Me to Chloe (7) and Matty (10) upon returning home this morning with a Band-aid on my left arm: "I just got my T.B. test."
Matty: "Was it a plasma screen?"
Me: "Wha--?"
Matty: "...A plasma screen TV?"
Me: "Oh! Noooo! A 'T.B.' Test. It's for a disease that can lead to heavy fluid in your lungs. I needed to do it so I could volunteer in the garden at your elementary school."
Chloe: "Remember that time I got a caesar?"
Me: "You mean, a seizure."
Chloe: "It was a little caesar."
Matty: "Did they hand out pizzas in the emergency room?"
(You can't script this.)
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
REQUIEM FOR A DIRECT MAIL GURU
REQUIEM FOR A DIRECT MAIL GURU
by Edward It on Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 7:36am
You've no doubt heard by now that the unequivocal 'King of Infomercials,' Don Lapre, took his own life in a
Federal prison over the weekend. In the late 80s, early 90s, I used to entertain people with my impression
of the baby-faced Lapre hawking the idea that anyone could make millions selling products (basically
repurposing printed collateral) through classified ads. His pitch: "Why would anyone -- I mean ANYONE --
ever work for ANYBODY ELSE AGAIN?"
Lapre's infomercials were frequently populated with images of luxury cars, exotic islands, sprawling
mansions with designer kitchens, yachts, and other trappings of wealth luring in unsuspecting viewers -- many of whom were probably camped out on their collective couches at 3 in the afternoon wondering where their lives were going (I was working from home, so thanks for leaving me off that list!).
Curiously, those same images continue to cover three-quarters of Lapre's web site (donlapre.com)
only now, the last quarter contains snapshots of Lapre with, I'm guessing, his teen daughter and
some younger child, a boy, who may or may not be a son, though possibly the offspring of a close
friend or even Lapre's nephew. Near the bottom of the page, there appears a photograph of a letter his daughter wrote him while Lapre was alive. It suggests another side of Lapre, a caring father, as seen through the eyes
of a girl who didn't care about get rich quick schemes, and the 'Step 1, 2, 3' methods to ensure their success.
The entire one-page site is fronted by what sounds like an apology or maybe an excuse or validation.
There's an over-obvious moral to this story, something that transcends the caveat, "You can't take it with you." That almost seems blunt by comparison to the personal pain this man must have been feeling, I suspect, well before the 46 count indictment and accusations of defrauding more than 200,000 people were handed down, after he amassed an estimated $52 million fortune.
Who will inherit all the trappings of success Lapre built on not so much a Webster's dictionary's worth of classifieds, but the recipes for how to use them to make millions is yet to be seen. I'm sure he had an insurance policy in place for his daughter and maybe even that little boy he referred to on his site as "My best buddy." The Hollywood movie is just around the corner. It will be interesting to see if that other institution that puts wealth (and with it power) on an idolic pedestal will do justice to his story. Or to the people he defrauded. Whatever the outcome and anticipated artistic reinterpretations, it strikes me odd that, in the end, Lapre, so to speak, lived out his point:
Why WOULD anybody ever work for ANYBODY ELSE AGAIN?
(c) 2011 CREDIT THE EDIT, LLC http://www.credittheedit.com/
by Edward It on Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 7:36am
You've no doubt heard by now that the unequivocal 'King of Infomercials,' Don Lapre, took his own life in a
Federal prison over the weekend. In the late 80s, early 90s, I used to entertain people with my impression
of the baby-faced Lapre hawking the idea that anyone could make millions selling products (basically
repurposing printed collateral) through classified ads. His pitch: "Why would anyone -- I mean ANYONE --
ever work for ANYBODY ELSE AGAIN?"
Lapre's infomercials were frequently populated with images of luxury cars, exotic islands, sprawling
mansions with designer kitchens, yachts, and other trappings of wealth luring in unsuspecting viewers -- many of whom were probably camped out on their collective couches at 3 in the afternoon wondering where their lives were going (I was working from home, so thanks for leaving me off that list!).
Curiously, those same images continue to cover three-quarters of Lapre's web site (donlapre.com)
only now, the last quarter contains snapshots of Lapre with, I'm guessing, his teen daughter and
some younger child, a boy, who may or may not be a son, though possibly the offspring of a close
friend or even Lapre's nephew. Near the bottom of the page, there appears a photograph of a letter his daughter wrote him while Lapre was alive. It suggests another side of Lapre, a caring father, as seen through the eyes
of a girl who didn't care about get rich quick schemes, and the 'Step 1, 2, 3' methods to ensure their success.
The entire one-page site is fronted by what sounds like an apology or maybe an excuse or validation.
