I once read that Hunter S. Thompson, as a young and ambitious writer, tried to improve his writing by copying word for word the opening chapter of The Great Gatsby.

At that age, long before he became a literary legend, Thompson considered Fitzgerald’s book to be the great American novel, or close to it. So he typed it out to better understand the cadence, the rhythm, the style, the mood.

When we are all young, we copy our heroes, our mentors, our parents – until we gain a footing ourselves and go off on our own. We learn to flap our wings, or gums, and take off.

Recently, I came across another idea on copying that goes further. The idea is this: When you copy something, don’t just type it, write it by hand. The thinking is that copying something down in handwriting makes you go slower and actually think about what you are writing.

It also shows you why short sentences are better and why commas are important, and where they should go. It’s like learning in slow motion, which is a better…way…to…learn.

This doesn’t just apply to writing a book or story. If you are a cook, for instance, writing down a recipe by hand makes you think about each ingredient and step. Odds are you are less likely to forget to put garlic in the Tex-Mex Lasagna (as I have done).

Everyone loves receiving a handwritten letter. Unless your handwriting is indecipherable, like my mother’s was, which was exasperating (a word she said often to me in person, but if she ever wrote it I couldn’t read it).

If you are writing an important email, try it first long hand, with cross outs and new starts. Then type it and send it. It will help you clarify your thoughts and improve your message.

And when you type it by reading your handwriting, you’re less likely to have typos. I remember my horror when I wrote an ad for a client that said, “Stay smart. Think positve.” I had left out the second “i” in positive. My client (Linda F.) spotted it and brought it to my attention. It got changed fast, before it ran thank god – a full page ad in the Portland Business Journal.

If that law firm ad had run with the typo, I would have had to leave town and I'd still be hiding out today - perhaps with Hunter S. Thompson, in the clouds and bars above. Looking for a pen.

Call me Les.

This is our 2nd collaboration - our first being “Driving Strangers: Diary of an Uber Driver” produced a few years ago. The 98-page book is available on Amazon.

In short, it’s a first-person crime noir with a memoir undertone. It takes place in Portland, New Orleans, and Montana (mostly Billings) and clocks in at 292 pages, according to Kindle. I’ve self-published it as an ebook.

If you’re starved for some riveting action – like watching a train wreck (it has a train chase) – then A KILLER STORY might be for you. It will certainly help kill some time. In truth, it could be so wretchedly bad that it’s good. That’s fine with me.

If you’re interested (and I wouldn’t blame you if you weren’t), there’s a book synopsis below and a couple links to where you can find it – on Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and a few other places I’ve never heard of.

It will set you back $4.99 (money back if you hate it and can find me). I’m happy to send you a standard pdf file of the book for FREE if you want to forego the five bucks. Just message me your email.

A heads up: This book is a bizarre work of FICTION. In other words, it’s not entirely true.

Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086H5PHGY/ref=kwrp_li_stb_nodl

Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, and others: https://books2read.com/AKillerStory

SYNOPSIS
Based in part on personal journals, A KILLER STORY is the morally strangled tale of a guy named Teddy Murphy who in his younger years is coerced to take photos for a gang of vigilante New Orleans ex-cops who dispense justice and pain for profit and pleasure. He tries to skip town, is tracked down, and commanded to kill someone or his daughter will disappear, never to be found.

Teddy can’t kill someone (he thinks), so he concocts a mad scheme to fake the hit. The wheels come off and Teddy’s outlandish plan takes a wild turn, ending in the backcountry of remote Montana, where grizzlies and wolves outrank humans.
Will Teddy make the hit? Will he be the one killed? Will his wife leave him? Will he use his “escape bag” to run for his life? Or will he face justice himself and be redeemed for his sins? Whatever the outcome, it’s a killer story for certain.

It’s true, I’ve got a gut. It’s not a huge gut, but still I must admit it is indeed a gut. Unlike a washboard gut, it’s more of a “washtub” gut, as my wife jokes.

My gut has instincts like our President’s gut, but I would never make life or death decisions based on those instincts. My gut instincts are more like not to use the mayo that’s been in the fridge for years. Or not to wear a Speedo in public.

