J.P. Yates is hung-over, and it's not just from all the Maker's Mark bourbon. He's hung-over from spinning and selling, from propogating false ideas because they paid more than truth. He's hung-over from being The Futurist.
"He once took batting practice with the New York Mets, pretending not to notice the eight-year-old boy with leukemia from the Make-A-Wish Foundation whom the PR director let him cut in front of because he had to catch a plane. He once sat in on the drums with WIlco. He once brokered a venture capital deal for a technology he didn't understand between friends he no longer has while playing Ultimate Frisbee."
"He once took batting practice with the New York Mets, pretending not to notice the eight-year-old boy with leukemia from the Make-A-Wish Foundation whom the PR director let him cut in front of because he had to catch a plane. He once sat in on the drums with WIlco. He once brokered a venture capital deal for a technology he didn't understand between friends he no longer has while playing Ultimate Frisbee."
J.P. Yates, a.k.a. the futurist, is like the most privelaged of advertising execs, just a few steps higher on the food chain. He's a trend-spotter, a slick forecaster for hire to the highest bidder, but he's reached a lifetime low. At the Futureworld conference in Johannesburg, he delivers not a keynote speech about the bright new day of the Johannesburg business community as expected, but a drunken confession of his own cluelessness and a resigning farewell.
Far from being the career suicide he had supposed this admission to be, Yates finds that he is more in demand than ever. In fact, upon returning to his hotel room he is approached by a couple of suits representing nebulous corporate/governmental (hard to say which as the lines are blurred and the suits aren't telling) interests with an offer that Yates can't refuse.
Far from being the career suicide he had supposed this admission to be, Yates finds that he is more in demand than ever. In fact, upon returning to his hotel room he is approached by a couple of suits representing nebulous corporate/governmental (hard to say which as the lines are blurred and the suits aren't telling) interests with an offer that Yates can't refuse.
On a global mid-life crisis tour that begins in the stark fjords of Greenland and lands him in the besieged Middle-Eastern country of Bas'ar, the futurist spirals further downward into his crisis of faith and vocation while simultaniously commenting on contemporary culture.
Author James P. Othmer, a former creative director in advertising, sheds a sardonic light on the corporate excesses that mar the post-9/11 landscape. This is an intelligent and quick-paced debut from from an author whose vocational landscape was not dissimilar from the futurist's. Not unlike Max Barry's Jennifer Government, The Futurist makes liberal use of irony and wry wit to comment upon the corporate American Empire and the role of the individual.
Author James P. Othmer, a former creative director in advertising, sheds a sardonic light on the corporate excesses that mar the post-9/11 landscape. This is an intelligent and quick-paced debut from from an author whose vocational landscape was not dissimilar from the futurist's. Not unlike Max Barry's Jennifer Government, The Futurist makes liberal use of irony and wry wit to comment upon the corporate American Empire and the role of the individual.
