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“Hotter than July.” The Legal Marketing Association is fired up this summer ― plus more playlists! #lmamkt #lma23

11 July 2023

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“Hotter than July.” That’s not just a kickass Stevie Wonder album, but is a phrase that could also be used to describe all of YOU! LMA is en fuego this summer. I’m inspired by all of the amazing content you are generating these days: thought leadership, webinars, social media, in-person presentations, social outings, conference planning, on and on. I try like the Dickens to keep up with it all, and am happy to report that is humanly IMPOSSIBLE. So kudos to y’all!

I was fortunate enough to make a trip to Toronto in June to join one of the Canada Region’s summer socials. And it was off the chain. Eighty attendees, vibrant dialogue, so much connection and just great fun. Kudos to Jessica Horowitz and team for all the hard work and planning! Thank you to Canada President Hans Chang for extending the invite AND for treating me to an incredible lunch the next day. You may or may not know this, but Hans was tapped as president-elect this year, but stepped up to the prez role in quick fashion when this year’s original president left our wonderful industry for another great opportunity. (A testament to how in demand you all are BTW!) Hans pivoted like the champ he is and quickly immersed himself. Didn’t skip a beat. He has led with heart and authenticity, and he shared with me that he sees himself as a steward, adding to what has come before and simply hoping to leave things a bit better than he found them. I’d say he’s doing very well at that mission! That’s all we can ask of ourselves as leaders.

While I was there, Canada Board Member Sara Short (communications) said these magical words: “I love your playlists! I’m going to miss those!” So you can blame her for this…another playlist to round out your summer fun. Hopefully as good for a glass of wine on the patio as a raging house party. You’re welcome! Here on iTunes and Spotify 🎵. And, yes, my beloved theater peeps Idina Menzel and Billy Porter are well-represented…but these ain’t no show tunes. You’ll see!

 

Roy July Pres mssg_canada 2 photo
Roy July Prez mssg_canada 1 photo

Shout out to the Midwest Region who is killing it with a series of meet-ups across the region. I was able to join the Michigan Architecture tour here in Detroit – thanks to John Reed and Andrea Oleszczak and team for planning such a thoughtful, inspiring, engaging afternoon. And I see you Kate Shipham, Amie Allison, Jason Klika, Rich Marsolais, Jennifer Shankleton, Tanya Riggan and other Midwest Board members getting your miles (and steps) in touring our Midwest LSCs. 

Midwest Michigan Architecture

 

The photos of these meet-ups are such great fun to see!

Kudos to our Northeast Region and Mid-Atlantic Region for following a similar model on socials AND launching some incredible educational content this summer. I know a recent client-service education event in the Northeast had over 115 attendees! Way to go, Northeast President Jay Linder, Mid-Atlantic President Kathryn Burke and respective teams!

(Sidenote: I worry when I start going down this path of shout-outs that I’m leaving someone out. Please know that this is all offered just in the spirit of celebration and that we are grateful for ALL of the efforts at play this summer!)

Speaking of the Midwest – thank you to Ashley Defay, Kate Harry Shipham, Lauren McNee, Sara Pierson and Rob Kates for this opportunity to reflect on being a gay man in this industry, my mid-year reflections on this wonderful role I get to carry, leadership lessons generally, and…The Little Mermaid. If you missed the interview, you can catch it here. It’s a pretty candid chat and all comes from the heart.

21DAY SOCIAL MEDIA CHALLENGE

Kudos to Jennifer Forester, Jacob Eidinger, Erika Galarneau and the Social and Digital Media SIG team for their exceptional work on June’s “21-Day Social Media Challenge,” (login to view) in its second year. 

I didn’t think they could top themselves from last year…but they did. The conversations were robust and provocative and actionable. If you missed it this year, do NOT miss it in the future. It exemplifies what is so incredible about LMA: community: sharing knowledge and insight and connecting through learning. 

And as robust as our LMA community is, I must admit that we had a “shoot for the moon” goal of 4,500 members in 2023 as an International Board. Truth be told, the eddies of a shifting economy among other issues have conspired and we’re more likely to hit 4,100. Still growth from last year, but not as big as we’d hoped. And that’s ok. (For those ready to hit the “I told you so” button, I’m pre-empting you!) That said, the International Board is hard at work in a series of sub-teams looking at membership, regional growth, education and revenue diversification toward the end of yielding nuanced, achievable goals for next year. More to come on that. But that’s the job we signed up and we’re happy to support the continued evolution of this marvelous association. (Know someone who should be a member? Invite them to join LMA with our special Mid-Year Membership Offer!)

