Daily Briefs: Applebee’s Weak PR Kung-Fu; Time-Traveling Pervs; You So Crazy, Mike Hendricks!
By CHRIS PACKHAM
• Lenexa-based, IHOP-owned Applebee’s would like the country’s political writers to know that, in case anyone can’t find the True Americans, the True Americans are at Applebee’s, washing down Bistro Sirloin Sandwiches and baskets of mozzarella sticks with extra shots of insulin. True American pictured at right.
%{[ data-embed-type=”image” data-embed-id=”57150c3b89121ca96b95f811″ data-embed-element=”aside” ]}%Ben Smith of the Politico blog received an invitation from Rubenstein PR, on behalf of Applebee’s, to meet the True Americans — and maybe do some political blogging — at one of the restaurants. Needless to say, Smith did not accept their trans-fat bribe:
Subject: Blogging from Applebee’s
Hi Ben –
I hope you are well. I wanted to see if you would have any interest in setting up camp this week or in the next few weeks at Applebee’s in Times Square so you can interview “true Americans” about the election, candidates, etc. We would obviously set up an area for you and provide food throughout the week. We thought this would give you great insight into what Americans think for your blog, etc.
Let me know your thoughts.
Thanks!
• A pair of Independence tweens ran off with men they met on a telephone chat line operating from the year 1991. Time Cops found them safe, but it’s important to shield your children from old-fashioned communications technology, like telegrams. Parents: Do you know who your children are talking to on their ham radios? And when will chubby, grizzled male police officers learn how to impersonate 14-year-old girls on the phone?
• Did Mike Hendricks write this one long, agonizing paragraph on sustained-release tabs of Concerta? The Asperger degree of hyperfocus required to produce it exceeds my capacity to read it. It’s about Mayor Mark Funkhouser’s upcoming light-rail Mayoral Council of Elrond. I think! If I could eliminate all the line breaks in my own writing, I could totally become the KING OF LIVEJOURNAL! As a service to readers without autism spectrum diagnoses, I’m providing this executive summary:
• Two male Komodo dragons hatched from eggs laid via parthenogenesis at the Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita.
• Howl at the Moon, a nightclub named by a high school prom committee and paid for with your tax dollars, opens tonight in the Power and Light District.
In case the name loads you up with the impression that it’s appealing to a menopausal demographic of suburban cosmo-drinking divorcees, rest assured that we’re talking about a dueling-pianos bar. There’s nothing kids like more, unless it’s long stories about the dust bowl or episodes of A Prairie Home Companion.
