“Each man delights in the work that suits him best”
OOH …Here’s One Thing
by Jim Johnsen,
Managing Director, Johnsen, Fretty & Company
Hey Johnsen, where’s this week’s material? Don’t tell me you are going to whiff once again. Jeez, I’m on a ferry from Folegandros and then a flight from Athens, and to be honest, I’m completely soaked in Assyrtiko (a dry white wine) and tzatziki at the moment. Like General Patton …I think I was here in an earlier life (aka I friggin’ love this place). Needless to say, writer’s block would be an understatement.
With that said, while there wasn’t a billboard in sight in the Cyclades, other than the Greek Orthodox chapels with the blue domes built high on the volcanic hills. Yes, you heard that right, a local captain informed me that these things were constructed primarily not for use but for “long reads” from as many points on the island as possible. Good and consistent messaging as well! Here is a picture of one on Folegandros:
Can we learn anything from the Greeks? As we say in the billboard business… ubetcha.
Perhaps there are a few of us still breathing who remember the movie Zorba the Greek? What a 1960s epic! It should be on your required watching list (the book is not bad either).
“I was happy. I kept saying to myself, ‘This is true happiness: not to have any ambition yet to work doggedly as though you had every ambition; to live far from other people, yet to love them and not need them; for it to be Christmas, to eat and drink well; yet afterward, alone, to escape every lure and to possess the stars above you, with the land to your left, the sea to your right, and suddenly to understand that life, having brought its final accomplishment to conclusion in your heart, has turned into a fairy tale.” –‘Zorba the Greek’.
And just a little taste of the movie and its music:
https://youtu.be/QskFT7AaKH0?si=AbPx4PCFiKKJf7_P
But lest you think the Greece of Anthony Quinn is the Greece of today, I have news for you. Their airport execution is among some of the finest I have ever seen (think station domination).
Their website marketing is pretty damn sharp as well.
https://www.barbarossarestaurant.com/
Perhaps we can elevate our own game by keeping an eye on these guys?
I leave you with a couple of pearls.
- A few Homer doozies:
“Words empty as the wind are better left unsaid”
“Hateful to me as are the gates of Hades, is he who, hiding one thing in his heart, utters another”
“Each man delights in the work that suits him best”
- And the Tijuana Brass Band ripping it!
https://youtu.be/zzXjLRQO0q0?si=eOme_l8fPeEf_U7e
Securities transacted through StillPoint Capital Member firm FINRA/SiPC
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