This is just too funny–a great year-end look at the year in business and marketing from curmudgeonly Herschell Gordon Lewis…

Twas the night before Christmas, a time for no joys
Because Santa could not afford presents and toys.
Why not? Well, like most of us, it’s a tough time,
And his North Polar mortgage was really sub-prime.
Worse, his deadly stockholding, like so many others,
Was a lousy investment in sad Lehman Brothers.
And he’d wanted some bright wooden trim for his sleigh,
But the idea went down with the fall of Bombay.
He hoped both sleigh and reindeer would not lose endurance,
Because AIG had covered all their insurance.
Ah, he thought, I’ll at least get a quality yield
From gift packages from that great store, Marshall Field.
Nope, another great notion that’s now pushing daisies
Because Marshall Field now is a blue-collar Macy’s.
Hmm, some books would be nice for my favorite elf.
Too bad: Borders is selling not books but itself.
Why not go for top fashions, a perfect gift turn-on?
Uhhh, who’s today’s owner of Lillian Vernon?
Maybe sharp electronics, a wonderful notion.
Not from The Sharper Image, stopped dead in mid-motion.
From these oh-so-bleak bits you’d be bound to detect
That we marketers suffer from sub-prime effect.
Yeah, if negative numbers are any true sign,
The days of wild growth are in savage decline.
But even in these days, the toughest of times,
Some smarties reap in lots of nickels and dimes….

Read all of it over at Direct magazine’s website.

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