The News As Mad Libs

G o ahead, try to tell me this isn’t incomprehensibly brilliant:

[Wayne] Schaffel, 50, doesn’t have an MBA and doesn’t believe he needs it. He runs on a different skill set: passion for his job, great sales skills and a willingness to work 24/7. His company, PR for Less, helps small business owners get press and build a name for themselves without the hefty price tag of larger firms.

“PR for Less has a goal,” Schaffel said. “We bring public relations to entrepreneurs who want and need it.”

Keith Niaseling, 52, needed help. He’s been attending networking sessions to get publicity for his clients: Manhattan’s growing ukulele player population.

“Two years ago there were only a dozen,” Niaseling said. “Now there are about 40 and the number is growing. What I try and do for my clients is to get publicity for singers and songwriters in the uke scene.”

Niaseling, a ukulele performer himself who uses the stage name Moosekarloff, feels his strength as a businessman lies in his musical experience.

“I’m not a fancy guy in a suit,” he said. “I’m a performer and an odd hybrid. I’m out of the ordinary. This whole thing is out of the ordinary.”

Schaffel said in past weeks the group’s attendees had included Bonnie Dunn, who runs the burlesque show, La Scandal, at the Cutting Room and a woman who had opened a Chinese language center on Mott Street.

“I was going to go to China to teach English,” Niaseling interrupted, “but then ukulele consciousness took off.”

The two men explained that because their businesses were untraditional, meeting at a known location like Hooters was important to their business plan.

“Also, I wanted something laid back and unexpected,” Schaffel said. “I’m hoping to expand this meeting all over the country in other cities, and Hooters is a franchise with chains everywhere.”

I swear to god that’s what it says.