The Stan Sigman Experience

The world of mobile telecommunications was shocked this morning to discover that former AT&T Mobility CEO Stan Sigman is not the man people thought he was.

Just 12 hours after the event honoring his induction into the Wireless Hall of Fame and his rambling 5-hour acceptance speech, Stan Sigman was revealed to be not a man at all but a piece of performance art.

Speaking to gathered media, San Francisco performance artist Julian Leflaunt said that for the past 40 years, he has been playing the part of “Stan Sigman” as part of a piece entitled “Corporate ‘Leadership’ and The Folly of the American Enterprise”.

“I created everything about Stan,” said Leflaunt. “From his horrible public speaking ability to his post-retirement goatee.”

Working as a Bell stockman the 1960s, Leflaunt says, he became aware of the vapid nature of our vaunted executive class.

“I was determined to show the CEO for what he was: a long-winded oaf concerned with nothing more than achieving personal glory off the back of the worker. These emperors of our economy have no clothes, I thought, and I set out to devote my life to showing them to the rest of the world as I saw them.”

Cleverly manipulating the bureaucracy at Bell, Leflaunt recast himself as “Stan Sigman”, the name being a play on “standard signal man”, which the artist says represented the conformity enforced by corporate America on the proletariat.

So his life’s work began. But then, Leflaunt said, something strange happened.

“As much as I wanted to hate him, I grew to love Stan,” he said. “My feelings for him as a rising CEO did not change — I still believed him to be the most useless of cogs in the capitalist machine — but as a person I found him to be sympathetic and even tragic. His love of golf for its moments of platonic camaraderie and closeness with other men, a closeness he always craved from his father but never got. His passion for quarter horses, driven by his recurring childish fantasies of being a cowboy on the frontier of the late 1800s. The more I rounded out his character, the sadder he became to me.”

Leflaunt admits that the piece got out of hand.

“I really had no intentions of carrying it on for more than 40 years,” Leflaunt said. “But I couldn’t stop. I needed to see how it ended! And then the iPhone deal just fell into my lap.”

Leflaunt was concerned the deal was almost his undoing.

“I was frightened that I had overplayed my hand at Macworld Expo in 2007,” Leflaunt said. “I wanted to deliver a truly dreadful speech, I felt that was important to the piece, but when I shook Steve Jobs’ hand after I was done, I thought I saw him give me a look. I flew home in a cold sweat.”

For his part, Jobs says he was completely unaware that the man he had worked with on the most significant product release of the decade was an utter fabrication.

“I had no idea,” said a disbelieving Steve Jobs. “I mean, one time he was chuckling in the middle of a meeting for no discernible reason, but… wow. Incredible. My hat’s off to him.

“Anyway, this totally voids our exclusivity deal with AT&T so… Verizon iPhone in January.”

Asked what he will work on next, Leflaunt says he plans on taking his first vacation in 40 years, claiming the others were in character so they don’t count. Then he plans to devote time to cat memes on the Internet.

“That’s where all the cutting-edge work is being done nowadays,” he said.

329 thoughts on “The Stan Sigman Experience”

  1. Okay let’s get the meeting started.

    First up, let’s hear from Nxxx on the subject of Boxing Day. What is the best way to celebrate?

  2. Fill the boxes with bricks and throw them at your relatives?

    And if you do so, do the boxes have to be wrapped first?

    Or is this the Boxing Day, where we engage in fisticuffs with padded gloves (which may be internally stuffed with bricks, if space permits)?

  3. Cold meat on Boxing Day, clearly.

    Perhaps some day-old sweet n’sour pork that’s been breeding in the fridge.

    Or better still some iffy-whiffy shellfish.

    All washed down with Babycham, ye olde traditional festive face-fuel.

  4. Boxing Day:-Unwilling visit to the Funeral Director, to be washed, shaved and made over for your last gig.

  5. My, that was nostalgic!

    For a brief time, it was 2004 again. Interstellar intrigue, excitement, adventure, really wild things, and CTHULHU left to water the plants.

    Really takes me back. Good times.

  6. Hey, new bad result from the Giga-Post link:

    404 Page not found
    Sorry, but the page you were looking for could not be found.

    And have you noticed that the comments here are gathered on one page? The Brains Under Glass must have paid for some high-falutin’ tech support.

  7. If you Twittered (and followed CARS on there), this beloved site is being moved to a new host. And there are problems, as you’ve already surmised.

  8. You are WORKING ? I thought you’d have some slippery women-slave-bots to do that kind of dirty work.
    Oh.
    So deceiving.
    Kind of.

  9. Despite feeling cheated as I managed a first post that has disappeared in the changeover but that nice Mr. Moltz has come up trumps.

    I always told you he would come through and we all know I have never written anything critical regarding the Great John Moltz.

  10. It says “reply” under everyone’s non-head. Is that an option, or a demand?

    300 comments is a lot to reply to, but I suppose I could try…

  11. I usually settle for looking like I’m working. And yes, it’s okay.

    On an tenuously-related note, my vote for most alcoholic drink in the universe remains the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster.

  12. I was kind of expecting the Fresh New Serverâ„¢ scent over here, but Moltz has managed to bring the same… distinctive.. scent along.

    Impressive.

  13. I’ve tired of awaiting moderation.

    I’m now engaging with extremism.

    With a broadly chocolate-themed eschatology.

  14. It is wrong. On many, many levels.
    But the more comments that are posted, the less likely you’ll have to look at the picture for very long. (Unless you have a huge monitor…)

  15. This Leflaunt sounds like a sick puppy. You should verify his facts first! Such as, the man doesn’t even play golf!

  16. This Leflaunt sounds like a sick puppy. You should verify his facts first! Such as, the man doesn’t even play golf!

Comments are closed.