PR Lesson 2

Double check your facts.
This from, thecarpetbaggerreport.com (hmm, has a ring to it) describing then Gov Bush's emotional connection to a painting he kept in his office entitled, A Charge To Keep:

In 1995, he issued a memo to his Texas staff, describing the painting, by W.H.D. Koerner in 1916, which he kept on his office wall. Bush told his aides:

The reason I bring this up is that the painting is based upon the Charles Wesley hymn “A Charge to Keep I Have”. I am particularly impressed by the second verse of this hymn. The second verse goes like this: “To serve the present age, my calling to fulfill; O may it all my powers engage to do my Master’s will”

...When you come into my office, please take a look at the beautiful painting of a horseman determinedly charging up what appears to be a steep and rough trail. This is us. What adds complete life to the painting for me is the message of Charles Wesley that we serve One greater than ourselves.

He liked all of this so much, Bush used the title for his autobiography (which he admittedly did not write). He even brought the picture with him to Washington upon taking office.

The funny part is the truth about the painting and what it represents. In his new book, “The Bush Tragedy,” Jacob Weisberg explains:

[Bush] came to believe that the picture depicted the circuit-riders who spread Methodism across the Alleghenies in the nineteenth century. In other words, the cowboy who looked like Bush was a missionary of his own denomination.

Only that is not the title, message, or meaning of the painting. The artist, W.H.D. Koerner, executed it to illustrate a Western short story entitled “The Slipper Tongue,” published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1916. The story is about a smooth-talking horse thief who is caught, and then escapes a lynch mob in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. The illustration depicts the thief fleeing his captors. In the magazine, the illustration bears the caption: “Had His Start Been Fifteen Minutes Longer He Would Not Have Been Caught.”

15 minutes? Saddle up! He's getting away.

PR Lesson 1

Get the facts straight.

This from Starpulse.com:

The family and friends of tragic TLC star Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes have threatened a trendy Los Angeles clothing company with legal action after learning bosses have used the late hip-hop star as an inspiration for new designs without permission.

Dragonfly designers staged a photo shoot with models posing as dead stars as part of reality show Janice Dickinson's Modeling Agency, which aired on Tuesday night - and Lopes' loved ones were horrified to see the singer's likeness created.

Lopes' stunned former best friend and publicist Jay Morose says, "They explicitly said they are portraying Elvis, Kurt Cobain and my friend, Lisa Lopes. The photos are now online as a catalogue for this company. They even identify the models by their rock star names."

Morose approached Dragonfly bosses after speaking with the late star's family - in an effort to have the upsetting images taken down.

He adds, "An assistant told me they can do whatever they want with the images. But it's tasteless - and also highly illegal. In California, tort law generally prohibits commercial use of a celebrity's likeness without consent. This matter has been passed on to the family's attorneys."

First, spell my name right. Second, the matter has been referred to her family's attorney, no legal action has been taken or threatened. Last, the legal opinion is actually TRCBs favorite entertainment blog, PopSquire.com.

Other than that, its right on, the shoot was tasteless. The Dragonfly people did tell me they could do whatever they wanted with the images and did hang up on me after calling me ignorant and refusing to even give me their address or names.

You cant expect much from people who would do such a thing in the first place, but Janice Dickinson, Oxygen and Freemantle Media should not have been a party to such a tasteless stunt in the first place.

That didnt take long

AP reports that the signs point to an accidental death for Heath Ledger. Even the White House cancelled a prescription drug abuse ad campaign kick off today for the President, not wanting to seem 'opportunistic'. Not so for the lunatic right. Apparently, you can be a drug addict (Rush Limbaugh) if you are also a lunatic. I'm too disgusted to write about it, so Think Progress can say it:

John Gibson Mocks ‘Weirdo’ Heath Ledger’s Death: ‘He Found Out How To Quit You’

Opening his radio show with funeral music yesterday, Fox News host John Gibson callously mocked the death of actor Heath Ledger, calling him a “weirdo” with a “serious drug problem.”

Playing an audio clip of the iconic quote, “I wish I knew how to quit you” from Ledger’s gay romance movie Brokeback Mountain, Gibson disdainfully quipped, “Well, he found out how to quit you.” Laughing, Gibson then played another clip from Brokeback Mountain in which Ledger said, “We’re dead,” followed by his own, mocking “We’re dead” before playing the clip again.

Throughout the course of the show, Gibson continued to bring up Ledger’s death while discussing current events, jokingly claiming that current events may have caused him to commit suicide.

On yesterday’s drop in the stock market:

GIBSON: Maybe he had a serious position in the market.

TOM SULLIVAN: And possibly today, he looked at the window and said…

GIBSON: “Oh my God.”

SULLIVAN: His name’s not Keith Bledger, right?

GIBSON: He was depressed about yesterday’s downturn in the world stock markets.