One thing my gut tells me is that laughing is good for you, particularly during tough times. Of course, that’s not exactly a revelation. My gut is no genius, but it does have a sense of humor. Research shows that infants and kids laugh multiple times a day and as we age we stop laughing as much. We get serious. That’s sad. My gut says we should try to make each other laugh.

With that in mind, here are some things that have made me laugh.

From the Internets:

- I haven’t cleaned the house for 2 years because I’ve never had the time. Now I see that wasn’t the reason.
- If you have trouble staying home and social distancing, shave your eyebrows.
- Wash your hands well, as if you were making dinner for Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
- Sometimes I wish I was an octopus so I could slap eight people at once (then wash all my hands).

Funny quotes:

- Never slap someone who is chewing tobacco. (Octopuses take heed.)
Will Rogers
- It is an ironic habit of humans to run faster when we have lost our way.
Rollo May, Psychologist
- If God exists, I hope he has a good excuse.
Woody Allen

Kids notes to God:

- Dear God, Instead of letting people die and having to make new ones why don’t you just keep the ones you got now? - Drew
- Dear God, I am an American. What are you? - Emily
- Dear God, I bet it is very hard for you to love every body in the whole world. There are only 4 people in our family and I can never do it. - Satchell
- Dear God, I went to a wedding and they kissed right in church. Is that ok? - Hazel

Babies laughing uproariously:

Hope you have a laugh today, or several.

Be smart, be kind, be funny.

Click your heels together or click the link below to sign up.

https://mailchi.mp/3b68236fbd6e/lesoverhead

30 YEARS SERVING THE ENTIRE EARTH

Many thanks to clients and associates who have made it possible for Les Overhead to exist for 30 plus years. As mentioned in the "Wall Street Journal". It's amazing what you can achieve with passion, hard work, creativity, scissors, and double-stick tape.

Les Overhead
Do more with Les

Hey! Your your should be you're. But no sweat. You're human!

Somewhere, a robot is laughing at me.

Typos used to bug the holy bejezus outta me. They drove me berserk. Whenever I saw one on a sign I wanted to tear it down. If I saw one in a news story or magazine ad I wanted to set fire to it.

Once when a Portland brewery used the words MISSION STATMENT in a huge headline in a full-page ad, I wrote to the brewer in cheeky, smart-ass style: “E” now on sale at Les Overhead! Les Overhead is my one-man business, boss, and alter ego. I didn’t get a reply.

As a freelance copywriter/CD for nearly three decades, typos have long been the bane of my existence. Years ago, I was saved from my own terrible typo incident when my client called at the last minute to say she thought I had misspelled a word in their new ad which I was about to send to the publication.

The all-important call to action I’d written had only four words: Think positive. Hire smart. The designer had retyped the copy in her layout in a small serif font and spelled positive as “positve.” I totally missed the missing “i” when I proofed it.

When my client brought it to my attention (embarrassing enough) and I saw the error with my own eyes, it dropped me to my knees. I almost blew chow thinking of how stupid I’d have looked if the ad had run. It was a full-page ad for a law firm, in a book of ads for other law firms. I’d have had to leave town. Positively.

But I have a different view of typos now. I actually like them. Because, for better or worse, typos are caused by humans. They show that an actual living, breathing person created the message and he or she made a mistake, which is human. We all make mistakes. Some are damn funny.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning will be the death of us all if we’re not careful. Forget the Russians, it’s the robots we should be worried about. Someone should remake the movie: The robots are coming, the robots are coming! They’re already here, of course.

Automated content-generating writing is already being used in journalism and elsewhere.
Companies like Narrative Science and Automated Insights provide news bots that generate content for many different companies and publications. It started mainly with reporting on sports and stocks.

Now they’re moving more into general news. The Washington Post uses Heliograf, a news bot featuring arguably the most sophisticated use of artificial intelligence in journalism, thus far.

Narrative Science trains computers to write news stories. Its CTO and cofounder, Kristian Hammond, says these basic news stories are just the first step toward a world dominated by automated writing.

When asked what percentage of news would be written by computers in 15 years, Hammond said, “More than 90%.” He went on to say that in 20 years “there will be no area in which Narrative Science doesn’t write stories.”

