Calls in Welsh Losser for advice
Boss Lard reading letter to Kyiv Unedited from Amateur PR Critic, currently residing for some reason in Kyiv, Ukraine:
[Quote from self-promoting Boss Lard ad in the Kyiv Poster]
‘… a PR director’s credibility is in direct proportion to his ability to convince the CEO of a company to take his advice!
[Followed by Amateur PR Critic commentary on that quote]
‘And how does that play out if you are Bo Lard, the director of your own PR firm, also working as Bo Lard, CEO of the Kyiv Poster, in which your PR firm has stuck a full-page ad?!? Did Bo Lard, the PR firm director, tell Bo Lard, the Kyiv Poster CEO, what to do, and did Bo Lard listen? No, I think Bo Lard is a tough and independent-minded player on the Ukrainian news media market, and while he might take Bo Lard’s PR advice into consideration, any decision he makes regarding the Kyiv Poster is ultimately his own.’
“Scathing, scathing,” Boss Lard hisses uncharacteristically, pounding a belly-rubbing, suspender-snapping, jug-thumping, banjo-playing hillbilly fist on the desk.
“That sombitch using ma words ‘gainst me! Dang! And how do you fight somethin’ like that? This goes beyond the humiliation of suffering the constant public libel and mockery of parody by some upstart crow beautifying its online Johannes fac totum with our feathers. I’m being made the endless butt of an unrelenting joke – based on reality! Of my double job! Dang! On the one hand, I’m the PR firm that advises the Kyiv Poster, and on the other hand, I’m the CEO of the Kyiv Poster, who takes that advice! I’ll be danged if I ain’t the laughingstock of this here entire business community – knowing as it all not only reads Kyiv Unedited, but gets pissed if there ain’t nothin’ new in it. And I has to bear it all with a smile ‘cause my hands is tied ‘gainst takin’ legal action due to my own constant proclamations regarding freedom of speech, as a public figure… in a public paper! Hoo-boy, Lard! You reaps what you sows.
“Wait a second, I jes said – nothin’ new in it… Hey, now, why is that – that sometimes there ain’t nothin’ new in that, that… Kyiv Unedited…??? Why don’t they write all the time? Don’t they have nothin’ to say when… nothin’s goin’ on?
“That’s it! When nothin’s goin’ on!!!
“So – heh, heh, Boss Lard, you’s a genius – all we gots to do is make sure nothin’ happens, and then they can’t write about it. And then I, Boss Lard, can plan a strategy, real careful and undetected and slow-like, let some time go by and then – blam! Strike the dagger in the throat, like the snakes they is, when they least expect it.
“See, we gots to have a cooling off period first, then, after people have forgotten all my freedom of speech calls, I slowly start to roll the idea back in the paper, usin’ my biweekly “Backlog” column in the Kyiv Poster to do it, until I’m fairly steppin’ out against free speech altogether, and what’s they gonna do then, that damn Kyiv Unedited, they can’t parody that – they ain’t that smart – I’d like to see them try – why, it would go against their whole philosophy – it’s because I’m a champion of free speech that they use that to libel me, knowing I can’t do squat about it.
“But they’s a limit to everything! That’s why in my column I’m gonna step out in favor of – limits! Lines writ in law like they was cast in iron you can’t never cross. And alls I gots to do is sway the opinion of the public – and I have the power, the position, and the means to do it. And then, when Kyiv Unedited opens its big mouth – blam! Off to court they go – in England! Ha, ha, ha, haaaaa!!!
“Dang, where’s that Welsh Losser when I needs him. Hold on, I gots his number right here. Hello, yeah, this is Boss Lard. I need you up here at the Kyiv Poster office right away.”
“Here I am – nyuuu-uo-xklaaa…”
“Dang, boy, what took you so long?”
“Well, first, I had to go out of the building – you know, where I’m now a top executive at the global illegal human vices promotion firm, Penmanship, International, which is very coincidentally almost exactly where your Bolard PR agency, where I’m also your communications consultant, is also located, and then run for many, many cobbled streets, down, oh, down practically the entire historic and prestigious Pechersk District of Kyiv, and then I –”
“Okay, boy, never mind all that. How do you think I should proceed with this here Kyiv Unedited die-lem-mer?”
“Well, Boss Lard, what if they call your bluff?”
“Make yourself clear, boy.”
“Well, what if they see that you’re rolling back freedom of speech in the Kyiv Poster and then they say something like: ‘Ooooo… look, there’s Boss Lard, trying to roll back freedom of speech in the Kyiv Poster as a ploy to sway public opinion against too much freedom of speech so that they can feel justified taking Kyiv Unedited to court for libel – in England – ha, ha, ha, haaaaa!!!’”
“Boy, I don’t like that smug tone you’re using with me.”
“Well, I don’t appreciate you casting aspersions. Nyu-u-u-ug.”
“Casting what?! Boy… boy! Don’t you dare look away from me when I’m talking to you. You suddenly got this lost, longing look on you tableau – your typically goggling eyes are like two moons meandering aimlessly across that fat globe head of yours. What are you thinking about?”
Silence.
“Boy, I asked you – what are you thinking about? Hey, you’re not thinking about… The Ferret, are you?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“None of my business, you say. That Ferret is supposed to be in custody, but thanks to you, he’s AWOL, a renegade, a fugitive from justice.”
Silence. Losser’s fat ball head turns beet red.
“Well, well, well. So tell me, Losser, are you two having sexual relations?”
Silence. Hands clasped behind his back, Losser looks down, smiling shyly, the toe of a shoe turns in Boss Lard’s office’s carpet.
“So, what all do you two do?”
Silence.
“Oh, go on boy, you don’t have to be shy in front of Boss Lard. I’s sorry I yelled at you. You’s an invaluable asset to all my firms – top-notch, unique, creative, no one in the Central and Eastern European promotion biz like you, special. So, go on, tell Big Daddy what it is you all do? Hmmm…???”
“Well, usually, the first thing we do is, well, you see, I usually start by rubbing the line of fur going down his turtle-shell back.”
“Yes, uh-huh, uh-huh, go on, go on!”
“Well, and then after that, we…”
Filed by Jack Step, May 18, 2013