Fallen Princesses

As I look forward to seeing the much ballyhooed and newest "Disney Princess" in THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG I find myself tickled by photographer Dina Goldstein's less than idyllic take on what the future holds for our fairy tale heroines. The super saccharine characters are easy enough to lampoon, but Goldstein manages to add just the right amount of sympathy to the general sense of comeuppance that we all crave, to make it almost as poignant as it is clever.

See the whole set HERE

Cogito ergo DM

Or should it be "DM ergo sum"? Regardless of the Latin, there's a point to made. As a marketing professional, i often have forbidden fruits dangled before me.

"I've produced an algorithm."

Is usually the first sign of trouble in Social Media. Followed quickly by the words "Viral" and "Blast". All of those connote a detachment from the wondrous teeming, bubbling, and ever evolving mass that is Teh Webz and how, despite the technology and ways of "tricking" people into receiving your message, there is nothing as powerful as a loyal customer spreading your message of his/her own accord. As my dear friend mAcslost said, "What is the ROI on a friend that helps you move? What's the price on that long term relationship?"

So true. Like any friend, a SM professional needs to know what favors to ask and what is too much of an infringement on their relationship with their followers. We often walk a fine line, understanding the necessity of mass e-mails but not wanting to go into the SPAM folder. Needing to reach out, but not be so callous and so to the point that your customers learn to disregard your message.

Two things reared their heads this previous week that I'd like to address. Both were tempting in their effectiveness and both I ultimately passed on, simply because I am personally uncomfortable with how intrusive they are.

Firstly, i had myself an apoplexy when i received a DM to my company's Twitter account from one of our competitors. "You have been invited to (EVENT DETAILS)"

I was livid. I received that message on my phone, in my E-mail, and on my Twitter. 3 messages at once from my competitors made me angry at the invasion, and jealous that their message had infiltrated so entirely. I looked to my SM peeps to validate my outrage. By a huge majority we all agreed that a mass DM was considered "Twitter Spam" and would ultimately damage them more than help. Officialy, you give people who you follow the right to DM you, and they are within their rights to do so. However it is in bad form, and a breach of "Twettiquette". Though I sit here in my SM tower and cast judgment on their SM fumbles , though our SM community dwarfs theirs in numbers and community involvement , I also know that their one Spammy, BS, DM was seen by every one of their followers. The temptation to follow suit is enormous.

The second was similar in nature. Text message marketing. I know people must opt in, I understand that its highly effective, I just don't like it. I think our brand needs as much goodwill as possible and douchey marketing like Texting, overzealous E-mail "Blasts", and "Twitter Spam" are harmful to our image.

Ultimately, it's a personal decision for SM professionals. For my money and many of the people that i work with, goodwill, respect, and a knowing nod to our community acknowledging that we "Aren't like THAT" is worth more than the potential returns from such direct and aggressive advertising. There are people who market by wrapping a building in their message, there are people who buy electronic billboards, there are those who blast and spam and plan to "go viral". I am not one of them, and my brand will not suffer those indignities. We aim to build a community out of respect and goodwill. We will talk to our customers when we e-mail them, and direct message them, we will not be talking at them.

That's just how we roll.

Social Media ROI (God. Just writing that makes me sweat)

At an astoundingly douchey mixer held by the club promoters of the digital world (Digital LA), I was approached by a very pushy young man who was hocking applications. After figuring out my position in our Company and my affinity for Social Media, he posed the question "What is your ROI?".


I thought about it for a moment, and I responded. "We don't speak ROI, we speak relationships and community."

He laughed nervously, and i ran away.

ROI? Good grief, doesn't he know that social media is all about Teh Gudwillz and teh Relashunshipz? I have since obsessed. The positive impact of our SM campaigns is evident to me, but our bottom line would still seem unaffected. How do I convince the boss folk that this is a good investment?

Below is a starting point. Obviously for a small business like ours, it's not necessarily all applicable, but its a start on what I'm sure will be a lengthy discussion as SM begins to settle into its place as in the world of brand management, public relations, and marketing.

Olivier Blanchard Basics Of Social Media Roi

View more presentations from Olivier Blanchard.

I am increasingly Opposed to our involvement in Afghanistan

An exchange in the WH Situation room with The VP and the President's advisors.

