I'm a balloon sculptor. That's what writing humor is, really. I take cheap material, blow it full of hot air, and make a big show of twisting it beyond recognition. Then I make dubious claims about the end product.

"Ta-da! It's a horsey!" says the balloon sculptor.

"Ta-da! It's funny because it's true," I say.

It's a real stretch to call balloon sculpture an art, or to claim my column as real writing. But I'm limber. I believe it was Michelangelo who said, "I simply took a block of marble and chipped everything off that wasn't David." As a balloon sculptor/ gag writer, I simply took Success 2001 and chipped everything off that wasn't laughable. Very little went to waste.

Success is a roving motivational seminar with a "unique combination of celebrity superstars, business trainers, music, special effects, [and] patriotic spirit" headed by born-again Christian Peter Lowe. He is an odd man with an Ed Grimley-meets-Ralph Reed vibe about him. Under plumes of airbrushed red hair and messianic fervor, Lowe packs arenas across the United States with a formula made up of equal parts tent revival, Backstreet Boys concert and National Review get-away cruise. Such luminaries as Colin Powell, George H. W. n' Barbara (Bush, that is), Christopher Reeves and Ed McMahon tell the audience what makes VIPs like themselves get up in the morning. I'm guessing those five-figure speaking fees do nicely.

So I'm pretty sure why the stars show up, but are celebrities the sole reason for the audiences of tens of thousands of suits, like the one that showed at the Pepsi Center on April 17?

"My company ended up buying tickets," said Pete Strahler, a Worldcom employee out of Colorado Springs. Big companies buy swaths of seats, and then encourage employees to take the day off for Success. Like elementary students on a field trip to the historical society, there was enough ambivalence in the crowd for two speakers to address it directly.

"How about those Avs last night?" said Bronco Brian Griese. After this opening play, the quarterback sat down onstage with event emcee and mullet man Keith Kraft, who set up fawning questions about the secrets of Griese's success. During an unscripted moment in the téte à téte, Griese assured the audience, "Whether it was by your own volition or not, I'm happy you're here."

Later, speaking through a translator, Mikhail Gorbachev said, "I hope you come not because someone forces you to come." Perestroika!

Captive audience or not, in the downtime between speakers, Kraft would attempt to drum up morale with chants.

"The best! Is yet! To come! We've only! Just! Begun! We're gonna! Have some fun!" Kraft hollered. Upon returning from an intermission, Kraft blurted in his manic drawl, "Did you have a good snack?!" No joke. "I said, 'Did you have a good snack!? '" he demanded. My nachos were fine, but I wasn't about to channel Meg Ryan at Katz's Deli over them.

Kraft also presided over the dance contest. "We have undercover investigators all throughout the crowd!" said Kraft of the nice people responsible for snatching the best movers and shakers to be taken onstage. As I watched thousands of white business people trying to come to terms with their limbs, I knew one true thing. Over the blare of the Beach Boys and under the glare of the swinging beach ball projections, I had an epiphany: when you're up on the corporate ladder, you can't get down.

But Oprah-brand guests and too-too wacky crowd hijinks are just part of the success of Success. Motivational speakers and wealth pundits-- like Zig Ziglar, Marshall Sylver and Russ Whitney-- round out the bill.

"I reprogrammed Rosie O'Donnell to lose weight!" proclaimed Marshall Sylver.

Sylver-- author of Passion, Profit and Power-- is a self-styled authority on "subconscious reprogramming and subconscious influence." Sylver, like krab-meat, sounds like the real thing but isn't. This Las Vegas act (I'm serious) has Quaker State hair, a drive-time baritone and an arched eyebrow so severe I wondered if it was from force of personality or nerve damage. One of his main subjects was "self-mastery." Sylver said that to achieve "self-mastery," one needs the ability to control oneself, the proper tools, and "the ability to take action in the present moment." It could be my unprogrammed subconscious, but back in my day, we called it "self-abuse." Perhaps this explains the "nerve damage."

Ziglar, approaching 80 years old, is the godfather of motivational speaking. A self-proclaimed expert in the sales technique, family and God, Zig has the voice of a buzzsaw slathered with black-strap molasses. Wielding this implement to belt out bromides like, "One definition of insanity is to believe that you can keep doing what you've been doing and get different results," Ziglar is a dynamo of rollicking charisma. His mind holds more factoids and down-home anecdotes (Ziglar hails from Yazoo City, Mississippi) than a widow's backlog of Reader's Digests.

I should know, because I was a Ziglar disciple throughout my straight-A middle school years. My belief in God, Ziglar and my rightful place in the executive suite was firm until I hit a nasty crisis of faith. No amount of incantation from the laminated personal affirmation card that came with my Zig Ziglar tape set helped.

Looking back, I know my fear was absurd, but that was my life then. Life is an absurd, tragic proposition ending in death. This message is not brought to you by the good people at Success. Success dogma cannot incorporate tragedy or mortality into its schtick. I've lost track of how many times Zig Ziglar has said, "My energy level is higher today that it was when I was 45 years old." Fine, but the inevitable still comes to all of us whether or not there is sunny smile on our face.

Life is absurd in that good Monty Python way as well. Existence can be hilarious. Success can't deal with humor either. Comedy is tragedy plus time. Or perhaps time management.

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