How Publicists Work

a bit of a dark time researching this article. Why well, because and we're gonna get Well, we're gonna get flak. That's a teaser from publicists, because what I learned is that publicists are professional liars. I would say that depends on the circumstance. Well, what do you mean, Well, you're saying they're publicists who don't lie. No, I'm saying it depends on um whether the publicist is going to the media or the media is coming to the publicist, depending

on the circumstance. What I am saying is, no matter what who you work for, if you're a publicist, then a percentage of your job will be lying depending on the circumstance. So so Billy Rays lie about something good. Billy ray Cyrus is like, I am going to donate a bunch of time and money to a local homeless shelter. You don't about that. The publicist gets on the horn starts letting everybody know, you guys should come cover this. Billy ray Cyrus goes and does that, and everything's good.

Then on the way home, Billy ray Cyrus decides to celebrate by drinking a bucket of tequila and runs his car into a uh whatever. Okay. The publicist then starts getting calls and says he didn't drink a bucket of tequila. That wasn't even happen. That's overstated what really happened with this. So the circumstances depend on the the whether the publicist is or not. Oh yeah, I'm not saying that all publicists do is lie. But I'm saying if you work as a publicist, part of your job is to cover

tracks and to lie um and you know that. Don't hate the publicists, hate the system, is what I say. Yeah, they're definitely a part of a larger system. Yeah, a larger system which includes all of us who digest news. Yeah, especially say like entertainment news, that kind of thing. Um, there's like there's a whole there's two. From my understanding, there's two routes a person can take as a celebrity.

You can either just go off and be a normal person, and depending on your level, you might have paparazzi following your that kind of stuff. There's once you get to a certain level, it doesn't matter what your decision is, or you can hire a publicist and feed yourself right into that machine to get as much publicity and as much pressed as you possibly can. Yeah. Well, I think any celebrity is going to have a publicist, but it's

really a matter of your directive and your goal. I think some of those people like to be like that the old adage there's no such thing as bad publicity. Yeah, I I ran into that that that's more of a PR term, where like, so if you're in the PR, you're probably representing a company or an organization or something like that. A publicist is somebody who typically represents a single person, an artist and author, a musician, um, something

like that. That's really the only definition I confined for a publicist, and the the job the goal of the publicist is to you, um, help maintain and promote the public image of that person that they represent. That's right, by um having a good relationship with the media, Yes, that's the publicist. Uh. And by the way, that no, no such thing as bad publicity. I tried to find the origin of that, and the closest thing I could find was P. T. Barnum. But I don't know if

that's true. I don't think that's verified. We Twain, Yeah, PT Barnum or Mark Twain. Everybody says Mark Twain saying uh. And I don't think that's even true anyway. I think maybe that used to be true, that it was a Mark Twain saying no, that no such thing is bad publicity. I think at one point that may have been sort of true. Yeah, these days there's clearly bad publicity. So you I said the word flak earlier as a teaser, apparently,

um too. Flak or a flack is a term originating from Gene Flak, early movie publicist Hollywood, and that's right f l a K to take. Flak is named after a type of German gun in World War Two. A German anti aircraft gun. Two different things, but in this case it is a pejorative term for publicists. They don't like it. Pr flack Yeah, you shouldn't say that to someone that works in PR, or call them a liar. They don't like that either. Um yeah, I looked it up.

Apparently it means that like, you can't be trusted, you'll you'll do anything for money. That's what a flackist. And then that's like they one article I read said that's like calling a personal injury attorney an ambulance chaser. Just not a nice term. So there you have it. Uh So, a publicist, like you said, works for their client to make them to get their good deeds out, and too if they don't have good deeds, to spend things to make it look like they do. You know, here, hold

this baby lamp. Yeah, we take your picture exactly, and then they get photographed later eating euros down the block. The two events were totally not connected. No, So the what they do is they pitch ideas to the media and they probably have to be good writers themselves because the press release oftentimes is a starting point. But press releases, as we know, I can get lost in the shuffle and never see the light of day. Yeah, it seems

like a huge wasted time. It can be, but uh, if you have a good publicist, um, they will be well connected to the media to ensure that that uh publicity blast is not lost, right exactly. So there's um, there's direction one, which is from the publicists to the media, and the publicist is going to have all these contacts with different entertainment reporters and business reporters and anybody that can possibly run the story. Yeah, anybody that could possibly

run a story on um their client rights. And they'll say, um, Billy Ray is going to donate some money. He just seems like the type who would donate a bunch of money to a homeless shelter and go down there himself and help out. So Billy Ray is going to be down there. Plus it's it's it rolls off the tongue, Billy Ray. Um, So why don't you send one of your cover reporters down and and let's get some coverage

for this. And since their friends, since these people have worked together for decades, now this reporter and this your your publicist. The reporter actually might respond and show up or the editor or the news producer, whoever the contact is.

