Mark Comments in the Press.
With a keen eye for cultural trends and a depth of insight honed through years of experience in the public eye, Mark stands as a beacon of clarity in a world often shrouded in confusion.
Mark’s commentary is both thought-provoking and incisive, inviting audiences to see beyond the surface and engage with the complexities of our times.
In search of the Sons of Barnum goes to New York
DAY 9 and 10 My final weekend in New York is spent trying to get stories out of some of the old carnival fiends down at Coney Island. I find them terribly reticent to talk about the glorious past. They seem totally paranoid about making conversation with someone who isn’t marked by a tattoo or piercing. Perhaps their goodwill has been taken advantage of in the past. I sort of give them the benefit of the doubt but my old client Jim Rose always warned me about semi pro freaks. “One day a freak will be hammering a nail up…
In search of the Sons of Barnum goes to New York
Day 8 Joe Flynn seems to have been one of the most fertile press agents around the turn of the century. He spun the Salome vogue, the phoniest craze of all to hit the stage. It was all based around the then provocative Salome dance. When New York went Salome-mad the rest of the nation followed unable to detect the hand of Flynn. The gifted publicist was given the task of working up the first incarnation of Maude Allen’s famous London routine, portrayed in the US by Gertrude Hoffman. She was vaudeville’s leading female star and her initial success was…
The Empty Throne
after Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley “The Queen, who is 80 today, is the best thing about the monarchy: constant, reassuring and one of the most accomplished politicians of our age. But the institution is finished and Elizabeth could well be all that’s keeping it alive.” Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian, 21st April 2006 I met a traveller from the wilds of Staines who said: “I passed the monarch’s empty throne, stood in the palace’s crumbling remains; a half sunk statue of Prince Charles, his frown marking the stone like a tube map of veins, leans into a portrait of the…
The Daredevil Deficit
The Daredevil Deficit Who can rival David Blaine in the stuntman stakes? So it has come to pass that the mighty David Blaine is about to mastermind another huge public stunt, and this time he’ll need his Speedos. Perish the thought! Evidently the stuntster Blaine is planning to live underwater for a week in a human-sized fish tank outside of New York’s Lincoln Centre. http://media.guardian.co.uk/columnists/story/0,,1756847,00.html
In search of the Sons of Barnum goes to New York
Day 7 Wandering up Broadway I am bedazzled by the neon marquis’ that cluster, brashly proffering the stupendous wares inside the auditoria. The press quotes are probably filtered, the longer running shows benefiting from reviews from forgotten newspaper critics marvelling at the original cast, long since moved on to another spectacle. Reading the hype I smile and wonder how much of the breathless prose is a real representation of the original review?
In search of the Sons of Barnum goes to New York
Day 6. A visit to the New York public library suggests that there was a great deal of consternation in the City around 1919. Adventurous stuntsers were beginning to show little respect for the law. There is evidence that Harry Reichenbach got himself into real hot water when he was exposed, attempting to pay an official who had access to unidentified bodies at the City morgue.
LESSONS IN LOVE FOR POSH BOYS WHO WANT TO BE FAMOUS
Written after reading that Preston and Chantelle are planning to marry. 1 Find yourself a blonde, preferably not naturally so. Make sure she has a voice like a choir of foghorns and a burning desire to be famous. It matters not for what. Woo her with champagne at Macdonalds whilst the press looks on, their cameras chattering like prurient chimps at a tea party. Or meet her on reality TV. Begin as you mean to go on. It will help if you sing or play some sort of sport, will allow the press a whole new lexicon of metaphor on…
In search of the Sons of Barnum goes to New York
Day 5 Bedazzled by the amount of fake bling on Canal Street I make my way to Tribeca to have brunch at Bubby’s with an old Post journalist, who gives me the telephone number of a man whose father was a famous silent movie stunter.
WEDDING PLANS
Celebrity Big Brother winner Chantelle is still living the dream, to the extent that she and Preston, who she met in the Big Brother house, have announced their engagement. I’m marrying for money for the equity cash brings. My fiancee wasn’t loaded, he plays guitar and sings but we met on television and we’re minting it right now. so to keep the cash flow rushing we’ll milk every sacred cow until they stagger anorexic and can take no more abuse. Yes, we’re getting married; and there’s babies to produce, because there’s nothing like a baby to make the public swoon…
In search of the Sons of Barnum goes to New York
Day 4 I had a wonderful morning chewing the fat with the legendary long-time Broadway and Hollywood publicist, Bobby Zarem immortalised by Al Pacino in the movie People I Know. Zarem was the first press agent to be called a superflack, by the Washington Post.
