The Cranky Media Guy

For a summer movie promotion, 7-11 has transformed 12 of their locations into stores that sell shoddy, overpriced merchandise run by Third World immigrants.  This has to be the cheapest “transformation” on record.  I mean, what did they really have to change here? But the Washington Post dutifully writes about their publicity stunt here: 7-Elevens Get a ‘Kwik-E-Mart’ Makeover - washingtonpost.com. Because as we all know, the job of every journalist - every newspaper, every radio and television station - is to act as an echo chamber for corporations and government.

BAMN!

This “hip” new restaurant in Greenwich Village looks a whole lot like the old Horn & Hardart Automats that were all over Manhattan when I was a kid.  Back then, they were populated by old people who would sit around all day over a cup of coffee and perhaps a piece of pie.  Now, judging from the picture on the front page, it’s where reasonably attractive girl-next-door types (probably NYU students) congregate.

Anyhoo, I get ideas from time to time that would generate publicity for certain kinds of businesses.  I’m going to put hints to some of them up on this blog, in the hopes that people who actually own those kinds of businesses will pay me to walk them through the idea, thereby profiting from the fruit of my massive brain.  I’m the guy who thought up the idea to “protest” when Binney and Smith changed eight of their Crayola colors, which sold millions of dollars worth of crayons for them.  In 2006, I was the guy who hoaxed the press by pretending to be the winner of the largest-ever Powerball lottery.  That one got me on Good Morning, America (I’ve been on the Today Show, Oprah, Lie Detector and tons of other TV shows, too.  I’ve also been written about in Time, Life and People magazines  as well as the New York Times, The New York Daily News, The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today.)

Yes, I have a real idea to get press for this “BAMN!” place.  If you know the owners, or if you ARE the owners, contact me ASAP.  I can give (sell) you an idea that will generate business and publicity for your New Wave Automat. 

Talk To Action | Reclaiming Citizenship, History, and Faith

This article is almost too annoying to comment on.  It’s about a hip, edgy Christian youth movement.  I’ll wait while you absorb that last sentence.  Yes, it’s every bit as fucking lame as you think it is. 

I’ve seen this movie, OK?  I went to Catholic high school in New York City way back before the Earth cooled.  They were trying to tell us that Jesus was “cool” then too.  They weren’t as sophisticated with the marketing then as they are now, so instead of loud rock music, we got Simon and Garfunkle; instead of graphic novels with J.C. as a superhero, we got The Gospel According to Peanuts (yes, Peanuts, the comic strip ’cause if there’s anything a 16-year-old boy wants to “rap” about, it’s Charlie Brown and Snoopy’s take on God).  Same crap, just in a less dazzling package. 

The fact is that if Jesus came back to Earth right now (assuming he was the same guy with the same message), these phony Christ Hustlers would hate the fucking guy.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Jesus was kind of anti-war.  Strip away the packaging and these guys are essentially Young Republicans; they’re as far away from REAL radicalism as it is humanly possibly to be.  They’re a Ford Focus with spinners.  They want you to look at the bling, not the rest of the package.

This is my favorite part of the article:

“At the debut event in San Francisco last year [Ron Luce, the founder of Battle Cry] rode onto a sandbag-lined stage in a Humvee.”

You want to be REALLY edgy and drive a Humvee near sandbags, motherfucker?  Join the goddamn Army!  They have LOTS of Humvees in places where there are a LOT of people you can try to convert to Christianity (the key word in that sentence being “try”).  Get your sorry ass to Fallujah and start winning over the Arabs, boy.

Ron Luce, just another phony hustler.

The first million dollar laptop - gizmag Article

I loves me some clever, creative publicity stunts and media hoaxes.  I’ve even been involved in several over the years.  On the other hand, I hates me some LAZY fucking publicity stunts and media hoaxes.

This “million dollar laptop” is just the most recent example of the kind of thing I hate.  It seems like every time I read Gizmodo or Engadget, I see a story about some cell phone manufacturer who is hustling some ridiculously overpriced piece of crap encrusted with Swarovsky crystals (for some reason, perhaps an obscure Federal law, they have to be SWAROVSKY crystals) touted as the “World’s Most Expensive Phone.” 

The other variation on this gag is the restaurant, usually in New York City or L.A. that has a hundred-dollar hamburger on its menu.  Know what you never hear about?  Anyone who has actually BOUGHT one of these things.

See, it isn’t really about SELLING the item in the story.  It’s about claiming you have the World’s Most Expensive Whatever so that you’ll get some exposure for your company which will hopefully sell the crap you’re REALLY trying to foist off on the public.

One top of this being the single most unimaginative stunt you can employ to get attention for your business, the fact is that the item in question, stripped of its bling, is inevitably rather mediocre.  If you’re going to dip one of your products in crystals like a chocolate-covered banana, why not at least do it to the highest end product in your line?  I’m sure there’s some reason for why they don’t do that, but damned if I can figure it out.

This is what the guy from the company says:

“I didn’t want us to simply re-house a laptop into a diamond studded
casing, or diamond encrust the entire thing simply to make it
expensive. We’ve put thought in from the keyboard down to the power
charger. There is an integrated screen cleaning device and a very rare
coloured diamond piece of jewellery that doubles up as the power button
when placed into the laptop and also acts as security identification.
We have used diamonds elsewhere but have given them purpose.”

Now, I ain’t no expert in computer manufacture, but diamond power button aside (and God knows you can’t live without THAT), other than the “screen cleaning device,” this doesn’t sound like anything all that special.  Here are the specs, according to the story:

“[I]t incorporates a 17″ widescreen LED lit screen with a specially
designed anti-reflective glare coating for clear and brighter image,
128GB of Solid State Disk space and a slot loading Blue-Ray drive.”

Yeah, and…?   Seriously, is that it?  Why don’t I just buy a $399. laptop at Wal-Mart, pour some Elmer’s Glue on it and roll it around in a box of rhinestones? 

You know when I’ll be impressed by shit like this?  When I read a follow-up story about some sucker who actually BOUGHT one of these things.  I’m not gonna hold my breath waiting for that, though.

In the meantime, I have a cat to sell you for a million dollars.  I’ll glue some Swarovsky crystals to his ass if that’ll seal the deal.

It has been said that in this world there are two kinds of people; those who separate others into ‘kinds’ and those who don’t … we take one kind and make them into another.

Consider this to be creative cultural shapeshifting: the awakening of image and consciousness without prior existential tangibility. It begins with the realization that nothing that is cultural is real in an objective sense, but instead is manufactured by general consent. And this is true regardless of the apparent immovability of the cultural melieu in which the person or thing is contained.

Perception is reality, and although this may sound trite, it is in fact the founding concept of every cherished institution of our society. When this idea is fully realized in ones life, one becomes a cultural shapeshifter - a reality hacker.

We don’t live in the matrix, we create the matrix and become a part of it. The cultural shapeshifter steps outside of this organically developed ‘reality’ - he/she creates a new reality and draws others into it.

If you are looking for a new reality, you’ve come to the right place.