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
Roland Butler, Publicity director of the Ringling and Barnum & Bailey circus sent exclusive newspaper stories and illustrations submitted for publication prior to their performances.
THE HOUSE OF CREDIT CARDS
Tony Blair speaks to potential lenders Labour may have gathered as much as £10m in secret loans before the last election. I’m not saying that a loan will alone secure a place in the hallowed House of Lords, but as I said Your Grace (if I can address you thus now your cheque is in the bank); you are one of many people whom we’d really like to thank. It’s important this transaction stays quietly translucent as transparency at this moment would really be a nuisance. No one must know that Parliament is a house of credit cards at least…
In Search of the Sons of Barnum
I discovered an interesting email in my inbox following the disclosure of The Esperanto League story reported in yesterday’s liquid soap. The email was from a Mr George Roper from New York who seemed to write in riddles, so much so, that at first I thought it was a hoax email. However, he wrote again later in the day, informing me that he had worked as a publicist many years ago, but would not disclose which PR agency in New York he had worked for. He claimed that his company had been approached to work on what was described as…
In search of the Sons of Barnum
Thanks to an email from Di Silkin this morning in which she recounts an incident that she recalls from her days working for a London PR consultancy in the 1960s. The agency was hired by the Esperanto League to help spread the ‘universal language’ that had so far failed to catch on with quite the universality intended by its creator, Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof.
In Search Of The Sons Of Barnum
I recently found some more documentation on some of the first commerical PR stunts of the 1920s, (lest we forget the poster for Decantle, the great exotic dancer!). One of the largest horticultural centres, Lachret Howes, in Montana decided to pay their respects to the President on his visit to Montana by creating the first ever message in flowers.
IF
after Rudyard Kipling Kate Moss has been shortlisted for the ‘Celebrity Mother of the Year’ award alongside celebrities such as Sharon Osbourne and Rod Stewart’s fiancée Penny Lancaster. Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, also made the list. If you can love your child when all about you are hating theirs and blaming it on Heat, if you can keep solvent when accountants admit defeat, keep up a trust fund and still compete; if you can take drugs and not become a druggie nor yet an alcoholic, and not deal in drugs, nor, being hated, let go of the baby’s buggy…
IN SEARCH OF THE SONS OF BARNUM
The Sons of Barnum blog on the Media Guardian Organ Grinder is throwing up some interesting comments. Howard Strickling…When a drunken Clark Gable hit and killed a pedestrian near Hollywood Boulevard, Howard Strickling sent Gable into hiding and then conspired with the local D.A. to have a minor executive take the rap in return for staying on the payroll for life at a higher salary. That man had power. More on him please. Posted by Donnie on March 17, 2006 11:26 PM. http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/organgrinder/2006/03/the_sons_of_barnum.html
Organ grinder
The Sons of Barnum by Guardian Unlimited / Stuntwatch 12:00am If you’re wondering where Mark Borkowski and his Stuntwatch have been in recent weeks, then here is the explanation http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/organgrinder/2006/03/the_sons_of_barnum.html
NEVERLAND OR BUST
Californian state officials have given pop star Michael Jackson one more day to come up with back wages for more than 30 employees at his Neverland ranch. If he fails to pay today, he faces a lawsuit from the state. Spendthrift frenzy buys effortless charm as long as money flows and no one is harmed. It buys a world set aside from the norms of the day, buys a fantasy theme life where one isn’t afraid to immerse oneself wholly in myriad dreams. Enough money will paper right over the screams of the child locked inside the desperate star whose…
In Search Of The Sons of Barnum
Thanks to Martin Neal from Lincoln who has sent me an unlikely story about a friend of his grandfather’s called John Hayes, who did some rudimentary PR more than fifty years ago. To promote the 1951 European tour of the Hungarian fencing master Etterem, the former trainer of the Hungarian National Fencing Team, Hayes created an advance unit to spread word of his prowess. Etterem’s promotional device was to slice apples on the throat of his partner, provoking the claim that it was “The world’s most dangerous variety trick”.
