The Adventures of Bloggard

Been Around the Block. Got Some Stories. These are Them.

The Return of the CopyDragon …

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June 1976, San Francisco: As I mentioned, the Network Answering Service was created in my studio apartment at 495 Third Avenue, north of Golden Gate Park, and according to the employee manual, the primary purpose of the answering service was to feed Rosie the Cat.

Of course, we had a more noble mission, and-  But that’s neither here nor there, because this is about the CopyDragon, copywriter extraordinaire, raconteur, and gentleman at arms. That is, ahem, myself with my writing-copy hat on.

As best I know the first copy written was some advertising for Simple Simon bookkeeping (myself), and then there was a brief audiotext positioning message for my high-tech and newfangled answering machine, but this summer as I prepared to launch the answering service, I began writing a lot of what’s called “commercial writing,” which simply means writing for business purposes.

It includes:
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Writer’s Block – It’s an Illusion

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[reprinted with permission from CopyDragon.com webwriters]

Some people think they have nothing to say. Some people believe they cannot express themselves.

These are illusions.

Your “Helpful” Friend, the Unconscious Mind

These illusions, these thoughts, are caused by the unconscious mind’s automatic learning. It learns something, usually in childhood, and quite often these “solutions” are brilliant, given the resources you have at the time. Unfortunately, like how to tie your shoes, these solutions are re-generated automatically below consciousness ever after, and sometimes they fit, but oft-times these solutions suck!

These beliefs, emotions, thoughts, and automatic reactions are a part of you, operating below consciousness, but they are illusions. (In which we are sometimes as trapped, and blind, as fish are to the water.)

(If you want to learn more about how the unconscious mind both helps and sometimes harms you, in its effort to promote your survival, pick up my free book at http://beinghappytoday.com. You can one-click unsub the newsletter if you wish.)

How to Make Writing Flow Easily

Let’s talk about how to make writing, and self-expression … easy.

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Twenty Second Tune-Up Makes You Feel Good

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Weed, California, Easter Sunday 2009: Here is an Easter gift for you … a super-quick little thing you can do in about twenty seconds, and it makes you feel really good. Most likely this is very good for your body and mind as well, though I can’t prove it!

I call it ‘Arthur’s Twenty Second Tune-Up,’ and it’s both startlingly effective and super-easy.

How to Feel Good in 20 Seconds

First, get an index card, or something similar, about 3″ x 5″. And then … [Read more…]

A White Sport Coat, and Rocket Fuel

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Henrietta, Texas, Easter Sunday, 1958: I have Easter finery, and it is a white sport coat. At age twelve, this seems especially neato to me, because that Marty Robbins song about the White Sport Coat and a Pink Carnation is still playing on the radio.

Usually, on school days, like my friends, I wear Levis or Lee Riders with a sport shirt. Because it is so cool to do so, I wear black loafers with white socks. Bobby Mitchell. has explained this to me, and he is a great fashion plate.

Bobby, Eddy Frank, Billy Ray, and several others are studying rocketry, and building rockets from aluminum tubes, hacksaws, wood, and gunpowder. Most of these rockets do not work, but we’re not giving up!

Today, however, I’m wearing Easter finery and sitting in my room, bored, because I’m dressed and ready for church, and the rest of my family is still getting dressed.

So that’s why I was fiddling with the rocket fuel.

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Insult to Injury in the Drum Section

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The band room of Henrietta High School, Henrietta, Texas, 1960: I was a hot-shot rudimental drummer, the head of the drum section. My associates were Noah on the bass drum, and … Linda on cymbols.

Noah had it easy. Just hit the bass drum on every beat.

Cymbols are more difficult, because you must stand, counting measure after measure, and sooner or later you get the the one place where you clash the cymbols together with a great flourish.

Linda had a bad habit of counting wrong. Sometimes we had cymbol clashes in the middle of soft passages. Often we passed the correct spot, and when Mr. Raeke glared, we got a kind of belated cymbol crash.

All this reflected upon me, the head of the drum section, so I tried to keep an eye on Linda, and helped her count the measures, whilst playing the rudimental snare part.

Although not particularly good at counting measures, she’d grown even more breathtaking from the first time I’d ever seen her walking down the street, and on this particular day she wore a snug black medium-weight turtleneck sweater which showed off her lovely figure to perfection, each perfect breast the stuff of dreams.

Today she was counting very seriously, and we were drawing near the correct place.

As the band headed into the last two measures, Linda raised the left cymbol high, and lowered the right cymbol low. Standing upright, her head and shoulders nodding in time, she counted down the last four beats.

Up came the measure, and the cymbols swung!

“Thunk.”

No stunning crash. Just a muffled sound. I looked at Linda’s face, but her eyes were blank, staring into space far beyond the ceiling of the room. It was pain. Wordless. Pain beyond speech.

She had caught her left breast between the cymbols.

Adrienne Searches on Google

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Weed, California, Spring 2009: Adrienne is still somewhat new to computers, and she comes up with things that often elude me.

(Even around the house; she fixed the ‘broken’ garbage disposal; I’d never have thought to use the plumber’s friend plunger!)

She has good results with the search engine, and uses it all the time.

One day I watched, and she types in entire sentences, like “Where can I find a list of all the major dog sanctuaries in the United States?”

I asked her why she didn’t just enter “dog sanctuaries”. [Read more…]

Paul Harvey … Good Day.

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Henrietta, Texas, 1960: When I was a senior in high school, at lunch I’d run to my car and drive quickly down to the Lo’ Boy drive in, to order a BLT sandwich and coke, and then … on with the radio.

Paul Harvey. One day he said, “Sniffing glue. All the kids in Texas are doing it.”

Because my high school, and the Lo’ Boy, were located in Texas, I was dubious about that particular story. I knew he was full of beans.

But most of the time, he was so on. And then one day he said he’d be speaking at the VFW hall in Vernon, which was less than an hours drive. I vowed to go.

In chemistry class, I mentioned my trip to Vernon to the Chemistry teacher, Mr. Blassingame.

“Can I go with you?” he said.

Well, heck yeah. So me and the chemistry teacher went and heard Paul Harvey speak live. It was a magical event, it-

Actually I do not remember anything at all about it. I have a vague picture in my mind of the building, but I couldn’t pick Paul Harvey out of a line-up, and have no clue what he said.

Yesterday (2/28/09), I learned that Paul Harvey is no longer on this planet. He has moved on. I’ll miss him, and I bet lots of people will miss his unique delivery, his voice, his quick turn of events, and really-cool unknown stories about famous people in history.

Of course, back then, in high school, the voices on the radio, like the voices of my schoolmates, were eternal, as were our dreams, and life itself.

After my big trip to Vernon, for the rest of my senior year, I had an investment in Paul Harvey, and the BLT sandwich, the coca-cola, and Paul Harvey kept me company every lunchtime at the Lo’Boy. And what he’d say at the end of every program was …

… Good Day. …

The Good Old A-B Test

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Weed, California, February 2008: Many years ago, when I lived in San Fransisco on Beery Goulevard, I had to do some layout work. I had very little skill, but I found a simple method. Although my method was slow, it worked.

I would just make up a layout, then change one thing. Then I’d look at version A and version B, and ask myself which version sucked less.

Then I’d take the winner, and discard the loser, and then on the winner I’d change something else, and again compare A to B.

In this way, I could slowly create a layout that looked pretty much OK, if not truly outstanding.

I just realized … I’m still using the same method. Still slow. Still works.

This little story was version A. Version B sucked more.

So version A is my story. And I’m sticking to it.

Gosh. You learn something every day. Some days, you learn two things. I wonder if today is one of those?

 
 

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