Riding the Kucinich bandwagon on to New Hampshire!

[January 21st, 2004] * Sydney Matson, director of promotions for the theater company e3 Productions, flashed some nifty PR judo by turning WW critic Steffen Silvis' scathing review of e3's current play into a promo stunt. "The bad scenes in this new adaptation of The Bad Seed are too numerous to tag," Silvis wrote (WW, Jan. 14, 2004). Theater officials are offering tickets at half-price for customers willing to take the "Silvis Challenge." Wrote Matson, "Our goal with the Silvis Challenge is to prove to our loyal customers that this show IS GREAT!" To take the Silvis Challenge, visit www.electricco.org/tickets.html and type in "Silvis" as the coupon code. Just don't say you haven't been warned. One website poster wrote, "Sorry, but this time the hatchet man (Silvis) was right."

* For the first time since 1997, Wieden & Kennedy is back in the big game. Portland's gorilla-sized advertising agency was hired by AOL to make commercials that will air during the Super Bowl on Feb. 1. This year, the CBS network is charging $2.3 million for 30 seconds of airtime.

* Alert readers may have noticed the debut of Honu beer, an alarmingly clear new Hawaii-only beverage from Portland Brewing that is guaranteed to help save defenseless sea turtles. Turns out Honu conception also had less altruistic motives: to put the hurt on Kona, Hawaii's current top beer brand. Informed sources say Portland Brewing (which used to brew Kona) and its distributor were peeved when the Kona contract moved to Widmer Bros., Portland's largest brewer. So they created Honu to retake Hawaii in a storm of reptilian sympathy.

* Protesters are concerned that the recent visit by Vice President Dick Cheney illustrates Police Chief Derrick Foxworth's stance on that whole "free speech" thing. First, you fence off a muddy area with standing pools of water and make all the protesters stand in it--outnumbered by cops in fearsome riot gear and nowhere near the VP. Before and afterward, on TriMet, check the ticket of anyone who looks political. The approach brings to mind how Northeast Precinct operated under then-Cmdr. Foxworth. Police officers tell Murmurs that leading up to the May Day rally of 2001, they were instructed at roll calls to gather "intelligence" on potential protesters by targeting political-looking folks for petty violations such as jaywalking and littering.

* Over at Southwest 3rd Avenue and Burnside Street, Tres Shannon at Voodoo Doughnut is basking in the glow of publicity over his caffeine-infused delectables, which even were alluded to by Jay Leno earlier this month. A Murmurs operative assigned to tube-monitoring relates the following Leno punchline: "What's this for, people who want to stay awake during their bypass surgery?" Voodoo Doughnut also made Good Morning America recently and, according to Shannon, is slated for AM Northwest on Jan. 26.