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stunts
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stunts
this thing looks like that thing
Prison Food Stunt Always Amusing
Lawyer Arin Greenwood ate some Nutraloaf for Slate. What is Nutraloaf? A delicious taste sensation served to prisoners who are being punished. It provides a whole day's nutrients in, uh, loaf form. Apparently there is a case before the Vermont Supreme Court over whether or not serving Nutraloaf counts as cruel and unusual. This is the peg for the Slate piece. (Though prisoners have been suing over the loaf for years, apparently.) So Greenwood makes a batch and eats it. And it's really gross. But a bunch of lawyers decided it's not bad enough to sue over. BUT at the arts and culture writers at The Onion's A.V. Club did this same stunt last April! More »
journalismism
Reporters Are Not World Class Athletes
The Wall Street Journal has a piece today in which it attempts to scientifically determine the best overall male athlete in the world, by submitting a long list of famous athletes to a panel of exercise physiologists who rank them on this and that. This is the newspaper equivalent of Rolling Stone's "100 greatest albums" list—pointless, and meant to generate argument. But they do settle the issue of who is not the world's greatest male athlete: WSJ reporter Reed Albergotti, who goes up against a top decathlete to prove that reporters are, as suspected, goofy, unathletic white guys. God, what a 'Nilla. Video of Albergotti's good-natured crusade of unathleticism is below. More »
stunts
More Video of New York Times Copycat Spider-Man
Turns out New York Times Building climber #2 Rey Clarke is pals with Guanabee.com editor Cindy Casares' roommate, who shot her own video of Clarke's 52-story adventure from the moment the nutty "malaria activist" left the street. It's below. More »
what we learned
6/5: Never Forget
It turns out that "ladderlike horizontal rods that form an exterior curtain surrounding the floor-to-ceiling windows"—while a neat architectural feature—present a small problem: someone might use them as a ladder! Or two people might use them as ladders! Our only question: When the Times says, "Reporting was contributed by Charles V. Bagli, Russ Buettner, Sewell Chan, Glenn Collins, David W. Dunlap, Jason Grant, Christine Hauser, Corey Kilgannon, Eric Konigsberg, Jennifer 8. Lee, Trymaine Lee, Patrick McGeehan, Colin Moynihan, William K. Rashbaum and Paul von Zielbauer," do they just mean that all those people have offices with windows? [NYT]
stunts
Robbie Knievel's Record-Breaking Bike Jump
It's not an American summer holiday weekend if some crazy bastard doesn't pull off a life-threatening stunt. So, last night at an Ohio amusement park, Robbie "Son of Evel" Knievel jumped his motorcycle 200 feet through the air, hopping 24 delivery trucks and breaking his dad's 1975 record of 14 trucks in the process. Video of the jump, after the jump. More »
journalismism
Stabby Hack Hacks Back For Gory Tab Story
Daily News reporter Caitlin Millat went crazy yesterday. Crazy for journalism, that is! "I stabbed an innocent victim, got shot by a police officer, and suffered a severe asthma attack on Wednesday in Brooklyn," she writes, "all in a day's work for the Daily News." She now languishes in an isolation cell on Riker's Island. No, just kidding! She was just playing the role of a crazy person to help out with the city's annual EMT competition. Don't scare us like that, Caitlin! As an added bonus for all of us curious readers, she was able to turn her unique first-person experience into a story in today's paper. Synergetic! There's also a video. Near the end is when she stabs a guy. [NYDN] More »
kind of magic
David Blaine Fails To Drown Himself On Oprah
Droopy-eyed magician David Blaine, a man who sounds high at all times, went on Oprah's show today to try to break the world record for holding one's breath underwater. Not to give away the ending, but he did it! Seventeen minutes. Perhaps his success will inspire him to go freeze himself in a block of ice, or lock himself away in a box, or some other activity that will take him out of the public eye. The actual clip of the breath-holding, as you might imagine, is not very thrilling to watch. So instead, after the jump we've put a clip of his video blog leading up to the stunt, in which he explains his motivation while sounding high. And another clip of that trick where he ties his shoes with no hands, which is way cooler than holding your breath any day. More »
magazines
Cosmo's Stupid Sexy Bikini Sex Record Sexy Stunt
Cosmo, the sassy, sexy source of sex secrets he's too scared to tell you, is going to an incredible amount of effort to promote its August issue: the magazine is trying to break the Guinness World Record for "most people photographed on a beach in a bikini." The old record? 1,010 girls on a beach in Australia, set last year by... Cosmo! Good to see they have a hobby. They need 1,200 "chicks 18-34" to show up on Miami's South Beach next Friday, so start hitchhiking now! You'll get a free Old Navy bikini, "style to depend on available quantity and selection." Unfortunately swimsuit photos appeal primarily to straight men, who don't buy Cosmo anyways, so this is all a big waste of time. After the jump, photos of the last record, which is still perfectly good and pointless if you ask us: More »
suzanne africa engo
Woman Of Questionable Sanity Stops Traffic For AIDS
Were you stopped in traffic in SoHo yesterday? You can thank Suzanne "Africa" Engo! But she had a good reason: she was stopping AIDS! How the hell was she doing that? We're not quite sure ourselves, but it involved $5,000 in (RED) Products, a 48-pound weight loss, and fabulous socialite Kristian Laliberte. We'll try to sort out the reasoning behind this insane and pointless self promotional stunt/ noble good cause for you, after the jump. More »
laziness
Where Does Page Six Get Its Sterling Prose?
