We find out in life that things just don’t happen overnight. That includes bitter feuds that result in fierce rivalries spawning buckets of libel, slander and toxic treachery. The bad blood between the Crimpanfortis and Kalabrashion clans stretch back five generations, before the two cataclysmic sunspot attacks nearly decimated Planet Earth. We find that Brookens Kalabrashion got his nose out of joint because Morey Crimpanfortis was more agile and adept at bringing in new business. Jealousy and animosity became the fuel that propelled the Kalabrashion crowd into mimicking the Crimpanfortis and counterfeiting everything they did to attempt to gain fame and fortune for their own sordid gain.

The Evolution of a Multimedia Arch Enemy

How the Kalabrashion Crowd Became our Bruising Nemesis

Without question, our biggest threat to market supremacy and ultimate survival is Paymor Kalabrashion and his band of disreputable miscreants. Paymor is undisputedly Daddy’s fiercest, most unforgiving rival. The families have been slugging it out for the better part of five generations. And like any other longstanding feud, it has not gotten any better with time.

Paymor’s great-great granddaddy, Brookens Kalabrashion, was as close to a gossip-monger as you could get. His two-bit, flea-bitten “newspaper,” if you could even call it that, was a salacious collection of libelous innuendos and half-truths that somehow allowed him to eke out a living while eluding the legal clutches of those he regularly and maliciously maligned.

Bottom Feeders from the Get-go

What Brookens lacked in class and ethics he made up for with an aggressive business acumen that bordered on belligerence. No dummy to bottom-line sensibilities (and bottom-feeder tactics), he targeted the burgeoning Crimpanfortis media empire as a vehicle for his toxic brand of tattletale scuttlebutt. As a thinly veiled freelance reporter, he offered up fabricated tales that masqueraded as being wholly authentic, with a style that he considered both hard-hitting and colorful.

Acting more along the lines of an informant or stool pigeon, as opposed to an honest-to-goodness journalist, he agreed to “sell” these salacious tidbits to the Crimpanfortis media conglomerate in exchange for stock in the company and “future considerations.” The way he saw it, if he could ride the stately Crimpanfortis coattails, he could make a name for himself while carving out a lucrative stake in the corporation’s growing national audience.

The Old “Carriage Stand behind the Train Station” Trick

Old Morey Crimpanfortis didn’t see it that way. He didn’t just laugh Brookens out of his office over the gossip-monger’s perverted business proposal, he ordered him out, Flanked by armed guards, the sputtering counterfeit journalist was dragged out of the building and rudely deposited in the area across the cobblestone street and down the brick-lined alley, where carriages waited behind the train station.

Brookens wasn’t about to take this rebuff lying down. Burning with rage, fueled by jealousy, he vowed to bury the Crimpanfortis family before they achieved any level of success. That touched off nearly a century-and-a-half of some of the most vile and malicious business practices ever perpetrated in the annals of free-market vindictiveness.

Whatever You Can Do I Can Do Cheaper

Thinking he could do it better, Brookens built his own twisted empire. But the only way he could compete was to lie, cheat and steal–which he proved very adept at. These malevolent practices only became more pronounced generation after generation until now. No one knows the depths that Paymor Kalabrashion, representing the younger, up-and-coming iteration of the family, is willing to plumb in order to get his way . . .  including, perhaps, murder.

It should come as no shock that the off-kilter Kalabrashion agency is heavily into live-action billboards. But nobody . . . nobody does billboards like Daddy. The Kalabrashion crew is nothing but a weak imitation. They don’t have the first clue about putting together a world-class display, yet they gladly take a bunch of cheesy shortcuts to save time, money and personnel. And it shows, too, if you know what you’re looking for.

Wrongheaded Purveyors of Deceit–You Gotta Just Love ‘Em

Everything the Crimpanfortis family rolls out, the Kalabrashions have an answer for– only their answers are perverted and wrongheaded. They are nothing but cheap purveyors of darkness and deceit. Whereas the Crimpanfortis family lifts civilization high, the Kalabrashion’s goal is to tear everything down. If something is supposed to be fun and alive, the Kalabrashions make it dreary and foreboding.

Paymor, the vilest member of a vile family, is a bit older than me. I have never met him and have been told to avoid him at all costs. He’s up to no good and will stop at nothing–even if it entails violent criminal activity–to sully the esteemed Crimpanfortis name.

In short, he’ll wink at you while ordering his lieutenants to wrench your nose off . . . with a pair of loose-fitting pliers.

