This
week has been not a pain in the arse, but a pain in the mouth.
On
Tuesday I wandered around Manchester, looking for any Public
Relations information: new bars or shops opening, police incidents,
any marketing info about events... I wasn't sure what I'd find
exactly but I got some photography done.
I'm
researching a few finds at the moment.
On
Wednesday I had oral surgery to remove bite trauma from the inside of
my cheek. The whole of the side of my face swelled up and I slept a
lot afterwards. I'm still mouthwashing with saltwater and necking
ibuprofen like they're Werther's Originals. As a result I've slept,
read and watched a lot.
Watched
this docu on the birth of Public Relations, featuring an interview
with a PR pioneer, Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays and focussing on
oil magnate John D Rockefeller.
Interesting,
but the industry has moved on so much it's near unrecognisable from
its inception.
Finished
reading Jurassic Park, the 1991 Michael Crichton novel. It's a
weighty, generous tale, very similar to the movie adaptation but much
steadier and with more emphasis on the science harvesting fossilised
remains, this leading to the creatures being revived after a 365
million year wait. A lot of the violence was removed for the film to
get a PG rating, and some of the book was used in the movie's sequel,
The Lost World. Half way in the tension starts to rack up. Worth
ploughing through.
I
also read Teach Yourself Successful Public Relations in a Week from
the highly reputable Teach Yourself range. The short but
comprehensive book by former BBC / Heathrow Airport PR manager Brian
Salter takes you through the main tenets of public relations, and
quizzes you after each section.
Next
up: a couple of comics from Oldham Comic Con: John Wick was a cliched
revenge story about a hired assassin seeking vengeance for his
murdered team. Features an unrealistic fight scene and stops
abruptly. Wonderland was a corny, bloody fantasy about a murderous,
giant talking rabbit.
Deathstroke the Terminator came next, an early 80s graphic novel that predates
James Cameron's Terminator franchise. I assumed it was some kind of
'versus' story when I picked it up. A heavy, fast-paced tale of a
soldier-of-fortune ninja type, jacked up to a huge size after a
military experiment went wrong. Deathstroke's alter ego, Slade, is as
much of a villain in the outfit as he is out of it- he's an old,
rich, white guy, a Savannah trophy hunter with little cultural
knowledge (he seems to think a mosque and a temple are the same
thing- that could be another entire graphic novel if the writers are
savvy enough). He's served in humourously mythical places like
'Kurac' where he was fighting the dictator 'Kaddam.' An enjoyable
romp which I guess I stumbled upon by accident.
I
tried another episode of 70s Advertising drama Mad Men, but found it
all rather dull. Same goes for political drama House of Cards. Both
had ties to PR but weren't dealing with the sector head-on. There
doesn't seem to be many TV shows portraying the industry.
I
revisited Phone Booth, the 2002 thriller starring Colin Farrell as
Stu, a slick-talking, 2-timing publicist blackmailed into standing
next to a Manhattan public phone until all of his dirty truths are
revealed. It's a good movie, but has dated somewhat. There were a few
'you brought this on yourself' films in that time period (Se7en was 7
years prior, the Saw franchise soon followed), plus there were a few
discrepancies that I didn't think of when I first saw it as a
20-year-old. Wouldn't he need to pee at some point? I would have
thought the film would have had more tension if it had been written
with restricted narrative- if we'd never left Stu's side. It would
have meant we never got to hear the police's side, nor saw the guy in
the building behind the rifle, but it could have been done.
Perhaps
all 4 of these shows portray PR people in a negative light. I'd say
it's massively undeserving, as over the last few months I've met a
lot of PR people and they're- for the vast majority of the time- good
people. I briefly mentioned on the blog here that towards the end of
January I volunteered at a local PR company. I won't name them just
in case, but the team were positive and supportive professionals-
down-to-earth, good teachers, careful listeners and people who
genuinely wanted to make the world a better place. One of the
projects involved a road safety campaign in which we were trying to
get drivers to be more aware of cyclists: to give them space, to be
more tolerant and to accept that the vast majority do follow the
Highway Code. If you've ever cycled through traffic you can imagine
how hard it would be to change public perception on that.
I
have more Public Relations ideas in the pipeline.
