The CEO And His Advisor

I just love being close to CEO's. The one I am pictured with here is client Richard Krulik, CEO of U.S. Luggage, makers of Briggs & Riley and SOLO Cases. We are at The Briggs & Riley Design for a Cure kick-off reception last night, Grant Gallery, Soho, NYC.

We welcomed top tier press, friends and colleagues to celebrate the launch of Briggs & Riley's first annual Design for a Cure auction. The celebrity decorated bags, showcased in spotlights, were the talk of the night! With a great turnout, fantastic atmosphere, good food and smiling faces, Briggs & Riley showed the world how a great company brands itself and gives back to the community as well.

Jim Lahren, Richard, Barbara Rogus from JDRF and Tatiana Grant all gave wonderful speeches. All evening people were itching to get to the auction site and start bidding, which is now live at www.ebay.com/briggsriley.

Because of the wonderful space, the event itself and the great teamwork of Briggs & Riley and HWH, the Design for a Cure event was a huge success as the auction is sure to be. Congrats and thanks to all!

Just read Page 6

JUST READ PAGE 6

Stop the theatrics!!!!

Is your relationship with The Donald worth saving?

You can't have it both ways (Get the double entendre?)

When you hired Rosie you appeared to be a renaissance woman in your golden years.

Your audiences saw you as a forward thinker, open to new ideas, accepting of change, a futurist.

You were timeless.

Recently you have reverted back to being typical, stodgy, Park Avenue stuffy, scared of the what if's.

You would rather play it safe.

Please, before it is too late, stick to your original hunch.

Rosie is a breath of fresh air.

Give Rosie your full support

Her former TV Show, her magazine, her special events, her remarks were cherished word for word by much, much more than not.

Her knack for editorial quality is unmatched.

Don't let Donald's timely PR rants sway you.

Rosie has done more for the needy than most other individuals,

Rosie is a survivor.

We thought you were too

Thank Goodness Good Friday Will Be Good Friday

I don't care what everyone else says about Iran. I am thrilled the Iranians released the Brits. Even if the entire episode was a PR stunt so that they can look

magnanimous to the rest of the world, at least Bush doesn't have a reason to invade Iran as so many writers and broadcasters reported he would on Good Friday.

When I first heard about Bush's reported intentions a week ago, I cancelled my appointments that I planned for on my day off in order to be

glued to the TV set. Have to run...........want to get my manicure, pedicure and facial appointments back again.

Too Bad We Are Judged In Death Too

Isn't it bad enough that our family and peers judge us when we are living?
I guess not, because recently I've learned that we get judged in death too.

I tried to place an obituary of an industry pioneer from the consumer electronics business a few weeks ago in the leading trade magazines. But because the present day editors didn't really know this unbelievable soul, he got a squib of a mention after I hounded them for days. The guy was in the industry for over 40 years and helped a lot of people and companies get rich. He branded his retail chain as a leading source for electronics and was a major, national volunteer for one of the best non-profits in the world.

The other day someone else in the industry died who was very kind, very young, very well-known and very well liked. She got the lead story in the trades.

Here is proof: It always is who you know and not what you know...in death, as well as in life.

Kentucky Fried Chicken Bashes Concerned Mom

I can take constructive criticism. What I can't take is criticism just to make someone else look good.

That is why I get so upset when Kentucky Fried Chicken runs that "ferkakte" (Yiddish for small time) TV commercial showing one
mom scorning another.

Allow me to set the scene: A young boy, around the age of 12, calls home to ask his mother if he can stay for dinner at his friend's house. The mother questions the son like a good mother should. She asks him if his friend's parents are home and if he will be eating dinner.

The son says yes and turns the phone over to his friend's mother for verification. The friend's mom confirms that they will be eating a wholesome supper. Not once does she say it is a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. She ends the conversation, turns around to her son's friend and gives him a smirk like "your mother is weird."

I watched this commercial several times to make sure I wasn't imagining something. The mother on the phone was questioning her son's security, not the content of the dinner. The friend's mother totally undermined her by trying to make herself look like a big shot.

Some big shot. She is a schtunk (Yiddish for lazy, do nothing) just like me. I do not cook, never have cooked, and have no plans for ever cooking. But you can be sure I would act like a mensch (nice person) and reinforce parental control.

I say next time serve a can of Chicken Soup. It cures everything.

Allow Me To Introduce You To The Delete Button

I am a publicist. I get paid to publicize. My agency uses e-mail, snail mail, telephone, faxes, digital press rooms, face to face meetings, CD ROM, DVD, USB drives, and more to distribute the news.

Most of the time we use e-mail blasts because it is the easiest way to reach hundreds, sometimes thousands, of writers in the most expeditious way.

I receive several thousand e-mails per day. It takes me less than 10 minutes to delete the ones I do not want.

