The public relations industry is like a bird on a high wire act and all the world's a stage of mixed metaphors. Though one might assume that a job writing and distributing press releases would require both sharp writing skills and a savvy sense of one's audience, one would be mistaken. And gay? This is PR Dummies. Gay, every week.

Sometimes when you read a press release you say to yourself, "Given the fact that this press release is unlikely to garner results in the first place, why not just make it boring, instead of bizarre?" That's why you're not making more money than you are now, by working in PR. The auto industry reporter who received this press release tells us, "It's an attention-grabbing subject line [ed.: "Electric Cars Are Gay"], but for all the wrong reasons. The icing on the cake is that the flack in question has absolutely no idea what she is talking about, nor does she understand what her client actually does. She erroneously connects superchargers with electric vehicle technology, but only after stinking up the room with homophobia and a contrived pop culture reference. Finally, she brings it home with a copy-paste from the client's Web site."

Hi [unfortunate recipient],

In Ron Howard's movie "The Dilemma" two guy pals, one a businessman and the other an engineer, are partners in an auto design firm. Their controversial presentation to Dodge (http://bit.ly/zJJeXJ) proclaims, "Electric cars are gay. Not homosexual gay, but my-parents-are-chaperoning-the-dance gay." Their pitch, which depicts a soft perception of electric cars, is for building an electric car with the build and hot rod sound of a muscle car.

It was a B movie, but stellar concept.

Fallbrook Technologies (http://www.fallbrooktech.com) is not advocating the movie or its message, but the similarities are more than interesting. Fallbrook's NuVinci DeltaSeries is a power management system for superchargers that enables significantly more boost at low RPM by enabling high supercharger speeds at low engine speeds, providing increased torque for launch and towing, while reducing supercharger speed on demand for light loads, traction control, and integration of superchargers with advanced engine technologies.

The executives and technologists at Fallbrook would like to be a resource for you as you report on superchargers. I'm happy to make the introductions.

[PR Dummy]

Stellar concept.

[Please send your own PR Dummies submissions here.]