We’re halfway through this year and already we’ve had so many great events and impactful educational offerings. To date across HQ and regions, we have offered 100+ educational opportunities with thousands of attendees — in addition to the 1,100+ attendees at the 2023 Annual Conference (recordings available here)! And there are many more events happening now and planned for this year.

As you have likely seen on social media and beyond, we have a number of great regional conference offerings in the queue for this fall. Check out the schedule for your region and make sure to join one (or more!) to continue your growth and development as professionals. One last shout-out to our Southeast Region and President Laura Hudson. Not only are they planning a fab conference for THIS fall, but they are also already ahead of the curve, securing NEXT YEAR’S dates with a very thoughtful approach. Love seeing that collaboration, hard work and embracing of best practices. Go, team!

And while you may have a little downtime, consider sharing your expertise and submitting an educational session idea for the LMA 2024 Annual Conference Call for Content which is open only through July 17. You can alternately submit your name for consideration as a possible speaker or panelist.

Keep taking time for you where you can – and keep connecting meaningfully with each other! That’s why we joined this LMA club and what makes it all worthwhile!

Love you,

Roy

President, 2023 LMA International Board of Directors

Roy E. Sexton
Director of Marketing
Clark Hill

 

Save the Date! #LMA24 I April 3-5 I San Diego

Add Your Expertise! Call for Content Open Through July 17

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No yellow-and-black briefcases full of money nor aspiring warblers from Topeka: Howie Mandel live at Caesars Windsor

14 September 2014

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Howie MandelThe other day over lunch with my pal Neil Simon (the consultant, not the playwright) I started to elaborate on a point I made earlier (apropos of nothing) on a blog entry about Gone With The Wind, namely that I love comedians who can mix bawdiness with self-deprecation, raunch with childlike whimsy, spiteful take-down with satiric absurdity. If a comedian is just mean or arrogant or gross for the sake of achieving some false sense of superiority over his or her audience, I ain’t havin’ it.

For me, Richard Pryor wins out every day over Eddie Murphy. Kathy Griffin or Joan Rivers get the prize over Lisa Lampanelli or Sarah Silverman. I’d rather spend an afternoon with Stephen Colbert, Lewis Black, or Whoopi Goldberg than Dane Cook, Kevin Hart, or Bill Maher (maybe). The list goes on.

(Maher may be the exception that proves the rule for me as his egomania, misogyny, and dyspepsia often serve as a brilliant counterpoint to the political zingers he is attempting to land…but he still gives me a headache.)

Howie MandelI’d never really given much thought to how I feel about Howie Mandel, though. Like Gallagher or Carrot Top, he made my junior high self laugh with abandon over the funny voices and the latex gloves on his head, the germaphobia and the OCD. I never watched St. Elsewhere – he may have been genius there. I just don’t know. I adored his charming children’s show Bobby’s World in the 90s, and it always amused me greatly that his helium-voiced alter ego also doubled as the vocalizations for Gizmo in Gremlins and Skeeter on Muppet Babies.

As I got older, Mandel just seemed to disappear into the margins. I may have unfairly lumped him into the buffoonish band of novelty comics, or maybe he just became complacent, hosting game shows (Deal or No Deal) and talent contests (America’s Got Talent) and shaving his head and growing silly-looking “soul patches” on his chin.

How wrong I was.

Howie MandelLast night, we had the pleasure of taking in his stand-up routine at Caesars Windsor in their much-vaunted Colosseum room. (Let me say, though, that the room does not live up to the marketing hype, resembling a giant pole barn and with an entrance/egress system that functions more like a giant game of Milton Bradley’s Mousetrap than an efficient/pleasant welcome/farewell to the audience. It is a claustrophobe’s and a process engineer’s nightmare.)

Regardless, Mandel presented a remarkable show, reminding, at least this viewer, what made Mandel great in the first place. His routine on Saturday night was a mix of prepared and improvised material, free-wheeling in its delivery and free-ranging in its topics. With a boyish pluck, Mandel brought down the house, riffing on audience members’ foibles and any information they recklessly volunteered. His silliest and funniest moments came at the expense of two security guards downstage who seemed more interested in staring at each other than in protecting the funnyman. Yet, Mandel was never mean nor cruel; he was ever-playful and as hard on his own eccentricities as those of the targeted audience members.

Howie MandelMandel was plenty “blue” in his material, but it never offended as he comes across more as a little kid laughing at his own farts than a skeezy old man who bullies those around him with dirty jokes. You know the type I mean, right? You’ve seen such pricks (sorry for the colorful euphemism) at your high school reunions or at family picnics? “Hey, you, listen to something really filthy here. Does it make you uncomfortable? Yeah? Good! I win!” Mandel’s not like that at all, thank goodness.

