For years, I’ve spent my mornings whistling, humming, or mumble-singing some of the most random songs.

From Broadway’s “Hello, Dolly!” to Slayer’s “Dead Skin Mask,” these auditory passengers seem to have no reason nor rhyme. This blog topic is my attempt to make sense of them.

July 1, 2018

“Life’s Been Good”

Joe Walsh, 1978

Because Joe Walsh is a treasure? Life’s certainly been good. Enjoy!

July 2, 2018

“Halleluja”

Leonard Cohen, 1984

Reassessing some past relationships got me dredging out this old tune. Sadly appropriate for a couple.

July 3, 2018

“The Passenger”

Siouxsie and The Banshees, 1987

Heard the Iggy Pop version on a commercial or something. His is great, but in my head, it’ll always be Siouxsie.

July 4, 2018

“Alison”

Elvis Costello, 1977

You can’t go backwards for real, but music is like a mental time machine. Realing back the years today…

July 5, 2018

“I Walk the Line”

Johnny Cash, 1956

https://youtu.be/Lq0fUa0vW_E

“I keep a close watch on this heart of mine…” Gotta stay vigilent!

July 6, 2018

“Missing You”

John Waite, 1984

https://youtu.be/K5J1mn_u0rM

I aint missing her at all. LOL. (But I woke up to this song!)

July 7, 2018

“Radar Love”

Golden Earring, 1973

We got a thing, baby! I think I was keying off of the lyric, “We’ve got a line in the sky.” There’s some people whom you just can’t shake.

July 8, 2018

“Try Me”

James Brown, 1953

Woke up feeling whiney I guess. No one can do whiney and manly like James Brown.

July 9, 2018

“Rocket Queen”

Guns and Roses, 1987

https://youtu.be/ICCrzU65iOw

Back in the saddle, baby! Here I am! Your rocket queen! Oh yeah!

July 10, 2018

“Pinball Wizard”

The Who, 1979

I want to be a Pinball Wizard today. I have such a supple wrist. LOL.

July 11, 2018

“Abracadabra”

Steve Miller, 1982

The first line was all that I had in my head, “I heat up / I can’t cool down.” Thinking about a dream? I have no idea. I didn’t even realize that this was “Abracadabra” until I looked it up.

July 12, 2018

“You Really Got a Hold on Me”

Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, 1963

https://youtu.be/Y2EsZpobWJs

I don’t know why this one showed up. I sang it all day though!

July 14, 2018

“Trenchtown Rock”

Bob Marley, 1975

I woke up thinking about vacation. LOL. I need to go do some service work someplace jungle-y. It’s been too long.

July 15, 2018

“Don’t Do It”

The Band, 1972

This is what I should have said to myself before I ate midnight nachos last night! Ugh.

July 16, 2018

“Casey Jones”

The Grateful Dead, 1970

Too much traffic on my short commute. I better watch my speed.

July 17, 2018

“Heaven Isn’t Too Far Away”

Warrant, 1989

I know exactly from where this cheesey, power rock ballad came: I watched a documentary about 80s hair metal while riding on my trainer in the basement last night.

July 18, 2018

“Hold the Line”

Toto, 1978

Totally know the origins of this one! I was riding my bike last night and thinking about how straight and true I was pushing my stead! Hold the line!

July 19, 2018

“Lido”

Boz Scaggs, 1976

I haven’t a clue why this one came into my head. I don’t know a single lyric. I can only make monkey-baby phonetic sounds based on what I think ol’ Boz is singing.

July 20, 2018

“So Called Friend”

Uncle Tupelo, 1990

Talked for an hour with a friend last night who is facing some tough stuff. Made me think of this old Tupelo song this morning.

July 21, 2018

“Lonely Ol’ Night”

John Cougar Mellencamp, 1985

Can an man really have self-imposed celibacy? LOL. Lonely, but peaceful!

July 22, 2018

“Girl Watcher”

The O’Kaysions, 1968

Maybe I’m secretly stalking someone? I don’t know. Great song. Always figured it was sung by black guys. LOL. And 1968? I would have put this one earlier.

July 23, 2018

“Don’t Take It That Way”

Raul Midon, 2009

I miss my band! We did a great cover of this song. Bunch of prima donnas! LOL.

July 24, 2018

“Play That Funky Music”

Wild Cherry, 1976

I think I heard this on a commercial somewhere recently. Great live version here.

