But who killed it?

Smokey Robinson sang:

Surely you’ve heard by now that the iconic American institution, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus will perform its last show this May. That’s when the Big Top will come to a big stop. They will be out of business, killed by the changing entertainment tastes and crushed by animal rights groups. 

Vegas shows such as Caesars Palace’s Absinth mocked the traditional circus.

When the commercials started airing on your local channels in between I Love Lucy episodes you would write down the dates and ask mom or dad to get tickets. It was a wonderful thing in a time before horror movies demonized clowns, turning happy minstrels into something creepy and malevolent (even I have been guilty of that…). It was before PETA decided that circus animals were being humiliated and mistreated. It was before the internet made the circus blasé. It was before showy Cirque du Soleil made traditional circuses seem about as hip as my Members Only jacket.

The post The Circus Has Died appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

Well, I am sitting at my office marveling at the ESPN news alert that just came through my phone:

“NHL: Vegas Golden Knights’ trademark request denied due to ‘likelihood of confusion’ with logo for College of Saint Rose.”

Seriously?

I mean boys, I wrote you back in June suggesting that a phone call to the Media Guy might be a wise idea to line everything up.

When I say “boys” I am talking directly to NHL Commish Gary Bettman and Vegas Golden Knights owner Billy Foley. I told them that I “sketched out five-year plan for the growth of hockey in the desert.”

Guess what? They didn’t call and now they can’t even get the logo or the team name right.

I can’t really get my head wrapped around this today. You can’t be denied the basic identity of your franchise before you even have a team in place. These are basic rules of the game. Call it Media Guy Law #141, if you will. Then I read this headline: “NHL won’t reconsider Vegas Golden Knights name, despite trademark denial” as the NHL backpedals trying to defend their faux pas. *SMH*

Offer still stands boys, er, gentlemen: Call the Media Guy!

Speaking of clowns…

I’m still recovering from Black Friday. I mean clicking around Amazon, Target, Tiffany, and the TeamLA Store searching for 75% off deals is a lot of work. My index finger is sore and swollen.

*Sigh*

And, everyone around me are going a bit nuts as the stock market continues its rise and projections skyrocket for the best sales in post-Thanksgiving history.

I don’t do Black Friday. Have you ever been to one? It’s nothing short of anarchy. This is why I urged America to shop right right last year. I have no clue if it is working. All I know is that Amazon and I get real close this time of the year.

You can blame the media for the insurgence of Black Friday sales. The first story on every local newscast, every 24-hour cable special interest story and top shelf on most online sites is about Black Friday. PR companies for the retailers – media and large – crawl all over themselves to get the stories out on their big sales and deals. For retailers, it’s the day on the promotional calendar that can’t be ignored. One day the roosters will come home to roost on this shopping phenomenon.

While we are worried about what to get for Christmas and the whole bullying fears that came out of the election, we see that people are standing up for the rights of all…even clowns!

The staff at City Lights Bookshop, a Canadian bookstore say a sign banning clowns from the store was a joke and the two clowns who confronted the owner went way too far.

No Clowns Allowed?

The two clowns took offense to a sign in the store’s window that had a picture of a clown with a red circle and line through the image, indicating no clowns.

Police arrived. No charges were filed.

On Twitter, the bookstore tweeted: “no clowns have ever been banned in the shop” and “physically intimidating and yelling at a woman is not the way to get your demands met. A decent face-to-face with respect and kindness is…”

The bookstore has not taken the sign down.

Maybe it could be the Vegas Golden Knights logo.

