Tag Archives: Philadelphia Magazine

in bad taste

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figgypudding

This post has been surprisingly hard to write.  I did not know what to call this post.  “queen of shameless self-promotion needs dinner” was one thought.  Re-titling the e-mail I am about to share “feed me” was another. “give her some figgy pudding…puleeaazze” almost made it.

But then I just cringed because it occurred to me that although I have little respect for a certain Main Line area fauxblicist , I thought maybe she just didn’t know how she sounded.

Then I woke up.

This one is no stranger to the “I, me, my” of it all. And well, not to be mean, but if you read her website or her Facebook page for her business,  there is never much in the way of original thought, and when there is…well…you end up with the “feed my family for Christmas Eve and we’ll all dress up as the Von Trapp Family Singers courtesy of ABC boutique, DEF make-up, Dr. GHI Botox, and whammo always free for me photography.”

What am I speaking about?  Quite frankly the strangest pitch I have ever seen anyone send out. It is worthy of a Saturday Night Live skit it is so awful.  And I can’t take credit for ferreting this all out, I was sent it via a friend who knows Philadelphia Magazine writer Victor Fiorillo.

Sarah Lockard2

Sarah Lockard

Oh MY, aren’t you just embarrassed for Sarah Lockard?  And wow talk about giving legitimate, hard-working publicists a bad name.

How is it innovative to feed her entire family for free on Christmas Eve? And who goes out to dinner on Christmas Eve anyway that is Catholic or Christian? Unless your family member owns a restaurant? Don’t you gather with family and friends on Christmas Eve or go to church or both?

How is this exciting? And who exactly is this exciting for precisely? Maybe for her because she is in essence asking for a free meal before services are provided.  Sheesh I will Tweet and Instagram just because I like a restaurant.  Heck we all do that these days. And Paris Hilton she ain’t…..but she does need a refresher course from Emily Post. Hey, here’s an *idea* – she can contact EmilyPost.com and ask if her whole family can get a refresher course on basic etiquette and Sarah will tweet about it, give 5 Instagram photos and so on and so forth?

Sarah Lockard fashions herself to be a publisher, publicist, and social media wizard. She has had a website called AroundMainLine. I guess people use it, I never find much that I didn’t see someplace else and most of the content contains photos of Ms. Lockard herself. So maybe she is her own best client? Wonder what she charges herself?

I will tell you straight up I am not a fan.  People who try to climb so desperately and so obviously make me cringe, and well?  To me this is trying too hard to belong.  But then again this is quintessential Main Line of today, and why I don’t miss it.

She likes to say she started Main Line Restaurant Week, which truthfully has less and less to do with the Main Line every year…the thing is this, it was another Sarah who is an actual publicist who did the original Main Line Restaurant Week years and years ago.   I have never understood why she can’t acknowledge that.

I have provided publicity for people as a publicist, and it is in essence what both of my parents did their entire professional career lives. I also have personal friends who are publicists.  So I know how it is done.

This is not it.

I get that Sarah Lockard obviously wants to feel good about herself. As women we all do.  But to put out an e-mail like this in my humble opinion is akin to social / professional suicide.  Except for the fact that the Main Line of today is not your mama’s Main Line. And this one does this unfortunately all of the time and never has the good graces to be the least bit embarrassed.

So break out the figgy pudding y’all, Sarah wants you to buy her family Christmas Eve dinner.    God bless us every one, yo’.

 

Here’s How to Get Your Restaurant Publicity On AroundMainLine.com, Or: How Bad PR People Ruin the PR Industry

By  |  December 10, 2013 at 4:54 pm

Restaurants of Philadelphia, sometimes just being a great restaurant isn’t enough to get publicity for your restaurant. In some cases, you need to buy a publisher and her whole family dinner on Christmas Eve.

marooned and desolate in frazer: lockwood mansion (“loch aerie”)

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There is a mansion which has fascinated me for years.   A giant Victorian creature, marooned and perched on an island of land in Frazer, PA along route 30, a/k/a Lancaster Avenue a/k/a Lincoln Highway.   You also see it when you go into Home Depot.

Every time I see the mansion I look for signs that either someone has bought it, or someone wants to tear it down.  It deserves to be saved as it is a truly magnificent structure.

I learned more about the house thanks to a You Tube video I am posting.  It should be preserved.  It’s very cool.  It is also of the designs of Addison Hutton .  Once upon a time a few years ago, I was on a committee that saved a house called Beechwood, on the Lower School Campus of the Shipley School in Bryn Mawr.  It was also an Addison Hutton house.

Anyone have any stories to tell on this house?  The Daily Local wrote about it a couple of times in 2010

Am I to gather from another article sent to me that was also in The Daily Local that this poor house is owned by the Tabas Family?  Hmmm, I knew Susan Tabas Tepper growing up, knew about the Downingtown Inn, Mickey Rooney’s Tabas Hotel, Twelve Casars, and Riverfront and City Line Dinner Theaters, but not this.  Are they going to let this just rot?  Why don’t they restore it and sell it?

Lockwood Mansion owners reject bid

Published: Thursday, June 10, 2010

By GRETCHEN METZ, Staff Writer

Here is the delusional offer sheet on the house – apparently it is the listing of a Keller Williams guy in Exton named Bob Liberato.  He needs to buy a clue and a better head shot.  The property is listed at $2,250,000?  And oh yes, it can be yours as a commercial rental for $20 a square foot – you know I guess they just aren’t worrying about reality getting in the way of the economy, right?

In my humble opinion, the owners don’t care about this mansion, or its history or the fact that it was a work product of an incredibly famous Philadelphia architect.  Mind you this is what is wrong with the corridor along which it sits.  Drive up through Paoli and beyond – through to Frazer, Exton and beyond and  you will see a lot of pretty amazing structures just rotting.  And in between them are hodge podge commercial developments dotting the landscape with no thought to planning whatsoever.  (Another rotting structure I have always been curious about is the house so falling in on itself it is dangerous either right next to or near Clews & Strawbridge.)

I also found a very cool slide show on Flickr .  You know what is crazy?  This is exactly the kind of structure that should be on The National Trust for Historic Preservation watch list.

They don’t build ’em like Loch Aeire / Lockwood Mansion anymore .  But much like La Ronda in Bryn Mawr once sat rotting in her faded glory, so does this home.  And generally speaking, people either don’t care, or only care when it is too late.

I dub Lockwood Mansion the La Ronda of Malvern.   May we only hope her ultimate fate is not so horrible as La Ronda’s was.