Pruning

Pruning ©

By Michael Casey

Pruning is what you do to your bushes and plants,  you cut them back in the Autumn, in the hope that come the following Spring you will have fresh and vigorous new growth. It’s like a man shaving his beard and trimming it so he’ll look even more attractive to the girls. Though in my opinion a man’s face is always dirty if he has a beard, and if I were a woman I’d never date a bush.

So to encourage new growth you do the opposite to what you might think is needed. You cut back to grow, or you diet to catch that man. Then you fall in love and you catch him, then he puts weight on, as men put on weight because they are happy and married. Perhaps people should never marry then they’ll keep their perfect figure.

As for the woman she does get fat, in spite of all the dieting, one reason is that diets are boring. The other reason for getting “fat” is pregnancy, she diets and starves herself to catch that man then sex gets in the way, or has its way and now she’s “fat”. Then she becomes a  mum, and all mums are fat.

I can feel the surge of anger being directed to me through the monitors, my words are chosen to get you thinking, tongue in cheek. Or is it because of tongues in others’ cheeks that we have this baby boom?

I was going to talk about pruning address books but my intro got side tracked. I pruned  my Hotmail address book  today, must have got rid of over 100 names, I’ve never pruned it before and I have sent thousands of emails over the years. I am available for radio if any radio people are reading this, save me sending any more emails. I have now recorded 86 of my 500+ short form pieces of writing. Or blogs as some call them, I think Shorts is a nicer name. I hope to have another book, More Shorts 2014 ready in the Spring. My typepad and tumblr accounts have audio samples if Radio people are listening.

As  you prune the names  you are nostalgic as you ½ remember who the email addresses relate to, some make you smile, some make you frown, some even anger you. Such as an employer who withheld pay for months, due to their cash flow problems. So you delight in deleting their email from your list.

You remember the nice people too, such as Pat Verato and Mr Riga, they were good and helped you. Some names you cannot delete because they are attached to  Linkedin,  or Facebook. You should be able to delete any names it’s strange that you cannot.

Just when you are finished and are smugly smiling you remember what you had forgot to do. Just where is the boiler man’s email? You cannot even remember his company name as there are three similar names at least. At this point my old friend Baz would be kicking a chair in the office. Then I scour through my old diary and find a number. So I don’t need the email after all.

Only the phone number is ringing off the hook, so you cannot phone. So you google the phone number instead. Only they don’t have an email address suitable on their site, so maybe I should kick a chair too. Then I  improvise, I was a computer operator and concierge after all, so I CAN improvise. So I’ve left a message with the Press Officer.

Adertising Style

Advertising Style ©

By Michael Casey

“Buy this, it’ll change your life” screams an advert for washing powder. So Jimmy buys the washing powder and his clothes no longer reek of sweat, and he finally gets a girlfriend and together they have 12 kids. They are constantly washing their clothes in Pambo washing powder, isn’t love strange.  A cycle even a washing cycle.

Now in America everything is loud and proud, adverts included. Over in England, we do things differently, we are calmer, and our ads have lots of humour in them. There are even shows that show adverts from around the world. I did submit an idea for an advert recently, it would be nice if it were used, the pay is great in the advertising industry.

“Do it this way, do it that way, you just have to do it my way or it won’t work.” Too many cooks do spoil the broth, and only a native will understand the nuances of language in their own country, the perfect recipe. I live with a Shanghai girl so I do know about language, or rather the comedy in language when one person is not a native speaker.

You have to pick your words so anybody can understand, I was also an Esol English teacher so I know the value of vocabulary. In the end you can only do things “my way” as Sinatra sung. Your words are your words, and you hope they translate to another English speaking country. You can try and adopt a style that sells in a certain country, but in the end you can only be true to yourself.

There is style in the way you write, people will like it or hate it. Some writing styles are so bad that you’ll give up after a page. An editor I know not only reads 3 times faster than the average person but she will know in half a page if something is worth bothering with. I do miss her a lot.

Dan Brown cannot write, he sells by the million but he just cannot write. Jeffery Archer now he can write and I have enjoyed his books in the past. Style does show off a good writer. Sadly there is lots of Supermarket magazine writing out there, some people waste a lot of time and money learning to write, exactly like their teacher. Just read and listen that’s my advice. I had 20 years of listening before I picked up a pen, and I read by the yard.

Sex, sex, sex and more sex does sell. 50 Shades of Grey, no need for me to say any more. Somebody said they did not understand the English expression “they broke the bed” I’ll leave it to his imagination if he really did not understand. Again its 2 countries  divided by a common language, just as we mishear 17 and 70, and 6 and 60, or is it sex and the over 60s, pardon, what? Can you repeat that Sir.