It all began with Murph, the “Muffler Prince,” who posed on his backstreet billboard clad in only a diaper and a pair of fancy cowboy boots. The beloved Aurora Crimpanfortis transformed this hayseed into an international icon by relocating to the busy I-5 corridor and transforming the display into a 350-foot hydraulic lift, just like in the garage. As the gargantuan billboard went up and down, diaper-clad stunt people bounced on bungee cords onto the Interstate. And that was how “Live-Action Billboards” got their start.

Mufflers and Diapers: The Evolution of Live-Action Billboards

Muffler Prince Hits Staggering International Stride

It was only fitting that Murph the “Muffler Prince” would provide the prototype on which the framework of the world-renowned “Live-Action Billboard” concept would be built. The South Seattle impresario, who mainly kept to himself and sold automobile after-market products under the radar with little to no fanfare, was suddenly thrust onto the world stage with a diaper, a fedora and staggering international sales figures. This, of course, was after online retail had already hit its stride, and Murph, hardly an early adopter, was suddenly wondering why he was paying commercial rent and on-site staff when sales were pouring in from halfway around the globe.

Where Showmen Come to Rock their Diapers

Being a showman at heart, Murph was very amenable when Aurora Crimpanfortis (you all can just keep calling her Mama), approached him about taking his billboard campaign to the next level. Mama, bless her, could be quite persuasive. I sometimes wonder where I’d be in my career today were Mama still around. Something tells me she would have dissuaded me from producing that truly unfortunate infomercial in Burbank,

I digress. I try not to think about that now, even though it’s landed me in the middle of Podunk Flats But that’s a conversation for another time.

My Loincloth Ultimately Won Out

Mama took old diaper-clad Murph under her seasoned wing and pledged to make him an even bigger star than he already was. Make no mistake Murph was already doing quite well for himself, thanks to the night I ran wind sprints on his catwalk wearing only a fur-lined jockstrap (my lion loincloth). Murph already fashioned himself a celebrity which was fine, but he was talking about ditching the diaper. He claimed that it had outlived its purposefulness and was demeaning to the social causes he now wished to champion.

Thankfully, Mama talked him out of that nonsense. At the heart of it, Murph was a hard-working muffler salesman from south Seattle. He’d probably listened to some consultant at a long-forgotten trade show and figured it was a good idea to do an outdoor campaign wearing only a diaper and a fedora. The bulldog “Muffles” was a nice touch, and someone should get credit for that, but let’s be clear on this: it took a night of heavy news coverage starring me and my loincloth for this small-time peddler to see the light of day.

Working out the Kinks of a Pure Genius Approach

The plan Mama hatched made Murph go from static to dynamic overnight. In her vision. Murph would lead a group of other diaper-clad men in regular routines on the catwalk. The other men would come from an agency and cover Murph’s blunders with their stage presence. They would do things like line dance, joust with the mufflers, pretend to be playing the mufflers like musical instruments and twirl them like batons. Everything would be synchronized and cut to musical beats that could be heard along that stretch of the 509.

Once they got the kinks worked out, the whole act moved to a far more visible location in Tukwila at the 405 cutoff approaching the Southcenter Mall on northbound I-5. There, Murph’s services were no longer required as the troupe was performing 185 feet up and trading out shifts and bathroom breaks across a nonstop, 24-hour cycle.

The extravaganza garnered rave reviews from various quarters, but it was only the start.

The Crimpanfortis family was just getting rolling, and promised much, much more.

Join us as we talk about the first night that “Live-Action Billboards” came into existence. Like a lot of other things in life, it was neither planned nor staged. It just sort of happened. And it grew organically until becoming the phenomenon it is today. Indeed, you can’t travel far on our nation’s freeways and Interstates without being exposed to the wonderful, whimsical, enchanting, enlightening, illuminating and breathtaking displays. The Crimpanfortis family does things right, pulling out all the stops in getting creative and daring above our nation’s highways and byways

Live Action Billboards: How It All Began

Getting Creative above our Nation’s Highways and Byways

The concept of “Live-Action Billboards” came about quite by accident one stress-filled evening in the Duwamish tide flats south of Seattle. I had just screwed up royally as mascot for our high school football team. It was the conference championship and a real tight game that went right down to the wire. Lo and behold our halfback got sprung for a touchdown in the waning seconds of the game. I was so jubilant that I guess I stepped onto the field early or something. The refs threw all these flags at my kinked lion’s tail and the fans started booing something fierce. I thought my teammates were going to kill me. And they were some big dudes slotted for scholarships in the PAC-28.

Needing time to be alone and lick my wounds, I hitched a ride with some opposing fans on their way back to West Seattle to catch the Fauntleroy ferry. By the time they dropped me at the 509 cutoff, they were feeling pretty sorry for me. They wondered why I was venturing into no-man’s land in my bedraggled lion’s garb.

