London – The Red Pen of Doom

Music videos typically feature a rock band (a) in concert, (b) playing their instruments in some kind of industrial warehouse or (c) smoking cigarettes and wearing tight jeans as they stroll through the streets of London or whatever.

Such music videos are not creative. THEY BORE ME.

Pop music videos aren’t much better. Oh, look, it’s the bubblegum blonde singer dancing while lip-syncing, and she’s got a bunch of backup dancers trying not to dance way, way better than the singer!

Bruce the Springsteen showed us how it’s done, way back when, with this little music video.

Simple song. Simple lyrics. The camera isn’t flying all over the place. And it tells a story that’s deeper and more interesting than “Baby, baby, I want to be your baby.”

Bruce, I salute you.

Hey little girl is your daddy home
Did he go and leave you all alone
I got a bad desire
Oh-oh-oh, I’m on fire

Tell me now baby is he good to you
Can he do to you the things I don’t do
I can take you higher
Oh-oh-oh, I’m On Fire I’m on fire

Sometimes it’s like someone took a knife baby
Edgy and dull and cut a six-inch valley
Through the middle of my soul

At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet
And a freight train running through the
Middle of my head
Only you can cool my desire
Oh-oh-oh, I’m on fire

It’s two in the morning. Everybody sane is asleep.

But a secret society of British editors was busy sneaking onto my blog, reading my love letter to all who wield the Red Pen of Doom to pay the mortgage.

I know this because a man in a black hood crept inside my secret lair, entered the bigger turret and whispered in my ear, “Me and my mates are dead chuffed.”

He wore a pendant around his neck that looked a lot like a sharp red pen, dripping blood. Also, he smelled like good tea.

I dig the British, and the Australians, so it’s a happy accident that a bunch of Brits and Aussies and New Zealanders read this blog.

The brilliant and beautiful British editors must have told their friends in Canada, who were also up early for some reason, and hitting my silly blog at an ungodly hour despite the fact that I know Canada is only five hours behind Eastern Standard Time, being up north with the sun either shining all but two hours in the summer and that same daystar hiding out for all but two hours in the dead of dark, dark winter.

It was hilarious to read their comments on Twitter, where I asked to join the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), perhaps as Fetcher of Coffee — or maybe Puncher of All Who Need to Be Punched.

They said sure. Join our group.

So I might. Even their acronym looks cool, and I belong to the Swedish Institute of Learned Men Without Beards Who Truly and Absolutely Hate Acronyms, Poets and Mimes (SILMWBWTA).

Editors and proofreaders of the United Kingdom, I salute you. Start making two lists: coffee preferences and people who need instant nose jobs.

And just because I can, four of my favorite videos related to all things British, with the exception of Bond movie clips. 007 deserves his own post later.