10. The Poltergeist Clown. A child’s worst nightmare comes to life.

9. Killer Clowns from Outer Space: bloodhound balloon animals, killer shadow puppets and more!

8. Krusty. Never believe the on-screen persona.

7. Pulcinella. The most clever of all.

6. The Joker. Oscar-winning Mayhem.

5. Pennywise. Any clown that can shapeshift is amazing. Stephen King = genius. Duh!

4. Fizbo: The ass-kicking clown that will twist you like a balloon animal.

3. Ubu Roi: the antihero — vulgar, dishonest, voracious, gluttonous, evil and cowardly.

2. Vegas Golden Knights: see above.

1. Ronald McDonald. It wasn’t the burgers making kids heavy. It was the clown scaring kids from leaving their houses.

The post Clowning Around appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

Margrét, my “New Favorite Amazon Model” has become some sort of a cult hero in the Media Guy Struggles Pantheon of characters. Ah yes, Margrét. Many hold her in the highest regard after an appearing in my number one all time story: Nude Modeling. Funny you ask because just hours before I left for my annual Japanese TV show circus trip, we hooked up for lunch to plan some new work.

A lunch with Margrét isn’t just about food. Sure I wanted to eat, but a lunch with her is more about a life lesson on how to be real and a lot less about photography and modeling.

Things are looking up for Margrét…

What’s not to learn? She seems to have somehow cornered the happiness market. She has a bucket of sunshine for a backyard, a full passport, half-a-mill per year coming in (according to her agent), countless private exhibitions devoted to her long, lithe body, a Rolls, a clean arrest record, and an attitude that lulls you into a state of affection.

She met me at her private apartment, which is not like your house (or apartment, private or otherwise).

Her apartment is more like an English flat with a day spa attached. Outside her guest bedroom she has a sumptuous marble and granite fireplace that doubles as a sound machine for the soothing sound of water falling from the heavens. The aroma of essential Dior oils waft through the air. Pitchers of water laced with cucumber abound throughout the space.

She greets me in her modeling smock, which is not like your modeling smock.

Margrét, My New Favorite Amazon Model (MMNFAM): Well, sir, you must be thrilled! The American Media Guy strolling back into Japan to film some commercials and shoot another season of your show  with just the right amount of cocky.

Media Guy: Well, Margrét, I attended an EPIC party after the Oscars. The local Burning Man group threw a massive 3-day desert party out in Boulder City, and around 600 people showed up to tune in, turn on, and camp out in what basically amounted to a mini version of the real Burning Man. Now, I know Burning Man is basically just a big frat kegger with tutus and hula hoops…but for many people, the whole Burning Man ethos has become a lifestyle and a real community. There are probably at least a thousand Burners (as they call Burning Man habitués) living in Vegas, and our local group is pretty hardcore. Many of them/us meet up all the time for parties, campouts, drum circles, spaghetti dinners and art events. It’s great muse for a new TV show I’m trying to develop.

Psychedelic Polaroids!

MMNFAM: Part of the whole Burning Man culture is sharing your art with others and making an inclusive, interactive experience. I just setup my home studio to share my love of costumes and photography by taking psychedelic portraits with other models that come through. I even ordered a bunch of Polaroid film, so that I could give out hard copies. As much as I love psychedelic polaroids with visitors, nothing can match the Clown Motel!

Media Guy: Clown Motel? Frightening and wildly interesting all at once.

MMNFAM: OMG, this Clown Motel has been on my bucket list forever — every time I drive by it, I literally start drooling with lust: a beat-up-looking old dive motel with clowns all over the facade, like they’re trying to scare away business instead of lure in customers. I love contrarian awesomeness like this and I was lucky enough to book a shoot there to make life just that much more exciting! We drove into the parking lot in the dark, and it was really creepy: the manager’s office is a tiny little wood-paneled room chock full of hundreds and hundreds of clown figurines, clown dolls, Precious Moments clowns and one or two extra-terrifying life-sized clowns sitting around in chairs. Kind of like your grandma’s house, if she was Norman Bates’s insane other roommate. I asked where the shoot was and the clerk handed me the key: “Why don’t you go check out the room first, then come back and let me know if you still want to do the shoot it.” DOUBLE YIKES!! As I went over to check out the room, it was something out of some bad cult horror movie: stained carpet, torn curtains, two black velvet paintings of clowns on the wall. The photographer was ready and the client was munching on M&Ms from the craft service table. So I stayed and it wound up being an incredibly fun day. They are even thing of using me for a new reality pilot Bravo is making.

