Mark Penn and Me: How to Wage Campaign

It sickens me to admit this, but I'm livid that I wasn't nominated in some category -- even one of the technical ones, like Best Graphics -- for the Wine Blog Awards.  I decided to go to an expert market researcher, for what is a pollster but a market researcher with a louche side, and who better than Mark Penn?  In case you didn't know, Mark Penn is the guiding genius behind the Hillary Clinton campaign.  He steered her husband to victory, and he is doubtless steering Mrs. Clinton ("the real vice president") to victory too.

Imagine looking at this every morning.  Like Hillary.  I almost pity her.  Pretty decent comb-over, though.

Imagine my surprise and delight when Mr. Penn consented to see me when he was in New York recently.  I had sent him an email begging for help in launching a campaign to become a nominee -- actually, a sure winner -- in one of the creative categories of next year's WBAs.

As Mr. Penn settled his bulk into the couch that the cleaning lady had just plumped up so expertly, which made Ken groan as if with pain, I offered him top-quality bagels and lox from Tal Bagels across the street.  And Tazza d'Oro coffee fresh off the plane from Rome.  He made snorty sounds as he ate and drank, uttering a vast Aaaahhhh of satisfaction when he was done.  For the first time he seemed aware of his surroundings.  "Nice view you got here." 

"Yes, it is.  There's the building where the crane fell and seven people died.  See?"

"Very nice.  Now, why exactly did you ask me to come over here?  I have a fund-raiser at the Holiday Inn on 57th in an hour."

Mesmerized by the array of crumbs on his lips, I responded rather slowly to his question, which appeared to annoy him. 

"We have another bagel.  More lox."

"Yeah, OK."  All was well.  As Ken went to get the stuff from the kitchen, I began.  "Every year the Wine Blog Awards are given for best blog about wine in several categories.  I've never been nominated, not even for the bullshit categories.  Only one person suggested me this year, and he's like a groupie or something.  Cut to the chase: I fucking want to win SOMETHING in '09.  Help me."

He gave a stertorous sigh.  He folded his hands over his ample belly.  "I took a look at your blog."  Ken set the plate in front of him.  He ate ravenously as he looked me in the eye.  He grunted as if to say, "Get on with it!"

"So?"  I asked tremulously, leaning forward, almost touching his knees with mine.  "Why can't I get arrested for Chrissakes?  I work so hard on it.  I spend hours on it. It's ruining my not-quite civil union!"

"Now, Terence, I took at look at your blog.  I really did."

"And?  And?"

"You want the good news or the bad news?"

"I want both!  But which is bigger, the good or the bad?"

"The good.  Of course!  We hafta accentuate the positive."

I sighed and held out my hands in resignation.

"I can see why you've got a nice following for a pishadike wine blog.  You got sass.  An authorial voice.  A POV.  Good contacts.  All that traveling in Italy doesn't hurt.  You got some nice knowledge."

"OK," I said warily.  "That's the good?  What the hell is the bad?"

"Three things.  One, you use too many curse words.  You swear like a fucking drunken sailor."

I bowed my head.  "It's my heritage."

"Yeah?  Well, get the fuck over it.  It detracts from your SQ."

"SQ?"

"Seriousness quotient.  If you were a serious blogger or commentator, you wouldn't be so...so informal.  You'd create a different persona, one that would appeal to both East Coast sophisticates and Ohio unemployeds.  You noticed the way our gal dropped all her g's when she campaigned in Ohia?  Workin' and strugglin' and gettin' nowheres?  Made her seem like folks, which she certainly is not and has never been.  You have to play it much more common-man.  You know, 'I don't know shit about wine but I drink your pain.'  And come up with a cute point system, please?  You know the hoi polloi wanna see the numbers.  When you review wine," he said pointedly.

More reviews.  God. "Aha," I said without conviction.  "And?"

"Two, always stay on topic and never throw in there all the stuff about your life -- especially if it hasn't got to do with wine.  All the good wine blogs do that."  Ken murmured his agreement in the background.  I scowled at him but remained silent.

