Are you a college student in some kind of writing major — journalism, PR, screenwriting or fiction — and think you can write? Show me. BRING IT.
The evil secret to all writing? Editing.
I had a great time with two accidental and informal interns: Lauren Palazzo, a goddess of publicity on the East Coast, and Alex Corey, a journalistic muffin of stud on the West Coast.
So I’m turning this into a formal and official Thing, maybe because it warms my cold Swedish heart to give talented young writers good clips, good editing and a little boost toward a job and career that doesn’t involve hairnets or selling insurance.
What are the requirements?
You DON’T have to show up 8 to 5 every day, make copies or fetch coffee, because you’re doing this from far, far away, via the Series of Tubes, and I don’t care if you’re orbiting Mars as long as your internets work.
You DO have to write circles around your competitors and have a hunger to write better, because you understand everybody needs to be edited, and seeing your drafts get riddled with red ink doesn’t put you in therapy.
You DON’T need to do this for official credit.
You DO need to write two posts a week for whatever semester or quarter system you use, and these posts can’t be recycled term papers or diary entries from your blog about the best bars in Madison, Wisconsin.
Step 1: Pick out ONE writing sample, the Best Thing You Ever Wrote in History.
Step 2: Think of TWO story ideas that you could write the heck out of until there was NO HECK LEFT.
Step 3: Dream up THREE ways you’d improve this silly blog with new weekly features, WordPress magic or SEO nonsense and analytics that neither of us will understand, but we’ll pretend anyway.
Step 4: Pick one of FOUR ways of contacting me — the Twitter @speechwriterguy, emailing a resume and your clip to guybergstrom@gmail.com, creating some kind of infographic or Tumblr thing about your epic skills or posting a haiku about yourself in the comments. Poems can be terrible, but haikus rock.
Also: If you’re out of college, or in a different country where people don’t “go to college” and are instead “at university,” and know somebody amazing who’d be a perfect fit, please forward this post to them, retweet it or share it using smoke signals and such.
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Guy – Photo by Suhyoon Cho
Reformed journalist. Scribbler of speeches and whatnot. Wrote a thriller that was a finalist for some award.
DR. NO is the first 007 movie, the world’s introduction to Sean Connery and an instant classic packed chock full of win — right?
Well, the first two things are true.
The last part isn’t. This film is imperfect.
It’s a rough draft of a rough draft, with big pleasures and big flaws and a lot of cheesy nonsense that you’ll recognize as the first fumbling gestures to what will become glorious 007 movie staples that will change movies FOREVER.
So DR. NO isn’t a perfect film or the amazing classic we all think it is.
You should watch it anyway.
I just did. As part of a 007 movie marathon — we bought the boxed set of Every 007 Movie Known to Man — I’m watching each movie, in order, with our 11-year-old son who has never seen a Bond movie before.
DR. NO was our first. It will not be our last, nor will it be our favorite Bond movie of all time. Yet there’s something about the first that’s always worthwhile and interesting and magical, even in the bits that are a bit undercooked.
Sean Connery, the Best Bond Ever?
Not in this movie.
Sure, he’s got charm and a sense of menace. He’s instantly credible as Bond and fun to watch.
Best ever? Nope.
Connery in DR. NO beats the pants off Roger Moore any day of the week. Daniel Craig crushes Connery’s first whack at Bond, and I’d even give Remington Steele the win in GOLDENEYE versus Connery in this one.
The later Pierce Brosnan Bonds get a bit cheesy, and he gets massive demerits for all the invisible car nonsense in his last 007 film and singing ABBA songs in that movie with Meryl Streep, so Connery edges Brosnan overall.
Also: Timothy Dalton is under-rated, and gets mondo bonus points for appearing as a glorious bad guy in HOT FUZZ.
Also-also: George Lazenby just doesn’t count.
So here we go, ranking the 007s in order:
Daniel Craig > Sean Connery > Pierce Brosnan > Timothy Dalton > Roger Moore > George Lazenwhatever
The Bad Guy
DR. NO’s villain is a mysterious mad scientist named who lost his hands to radiation experiments or some such thing and belongs to SPECTRE, which he carefully explains to Bond stands for something like Some People Who Are Really Smart and Choose Crime Because It’s Way More Fun to Have Secret Lairs in Volcanos and Such, except he makes it spell SPECTRE.
Dr. No lives on an island with a ton of henchmen, a sweet underground lair and all kinds of fancy prison cells connected by the most awesome airduct system ever.
Basically, Dr. No is a trendsetter for supervillains to come: a rich, disfigured foreigner with some kind of nuclear / doomsday device in his underground lair and all kinds of henchmen who wear matching jumpsuits.
There’s a random dark-haired girl in the beginning who Bond meets at a card game. She breaks into Bond’s apartment, which somehow endears him to her instead of making him fill her full of lead as a possible KGB assassin.