On the Democratic debate in South Carolina:

GIBSON: Apparently Heath Ledger was suicidal and his friends saw it coming. I think he watched the Clinton-Obama debate last night. I think he was an Edwards guy, cause he saw his Edwards guy was just completely irrelevant.

In reality, New York City Police spokesman Paul J. Browne told the New York Times that there was “no obvious indication of suicide.”

You stay classy, John Gibson.

Heath Ledger

So sad to see such a young talent gone. His performance in Brokeback Mountain was a masterpiece in minimalism.

Worse, SURPRISE, the tabloids in their rush to be first to tell it, In Touch reports:

"His mother and father heard of his death on the news. We are all devastated. The whole family is devastated over his death, and more so over having to learn of his death from the media."

Why doesn't someone ask Harvey Levin how he would like to hear that a loved one was dead. Oh, I assume he has human emotions. Sorry, ask him how much he wants to be paid to exploit the death of one of his loved ones.

As a publicist, getting calls that your clients (friends) had died is part of the job. In one month ABC reported that Sharon Osbourne had died, posting her obituary online, a phony AP report that Ozzy had died started my phone ringing at 4am and then the tsunami hit Phuket, Thailand where the Osbournes were staying.

Im perhaps a little more sensitive than most on this. These calls are so common, but one night, this call from JoJo Wright from KIIS-FM to tell me that Left Eye had died, wasn't a hoax. If you ever wonder why I dislike the tabloids so much, this is it.

I spent the next week negotiating with American Media's photographer editor to keep photos taken of my friend by photographers and videographers who broke into the morgue in Honduras out of the tabloids. After breaking in, they turned her coffin on its side in order to get better angles of the wounds that took her life.

After offering many things, like photos taken on the trip and clips from her journal to keep them from running here, he finally admitted to me, "Jay, you and I can decide anything we want, but we both know that whatever is going to sell best is what they are going to run."

Those photos ran on the front page of newspapers around the world and NBC ran the video internationally.

What if that was your sister/daughter/friend?

Let me say it, since all the people rushing to profit, wont. My sincere sympathy goes to Heath Ledger's family and friends, and especially his daughter, Matilda. Let's hope she has some measure of privacy in the years to come.

Oscar

The List (here). Yawn.

Who called Elah? Tommy Lee Jones for Elah, along with his work in No Country, could be the surprise winner, there.

Best Supporting actor race between Hal Holbrook and Philip Seymour Hoffman is the only race I'm interested in. Both stole their films. Into the Wild is one of my favorite books and Sean Penn made an amazing film that every teenager should see. Its a modern Wizard of Oz, sincerely.

Im disappointed that Emile Hirsch and Sean Penn werent rcognized for Wild. Hirsch really carries the entire film, appearing in almost every scene and appearing full frontal, repeatedly. Brave for a young actor, for sure. Sean Penn directed and wrote the screenplay from a tough source.

Otherwise, yawn. Oscar needs a Globes makeover. I think ABC is secretly hoping that the strike will kill this years telecast so they can revamp. I have no evidence to support this, just one TRCBs opinion.

I was kidding...

When I called her Amy Crackhouse. Now its officially sad, UK's The Sun reports: 

WILD AMY WINEHOUSE was filmed blitzed out of her skull and struggling to talk after sucking in crack fumes from a glass pipe. The tormented singing sensation took hit after hit of the deadly drug after a 19-minute binge in which she snorted powdered ECSTASY and COCAINE. And she admitted she had just popped six VALIUM pills to “bring myself down”.

The video on the site is just truly depressing. Britney, listen up! Except she will see this as challenge, I fear, to top.

April 3, 1968

Like anybody
I would like to live a long life
Longevity has its place
But I'm not concerned about that now
I just want to do God's will
And he has allowed me to go up to the mountian
And I've looked over
And I've seen the promise land
I may not get there with you
But I want you to know tonight
That we as a people
Will get to the promise land
So I'm happy tonight, I'm not worried about anything
I'm not fearing any man
Mine eyes have seen the glory of
the coming of the Lord.

Rev Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr would be struck down by an assassins bullet the next day.

Prop 93

Im against term limits, I think its a silly idea. Vote out who needs to be voted out. But this guy might change my mind. I dont know what he wants me to do, but Im ready to do it.

MLK

What an where is America? America is a dream unfilled. A dream of opportunity of privilege and property widely distributed, a dream of a place where class is abolished and where a man is a man, a place where race, birth and color are transcended by the fact of a common brotherhood, a place where humanity as humanity can begin a fresh experiment in human brotherhood that will be a new beginning for the race as a whole a place where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity - that is the dream.

E. Stanley Jones

PLAY THIS LOUD AND THINK, WHAT PART OF 'WE' ARE YOU?

OMD's Southern (1985), with fan video. Go full screen for full effect.