This was the cover of the December 10, 1989, issue of Northeast magazine.

Sir Consultant’s Strategic Plan

I folded the linen napkin and placed it gingerly over the remains of my rubber-chicken dinner. Tonight was the night I finally got the recognition I deserved. At the annual awards banquet of the Advertising Club of Central Connecticut, Ambrose/Partners had just copped four gold “Axes,” the club's highest honor, and half a dozen silvers.

I run the agency, one of Hartford's hottest shops. As a marketing consultant I provide my clients with top-drawer advice, I also wear the head copywriter hat. I write primo copy: Short sentences. Sentences with PUNCH. And sentences that start with “And.”

I also give great metaphor.

I wish I could have enjoyed the evening the way the boys and girls from our creative department did. But my attention was drawn to old Julius Bridgeman sitting there as always with his pudgy red neck slightly overflowing his perfect white collar. Thirty years in the game, nine with his own agency. Now he was looking at close to a quarter million in state sales tax liability. A quarter million!

My agency's audit was scheduled to start Monday, the day after tomorrow. There was no way I would share Bridgeman's fate. I'm a Connecticut Yankee. Faced with any challenging situation, I can do whatever needs to be done. I can change the spark plugs in my BMW, for instance. I can maneuver my antenna to pick up Albany public radio. I can do a spreadsheet.

After the awards dinner, I joined my people at a private celebration. I felt anxious but full of energy. After a few rounds I excused myself and pointed the Beemer downtown to see what I could do in the office to cram for the audit.

I had already loaded our billings for the last five years into seven different spreadsheets on my '386[1]. By merging and sorting these in every conceivable way and cross-referencing them with the employee time records, I figured that one of two things would emerge:

1. A composite printout that would demonstrate how we had meticulously followed the spirit and letter of the law; or
2. Records so confusing and gnarly that even Henry Block would throw up his hands.

I parked the car, took out the Blaupunkt, and hid it under the seat. I picked up the box of awards and took it up to my office. As I hung up my dinner jacket, I noticed with fond amusement a stack of shoulder holsters in one corner. I had purchased nineteen Colt .45s so that everyone in the office could be wearing the guns when the people from Colt came here for our new business presentation last week. Clients love this kind of thing. I strapped one on. I was in the mood. It weighed a ton but I liked the feel. Gets the juices flowing.

I had put the macros in my spreadsheet through their paces for several hours when I happened to look up at the clock: It was five minutes to four, I decided to make some Jo to keep me awake another hour or so. I keyed in the command sequence to save my file and went to brew the coffee. When I came back, the only thing on the screen was this:

C>

I knew what this meant: all my work down the tubes. I whipped out the pistol, pointed it at the screen, said “Bang,” and squeezed the trigger. To my astonishment, the firearm thundered in my hand and leapt back to my shoulder. I flipped the thing over to look in the handle. Sure enough, somebody had slipped a clip into it.

Glass and electronic debris were everywhere, A six-inch hole appeared in the wall behind the tube. I felt disgusted with myself, Connecticut, my computer, the gun, and the jerk who loaded it. I ejected the clip from the pistol and threw it in the pile of holsters. I jammed the automatic back in my shoulder holster and took a minute to calm down. Cold panic was setting in. I was too upset to deal with these calamities tonight. So I decided to stack some z's back at the condo and come in tomorrow to clean up.

I filled my travel mug with coffee. I took one of the gold “Axes” out of the box and read the inscription: “Best Employment Of Stock Photography In A 16 Or More Page Four-Color Brochure For A Medical Or Legal Institution.” I put it in my coat pocket to show the neighbors at the condo and went down to my car.

A dense fog was smothering the city. You could have hidden Mount Washington in Hartford that night. I found the Beemer by sense of smell, got in, and nosed it toward the Founders Bridge. Even with the defroster and the windshield wipers going full tilt, I was within a few yards of it before I saw the “Closed for Repairs” sign. An arrow indicated the detour to the Bulkeley Bridge. I turned in that direction and kept an eye peeled for more arrows. I spotted one and turned onto an unfamiliar road. I drove a pretty long way. The pavement ended, but there is so much construction going on in the Hartford area that you don't pay much attention to such inconveniences.

Visibility was essentially zero when I heard the thud.

***

When I came to, I was still behind the wheel. The sun was out. My head throbbed. My left eye was swollen shut. An egg was developing under the skin above my eye. Hard-boiled. There was dried blood on my cheek and two crimson drops on my rented dinner jacket.

On the other hand, I was alive. I didn't feel like I had any broken bones. In fact, I felt mobile, agile, and hostile.

The Beemer was embracing an immense oak. The road – such as it was – made a semicircular detour around the tree. There were no markers, not even the usual “Road Legally Closed” sign. “Well,” I thought, “we'll get a little bit of that tax money back for this one.”