"Can I just clarify a factual point? How much will we spend this year on Afghanistan?" Someone provided the figure: $65 billion. "And how much will we spend on Pakistan?" Another figure was supplied: $2.25 billion. "Well, by my calculations that's a 30-to-1 ratio in favor of Afghanistan. So I have a question. Al Qaeda is almost all in Pakistan, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And yet for every dollar we're spending in Pakistan, we're spending $30 in Afghanistan. Does that make strategic sense?" The White House Situation Room fell silent.


Read more at: The Huffington Post

Barack's Nobel

It is a shock, no doubt. Nobody expected our President to receive the Nobel Prize. What has he done? He's only been in office for less than a year? Hell! He was only eligible to win as president for 2 months before nominations were closed. Is this the Nobel committee's way of giving a final insult to the Bush administration, who's critics (Al Gore, Paul Krugman) seemed to be winning prizes left and right for the last few years? Or is it more important than that?

I think the key to the Nobel Committee's decision lies in the brevity of time that Barack Obama has spent as President. Just as it is the most shocking part of the announcement that mere months into his presidency he's won a prize given to MLK and TR, the fact remains that President Obama has turned the global conversation back towards unity, hope and diplomacy in a VERY SHORT TIME. A few years ago, this country was still coping with the fact that we tortured detainees. We were mired in conversations about whether or not Waterboarding was considered torture, and dealing with a war fought under false pretenses. Remember the awful images of Saddam Hussein being executed? Remember? It seems a world away. We are now debating taking care of each other (Health care), our focus lies in bettering this world and not in creating tactical nukes and alienating friends with missile shields.

President Obama, through peaceful political means changed the entire direction of global politics by inspiring the world's most powerful nation to hope and better ourselves. We are now talking to Iran, with a heavy hand and backed by all our allies, including those who previously supported Iran. The world is already a safer, and more united place because a Hawaiian-born African American man from Chicago decided we still could. Imagine this world under McCain and Palin. Remember this world under Bush and Cheney think of how much has changed in a year, and then ask yourself in 2009 who else has done so much to bring people together? I can't think of a single more powerfully uniting figure.

Congratulations, President Obama. Well deserved.

Twitter Killers?

I know. I know. This is my second post in a row about Twitter that has a question as its title. I know the posts have been Social Media heavy lately, and I know I owe you all my analysis of Chicago's failed bid for the 2016 games, but bear with me my dears, as I spin a yarn of greed, ego, and the powers that our personal accounts and engagement are up against.

Gather round Tweeps, and Facebook friends. Tumblrs and MySpace pervs.

The whole thing began about a month and a half ago when one of the top 6 agencies in town sent over someone who referred to himself as a "Social Media Agent" to meet with the celebrity I work with from time to time. Astounded at the notion, since social media doesn't pay off directly, and talent agencies are very aggressive in monetizing everything, and 10% of nothing is bupkes, I was eager if not thrilled to see what this guy knew and what his insight might be into monetizing SM.

When he arrived, I was a touch shocked. Was it possible that a man well into his forties could have insight into SM ? I'm in my early thirties and I can barley keep up, could it be that this man had the tech savvy that I lacked and therefore some sort of insight into monetization that would make everyone very rich? I listened to his pitch with five people present in the room.

The pitch went as follows:

There is a huge amount of money to be made by celebrities who Tweet.

He has a Company that is willing to pay per commercial tweet according to the amount of followers a celebrity may have.

The company hosts a variety of brands that the celebrity can choose from, so the celeb could choose brands that are applicable.

The company requires every fifth tweet to be a commercial with up to 40 tweets a day for it to be profitable.

With the formula pitched, Ashton Kutcher could make over one million dollars monthly.



Naturally there were questions to be asked.

Firstly, the Celebrity in question has an honest but unimpressive 5k followers. Not nearly enough for it to be worth it.

"That can be easily addressed with a service we employ that can artificially boost your numbers. We could have you up to 50k in 2 weeks."

They don't pay per click, they pay per follower?

"Yes, but who knows how long they'll be doing that for. So we have to get on this right away so we can get the numbers up and the tweets going."

Is the tool you use to boost the numbers Ok by twitter?

"Well, not exactly. Which is another reason why we would need to get on this right away."