That's great, Like that's you hired a good publicist and now this story is going to make it out there because they didn't just write up a press release with a bunch of exclamation points in the headline and facts it to every media outlet they could find and get your response. Yes, so good. A publicist is only as good as their relationships, I think. Um. The other way on that street that you were talking about is from

the journalists fact to the publicist. If they hear I heard Billy ray Cyrus drink a bucket of tequila and ran over a prostitute with his car, they will then get in touch with the publicist and then they go jack, buddy, Hey, we go back a long way. What I lie to you? What I lie to you? Uh So that's how that goes, and they want they will be more forthcoming with people who have it's a scratch your back, you scratch my

type of scenario. Yeah, like that reporter that actually showed up at the homeless shelter and covered it and made a nice piece and everything. I'll give you the scoop. When that guy calls, he's he's going to get the better treatment from the publicist than somebody who ignored the pitch before. That's right, um scratching a lot of back scratchings in the machine. I've seen a lot more women as bblicists and men, and I've always wonder why that it's true. I don't know that that is true. In

researching this, I saw about an equal amount. I used to think that as well, Um, but it seems like there's an equal amount these days. It seems like every publicist I've ever known has been a woman. And I just figured just because women maybe more level headed and uh more able to like smooth out a situation has some big dumb guy. Um, but I guess the guys who were publicists aren't big dumb guys like me. I'd

be a bad publicist. Oh yeah, So what would your response to be if somebody called to find out what stupid thing you're your client did or why they did some stupid thing. I'd say, you know, what's really none none of your business, bad publicist. Yeah well that was something I ran across, as you know, saying something like my client needs to privacy respected right now, we just immediately shut down a relationship that you've cultivated over the years.

Do you have to give as a publicist you are like you, there has to be something that you give, so you better have something that will play kate the reporter, but while also is probably not the truth, because that reporter will go off and write the truth about your client, and your client will have just gotten horrible publicity because of you. It's a balancing act. Yeah, or they'll just say let me send you get back from pet Segal.

You like the last one, right, Uh. But publicist may also and it depends people that have a staff of people working for them. Sometimes the lines are blurred on who does what. But a publicist can arrange uh interview requests and set all that stuff up. If you have like a book tour, or your politician or your band with a new album coming out, they might arrange all those interviews, in which case they are prepping two things. They are prepping the interviewer saying you can't ask about

the bucket of tequila. If you want this interview, i'll give it to you, but this is off limits all these things. And then, as we've learned when we've had people work with us in publicity, they'll be prepping you um on as the interviewee, like if they asked this, this is how you should probably deal with it. Don't

answer that. Yeah, it's back to what you were And uh, my favorite thing ever our videos where celebrities walk out of interviews because the interviewer has asked something they weren't supposed to ask. Those are great. Yeah, not to sit around watch those all day. Yeah, you can probably find a pretty good super cut of them. Yeah probably. So all right, Well let's take a break and uh when we come back, we will talk a little bit about

the skills you need as a publicist. All right, We've mentioned lying and you know, I joke, but for real, if you want to be a publicist, you better have a certain comfort level with with stretching the truth and lying. Yeah, because you're gonna have to do that. If you're not comfortable with that, you shouldn't go into that line of work. Is that safe to say? I think very. You need to be good with people and cultivate those relationships. You

need to be a good writer. Well, not only do you have to be a good writer, you have to be a good journalist. And a lot of UM publicists have a background in journalism because I kept running into this in this article and another article you sent. The number one rule of being a publicist is to think

like a journalist. Even better than that is to not only think like a journalist, but be able to write like a journalist too, because as we kind of demonstrated that the publicist media relationship is a two way street. The publicist needs the media to publicize and of adding manner their client, But the media needs a publicist because they've got deadlines and they need to come up with story ideas. And if something is brought to them, that's great.

