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.
This leaves open the possibility of a tasty pun. Let’s do lunch.
BroMu,
I think you’ve pulled.
And 2allbeefpatties are my favourite!
Excepting Findus Crispy Pancakes, naturally.
Those Crispy Pancakes look kinda tasty…
How are they IRL?
And can you send them over IP, like the pudding?
FCP over IP?
I like it already.
There you go with the food again! I’m tryig to lose weight here, people!
*munch, munch*
Not knowing what FCP was, I decided to investigate. I now wish I hadn’t.
Steve,
You should see or try some other Findus product. Fish fingers from fish with real hands.
So that’s where all the fish fingers went!
I imagine they did the same with chicken fingers.
Chicken ‘nuggets’.
I leave you to draw your own conclusions, fellow CARSistas.
Or CARSistanis.
Or possibly CARSadians.
Only fifty to go before HE posts again.
On your knees everyone.
49, now. You’ve discovered a new way to count posts, Nxxx: down.
Now, being “First!” can result from strategy and tactics, rather than patience or luck.
So… which of us will be “first” (I.e., 113th) this time?
@BroMu,
Just as long as it’s not “Carsdashians.”
*shudder*
Oh, yeah… Almost forgot…
47th!
ARGH my rss feeds aren’t updating right for CARS. I had no idea there was a new post.
I love martini’s. I like them super dirty with vodka. Then I have either olives stuffed with feta or blue cheese in it or olives stuffed with whole garlic cloves. Exquisite. Now I’m going to have to pull some vodka out of the freezer and make myself one.
How about Carsdassians? Like from DS 9.
CARSons?
“Heeeeeeere’s Johnny!”
CARSrissians.
Like Lando. Because he’s cool.
@Del- glad to see I’m not the only one with vodka sitting in the freezer.
If you haven’t yet, try Tito’s vodka. Small distillery in Texas, but VERY highly rated. iMoo can attest to this.
I’d like to point out to The Magnanimous Wang that ‘Heeeeeere’s Johnny!’ works equally well for Moltz or Gruber.
I can attest to lots of things.
And the vodka is wonderful.
I’ll have to keep my eye out for Tito’s. I love trying new Vodkas. I’m finishing off a bottle of Ugly Dog right now. It’s pretty good as long as you don’t mind a little bite to your drink.
Del,
Bite to your drink? Have you been working on vodka bottles?
Only 40 or is it 39 to go?
Oh no! Now there’s math involved in commenting? Didn’t get the memo.
Not much of a drinker. I’ll stick with root beer floats, if nobody minds.
It’s easy, Sue… we’re at 39, and you count down from…
…
Heeey… waaiiit a minute…
What do you mean, “even Benny,” Nxxx?
Well it’s better than “odd Benny.”, Benny.
N+1, but who’s counting?
n+1 would make Benny odd, clearly.
Or n-1.
It’s a tough call.
And n! could make him large, depending on the value of n.
News flash! CANS reports that Apple has bought John Gruber. Can Moltz be far behind?
Oh yes, Apple also bought Adobe.
The bottle gives it a better texture 😛
I heard that Apple bought M$ via hostile takeover, but in a weird coincidence at the exact same moment M$ succeeded in a hostile take over of Apple. So now Apple is M$ and M$ is Apple.
But who is Ballmer now?
Apple be,
with Adobe
and M$, three
and we
are all together…
Goo goo ga joob!
Ace,
Surely you are not suggesting that Moltz/Gruber/Balmer are the modern Trinity?
Nxxx,
That can’t be right.
Trinity is that chick with the glasses from The Matrix.
And since Moltz and Gruber are the same being, that would only be a Duo.
Yes, but with the mass of a Quartet, Steve.
And the personality of a Pinto (the car, not the horse)
The bean, not the car.
I seem to be receiving pictures of lions, for some reason.
“No lyin’.”™®©2010 Office Security Camera. All Rights Reserved.
Okay, now that I’ve made the joke, and marked it and published it as proprietary, no one else can use it.
Trust me… you’ll thank me later.
I’ll thank you now, OSC.
Just in case.
Also….
The conspiracy, not the bean.
Will iLife 11 inspire the Moltz/Gruber/Balmer Trinity to post?
Further, as Lions are much more populous than Snow Leopards, why should we update to a common animal?
Waddya think of that Moltz/Gruber/Balmer Trinity?
It’s one of those things that makes me weep for the future of mankind. We’re so totally screwed…
What’s going on?
Why have we stalled 8 short of the ton.
C’mon slackers.
It’s not like we even have to be witty. I mean, have you seen the recent standard of our output?
And the Terrapost?
Oh my.
I’m going over there now to say something crass. Even by my lamentable standards.
“something crass”
Now, was that so hard?
Of course not.
However, try “plethora.”
Time for a new page. I’m tired of scrolling down to see the new witty comments.
@Ace- your words aren’t big enough yet. Sorry.
@Sue- Some of us might like old pages. Pfft… Who am I kidding. Bring on the new page!!
Plethora?
Is that a newly discovered dinosaur?
No, that would be a Theseosaurus . . . where you look up the other longly-named dinosaurs. There’s a positive surfeit of them at this chronological juncture, henceforth known, albeit proleptically, as the Cornucopia Era.
How am I doing, Huh? My right click finger is aching….
Witty witty witty witty witty witty witty witty
Witty witty witty witty witty witty witty witty
Witty witty witty witty wi
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100!!!!!!
We Rule!
“I have only got this far by standing on the shoulders of Badgers”
(Apologies to Sir Isaac).