Who else is doing this?

"Well, if say Ashton Kutcher would do it.."

Is he?

"No, but if he were.."

Why wouldn't he want an extra 1 million a month?

"I don't know."

Ok, so Ashton doesn't do it, but you haven't told us who. So who else would be interested in doing something like this?

"Well, we want to keep clients protected."

At this point the celebrity interjected. "Do I have to tweet and choose the ads myself or can my guys do it?"


"Oh for sure your staff can do it, 40 daily tweets is a lot."

The celeb's assistant sank into his chair. But the feeling of all in the room is that this bit of sketchiness would not see the light of day. I was glowing at being able to thwart something that would be detrimental not only to the celeb's brand, but to the Twitter community as well. After all, posting for a profit defeats the idea of sharing. Its filling a quota and manipulating. It goes against what the Twitter community is all about, and leaves the door open for the profit hungry "Man" that drove MySpace into the ground. I had come head to head with the capitalist machine and managed to defend my online socialist utopia for another day. God bless the EFF and Creative Commons, keep your filthy corporate greed out of our web, etc. etc. ad nauseum.

This was 45 days ago.

Yesterday it all resurfaced with the acquisition of 2 interns who's duties include Tweeting. Calls were made and the whole mess is a "go". Now it is up to the Twitter community to react. Do we reject advertisement as a part of feeds altogether? Is an individual endorsement more valuable when not contractual? (See? It does connect to the previous post.) All this remains to be seen. I have faith that something so sneaky and ill conceived has little to no place in the twitterverse. However, i have noticed something that insists on a caveat for this sort of marketing on Twitter.



Which leads to this site.



Although i believe that weight loss products and Acai Berry drinks are beneath LAist, their tweets are transparent, and we do not expect a personality or a connection to a website like we would a brand. Their twitter feed is simply links to their blog and their blog makes money off of ads, ergo this is fair play. This cannot be said of corporations and celebrities who use twitter to further their personal brand. Their unspoken contract with the web and in social media participation is to provide the public with information about themselves with goodwill and without trying to make a cynical buck off of us. However, if we find ourselves following celebs, and clicking on their every link with the same blindness with which we accepted hookers and club promoters as our MySpace "friends" then the FAIL Whale is upon us and we can only watch the potential of yet another Social Networking site diminished and destroyed by corporate greed. It really is up to us.

A sucessful contractual Twitter feed?

"The ways of the Living Force are beyond our understanding... But fear not. You are in the hands of something much greater and much better than you can imagine."
―Qui-Gon Jinn


A Protocol Droid fluent in over 6 million forms of communication, and able to communicate with binary loadlifters has only NOW discovered the value of Twitter? So it would appear, as Twitter-friendly nerdery everywhere welcomed Anthony Daniels, who is better known throughout the galaxy as C3PO, to the world of Social Media. His newly minted Twitter account handle bears the name ADaniels3PO and he boasts a modest following of 1700 accrued in the short time of 5 days.


It would make perfect sense that someone who owes his career to the genre of Science Fiction would be tapping into the Nerd/Geek rich world of social media, where no matter how mainstream things are, they retain an air of geeky innocence. However, such has not been the case for Mr. Daniels who's recent discovery of Twitter happens to happily coincide with a new website and the beginning of his national tour with Star Wars in Concert. Is it possible that someone in the marketing department for Star Wars In Concert was prescient enough to see Mr. Daniels as an indirect marketing tool? Contractually obliging him to a twitter feed seems contrary to the "Feel-Good Community" of Twitter, but the opportunities for the concert can hardly be ignored. When a visual music and lights show starring your favorite movie rolls into town, who better to be a spokesperson than one of the stars? It takes the notion of celebrity, product, and word of mouth to a whole new level.

Do I think it was a draconian marketing person who put him up to it as a part of some awful, greedy contract? No. Should Marketing people encourage it and make available all resources to those who are promoting their goods? You bet! Anthony Daniels should have the full support of the enormous companies affiliated with Star Wars and the concert, and they should all be touting his Twitter feed. I bet they could pump those numbers well past the 2k mark they have now, and in turn give Mr. Daniels a powerful tool for his personal brand as well as allowing him to maximize his role as a spokesperson for their brand.

