I knew this guy, Michael Levine, was a skeez when I interned for him at his "PR" firm ages ago. I found it on Craigslist and was an impressionable undergrad, thinking I wanted to possibly go into public relations in the entertainment industry as my line of work. My job as an intern was to try to get him free shit - that is whenever a new book or CD was coming out or if Eric Clapton was coming through town, he'd request for a "comp" and basically handed me torn out advertisements for free shit he wanted. It didn't matter what it was. From hokey mail-order devices, books on tape for books he was too lazy to read to tickets, a weekend at some schmaltzy spa resort, the play at the Geffen or free tickets to
a charity event, nothing was beneath him wanting it for free. I had free reign to his stationery cabinet full of fancy letterhead that said
LCO at the top, the name of his firm. We'd meet once a week in his nice office in a converted house on the border of Beverly Hills and Westwood, he'd go through his list of free isht, and when we didn't come through (I'd say it only worked 1 out of 20 times), he'd YELL at me and whoever else was fortunate enough to be sitting in there to try harder and to "F.U.", that is "follow up!". It was not pleasant. I dreaded those meetings. I observed that through the 6 months or so of my "internship", nobody, whether it was an unpaid intern assigned to partner up with me or secretaries and assistants, seemed to stick around.
He was way slick, used too much hair gel, and totally reminded me of Michael Douglas' character in the movie
Wall Street. There were a few books to his name, which is really a great way to seem important, a relevant sounding one about guerrilla marketing or something that he seemed awfully proud of (I never read it) and a few others, which all sounded pretty hokey, including one about how to get in contact with any celebrity that you want. He used to (I don't know if he still does) have a weekly column in Entertainment Today, a somewhat second rate free weekly publication in LA, which was basically a short paragraph or two name dropping random celebrities like Barbra Streisand and Michael Jackson and egotistical rants about how much he hated when people chewed gum in his presence. He would name drop A-listers on his "roster" and I knew it was too good to be true. I'd see him being quoted every so often in media reports, usually about
stuff he doesn't really know about. Very unimpressive. And it turns out that
I'm right.
Not wanting to chicken out or give up, I stuck it through and bowed out after completing my "service" of the required 6 months. I was promised some sort of certificate, which I never received, and honestly, all I wanted to do for a couple years after my time was to go back to that office and give him a piece of my mind.
I would ALWAYS, and even the last time I looked, see listings on Craigslist for interns for that office. I'm surprised that they're operating and relentless about exploiting young kids aspiring to get into media and communications. One thing I suppose I should be thankful for is that he totally turned me off from going into public relations as a serious career and I'm glad I'm not caught up in that.
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