Sadly, the same can’t be said for his tone-deaf opening act Shuli Egar, a correspondent from The Howard Stern Show, who came off as a hateful little creep and who seems to think life is there for his ridicule and contempt. There were pockets of laughter during his set, but mostly it was a pretty flat affair that could be best described as Don Rickles/Cheech & Chong/Ray Romano as re-written by Attila the Hun. My advice to him? Ditch the hipster glasses that make him look like mean bird, make fun of himself more, and let us see his tortured inner life that makes him so despise his outer one. THAT would be interesting. (Let me add – Stern I’ve always loved. See rationale in opening paragraphs above. This toadie of Stern’s? Not so much.)

Howie MandelBack to Mandel. He shared with the audience that earlier on Saturday he had become a grandfather for the first time, and, rather than coming across as cloying or preachy (a la someone like Bill Cosby), he used said news in clever and irreverent ways to introduce such tried and true Mandellian topics as … his omnipresent fear of germs; the torture of being on the road 24/7; his love for his wife as expressed by torturing her daily with public tomfoolery; the highs and lows of being part of nationally beloved reality shows on the Peacock Network (En…BEEEE….Ceee!); and so on.

Seeing Howie Mandel live is an interesting phenomenon. A forgotten comic (at least to me) becomes vital, vibrant, possibly even essential in that setting. The electricity of his intelligence and his wit, the kindness in his heart, and the acerbic view he projects toward this ridiculous planet make him very winning, indeed. I’m sure the TV shows and the merchandise and the appearances rake in the moolah, but here’s hoping the third act of Mandel’s storied career gets him back on stage, alone and live, with no yellow-and-black briefcases full of money nor aspiring warblers from Topeka.

Detroit always looks best from ... Canada?

Detroit always looks best from … Canada?

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Reel Roy Reviews is now a book! Thanks to BroadwayWorld for this coverage – click here to view.

In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the book currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan.

My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language.

“Anybody that’s different, we’re ready to be prejudiced against them” – Jonathan Balazs’ documentary Mars Project

2 May 2014

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[Image Source: marsprojectmovie.blogspot.ca]

[Image Source: Mars Project]

One of the things I love most about social media is that, if you allow yourself, you can expand your horizons beyond the provincial – those traditional boundaries of geography, life experience, education, family – to defy and redefine the term “friend.” This is a revolution in the making, and none of us can really see the forest for the trees at this point as to how differently our communities, virtual or otherwise, ultimately will look in the future.

That being said, I was honored when Canadian filmmaker Jonathan Balazs reached out to me via Facebook as a follower of this blog to see if I would review his documentary Mars Project (click here for more info). I was thrilled that he wanted to share his work with me – evidence of the global footprint we all can create with just a few keystrokes.

(As an aside, this morning, I heard Sheryl Sandberg – COO of Facebook and author of Lean In speak at Detroit’s Adcraft Club breakfast. I appreciated her candor about the toxic effects of sexism, racism, ageism, and all the other nasty “-ism”s in society today. Interesting factoid: 63% of facebook’s 1.28 BILLION users return every day.)

Balazs’ documentary, a brisk 60 minutes, offers the haunting tale of a hip-hop artist Khari “Conspiracy” Stewart who may or may not be suffering from mental illness and how his frustrations with the health care system lead him to explore more spiritual/humanistic options to cure his “affliction”.

We learn Khari’s story in his own words through voice-over as well as through first person interviews with his twin brother Addi, who telegraphs a palpable mix of frustration, rivalry, annoyance, and love. We also hear from representatives of the mental health profession who express their frustration with their own colleagues’ tendency toward quick medicinal fixes and reductive categorization. One doctor observes, “Anybody that’s different, we’re ready to be prejudiced against them.”

Arguably the most interesting question the documentary grapples with is the “chicken or the egg” phenomenon of whether insanity breeds great art or the intensity of the artistic process prompts social maladjustment. Art as therapy?

The film pointedly critiques a society that often labels “mentally ill” those folks who view the world differently. In watching Addi and hearing him articulate his understandable frustrations with Khari, the viewer may intuit a rush to judgment that occurs out of annoyance and jealousy as much as it does concern for his brother’s well-being.

The filmmakers don’t offer us any easy answers to these questions, and, at times, I wondered if Khari had created this persona of a hip-hop artist plagued by demonic voices (that may or may not come from space!) as a quirky means of differentiating and marketing himself. Yet, as the film runs its course, illuminating the reality of Khari’s difference, it becomes apparent that his musical gifts come with a price.

Balazs uses a variety of techniques to illustrate Khari’s unique place in a world that rejects him. At one point. a radio interview is played wherein the DJs remark how Khari’s music is 10 years ahead of its time, while his own brother, a member of the crew, admits he can barely bring himself to listen to it.