I do not understand journalists (thank goodness there are only a handful of them) who get on this spam kick. They ask to be deleted from mailings because they do not want to be spammed.

The time it took them to ask me to remove them from our mailing lists certainly took 100 percent more time than what it would have been to just "delete."

I wonder what their bosses would think if they knew that their writers/editors did not want to receive information.

By asking to be cut from lists, you only cut yourself off in this world of digital communications.

Sure, you may not be interested in this particular news item, but who knows, the next one could be exactly what you need.

This morning Ned Colt called from NBC London asking to be taken off. A cross-Atlantic call instead of a simple delete.

I think that tells you something about a person. I am not going to say what.

At the most, he received three emails from us in the past month. 1, 2, 3, and he would have been rid of me. He choose to take 15 minutes out of his obvious, not busy schedule, to call and chat.

I rest my case.

I hope I get a lot of comments on this blog because I would love to debate spam any day of the week. I have been on both sides of the fence, editor and now a PR person.

Junk mail is a necessary evil. Get over it.

Kramer Vs. Kramer

My husband Eliot and I just received the seventh season of Seinfeld on DVD.

We ordered it long before Michael Richards went on his insane tirade at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood two weeks ago.



When we unwrapped the mailer it just wasn't the same thrill seeing Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer.

We examined Kramer's face just like Larry David scruitinizes those that he doubts on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

We looked closely at his photo.

Kramer, what have you done with Kramer?

You brought us years of endless laughs.

You were our comic relief after a whole tedious day at the office.

We lived vicariously through you and your antics.

The more we watched you, the more we laughed.

We all longed to live your independent lifestyle .

What have you done with our sweet, loveable, harmless Kramer ?

We spotted you more than 20 years ago on Fox's Friday Night.

You were a scream then as you were on Seinfeld...

Same mannerisms, same edgy walk.

Now you took liberties with your success.

We don't think you are a racist...

We think you are desperado.

You wanted attention after years of trying to climb out of hibernation.

The public is not buying it.

The more you apologize, the more desperate you seem.

Your facial expressions and body language are totally weird.

You are sending signals that you are distorted and a snob.

Wrong move hiring Howard Rubenstein.

You can't buy your way out of this.

Even though the Blacks and the Jews will probably greatly benefit from your big checks -

We want the real Kramer to come forward.

Invite Frank McBride and Kyle Doss to your home.

Smoke Cuban cigars and take a steam bath with them.

Feed them lobsters right off the boat, let them try on your Bro.

And demo a few golf swings.........let them get close to your real soul.

Stop the insanity.

If you give us one more Doe stare on TV...

We are going to climb inside that TV set and smack you in the head...

Or ask Jerry to forever lock his front door, Elaine to shove you down the stairs and

George to pee on you in the gym shower.

Good Things Happen To Bad People

I knew when I wrote that nasty Blog about Magnus Nicolin and Helena Wong of Essselte recently that some higher power would punish me. He/she did. It was awful. My 12-year-old Maltese, (her birthday is today—Sept 26th) went into congestive heart failure last week and nearly suffocated to death. On Monday morning the cardiologist at the Animal Medical Center called to say that Coco had an hour to live. Her lungs were filling with fluids and they were having a difficult time draining them. The meds weren’t working. Reluctantly, the doctors increased the diuretics and other drugs to dangerously high levels in order to see some positive reactions. They were very worried about the impact this was going to have on Coco’s other organs: help the heart, and possibly destroy her kidneys. She had been on oxygen for almost 24 hours. Eliot, my daughter Whitney and I held a vigil at the hospital till Coco showed signs of improvement.

Since Coco was in ICU we were only allowed to visit her every two hours. We waved, blew kisses and gave her the high sign to cheer her on. She was in a fog. The tear in her mitral valve that caused all this had turned this cute little fluff ball into an old lady over night. Coco looked exhausted and her breathing was very labored. She stared at us with those familiar round saucers that said, "Don’t count me out yet."

The three of us got the same vibes. Coco was sending a message that said, "Time out. Let me recoup. I still have a lot of living to do." I sobbed myself to sleep the first night she got sick. I was having a meltdown. Poor little helpless Coco. Poor little helpless me. There was nothing in the world that I could do for her. What a horrible feeling.

To complicate matters, Eliot and I were due in Miami 42 hours later for a business cocktail party we had organized to launch the audition casting calls for the new Dotster Dots, a search for company spokes models for our client, Dotster. Visit www.dotster.com to learn about their suite of services involving domain registrations, web hosting and creating web sites.

On the third day of this nightmare, we received good news. Coco was 70 percent better. By the fourth day, while we were still in Miami, Coco was taken off of oxygen. The doctors were even talking about her going home! Everyone was celebrating. Our daughter Whitney called to tell us to get on the next flight home. I think Eliot and I flew without ever entering an airplane. We were floating on cloud 9.