I didn’t plan on making it out alive. Bears supposedly hung out in these parts.

I watched the taillights disappear in the forest of blue spruce that swayed softly in the warm night breeze.

Then I looked up.

Getting a Wild Hair that Changed the Course of Advertising

Directly in front of me was one of Daddy’s massive billboards, It was an advertisement for car mufflers. Murph the “Muffler Prince” stood proudly with one of his products slung over a bare, meaty shoulder much like a cleanup batter in baseball heading from the on-deck circle to the plate. For reasons known only to Murph and the creative department, he wore nothing more than a fedora and diaper. His hairless pink gut prominently hung over the white cotton napkin fastened with a garish gold-plated safety pin. “Muffles,” his slobbering bulldog sidekick, also wore a fedora and diaper. He carried a miniature muffler in his mouth like a prized bone.

With nothing to lose, I clambered up the base of the enormous structure. I didn’t know what I was going to do when I reached the catwalk. I just figured I’d play it by ear.

The rest is history.

Just Doing What Came Naturally

I guess I had a lot of pent-up energy or something. Stripped to my ratty lion loins, I started hamming it up, doing wind sprints on the catwalk along with bizarre calisthenics and impressive handstands. I wasn’t really aware of anything, I was just blowing off steam, but I guess I soon started to attract a little bit of attention.

Well, actually . . . a lot of attention.

It didn’t take long before there was a full-blown incident in the works.

I had already stopped traffic on the 509 in both directions; local stations had started teasing their eleven o’clock newscasts with live cut-ins of me performing crabwalks across the catwalk. News vans assembled at the base of the monopole and helicopters hovered overhead. Blinding lights stabbed the succulent night sky in all directions.

And Then It Really Started to Get Insane

Let’s get something straight: I come from a family long on drama and short on patience. When it finally registered what was going on, members of my family leapt into action.

And of course overreacted.

Daddy, as usual, was on the road but nonetheless barked orders long distance. Mama, as usual, didn’t listen to Daddy and took matters into her own hands.

Then everything started happening all at once.

Dirkie Tirk, a stunt professional extraordinaire and old family friend, galloped onto the scene aboard his co-star palomino and attempted to lasso me on the planks.

Our licensed billboard workers, dressed like rodeo clowns (the moonlighting job from which they’d just been summoned), stormed the bulkhead and chased me around the billboard, across the catwalk, up the ladder on one side and down the other.

My high school marching band showed up and boarded the catwalk in formation, trying, through a brassy heartfelt serenade, to literally coax me off the ledge. They were followed by star members of the football team, some clad only in jockstraps, as well as the homecoming queen, who had just been applying varnish to the aft deck of her family’s yacht. She wore the tiara.

Referees brought up the rear, tossing an endless supply of bright yellow penalty flags.

Mama culminated the night when she repeatedly buzzed the billboard with a leased Pure Deluxe Barnstormer Special.

The Birth of the “Live-Action Billboard”

The publicity generated from that unplanned stunt was, needless to say, monumental. It got really insane the following week when some dude from outside Reno ordered five thousand high-performance, direct-fit mufflers. Daddy, who was definitely not born yesterday, sniffed out a real opportunity and the “Live-Action Billboard” was born.

The takeaway is this: if you want to grab people’s attention, you’d better let the message literally leap from the signage.

And oh, by the way . . . in the event you’re wondering: did I get any credit for developing this radical new form of advertising?

Not on your life. You really don’t know my family, do you?

You hear a lot about interactive these days. Everything is seemingly interactive this or interactive that. The deeper you enmesh the audience into your sales proposition, the better the company’s bottom line. The Crimpanfortis media empire was built on interactivity, starting with the newspaper network way back when. Find out how this stable of media-savvy editors started embedding clues into stories so that readers could realize vast riches from national prizes based on having the correct answers. And then came television. Progress takes a back seat to nothing – except television . . .

Family Values – The Winning Crimpanfortis Touch

You Gotta Be Different to be Worth Mega-Billions

For generations, the Crimpanfortis family ruled the newspaper biz with groundbreaking promotions, lotteries and contests. That was what fueled the present-day flames of media supremacy.

Great-great-granddaddy Crimpanfortis had a plan. His newspaper empire stretched across this magnificent land far and wide. His publications covered towns and cities big and small. There was not one segment of citizenry in this burgeoning country that lacked exposure to the unique reporting style of the Crimpanfortis News Agency.