July 25, 2018

“Misunderstanding”

Genesis, 1980

Why can’t life just be easy? Lol. It’s just too hard sometimes.

July 26, 2018

“Back in the Saddle Again”

Aerosmith, 1976

Waking up to my first ride on my trusty steed in more than a week. Only one song on my mind! “I’m calling on the shots tonight / I’m like a loaded gun!”

July 27, 2018

“Why Me, Lord?”

Johnny Cash, 1994

https://youtu.be/pU5lH3iH6aQ

This song has been playing in my head for days. I keep remembering a night at Rick’s Place in O’Fallon, IL, where I had a standing gig back in the late 90s. I played this song, and a step-brother of mine, who eventually overdosed and died, cried like a baby. Poweful lyrics from Kris Kristofferson.

July 28, 2018

“Frankenstein”

Edgar Winter Group, 1972

Don’t have a clue from where this came! Good one though!

July 29, 2018

“Landslide”

Fleetwood Mac, 1975

https://youtu.be/K_PQ4fRQ5Kc

I dreamed that I was playing this song with two friends. There’s more to it, but no one really wants to listen to someone else’s dreams. LOL.

July 30, 2018

“Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)”

Phil Fudgin’ Collins, 1983

What the fudge? My friend, Claire sent me this song yesterday. Made me cry. It’s still here this morning. Phil Collins! What the fudge?

July 31, 2018

“Runnin’ with the Devil”

Van Halen, 1978

Last night, I KOM’d (King of the Mountain) a Strava segment, titled “Runnin’ with the Devil.” Still pround and singing my own praises this morning! LOL.

For years, I’ve spent my mornings whistling, humming, or mumble-singing some of the most random songs.

From Broadway’s “Hello, Dolly!” to Slayer’s “Dead Skin Mask,” these auditory passengers seem to have no reason nor rhyme. This blog topic is my attempt to make sense of them.

June 1, 2018

“Layla (Piano Exit)”

Eric Clapton, 1970

I am not sure why this melodic piece bubbled into my conscience, but I’m glad it did. What a beautiful piece!

June 2, 2018

“City of New Orleans”

Arlo Gunthrie, 1977

Heading out for a 5:30 a.m., 65 mile bike ride. “Good morning, America! How are you?” He might be a draft-dodging hippy, but you can’t argue with a handful of his tunes.

June 3, 2018

“In Between Days”

The Cure, 1985

I don’t know why this song came in my mind. All I could remember was the refrain, “I know it was wrong when I said it was true that couldn’t be me and be her inbetweeen without you.”

July 4, 2018

“Toys R Us” (jingle)

James Patterson and Linda Kaplan, 1982

Because I’m still a Toys R Us kid? I have no idea. Not a terrible song to have stuck in your head on a Monday!

June 5, 2018

“Right Now”

Van Halen, 1991

I was never a Van Hagar guy in high school (that was reserved for the soccer playing, mini-truck driving, short mullet-wearing semi-jocks). Great song (and video!) for my second day as a full-time employee at Centene.

June 6, 2018

“Dissident Aggressor” (Slayer’s Version)

Judas Priest, 1977

“Stab! March!” Maybe this new job is getting the best of me? Need some meditation and prayer. LOL.

July 7, 2018

“Everything Is Free”

Gillian Welch, 2001

God bless Maggie, who gave me Gillian. This song is in my head so often, it deserves a permanent place on the blog.

July 8, 2018

“The Boys Are Back in Town”

Thin Lizzy, 1976

My band does a lounge/rock version of this song. Perhaps I was missing our practice sessions?

June 9, 2018

“(Movin’ Out) Anthony’s Song”

Billy Joel, 1977

I have a lot of early Joel in my noodle. It crawls out quite a bit. This one is a shaker!

June 10, 2018

“You Can Get It If You Really Want It”

Jimmy Cliff, 1972

https://youtu.be/18EAqHx2lMk

Great song. Not sure how or why it ended up in my head. Glad it was there this morning!

June 11, 2018

“Meltdown”

Slobberbone, 2000

There was a time when my old band would have given a testicle to open for Slobberbone. I think this one came back to me because NPR played a snippet of a Tupelo song.

June 12, 2018

“Breakdown”

Tom Petty, 1976

Mike Campbell is a beast. Great song to have stuck in your craw!