Here's the lead to Page Six's item today about Dr. Pepper's Guns N' Roses PR stunt: "TIRED of a world in which Americans idolize wannabe singers, and where musicals about high school students pass as rock 'n' roll, Dr Pepper is begging Axl Rose to finally release this year his 17-years-in-the-making album, "Chinese Democracy." Such powerful language! Now here's the lead to the press release announcing the same event: More »
entertainment?
Poor, Esteem-Challenged "Artists" Sought for Reality Show
If you're one of those ratty Brooklyn kids but are not blessed with the obligatory trust fund and you really, really want any tiny piece of fame, you're in luck. Casting agents for HD Gallery—which is a cable channel you might have—are looking for two artsy types willing to live by their wits and creative talents alone. "Art Race" will feature "Two Artist/Art Racers" who "must cross the US in 40 days, surviving only on Art. Armed with art materials, cameras and a $1 dollar budget, the Artist/Art Racers must 'trade' Art for food, shelter and other art-works." More »
Spencerz Cans Write?
In a mutually beneficial stunt, Radar is giving Hills villain Spencer Pratt his own column, entitled "YO SPENCER!" Spencer would have offered his services to Us, but they're on Team Heidi. [AP]
In a mutually beneficial stunt, Radar is giving Hills villain Spencer Pratt his own column, entitled "YO SPENCER!" Spencer would have offered his services to Us, but they're on Team Heidi. [AP]
public relations
Psycho PR Stunt Of The Year
What would you do if, out of the blue, you—a reporter—got a mysterious scrawled-on envelope in the mail one day with only a pair of panties in it? Probably be happy, if you're a man. But what if, the next day, you got an anonymous ransom note-style card with your picture on it, reading "I've got my eyes on you?" Load the gun and call the fucking police, that's what. But don't worry! It was all a PR stunt by some "branding agency" to get some media love! What. The. Hell? Bad move, to say the least. This is America, where reporters shoot first, ask questions later. [via Ad Age]
corporate america
Mandatory Job Training Was 'AWESOME,' Say Starbucks Robots
Yesterday almost every Starbucks in America closed for three hours in a widely publicized effort to retrain all the employees not to burn the damn coffee. No word yet on the status of the Olsen twins after the shutdown. The general consensus, which we agree with, is that this was as much a PR stunt as a retraining effort. And over at Starbucks Gossip, the definitive blog about the company (inexplicably run by King Of Journalism Jim Romenesko), the employee drones are doing their part by being INSANELY ENTHUSIASTIC about being dragged into work for three extra hours. More »
cheating
Scabby TV Writers Outed By Fake Craigslist Ad!
Matt Elzweig, the New York Press reporter who recently took Deborah Solomon to task for unsavory journalistic methods, placed a fake ad on Craigslist in which he posed as a network executive seeking non-WGA humor writers to work on a weekly series during the strike. The Press rationalized the experiment, which received more than 80 responses, by agreeing amongst themselves that the ad "reeked of bogus intent." "We wanted to meet the scabs," Elzweig explains. Ha! That's exactly the same logic vice squad cops use right before their cases are dismissed. "We wanted to meet the scabs!"
stunts
Before we tease Howard Kurtz again, we'd just like to say for the record that we find him to be kind of endearing, in an A/V club member kind of way. He's enthusiastic enough to maintain his own Facebook site and to do cheesy-ass things like interview himself about his own book on his own news show. That said, he's enthusiastic enough to do cheesy-ass things like interview himself about his own book on his own news show. Auto-fellating stunts like this outside of middle school are just a tad over-the-top. Are some tepid reviews prompting this kind of prancing about? The press isn't letting up on his quick-draw research skills or his performance in the art of the self-shill. We're not sure if anyone at CNN signed off on Kurtz's decision to invite a panel of media critics to interview him on that very same show, but running clips of his book tour appearances probably didn't earn him any friends among "the sneering class." When asked (groan) by himself, "who the biggest influence on the anchors is these days," Howie offered up old pal Jon Stewart, reasoning that he "points out the absurdity of real news!" Too bad Stewart wasn't in on the planning for this Reliable Sources broadcast.
Gosh, Howard Kurtz, Don't You Think You've Had Enough?
Before we tease Howard Kurtz again, we'd just like to say for the record that we find him to be kind of endearing, in an A/V club member kind of way. He's enthusiastic enough to maintain his own Facebook site and to do cheesy-ass things like interview himself about his own book on his own news show. That said, he's enthusiastic enough to do cheesy-ass things like interview himself about his own book on his own news show. Auto-fellating stunts like this outside of middle school are just a tad over-the-top. Are some tepid reviews prompting this kind of prancing about? The press isn't letting up on his quick-draw research skills or his performance in the art of the self-shill. We're not sure if anyone at CNN signed off on Kurtz's decision to invite a panel of media critics to interview him on that very same show, but running clips of his book tour appearances probably didn't earn him any friends among "the sneering class." When asked (groan) by himself, "who the biggest influence on the anchors is these days," Howie offered up old pal Jon Stewart, reasoning that he "points out the absurdity of real news!" Too bad Stewart wasn't in on the planning for this Reliable Sources broadcast.
stunts
