Tuesday, November 01, 2005

November's fictional speaker

We here at Brevity got an underwhelming turnout for past fictional speakers Hans Gruber and Vizzini. Maybe it was the fact that both are dead, and that public speaking by the deceased is kinda creepy. So we wondered how a living speaker would do. To instill good business judgment in our readers this month, we've summoned a real capitalist lion tamer, Jimmy James, who once ruled the waves of WNYX on the late great series NewsRadio.

On the rules of management:
#1-Measure twice, cut once.
#2-No shirt, no shoes, no service.
#3-Don't do today what you can put off 'til tomorrow.
#434-The boss is never wrong.
#435-When in doubt, see #434.
#437-It's hard to fly with the eagles when you're surrounded by turkeys.
#597-Whoomp! There it is!

On public relations: You know I thank God everyday that we're not a TV station.

On regulations: I support fire safety. But you see those sprinklers up there? They're not hooked up to anything. I paid a guy off and had my nephew come in and super-glue them to the ceiling.

On fiscal responsibility: I cried because I had no desk, until I met a man with no feet, and the no feet guy told me there was this thing called a budget, and WNYX was way over it.

On tough solutions: If medicine tasted good, I'd be pouring cough syrup on my pancakes.

On flexibility: A good boss has to loosen up now and again. Case in point: me. I'm half loaded right now.

On advertising: Let me tell you something, little miss: advertising pays our bills, all right? Advertising pays your salary. Advertising is what made this country great. What was the Constitution of the United States? It is an advertisement... an advertisement for liberty. "When in the course of human events"... I'm telling you, that's up there with "Put a tiger in your tank" and "Where's the beef?" Don't you understand? I'm sorry, I've got to get some air. Hell, if it wasn't for advertising, you know what you two'd be doing, huh? You'd be giving out Sesame Street tote bags during PBS pledge breaks... except they wouldn't say Sesame Street on them. Nooo, they wouldn't say that. That would be ADVERTISING!

On neighbors: You poor misguided Canadian bastard.

On globalization: The original title of this book was Jimmy James, Capitalist Lion Tamer but I see now that it's Jimmy James, Macho Business Donkey Wrestler. You know what it is? I had the book translated into Japanese, then back again into English. "Macho Business Donkey Wrestler." Well, there you go... it's got kind of a ring to it, don't it? Anyway, I wanted to read from chapter 3, which is the story of my first rise to financial prominence. "I had a small house of brokerage on Wall Street... many days no business come to my hut... my hut... but Jimmy has fear? A thousand times no! I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey strong bowels were girded with strength like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo... dung."

On being downsized: "Glorious sunset of my heart was fading. Soon the super karate monkey death car would park in my space. But Jimmy has fancy plans... and pants to match. The monkey clown horrible karate round and yummy like cute small baby chick would beat the donkey."

On legacy: They've done documentaries about all the heavy hitters: I'm talkin' about Ted Turner, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, Bruce Wayne...

On inter-office relations: Don't dip you're pen in the company ink, that's what I say. Don't punch a clock with a time card in your pants.

On litigation: I've got so many lawyers lined up to see me today, you'd think I had tobacco leaking out of my breast implants.

On following orders: Whoa, I have an idea. Shredding the instructions for the shredder. Talk about your mindblowing irony...

On valued opinions: You want my advice? Well, I'm not gonna give it to ya.

On standards: Do I look like a man who would enjoy a game of Goofy-Ball?

On mob mentality: Take that mob of villagers that chased Frankenstein through the streets. Now, wouldn't it have been smarter for Frankenstein to pick up the torch and help the villagers hunt down some other freak?

On escapism: I haven`t read the comics since I realized Beetle Bailey was never actually gonna shoot somebody.

On personnel: Greetings, wage apes.

On past indiscretions: Oh, I've got skeletons running around eating leftovers from the fridge, but that doesn't mean you'll find anything.

On technology: Don't mess with a man with a Wayback Machine. I can make it so you were never born.

On dealmaking: I love the smell of a negotiating room in the morning.

On negotiating tactics: It's an old business ploy. You intimidate the guy you're dealing with by eating like a slob... I've cut millions off of deals by eating baked beans with my HANDS.

On confidentiality: I am a cipher, wrapped in an enigma, smothered in secret sauce.

On the media: You got more paranoid fantasies than Stephen King on crack.

On thinking forward: Kidnapping: it's not just for kids... anymore.

On education: If I believed in fairy tales I never would have dropped out of kindergarten.

On personal style: I don't know if you've noticed this, but most of the stuff I do is weirder than hell.

4 comments:

Julie said...

Favorite Episode: "Noise" (appropriate for me, eh?) where Dave and Jimmy
get addicted to a white noise machine.

Gotta love a show that had a season where they kept naming episodes
after Led Zeppelin albums - and aren't subtle about it either. One was
called Led Zeppelin Boxed Set!

bdure said...

He likes it when you call him pumpkin.

cleananglingpledge said...

Goodness, there's so much effective info above!

Blogger said...

ClixSense is the number 1 work from home site.