When Are Stripper Poles In Bad Taste?

September 8, 2011

A lot of folks say that to build a successful business, you’ve gotta shut off the boob tube. They claim it’s a big waste of time. You won’t hear me say that, though. I actually think a few hours of selective TV watching can add mucho dinero to your bank account. Of course, I’m not [...]

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Balls-out Marketing Seminars That Cost Nuttin’

September 1, 2011

Just a quick note, then I’m gonna get back to my brewsky and iPod. I’ve spent the past two afternoons sitting in my backyard listening to past episodes of the extraordinary I Love Marketing podcast. I just discovered this program on Monday, and I’ve got more than two dozen episodes on queue. Each is 60 [...]

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Orangutan Jawbones & Sales Magic

August 29, 2011

I love great hoaxes. So far, the all-time hoax longevity record goes to the famous Piltdown Man deception, which launched in 1912 and wasn’t “found out” until 1953. It’s a terrific story. On December 18, 1912, Charles Dawson and Arthur Smith Woodward presented the remains of an early human fossil to the Geological Society of [...]

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The World’s Greatest Steakhouse Story

August 25, 2011

Peter Shankman calls it “The Greatest Customer Service Story Ever Told.” These days, I’d call it a miracle. As Shankman tells the story, he was jumping on a 5 pm flight home from Tampa to Newark a week or so ago. He knew he’d get in late and probably have to grab junk food on [...]

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Beer Cans, Tire Rims, And A Passion For Life

August 22, 2011

After maybe 30 years of driving by and gawking at it, I finally got me a looksee inside Art Beal’s house this past weekend. Art’s abode is in Cambria, just an hour north of us and only six miles south of the famous Hearst Castle. If you’re driving up Hillcrest Drive, you can’t miss the [...]

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Shutting Off the Spigot of Crisis

August 16, 2011

While everybody else is whining and crying and wringing their hands… The folks I respect most — the creators, the producers, the solopreneurs — are on a “news fast.” The news has been particularly bad this past couple of weeks. But hell, man, it’s always bad. That’s the heart of the news biz, after all. [...]

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Don’t Bite When A Simple Growl Will Do

August 9, 2011

I usually ignore the jokes and “cute stories” that circulate and re-circulate through my email box endlessly. But I did open one from my friend Diane yesterday. It was a charming essay titled “A Dog’s Purpose.” I won’t foist all of it on you, but it concluded with a set of rules that dogs live [...]

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You’re 12 Parsecs Away From Mass Control

August 3, 2011

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… Well, it was actually just a few weeks ago and somewhere between Finland and Sweden… A Swedish nautical salvage team discovered a USO (Unidentified Submerged Object) about 300 feet below the Baltic Sea that resembles Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon. It’s circular, about 60 feet wide, [...]

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Harness the Power of the Great Whatsit

August 1, 2011

Ever heard of the Great Whatsit? The term comes from one of my all-time favorite kickass late-night movies, the 1955 Mike Hammer film noir thriller Kiss Me Deadly. (I highly recommend Criterion’s new extras-laden Blu-ray release, by the way.) Everybody in the movie — the feds, the mob, the cops, Hammer, and a handful of [...]

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Jazzin’ on Doc Erskine’s Secret Sauce

July 26, 2011

So what’s a frantic fanboy like me do his first day back from Comic-Con in San Diego? He sprints to a theater to see Captain America, of course! Whew. Red Skull, Bucky Barnes, Dum Dum Dugan, Nick Fury, the effin Cosmic Cube fer cryin’ out loud… This movie is a comic book geek’s dream. Not [...]

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