Certainly Robbins, with his ubiquitous infomercials and extra-large persona, makes a target so obvious even the laziest, most myopic hack could spot it. But even so, this flurry of articles seems unprecedented. Before attending the seminar, I had gone to the library to look for Robbins-related articles; all I was able to find listed on him in the Reader's Guide over the last few years were a couple articles that mentioned the President Clinton Camp David consulting gig he managed to land in 1995.

And then, all of the sudden, there is this current glut of blow-by-blow seminar accounts. Indeed, I'm starting to think that that "car salesman" I sat next to was probably just another writer in disguise. He didn't really seem to know that much about cars.

While I found it somewhat discouraging to be compared unfavorably to Dave Barry, there was a bright spot to all this recent Robbins coverage. In the photos that accompany both the Barry piece and The New York Times Magazine piece, Robbins is wearing the exact same clothes that he wore at the seminar I attended: a dark blue blazer, a crisp white shirt, and a hideous tie with horizontal blue and red stripes. He is also wearing this same outfit in a promotional video that was handed out at the seminar.

You'd think that with all the money he makes he could afford a second suit and a decent-looking tie; perhaps with his super-busy schedule - he runs 6 companies and only sleeps 3 hours a night - he simply never has time to change.

-- G. Beato

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