The low spark of low-heeled boys

Richard — Mon, 16 Apr 2018 00:46:16 +0000

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] woke up in the Emergency Room. St. Anne’s Hospital. Where I was born. My mother and my sister were in the room. I still remember the nurse. “Is he a user?” I’d passed out and fell backward onto the sidewalk and hit my head full on. As I lay there, writhing and convulsing, my girlfriend called an ambulance.

I had a bit of a secret. Poorly kept. The situation was delicate, touch and go. I conjure up an image of my teenage self sprawled out on a lawn, at some outdoor concert, half conscious. Don’t know what this bird flew into, but shit don’t look good. The world was spinning faster and faster. Try and keep up. High-school in New England. A mean, beat down, beaten up, mill town south of Boston. Cramped tenements. Chain link fences. Small bore gangs of Irish, Poles, Portuguese. A lost American city. Lost American boys.

Croke was tall, lanky, dispirited. A lad in a brown leather jacket and jeans, with shoulder length, dirty blond hair. I can’t remember Croke being much of a threat to anyone but himself. Croke loomed large at school and on the street. Mainly because he had a monster heroin habit. More than once, I saw Croke being dragged down the hall, his arms around the shoulders of two burly teachers, his feet dragging behind him. Eyes rolling around in his head. They struggled to get him out of the building, down the stairs and stuffed into a cab. Next day they would do it all again.

Dope was easy to get. Like buying a bag of chips. Like whistling at a pretty girl. Dope was language. Fuck you, it said. The men’s bathroom in high-school was part of the franchise. Mom’s sandwich baggies filled with Tuinal, Seconal, Quaaludes, heroin, speed. The cost was low — lunch money low. You could get anything you wanted at Tadeusz Kosciuszko Square five minutes from my house. The Square. At the Square, you could buy your way into your own imprisonment beneath a statue of a Polish hero of the War of Independence. The irony was lost on us. We weren’t interested in independence. Ours was a more noble conflict — obliterate the self. That stealth army spreading a miracle of warmth across your tender groin, courtesy of Adolph von Baeyer, inventor of the barbituate. Just take me out, Adolph. Across from the Square was Joe Gow’s, where you could get a greasy chow mein sandwich in wax paper and a coke for two-fifty, when you resurfaced and got hungry.

Killer Cabral. I don’t know if Killer had killed anyone when I knew him, but the chances are good, or got around to it in due time. I have one memory of Killer. I’ve got my mother’s car for the night. I’m seventeen. Killer is in the back seat — this is an eight-cylinder Oldsmobile Cutlass, maroon. A machine. I’ve disconnected the odometer. Killer is small. In a black leather jacket. His street rep is fearsome. Killer Cabral is in my car. He’s cooking junk in a spoon. He’s got his works out. Rolls up a sleeve. Ties off, finds a vein. Pushes the needle in. Tilts his head back for a second, eyes closing… Come to daddy.…that’s it. Then, Killer is out. Into the night. Hey, Killer Cabral was in my car last night. No way. Way.

For a while, my best friend was Fat Larsch. Toothpick thin. Stringy blond hair. We were tight for three years. Concerts, camping, ski trips, open-faced turkey sandwiches and mashed potatoes at the counter at Rockland Diner. Quarts of Bud. All the shit that kids do. Add weed, downers, and the occasional speed. I never once set foot inside his house. Some kind of weird trouble was going down in that darkened third-floor apartment. Finally, Fat Larsch went for the needle. He died of an overdose. By then, he’d become a respiratory technician at the local hospital. St. Anne’s. I never went to the funeral. I never went for the needle. That was a line I wouldn’t cross.

I woke up in the Emergency Room. Tied it off. All the people who were part of the old world, over. I passed them on the street. I did not meet their eyes. I did not speak. No hellos, no how you doing. I don’t see you.

{ photograph by richard pelletier }

This low-heeled boy had a dream — a wanting. It was so bonkers, so outlandish, and freakish, and buried so deep, it would take over four decades to dig it out. Wanted that mother so hard, had to wrap that fragile thing in blankets and shame and lies and foolish loves and silence.

Touch and go.