Let me put it this way:

I wouldn't know about Star Wars in concert if it weren't for Anthony Daniels. Anthony Daniels would never have told me about it unless it was through his Twitter feed. His Twitter feed inspired this blog post, which in turn, touts Star Wars in Concert. The force is strong in that.

Before we were "Just talking" to the Consumer, VW was "Just Talking" to the consumer

Such ballsy, non-conventional ads in an era where this was unheard of.

A Traditional Cut

This is the guy who cuts my hair. He is fantastic. He charges $10 if you have a mustache gives you a glass of rum and a damn fine shave and a haircut. Every guy i know should go to him.

Richie The Barber
7303 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(323) 935-2494

Hours: Mon-Sat. 12:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
No Credit Cards

In case you were in doubt.

A little perspective on where we are heading.

Feliz Dia De la Independencia!

On this day in 1808, sick of the opression of white Europeans, white Mexican-born Spaniards threw off the yoke of Imperialism and placed it promptly on the indigenous peoples of Mexico. A practice that continues to this very day, and is celebrated with "El Grito!" or "the squeal!", where the President of the republic dons his sash and rings a bell in honor of his American and Narco Overlords.



And an old timey movie that explains the Mexican national anthem and pokes fun at Napoleon III.

MEXICANOS AL GRITO DE GUERRA

Don Draper's Carousel: Lessons for Social Media Marketing

I had "One of those moments" yesterday, where something I've always felt true was verified by a moment or an authority. I met a young lady yesterday who had graduated from a University with the twin majors of Marketing and Social Anthropology, and she expressed delight in my excitement for her choices. To which I explained that i see the two as being permanently intertwined.

I have always maintained in the inherency of the human experience. A unifying feeling that we have all been through this before, and we all share basically the same journey with minor variations. In marketing, this can be applied in different ways. Our need to breed can be preyed on, the manipulation of imagery is well known, and wordplay, copy, font decisions, music and etymological wizardry can come in handy when attempting to create a reaction to a product on a superficial level. Social Media however, has the honor of having the customer come to you. The customer has found you and they will deliver the message on your behalf, but you must equip them with the ability and desire to spread your message. You must build on their loyalty and do so at a level which connects beyond the obvious and at a very deep level.

Mad Men, is a fantastic show that I adore simply for the Cro-Magnon brazenness of 1960's advertising and how different it is from what we try to achieve through the intimate world of Social Media. When print and television were the only game in town, it was absolutely necessary to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, but when the customer is coming to you as is the case with social media, what sort of message are you sending out in order to be the most effective representative of your brand?

The clip below has received a large amount of attention for the way in which the lead character, Don Draper, during a pitch to KODAK, appeals to emotions that are not sexy or exciting but deeply moving and speak to us on a much more intimate level. So much so, in fact, that one of his colleagues who is having marital issues leaves the room in a rush.



A masterfully written expression of what all social media professionals must inevitably learn. As my mentor Stephen Fry put it so eloquently during his address to the Apple iTunes festival "Deep inside we are very soft people who yearn to love and yearn to be loved, and everything else is incidental, irrelevant, cynical, and not interesting to us fundamentally."

The feelings of belonging, and community that are recreated by our online families within our social media outlets are very real and must speak to that level of connectedness. It is a powerful tool, and when yielded wisely and with sincerity it can have wonderful results. Understanding that connectedness and what make societies and individuals tick at a rudimentary level,like an Anthropologist would, will make you more likely to achieve that goal.

Social Media as the Eye of Sauron

"The Eye: that horrible growing sense of a hostile will that strove with great power to pierce all shadows of cloud, and earth, and flesh, and to see you: to pin you under its deadly gaze, naked, immovable."- JRR Tolkien

I had an interesting real-time social media moment today that bears repeating as a warning for those who underestimate the immediate power of SM and the PR as well as promotional benefits of being able to listen to your consumer.

I have several Tweetdeck alerts for ongoing projects, brands, etc. One of these is The Comedy Store, my place of employment, which is an incredible, but badly damaged brand. It is a hard sell most of the time, and our product is still not in great shape after 20 something years of complete neglect and a pretty gnarly reputation for being unfriendly to outsiders.

My mantra since arriving here has been built around this Brand Heaven and Hell illustration that I found when I first started dawdling in marketing.