Language and words do matter, and how you put them together does matter. It’s all in the telling of the Tale, or as an Irish comedian said “You’ve heard them all before, it’s the way I tell them.” Timing and not killing the joke, or coming to the punch line too soon IS most important. A joke must breath, you have to wait, as great American  comedian used to say.

My 3 years at CPNEC as concierge, and everything else, gave me time to practice my timing. Smart Alecs, or should I say Wise Guys as they say in USA, they kill jokes. A pause does make a difference, wait and more people will laugh. In a hotel you can use your lines, the same lines 20 times a day. One unkind girl on reception, I do remember her name but why give her free publicity, anyway she said it was my “act”. It was no act, it was  personality. She just overheard it 20 times a day.

If you have a Scots guest your vocabulary will just insert a few Scots words such as “wee” its automatic, it helps the guest feel at home. I wasn’t Employee of the Year for no reason. I also spent 3 years upselling the hotel, so you do develop a banter and a style when you talk about the hotel to the 100,000 faces that you meet.

Diplomacy is a kind of style too, it used to be called Gun Boat diplomacy, the Opium Wars was Gun Boat diplomacy at its worst. Today/tonight we have a chance to bring a little peace into this world of ours. A Little Peace was a song by a German girl that won the Eurovision Song Contest years ago, you can Google it if you are in the USA, as I imagine you’ve never heard of it.

o style and advertising is today’s politics, Obama can finally earn his Nobel Peace Prize. Was it Churchill who said walk but carry a big stick? But I do know that Churchill said “jaw jaw is better than war war.” And Churchill won a Nobel Prize too.

The Casey family Sunday 22nd September 2013

all I need is a writing deal so I can look after my family.

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Near Miss

Near Miss ©

By Michael Casey

I read in today’s paper that the USAF dropped a nuclear bomb in 1961, they dropped  it when a plane had a problem, it fell to the earth in North Carolina. They had a lucky escape as it did not detonate, it could have changed the course of History. USA attacked, nuclear war, without realising they had dropped it on their own people, it was not a hostile attack. It is all too horrible to contemplate.

I’m not going to talk any more about that event, what I do want to talk about is when WE all have near misses. Like you see a pretty girl and several boys home in on her, which one will catch her eye. Only you discover you had a near miss, your mate took her out and guess what, she could drink him under  the table. The next day you hear chapter and verse, she’s a pint drinker and she matched Jazza pint for pint. Jazza likes a pint but he is 6’2” and a rugby player, Donna is 5’1” the new temp and she really is an alcoholic. Really as in always drinking, that’s why she always has mints on her desk, to disguise the smell of alcohol on her breath.

You don’t think of girls as being drinkers but this one was, I am in fact talking about a real people but I’ve disguised it to protect the innocent. One of our lodgers 40 years and more ago was a struck off doctor, an old alcoholic, I can remember my dad bringing down her full chamber pot in the morning. We all have other near misses. Eric Clapton once gave up his place on a helicopter ride, only for the helicopter to crash, he would have been dead and he’d never have met me, offering to carry his bag at CPNEC.

I fell in love with a house once, 35 years ago maybe, but then when the survey came back I was angry as the house was dodgy, and I had wasted £115, which is a lot of money now and was an even larger amount then.

So what do these events teach us? Well they do make us sigh, and thank God, that could have been a bad experience. Was it luck? Did that lucky rabbit’s foot really work? Crossing the road on the zebra can be a near fatal experience. 100 yards away is the zebra, I was crossing it and a bus had stopped to let me cross the road, now everybody would just cross the road, a normal everyday event. Me I stopped ½ way to see what was behind the bus. Then a woman speeding thunders past  overtaking the stopped bus and would have killed me. She was overtaking at a zebra with traffic stopped.  That’s why I always make the traffic stop in both directions before I cross the road. Another Near Miss.

So Near Misses make us think and change our attitudes. I’m always a safe pedestrian. Coming home in the dark for decades and crossing busy junctions makes me that way. Analyse situations for a second or two before you do anything. This can improve you success ratio. When I was a concierge I was able to judge people in 20seonds, I cannot do it now, but then having met 100,000 guests I was good at it.

You look at people’s face then you watch their hands, how are their hands, do they have fists clenched, do they have open or closed hands. This is useful when you going through the city late at night, as I did for years in my computer room days. What is their facial expression? A person’s face gives away what their intent might be. Clenched teeth and so forth. Cross the street and avoid a possible confrontation.