Whitney was a tremendous help. She visited Coco regularly while we were away and sent us digital photos of the two of them from her telephone. Once Coco came off of oxygen, Whitney was allowed to take her into one of the examination rooms for a half hour playtime. During those precious minutes, Whitney took pictures of Coco and herself and emailed them to us so we could see the great progress our dog was making. Although the bandages on her legs that kept the intravenous needles in place were still visible, as well as shaved bald spots where other meds were injected, we were overjoyed at just being able to see Coco doing so well.

This Rosh Hashanah is a very happy one for us. Coco is back with the family and has returned to work with me. She is still a little fragile and her appetite is not quite what is should be. We are hopeful that she will get better everyday.

So what is the lesson that we learned here? Life can be worse than dealing with Magnus and Helena.

Dial 911 For Newell Rubbermaid

What an appropriate announcement on September 11, 2006. . . Newell Rubbermaid (NYSE: NWL), makers of Sharpie, Paper Mate, Waterman, EXPO, Rubbermaid, Calphalon, Graco, Goody, BernzOmatic, IRWIN and LENOX, announced today they hired Magnus Nicolin as President of Newell Rubbermaid Europe. As far as I am concerned, you can kiss all of these brands goodbye...or at least their business on the other side of the Ocean.

HWH worked for this guy in the United States along with his henchwoman Helena Wong at Esselte, the worldwide office products company, they managed to ....er..........."let's just say the company is a shadow of its former self." We worked for Esselte long before Magnus and that little snot Helena showed up.

It probably won't be too long before Magnus hires his crony whom he met at P&G. He did that at Esselte. They like to work together as a team flashing their P&G backgrounds around because, in my opinion, they are totally clueless, socially and professionally.

Nicolin is very handsome, and his movie star good looks cover up for other weaknesses. The picture of Magnus here doesn't make him look like the debonair devil that he is. But trust me, he is very tall and distinguished looking. He is one of those people that make you stop and stare.

Helena is just the opposite. I don't know what her talents are but in my experience she had about as much authority being the Chief Marketing Officer for Esselte as I have being Miss USA. In all my years working (40 years this past Sept 9th), I have never met someone so condescending and misinformed than she.

One day she decided that Esselte needed a big idea to make the company famous. She asked HWH and two other agencies to present creative ideas. I don't know what happened at the other presentations, but during ours she spent the entire time telling us we were worthless. I have never experienced this before and the only reason why I didn't wipe the walls with her is because I thought I owed some respect to her two lieutenants, Chris Ang and Chris Curran.They applauded our ideas in a preview meeting but disassociated themselves when she mouthed off. I have never forgiven myself for not putting her in her place, especially when she announced that Samsung, one of our other clients, was not a good example of the great work we were doing. Samsung, as far as she was concerned, was an inferior brand stuck in a garage some place. The Chris' slid down in their chairs from embarrassment.

The meeting got even worse but I will save those details for anyone who wants a first hand account of the dragon lady. When I tried to contact Magnus to tell him that Helena was a disaster, he never returned phone calls. He was off globetrotting. Why sweat the small stuff and HWH obviously fell in that category. That's okay. We went on to bigger and better things while Esselte fell apart. Perhaps it was the big idea Helena fell in love with:

She selected an agency that told her to drop a sizeable paper plane branded with the name Esselte on it off the Empire State Building to generate big news.

Needless to say that idea was never executed but the company was.

PETER COOK NEEDS A SPIN DOCTOR

Even the Men Don’t Believe Him

And I know just the person……me. The only person who believes him now is his lawyer. And Peter pays his lawyer to believe him. I thought it was touching yesterday when Cindy Adams of the Post wrote a front-page column that quoted Peter’s lawyer. "Peter wants Christie back. He is so sorry. He made a careless mistake."

I thought to myself "Okay, this is a honest statement and the guy came to his senses."

When I mentioned this to my husband Eliot he laughed and replied, "All he is doing is protecting his money. They have about $60 million in Hamptons real estate that he doesn’t want to part with."

I thought that was an interesting statement from my husband who is also my business partner. He must have given this subject some thought ……hmmmmm.

I qualify as the spin doctor because I hate bad cheats. I need to set this guy straight.

He knew he was going to get caught. He may have even planned it. No one goes parading around the Hamptons with another woman (and in this case, another girl) without getting caught.

Christie would have to be nuts to go back to him. I don’t care what kind of so-called bitch she may be. Not only did he cheat on her; he was a lousy cheat at that. She is so humiliated that the only retribution is getting Cook to cough up a lot of dough.

Cook, dough, get it?

The only answer for Peter is to call me. I don’t cook so I know how to cure this whole thing. But if you think I am going to spill (another pun) it out here you are nuts (here we go again).