But that that media professional has a reputation to protect. It can't be like, you know, Billy ray Cyrus got off of his couch and mail to check for five dollars to a local homeless shelter. Yeah, and they came in a pressure release in a fax machine. That reporter

is not going to have a very good reputation. But if a publicist comes to this reporter with a great headline, creative pitch a good story that's tailored to that reporter and they're beat and even more than that, tailored to that reporters audience, there's a good likelihood that reporter will say, I'm listening and that's just music to a publicist years sure, just to be listened to. Yeah, that's when you throw

it into fifth year. Uh. You can't be afraid of rejection. UM, you've got to be outgoing and you've got to take your licks because a lot of your attempts are going to fail just by nature of the job. So you can't get your feelings all hurt. Yeah, you guess you could, but you don't want to show that because then the journalists would be like, jeez, Chuck, such a baby. You're going to be eating a lot. I didn't run the story and he's complaining I saw him choking up in

the bathroom. While they may get a good laugh out of that, probably won't want to work with you as much. UM. You gotta be very patient and you have to be very flexible because if you're working for celebrities, it is a very tough job. That's another thing too, So you are Um, your hours are basically all hours whenever you're needed. Right.

So not only does your publicists frequently also have to do other stuff or people associated with the publicist UM have to do things like pick up things for the the client, like um. In addition to that, like the higher up you go on the food chain, which we'll talk about in a minute. UM, the more that that client feels a okay with emailing you at three in the morning saying like, UM, I need to be reassured about my celebrity status or whatever, um, and the publicist

needs to respond, you're basically on call all the time. Also, at three in the morning, your client may have done something really horrifically stupid and some paparazzi caught it and now words starting to spread and you're fielding calls from reporters at three in the morning to get a statement on what your client did. Yeah. I mean when when Twitter came out, I remember thinking at the time, like publicists aren't gonna be around anymore because people are doing

this themselves. Well, they've actually figured out ways to use Twitter, benefit ways to use Twitter. But Twitter is also their biggest security blanket as well, because because of Twitter, more and more celebrities are saying really stupid things at the publicist is then going to have to cover their tracks, so they'll take down the tweet and then try and spend that or just you know, the apology is always

very funny to me awkward. Well, it's never like, did you hear about Chris Carter, the NFL guy, he's a former NFL player wide receiver. Yeah, he um is in hot water this week because he spoke. Was hired by the NFL to come in and speak to the rookies. They often do that for guys that had been in trouble,

to come in and say, don't do what I did. Yeah, sort of and um he said in his talk to the Rookie Symposium said something about, you know, if you get caught with you know, da da da da da, he just make sure you have a fall guy on your team, like the guy in the car that's like, it's my weed. And he got in big trouble for that. And his apology. His apology was was like that that's not the kind of advice I would ever give young people.

It's like, but that's the advice you exactly gave young people, Like, how can you say that days later? It's just so obvious. It's a forced, insincere apology. So we either had a bad publicist didn't listen to his publicist, because part of the publicist job is when you're going to make the statement, the public statement, the public apology, or whatever, the reasoning behind it, the rationale, the um, the wording of it, just the logic behind the apology is probably going to

be crafted by your publicists. At least help they're going to help you with it. At the very least, they're going to want to help you with it, right because they're probably scared stupid that you're going to make it worse. Right, And it sounds like there's a lot of crisis management and that is a part of it, But publicists also are just trying to cook up opportunities. Um. I think that that's way more the day to day. Yeah, yeah,

for sure, depending on the client, of course. Um but I remember our former boss Connell was in a band years ago and I read online somewhere that his band was I went to Elton John's do you remember this story? Went to Elton John's house and spelled out their band name and fire on his tennis court. I hadn't to try and get on his label or something. That's a great way to do it, I know, And I went and asked it. I was like, dude, I can't believe you guys did that. And he went we didn't do that.

I was like no, and he was like no, these our publicists made that up. It's like nothing true about it. And he's like no, they completely fabricated that story as a publicity stunt that never happened. Uh. Yeah, So why even go to the trouble of it where you can just release a story that says that you did that you hadn't that amazing when something like that could so easily be fact check, like by calling Elton John Well, that's the other thing. Like, I don't know, I don't know.

