Featuring (former) Boss Lard, the Kyiv Post-It, and arch-rival KU
Oh, no – what are we going to do at Kyiv Unedited?! Please don’t pick on us or hurt us. We’re all so weak and vulnerable now…
You damn sombitch, now you gonna pay. Half your staff left and your secret editorial board is on its knees, begging they come back, but they’ve strewn flyers all over the city saying they ain’t gonna be no parties to ba-na-li-ty. Serves you right, haughty sombitch. And now, just a few more chops o’ the axe, and your evil wood come sighin’ down. EEEEEWWW – CRASH!!! All shocked-like through its deformed ends. Dead!
You was the one gonna bring ol’ Billy-Lee down, was you? You’s the one who was gonna triumph, writer supreme, towering all puissant-like above us feeble swaying reeds. Haaargh! You ain’t no publisher, and you sho ain’t no writer. So now the tables have turned, so what you gonna do – you sombitch, you sombitch, now who’s gonna get whom? You gonna tell everyone how it really is, here in the Ukerania? You is nothin’ ‘round here! You hear me? You is nothin’! I’s the one gonna do the tellin’ – I’s the writer, and I’s the publisher – here, in MY city – not yours – mine! – the Ki-ev! Hos! [Ed. note: definitely Hos, not Hoss] Come ‘ere!
You just reading the latest What The magazine, Billy-Lee? – that’s the Professional PR Consultant talkin’ to Billy-Lee Hill-Williams, the CEO of the Kyiv Post-It, only leading English-language newspaper in Ukraine, also known as The World’s Window Through Ukraine behind its Internet paywall – as well as the Chairman (Billy-Lee, that is) of the self-promoting Kyiv-based Hill-Williams PR Group – who was earlier strangely referred to as Boss Bo Lard of the self-promoting Kyiv-based Boss Lard Bolard Blohard PR agency and simultaneous CEO of the Kyiv Poster [sic] in un-retractable misprints of Kyiv Unedited – who (that is, the PR Consultant) came in a week or so ago, when things were shaping up kind of different-like, it was seeming, all complimentary to Billy-Lee, helpful-like, full of free advice, moral support and encouragement, and Billy-Lee took to him right quick, ‘ppreciatin’ his style, being reminded o’ hisself when he was younger, hiring him on the spot for an undisclosed retainer, to do some fancy new-fangled PR consulting to help Billy-Lee out, the seasoned, and maybe weathered, ol’ flack, that ol’ PR dray horse of Washington days long passed, when his first wife was still an object of his sexual desire, where maybe, he was thinking, he was losing his touch, under psychological pressure from Kyiv Unedited, but now he’s been rethinking the issue, now that the conjuncture on the market, as they like to say around here, seems to have made a sudden and decisive shift in his favor – and maybe now he was changing his mind.
You damn right, Hos. Look you here, now. The chief editor of What’s Not just endorsed my latest novel [Ed. note: self-published on Amazon Kindle], “Slaughtering Acquaintances,” calling it a masterpiece! Says it puts Kyiv on the world’s [Ed. note: self-publishing] literary map. Dang, look at that chewy little confection, boy. She use the word ‘muff’ right in the editorial! Dang, that colleen’s got balls! Whew, that puts the fire right under me! I tell you, I’d like to – but she got some wild Celtic beau, don’t she? One of them skirt-wearin’ blue-faced yahoos forever warrin’ ‘gainst the crown, demanding his own parliament. Let him have her. It ain’t like I didn’t have plenty like that where she come from – ‘specially here in The Ukerania – haw, haw, haaaww!!! One thing I don’t like, though, Hos…
What’s that?
She mentioned my book second after Axel Icefish’s [Ed. note: self-published] “The Metal Nobles.” That just irks me no end, Hos! That just riles – I say, that just turns the lance in the boil on my ass! Unnecessarily plucks up shreds of meat where only pus was intended. Dang!
Let it go, Billy-Lee.
I can’t let it go. Icefish wrote that damn [Ed. note: self-published] thing 10 years ago! And I endorsed it!
Forget it. Write her a letter; tell her how much you ‘ppreciate what she said; you know, sweet-talk her with the sugar of your lips and the honey o’ your tongue, soften her up – after all, she’s only a woman, and a woman’s weakness always has been and always will be… words – and ain’t that just your business!; suggest What The review your new book. I bet, you put on that ol’-boy charm, she gonna fall all apart and give you a review like you never dreamed of, wild shamrock-dancing Celt or no. He wanna hold on to her, under the circumstances you create through the powers and prowess of your indomitable and potent virile persuasion, he gonna squirm into the background. You knows it true, Billy-Lee, and sos do I. I sees you smilin’ there, you clever, crafty, crazy ol’; hey, don’t hide it! Yes, Billy-Lee, I can see it all now. Centerfold, facing pages, experienced, sexually appealing older gentleman with slightly crinkled brow peering with intense and overpowering intellect right out at us from the very guts of What’s Not magazine. Right up there with The New Yorker, Esquire. In relative market terms, comparing the United States to Ukraine, maybe higher. Incredible! Awesome! I can’t see how they’d turn it down!
Well, I expect as much.
And that’s nothin’ you can do with the Kyiv Post-It.
Why not?
Well, ah, it wouldn’t look right, being perceived as all unethical-like and such, seein’ as how you the CEO here. Kind of like if you had engineered, say, a food industry conference in Kyiv, using the Kyiv Post-It as the platform to hold it on, and then made that conference the front-page story in the Kyiv Post-It itself the very next week.
Oh, no, I’d never do that!
I knows you wouldn’t, Billy-Lee, I jes knows it! ‘Cause, as the outgoing (fired – haaaww…!!!) former chief editor of the Kyiv Post-It, Cumming Cox, said, ‘Editorial integrity is everything (I be just paraphrasin’ here, you understand, Billy-Lee), and the Kyiv Post-It has made it a point to keep newsroom production, CEO PR-ing, and sales completely separate.’
Yeah, ah, yeah… aaahh… Hey, ah, it’s amazing, wouldn’t you say, Hos, when you chief editor of a major publication, like What The, how you got the instant… what’s the word I’m looking for, Hos?
What do you want to say?
You know – to endorse anything, ‘cludin’ the logo on Belarusky toilet paper…
Oh, aaahh… authority?
No, no, it’s like authority, except it give you more weight as an expert – in everything.
Um, ah, clout?
No, no! That’s too heavy. More like, it’s a great intelligence that’s intrinsic to you – you born with it, plus you help it along over time through work and experience.
Aaahh, the power and the glory…???
No, no, no! DAMN YOU TO HELL, HOS!!! It’s like quality, sounds like it, except it make you that way automatically, once you reach a certain station, by luck or pluck, even if it hadn’t been part of you before.
Aaahh… qualifies, ah, qualifications, ah, how being chief editor gives her instant qualifications, or instantly qualifies her to…
That’s it!
So, what were you trying to say?
Damn! I forgot. Anyway, Hos, one of the reasons I called you in here is to tell you maybe I don’t need you no more.
Oh, you need me, all right, old fella.
I do?
Filed by Jack Step, May 31, 2013