There's an over-obvious moral to this story, something that transcends the caveat, "You can't take it with you." That almost seems blunt by comparison to the personal pain this man must have been feeling, I suspect, well before the 46 count indictment and accusations of defrauding more than 200,000 people were handed down, after he amassed an estimated $52 million fortune.
Who will inherit all the trappings of success Lapre built on not so much a Webster's dictionary's worth of classifieds, but the recipes for how to use them to make millions is yet to be seen. I'm sure he had an insurance policy in place for his daughter and maybe even that little boy he referred to on his site as "My best buddy." The Hollywood movie is just around the corner. It will be interesting to see if that other institution that puts wealth (and with it power) on an idolic pedestal will do justice to his story. Or to the people he defrauded. Whatever the outcome and anticipated artistic reinterpretations, it strikes me odd that, in the end, Lapre, so to speak, lived out his point:
Why WOULD anybody ever work for ANYBODY ELSE AGAIN?
(c) 2011 CREDIT THE EDIT, LLC http://www.credittheedit.com/
Saturday, March 26, 2011
A revisit to the UPS Store...
Sometime last week, I walked into the UPS Store to pick up my latest batch of mail. The cheery young girl who works behind the desk gave me the latest update on everything strange and shipping (you'll recall that the last time we connected, she was a bit taken aback by my observation that, according to a Do's and Don't's poster affixed to the area of her counter near the register, you apparently cannot ship $50,000 hamsters. Who knew?).
Today, she was recounting the incident involving the man who had dropped off a "small strange package" a few days prior.
"I asked him if it contained anything live. He assured me, 'No,' then he paid for it, and hurried out. I noticed that the flaps were not taped down very well; there were gaps..."
"As if to allow something to breathe?" I proposed.
"Yes! Exactly. So I shook it a little and heard something scratching inside..."
"Oh no," I responded, prepared for the best of the worst. "And so you opened it?"
"Yes! And guess what was inside..."
"A small zebra in need of a manicure?"
"Nope. About twelve small tortoises."
"Um," I offered, "perhaps they were Box turtles."
Today, she was recounting the incident involving the man who had dropped off a "small strange package" a few days prior.
"I asked him if it contained anything live. He assured me, 'No,' then he paid for it, and hurried out. I noticed that the flaps were not taped down very well; there were gaps..."
"As if to allow something to breathe?" I proposed.
"Yes! Exactly. So I shook it a little and heard something scratching inside..."
"Oh no," I responded, prepared for the best of the worst. "And so you opened it?"
"Yes! And guess what was inside..."
"A small zebra in need of a manicure?"
"Nope. About twelve small tortoises."
"Um," I offered, "perhaps they were Box turtles."
Also overheard at the Petaluma, California Starbuck's
Some late 40-something female energetically barking into her cell phone, while seated near the picture window:
"Hello. Yesterday, I ordered fish oil tablets....yes...yes, that's right. So I opened them and they're like -- horse tablets. Yes, horse tablets. I can't possibly swallow them. They're too big. Will you take them back? You will? Oh good!"
I'm thinking that perhaps they were seahorse extract.
"Hello. Yesterday, I ordered fish oil tablets....yes...yes, that's right. So I opened them and they're like -- horse tablets. Yes, horse tablets. I can't possibly swallow them. They're too big. Will you take them back? You will? Oh good!"
I'm thinking that perhaps they were seahorse extract.
Overheard at the Petaluma, California Starbuck's
First man (wearing skullcap and dressed all in black): So what are your goals in life?
Second man (wearing thick glasses and looking a little geeky, while sitting on the edge of his seat in wild anticipation): Wow. I'd like to be a motivational speaker. But I have to get my own act together first.
Second man (wearing thick glasses and looking a little geeky, while sitting on the edge of his seat in wild anticipation): Wow. I'd like to be a motivational speaker. But I have to get my own act together first.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
DEVELOP MENTAL
Trying to Get My Head Around Why I'm a Developmental Editor and Not a Copy Editor...
Who vs. Whom? Was vs. Were? Passive vs. Active? We were the ones who slept through most of that alien nomenclature in high school. But we sure knew how to spin a tale. We were, in fact, the future developmental editors.
Why would you call in one of these people? Seriously, wouldn't you feel more secure knowing your Ts are dotted and your eyes are crossed without ever having to look back? Copy editors will see to that. And what they miss, surely a professional Proofreader will catch during one of those romps through your text that redefines the boundaries of 'anal retentive.' (Imagine a male Proofreader with an Oedipal Complex. Yikes! He'd never get the opportunity to possess his mother; he'd be too hung up on which possessive to select...for himself. Now that's something to reflexive on.)