(If anyone can tell me who is responsible for it, I'd love to give him/her credit.)



If you'll note, one of the most basic steps, the FIRST step, in fact, is "Positive interactions".

A customer had a negative interaction today with one of the guys who works our phones. He tweeted about it approximately five minutes after his interaction. Seconds after he tweeted, I received a notice, and read this tweet: "Just called "The Comedy Store" to find out about open mic and the guy was a dick... so nothing unusual."

With that comment, not only was the customer able to let me know that we had dropped the ball, but he also let his 198 followers know as much too. Not only did he tell them that our customer service was terrible, but he also told them we had a history of such things. BAD brand karma. I tried to recover from it, offering the usual free admissions and apologies, but the damage has been done. In real time, with a nearly immediate effect, I saw our brand depleted by one idiot employee's insensitivity and i saw that message delivered into 200 people's feeds, and I pray he's not linked his twitter ans Facebook accounts. This is the world of Social Media, where the negative can be spread as quickly if not more so than the information you export. For someone like me who spends most of his waking hours attempting to paint the kindest, most sincere and positive picture of this place, it is infuriating when that is derailed by an insensitive employee who frankly, is not doing his job. Like Sauron's evil eye, a Negative interaction will find you through social media and "pin you under its deadly gaze, naked, immovable."

Ugh.

*** UPDATE!!
After my overtures the customer above decided to swing by on the day we were holding a special promotion for new comics. I was greeted by this tweet from his stream this morning which I promptly retweeted: "Had a great time at The Comedy Store... people were really nice and it was great fun watching new comics work."

What an amazing interaction.

Why does this make so much sense?

Gordon Brown: Wiring a web for global good

In my continued study on the incredible interconnectedness that is afforded us by Social Media, I've been wanting to share this TED talk for a while. To listen to a world leader discuss compassion in such personal terms is one of the most encouraging things I've seen in a long time.



Say what you will about Gordon Brown and his policies, he is a deeply sensitive and intelligent man

Kings and Queens Heroes and Heroines

“O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great kings. Dear
Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak
list of a country’s fashion: we are the makers of
manners, Kate; and the liberty that follows our
places stops the mouth of all find-faults; as I will
do yours, for upholding the nice fashion of your
country in denying me a kiss: therefore, patiently
and yielding. ”
—

Henry V Act 5, Scene 2

There are endless justifications in life. We justify happenings actions and attempt to reason away things that make us unhappy or make ourselves feel better about circumstances.I know that personally i justify a few whoppers a week, just to get by. And so do we all:

"Everything happens for a reason."
"It's just business"
"I can quit anytime"
"All's fair in love and war"
"It's God's will"
"But they really do love me"

All of these are classic examples of our attempts to make ourselves feel better about crummy decisions we make, and the general disasters that life presents us and the ones we hand each other.I blame no one for their desire to rationalize or justify but sometimes it does us well to confront that fact and be merciful to ourselves and others by being a little more plain-spoken and realistic. As I step back and momentarily become Emerson's "Transparent Eyeball" (A moment is really all I can afford of serious introspection right now), I find myself reverting to what i consider my moral center while i contemplate and justify decisions I have made in life, some not so wise, in pursuit of my own little holy grail of making this place better through my ability to engage people in a pleasant manner and bring to them entertainment and laughter that connects us all. If there is a life thesis for me at the moment, you've just read it.

So as i see my friends in their contented and married lives, many of them with children now, it gives me pause to see how much i've sacrificed in my attempts to maximize my ability to connect in a positive manner. My friend observed last night, that no one else possesses the life skills that I've had to develop for dealing with all the insanity that i bring on myself, and that which is heaped on me by the myriad of strange characters who have chosen similar journeys and are plodding along trying to make sense of it.

It is at times like this when the alienation from so very much seems to be tugging at me while I'm busy with social media, talent booking, joke telling, and the social and emotional slings and arrows of my life that I go to what I have always considered my grand justification. I am not alone.

If i were Christian, I would say Christ is with me. And he is, most certainly. He too sought more from life than a carpenter's spot in the firm of Moses, Abraham and Sons and in turn, his premature death at age 33 (An age I am a week from) resounds even to a hardened atheist like myself.