My first inclination was to leave the Beemer there for evidence and to go on foot for help. I pulled myself out of the car to survey the situation. Both sides of the road were thickly wooded. I figured I must be up near the North Meadows somewhere, although I couldn't smell Mount Garbage yet. I decided to try to drive the car and worry about my lawsuit evidence later.

The Beemer started up with no difficulty. German engineering. I stayed on the road for a mile or two. I expected to run into the service area. Instead, I happened upon what looked like a stone castle surrounded by hovels. I drove up to the gate, assuming that it was some new toy store or Sheraton Tara under construction. I hadn't heard of any such thing, but there was supposed to be some kind of new outlet mall going up in Windsor. Could I be in Windsor?

There was no parking lot The only door was at least twelve-feet high and just as wide. It had a portcullis in front of it – iron bars. I looked at the shacks, but I didn't see anyone. I handled it like a New Yorker. I honked my horn and kept honking.

I never learned who provided this lovely illustration.

The grinding of machinery preceded the ponderous rising of the wooden door. On the other side were four people on horseback. They were all less than 5’6”. Three of them had on rusty old chain mail and helmets. The other one wore a long gray dress. He also had a long white beard and a ridiculous conical hat. He carried a stick that was as long as he was tall.

I could think of two rational explanations for this charade. It could be an expensive promotion for some new business or a convention of the Society for Creative Anachronism, If it was the former, I would have heard about it. So they had to be kooks. I leaned out the window and said, “Hey, Slick, is this Windsor, or what?”

My remarks caused a great disturbance among the four horsemen. The second guy from the left conferred for a minute with the fellow in the dress, who started digging through his pockets. Then he answered me, “In sooth, not. Windsor Castle lies many leagues hence. And what be thou hight[2], great armored beast?”

It only took me a second to think of a suitable reply. “I am yclept the Beemer.” I flashed my one working headlight at them. All four horses reared. The one on the right dumped its rider behind it.

The guy in the dress produced some flash powder, chanted some voodoo-hoodoo, and hurled some dust through the gate. It created a cloud of smoke between us. Not Siegfried and Roy, but fairly impressive.

When the smoke cleared, the portcullis had been raised. I eased the car through the opening into an unpaved parking lot where there were horses and carts but no cars. I occasionally saw a head or two peeking out from windows onto the lot, but the only people there were the four I saw before. They had all dismounted and gathered around my car with ashen faces.

“Dost thou yield?”

I thought better of it, and got out of the car. One of the knights spoke up, “’S wounds! The monster has fair given birth to a Cyclops!”

I could see his point. I was head and shoulders taller than these shrimps and one eye was closed tight. I replied, “Nay, ’tis Sir Ambrose One-eye, consultant to kings. I bear with me these blessed items: the axe of St. Cuthbert and a pistol blessed by Holy Polycarp himself.” I displayed my eighteen-inch “Axe” and the .45, figuring that this would get a laugh from even such diehards as these. I was wrong. They stayed in character.

“Lancelot, slay the foul beast,” said the leader.

This was a disappointment.

So they were playing Camelot. I must have Merlin, Arthur, Lancelot here, and who knows? Gawain? Kay the seneschal? Lance drew out his sword. As I screamed at him, he charged in a few steps and took a smooth left-handed swing at the Beemer's headlight. The contact knocked the sword out of his hand and bent it at about the same angle as the top half of a coat hanger. Lancelot dropped his sword and shook his hands.

I had had enough. “Look, you jerks! Don't touch the car, got it ? I'm serious.” I brandished the .45 around for effect.

Arthur was unmoved. “Sir Pellinore, after the Cyclops,” he ordered.

The clown who had been thrown from his horse took from his saddle a morning star—a ball and chain on a stick—and started swinging it around as he charged me.

“I'm not kidding. I'll use this.” I knew that the ammo lay back in my office, but they didn’t. As I backed up, I waved my pistol, but the fool charged anyway. I was again surprised to feel theblast of the .45. Sir Pellinore was blown backward. I flipped the gun over. The handle was empty.

Then I remembered: “And one in the chamber.”

The three of them were dumbstruck at the sight of their fallen comrade. I was a little shaken myself. I saw my fingerprints on the handle. A registration number easily traceable to me. Rifling on the round identifying the gun. Three eyewitnesses, at least.

Arthur broke the silence. “Have mercy on us, great sir!”

I played along. “Mercy it is, but show unto me, great king, the hospitality for which Camelot is so famous ‘round the land.”

