"NINE HALLMARKS OF
 HIGHLY INCOMPETENT LOSERS"

Aside from writing comedy for the entertainment industry, I have also worked for years in corporate communications, advertising and PR.  I have written, voiced and produced thousands of radio commercials and created sales training and instructional videos, employee orientation programs, executive speeches and special events for such corporations as GTE Directories, Sylvania, DLM Inc., the Lyons Group, TM Productions and Southwestern Bell. In all of it, I've specialized in using humor to hold the audience's interest while delivering a lesson or sales message.

Several years ago, I decided to combine my experience in corporate communications and comedy with my lifelong fascination with human mistakes: why we make mistakes, what we can learn from them, and how we can avoid them. The result is a humorous business/self-help book in the "Peter Principle" tradition, entitled Nine Hallmarks of Highly Incompetent Losers.

The book is now available in paperback, and I perform a humorous but stealthily- informative live speech based on it.  I have been very pleased at the positive response, including glowing reviews in the Dallas Morning News, the Wireless Flash, the Downtown Business News of Dallas and the North Texas Skeptic.
 
 

“The best presentation we’ve ever had!”

                                           -- Ronald G. Deshong,  Fort Worth Massonic Service Association
 

“Pat, thanks for speaking to our club yesterday.  It was very funny and very enjoyable.  You also made the presentation in a very professional manner..I have now recommended you to the Sigma Chi Alumni Association as a speaker."

                                              -- Larry C. Williams, DFW Opex Club/Richardson Optimist Club
 

"Pat was given the challenge of livening up a room full of accountants, who were in the midst of complying with restrictive financial regulations, and getting them see the true value of their efforts 'to do things the right way, the first time.'  His quick wit and 'morning talk show' speaking style had them laughing from the start.  Pat expertly chose his humorous anecdotes to get to the heart of the business issue, yet spiced it up with some blunders and bloopers from everyday life.

It was very refreshing to have Pat as our luncheon speaker and to create a high point to a rather mundane three-day conference."
                                                                              -- George Hendrix, Northrup-Grummon

Everyone agrees that mistakes are how we learn.

Unfortunately, mistakes are also how we get fired..and go bankrupt...and end up in prison.

I believe learning from mistakes is great, as long as you learn from someone else's. So in Nine Hallmarks of Highly Incompetent Losers, I recount dozens of hilarious-but-true stories from our vast Comedy Wire files to illustrate nine basic errors which people make over and over again. These gaffes, boners and boo-boos account for about 90% of all the stories of failure and humiliation that we write about daily.  They are... 

Any one (or a combination) of these mistakes can result in chaos, embarrassment, and in the worst case scenarios, someone dialing 911 and alerting the media. Nobody is immune, from petty criminals with third grade educations to top government bureaucrats and major corporations, as I richly and humorously demonstrate.

For instance, ponder whether the Romanian man who tried to kill his lice by shampooing his hair with gasoline and drying it by a blazing wood stove really showed any less regard for details than the top British government scientists who studied a sample of sheep brains for four years before finally realizing it was actually a mislabeled sample of cow brains.  Or ask yourself if the man who set his head on fire was using it any less than the wealthy Hungarian businessman who bought a $5 million mansion sight-unseen, only to startle guards when he tried to move into his new home: the American Embassy.

It's a healthy dose of sound advice on critical thinking wrapped in a candy-coating of constant laughter, an ideal light presentation for corporate, professional and social gatherings.

To read excerpts from the book or to order copies, click here.

I look forward to speaking to you!
 

I know what you're thinking: "An entire book about tone-deaf Hollywood actors trying to sing? WHY?"   Funny you should ask!  With this book, we hoped to convince the reader that it's more fun to laugh yourself limp at the donkey braying of that musical comedy girl, Bette Davis, than to listen to 45 minutes of wailing arpeggios from Mariah Carey.  In this age of digital recording, when clever producers can use a host of electronic gizmos to make anyone, no matter how talent-deficient, sound like a singer, it's refreshing to see stars such as Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, Joe Pesce and Joan Rivers show themselves to be genuine, fallible human beings by egomanically insisting on recording their own unpolished singing voices, warts and all.

In most celebrity autobiographies, these projects rate at most a quick, embarrassed mention. We hoped to rectify that sad situation, and in so doing, address some of the burning questions of our time: Why did Atlantic Records, home of the Drifters, Ray Charles, Ornette Coleman and Erroll Garner, think it was a good idea to release a twist record by Jerry "Beaver Cleaver" Mathers? What is there about certain TV shows (Batman, Happy Days, Star Trek, Bonanza) that makes every cast member think he can sing? Why do so many actors feel compelled to record with children's choruses and cover the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction?" The public has a right to know!
  

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All material © copyright 2005-2008 by Pat Reeder & Laura Ainsworth or Pat Reeder & George Gimarc