FANTASY FOOTBALL
Wayne Rooney has been given a £5 million advance on five volumes of his autobiography by HarperCollins. There’s only one Wayne Rooney, but how many ghosts will help write his adventures between the goalposts? At a million per volume of biographical fudge you’d hope for word wizardry to make gold of the sludge; the swearing, the tantrums, the overwhelming ennui. For this sort of money perhaps JK Rowling’s free? There’s something appealing about a potato-head Potter who’s a whiz with a football but a bit of a blotter when it comes to keeping the copybook clean – and she’d make…
In Search Of The Sons Of Barnum
Thanks to Zach McNeir for sending me some information on a movie publicist called Sherman Calloway. Sherman was born in 1889 and died at tragically young age of 34 the result of a freak boating accident. Zach’s notes document McNeir as an adroit showman with a clever eye for a publicity stunt.
PRETTY KATE AND HER MAGIC EGG
Kylie Minogue is to make her debut as an author in September with Showgirl Princess, a semi-autobiographical children’s book. What might happen if Kate Moss, who allegedly used a Faberge egg to carry cocaine, ecstasy and the date-rape drug Rohypnol around the world with her, followed the same route? Our latest bestseller, for streetwise kids which we won the rights to after furious bids is a fabulous publishing powder keg called Pretty Kate and her Magic Egg in which a young woman travels the world and copes with the chaos into which she’s been hurled by extracting white powder from…
DEATH AND THE PLASTIC MAIDEN
Supermodel Naomi Campbell is fuming after her name was linked to Botox pioneer Dr Jean-Louis Sebagh through two stories in Hello! magazine. The 35-year-old catwalk queen has previously denied having any form of cosmetic enhancement. Cast in bronze or carved from alabaster, surviving on a diet of air and pasta, models waft through the pages of fashion magazines like goddesses littering a eugenicist’s dreams. Merely by their looks, models live and die, brief apples of the fashion world’s eye. Perfectly ephemeral, these catwalk queens must hand on their designer jeans or trade their fading, youthful skins for plastic noses, breasts…
In Search Of The Sons Of Barnum
I have just picked up an email today from a Wilkerson Azulay who has offered to help me with my research for the book. Mr. Azuela is a Liberian in Baltimore and has a collection of movie press packs and advertising books going back to the 20’s.
AN OPEN LETTER TO TESSA JOWELL
“Tessa Jowell, the beleagured culture secretary, is expected to learn her fate tomorrow after an inquiry to establish whether she breached the ministerial code by failing to reveal some of her family’s business dealings.” The Guardian, 1/3/06 Dear Culture Minister, divine Tessa Jowell I await with interest an earnest avowal of financial transparency backed up with proof. Or for your career to go quietly poof. It may be judgemental to assume that your spouse brokered shifty deals to pay for your house but I can’t help feeling that a friend of Berlusconi could be anything other than shady and phony….
YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT
Armin Meiwes – who murdered and ate a man he met over the internet – says he would like to have Robbie Williams for dinner because he only eats “beautiful people”. Twisted though his outlook may be, it is an excellent metaphor for the desperate need to be famous that is creeping through the heart of British society. I want to feast on the beautiful set, it’s time that they gave as good as they get; Brad, Angelina, Jude Law and the rest. You are what you eat must be put to the test. Not a single soap star will…
In Search Of The Sons Of Barnum
The first tryout with six actors of the great PR man Ezra Blakeley’s play Confessions was staged at Wilshire. After the reading the feedback, the tryout audience had guessed the identities of all the characters. Blakeley had to rewrite, fearing legal actions. The play was premiered by the Bryzin Playhouse a 70 seater theatre in Venice 10 years later.
In Search Of The Sons Of Barnum
Borkowski spent the day with the PR legend Jay Berstein. To understand the influence that the American Entertainment industry has had on the world is to understand Jay Bernstein. The Hollywood Reporter said of him, “Jay Bernstein must have a direct line to God. When Jay starts talking, Hollywood listens.” Jay has the biggest Rolex in the universe and it’s comforting to listen to a man who has a mistrust of everything digital.
In Search Of The Sons Of Barnum
Tony Kaye’s studio in Hollywood stores some of his extraordinary work. It emerges that the house was where Holbrook Blinn rehearsed Mary Nash to safely faint for a press scam that would try and make a name at the premier of ‘High Sign’.