All You Need is Dumb

If you’ve got a cell-phone, you’re a movie producer, and if you’re on youtube,
you’re a television network all your own. Everybody’s publishing themselves
online now, and it’s just a matter of how dumb it is, if you want the massive
millions of hits. Whether they stay on the video is another matter. All we can
measure is the interest, not the effect.

Here’s a young girl with a camera and a hand-held beat-box, and very little
else in the way of assets.

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The Night Kitchen

Let’s say you and your all-night party walk into an all-night diner that looks
like that famous one in the famous painting, you know which one I mean.

There’s nobody at the counter, but there is a fry-cook at the stove, so you
decide to shout out your order, because you know what your friends want,
and as a former “bubble dancer”, or dishwasher, also known as a Hydro-
Ceramic Engineer”, you happen to know restaurant slang!

“Hey,” you bark like a seasoned waiter or waitress, “Gimme a bowl o’ red,
clean up the kitchen, burn one, burn the British, wreck ’em with zeppelins in
a fog, irish turkey with a dog biscuit, cup o’ mud and a jack high & dry! Cow
feed bridge party, bossy in a bowl!”

What in hell did you just order, you ask… Well, here’s the breakdown:

A “bowl o’ red” is a bowl of red beans, generally Santa Fe style with plenty of
flavor and lots of chili peppers mixed in real good. A real bowl o’ red will take
the roof clean off your mouth and leave you with a cloud of steam rising
from the hole in your head.

“Clean up the kitchen” is the same as “gentleman will take a chance” — it’s
corned-beef hash. Beef on toast is, as you vets will know, “shit on a single”.

“Burn one” means to the short-order or fry cook “throw another burger on
the fire”, but “Burn the British” means to fork-split and toast an English
muffin.

“Wreck ’em with zeppelins in a fog” means that one of your companions is
fond of scrambled eggs with sausages in a mound of mashed potatoes.

“Irish turkey with a doggie biscuit” is restaurant lingo for corned beef &
cabbage with a cracker.

“Cup o’ mud is coffee, and a Jack is not jack cheese, as you’d maybe think,
but a grilled American cheese sandwich, named after comedian Jack
Benny, who made them famous with his radio commercial for Kraft cheese –
– oh, and your friend wants it “high and dry”, meaning without all the fancy
dressings and stuff.

That “cow-feed bridge party” means that four in your party want a salad
before their main course and you probably already figured out that “bossy in
a bowl” is a cow in a pot, meaning, of course, “beef stew”.

So, next time you’re in a restaurant, you’ll know how to ask for what you
want, as long as it’s one of the items I’ve mentioned above!

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kid who was on the street

Something you might look into…

Here’s a kid who was on the street since he was 5, spending his days as he
describes so vividly in this performance challenge. You’ll be surprised at the
power, range and simplicity of his singing voice. He ought to have a chance
to climb out of poverty with this talent…has he done so???

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marketing strategies

Marketing Strategies for the 21st century

Wanna see whatcha gotta do online to get someone to actually press the
“add to shopping cart” or “buy it now” buttons onscreen???

Supposedly, if you make a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to
your door.

Mousetraps are not my meat, but hair removal is another story. I’m going to
point out a typical new-technology product that’s being offered on television,
internet, anywhere they can get a foot in the door…

In a moment, you’ll have an opportunity to see this marketing blitz for
yourself, but take a moment to reflect on what you’re about to see.

I challenge you to discover the actual price of the item anywhere on the
selling site!!! Anywhere!!! You will note that they offer you a $100
DISCOUNT on the item…oh, wait just a moment…did I say “item”?

Try to do anything but buy the item. Try to find out anything, get any real
answers… they may be there, but everything is directed to drive you toward
the “buy it now” button ever-present, ever-hopeful, on your screen.

It’s not just one item, by the way…it actually comes to about a dozen items,
some of which need replacement. There’s also an instructional CD that tells
you how to use it safely, more or less. Here’s the url in question:

http://www.trynono.com/ will get you there, but you’ll note that you are
immediately switched over to a referral page.

There’s a program you’re expected to follow, a regimen that requires some
discipline, and in the videos on the product, it doesn’t look all that pleasant
to perform this ritual many, many times, to get the effect — if there really is
one.

If you actually wanted to find out more about the price of this product, you
couldn’t do it on their site or by calling them. They’ll never tell you how much
it’s actually going to cost you. They keep charging your card until you
scream “stop”, if you ever manage to get them to hear you.

What’s the gimmick here?

Real serious need. Most folks can’t stand to shave five or six times a day to
manage a continuously growing face or chest or leg or arm or back of
unwanted hair, and performers are doubly cursed with the repeated use of
heavy cosmetics, grease-paint and built-up or constricting costumes, that
make any itchy or scratchy area doubly or triply so.

So a system of self-performed hair-removal that inhibits hair growth and
reduces the effort to keep it down, answers a very profound need. Some
people are not merely bothered by facial and body hair, it causes them
some very serious discomfort day and night, and at some point, in sheer
desperation,  they shave it, hoping for at least some momentary relief.

Consequently, something that offers freedom from that incessant shaving
chain will surely attract millions of delighted customers, especially if it
actually works.

If something answers some personal misery with a better solution, you
better believe that it will sell regardless of price. Money becomes a very
secondary issue against discomfort, pain, misery, failure and depression.

Solve any major issue of personal suffering, and you have a potential
goldmine. Mousetrap, hell !!! Get ready for a pathful of people!!! For
marketing to the Great Unwashed, give me a hair-remover anytime!!!

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