The film is shot in a grainy hand-held fashion that suits the subject matter, with some interesting layered effects as footage is projected on brick walls and other stationary objects in and around Edmonton, the twins’ hometown.

I have had a tenuous relationship with hip hop in recent years, though I was a big fan in high school and college. Those artists who speak to me have always been a bit left of center, be it De La Soul or Black Sheep or Jungle Brothers or Digable Planets or even more mainstream folks like Kanye West and Erykah Badu.

I also find myself questioning the efficacy of modern approaches to mental health, which seem more about bringing everyone “in-line” to “normalcy” … when I’m not sure any of us really know what that is or what that looks like.

I’m not meaning to start a debate here about mental health doctrine or about the artistic merits of Kanye West, but I will concede that this documentary gave me a lot of food for thought … and makes me want to find some of Khari’s musical output. And, in this sense, Balazs did his job as a documentarian beautifully. Balazs is a filmmaking force to watch.

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Reel Roy Reviews is now a book! Thanks to BroadwayWorld for this coverage – click here to view. In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the book currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan. My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language.

In the nick of time: Argo

30 December 2012

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Description: Film poster; Source: Wikipedia [linked]; Portion used: Film poster only; Low resolution? Sufficient resolution for illustration, but considerably lower resolution than original. Other information: Intellectual property by film studio. Non-free media use rationales: Non-free media use rationale - Article/review; Purpose of use: Used for purposes of critical commentary and illustration in an educational article about the film. The poster is used as the primary means of visual identification of this article topic. Replaceable? Protected by copyright, therefore a free use alternative won't exist.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

When did Ben Affleck get interesting? Somewhere around his indie turn in the film Hollywoodland, about George Reeves, the ill-fated star of Golden Age TV’s Superman? Or was it when The Town demonstrated he could act and direct? Prior to that, I wasn’t sure he could do either, and colossal turkeys like Pearl Harbor or his fling with Jennifer Lopez didn’t help matters. Honestly, he always seemed like a posturing, stiff, preening phony to me.

But interesting he is now, and further evidence arrived this fall in the form of Argo, again directed by and starring Affleck.

Not sure why it took us over two months to finally see this film, but I’m glad we did…and in the perfect setting, actually. Ann Arbor’s State Theatre looks like it last saw a decorator (and possibly cleaning crew) around the era in which the film is set, so let me say, I felt totally immersed in a grungy, claustrophobic 1970s vibe.

Affleck, a fellow Gen X survivor, nails the Me Decade’s ugly, clunky, chunky style and twitchy social anxiety. I haven’t felt this nerve-wracked in a film about strangers in a strange land since Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek’s Missing over 30 years ago.

As most of you already know, the film, set during the Iran hostage crisis, tracks an ultimately successful CIA operation to smuggle out six Americans, purporting to be a Canadian film crew scouting locations for a Star Wars rip-off.

I can vividly recall watching the release of the other 44 hostages on the TV in our upstairs bedroom when I was a kid. I can still see the grainy footage in my mind’s eye as I barely could comprehend what those people had gone through for nearly a year and a half.

Affleck must have been watching too because he expertly captures that free-floating anxiety of lives in peril, but balanced with a more postmodern understanding that Americans aren’t always the heroes in every story. A thoughtfully done prologue makes quite clear that we created much of the mess in the first place.

Affleck is great as the purposeful ringleader of the operation and is buoyed up by great character turns from Alan Arkin and John Goodman as the film’s sole comic relief, a couple of charmingly smarmy Hollywood types in on the game. Also, Bryan Cranston, Victor Garber, Tate Donovan, and Kyle Chandler deliver credible and at times compelling depictions of well-meaning folks caught up in the intrigue, be they CIA, Canadian diplomat, hostage, or state department.

My only quibbles are with a few of the actors portraying the six Americans in hiding – actors who just didn’t seem too darn convincing, despite their corduroy jackets, over-sized glasses, and unconditioned ’70s ‘dos. At some level, we as audience should worry about them through some self-identification, but the actors here seemed neither terribly distraught nor for that matter very likable…so I kinda forgot that I was supposed to care about them every now and again.

I will also say that I wasn’t too invested in Affleck’s conflicted-near-divorce-loving-father subplot. The kid was cute and his movie wife seemed nice, but it all just felt a bit too trite and conventional, in the midst of an otherwise propulsive and substantial film.

Regardless, the machine of the film and the story of the folks doing the rescuing carry the day. Even knowing how the story turns out, Affleck’s expert pacing makes this one a true nail-biter.  Yup, Ben, you are officially interesting…congratulations!