www.chuckblore.com

Okay, Okay I Wrote the Book

Three little words. When you first hear them you have no idea of the real consequences that may follow. In retrospect, three little words, uttered again and again, touched off changes for me and my company, making both greater than either one might ever have been.

Three little words, can be life changing words, for you and for your partner. In my case, my partner was Don Richman, and the three little words were ...Peas or carrots?

I’ll get to the peas and carrots in a minute. First let me tell you a little bit about Don. He majored in Public Relations at USC. He was so outstanding in this area that upon graduation, USC hired Don to do PR for them. He formed a business with fellow graduate, Al Davis. Yes, that Al Davis. The Mission Statement of the company could have been something like; Keep USC on page one in the Sports Section of The L.A. Times. He did this with great success. So much so that when Conrad Hilton, owner of The Hilton Hotels got a franchise for an NFL football team in Los Angeles, the first thing he did was to hire Don’s company. The second thing he did was to buy Don’s company and then, name Don G M of the football team. The first thing Don had to do was give the team a name.

At that time, The Hiltons had an extremely popular credit card company. The card was Carte Blanche. Don thought that one company could and should promote the other. The name he suggested for the team? The Los Angeles Chargers. So, you see, even with the lightning bolt on the side of their helmets, the name was not about charging down the field, it was to promote charging down at Sachs, or Macy’s, or generally, just charging. Don told me about an ad he had written for them, part of which said, “If it’s just a little bill, or if you’re charging San Juan Hill ...”

The team was soon a viable (?) football entity. An entity which was quickly made to realize that L.A. was a one team football town. The Rams were that one team. No one cared about the Chargers, even though Don was doing a super job of making them a very big part of the Sports Section in The Times. The Chargers just didn’t connect with L.A., so, the Hiltons moved their team to San Diego.

Don did not want to move to San Diego. As a matter of fact, Don decided he no longer wanted to be in sports at all. He wanted to be a writer. And, as was the case with almost everything he ever did, he was very quickly, a very big success. Except for the ... Peas or carrots?


Milt Klien, former manager of KHJ radio, convinced me that I needed someone to sell my approach to radio commercials to the nation’s advertising agencies. We formed a company together to sell our kind of ‘creative’ to advertising agencies whose interest in radio was then, as it continues to be today, almost non-existent. Almost. There were the occasional agencies who thought their radio should be as good as their everything else, and they were very happy to have someone else do it.

Well, if we were actually going to become a company, we could not continue to have our world headquarters in my garage. We rented an office and were immediately in the hole. Financially I mean, although the condition of the office itself would deserve the same description. But it was very big, as a matter of fact, it was almost all of the second floor of a two story building divided up into four rooms. The ceilings were very high, like fourteen feet, which at one time, apparently, was a very cool thing. They were painted pink. The whole place looked like there had been an explosion at the calamine lotion factory. Also, the roof leaked, so there were large water stains running down though all that pink on all those tall walls. Understandably, for the first few days I longed for the esthetic surroundings of my garage, but it wasn’t long before we didn’t notice how pink everything was and we actually put in two desks, telephones, a piano, and a water dish for my dog. We were in business.

One of the first pieces of business Milt got was for Datsun and almost immediately I wrote the first line, ‘Do it in a Datsun!’ A couple of days later I was still puzzling over where to go from there ...Do what in a Datsun? when my ruminating was interrupted by a very pleasant voice saying, “Hi, my name is Don. Are you Chuck?”

“Yeah, what can I do for you?”

“You wrote that, ‘Bekins Men are careful, quick and kind,’ song?”

Yep. You need a radio spot?”

“I can write that kind of stuff.” Don said, “I was wondering if you needed any help?”

“No, you can’t.” I said, “And, no I don’t.”

Don asked, “Whatcha working on”

“Nothing.” I said, and then I continued, “I got this Datsun line, Do it in a Datsun. And I can’t figure out what the hell you would do in a Datsun.”

Don’s immediate response was, “Whatever it is you do.”

“What?”

Almost without thinking, Don continued. “Do it in a Datsun, whatever it is you do. It’s more fun in a Datsun ‘cause Datsun goes for you.”

“That’s great.”

“Yeah.” Don admitted, “I can write that stuff.”

I explained to Don that we were a brand new company with no guarantee that we’re gonna have a job to do next week. I told him, “We really can’t afford to hire anyone.”

“Look, “ For the first time, Don was about to solve a problem for me, something he continued to do for the next twenty two years. Don said, “I’m a writer. I write for The Man From Uncle. I wrote the Prototype for Desert Patrol. I write The Farmer’s Daughter.” All of those shows were big hits at the time. “I don’t really need the money.” continued Don, “What I do need is a place to go when I need to write. Trying to write at home is out of the question because my wife doesn’t understand the process. Every time I get something good going, she interrupts me. ‘Do you want peas or carrots tonight?’”

Don gave me a ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’ look. I tried to show him my empathy, which was difficult while I was thinking, ‘Jesus! This guy is writing The Man From Uncle, and he wants to write here? In this creepy Pink Palace? With me?”

Don also knew there was a lot of humor in what he was saying, so he played it for laughs “‘C’mon Don.’ my wife will say, ‘Do you want peas or carrots? It’s not a difficult decision. PEAS OR CARROTS F’CHRISSAKES!’ I just want her out of there. So I say, ‘Either one.’ Wrong answer. Because now, I get the between the teeth thing. ‘Just say peas or carrots, please?’ ”

“Well, I’d love for you to write here.” The Man From Uncle, I was thinking, written in my building. Wow!

“And if you ever need any help like with the Datsun thing. ” Don said, “I’ll be right here.”

“I’m gonna pay you for that.” Even as I said it, I was thinking, How the hell am I gonna pay him?

“Make that my first months rent.”

“Done. Welcome.

For the next twenty two years, five or six days a week, we sat across from each other creating stuff we loved. Never once in those years did we ever have a personal argument. We had hundreds of professional arguments. I remember we hired a writer by the name of Bill McDonald. On his second or third day with us we had one of those disagreements. Don and I, standing in front of poor Bill, SCREAMING at each other. “Clock does NOT rhyme with talk!”

“The Hell it doesn’t! Clock! Talk! Hear that? THAT’S CALLED A RHYME!”

“SEE THIS? IT’S CALLED A RHYMING DICTIONARY. LOOK ‘EM UP! THEY ARE NOT RHYMES!”

“Aw, screw it. Let’s go to lunch.”

“Good idea. C’mon Bill.”