There’s a bad girl photographer working for Dr. No and another bad Bond girl at the British consulate who’s a double-agent for Dr. No and flirts with Bond before eavesdropping on him. So naturally he asks her out and winds up going to her place, which is an ambush. Ugh.
At this point, I’m yelling at the screen, “If you see any pretty girl, Sean the Connery, turn around and RUN FAR AWAY.”
Finally, we’ve got a blonde he meets on Dr. No’s mysterious and forbidden island: Honey Rider, the main Bond girl, who’s on the beach hunting for shells. Beautiful girl? Yes. Good actress? Nah. But it works alright.
The Gadgets
None, really. M makes Bond swap out his original gun for a Walther PPK because it has more stopping power.
Bond does have a neat little shoulder holster and displays some tradecraft when he plucks a hair and sticks it over his hotel closet door as a way to check if anybody comes looking around his room.
The Story
The opening sequence is a bit lame compared to later 007 movies. There’s a long bit with British men in a club, talking a lot, before anything really happens. Sean the Connery doesn’t really appear on screen until FOREVER.
What DR. NO does right is set up the basics of a 007 story: a suave secret agent traveling to interesting places around the world to sneak around and uncover plots by intriguing villains.
Dr. No himself gets a great build-up. You don’t see his face for a long time. The first scene with Dr. No, you only hear his voice. The second scene, his body and metal hands. Great stuff. My only quibble is when you finally do see his face when Dr. No dines with Bond and Honey Rider, it’s a let-down. The actor is pretty wooden. I wanted to be even more impressed, to keep up the momentum and menace.
Some of the sidekicks are simply bad story. There’s a boat captain who’s almost — not quite, but close enough — the Jar Jar Binks of Dr. No. The ominous man following Bond from the airport isn’t a bad guy, but a friendly CIA agent, which was a little too cute.
Overall, though, the first Bond story sets up a nice template for all the other movies. Big hero, big villain, big stakes.
The Verdict
This movie won’t blow you away. You’re not going to see the credits roll and shout “Again again!” like a crazed Teletubby.
Despite the rough edges, for any real fan of 007, this is required viewing. You’ll see the seeds of future bits, the origin of characters and tropes that will show up in film after film.
Grade: B+. There’s tension, action and excitement, and at the time, this was ground-breaking stuff.
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Guy – Photo by Suhyoon Cho
Reformed journalist. Scribbler of speeches and whatnot. Wrote a thriller that was a finalist for some award.
So I posted about the Old Spock vs. New Spock ad by Audi, one of the funniest things in forever, and the one thing that surprisingly cracked everybody up is Leonard Nimoy singing some song about hobbits in his car.
Even funnier: that little throwaway bit is a crazy inside joke referring to an actual song Nimoy sang. How deep does the rabbit hole go? There’s an insane music video, with backup dancers wearing Spock ears, or hobbit ears. IT IS EPIC.
The actual lyrics are below the Spock vs. Spock shebang. Enjoy.
Lyrics to The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins
In the middle of the earth in the land of the Shire
lives a brave little hobbit whom we all admire.
With his long wooden pipe,
fuzzy, woolly toes,
he lives in a hobbit-hole and everybody knows him
Bilbo (Bilbo)
Bilbo Baggins
He’s only three feet tall
Bilbo (Bilbo)
Bilbo Baggins
The bravest little hobbit of them all
Now hobbits are peace-lovin’ folks you know
They don’t like to hurry and they take things slow
They don’t like to travel away from home
They just want to eat and be left alone
But one day Bilbo was asked to go
on a big adventure to the caves below,
to help some dwarves get back their gold
that was stolen by a dragon in the days of old.
Bilbo (Bilbo)
Bilbo Baggins
He’s only three feet tall
Bilbo (Bilbo)
Bilbo Baggins
The bravest little hobbit of them all
Well, he fought with the goblins
He battled a troll!!
He riddled with Gollum!!!
A magic ring he stole!!!
He was chased by wolves,
Lost in the forest,
Escaped in a barrel from the elf-king’s halls!!!!!!!
Bilbo (Bilbo)
Bilbo Baggins
The bravest little hobbit of them all
Now he’s back in his home in the land of the Shire,
that brave little hobbit whom we all admire,
just sittin’ on a treasure of silver and gold
puffin’ on his pipe in his hobbit-hole.
Bilbo (Bilbo)
Bilbo Baggins
He’s only three feet tall
Bilbo (Bilbo)
Bilbo Baggins
The bravest little hobbit of them all
Protip: Do not play around with hippos. Art by Netlizard.
At 27 years old, Paul Templer was swallowed by a hippo.
In 1996, Templer was giving a tour of the Zambezi river in Africa when his canoe was overturned. As Templer paddled out to rescue a fellow guide, he was swallowed by a rude hippopotamus.
Templer documented the incident in an article written for The Guardian in May 2013. Templer writes:
I reached over to grab his outstretched hand but as our fingers were about to touch, I was engulfed in darkness…I seemed to be trapped in something slimy. There was a terrible, sulphurous smell, like rotten eggs…My arms were trapped but I managed to free one hand and felt around – my palm passed through the wiry bristles of the hippo’s snout. It was only then that I realised I was underwater, trapped up to my waist in his mouth.
