Publicity for the Dead

If you're a singer, an actor, or simply play a set of spoons, you are going to ask: HOW DO I GET NOTICED?

And a feral, creepy weasel will tell you, "BY HIRING ME. I'M...a...PUBLICIST!"

Cue the Monty Python "stab" music. That last word could've been HERRING. Or SHRUBBERY. And you'd be better off.

You want to be booked into some pay-to-play club? Really?

You want to be on some asshole's podcast, or do a "phoner" on an obscure radio show?

You'd be better off sending that club owner or DJ a SHRUBBERY. (One that looks nice, and not too expensive). Or a jar of herring. You do NOT need some fuckhead charging you a fortune for the intangible of "publicity" that won't pay off.

IF I'M BEING HONEST, the good PR people only take on clients who actually are worth publicizing, and they don't scam with penny ante nonsense like radio interviews. They say, "I know how to get you booked on a late night talk show," and do it. And you pay them.

The BAD PR people will take anybody's money, and pretend that the bare minimum they do is remarkable, and "a big step toward fame and fortune." After a few months of taking your money, and failing to get you any meaningful publicity, they huff in exasperation, "You aren't giving me much to work with," and hang up, blaming YOU and taking no responsibility for the false promises they made.

Quite a few PR companies are non-exclusive, meaning, if they can get a D-list celebrity a gig cutting a ribbon at a car wash, great. If they know of a memorabilia convention that needs a few more losers to sit at tables next to an extra from "Dr. Who" and the child star from "The Munsters," you're in. You pay for what they do, but can accept offers from other bottom-dwellers. These PR people are happy to get any D-list star on their list, no matter how tenuous the connection, because it helps rope in the utter fools out there.

One of the queasiest things about these inept and toothless old sharks is how they try to shine shit. Even worse, is that gullible shits are easily blinded by even the faintest glimmer coming off a piece of unshined shit. Some plumber who wrote a book, "A Funny Thing Happened While I Was Fixing a Sewer Pipe," sees a D-lister on some publicist's list and thinks, "Yes, I'll pay a fortune to THIS guy!" Actually, the plumber would do just as well going on Facebook, networking with 5,000 other plumbers, and trying to hawk his book to them via a link to Amazon. But, duhhh, they'd rather pay a publicist who won't even do THAT.

What's amusing is PR guys who actually use FACEBOOK themselves! Oh, how professional, how inspiring, how original. They crawl around FACEBOOK all day calling attention to themselves by leaving "nice" comments AND a link to their website! The spam could be: "Hey, D-Lister, glad to see you'll be appearing at the Diddly Squat Convention in Crotch, Wyoming. Some of my clients will be there, too!" LINK.

And the D-lister and the fans are supposed to click the link, be impressed, and hire the miraculous PR creep.

Some of the websites for PR people are truly amazing. I found one page, which was smeared with happy smiling pictures of Mr. P.R. and his staff, all eager to promote their clients and have YOU be one of them. I then clicked to see that list of CLIENTS.

WHO in the world is impressed by this? Some porn actress who wants to get up to the level of Mamie Van Doren?

Some pathetic YouTube mumbler who figures, "Oh, this guy handles Ruben Studdard, so he can get me work on a cruise ship, or an interview in a music mag that I can use to impress a pay-to-play club owner..."

What about the fact that FOUR of his clients are DEAD?

DEAD.

Red Buttons, Rudy Valee, Persis Khambatta...all dead...and Lana Clarkson is not going to be doing interviews about how Phil Spector murdered her in 2003.

And yet, this site, with out-dated photos and DEAD people, can impress marks who are already intent on being foolish?

Somehow, THIS guy, and other PR people, stay in business year after year?

What a racket, finding They star-struck amateurs who'll pay them thousands to get a phone interview. I can just see the e-mail: "Hey, in return for that thousand dollars, guess we're YOU are going to be doing? YOU will be waving from a float at the Hemmorhoid Day Parade in Anal Crack, Arkansas....asshole!"