12.03.09
Khuk Khak, Thailand – Are you up for a promotion? How can you say anything but ‘Yes, and, No’?
Manny used to talk a lot about promotion. “To go anywhere, you’ve got to have the right promotion,” he used to say. You gotta have the right kind of promotion, and you’ve gotta have the right kind of discipline.
You need a good manager, a good trainer, and good promotion. You can be good, but without promotion, nobody knows your name. You won’t get any venues.
Or you can be not so good, average, but really out there, insofar as promotion goes. Household name. Everybody knows you. Everybody knows you’re a loser. There are a lot of half-assed, no-talent, no-skill, no-idea wannabes across a broad variety of professions where a person can make it entirely on promotion. Remember the Monkeys?
Can sing, can’t dance, can’t play their instrument, can’t legislate, can’t calculate, can’t account, can’t do squat, but they ran away with the awards, the T shirt sales, and your retirement account.
A person could always promote themselves, rather than turn it over to a pro. Like Ali, who was a pro, however, both in the ring, and at self-promotion. Farrakhan and Jesse Jackson tried it in the pulpit and political arena, but were heavier on style than substance, and some contemporary radio personalities have cashed in on tooting their own horn behind some kind of divisive, hateful, bottom-of-the trough bombast, charading as insightful political analysis.*
But you can’t say they haven’t been successful at promotion.
That’s from the Do-It-Yourself Home Self-promotion Kit which wouldn’t work for most any aspiring egomaniac, who would, along with you and me, be best advised to turn it over to a professional.
That is if you actually want the promotion, a public recognition beyond the ‘World’s Greatest Dad’ T-shirt,** or something as mundane as bragging around the barbeque about the potency of your rose garden.
Most of us could relish the spotlight of a rock star, at least for a little while, maybe longer, or wave foolishly in the background of a post-game television interview, sating an inexplicable desire to have ourselves ‘out there’ for public consumption, akin to Joe the Plumber, your public persona, or something like that.
Few would shun the spotlight or camera. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you…(Your Name Here)…Person Of The Year!”, except when the press boomerangs or you’ve committed some sort of heinous deed, and you ask, ‘Why’d they have to run my picture with that shit…on the front page?’
And your friends say, ‘ Hey, Bro. I saw you on the news the other night when they were transferring you. You have to wear those leg chains in the courtroom?’
No. We don’t want that kind of promotion. That kind of exposure is what we in the business call, ‘bad press.’ You see what happened to whatzisname, the Ginger Bread Man, Genger-Bradmon. He needed an agent, a promoter, and an attorney who wasn’t asleep.
When is gets that bad, then you’ve got to hire another pro to handle damage control, so that’s why it’s good to have a press agent, a political advisor, and work from official written statements, a script, rather than spit out some kind of off-the-cuff shit that can swamp your canoe.
For instance, look at the number of public figures who should have let a pro handle their public statements instead of talking to reporters on their doorsteps in a jogging suit. Big mistake. Bad promotion. A good rule of thumb is not to talk to reporters or cameras that show up on your doorstep. Have somebody say, ‘An official statement will be issued through his attorney.’
Even if they’re there to catch your reaction to the Nobel Prize committee’s decision, or give you that check from Microsoft. Fuck ‘em. Slip it under the door. Tell them to fuck off. Tell ‘em to make a fucking appointment. Same same the king. Same same the Pope. Promote your OWN damn self interest. Just got to use the right words.
And like any words, once they’re out, they’re out, and you can’t take them back unless you have to eat them, so it’s best to not just toss ‘em around any old kind of way.
Ever think, ‘Geeeez, I wish I hadn’t said that shit.’?
Especially, to a woman, or maybe your former boss.
It’s forgivable. It’s like lying under torture, oath, or a stack of bibles. If the information is given under duress, it’s reputable value is diminished, and likely inadmissible. In other words, they shouldn’t hold your words against you.
“But you sa…”
“Never mind what I said.”
Yeah, and for instance, I’ve said many things in writing, right here in fact, that I would be shamed to read aloud before my friends the Dalai Lama, Jesus, the critical academic circle, a group of donors, and many of you. It isn’t street or locker room talk or just G.I. Joe talk between George and Vic. It’s just…isn’t that the way they talk in congress?*** Isn’t that the way they talk in the movies? I seen movies. I seen movies where they talk like that.
-end
*what was it, cowboys and Indians through the 50s and 60s, Dr. Marcus Welby and hospital shows throughout the 70s, then cops and more cops through the 80s, 90s, up until now, live-cam cops, and now we’ve got political bullshit my-opinion-is-right scream-fests round the clock? How wonderful. Does it get any better than what it is right now?
** reminds me. I’m getting a bunch of t-shirts made up that say, ‘I’m Friends With Vic Glover On Facebook’, with my picture. Should sell a ton.
***do you think the language of those British motorcycle guys is rubbing the fuck off on me, Mate?
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