So I'm curious. I wonder how many media stories are just totally fabricated matter of fact. You out there in podcast land, let us know if you know a media story that was just totally fabricated that everybody takes his fact. We want to hear it. I love stuff like that. I do too. Alright. We mentioned earlier that you might end up getting the laundry or dry cleaning as a publicist,

if you're the publicist intern. Yeah, that's probably what's going to happen, is you might get asked to go get the laundry and then you will say, sure, I'll take care of that for you, and then you will go down the chain until you find the underling who was trying to be a publicist who still does things like that. Right, this person may or may not be in college, but it's probably college age. That's something that I ran across.

If you want a career in as a publicist, you do not need to spend a single penny on higher education. The entire career of publicists begins as as a hands on experience. You need to be in. You need to be literate, You need to prob have a knack for writing um in a journalistic way and crafting good headlines and by proxy good email subject lines. But you don't If you have that already before college, you don't need to go to college. No, Like you can go in

major in journalism or communications or PR. But it's not like you get that diploma, that PR diploma, and you're gonna get like some entry level job as a publicist and you're still gonna have to work your way out. See it says right here, I have a PR degree, So where's my job? My advice is to skip college and go straight into the workforce as early as you can. If this is what you want to do, you know, I feel and I hope that there is becoming a

bigger understanding that there are certain fields out there. There are careers out there where you don't have to go to college, and there are careers out there where, like you should go to a vocational school to learn that trade. That college is not necessarily this end all be all, that you have to spend money after money after money to get a degree that might even not be used in your field. But I mean that it needed a

degree to do what I'm doing. No one ever has to see it, all right, And this is a this is a perfect example of that, Chuck, Like, to be a publicist, you do not need a degree. You need hands on experience. You need basically what amounts to an apprenticeship. That's right, Yeah, a good way to say it. So go in and get that job in the mail room

or as an assistant or as an intern. Uh. And it would be great if you still live at your parents house at this point, because you're going to get paid like next to nothing and you're going to be doing all the grunt work. But if you are, if you go in there with your mindset to I'm going to learn this. I want to learn this and move up. You're you're going to be in the right environment for that absolutely. Uh. Like we said, you might be picking

up dry cleaning. You're going to be returning a lot of phone calls, drafting a lot of um, probably not so fun uh press releases that that is graduated from the intern. Yeah. Well, I'm talking about being like a junior assistant right after you get hired on. Yeah. Yeah, and press releases that aren't like the sexy ones. You know, Um, you're not gonna be writing like the press releases for Billy Ray Cyrus in other words, No, those are sexy. You'll be writing them for his dog, Okay, you know sure,

Freddie Freddie Cyrus, Freddie Freddie Cyrus. Okay. You are going to be handling your publicists that you work for, their schedule, um, their contacts. You're going to be putting together press skots and epks electronic press skitts and blasting those out. Basically all of the um nuts and bolts of the job you're going to be doing as a junior uh staff publicist or an assistant. Not a bad gig if that's what you want to do and if you stick to it and you're good at it, you're gonna end up

being a publicist. Not only are you getting the experience you need on the job, you're also in a place where your networking too, because that is probably tied for first as far as like thinking like a journalist goes. You need to be a pretty good networker. That's right, And you know what, let's take a break and we will talk more about networking and some of the skills you still need. Cho Can I make a confession, I'm possibly the worst networker on the planet. Uh, you didn't

have to tell me that I'm really bad at it. Yeah, it's not your back, It isn't. Some people are good at networking, pretty good at You're good at networking because I enjoy it, and I don't consider it um networking sounds like just doing something to serve you in the end.

I don't look at it that way. I look at it like I enjoy making professional colleague, enjoy meeting and getting to know professional colleagues, and then later on if I can hit them up for something or if they hit me up, that's great, But if not, it's just something like you know, so, so the response to somebody when they come and ask you for something you're like, oh I saw this coming. That's not the way to respond. Probably not. I'm trying to put myself out there a

little more. Oh yeah, yeah, Why is that just just? I think that's a skill that everybody should have instead of being like a misanthropic recluse, you know, put yourself out there. I agree. Um, well, one of the skills that I don't think we pinpointed was networking without seeming like your networking, which is sort of the key what I was just talking about. And I think maybe that is it too, Like I feel like networking is a task.