I must have said the right thing. People poured out into the square to celebrate their alliance with the all-powerful monster. The four who faced me (including Pellinore, who caught the bullet in his sword arm) showed me to their clubhouse. About twenty knights and at least as many dogs joined us for a feast. The dogs were enormous, but all the humans were practically midgets – not a one of them was six feet. They were also way beyond ugly – pock-marked faces, greasy hair, broken noses, cauliflower ears, missing teeth, etc. And did they smell! On the other hand, the ale was not bad, and the food was abundant. No nouvelle cuisine here. It reminded most of a rugby team's victory bash.

The celebration lasted all day. The knights got their amusement from drinking enormous quantities of liquor, harassing the serving wenches, and spinning tall tales of their valor. Most of the fellows were pretty well beat up. It turns out that their wounds came not from monsters or foreign armies. Instead, these guys fought each other all the time, and they didn't pull any punches either. They'd get into their tin cans, mount up, and beat on each other until one yielded That's how they established their pecking order around the table.

Arthur, a world-class elbow-bender, was the last to take the floor. He wove a few dozen monster-killings into his tale to keep the interest alive, but mostly he railed about what a hard time he had getting the folks to pay taxes. It seems that there was a king on every corner around here. It was not unusual for five or ten of them to try to collect from the same peasants.

According to Arthur, Camelot faced a severe fiscal crisis. Nearly a score of his extortionists/tax collectors had been hanged in public squares. Each time, he quickly sent in the knights to bestow the king's justice on anyone who vaguely resembled a tax-dodger. This approach had a good “feel” to it, but after all the guilty people were killed, there were seldom enough innocent people left to tax. In fact, the ranks of the able-bodied were shrinking drastically. What Arthur wanted was a knight who could save his kingdom from this peril.

I recognized his problem in a New York minute. I'd heard the same story a hundred times. Not the hangings or even the tax collection, but the pattern was familiar. The old man (in this case Uther Pendragon) builds up the company through the force of his personality and hard work. Then his son takes over and drives the whole thing into the ground. When he is about one invoice from bankruptcy, he calls in his veeps or outside consultants to save his cookies.

Here's the way a good consultant deals with a guy like this: You come up with an idea that will work long enough for his checks to clear, and you convince him that it is his idea. It works every time.

I jumped at the opportunity. “My liege,” I said, “grant unto me this boon. Let me handle this taxes thing for you in payment for the generous hospitality you have favored me with this day.”

“Can you really do it?” the king asked. “How can you solve this problem which has vexed us for so long? Sorcery? With an army of knights mounted on your Beemer-beast?”

“No way, Ray,” I said. “We'll start with a focus group. I'll do some concept development, and then we'll put together a creative team. You've got a lot of monks hanging around all day illuminating manuscripts, right? Let me have a crew of them to serve as mechanical artists. And Merlin, I'm thinking of making you copy chief.” Merlin made a V of his Edward Teller eyebrows.

***

I can't see Ambrose in striped pants.

A few weeks passed. The king was getting impatient. Clients are always antsy, but I couldn't much blame him this time. Four more of his boys were sporting hemp neckties, and the focus group was taking longer than I expected. If the serfs had an opinion on anything besides tomorrow's weather, they weren't admitting it. The muckety-mucks were no better. They didn't want the boys riding down for a day of fun at their expense. They had nothing but praise for Arthur and his court. The only ones who opened up were the children.

Here is what my research team discovered: The priests had thoroughly indoctrinated the people that they should render unto Caesar the things that were Caesar's, So far so good. Their problem was that everybody with a steel hat and a sharp sword expected to collect taxes from them. And Arthur was getting a reputation as a mean-mouthed braggart who spent all his tax money on potent potables. And they didn't think much of that weirdo Merlin. With Uther, they could see the results of their taxes – the magnificent pile of rocks that was Camelot. With Arthur, they didn't know what they were getting. His image definitely needed work.

There was a bright spot. The grown-ups were afraid of the knights, but all of the kids loved them. And everybody agreed that Arthur had the most formidable knights around.

I had enough to compose my Strategic Plan. A Strategic Plan is very important for a consultant. Clients are always very impressed when you list what you are going to do and put numbers next to each item. There are two crucial components of a good Strategic Plan: indentation and word selection. You use the indentation to prove how analytical and organized you are. The words you select – “bottom line,” “earnings,” “stock value,” – prove that you're a no-nonsense kind of guy.

My plan had two basic elements:

1. Capitalize on the one positive aspect of the situation – the popularity of the knights.
2. Use all available media to promulgate the image of Camelot – the home of the greatest knights in Christendom.

I know. Arthurian England had no media. We would have to deliver our pitch in person. Without media it would be virtually impossible to generate decent frequency (the number of times someone hears your message). The only way to compensate for a low frequency is to make your message unforgettable. And that requires great creative[3]. My forte.

I came up with a to-die concept. I called my team together and warned them that we were going to make our presentation to His Majesty the very next day. Creative people work best under pressure. It would be the first all-knighter in the history of advertising.