The sacrifice of comfort, both bodily and mental, the pain and suffering of the individual seeking a greater truth or a metaphorical grail is a story retold over and over in the human experience and our most revered heroes are those who gave of themselves for a larger cause succeeded and redeemed themselves and the world through their sacrifice. That story holds a sacred place in our psyche, and I posit that it is for moments like these where times try men's souls that our ancestors recorded the heroic tales, so as to inspire us mid journey, look at how far we've all come and beckon us to the universality of the journeys of our predecesors who dared step out of the comfort zone.

If we have taken a risk, we have thrown away comfort, and we have taken a step into the brave new world that propels humanity forward. The more steps you take, the greater your discomfort, and when I feel I may break and settle into a quieter version of my charmed life I look to the heroes that continued despite enormous prices exacted on themselves and those who dared support them. I stand on those shoulders and find strength in the heroes around me valiantly beautifying the world and making our communal experience a touch more special for our brief time here.

When I look around me and think what have i accomplished? What is my goal and purpose? I find the greatest justification in our shared journeys and experiences, and I am thankful for those who have kept it together for me. Those who I lean on, and those who like me, continue to charge into the fray on a daily basis at the expense of their physical and mental well-being in hopes that the next day will be brighter for all of us.

That is the mother of all justifications. It justifies why I sometimes feel exempt from certain norms, why i feel entitled to bang my head more often and why sometimes it requires a little more understanding from society and my peers. I do not ask for sympathy. I'm having a great time in my journey and when and if I arrive I'll have done it to the sincere best of my abilities. No shortcuts, no easy answers. For all you great Kings and Queens out there, for all you heroes, take heart in Henry V's words from the Shakespearean play. Be able to look at your world with an open and sincere heart and say "Your rules do not apply to me, I will lead my life as I see fit." and then act out of love.

This is what I tell myself.

Put Pocketing (The product finds you?)

The most difficult thing in Social Media Marketing is the true life application of your message and product. As we all know, a huge list and following needn't necessarily translate into bums in seats or cash in hand. Walking down the street with an iPhone glued to your hand is hardly a way to live (Ahem). Even then, there must be a merging point between guerrilla marketing and online marketing. A place where your online sense of community can be verified and validated by a very applicable moment in your life. Most marketing folk cede this responsibility to the product which they believe to be the ultimate personal interaction between consumer and brand. While technically true, non traditional brand interaction has been around for a while and a staple in urban settings. In a world like social media, where so much isn't tangible the options for extending your message outside of the realm of intangibles becomes more difficult.

MySpace continues to be the largest Social network that continually throws and promotes events independent of users. In other words MySpace has Myspace events while Twitter, Facebook etc. have only user generated events. Though I firmly believe that FB and Twitter would benefit from expanding into events and producing or at least sponsoring, they are in no danger of being overtaken by MySpace's events division which had enormous cuts inflicted on it despite being the only original and working apparatus in that horribly collapsing structure.

What about your company though? What sort of things can you do to bring that close knit online community together? Tweetups, Tweetcrawls, Facebook Invites are all in the arsenal of Social Media events but to really capture the imagination of potential consumers it takes some innovation at a basic and personal level. The UK based Phone and Broadband Company Talk Talk has taken the notion of goodwill towards consumers and bringing the message home, to a new level. A seamless application of guerilla marketing that does not involve hundreds of dancers and a train station. They have paid former pickpockets to "PUT POCKET" money wrapped with their logo and message into the consumer's pockets and bags. Risky and bold to be sure. But imagine if the evil and draconian AT&T put money into your bag with a nice note and best wishes. Not only would you tell your friends, but you'd certainly feel better about having your pocketbook raped at the end of the month.



The future of advertising will be in the bringing of goodwill and loyalty created by brands in the way that online communities and social networks create the same. By affecting people's lives, emotions,and brand interactions in a positive and relevant manner, rather than by forcing an unwarranted message on the unsuspecting. If you happen to film it, upload it, and distribute it online, then the rewards of that goodwill can be maximized.

Fosse Walk it Out

Some deeply artistic mind decided to perfectly sync footage of Gwen Verdon performing a Bob Fosse routine to the Hip Hop Hit, Walk it Out. The result is what makes the internet so great.

