Going to his head. 07/21/23

You know that phrase, “the power has gone to his head?” One thing you almost never hear is the female version of that, “the power has gone to her head,” but we’ve all seen what happens when many a politician and many a tech guru have the power go to their respective heads. For example, you need to look no further than the upcoming steel-cage mixed martial arts match between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. How much would you pay to watch that? (Okay, time for an admission. The truth is I’d plunk down $50 to watch that on pay-per-view, but please don’t let on to anybody that I said that.) And if Zuck and Elon ended up maiming each other, and Facebook and Twitter were hurt as a result, how bad would that be?

But I digress. In this week’s series Miguel takes over for Al who is suffering with an undisclosed temporary illness (and no it’s not Covid, he’s been vaccinated and boosted up the wazoo, not that THAT necessarily helps- I’ve gotten it twice despite being boosted up a similar wazoo). In fact, the pizza place does better during Miguel’s short stint than it did during Al’s entire tenure, despite the fact that Al just won the national Pizza-on-a-Stick Franchisee of the Year award.

Al’s got to be careful he doesn’t do a Wally Pipp. For those of you who don’t know what that means, Wally Pipp was the Yankee first baseman who sat out one game due to a headache on June 2, 1925. The Yankees started a rookie first baseman by the name of Lou Gehrig that day, and Lou played in the next 2,130 consecutive games. Wally probably wished he had re-thought that headache. He could have avoided a lot of splinters from sitting on the bench. As for Al, he’s impressed by what Miguel has accomplished in his one week at the helm, but he’s not worried about being replaced by Miguel. No one is calling Miguel the “Lou Gehrig of pizza,” at least not yet. Miguel has yet to master the art of when to push, and when to back off. When I was running a creative group at an ad agency a few years back, I had to learn the same thing. But being allergic to hard work, the backing off part was the easy part. Okay, hold your comments. I’m still working on it.

Finally, John and I have put over 200 comics together along with insights and chapter headings for our upcoming Comic Book, “The New 60, a Comic Collection for the Ages.” Either former Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago or Al Capone was quoted as saying, “Vote early, vote often.” When it comes to our book, we say “buy early, buy often.” But no pressure. Okay, a little pressure. Details to come soon. Have a wonderful weekend and we’ll be back next week with the conclusion to Miguel’s first foray into management.

Andy and John