when we’re young, the choices we make because we’re afraid (of others’ judgment, of being alone, of … everything), and knowing who we were as girls and trying to get back to that knowing. I hope you’ll listen, share, subscribe, you know all the modern world bullshit things.
Buy BUT YOU SEEMED SO HAPPY here. Buy a SIGNED copy of BUT YOU SEEMED SO HAPPY here. You can find my (not-updated-for-3+-years) copywriting and creative direction work here. You can find my writing-writing work here. You can find me on Twitter. You can find me on Instagram. Please do not find me in real life, I’m busy thinking about all those many, many dots.
The dot connectors, such a great term for those frequently overlooked but massively important connections