My Official Pitch to Be Blogger Prom King

You now have no choice but to vote for me.

A Theater Review.

This Summer saw a great drama unfold at the Little Theater of The Rockies which celebrates it's 75th Anniversary. The play "I Cup" which was based on a never published David Mamet, Tony Kushner collaboration was written and performed by The UNC School of Performing and Visual Arts, and was a monumental undertaking spanning decades. In the lead role lies the seemingly benign and flamboyant Vance Fulkerson. A toupee'd and lifted Musical Theater professor with dreams of establishing a Musical Theater powerhouse in the middle of farm country. With his hilarious anecdotes and unorthodox teaching style ( At one point he has a whole class braying like donkeys and eating invisible apples) Fulkerson quickly establishes himself as the quirkiest in a quirky department.

The first act has some solid performances with Tom McNally as the department chair, who hilariously battles ailments, and personal matters while playing Willy Loman in the play within the play. Also of note are the odd couple of Mary Martin and Heather Hollingsworth who bring some order and more wacky fun accordingly to the frenetic hilarious pace of the first act, and a cameo by Paul Mocovack who is lovably and clearly out of place in the confines of a small town. All the while a continuous parade of handsome young men come in and out of the rascally Fulkerson's office.

It is interesting to note the speed and hilarity of the first act and how they are used by writer/director Vance Fulkerson to draw attention from more sinister happenings. All the while the unseen Dr. Skinner is hot on his trail, Fulkerson manages to distract through incredible acts of stagecraft and powerful audience manipulation. But the chorus of young men is difficult to ignore, and by the end of the first act it is clear that there are severe cracks beginning to appear in the plot and believability of his acting.

The second act takes a dark turn almost immediately. The supporting characters have grown more serious, and so too has the world. Post 9/11 Greeley sees roles reversed with Mary Martin (Now Schuttler) bringing academic credibility with her PhD. Gone are Mockovack and Hollingsworth and their constant comedic presences, replaced by John Leonard and Monty Black who do an honorable job at keeping humor in the slow descent to hell, though in more of a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern manner rather than the Punch and Judy antics of Hollingsworth and Mockovack. McNally has been replaced by the able but noticeably absent David Grapes, and the omnipresent Dr. Skinner has retired, allowing Fulkerson to have complete vulgar control of the mess that is to ensue.

This is where what a once promising play takes a nosedive into a canyon in a great flaming ball of shit, from which the show never really recovers. The discovery of a hidden camera (Talk about a deus ex Machina) by one of the dozens of interchangeable young men who had paraded in and out of Fulkerson's home, inside his bathroom marks the very low starting point of the whole nasty business. Evidently filming urinating men is somehow erotic, though i fail to even remotely understand this. Unbelievably, the litany of cliched sexual misconducts continues, all leading to the inevitable discovery of kiddie porn inside a vault. The unoriginality of this development aside, you would think that this subject matter would be treated with some sort of respect or shame by Fulkerson, who has now been apprehended by the police. Rather than attempt to salvage some decency or give some credulity to an already awful story, Fulkerson, who was perfectly at home playing the rascal in the first act, casts himself into the role of benevolent pornographer. Filming willing participants to raise money for his ailing mother. Un-fucking-believable. Fulkerson's, pleasantly hammy shenanigans in the first act are now completely forgotten and he proves himself a wretch. With hidden cameras, child pornography, abuse of power, manipulation, hair pieces, botox, cave hideouts (I don't want to give everything away) , and the ever present shrill sounds of his musical theater "technique", Vance Fulkerson managed to take a promise of broadway and education and turn it into a fastidious, tacky soap opera in the worst traditions of community theater.

To subject an audience, students, faculty, friends and family to this terrible, terrible grotesque circus is criminal. I am sorry I had to be a part of it. I am sorry that terms like "sexual exploitation of children" ended up smearing themselves all over my cherished memories. In the end, Fulkerson's terrible performance and show underscore what i had suspected all along. That there was little artistic sensibility in this man's life-play. Just tacky horniness underscored by the great American songbook and barely disguised by academia. Run away from this spectacle. Do not look back and do not try to make any sense of it. It is as pedestrian as theater gets.

Please join me next week as i review The Bush Presidency as performed by The Country Dinner Playhouse.