The Cranky Media Guy

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. 

California Traffic Safety Institute - CTSI

After stumbling across this list of approved California theme traffic schools, I got an idea: Bondage and Discipline Traffic School.  Can’t you just see the leather-bound mistress/instructor screaming, “What is the speed limit for a school zone, maggot?”

Variety.com - The CW’s sweet inspiration

So, what DO you do when the new network you cobbled together out of the still-festering carcasses of two other networks can’t come up with anything resembling a hit show to save its ass?  Why, you put some cutting-edge art on the walls of your offices, that’s what.

Don’t get me wrong; I actually like a lot of modern art.  It’s just that this is SO fucking corporate–thinking that putting something creative by someone not in your employ in the general vicinity of your staff will somehow cause said staff to come up with something creative of their own, as if imagination and creativity could be transmitted by osmosis.

Here’s MY heretical idea (lest I be accused, like the Democrats, of not having my own suggestions about how to end the war, or program this piece-of-shit network, or whatever):  Hire legitimately creative people and encourage them to BE creative, to take chances.  Oh, and don’t automatically punish them if something they do come up with doesn’t immediately work.  I know, I know, there I go, talking all crazy-like again.  Nah, just put some wacky art up on the walls and watch the juices start flowing,  Yeah, that’s the ticket.