Make me a bicycle, clown!

Media Guy: I remember a while back you mentioned you might be playing Earth Mother-Goddess soon. Did that ever take off?

MMNFAM: It did happen. I was invited for a shoot at the Ironman World Championship, playing Earth Mother Goddess. This meant that the fittest, most shredded athletes in the entire world were coming out to face off against each other in a bizarre, hairless swim-bike-run race-to-the-death among the crème de la crème of Spandex-clad Type A Caucasians with $18,000 bicycles and too much time on their hands. A quick Wikipedia investigation the night before had revealed that these insane individuals planned to swim 2.4 miles in open seas, after which they would race ashore, dripping with seawater, and mount the aforementioned $18,000 bikes for a 112-mile bike ride through the searing Hawaiian desert…before dismounting and embarking upon a full, 26.2-mile marathon. You might assume it was for the prize money — $120,000 to the winner, who usually finishes in around 8 hours. But there were over 2,200 entrants in this race, and only those finishing in the Top 10 of each gender got any prize money. That means something like 2,120 put themselves through this torture for free. Actually it was worse — they had to pay something like $700 to enter the race, not to mention the cost of gear, airfare and accommodations. So, these people were basically shelling out thousands for the privilege of torturing themselves. Or for bragging rights, I suppose. Ah, the cray-cray stuff white people do!

Well, I’m pretty fit myself — I work out fairly religiously, in a Sisyphean quest to keep my ass up where it’s supposed to be, so I’m pretty well used to being the fittest person, or at least among the fittest people, in any given room. But, for the love of God, what did I sign myself up for?! I was surrounded by superhuman cyborgs in peak physical condition, all of whom were on special low-carb/no carb/protein-heavy diets that surely didn’t allow for any alcohol. I won’t bore you with the rest, but I’ll tell you that it came off pretty good and I even got some R&R in after the grueling sun-drenched shoot.

R&R: Censored!

Media Guy: Not that you squeezed in some rest and relaxation in Hawaii, what exotic things are next?

MMNFAM: Aliens!!! Seriously I have a trip planned up to Area 51 to research a movie role that starts shooting in Germany. I had originally planned to camp out at the drum circle and just sleep in my truck bed, under the stars, and then head to Area 51 from there, but I guess I’m too high maintenance to be that much of a gypsy, because the lure of a hot shower and my comfy bed is too much to resist, so I booked a room at the nearest three-star knowing I couldn’t last all night out there.

Electrified.

Media Guy: Maybe you should be known as queen of the strange shoots.

MMNFAM: Not all my gigs were freaky, though — I actually did a few normal, “nice-girl”-type jobs recently, just to keep my nice-girl skills from rusting. One night I worked a charity fundraiser wine-pouring event for this smoking hot French winemaker, who used to be a rugby star but retired to open a winery in the south of France. Must be nice… Anyway, he only showed up for photos at the beginning of the event, and then delegated the job to his assistant, this adorable little French hottie who took a shine to me. I offered to give him a ride back to his hotel after the event, because there were no taxis at the venue, and to thank me for my help he hooked me up with two cases of high-end French wine. SCORE! I normally drink Coppola or worse, so this is a real treat. Meanwhile, I was kinda nervous about pouring high-end wine for all these cork-sniffers who come to show off their new stuff and whatnot and talk fancy about wine. But I didn’t need to because everyone was so wasted it was embarrassing. These poseur chippies would stumble up to my table with their wineglasses held out for a pour, and the French hottie would start blathering about the terroir and notes of oak and you could see these adies had zero idea what he was talking about…nor did they care.

Media Guy: All of this confirming the fact that you are the queen of the strange shoots.

MMNFAM: I guess there’s no denying that! See you at that wedding next month. Crashing here we come.

The post Catching up with Margrét, My New Favorite Amazon Model appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.