When told that pontificators had predicted that a computer would win a Pulitzer Prize within 20 years, Hammond disagreed. It will happen in five, he said. I hope he’s wrong. I hope it doesn’t happen for a thousand years. Go ahead robots, laugh.

A P.R. pro once gave me a “tip” on how you can get an editor to read the press release or article you send in. It’s a risky move but kinda genius.

The idea is to deliberately insert a typo or other error in your opening sentence. Something subtle. When editors see it they will scoff, guffaw, and think how awful to have a typo in the opening line! And then they will read on, to the end, looking for more typos. They can’t help it. It’s an addiction. Of course, the rest of your press release must be smoothly and flawlessly written, sans typos.

That’s how you get an editor to read your submission. Just add a typo or spell a word wrong up front — like I did with bejezus (correctly spelled bejesus or bejeezus). Yes, it’s risky and you may look like a fool. But I like taking risks and I don’t fear looking like a fool. It won’t be the first time.

In short, I’m proud to be human. And that’s a sentence no robot anywhere, no matter how advanced, can write. Assuming it’s honest.

Long live typos! Write on, humans!

Hope somebody reads this all the way through.

As a competitive basketball player for untold years (48), I know well how important knees are. I would never have blocked as many shots (11) or swished so many countless jumpers (1,393), or dunked in so many opponents’ faces (0), without my knees rising to the occasion time after time. Go ahead and laugh.

But today, knees are no laughing matter. Never have knees been so powerful, so impactful, so important as they are now.

The action of kneeling and the phrase “taking a knee” has taken on a nebulous new significance and meaning. Meaning that's often unclear and misunderstood. Opinions of what it means are all over the map. Arguments erupt, tempers flare, tension boils, and friendships get destroyed.

To me, taking a knee shows support and empathy for people of color who, for generations, have been disrespected, harassed, and more times murdered than we might imagine by law enforcement in this arguably great country.

Kneeling is a humble, non-aggressive, patriotic act designed to call attention to what’s going on in cities large and small, black and white.

But news is fractured with so many sources. People get their information from similar-thinking friends and media outlets (left or right) that mirror their personal views.

As disputes rise, words and sentences get more angry and mean. Extremists get microphones and seats in Congress. The media ratchets it all up for ratings and pundits pontificate as if they are the voice of God. Facts be damned.

Meanwhile, we the people get more and more steamed each day as we approach the boiling point. Frogs? Trolls?

But I have hope. Recently, a relative in the Midwest reached out to me (not me to her) and asked in a courteous manner why, as I had claimed, taking a knee was good for our country. I’m thinking she felt the opposite, and probably still does. But she was sincere and civil. She lowered my temperature. Words can do that (it's some kind of physiological thing). I paused before firing off a reply to her, long enough to tone down my rhetoric.

I’m honored she reached out to understand her wacko relative in Portland a little better. Seems we need more of that – getting out of our silos and walking and talking down paths that lead to friendship and understanding. Kneeling if need be to start the conversation.

That’s the importance of knees, to me. I’m proud to take one. I hope it holds out.

There’s a line to get in. It’s not long but it’s lively. Everyone is excited for the doors to open. It’s like this every Sunday evening at six o’clock when NWA Blue Collar Wrestling takes the stage at the Eagle’s Lodge on North Lombard. Bus 75 goes right by, within shouting distance. It's performance art of a more physical kind. This is just one of many stops along Bus 75 that photographer Geoffrey Hiller and I feature on our photo/essay blog - Bus 75: Hidden Portland.

To read more posts on Bus 75: Hidden Portland go to www.bus75.org.

Directions to Hidden Portland: Board the #75 bus and get off and on often. Do not take a guidebook. Do not follow the crowd. Discover for yourself the underside, upside, downside and unknown side of our city.

Found this old photo of my grandfather, Lazlo Overhead, who played college football for the Nebraska Copywriters, before they became the Cornhuskers. Copywriting and football run in the family.

Okay, I’m lying. Lazlo played for the Carlile Copywriters, not Nebraska. And before being called the Cornhuskers, Nebraska’s team was known as the Bugeaters (no lie). My maternal grandfather, Bob Whitmore, did play for the University of Nebraska in 1926-27. You can look it up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1926_Nebraska_Cornhuskers_football_team

For more info on copywriting, go to www.lesoverhead.com.