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.
Gentlemen, we have a winner…
Where is your neighbourhood, Steve? I want to edit it out of my satnav.
My neighborhood…. One corner store that sells mostly alcohol. It has no parking lot, but a stretch of grass where people park their tractor, atv, lawn tractor, snowmobile, or other motorized contraption.
Oh, and I forgot the firing range right behind my house. And the cell phone tower (but I get great reception: 5 bars instead of the usual maximum of 4).
We’ve got the firing range and training ground for CO19 down on our marshes at Gravesend (police firearms unit). They’ve got fake streets for practising hostage/terrorist stuff.
And guess what they felt it appropriate to put in those streets?
Oh yes: one Best Buy, One Poundstretcher, and something else that looks suspiciously like a pawn shop (from what I can make out standing on the grassy knoll [I kid you not] near the fence and peering in while hoping no trigger happy coppers ‘pop a cap in my ass’).
Gravesend Roolz.
BroMu,
Your firing range is much more exciting than the one near me (just an indoor practice range often visited by police).
Oh, and there’s also the interstate highway (I-95) within throwing distance. The noise from that drowns out any noise from the firing range.
Despite all that, we are repeatedly told this neighborhood is one of the safest in the city.
Despite all this, Croydon has six Archbishops of Canterbury buried in the Parish Church graveyard and Queen Elizabeth 1st came to stay in the Palace six times.
Let’s dig the old girl up and see if she can rid us of LIDL etc.
Want to borrow her BroMu?
I’ll bring the bones of Pocahontas. The the Prince of Orange’s wig, apparently.
hey ho, let’s go!
It’ll be a bit like the Scottish play.
Only without Sir Patrick Stewart in the lead role.
I suppose we’d better rewrite a few lines.
“Is this a sexbot I see before me?”
Thought it was better not to keep that line going.
Must be 417, only another 256 to go.
Moltz is in the chrysalis stage currently, Nxxx.
What will he emerge as, we wonder?
And tremble at the thought of ‘Balmer’…
255.
253?
352?
Something something something. Oh wait. 3.1415926.
I bet John could do a post on the MacBook Air if he felt so inclined.
Mmmm… pi.
Too bad is doesn’t have flavors.
And I think Moltz is more likely reclined than inclined.
I think Moltz is more generally declined.
And then, when he persists, fined.
[Silly is seen to be standing with his hand scratching his chin, his ears bent in thoughtful angles, and a querulous look on his face. He seems to be puzzled by a conundrum that has plagued many minds much greater than his… which basically means all minds.]
Silly [Looking annoyed]: Hey!
[Sorry… I couldn’t resist.]
[Harumphing self-righteously, Silly returns to his thoughts. Suddenly, amidst the thickening clouds of smoke, Silly seems struck with the spark of an idea. He is so excited as a result, he exclaims aloud.]
Silly [Effusively]: I’ve got it!
[Silly rushes to his desk, sits down determinedly, eagerly puts pen to paper, and then suddenly stops. An sly grin creeps cunningly onto his face as his gaze slowly rises from his desk and stares you straight in the eye. He speaks ominously.]
Silly: So, John… either you post, or I write another protracted story!
Oh, now we have choices!
Do they have the expression ‘devil and the deep blue sea’ over there?
Go Rabbit! Go Rabbit, Go!!!
BroMu,
They should have. They wrote the song.
Another thought occurs. It is not the Moltz/Gruber/Balmer Trinity but the Moltz/Gruber/Balmer/Silly Rabbit Quartet.
You think so? But what do we really know about Silly Rabbit?
Well, looking forward to the next post, whoever writes it.
I know, Nxxx. But I thought the expression originated over here.
I could google it . . . but aren’t they the Baddies now?
BroMu,
As it says in the Bible, King James Vll edition, “Always placeth thy trust in ye Wikipedia, as theyeth cannot telleth a lie, already, so soon.”
But I looked up the KJ Bible on Wikipedia and it said it was written by the Rev. James Brown.
Surely shome mistake?
Also, why do I keep getting a server error on the Terrapost?
I think the Tera-Post is probably fine, but the “post with the most,” the Giga-Post, is giving the server error, probably because Moltz is messing with our heads, in the manner of all power-mad tycoons.
Sorry, I meant Giga-Post.
Although I almost typed Mega-Post.
I’m feeling a bit post-Postal currently.
Do you think the server error is something to do with the Brains?
Or is it a ‘service’ error?
Because, apparently, there’s a rumour goin’ all around that Moltz ain’t been gettin’ ‘served’.
I wonder how that white iPhone 4 is working out for Mr. Mol… I mean Gruber? Too distracted to post, I expect.
Surely you are not suggesting that the white iPhone 4 is the long promised sexbot?
Yes, Young Johhny, what’s all this “Error” business on the Mega-Post?
I would say that there’s a conspiracy afoot on the Mega-Post is Dead comments, but that would actually require some work.
Would be far easier to just write another post.
[Suspenseful music commences.]
[Silly is seen to be earnestly bent over his desk, both sweating and writing profusely. Lost in concentration, he appears to be working on a script for a parody of NCIS called, not surprisingly, “NCARS.” He seems very anxious, however, as though worried that John might post a satire of his own before Silly finishes.]
[The music builds in intensity.]
[Who will be first, I wonder?!]
[The music quickly reaches a feverish pitch.]
[And who, among the colorful personalities who regularly comment at CARS, will be cast as the charming and personable Agent Dinozzo?]
Music [Climactically]: Dun-dun-dunnnnnh!
[Hurry, John… PLEASE HURRY!]
Pedants hat on, Rabbits don’f sweat, they pant like dogs.
I am beginning to think that Silly Rabbit doesn’t exist and worrying that I don’t either.
Perhaps it’s only the rabbits that write and post satire that, shall we say, perspire?
And it turns out that the white iPhone was only a toy. No phone, no ‘bot, and certainly no sex.
My bot definitely exits.
Indeed, it can probably be seen from the moon, alas.
Bro- that’s no moon… it’s a space station!
I wish it could zap my arse to pieces, Huh?
And my keg (I’ve upgraded from a six-pack: it’s a bulk family-deal).
I have a six-pack stomach too.
Remember wine boxes?
I think the Mega-Post is Dead thread drowned in one of those wine boxes. Still unaccessible.
Where the hell is Masako?
Probably still awaiting delivery of the promised NinJa Lesbian Kitten Sexbot.
Is the Death of the Mega-Post is Dead some sign of a NEW cyber-apocalypse?
I think we should be told.
I’m still waiting for the old cyber-apocalypse.
The Giga-Post is not dead, just prematurely buried. I can hear it clawing away down there, far beneath our feet.
And Moltz is the absent grave digger.
Could Moltz and ‘Gruber’ be the new Berk and Hair (sic).
I leave to you the respective appellation.
Wine boxes? Mmm… Not so much.
Now, whine boxes? That’s what I’m talking about.
Ooooh, ooooh, almost time for another new page!
Technology! Whiskey! Sexy! is also coming up with an error. Maybe John isn’t checking his email.
I’m posting just to see how long it takes someone to post number 200.
And wine boxes are only good for target practice.
OK, somebody has to do it. So, 200!
Where’s the next post?