To be sure, the future developmentals were the kids who played hooky. Only we didn't go out back behind the gym to thin out a pack of Camels. When the coast was clearer than the waters of a Frostian stream, we ducked out to...the picture show. Somewhere in between popcorn and ending credits, we found ourselves captivated by structure, characters, dialog, setting, tension, and tone, and a whole lot of other stuff that somehow made grammar, usage, syntax, spelling, and punctuation pale in comparison. Trying to identify pages 30, 60 and 90 of the script, as it played out on the screen, (because everyone knows ‘If it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the stage’) gave us as much thrill as the moment Count Dracula flew through the window as a gliding gerbil and landed as a creepy man who looked terrific in a tux, and then leaned in to the fruitful neck of a young maiden about to give an unscheduled donation. Even our hero, Bela Lugosi, hated grammar. What was it that he said while playing the vampire in 1933? Oh yes, "It's the little things that drive a man crazy." No wonder he bailed out of 5th grade sentence diagramming and put his talents toward a future in flying phlebotomy. Smart man. And we understood him.
Haunting, you say? Perhaps you're referring to our alter ego, the ghostwriter. Inside of every developmental editor there's a writer waiting to be excerpted. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree...and the quill doesn't drift too far from the inkwell either. Yes, while we’re working the stories of others, taking them to the level of submission-ready, we're all basically closeted aspiring authors waiting for our agents to make that timely call, the call that will deliver us six-figure advances and give us something to do creatively in addition to delving into and enhancing the characters, settings, and storylines of our clients. But until then, we also secretly know that we have the best job in the world. True. Consider: In one day, this developmental editor is on a Whitehall, a small single mast sailboat, with three brothers on San Francisco Bay, in 1908. We're watching Roosevelt's Great White Fleet enter the Gate after circumnavigating the globe on a goodwill mission to show off American muscle. And we’re having the summer adventure of a lifetime. An hour later, I'm a wide-eyed midwestern girl landing in Maui with the man of my dreams and about to encounter -- and try to make sense of and likewise escape from -- the honeymoon from hell. (Turns out he's nuts.) Two hours later, I'm enjoying the rubber wall motif in the West Wing of an East Bay mental ward. I'm bipolar and this is my memoir. And by 5 p.m., I'm snowed in at a log cabin in upstate New York with 11 other stockbrokers. Only one of them wants to sell our lives short. He's the killer. And by 8 o'clock that night, I'm a mom online with a club of virtual moms. We've been friends practically since the dawn of the Net, and now, for the first time in a decade, one of us wants to bring in a new member. Sounds intriguing. Time for a change. (You can say that again.) Too bad 'Pat' later turns out to be a guy.
This is the domain of the developmental editor. Our lives are fiction and nonfiction and feature and sometimes query. Of course, every true developmental editor knows there’s really no such thing as ‘fiction.’ At some point, every novel is rooted in fact. Even science fiction, to work, must adhere to certain laws of the universe. And those are probably the only rules we live by. We prefer dramas to commas.
Who vs. Whom? Was vs. Were? Passive vs. Active? We were the ones who slept through most of that alien nomenclature in high school. But we sure knew how to spin a tale. We were, in fact, the future developmental editors.
Why would you call in one of these people? Seriously, wouldn't you feel more secure knowing your Ts are dotted and your eyes are crossed without ever having to look back? Copy editors will see to that. And what they miss, surely a professional Proofreader will catch during one of those romps through your text that redefines the boundaries of 'anal retentive.' (Imagine a male Proofreader with an Oedipal Complex. Yikes! He'd never get the opportunity to possess his mother; he'd be too hung up on which possessive to select...for himself. Now that's something to reflexive on.)
To be sure, the future developmentals were the kids who played hooky. Only we didn't go out back behind the gym to thin out a pack of Camels. When the coast was clearer than the waters of a Frostian stream, we ducked out to...the picture show. Somewhere in between popcorn and ending credits, we found ourselves captivated by structure, characters, dialog, setting, tension, and tone, and a whole lot of other stuff that somehow made grammar, usage, syntax, spelling, and punctuation pale in comparison. Trying to identify pages 30, 60 and 90 of the script, as it played out on the screen, (because everyone knows ‘If it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the stage’) gave us as much thrill as the moment Count Dracula flew through the window as a gliding gerbil and landed as a creepy man who looked terrific in a tux, and then leaned in to the fruitful neck of a young maiden about to give an unscheduled donation. Even our hero, Bela Lugosi, hated grammar. What was it that he said while playing the vampire in 1933? Oh yes, "It's the little things that drive a man crazy." No wonder he bailed out of 5th grade sentence diagramming and put his talents toward a future in flying phlebotomy. Smart man. And we understood him.