The post The low spark of low-heeled boys appeared first on Lucid Content. Writing for Humans..

[dropcap]L[/dropcap]et’s imagine we’re having a pot of tea…and I say…

Your job as a VP of Marketing is simple right? Build and nurture long-lasting, profitable relationships with your target audiences. Grow the business. A quick search of LinkedIn lists the needed skill set. Leadership, strategic thinking, project management, organizational and presentation skills, teamwork, recruiting. To name just a few. Piece of cake. If that weren’t enough, every part of that effort begins with words. Which we all know, have a bit of a reputation as having a mind of their own.

Make sure your words are up to snuff

But what if your words don’t quite work as well and as hard as you need them to? What if all the words you use to talk about products, services, tough decisions, working together, corporate history, your organization’s very reason for being, lack fire? What if your story, in all its permutations, just sounds…I don’t know… meh?

If that’s the case, know that I am deeply sympathetic. I know how hard it is to write with clarity, wit and verve. To persuade with clarity, wit and verve is wicked hard.

“Words are the clearest, most direct path to new relationships.”

In spite of everything, you still have to try. And you have to try because words are the clearest, most direct path to new and lasting relationships. To growing the business. There’s also the small matter of your voice.

Lyrics are just one part of the song

As important as your words are, lyrics are only one part of the song. Your voicecarries enormous power and might even matter more. It’s your voice that truly connects. Your voice can sell. It can provoke, delight and inspire, too. Voice is personality, evidence of an actual human being. But here’s the reality. The disembodied voice found in most business writing is dead, detached, bored or exhausted. Usually all four at once.

“Our dedicated team of experts are driving innovative solutions to change the mobile landscape.”

{If you needed a definition of ‘meh’ there it is.}

Carefully chosen words that come out of a well-developed brand voice are as common as a minimum wage CEO. How fragmented, noisy and crowded is the market right now? How hard is it to get heard? It’s crazy hard. That’s why having a well-developed brand voice is like opening a big can of whoop ass. It’s one of the best competitive advantages you can have.

A distinctive brand voice is like a big can of whoop ass. It might be the single greatest competitive advantage you can have.

The real mystery is why brand voice—as a way to distinguish a brand—is so widely ignored in these United States. (It’s slightly better in the UK.)

It begins with respect

Part of the problem is that people get nervous. Corporate language should not stand out. It should sound like everyone else. Even risk takers get the willies. Visit enough conference rooms and you’ll hear this theme all the time. “Oh, they’llnever let us say that.”

“Even the risk takers get the willies.”

That might refer to starting a sentence with the word and, or, it could mean a sentence fragment. Gawd! It might mean writing that sounds like human conversation. What’s missing is a respect for what words are meant to do—tell stories, make connections, get reactions. To get someone to pay some bloody attention to what the hell we’re saying. Somewhere along the way we stopped believing in words.

Great business writing is translation

You might find the important sounding vision statement below perfectly fine. I hope not. I do know that this is what many people expect now. Performance. Leveraging. Leading-edge. Utilize. In a lot of ways, the fine art of business writing is the fine art of translation. What would happen if we translated this…

Our vision
Our vision is to transform our intensive care performance by leveraging critical care expertise. We provide improved outcomes with measurable results utilizing talented clinicians, supported by leading-edge technology and a commitment to evidence-based best practices and process improvement.

into this…

Where we’re going

We want our patients in intensive care to get better, faster. Everything we know about critical care is key to this. We’ll track results and act on the evidence. With smart clinicians and new, better tools, we’re poised to get better every day.

Words do matter

I’ve enjoyed our imaginary pot of tea. I’ll finish by saying that so much of our lives is centered on work. Many of us believe passionately in what we do. But along the way, we’ve learned to be afraid. We can’t say what we think. We’re not willing to speak in a clear, human voice about the cool stuff we’re doing, why it matters, why anyone should care. Given how much time we spend working, how important relationships are to our emotional lives and the life of the planet, I say we change it.

Are you with me?

Taking Risks Archives - Lucid Content. Writing for Humans.

The low spark of low-heeled boys

An open letter to American VPs of Marketing

[dropcap]L[/dropcap]et’s imagine we’re having a pot of tea…and I say…