"Third," Mr. Penn said, now really warming to the subject even though he kept checking his watch and his Blackberry (well, so did I) -- "Third, I'm gonna use a wine analogy.  You gotta make the fucking wine, the blog in other words, rounder, toastier, fuller, bigger, sweeter, easier to go down.  None of your spiky opinions, or the fiery pronouncements of your radical pals from Radcliffe or whatever.  These people are like box-office poison.  Ease up on the tannins and the acid, add more new American oak.  That's what the nominating board wants to see.  They sure as hell don't want your manic depressive rants or your acerbic 'humor', if that's what it is.  I sure as hell don't get it."

"You've given me a lot to think about.  Please distill it all for me in positive terms, points I can take action on, things I can work on over the next year.  Please.  Please."

Mr. Penn emitted a ghastly sound, something like a laugh if a soul in hell could laugh.  He rose up, snowing crumbs on the just-vacuumed oriental rug.  "Hey," he said, "I won't be all that busy in a month or two.  Maybe three, tops.  I'll be all yours.  We can win this, Timothy, and we can pulverize your competition into the dung heap of history.  They'll be sorry they even started their audacious, hopeful online publications of naive egotism.  Don't worry, we'll grind the insignificant shitbrains into the earth.  I guarantee it."

My gorge rose.  He disgusted me beyond words.  His promise of destroying my friends and peers chilled me to the marrow. 

He proffered his business card.  I gave him a card.  I shivered as I showed him to the door.  I said, "Call me.  Not with these bromides.  With real specifics.  Real dirt.  I want to win."

Mr. Penn gave me a beatific smile.  " I know you do, boychik.  Don't we all."

Comments

[alex]

Terry,
great post!
If you allow me to comment on the suggestions "given":
- ok for a scoring system;
- keep on mixing oenology with stuff about your life (it's what makes your blog "special");
- do not try to "parkerize" your blog; we love the acidity and the tannins of your lines.

ciao e che si fottano i WBAs !!!

[TH]

Bacione!

[Marco]

As the wise AC said, competition is for, for... help me AC what the hell did you say? He actually quoted someone. Your blog has the perfect mix of oenology, passionate emotional catharis, snark, fantasia, questionable iPod playlists, self-deprecating humor, skandal et al.

[TH]

Don't play me, Marco. Competition is for winners! My inner winner is telling me to compete, by any means possible, to win outwardly. If it works for Hill, it works for me.

[gabrio]

Hahahahahahahaha...son in order to win you have to turn in a Yellow Tail bottle hahahahahahaha...I want to see that happening.

[Joe Wolpow]

As I understand it, the blog is about wine & NY Stories. Your life is certainly as New York a story as they come, so onward my brave Irish Son! And to hell with awards and popularity contests!

[TH]

Thanks, nephew, but let's face it, you're nothing till somebody thinks you're something. Actually, till EVERYBODY thinks you're something.

I'd blame it on our media-driven and -contaminated culture. But it's really just my famished ego talking. If I had the money and could stand the dust, I'd have a pyramid built.

[David McDuff]

"Only one person suggested me this year, and he's like a groupie or something."

I resemble that remark, Timothy!

[Mo]

dont change what makes your blog YOUR blog. if other people cant see what makes you special, well, they can piss off. and if it just so happens that those people choose to give out awards, well, their awards can piss off as well.

in summation - keep doing what you are doing. and quit making fun of ohio so much.

[TH]

Thanks for the moral support, Mo.

As to Ohio, it's hard not to make fun. I mean, I lived there for 13 years. 13 winters. Sorry, bud, but it felt like a sentence.

[Fredric Koeppel]

If a blog doesn't reflect its creator's individuality, it's worthless. that's what blogging us all about.

[David J]

'If I had the money and could stand the dust, I'd have a pyramid built.'

Terry, you're the greatest. I want to be able to write a line like that before Alzheimer's sets in. Love you madly, old boy.

[TH]

Baci, mon cher.

BTW, I loved Evita. She was so horrifying she was beautiful. Her hubby was, cependant, as Cortazar wrote, un perro.

[David J]

argh, don't talk to me about Argentinos or Argentinas right now. The ones I might be able to try to work with have moved to California: Enrique Herrero works with Rubicon Estate, Alfredo Koch teaches at Hancock College in Santa Maria. So there.

[David J]

So, Terry-- seems Mr.Penn might be very, very available for you, sooner than expected, now that he's out of H's team!!