…I’ve no idea how long we stayed under – time passes very slowly when you’re in a hippo’s mouth.
After having a book about the experience published in 2012 (ironically titled What’s Left Of Me), he thought that his nightmare with the “rogue hippo”, as he calls it, was over.
I’ll happily write about a music video if the lyrics are interesting, if the song is great — or the music video tells a story.
Gentle readers, we have hit the trifecta.
These lyrics are interesting, the song is great and the video tells a powerful story.
THE SONG
Thought it was Cake, by the voice and the horns. But no, it’s some band called Flobots. Not the best name. Makes me think of an android version of Flo from the Geico commercials, and I don’t want rock bands selling me insurance. HOWEVER: the name is irrelevant if the lyrics are interesting and the video rocks.
The band Flobots actually has nothing to do with Flo or robots. Discuss.
THE VIDEO
The usual music video features (1) the band lip-syncing and pretending to play instruments in three different locations with six different costume changes, (2) the lead singer mouthing the words while trying to look cool in sunglasses and slo-mo or (3) all kinds of backup dancers going crazy behind the lead singer.
Instead, we’ve got a music video that doesn’t feature the band AT ALL.
This video tells an actual story, with a beginning, a middle and end. There are setups and payoffs, private stakes and public stakes.
I could geek out about it in a story sense. If professors can base college courses on Star Trek, or Madonna’s cheesy videos, then somebody could use this video do to a flipping dissertation.
Also, the style is great. Reminds me of all the stuff from the Animatrix, which was 9.942 bazillion times better than THE MATRIX: RELOADED and THE MATRIX: REVOLUTIONS — or whatever the second and third stupid parts of that trilogy were called.
Would I see THE MATRIX again? Sure, anytime. Brilliant movie. Could you shower me with enough purple euros to watch the two sequels again? No. Purple euros would have to join forces with alcohols.
Bottom line: the technical term for this music video is “awesomesauce.”
THE LYRICS
The words are worthy and don’t need a lot of red penning, either to interpret or poke fun. These lyrics abide.
If you’re any kind of writer, or student of the English language, you can take these apart and smile at how they work. Enjoy.
I can ride my bike with no handlebars
No handlebars
No handlebars
I can ride my bike with no handlebars
No handlebars
No handlebars
Look at me, look at me
Hands in the air like its good to be
Alive and I’m a famous rapper
Even when the paths are all crookedy
I can show you how to dosey doe
I can show you how to scratch a record
I can take apart the remote control
And I can almost put it back together
I can tie a knot in a cherry stem
I can tell you about Leif Ericson
I know all the words to “De Colores”
And “I’m proud to be an American”
Me and my friends saw a platypus
Me and my friends made a comic book
And guess how long it took
I can do anything that I want ’cause look
I can keep rhythm with no metronome
No metronome
No metronome
I can see your face on the telephone
On the telephone
On the telephone
Look at me, look at me
Just called to say that its good to be
Alive in such a small world
I’m all curled up with a book to read
I can make money open up a thrift store
I can make a living off a magazine
I can design an engine
64 miles to the gallon on gasoline
I can make new antibiotics
I can make computer survive aquatic
Conditions I know how to run the business
And I can make you wanna buy a product
Movers shakers and producers
Me and my friends understand the future
I see the strings that control the systems
I can do anything with no resistance ’cause
I can lead a nation with a microphone
With a microphone
With a microphone
And I can split the atoms of a molecule
Of a molecule
Of a molecule
Look at me, look at me
Driving and I won’t stop
And it feels so good to be alive and on top
My reach is global
My tower secure
My cause is noble
My power is pure
I can handout a million vaccinations
Or let em all die from exasperation
Have ‘em all healed from their lacerations
Or have em all killed by assassination
I can make anybody go to prison
Just because I don’t like them
I can do anything with no permission
I have it all under my command because
I can guide a missile by satellite
By satellite
By satellite
And I can hit a target through a telescope
Through a telescope
Through a telescope
And I can end the planet in a holocaust
In a holocaust
In a holocaust
In a holocaust
In a holocaust
In a holocaust
I can ride my bike with no handlebars
No handlebars
No handlebars
I can ride my bike with no handlebars
No handlebars
No handlebars
"In my insomniacal Twitter meanderings I find the miracle of @speechwriterguy. Follow him. He makes energetic sense about words. And life."
@CharlesCrawford / Oxford area, England / Former British Ambassador turned speechwriter, writer, mediator, trainer, blogger. Founder member of ADRg Ambassadors LLP
"Informative, funny, blunt & quirky, @speechwriterguy 's blog is a must if you really give a damn about language & communication."
@DavidWeedmark / Ottawa, Canada / Acclaimed poet & novelist with a penchant for dark roast coffee; passionately curious.