Some people stick out for the wrong reason. If you are in a four star hotel and a guy with tattoos turns up when everybody else is in business suits then you’ll watch him. If there is a band in the hotel, he may be a roadie, but otherwise you watch him and radio in to the security guy who follow him on the camera, or may literally walk 2 paces behind him. I did do a bit of security too while I was at CPNEC, as well as 10 other roles, Employee of the Year after all.

Exams can be Near Misses too, you did not quite get that grade, your whole life can spin on that grade. You may have set your heart on this, but you end up doing that. Though it can be the other way around, you got better grades and you end up doing something different. Then you look back and it was a near miss, you could have followed the boring path. You may have not met your husband if you had gone to a different Uni. I wonder do Kate and William think that.

I’ve had a few Near Misses in my life. I could even say my whole life has been like a gamble, a game of roulette. My eldest brother said try computers 35 years ago when my life was in a dead end, and then I had 20 years in a nice place, and I only applied to one computer job. Back then people were very impressed when you said you worked in computers, the word IT hadn’t even been invented.

I’ve had a near miss when a play was accepted but not finally produced, then I watch tv and think what rubbish compared to my play. It was my Rocky Horror moment without getting produced, the play is called Shoplife by the way. You can get rich just by one piece of writing. You may never produce anything else, but who cares if you have made a few bob.

At the moment I’m waiting to see if a script of mine is going to be turned into a film, so while I’m waiting there is Hope. If it does not happen there is at least the consolation that it WAS considered.  So what do we learn by all these Near Misses? To be stoic I suppose, to never give up and never give in. After each Near Miss there is a chance to start again, a kind of evolution of the Spirit if you like. If you keep on having the same “bad luck” you need to change your mind set, never be the victim, or that  just spirals down into self-pity.

So Pray, Hope and Don’t Worry after each dark night is the dawn.

The Postcards

The Postcard  ©

By Michael Casey

I got a postcard in the post today, it was pretty, as pretty as a picture postcard. It’s a tradition sending postcards back home to those you love, to your workmates to make them jealous. I suppose in future we’ll all send holographic cards, once 9G phones are the norm.

A postcard is a thing of love, from one member of the family to another. In England we have the saucy post card tradition. This is a postcard with a cartoon on it, brimming over with innuendo and lust. You can google it for yourself.

You can spend time finding the perfect card for each member of your family and for the boss. You can get away with murder sending a spicy and insolent card to the boss, it is a tradition after all. Some people collect the cards there were 1000s of designs, they did go out of fashion for a time but I think they are making a comeback. So have a google.

You get normal cards too, a picture of snow-capped mountains, of lakes and forests or castles floating in the air. Then there are beaches galore, meanwhile I’m here in Birmingham. I’m not jealous I finally had a holiday this year, we were in Malta.

Postcards are nice to receive, it’s nice that somebody was thinking of you. You prop them up by the tv and admire them for a week before you discard them. Though some people collect the cards that they have received. Its an old fashioned thing, that may die with the increases in postage stamps.

I imagine epostcards will be the next thing. For 10p you can scan a sample and upload it to your phone then you attach a text and away you go. There are some free ecards on the web already, silly ones for Christmas. You must have seen the dancing elves ones, you can even insert your own face.

The future beckons though, so all I need to do is partner up with an IT guy, I can dream up the idea and he can do the IT side. Holographic  ecards for all occasions. I did put forward an idea for an advert last week, which made me think it would be a nice line of work to be in. Postcards for Sales.

All things for Radio

All things for Radio ©

By Michael Casey

I am thinking of getting my writing on Radio, as I’ve told you all before. I have had good feedback from radio stations about my writing. I did once get a comment “I like your style but not the content” which may have come from a Hip Hop radio station. I have sent my word files far and wide in the hope of connecting with a fellow simple mind,   wasn’t  that the name of a band too?

A couple of radio stations even said they could find me a slot but they didn’t get back to me. I even sent a bit of video and audio along with 300 and Not OUT, which is my largest single collection of short writing. I can wait till I die so I’ll continue my campaign. Now I’ve decided to record everything I write so that people who prefer to use their ears cannot escape me either.

I have over 500 pieces of short writing spread over 3 books on Amazon Kindle, and 3 other books too. So now I embark on recording them all. To do this I need a mike and a pop filter. At the moment I’m using the old mike my wife used to scream through to Shanghai and her mum. Shanghai people are very noisy, or is it passionate, no it’s noisy, after 14years I think noisy is the correct word.

