Mark My Words Blog
Welcome to ‘Mark My Words,’ the digital sanctuary where insight meets intrigue, and commentary sparks contemplation.
Delve into the dynamic world of PR maverick Mark Borkowski as he unravels the threads of media, culture, and communication. Mark’s blog is a treasure trove of industry wisdom, offering a backstage pass to the inner workings of publicity and the ever-evolving landscape of modern media.
On the road to the NFT
The song Tony performed was written in the last five days, a gestating work in progress. He’s never done anything like this before – the song and the paintings aren’t finished. It never sounds as good as it does in one’s head, says Tony, but he thinks he’s a better artist for the process. Now on to the National Film Theatre back in the comfort of the Nissan Cube, talking about Tony’s upcoming reality show for Fox and film work for the UN on climate change. “I’ve always tried to do things that benefit mankind,” he says. @nissancubeuk
Tony Sings
Further proof of Tony Kaye’s status as a polymath – now he’s singing songs about immortality, using the paintings as inspiration. “Everything is written in the hell of compromise.” @nissancubeuk
Tony Kaye at the Hospital Club
In the Hospital Club, Tony’s setting up his Pop Up exhibition; paintings of lyrics and slogans with a certain feel of Basquiat about them. We are free of the @nissancubeuk fleet for a short while. Tony’s children are glad of this; they are bouncing everywhere in the gallery space laughing as their father sticks pictures to the clean wall with masking tape and sticking their own drawings on the other wall in a gleeful mirroring. They are, of course, another form of immortality for their father, unsung as yet on a day of questing for immortality.
In the Mosque
We’re spotting similarities inside the mosque; sacred spaces vary only slightly, according to Tony. “I thought this place was the hugest place. I enjoyed the performance aspect of singing texts, I had to read the Hebrew from the scroll. I enjoyed singing to a packed house! “The quest for immortality is to be with family and friends forever, it is the most important thing in life. The collective goal of life should be the search for an end to pain, suffering and death.” At an early age, Tony knew he wanted to leave something behind. Now he believes it could…
At the Mosque
“This is where I became a man 44 years ago!” Negotiations for entry are underway – we are off to find a sheik at a restaurant to seek permission to film inside the mosque. Many phone calls are being fired off in the Somine Restaurant on the corner of Crossway and Kingsland High Street. The air is heavy with the scent of soup – which smells good enough for Tony to order some. Permission’s been found. One of the mosque elders has seen American History X and wants Tony’s autograph.
On the way to the mosque
On the way to an old synagogue in Stoke Newington, one which has been converted into a mosque. Tony spent a lot of time with his grandparents just round the corner from this building. His grandfather, Isaac Cross, was a runner for him. “I was born into an orthodox family who came from eastern Europe and lived in the east end,” says Tony. “My bar mitzvah was held at the synagogue in Shaklewell Lane. It’s now a mosque. It’s great – I love the spiritual fusion in architecture of these two faiths. “I’m obsessed with all religious texts – I…
At the site of the old Middlesex Hospital
Outside the old Middlesex Hospital, a Rolls Royce goes past. “Get one of these,” calls Tony to Felix Dennis’s chauffeur, pointing at the fleet of Cubes. The chauffeur’s not impressed. “I’ve outlived a building,” says Tony. “I don’t know where it went. We should have started here. But now we’ve seen where I was born 57 years ago we can move on.” If you can outlive a building, the seeds of eternal life are definitely beginning to sprout. @nissancubeuk
Twithibition live online exhibition today
One of my friends, the filmmaker Tony Kaye, is in London this week to launch a series of Design Inspiration events at The Cube Store, a unique, pop-up destination and creative forum in Brick Lane set up to celebrate the launch of one of Japan’s greatest design icons, the Nissan Cube. To celebrate Tony’s arrival in the country from LA, I am running my second Twithibition live online exhibition today (Friday 27th Nov 09), following him around London in a Nissan Cube and revisiting all the sites of the greatest myths surrounding his career – from his installation of a…
The Journey Begins
The journey begins in a fleet of Nissan Cubes. We’ve arrived at The Basil Street Practice at 9.15 to put into practice the day’s theme: Tony Kaye’s journey to immortality. Kaye insists that he is overly cautious, so a visit to a doctor in Knightsbridge is a thematic essential – added to that, Kaye has a bump on his arm he needs to check out. We have to find a doctor, maybe not Dr Northridge, who Tony is keenest to see; any doctor will do. We follow Tony in. The secretary is politely puzzled, as Tony has no appointment. But…
Selling Your Name for Christmas
I spoke on the BBC’s World Update yesterday about a 19 year old Wisconsin man who sold his name to an online Finnish electronics retailer via eBay. I discussed the pros and cons of this old idea – dating back to Jim Moran and Maynard Nottage, who both persuaded people to change their names to help promote clients in the early 20th century. It may not be a wholly original stunt, but it is a clever and effective one for the internet age – it allows the Finnish company to get search engine optimisation in the run up to the…
Katie Price and God
Katie Price, aka Jordan, was bitten by a funnel web spider in the jungle whilst competing in I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and had to be helicoptered out at high speed to the nearest hospital. As she was slipping in and out of consciousness in the helicopter she had a near-death experience; she saw a tunnel of light and at the end of it sat God. Katie called out to God, who considered her quizzically. “Is this it?” cried Katie. “Is this all I get?” “No,” said God, after consulting with an efficient-looking angel. “You have another…
Quantum Physics and Thierry Henry
The Independent on Sunday published an article of mine yesterday, looking at what could have happened to Thierry Henry had he confessed to handling the ball in the France v Republic of Ireland match last week. The What If? is a classic sci-fi and fantasy conceit borrowing the idea of a multiverse from quantum physics, seeing which way a life might have gone if one small choice had been different. There was, I’ll admit, a certain amount of pleasure to be had applying quantum metaphysics to the lives of footballers and the PR potentials of the changes. Here’s an extract……
Jedward and the X Factor
Jedward may finally be gone from the X Factor, but that’s no reason to expect that they have automatically dipped straight off the fame radar. For all of you wondering why and how they lasted so long on the X Factor, I contributed to a couple of articles in the Independent and the Telegraph looking into the phenomenon, the manipulation and the plundering of the Jedward brand. To read the Independent article, click here. To read the Telegraph article, click here.