Haunting, you say? Perhaps you're referring to our alter ego, the ghostwriter. Inside of every developmental editor there's a writer waiting to be excerpted. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree...and the quill doesn't drift too far from the inkwell either. Yes, while we’re working the stories of others, taking them to the level of submission-ready, we're all basically closeted aspiring authors waiting for our agents to make that timely call, the call that will deliver us six-figure advances and give us something to do creatively in addition to delving into and enhancing the characters, settings, and storylines of our clients. But until then, we also secretly know that we have the best job in the world. True. Consider: In one day, this developmental editor is on a Whitehall, a small single mast sailboat, with three brothers on San Francisco Bay, in 1908. We're watching Roosevelt's Great White Fleet enter the Gate after circumnavigating the globe on a goodwill mission to show off American muscle. And we’re having the summer adventure of a lifetime. An hour later, I'm a wide-eyed midwestern girl landing in Maui with the man of my dreams and about to encounter -- and try to make sense of and likewise escape from -- the honeymoon from hell. (Turns out he's nuts.) Two hours later, I'm enjoying the rubber wall motif in the West Wing of an East Bay mental ward. I'm bipolar and this is my memoir. And by 5 p.m., I'm snowed in at a log cabin in upstate New York with 11 other stockbrokers. Only one of them wants to sell our lives short. He's the killer. And by 8 o'clock that night, I'm a mom online with a club of virtual moms. We've been friends practically since the dawn of the Net, and now, for the first time in a decade, one of us wants to bring in a new member. Sounds intriguing. Time for a change. (You can say that again.) Too bad 'Pat' later turns out to be a guy.
This is the domain of the developmental editor. Our lives are fiction and nonfiction and feature and sometimes query. Of course, every true developmental editor knows there’s really no such thing as ‘fiction.’ At some point, every novel is rooted in fact. Even science fiction, to work, must adhere to certain laws of the universe. And those are probably the only rules we live by. We prefer dramas to commas.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Walk into the Petaluma UPS Store, actually, probably almost any UPS Store, anywhere. Look down onto the recessed counter, the portion near the cash register where you slide your packages across to the stranger who will take your prized possessions and shepherd them to someone else, somewhere else.
What do you see?
I'll tell you what I saw and which necessitated my calling across the room to "Gabrielle" earlier this week. "Um, excuse me, can you explain this? Do you really get customers who ship $50,000 hamsters?"
What do you do with that? she must have been thinking. I would have been thinking as much. Not exactly your standard customer request, such as: "Do you do Next Day?" (Yes.) "Is there a packing charge if I buy the box?" (Yes, but you don't pay by the styrofoam peanuts.) "Can I ship nuclear warheads, if they're disarmed?" (No.)
So she comes out from the end of the packing area, comes up to me from the other side of the counter, and looks down toward where I'm pointing. There, glued down to the surface, is a mosaic of all manner of inanimate objects (fireworks, petrochemicals, aerosols) and animalia (Scottish Terriers, Tarantulas, and yes, hamsters; actually, the hamster was standing on the Terrier's head) that you cannot ship. And below the clip art assemblage? A line of text reading: "No unusual pets or objects over $50,001."
The UPS worker assured me she hadn't noticed the warning before. A case of hiding in plain sight, no doubt. I mean, considering how many parcels, stuffed envelopes, and large cartons she accepts over that surface.
On the way out, I turned to her and said, "By the way, if anyone reports finding a $50,000 hamster, call me. It's mine."
What do you see?
I'll tell you what I saw and which necessitated my calling across the room to "Gabrielle" earlier this week. "Um, excuse me, can you explain this? Do you really get customers who ship $50,000 hamsters?"
What do you do with that? she must have been thinking. I would have been thinking as much. Not exactly your standard customer request, such as: "Do you do Next Day?" (Yes.) "Is there a packing charge if I buy the box?" (Yes, but you don't pay by the styrofoam peanuts.) "Can I ship nuclear warheads, if they're disarmed?" (No.)
So she comes out from the end of the packing area, comes up to me from the other side of the counter, and looks down toward where I'm pointing. There, glued down to the surface, is a mosaic of all manner of inanimate objects (fireworks, petrochemicals, aerosols) and animalia (Scottish Terriers, Tarantulas, and yes, hamsters; actually, the hamster was standing on the Terrier's head) that you cannot ship. And below the clip art assemblage? A line of text reading: "No unusual pets or objects over $50,001."
The UPS worker assured me she hadn't noticed the warning before. A case of hiding in plain sight, no doubt. I mean, considering how many parcels, stuffed envelopes, and large cartons she accepts over that surface.
On the way out, I turned to her and said, "By the way, if anyone reports finding a $50,000 hamster, call me. It's mine."
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