June 13, 2018

“Dream a Little Dream of Me”

Fabian Andre, Wilbur Schwandt , and Gus Kahn, 1931

According to Wikipedia, this song’s been recorded by more than 60 artists! Quite the testement. The reason it was in my head was because I wanted to go back to bed!

June 14, 2018

“Leave It”

Yes, 1983

https://youtu.be/-M9JE9R9ld4

Wow. Were the 80s this vaccuous? The lyric that bubbled up in my craw this morning was “One down, one to go…” I was thinking about my morning routines.

June 15, 2018

“Cabin Down Below”

Tom Petty, 1994

Spooky song. Maybe I’m watching too many Forensics Files

June 16, 2018

“Drive”

Cars, 1984

Check out that badazz synthesizer! Local guitar hero, Jimmy Griffin, plays in incredible acoustic version of this song. It was on my mind.

June 17, 2018

“Handle With Care”

Traveling Wilburys, 1988

My co-worker, Brian, gave me a Traveling Wilburys documentary. Now, I have this lovely song in my head and really want a twelve string Danelectro.

June 18, 2018

“Strange Brew”

Cream, 1967

Our drummer likes to sing this one. We typically begin our set with it. Man, Cream sounds so much better than my band!

June 19, 2018

“Pressure Drop”

Toots & and The Maytals

https://youtu.be/6rb13ksYO0s

What came into my head this morning was just the lyric, “Pressure Drop.” I’m so glad to hear the whole song. It’s been a long, long time.

June 20, 2018

“New Speedway Boogie”

Grateful Dead, 1970

https://youtu.be/kCh57Z0sqA8

“Please don’t dominate the rap, jack…”  I’m pretty sure that I was thinking about a meeting when that line came into my noodle. LOL. I guess it was good enough to stick around until this morning.

June 22, 2018

“Happy Alone”

Kings of Leon, 2003

Yup, they’re rock’s favorite douches, but it’s hard to deny this song, man. It accidentally came on when I was hooking up my new Jabra bluetooth earbuds. Apparently, my ex-wife downloaded this album years ago to our iTunes account, and apparently, it was up on my playlist. Happy accident.

June 23, 2018

“Losing My Religion”

R.E.M., 1991

I never got Michael Stipe’s anxiety-ridden emo-rock style. It always made me feel nervous. I have no idea how this ear worm took hold today.

June 24, 2018

“Pawn Shop”

Sublime, 1992

https://youtu.be/rGvR6s0yF3k

Love this album. Rode my bike past a pawn shop on Dr. Martin Luther King this morning. Started singing this song in my head.

June 25, 2018

“Space Lord”

Monster Magnet, 1998

“You’ve been drinking my blook while I’ve been licking your wounds…” Spooky stuff to have in your head first thing in the morning. This song gets heavy about a quarter way through. Worth sticking around for.

June 26, 2018

“Imaginary Love”

Rufus Wainwright, 1998

I love me some Rufus. Listened to a bunch a few days ago on a bike ride. Why this one stuck is beyond me. Totally not my favorite, but that chorus! Yummy.

June 27, 2018

“We’ve Only Just Begun”

Carpenters, 1970

If you know me, you know that I have a penchant for watching crime documentaries. Sociopaths and psychopaths fascinate me. I’ve recently gone down an ID Discovery YouTube wormhole, and this morning, it hit me how macabre it would be to juxtapose this song with a murder spree documentary. I probably should talk to my therapist about this!

June 28, 2018

“April Fools”

Rufus Wainwright, 1998

“Oh, what a drag / To be back in St. Pete / On St. Valentines and you sit / In your chair, thinking, ‘Boy, / I’m such a friend…” Making friends out of lovers is what I do best. LOL. Sad face. Sad face.

June 29, 2018

“Feels Like the First Time”

Foreigner, 1977

I woke up grooving on the verse lyrics: I would climb any mountain / Swim across an endless sea-e. Not a bad song. I mean, of course it’s not a bad song. Rather, it has a redemptive quality that is kind of hard to find in some late 70s rockers.

June 30, 2018

“Cowboy Song”

Thin Lizzy, 1976

https://youtu.be/IrjE4zA81TE

“Lonesome on the trail!” I think I watched a trailer for a gay cowboy movie on YouTube and this song somehow got stuck in my craw.

For years, I’ve spent my mornings whistling, humming, or mumble-singing some of the most random songs.