Is if I just relaxed and enjoyed it and like just you know, communing with a fellow human being, isn't that what it's all about? It's all it is like that, then I'm sure it would be much more relaxing. Um. I read a blog and I sent it to you, and I want to shout them out because they sonic bids S O N I C B I D S. It's a blog where they did an interview that was

pretty insightful. Actually, they did a double interview, a dual interview with Julie Lichtenstein, a thirty seven Media and Lily Golightly of Golightly Media, And I think they worked with bands and musical artists mainly, but it was super insightful and they said, Um, just some little tidbits here, Like I was always curious how they get paid, um, And I think if you're a publicist for a person and like you were on retainer, then you just get a salary um, or if you're part of a firm that

just works for that person. But you can also just be hired for a campaign. Right, So if you're a band and you have gone to the trouble of like going in and hiring a producer to produce your album, and like you've made a studio quality album that you're proud of, you might want to hit everybody up or gather around another two grand to hire a publicist for a month to release that album correctly. And like just hiring a publicist isn't going to automatically make it great.

Like you need to say, can we see some of the other campaigns you've run? What are your ideas for this campaign? Um? Who have some of your clients been in the past? Um? What are what are what's some of the press that you've gotten. Yeah, you don't want to just be like throw a dart at a phone book, do your research because it's too grand and you're an

upcoming band and that's just that's not chump change. But if you if you look at it as a wise investment, and you do invest in wisely and a good publicist, it could make a huge difference for you. Agreed. Um. This Julie said that, Uh, they try and get out for for a major artist, three or four months ahead of the release of the album is when they want to start their job. So it's not like, hey, it drops next week, let's think of some good ideas, you know,

they want some good lead time. Uh. And they said that they like to work around goals. Um, if they're if it's like a tour, like for us going on our tour, we don't have a publicist, but we have promoters working with venues that sort of do the job

of a publicist as far as trying to sell tickets. Um. But if you are booking a tour and you have a publicist, they're going to be the ones that are getting you on the local radio stations, morning TV, getting you in the local newspaper or alternative newspaper to get you some pressed. And this is I mean if you have um, like, this is stuff you can do yourself. But one of the things that you are hiring when you hire a publicists their contexts, Like you don't have

the context, you're just the band. One of the problems is that you are it's going to be tough for you to think objectively, like you're not gonna understand why every journalist you talked to doesn't want to automatically do a long form piece on how great your band is. Publicists is going to be dispassionate enough and removed enough that they can see it objectively through a journalists size and then pitch it in a way that's probably going to get better, um more more bites. Yeah, that's a

good way to put it. Because the artists we've even experienced this is the ones who gets their feelings or saying like, oh man, that you know they interviewed us last time, why did they do it this time? And they're always great about massaging the ego a little bit, saying like it's okay, guys, there's no big deal, because um, that doesn't do much for anyway. Lie, right, we got

this other thing that's better lie right. Um. The other thing they're gonna be doing if they work for you, is are gonna be sending you, uh weekly or bi weekly reports on what's lined up, who passed on stuff, who who bit um stuff like that, Like they're keeping you informed. You're not just like in a black hole. And some artists like to be well in touch on that stuff. And some probably don't care about being bothered.

They just want to be on Man. Conan shot in Atlanta fifteen minutes from our house where we live, and we couldn't get on Conan and it was while our TV show is debuting. You don't have to remind me. Let's talk Penny C. Santi Vieri, Yeah, from HuffPo. She is the author and CEO of Marketing Experts, Inc. And she listed out nine things that a good publicist does. What's number one? Chuck? Can you guess? I think like a journalist? That's right. You already said that and you

were right. It's the number one rule. Number two rules, know the rules, right, You gotta play within the game if you start and you can bend rules, but if you start breaking them, people have a long memory. Well here, yeah,

if you go on and read. Um, just type the phrase rules of pitching and publicity into your favorite search engine and it will bring up Apparently one of the journalist things journalists like to do in their downtime is right lengthy blog post mocking pr and publicists don't follow the rules of pitching. So, um, one of the rules

is no phone calls. You just don't use the phone email. Yeah, especially if you're cold calling people like I guess if you have a relationship with somebody, you can pick up the phone and column, but you you don't send an email blast and then a day later follow up on the email by phone. Apparently that's the worst thing you can do. Yeah, you don't want to bug people, know, and it's very easy to come off as like pestering a reporter as publicist. So you need to know the rules,