The Patented Crimpanfortis Interactive Component

What made Crimpanfortis newspapers different from the others was the gaming aspect. Each edition had a front-page crossword puzzle below the fold. Clues to the crossword puzzle were embedded in the news stories. So you had to read the newspaper in order to get the answers. The puzzles even had clues that were found in advertisements.

In what amounted to primitive interactive strategies, readers mailed in their completed crossword puzzles to be eligible for the weekly drawing. Prizes were awarded based on market size. Some of the smaller newspapers didn’t have readership that amount to much more than neighborhoods. Then you had your behemoths like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco. Whereas the weekly drawings in a place like Lodge Grass, Montana might yield a prize of cooking utensils, in some place like Cleveland the weekly grand prize may be a shiny new Ford Super Deluxe convertible.

Amounting to the National Lottery

That was nothing, however, compared to the annual drawing that occurred each year at midnight on December 31^st. If anyone thought the ball dropping in Times Square was a big deal, they knew nothing about the “Pulling of the One.” Approximating a national lottery, one packet of crossword puzzles was plucked from a row of ten gleaming cement mixers with clear barrels. The contestants’ packets included completed copies of the previous year’s crossword puzzles. Each puzzle was tested for accuracy and authenticity.

The winner’s prize would be insane: some years it was a custom-built mansion; other years it was a yacht the size of a small ocean-liner; sometimes it would be straight cash–the equivalent of a cool five million in today’s scattershot money market. One thing was certain: everyone in the country was hungrily tuned to their radios to learn if they were the nation’s big winner.

Progress Takes a Back Seat to Nothing–Except Television

Over the years, the Crimpanfortis News Agency grew bigger and bolder. Forget about the fact that their reporting left much to be desired. They had to angle their stories in order to conform to the daily clues of the crossword puzzle. A rather steep monthly subscription price aided the bottom line–which people were willing to pay to get premium coupons as well as access to the crossword puzzles.

With the inception of television, the Crimpanfortis family saw the handwriting on the wall and dumped out on print to pursue new media ventures. But the newspaper left a vast footprint, a lasting legacy and a corresponding fortune to build on.

Then came the sunspots, and everything got jumbled up for a while.

But it wasn’t too long before the Crimpanfortis crowd roared back.

That’s what they always seem to do . . .

It’s not easy being me, it never was and probably never will be. What compounds the problem is the people around me – mainly my family. Oh sure, they want the best for me. Or maybe it’s what will make them look the best. When things come so easily for them, they can’t for the life of them understand why I can’t follow suit. Heck, I was even lousy as a high school mascot. But striking out on my own and forging a career – are you serious? By the way . . . did I mention that Daddy is worth billions?

Ballad of a Freewheeling Flop

My Name is Morris Bartlett Crimpanfortis V

I was held back a year in grade school because I mismanaged my social media accounts.

Mama wanted me to become an actor or a news anchor or a weathercaster, something to complement by cheerful disposition. I failed miserably. During stage plays I’d lose my place at critical times and start mouthing other peoples’ cue lines.

I miss Mama so.

Daddy is Worth Billions–and that’s supposed to Impress Me?

Daddy wanted me to do something to add legitimacy to the family tree, like becoming an architect or chemist–anything but a politician or lawyer (even though, don’t get me wrong, he relies on the latter two every waking minute of the day). As for Daddy’s lofty aspirations for me, I quickly proved that those wishful dreams were well above my limited scholarly pay grade.

A Writer of Spec Scripts–Who Woulda Thunk It?

What I enjoyed most was writing spec scripts for feature films. During high school, my treatments ran the gambit: the ferry boat captain who sold peoples’ cars while they commuted across Puget Sound; the guy who bred venomous birds that struck without provocation; and the revved up amphibious schooner that roared across boulevards with a crew of daring desperados that pulled off one successful bank heist after another.

Mama wasn’t overly impressed with my literary efforts: I wrote a script about interplanetary motorcycle gangs exploding from the depths of Crater Lake while wreaking havoc on the I-5 corridor between Vancouver, BC and Sacramento.

Other than that, my proudest moment came when I finished the treatment for a soap opera that featured people in a northern California seaside community, who reacted strangely to routine tide changes by inexplicably growing extra fingers. So they had to deal with that irksome condition in addition to all the other aspects of their sorry, sordid lives. Mama failed to see the redeeming value in any of it.

I was a High School Mascot . . . with Issues

As an underappreciated mascot at my high school on the south side of Seattle, I liked to conduct mock interviews in the locker room during halftime of big games. Dressed in my ratty Abyssinian Lion costume, players and coaches would really pitch a fit as I stuck a fake mic in their angry faces. They got so worked up they burst from the locker room and made mincemeat of the opposing team. So I guess it wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

Upon graduating college with a degree in communications, no one had much of an interest in hiring me. For years I languished, taking odd jobs.