Now I’ve managed to record 50 pieces or 10% of my creation so far. There is a problem when you record stuff and you are a writer, you want to make changes as you read the piece. I also want to do it all quickly, so I’m not as prepared as an actor, an actor would read a piece several times before attempted to record it. I want the reading, the recording to be as fresh as the original writing.

An actor would do a couple of takes and the director would advise him, then in the editing suite the director picks the best. So I have to be my own director, it is a learning process, and a couple of pieces I’ve left out as they are too short perhaps or they don’t seem to fit Radio. The original idea for Radio was 90 seconds with Michael, where I’d have 90 seconds to read something for Radio and amuse them. Some stations liked the idea, so I hope that if I now record everything and it’s out there in cyber space I’ll get spotted, maybe I can be the new Justin Beaver. I am of course better looking.

Now for Radio I have to read more slowly, because when I write I am very fast, and when we all read to ourselves it is much faster than when we hear something on the radio. Remember too that we all think 4 times faster than we speak. So first in my mind I have an idea, which I then write down here at the keyboard, then I upload it to my sites. But to record it in the hope that it’s heard and spotted, and folks tell their local radio stations to listen, I have to remember to speak clearly and slow enough for people to hear all the words clearly. Yes obvious, but when we all talk to our friends we do speak much faster.

Which brings me to the topic of technology.  When I started recording a week or so ago, I was using our old stick microphone, which is ok for screaming to grandma in Shanghai, but for speech radio it is not good enough. Grease may be the word but HISS is the move, the sound you get when you record things. I tried lots of things then I decided on wrapping the mike in the foam from mini paint rollers, as I mentioned a few days ago. My daughter had been doing some felting at school in the craft lesson. Her square of felt was perfect to insulate the microphone from wind noise, or rather my own heavy breathing.

Pop filters are also recommended, I did not understand the concept at first, I thought it was just some kind of lollypop. However after watching music videos on MTV and VH1, I begin to understand. Utube also explains things. A pop filter not only keeps the spit off the microphone, it breaks down the air flow. So Ps and Bs or whatever don’t overwhelm the microphone, it’s like changing an American into an Englishman, a very posh and clear sound. Only teasing you Americans.

You can get all manner of “free” software on the Internet, only it’s not really free, its free till you just get the hang of it, then they want 50dollars. So you curse and start looking for more free software. You click and click and click and then finally you find  a couple of really free software packages to record with. Only they are cuckoos in the nest and change your browser settings and your default search engine to something worse than useless. Then you have to go to the control panel and delete their droppings from your computer.

I was a computer operator for 22years or so, in the old days, a kind of dinosaur compared to the IT people of today. So I always tidy up, in the old days your computer could run out of space and crash the system. If you had 4 gig on the computer that was very impressive, and that was 10 years into my stint as a computer operator.  We produced acres of paper and sold this to the clients, market research into alcohol sales, yes really. I can even remember my boss saying alcopops would NOT catch on.

So once I got rid of 2 or 3 not free recording sound programs I settled down to record. The hiss factor was much improved, Audacity seems to be just right, but when I get a new mike I’ll see how that sounds and then I can record my stuff anew. I may have to go back and record what I’ve done already.

Girls just like toys, so dad’s recording software and his mike with a ferret attached to the top, is too good to be true. So the girls have tried it out, singing hymns from church and Lady Gaga songs too. Then they wanted to be BBC news reporters and weather girls. So while I had my dinner, on their side of the computer the girls had broadcasting lessons with the gerbil attached to the mike. All I could hear was laughter. Afterwards I showed them Audacity and they tried that out. They were pleased with the less hissing results, no snakes in the grass now.

Since I started on this adventure with a mike my ears have been really tuned in. Even as I type as I talk to you I’m listening to the sound of the keyboard. I’m listening to the sound of the computer itself on the self by my knee. I can hear the clock ticking on the bookcase too. Normally I have music playing as I talk to you but now I do not, so every little sound echoes in my mind.

So will my efforts be in vain? I don’t know, but it will be great practice for after dinner speaking. If I record 500 short pieces and put them on my sites Typepad and Tumblr then perhaps somebody will discover my words. And as for me perhaps I’ll get a free dinner.

 

photos are of my DIY pop filter as copied from U tube

Hear my words just follow the link

 This is where to find me on Tumblr

You can hear my words by following the links to typepad and 

tumblr

http://michaelgcasey.typepad.com/blog/2013/09/from-sat-nav-to-block-sink-more-stories-audio-too.html

http://michaelgcasey.tumblr.com/

I do need to get a new mike and to practice more but I have now recorded 10% of my 500+ shorts or blogs

if you like what you hear then please tell your radio station, and any other media