Prize Publicist

Here at Typing Pool I like getting mail -- perhaps a little too much. That's why on the off day when there's actually a letter in my electronic mailbox (and not just vast emptiness, which causes me to frown, kick a pebble, and drag my sneaker toes as I walk away in defeat), I get pretty happy.

But this e-mail was a first because (and I am not making this up) I got an excellent pitch from a publicist. Not only was it good, it was so well-targeted that I couldn't NOT write about it. Clearly, some publicist has been burning the midnight oil. Get out your Big Chief tablets, kids, and jot this down: A certain publicist whose name I will protect at Freud Communications here in the city deserves a big, fat raise. When I opened my inbox a couple of weeks ago (hey, I've been traveling), therein lay an extremely coherent, well-written pitch, complete with legible PDFs (legible PDFs!) about a story Details magazine ran in its December issue about the new yuppie scum that's crawling all over our fair island. For those of you who've read Typing Pool um, at ALL, you know that this is exactly the type of thing I write about: rich people stink, overprivilege comes with a complimentary idiot license, where's my piece of the pie, yadda, yadda, yadda. As someone who has worked, ahem, closely with publicists during my short career, I know that there's a difference between the not-so-bright publicist who could care less what she's doing so long as she gets free swag and the publicist who thinks for a living. Freud publicist, you've impressed me, and I'm taking your bait just because I think you done good.

Oh, yeah, about the article: Yuppie scum sucks. They sucked in the 1980s, and they doubly suck now because they're unironic parodies of themselves whom their parents would have despised when they were the new yups' age. Especially if they think a $600 Coach bag is going to make their sycophantic lives more livable. Not that I have anything against wanting to live well (I have a 401(k), and I'd like to have something to show for these working-my-tush-off years), but there is something wrong with wrapping yourself up so thoroughly in your image that your image actually becomes your personality. (Hear that, hipsters?)

Details has a few good essays in this piece. Jeff Gordinier's article stands out, and the charticle that's supposed to be some sort of self-assessment is lame and confusing, but the art/fashion/photo departments get big kudos from me for dressing three male models up to be three different incarnations of a yuppie, which (to me) look like: hipster, gay, and gayer. It's good for a laugh and some effeminate fashion tips.