Everyone remembers how the grungy circus handyman answered the question: When are you going to give up this lousy job scooping up after elephants. "What, and give up show business...!!" Actually there are thousands of elephant-scoopers in the world today, but dressing well and making the big bucks. They're called publicists, and they get paid to scoop up the dung left behind by their famous clients.
The clients generally come in three categories: Celebrities...competitors...capitalists.
Celebrities are the performers whose egos make them say or do dumb things. At one time the likes of Fatty Arbuckle, Errol Flynn, and Mickey Rooney. Lately: Mel Gibson, Whitney Houston, Lindsay Lohan, Alec Baldwin, and Charlie Sheen. Ahhh, but the natty elephant scoopers are always there to explain to the media why the tipsters and paparazzi got this story all wrong.
Competitors are the muscled-up athletes who, off the field, are found jumping fans in the stands, bar brawls, domestic violence arrests, and dog-fighting. Their well-heeled publicists display even greater athleticism as they dance around the ugly facts during the next morning's press conference. Just like the high-paid celebrities, these competitors are multi-million-dollar investments their owners want protected from -- God forbid! -- any bad PR.
Then there are elephant-scoopers for capitalists whose Wall Street or corporate holdings must be salvaged at all costs. Not only for the sake of their yachts and resorts, but the confidence of all the suckers who invest in them. Their publicists are usually sitting behind them in courts and Congress, whispering save-our-ass advice,
Oh yes...there's a fourth category: Our politicians.Those whose careers depend upon what and how they say things. Be they president or simple bureaucrat, these days there is always a hidden camera somewhere. So whatever stupid things they utter have the possibility of becoming viral on the Internet within moments. Their elephant-scoopers begin every next-day explanation with the scripted words: "What he/she meant to say..."
Just another schadenfreude day in the good old USA....! Will our capricious public forgive and forget, or will they bray like one of those circus elephants enjoying their owners catching a face full of their own manure...?
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Jack, I think in many instances the media can be considered elephant dung spreaders, especially at times when they won't let us "forgive and forget".
ReplyDeleteJerry ~ This is so terribly and annoyingly true. They feed off these people just as these people feed off them. I think this is what they mean as a feeding frenzy!
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