The Value of Misfits
Next week I'm going to write about The Future of Advertising, I promise. (I'm aware that many of you endure my odd wanderings into the Forest of Contemplation only because you know that I will sooner or later return to deliver a valuable insight into advertising – the subject for which I am known.) Thank you for your patience with me. But alas, today is another of those days when I take you for a walk into the fog behind my eyes…
Do you remember the guy that used to pop up at sporting events holding a sign that said “John 3:16”? The rumor in those days was that his efforts were being funded by a millionaire who wanted to arouse our curiosity enough to cause us to dig into our Bibles to figure out what was going on. A beautiful story; it just wasn't true.
The real tale of our rainbow-wigged buddy began in Spokane, Washington, when 7 year-old Rollen Stewart learned that his father had suddenly died. Seven years later, his mother was tragically killed in a house fire. And then his sister was strangled by her boyfriend. So Rollen retreated into the mountains to become a marijuana farmer, tried to get into the Guinness Book of World Records by growing the world's longest mustache, and watched a lot of TV. In 1976, when Rollen realized that his “longest mustache” plan probably wasn't going to pay off, he decided to become famous by popping up in the background at televised events.
Flash forward a dozen years: Rollen is now setting off stink bombs in public places around Los Angeles and mailing threatening letters signed “the Antichrist.” Finally, on September 22, 1992, Rollen kidnaps 3 people at gunpoint and demands a 3-hour televised press conference. (Has that idea ever actually worked for anyone? Personally, I can't remember a TV-show ever being interrupted for a broadcast from a kidnapper.)Rollen Stewart is now serving 3 life sentences in the L.A. county jail, but his multicolored thread will remain forever woven into the fabric of our generation, so in a way, I guess he got his wish.
Outsiders like Rollen Stewart are disruptive and obsessive and they make us feel uncomfortable. James Gould Cozzens spoke the truth when he said, “Real rebels are rarely anything but second rate outside their rebellion; the drain of time and temper is ruinous to any other accomplishment.” But I thank God daily for outsiders, because I also agree with George Bernard Shaw, who said, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.”
“Unreasonable” outsiders such as Galileo, Copernicus and Einstein brought us many of the greatest advancements in science. Recent scientific outsiders include Edward Lorenz, the obscure weatherman whose glimpse of a strange attractor in 1961 opened the door to Chaos Theory. And of course there's my friend Kary Mullis, the chemist whose discovery of PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) kicked open the door to genetic research and won him the Nobel Prize. But even after they've won the embrace of an adoring public, a true outsider will remain forever an outsider. Because being an outsider is not what they do, it's who they are.
Outsiders in literature include John Steinbeck, J.D. Salinger and Ted Geisel (Dr. Seuss.) Outsiders in journalism include Joseph Pulitzer, Upton Sinclair and James Cramer. Artistic outsiders include Mozart in music, Picasso in painting, and Gaudi in architecture.
Speaking of architecture, the great architectural outsider of our generation, Marley Porter, has completed his drawings for the administration building of the new Wizard Academy campus. Located on a 21-acre plateau overlooking the Texas hill country, we're hoping the new Academy will become the second home of brilliant outsiders – people like you – for many decades to come. The open-air food-and-meeting pavilion will be ready in about 60 days and construction on the main building (above) should begin shortly thereafter. If you want to wander it, just ask, and we'll zip out there during your next visit to Austin.
See you soon,
Roy H. Williams