or your publicist needs to know the rules. Here's a good one that I didn't think about reading outside of your market. I'm sure it's pretty easy to just think New York in l A, Like, what else do I

need to know about? Well, not even that. It's like, um, if you're a band outside of your industry, yeah, you know, and just start to think of like, oh, well, we actually sing this song about the oil industry and oil prices are going through the roofs, so maybe maybe the Today Show would want to talk to us about our songs. I didn't think about that. I'd be a great publicist. I'm terrible at networking. UM, Google alerts. That's kind of

a no brainer. I would think. UM, understanding the importance of local met the that's a good one because while your artist is not gonna be super stoked about appearing on Good Morning Toledo, Hey, if there's a tie like you're from Toledo, like you, then that's probably a smart thing to do because the local media loves people that were from there that moved away. Plus, UM, Mrs sance Cvari makes this point or miss santy Viry sorry, um makes this point that, Um, you never know where a

local contact is going to end up. Sure might hit the big time. They might work for USA Today in a couple of months. Yeah, it doesn't get bigger than that. Uh. And if they if they hit the big time on their end and they have you as like a contact, it could help you out big time. That's right. Uh. And then earlier you mentioned something about subject lines for emails. I never really thought about this, but um, Penny says, can I call her Penny? You can't in the first

name basis I call her miss san Sivilleri. Okay, what's She says that crafting a subject line is one of the most important things that you can do as a publicist, and that they agonize over this, and it makes total sense with the glut of emails that people receive, especially journalists. Uh, you want to grab their attention otherwise it's just going to be by bye time. So but you also have to redrafting, editing, tweaking, she says. It's just like maddening

how much you have to do that. Yeah, that would drive me crazy. Yeah, because it's the minutia. So much importance on the minutiae. But it's true, and you have to you have to put a lot of thought into it. But you also probably can't come off as having put too much thought into where else it seems desperate, which she'll turn somebody off. Publicists want to kill journalists and vice versa. Yeah, it sounds like a weird relationship for sure, you know, and then also, did you look up media leads?

So basically there's services out there where journalists say I need a quote on I'm doing a piece on nuclear fusion, and I don't even know what that is. So the source and then this this this UM service that the journalist calls puts out like a daily year's you know, maybe even more than once a day newsletter blasts to PR people who pay for the service, and then they go through and say, oh, I've actually got a nuclear physicist on my payroll, and I'm I'm going to connect him.

We've been connected that way before, huh, when we had different PR firms working for worth US at times UM they've gotten in touch and say it said so and so at SpaceX UM wants to know if you want to come on and talk about this or when we did that stuff on ABC about when the housing crisis hit. Yeah, because we're financial experts. Yeah, so stuff like that. Yeah, I guess it used to come across our desk every now and then. Well, there's there's subscription services that connect

people through leads. From what I'm seeing is Twitter is now I'm filling that void a lot where you can just search Twitter for the hashtag h A r oh, help a reporter out the reporters um. And then also I guess there's a lot of PR tastemakers out there um that are just super connected and will basically tweet a lead and you don't have to pay a thousand dollars a more for that subscription service. You just follow certain people on Twitter, and as a PR person, you

might have somebody that's a client that you connect. Yeah, the whole that whole new job of being an aggregator a curator like that. Yeah, like people do that and that's all they do. But we also live in an age where people are famous for being famous. Man, I need to take back a little bit about my tirade about liars. I think that what I'm talking about our people publicists for like big celebrities and stuff like that.

Like we've had publicists work with us and at that of the clients that they work with are like people like us, where you don't have to like lie and spend. Yeah, we're always on our best behavior. Yeah, it's just you know, regular stuff like let me find a good opportunity for you and connect to you. And so it's I was overstating, and I think that's just the far edge of the celebrity end of things, because I just got to thinking

about what if they're listening. I don't want them to think I didn't think they were doing a good job. He did a great job. We'll wait to back off of that one, Chuck. I got one more little thing on Jim Moron Moran. You just said moron m O R A N. I think Moran not the way the friends say moron. Uh. He is was known as the master of the publicity stunt back in the day. Like he did things. What his big thing was was to take a saying and try and disprove it, like for

