Sex sells – redux

“Isn’t it time that the women of our PR community attempt to reverse the tidal wave of hate for our profession?”

Darlin’ has all that cold weather frozen your brain? “reverse the tide” – pah-lease. There would be people running for their lives at the picture you paint here (of me, I can’t speak for the other ladies, of course!). EEK.

You need some time with a little hot cocoa to realize the error of your ways.

That’s only January through September, bubba… where’s the rest?

Andrea and I were sitting here in D.C. having a perfectly good lunch, when some crazy Aussie pulled an Amanda on us and made us choke on the falafal we were so enjoying. We have called the EMS for Andrea, who still isn’t breathing. Excuse me, I have to go…

I have a feeling I’m the only one thinking “can he really write this?”…

In the gentlemen’s world of truth or dare you’ve earned yourself a beer from every chap in the BCR clubhouse.

Just don’t get caught pimping by Mrs BetterComms else we’ll never get that elusive ‘report from down under’.

Lee, I’m surprised that you would delete commments. You don’t have a posted comment policy, and all I noted was that I thought this post was misogynistic.

Hi Jeremy,

It wasn’t me that deleted them, mate! It came as a complete surprise to me, too!!

All I can think of is that the hosting company moved my blog from their backup to their production server (they’ve had lots of problems with the production server in the last fortnight) and the comments were lost.

I have the original comments still in emailed format, so if that is the case I’ll reinstate them.

BTW, just for your info, the post was my usual tongue-in-cheek; but BL certainly rose to the bait…

Lee

And a couple of posts ‘posted’ after this one have disappeared off the blog, too… I will follow this up further…

Lee

OK, that works for me. Plus, well, I knew you were an Alan Alda type guy.

Now I really AM confused!!

BL left two brief comments, one about where I can put this post, and the other explaining where the original post came from (a flying monkey’s bottom, apparently).

I saw them in my webmail inbox earlier on today — but having just downloaded my email into Outlook after returning to Base Camp, her emails are missing. So I go to my backup webmail which keeps all emails for 24 hours and BL’s comments have disappeared from THERE too!! Cue the ‘X Files’ theme music…

Perhaps she retracted them… we wait and see if she posts a corruscating attack on her blog…

Now, young Master Jeremy, whilst we Australian readers are VERY aware of the name Alan Alda (Mash the tv show ran longer than the original Korean War and still rates highly in the ‘most loved tv shows’ category of old farts like me), what is the meaning behind the ‘Alan Alda type’ comment?

Lee,
the original post, with comments is still here, on our backup server.

Tomorrow, the guys will extract the data for you and email it to you, so that you can put the comments back where they were.

What happened is that was a small time difference between the backup restored, and the actual time that the server went live. During that time, the posts and comments went onto the backup server….

So to all, my apologies for causing Lee grief, and my apologies to the readers for the confusion we caused.

Now…. back to your regularly schedule controversy

Oh, Lee. What a hornets nest you have stumbled into here. I can tell you that my students are talking about your post. I’ll encourage them to post comments, but after walking around the building a few times.

They pulled me aside in class this morning and were – um, “actively” discussing the post.

I haven’t spoken to Erin or Ashley, but the students in school this semester didn’t see it as “tongue in cheek” but rather foot in mouth.

They are saying your post wasn’t benevolent, honorable behavior … and they’ve got some ‘noblesse oblige’ for ya’ right here. (That should be read in a Bronx or New Jersey dialect, too.)

Don’t worry. There is one big ol’ ocean between us. I think you’re safe.

As an aside, this whole post and comment stream is discussed in the next ‘chat’ with Allan and I — due out in a few hours…

one of the mentioned female PR folks, Donna Papacosta, has just left a comment on the follow-up post: http://leehopkins.net/2006/07/19/putting-an-extinguisher-to-bridges-still-burning/

I’m sitting here laughing and shaking my head. I actually caught the tongue-in-cheek vibe, thought it was funny, and sent a “Hey, you’ll get a kick out of this” email to Ashley with the link when I first saw it. (She’s still off exploring Spain and, as a result, pretty out of the loop.)

I can certainly understand how some were offended by this. But personally … I found the post humorous.

(So to the Auburn folks — no worries! No need to hate on Lee. He’s really a great guy!)

I recall that there was another comment that disappeared as well. A fellow male communicator, name escapes me, suggested that the women of PR were waiting for Allan, Neville, Shel, himself and myself to release a ‘Corpulent Communicators’ calendar. Sounds like a splendid idea to me!

Lee, I only just discovered this post after listening to the podcast, and it’s funny…very funny! But if I read this without hearing you say it was just a big silly joke, then maybe my reaction would have been different. Just a bit different, though. I have a pretty wild sense of humour, so I can’t say I’m offended either way!

…and if there’s ever a Corpulent Communicators’ calendar, I want to be Mr. May! Deal?

well I thought it was funny…. not sure it would be a good idea though since I just had to give a 10 minute presentation to my conversation class here in Spain about how PR did more than just let sexy people into clubs.

But, I’m flattered that at 21 I was one of the ones mentioned, I think. Ha. thought the podcast was great too.

Fell out, I really should have checked my spelling before hitting send.

Well I assumed this was all tongue in cheek. Jeez, Lee. (One “l” BTW in Weil.) I know it’s the middle of winter down there (while we’re sizzling and steaming up here on the East Coast of the U.S.) but haven’t you got other stuff to think about? Well maybe not. Anyway I suppose I’m flattered in some weird way. Blogging, for me, doesn’t have a whole to do with being of the female persuasion. I tend to think of myself in a kind of gender-neutral way. Just one of the guys. Of course I’m wildly sexy in my non-blogging, off-hours. jk jk jk jk (just kidding – as my daughter writes).

Ha ha ha — thanks, Debbie! And apologies for getting the surname wrong — it, however, could be the start of something big. When I first started commenting about Allan Jenkins’ blog I mispelt his name (‘Alan’) and now look at us!

In a private correspondence with Heidi Miller (I’m sure she won’t mind me sharing THIS bit of it – but then again my ‘judgment gland’ has been failing me all week) she said “And it’s not like we don’t know that you guys are picturing us naked, anyway. ”

Thanks for gently wading into my quagmire with your views!