Did I mention Daddy was a billionaire?

We have clawed and scratched our way back from the solar flare attack that nearly took the world down. We may not be contemplating trips to other galaxies just yet, but at least the traffic lights work. And we still may be a little lax on recursive algorithms and beam stack searches, but our dedicated techs have resuscitated the venerable fax machine. So while we’re not exactly communicating at warp speed, we’re not reduced to fumbling around in the dark either. And you thought unpaved cul-de-sacs on the moon were gauche . . .

Selling Used Cars on Mars is Gonna Have to Wait

Digging Out from the Second Great Sunspot Dilemma

Before embarking on the misadventures of Morris Crimpanfortis V and his family’s media-manic escapades, a little housekeeping is in order. The world was in recovery mode from the solar flare debacle that had occurred a decade earlier. Though not necessarily living like cavemen (as was the case following the first solar flare catastrophe), we were definitely not yet back to being at the top of our game. Revisiting 1985 technology is DEFINITELY NOT being at the top of our game.

Unpaved Cul-de-sacs on the Moon . . . how Gauche

This is how it had all gone down nearly ten years ago: no sooner had we contemplated selling used cars on Mars, then . . . WHAM! Here comes the Second Great Sunspot Dilemma. What a mess. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time. The second installment occurred just after we’d finally cleaned up from the first dilemma, a process lasting eons more than we thought it would. And to think–we’d just figured out how to plant palm trees along the boulevards of Mercury without the fronds constantly exploding in riotous combustion!

The Second Great Sunspot Dilemma differed from the initial one in terms of severity. The second iteration of the solar-induced disturbance was not nearly as devastating as the first. Maybe we were better prepared the second time around. It took less than two years to start communicating with each other again instead of the decades-long fiasco following the first worldwide outage.

Going from a Harley-Davidson Softail to a Rickety Trike

Of course, we were never the same after the first debacle. So to say we recovered quicker from the second one is not really telling the whole story. The first iteration delivered a knockout blow to engineering feats, technical marvels and digital masterpieces that had marked the supremacy of earthly dominance across a number of cosmic dimensions, only to be eclipsed by the jarring reality that nothing lasts forever. So if you considered the infrastructure and economic engine that existed before the first meltdown, it was like going from a Harley-Davidson Softail Standard to a rickety tricycle. We had barely recovered our ability to time travel when BLAM-HOOEY, here came another bout of those nasty solar flares.

Recursive Algorithms and Fluctuating Traffic Lights

We have clawed and scratched our way back. We may not be contemplating trips to other galaxies just yet, but at least the traffic lights work. And we still may be a little lax on recursive algorithms and beam stack searches, but our dedicated techs have resuscitated the venerable fax machine. So while we’re not exactly communicating at warp speed, we’re not reduced to fumbling around in the dark either.

At least the masses are not feeling it to such an extent on the moon. Then again, those zany pioneers were never really living in what you would call an “advanced civilization” to begin with. If you have any doubts, just check what it means to be “outhoused.”

A Thousand Recycled Satellite Channels–Finally!

So that’s a brief rundown of our current situation. Every now and then there’s a breakthrough: somebody figures a way to power up a long-dormant satellite so we can receive a thousand more TV channels; a cell tower here or there may be reactivated, only to flicker and falter in the next rainstorm; robots, even primitive versions that can’t think for themselves, make sporadic comebacks. Still, all the pieces of the glorious civilization have yet to coalesce in a way that will allow us to become the shining planet on the galactic hillside we once were. And though a whole generation, me included, never knew the world when it was so advanced, so sure of itself, can you blame any of us for wanting a rapid return to the superlative nature of things?

Billboards Make It Real . . . In Any Galaxy

Until then, we try making the planet the best place possible in which to live. My family’s company, Hyper-Citation, is certainly doing its part. We’re bringing outdoor advertising to new heights, and it only gets better and more daring each day. We’re also attempting to do new and innovative TV programming and that’s where I hope to someday make a meaningful and long-lasting contribution.

We look forward to that point of time when our billboards will be in other galaxies. Who knows what we’ll be advertising? And to whom? We don’t even know what basic forms of communication will be involved. All we know for sure: it’s going to be unpredictable; and it’s going to be a hoot.

So stay tuned and stay prepared to reach the hearts and minds of individuals of all walks of life–across all dimensions, all channels and all annals of time–many of whose DNA you probably wouldn’t recognize if it hit you squarely between the eyes.