The Voices in Frank's Head

The folks at Metromix are hosting a pub crawl tonight as part of Detroit's Winter Blast. There won't be any special games at it; nor will there be any freak shows or other extraneous add-ons. It will simply be a whole bunch of people going from one bar to the next. In short, it will be a lot like the pub crawls that I put together and ran quite successfully until a certain Metromix staffer convinced me to do it her way - only to have the event go down in flames. And now Metromix is essentially taking over my template - adding in their own desire to photograph everyone who comes within 100 feet of their "street team" - and calling their own event. (Well, they are adding more bars but that's presumably so they can photograph more people. Even the biggest of partiers won't hit 15 bars in one evening.) I can't really be upset with them for using my template because I didn't invent it. However, I do suddenly feel vindicated by this in much the same wa...

I have come to love Google Alerts . Every time someone posts something on-line about certain subjects, I get an email alert with a link to the post. It doesn't matter where it was posted, Google finds it for me and lets me know about it. I use it to track everything from some of my favorite celebrities, such as Keira Knightley , to some of the groups that I'm a part of, such as Detroit Synergy . It was my Detroit Synergy alert that made me cringe the other day. Along with all of the expected references to their Shop Detroit project was a reference to the group on Metromix. I cringed. Oh, yes, I did. I remembered all of the problems that Metromix had caused for me in the past. I also remembered Michael Higdon's commentary from this past August about how Metromix is a detriment to society. I braced myself for the worst as I clicked the link to see how the kids at Metromix were making my life difficult now. It actually turned to not be that bad at all. Google simply ...

I was sitting in a friend's living room the other evening with a small group of other friends. One game or another had just ended on television. We were trying to decide where we were going next because the night was too young for us to say good night. In what has to be one of the most perfectly timed ad buys, a commercial for Detroit's version of Metromix came on the screen. I silently groaned to myself and resolved to be quiet for the next 30 seconds. It was late. I really didn't feel like having yet another discussion about psychographics and/or why it was that I despised Metromix with a passion. The shocking thing is that I didn't have to hold those thoughts in. Within 5 seconds of this commercial coming on, one of my friends mentioned to no one in particular that Metromix was the web site that Kerry Doman loosely based After 5 Detroit on. I continued to remain silent as this observation led to a 20 minute discussion about Ms. Doman, her web site and her l...

I was reading one of those other blogs in this town this morning. Reportedly, party promoters Matt A and Michael Zografos are spending $40,000 to build a tent in the Whitney's parking lot. This is, of course, not your average tent since it will have chandeliers, hardwood floors and such. Some folks are impressed by this. But those are the people who were impressed by the idea of spending an hour standing in line to get a "free" drink and who didn't think that an event with roughly 600 people attending needed to have bathrooms available at it. Since I've done a fair number of special events in Detroit, I know that on a budget of $10 - $20,000 one can rent: Any of the ballrooms in the Westin Book Cadillac; Colony Club; Detroit Club; Gem Theatre; Most of the rooms in the Masonic Temple; or Any of a dozen or so other options. All of these are facilities where chandeliers and flooring come standard. Plus, they also have ample access to restrooms, better acoustic...

I posted a few days ago about Access Detroit and how the folks at Detroit's version of Metromix managed to screw up what was quiet possibly the most idiot proof event of the year. Specifically, I chastised them for making the "big surprise" at the end of the evening be the D Brand logo that was projected onto the side of a building. I have since received confirmation that this wasn't Metromix's idea. They had nothing to do with it. It was someone else. It was a group of people who are usually one of the best event producers in the country; who simply must have left their brains at home that day. I'm afraid I've simply reached that point in my life and career where, if I see something go wrong and someone from Metromix is within 100 feet of it, I assume that they're responsible for it. Usually, this trend serves me well. The kids at Metromix have a unique ability to screw up just about anything and they seem to go out of their way to do it. But t...

I posted on Saturday about Metromix would inevitably resort to posting photos of random bar patrons because there weren't any people from their Access Detroit event at any of the bars other than Bookies. As of that time, the kids at Metromix hadn't posted those photos. But now they have. Please note the conspicuous absence of red lanyards, which got you the Access Detroit special, on any patrons at any of the bars other than the one (Bookies) that you could see from the block party. So much for getting people to explore downtown Detroit. Oh, and I also got a kick out of how they "forgot" to make any references in their post-event coverage to their "special surprise" of the evening. I also posted on Saturday about how I saw people scratching off, or otherwise obscuring, the Metromix swag that they got - essentially fixing their Metro mi x . With that in mind, please take a look at my "new" hip flask. I picked this up at a previous Metromix eve...

I have to admit that I cringed when I first heard that the kids at Detroit's version of Metromix were involved in the block party that would kick off the re-opening of the Westin Book Cadillac Hotel. I've had experience with them a few times before. Everything they've ever done can fit into one of three categories: Lame; Mismanaged; or Both. I took comfort, however, in the fact that this was the re-opening of the Westin Book Cadillac Hotel . This was the most idiot-proof event of the year. There were so many people looking forward to this that almost anything they did would be a guaranteed success. In retrospect, as I think back to my previous description of this being an "idiot-proof" event, I am reminded of the words of Mark Twain who observed, "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." Yes, I'm afraid it's true. The kids from Metromix did manage to screw this one up. Without further ado, I give you my ...