Whose Land is This?

This land is your land, this land is my land From California to the New York island; From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters This land was made for you and me.  I was born in 1956. Firstborn of my parents. Old enough to be drafted 18 years later, but young enough to […]

New! Improved! Going Fast!

Great headlines sell. They do the hard work of getting you to stop, pay attention, and change your focus from over there to RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW! This is true for direct mail. It’s true for newspapers and magazines. It’s true for television (those scrolling chyrons on the bottom of your screen are headlines. It’s […]

Doritos Makes Transparent Mice

Here’s a headline that wasn’t on my bingo card Scientists use food dye found in Doritos to make see-through mice I think the writer thought this was a good thing. Apparently, you can see through mice if you rub something called “Tartrazine” on them. Not all the way through, but through their skin. Tartrazine is […]

Tell Me Your Story, and I’ll Tell You Mine

Story telling may be the most powerful form of influence you can use.  I wrote this in 2008 . . . over 10,000 words on the power of story telling.  In some ways this might be my masterwork to that point. 

You Need a Craft

This might be one of my favorite essays from 2002 . . . a massive hat tip to two great musicians, one a gifted teacher, the other the man behind the trumpet in the genre defining band, Tower of Power.  Written in 2002