Jordan's Heart of Darkness
When the troubled tabloid-sacrifice uber babe Katie Price decided to re-enter the jungle, I received numerous requests to comment on TV and radio. For once I held back; I just wasn’t convinced that I had the interest or the energy to offer any opinion on another Katie Price PR move. In truth, I could not ascertain whether I thought she was obsessed by self-absorption or self-loathing. My reluctance to comment changed when I read Jan Moir’s fantastic assassination of Katie in the Mail: “Sweet kangaroo cutlets, what have we here? Katie Price back in the jungle again? How much more…
Stunt Deflation: The Balloon Boy Aftermath
It seems that there is a total sense of humour failure endemic throughout the world when it comes to stunts like the ‘Balloon Boy’ incident, as the ongoing trial of the parents proves – they apparently pleaded guilty only after the wife, who is Japanese, was threatened with deportation. Certainly, the need to think about wider concerns makes outlandish and outrageous stunts a more difficult prospect in this health and safety and desperately money-conscious world. Some years ago, a band wanted me to help them arrange to completely stop traffic in Piccadilly Circus so they could play a gig from…
Defending Simon Cowell
I appeared on GMTV this morning to defend Simon Cowell – not the obvious popular choice since he let the public vote decide who was to stay in the X Factor instead of condemning Jedward to the slag heap of pop ephemera history, but it really needed doing in a week of froth and fulmination. The martyrdom of Lucie Jones to the cult of Jedward was a masterstroke on the part of Cowell; he knows that the Irish twins are box office dynamite and knows that, even if the viewing figures dip a little as a consequence of public ire,…
SideWiki changes everything
The Media Guardian published an article of mine in yesterday’s Media comment looking at the rise of Google’s SideWiki and what it will mean for the future of PR. To read the published version, click here. For the unexpurgated version, please keep reading! Given the amount of fear other Google innovations, like their library project, have caused, it’s surprising that alarms bells have not been heard ringing throughout the PR world since SideWiki’s launch in September. The internet is an evolutionary tool and for the world of PR, its daily use is as significant as the use of the wheel…
The X Factor PR Machine
I’ve just been reading an intriguing post by that doyenne of the celebrity underbelly, Madame Arcati, querying the disappearance of an article by the Times’s Dan Sabbagh on Sir Philip Green’s involvement in trying to break the X Factor in America. Arcati, whose blog is the current darling of the blogoshphere and one of its best, sexiest reads, muses, with an amused raised eyebrow, on the possibility that the article – which threw light on Green’s angling for a $9 million raise for Cowell and the idea of broadcasting an American X Factor on Fox to tie Cowell to American…
Further Looting of the Dead Celebs
About a month ago, I wrote a blog on brand immortality and the way that people are exploiting dead celebrities to generate vast amounts of money in the wake of Michael Jackson’s death. Now, as the world gears up for This Is It, a film of Jackson rehearsals, CNN have come out with a report detailing what seems like the beginnings of a cult of dead celeb exploitation – there are even “death hags” who tour the sites of their favourite stars’ deathplaces, always on the lookout for morbid curiosities to buy. Last year’s top-earning dead celebrities, according to Forbes…
Undoing the X Factor
I received an interesting call yesterday, in the wake of the surprising X Factor showdown between Miss Frank and Danyl Johnson on Sunday, from a mysterious man with a social networking plan and a dream to undo Simon Cowell. He wanted to meet me to discuss his plans for guerilla tactics to destabilise the X Factor format, by pushing the Irish duo John and Edward – those twinned Frankenstein’s PR monsters who are basically John Sergeant’s better looking Irish cousins, phenomenon-wise (they may be able to dance, but they cannot sing) – into winning the show at the expense of…