a company. So he literally went to Alaska on behalf of g E to sell a refrigerator to Uh, well it says an s come out. But I guess in any wits what you would say today. Um, he walked a bull through a china shop in New York City is a stunt. I think they broke some things. He got on a horse for a politician and changed directions midstream on the horse like rode it through a river

and change directions like you can't do this. Uh. And then in nine nine for the Premier of the Mouse That Roared the Great Peter Seller's movie he opened an embassy. Remember the movie was about a small country that declared war in a big country because they wanted to declare war in the US and then surrender and then get financially from around the world because their economy was but they ended up winning or something. I don't he opened

an embassy in Washington for a mythical country. Yeah. Speaking of By the way, I finally saw a Doctor Strangelove. Oh, really great movie, one of the best. It's up there for sure, one of the best satires. Let's say it is a great movie. Great movie. And Peter Seller's man just he did great. But also I mean, like George C. Scott was amazing, and he was amazing. And the guy I can't remember his name that played the colonel or whatever, the one who lost his marvels. Yea, yeah he was.

He was so good. Everybody was slim Slim Chills or slim Pickins, Slim Pickins Chills. Yeah, there's Chili. Chill Wills was another like what country Western actor, Chill Wills, I think is his name, Chill Wills. You'd recognize him if you saw his face, Okay, Chill Wills, All right, of course, Chill Wills makes an appearance and How Publicist Works episode No, I got nothing else, Thank goodness. If you want to know more about publicists, you can take this word in

the search part how stuff Works dot com? And I said search parts was time for listening to mail Did have one more thing? What was that movie America's Sweethearts? Did you ever see that? With John cusack Down? You know Billy Crystal was played a publicist a pain in the butt Hollywood couple. Oh, best, best portrayal of a publicist is on Seinfeld. The mom from that seventies show Members.

She played Seinfeld's publicist. Oh she was. Yeah, she tried to get the airline pilot kicked out of Jerry's show and he ended up getting I think it's the one where Kramer's at JFK or LaGuardia. He's making bets on arrivals and he ends up using the son of Sam mail Bag as collateral. Right, great episode, but the mom from that seventies show played Jerry's publicist. Yeah, who was also on Friends? What was she friends? She played Phoebe's

half brother. Giovanni Ribisi played his girlfriend or wife, Oh yeah, which is a weird like a mismatch couples, and I think they were. They got her to be a surrogate for them. Okay, when Lisa Kudro got pregnant realized, I think it's how he handled it. We have watched a lot of all right, I'm gonna call this one. Uh uh. We were actually right, and this lady was nice at the dinner party. How's that perspic luve? Okay, hey, guys,

have a little story. I was at a small dinner party where the host was making his own sea salt. The topic about It's one of those dinner parties. The topic of kosher salt came up, so I dropped the fact from Your Salt episode that Kasher salt is actually just salt used for drawing blood out of meat to make a kosher not salt blessed by a rabbi, and the fellow guest disagreed, which I responded, I'm quite true

about this. The host then said, raise your hand if you're Jewish, and the guy that disputed me raised his hand felt rather embarrassed while he explained to me what kosher means and that salt also goes through the same kosher process that would ever explained how I backed down and didn't try to defend the fact that I just told It's not that I doubted you guys, though I jokingly said I'd write any mail to complain, but it's because appeal is disrespectful to correct someone on their own heritage.

Good move. I also didn't want to start any petty debate with someone at someone else's dinner party, also a good move, so I decided to take in the embarrassment while he was explaining what pocher is at the same time eating a splite of pasta with Rizo. I hope you find this amusing. Please keep up the good work. If you read on the show, please give a shout out to my friend Amber, who introduced me to the show.

And that is from Chloe uh to say. So, wait a minute, Chuck, were we right and the guy was wrong? We were right. The Jewish guy was wrong because I looked it up today just to be sure, and apparently kosher salt is kosher because in fact, they said it should be called koshering salt. Yeah, because it's used to make things kosher. It is not the salt itself, it's kosure.

It would have kept Chloe out of that kind of suspostion Chloe, it sounds like you have a lot of tact and dignity, yes, and that it sounds like, yeah, the guy's a bit of a chlow part. I'm not ruining the dinner party. So that is from Chloe in Sydney, Australia. Thank you. If you want to get in touch with us, we want to hear about all of your misadventures out there based on Stuff you Should Know. You can tweak

to us at s y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, does it how stuff Works dot com