In search of the Sons of Barnum goes to New York
Day 3. Walking the streets of New York I get a real sense of place and can almost conjure up the spring of the origins of PR. How cool would it be to reconstruct some of the great exploits of Harry Reichenbach? Visiting the lobby of Hotel Belleclaire I can only imagine the chaoses of the Tarzan ape exploit. Located in the heart of Manhattan’s trendy upper west side, the Belleclaire Hotel was built in 1903 and designed by famed architect E. Roth. It is a charming hotel that has housed the likes of Mark Twain and movie stars over…
In search of the Sons of Barnum goes to New York
Exciting news, I have located the great Harry Reichenbach’s office on West Broadway was it here that he plotted the great Hotel Bellclaire Tarzan caper. The space was rented to him by a friend who ran a tailoring business. Harry very quickly made a name for himself and soon became known as the “thousand dollar a week” press agent.
In search of the Sons of Barnum goes to New York
Research for the Sons of Barnum brings me to New York to find the great publicists of the entertainment business, Broadway, in particular. Many of the early film companies had headquarters in New York and it was in such places that many of the great publicists like Harry Reichenbach fine tuned their craft in the shadows of these offices. Meeting Ralph Dyer, now in his 90’s uncovered some of the exploits of these Broadway press agents, giving me a great deal of insight into a recklessness that has long been forgotten.
FADING STAR
Whitney Houston’s sister-in-law, Tina Brown, recently claimed that Whitney is hooked on drugs and living in squalor. She said the singer spends days locked in her bedroom amid piles of garbage, taking drugs and using sex toys. She also released shocking photographs showing the star’s bathroom littered with drug paraphernalia, including a crack-smoking pipe and cocaine-covered spoons. Listen: the tabloids creak with betrayal as former friends suck money from your veins like leeches. Listen: the Hollywood hills are alive with the sound of money; the gossip orchestra is warming up. Listen: a camera shutter snaps in the bathroom like a…
SEX EDUCATION WITH SHARON STONE
Sharon Stone is telling randy teenagers to have oral sex instead of giving up their virginity. Hey kids, give blowjobs or learn to munch rug – offer your mouth to any under-sexed thug who demands satisfaction in the traditional way. It saves money on condoms and there’s no price to pay. Get down and dirty but still play it safe. Lick, flick and fondle but let no one chafe you into acts of abandon or carnal surrender. Come on kids be careful whatever your gender. A few years of foreplay will spread no disease but if you’re still randy and…
In Search Of The Sons Of Barnum
More spin tales from the old colony. I am told by email from Ralph Hawkins that when the news was announced that the wacky Marx Brothers were making a movie called A Night in Casablanca, the suits at Warner Bros. spun a campaign that Casablanca might get tainted by the Marx’s low brow humour.
Mediocrity kills
Is the crafty, lateral-thinking PR in danger of being wiped out as clients favour safer options over passion and pluck I lower the phone to another breathless recruitment agent making a plea for a bright prospect who will not fail to impress me. “Trust me Mark, give her 10 minutes to pitch. I am sure she will impress, she is a brilliant publicist.” http://media.guardian.co.uk/marketingandpr/comment/0,,1737124,00.html
LOVE IN A CELEBRITY CLIMATE
after To Whom it May Concern by Adrian Mitchell I was destroyed by the press again this morning couldn’t say if I was the reason for the nation yawning so coat my nose in cocaine tell me lies about falling in love. Woke up yet more famous and it hurts like hell knowing the price of a kiss is a story to sell so stuff my mouth with caviar coat my nose in cocaine tell me lies about falling in love. Every single time I break my vow of silence some bitter ex-lover accuses me of violence so chain my…
In Search of the Sons of Barnum
Roland Butler cleverly averted a prosecution under the cruelty to animals act, for the Idaho State Circus in 1964. The Circus which regularly travelled mid America with a host of ageing beasts, was playing in Houston Texas, home to one of the first cruelty to animal lobbyists, the notorious Paul Eldon.
Power play
Should PR be about selling a product at the expense of the truth? Amid the self-congratulatory back-slapping of the ‘Pubbies’ – America’s annual PR awards show – there was much talk of a brave new dawn. http://media.guardian.co.uk/marketingandpr/story/0,,1738259,00.html