Only in America
by David Benzion · 01/30/2008 2:32 pmAs a veteran of unconventional career paths through the worlds of media & politics, I find this story of “talent overcomes all else” oddly encouraging:
Stephen Chao — who was fired from a top position at the News Corporation after, in separate incidents, hiring a male stripper to disrobe at a company meeting and nearly drowning Rupert Murdoch’s dog at a party — plans to announce on Wednesday the formation of a Web video company that he hopes to build into an educational alternative to YouTube.
In 1992, [News Corp. head Rupert] Murdoch fired Mr. Chao, considered a gifted but quirky executive, after he engaged a man to remove all of his clothes during a speech being delivered at a company management retreat. The purpose was to drive home a point about decency, but Mr. Murdoch, seated in the audience next to Dick Cheney (then the secretary of defense), was not amused.
Once, during a party at Mr. Murdoch’s home, Mr. Chao nearly drowned his host’s purebred puppy after throwing it in a swimming pool to see if it could swim. Mr. Chao then had to jump into the pool, while in a business suit, to save it.
We later learn…
After parting ways with Fox, Mr. Chao spent six weeks working at a McDonald’s in Redondo Beach, Calif. He went on to head programming for USA Networks, where he helped develop the popular series “Monk.” But a fiery relationship with Mr. Diller, the head of the network, overshadowed that experience. The two executives had a hard time living down an incident when both were at Fox in which Mr. Diller hurled a videocassette at Mr. Chao with such intensity that it created a hole in the wall. Mr. Chao framed that section of the wall.
Admittedly, the parallels between Mr. Chao’s career highlights and the day-to-day operations here at LoneStarTimes.com HQ are slightly creepy.
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David, when did you work at McDonalds? runsssssssssss
Mr Chao sounds like an idiot to me
The day-to-day operations here at LoneStarTimes.com HQ
Yeah, except we don’t hire male strippers.
Surely a candidate for self-employment
…um…I wonder about you-uns??
Next time you guys hira a male stripper can I come watch?
I was wondering Rick!!!
This guy sounds like Inspector Clouseau–10 of him and they could destroy the world.
Hey, the last time I did a striptease at an LST office party, the girls loved it.
8. Meglet
See comment 10.
It’s all for the women, you know.
I did a strip tease on a dare when I had my clubs and it wasn’t a pretty sight.
12
Dov
Once, when I was in the Navy, I got talked into going to a strip Joint in Oceana (Virginia) outside the Amphib Base in Little Creek. Big Al’s was the name. The place was empty. We got a beer and sat down. This ugly, chubby broad (and I have very low standards) crawled up on the stage, waddled over and began gyrating and wiggling in front of me. I didn’t want to go there in the first place, this reinforced why! She was wearing support hose that stuck out over the top of her bathing suit bottom. I gave her ten bucks to move down the runway away from me because I didn’t want anything to fall into my beer. My buddies fell off their barstools laughing….
LST needs high velocity ash tray collision avoidance systems (HVATCAS) installed in all work areas. It’s somewhere in the OSHA manual and the county will pick up the installation cost with toll road money. These systems are installed in our office and are marginally effective.
#2…more like a wiz-kid, I’d say…