Word: kiam
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...Victor Kiam is steamed. Perhaps a certain sympathy is due. After all, this is a man who became a king of commerce and a television-commercial celebrity, even rated a profile on 60 Minutes, all by dedicating himself to a single proposition: the male face should be smooth, sheared of growth, preferably by the ministrations of a steady hand holding a Remington Micro Screen shaver. And now look what has happened. Stubble is sprouting on faces everywhere. Stubble is--even Kiam has to face...
Such spectacles as these, suggesting the start of a full-blown trend, just might put a tiny chink in the razor business and a serious crimp in Kiam's sunny sales pitch, not to mention his syntax. "Is Don Johnson of the prehistoric cavemen who didn't know how to start fires nor learned good grooming?" he spluttered recently. Indeed, a little perspective might be useful right now, although the historical foundation for this great stubble bubble stops somewhat short of the dawn...
...farmers and laborers migrated to the cities during the economic boom of the late '80s and early '90s, they brought their yearning for six- and eight-legged creatures with them. Bangkok natives were reintroduced to the wonders of savory creepy-crawlies and liked what they tasted. As soon as Kiam Poopaduang parks his pushcart full of insects outside the city's Nana red-light district each night?its sign reads "Amazing Thai Food"?motorcycle taxi drivers and bar girls start to swarm. Four years ago Kiam was a rice farmer in the northeast. "I barely made enough to feed myself...
Meanwhile, the fad of corporate CEOs' promoting their own mugs with shareholder money becomes more brazen and absurd. Not so long ago, the sort of business executives featured in their own company's advertisements were local auto dealers and appliance-store owners. Then along came Victor Kiam (the guy who loved the shaver so much that "I bought the company") and Frank Perdue ("It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken") and, of course, Lee Iacocca. The distinguished silvery head of Iacocca's successor at Chrysler, Robert J. Eaton, is currently featured larger than life...
...year is 1991. Victor "Santa Claus" Kiam is making a mockery of professional football. He's wrestling with his G.M. in the press box, he's making light of a sexual harassment case against his high school football team, and he's hired everybody's surrogate grandfather as a coach...