I explained to the monks what I needed. A dozen of them toiled by candlelight working up storyboards for me. Merlin and I spent our time interviewing each knight. Our purpose was to split them into three categories – the pretty boys, the cutthroats, and the schlubs. To be a pretty boy or a cutthroat, you had to be tough looking, and (more importantly) able to memorize a two-minute speech in a fairly convincing manner. Assigning the knights was fairly straightforward, but Merlin and I had a big disagreement over Galahad. He looked like a pencil-necked geek to me. Merlin insisted that he should be a pretty boy. I gave in.

By the following morning, I was pumped. I personally made the presentation to Arthur and the knights. I unveiled the first board: a picture of a beautiful castle with one word emblazoned across the top:

CAMELOT

I let the concept simmer for a few seconds. Then I sold it. “Camelot. What does it mean to you? This is what I see: a kingdom that is the envy of all others. And why? Because it is the home of chivalry—the base of the greatest, the purest, the strongest knights in all Christendom. Knights who have done great deeds, rescued fair damsels, slain dire monsters, quested against all odds to recover lost artifacts. Knights who are not afraid to test their mettle on the field of battle again and again. Knights who bow to no man save one, the once and future king, Arthur, rightful ruler of all Britons.”

“That's what I always wanted to be! I am the greatest king, I should be the only king. And you knights should make me king!” exclaimed Arthur as he pounded his stein on the table. “Speak on, Sir Consultant, methinks your plan is near the mark.” One of the hounds bounded up on the table to lap up the ale spilled by the king.

The second board portrayed a pair of mounted knights rushing headlong toward each other, spears raised. One was garbed in highly polished armor. From his helm, a plume of scarlet and gold caught the breeze. The other's armor was drab and rusty. We had a one-word caption (I respect the KISS principle) for this picture too:

JOUST-A-MANIA

I explained thus: “The wise king, knowing that the purity of his knights is the backbone of his kingdom, holds a tournament on his castle grounds. The bravest and strongest knights from the world over are to be summoned to the castle to challenge the king's own knights. For this affair, the king's champions are bedecked in shining armor and bright colors to distinguish them from those who only aspire to greatness.”

“Alas, Sir Consultant,” the king interjected, “many of my knights are very brave, but some of these youths just aren't ready. Moreover, the Norsemen are strong past all reckoning, to say nothing of the Franks and the Northumbrians. What if one of them should hold sway on the field of battle?”

“But that is precisely the beauty of the plan. We're not actually going to invite any of these knights from other lands. Nay, your own knights will be both the champions and the challengers. We have already selected the knights to appear in Joust-a-mania, The boys all understand which side of their bread gets buttered. If those other guys want to show their stuff, let them organize their own events.”

He didn't understand. I was ready with more storyboards that spoon-fed the concept to him I let him guess the next element of the plan as often as I could. It was a tough sale. The idea of the knights using their skills in swordplay and jousting for a little “sports entertainment” was foreign to all of them. On the other hand, they really went for the pictures and the shiny armor. I sold the king on the idea when I told him that I would drive him and Gwen around in the Beemer for the opening and closing ceremonies.

The only real dissenter was Sir Kay, who was very upset at being thrown in with the schlubs. But, please, you had to see this guy. He was the very, definition of a schlub.

I split the knights up into four squads. Each squad was half schlubs. The other half was either pretty boys, who would represent Camelot at Joust-a-mania, or cutthroats, who would be the opposition there. The schlubs would provide cannon fodder for the heroes and villains in the road contests. I spent a few days showing them how to fall without breaking their collarbones, how to use the sides of their swords instead of the blades, and how to high five. The morning stars were to be swung around a lot but never used. Maces were great – the more mace work the better. We modified everybody's armor to include a lot more padding, it made the guys look bigger, and it cut down the chance of injury. The pretty boys' armor was polished until it was blinding. The cutthroats’ we made as dirty and ugly as possible.

The plan, as you have probably deduced, was to send the guys out into the countryside staging battles to set up the rivalries for Joust-a-mania, which I had scheduled for three months down the road. Since hardly anyone could read, I had the monks busy making up “chivalry trading cards” each depicting one of the good guys in action. The squires and pages were instructed to sell these cards to the youngsters for a ha’pence apiece and explain which of the cutthroats was the mortal enemy of their master and why he needed to be punished for his dastardly deeds. Each knight's colors were prominently displayed so that they would be easily recognized at Joust-a-mania.

Many of the knights still had only the vaguest idea of how the plan was supposed to work. To make sure that they didn't ruin it, I laid down the following ground rules: The schlubs always lose. This was not popular with the schlubs, of course, but I assuaged them with the story of how the patron saints of schlubs, Steve Lombardi, rose from obscurity to become The Brooklyn Brawler.