From Broadway’s “Hello, Dolly!” to Slayer’s “Dead Skin Mask,” these auditory passengers seem to have no reason nor rhyme. This blog topic is my attempt to make sense of them.

May 23, 2018

“Sunny”

Bobby Hebb, 1966

My band plays this song, so it’s in constant ear-worm rotation for me. Not surprising that it’s in my head today. I expect it to show up multiple times.

May 24, 2018

“You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'”

The Righteous Brothers, 1964

https://youtu.be/xEkB-VQviLI

I have no idea how or why this one popped into my head. I was listening to NPR as I pulled into the parking garage at work and had just learned that Patti LaBelle had turned 76 years-old. Did she have a song in Top Gun, too?

May 25, 2018

“These Eyes”

The Guess Who, 1969

No doubt why this song came into my head. My colleague, Caleb, sang the first line as he sat down at his desk this morning. Thanks, Caleb!

May 26, 2018

“Fly Like an Eagle”

Steve Miller Band, 1976

The lyric, “Time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin, into the future,” was ringing through my ears as I was attempting to do 100 things at one time, very early in the morning.

May 27, 2018

“Rainy Night in Georgia”

Brook Benton, 1970

A dear friend, Jim Peel, passed today. This song permeated my thoughts all day.

May 28, 2018

“Don’t Stop”

Fleetwood Mac, 1976

https://youtu.be/Tm0nopK1BQM

Because of unbridled optimism? I don’t know. Hard to have a bad day when you start the day with this diddy thumping in your head.

May 29, 2019

“Bring It on Home to Me”

Sam Cooke, 1963

https://youtu.be/Dl5usKhGz60

This song plays during the opening scene of the movie, Gerarld’s Game, which I watched several months ago. It keeps resurfacing for me. What a blessing!

May 30, 2018

“Wiggle It”

2 in a Room, 1990

I have no idea why how this became my morning song. I vaguely remember dreaming of a woman with a buxom buttocks, but I can’t be 100% sure.

May 31, 2018

“How Sweet It Is”

James Taylor, 1975

My dear friend, Jim, is interred today. I love you, Jim. Good luck on your journey, sir. We are all much better, much more evolved humans because of you. Thank you, baby.

Classifying Stephen King as a horror writer is a misnomer. King’s gold is in his exposition of human trauma. It’s his pastiches of emotion and his unapologetic and oftentimes jocular stories of redemption that make him one of the most loved modern American writers.

King’s It

Gerald’s Game, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, The Body… even novels that are more easily classified as horror such as Carrie, The Shining, and It are not beloved because of their shock value as works of horror. They are beloved because the characters are almost perfectly developed for his audience.

King has a preternatural sense of how far he can push his readers’ willingness to connect to his characters. Like a master teacher who pulls his students just past their collective points of proximal development, King takes us right up to our own points of proximal willingness – the willingness to identify with a character. Then he nudges us over the line ever so much, and their brokenness becomes our brokenness.

King’s characters’ breakdowns are horrifying because we empathize; we care and identify with his characters.

We who love King aren’t reading him because we want to dye our hair black, listen to The Cure, and watch serial killer documentaries. We read him because he gives us hope that humans are more than the sum of our actions. He often devotes hundreds of pages to unfolding his characters’ emotional natures, and in so doing, he affirms that our emotional lives have meaning, deep meaning. His decriers call it bloat; we call it story telling.

Perhaps that’s why so many of us fell in love with King in middle school. Middle school is like the Olympics of emotional dysfunction, and from a horror perspective, well, I think we can all admit that we barely escaped with our souls in one piece; nobody gets out of Middle School unscarred.

Middle School: No one gets out unscarred.

Discovering King as a middle schooler affirmed my own emotional sewage storm. The macabre images on the dust jackets drew me in, but it was the exposition that caught and kept my attention.

Adults weren’t three-dimensional when I was in middle school: they were either teachers, parents, coaches, cops, or neighbors…they were labels. If they had a secret emotional side, I was unaware. In contrast, the characters in King’s novels – adults and children – were not like that at all. They exhibited vast emotional landscapes, filled with problems, desires, secrets, and conflicts that affirmed my own internal rumblings and stumblings.

The Big Time!

Stephen King’s It is a shining example of his ability to draw the reader in through the use of emotional exposition. The shifting timelines and multiple storylines connect the reader with their own innocence, maturity, jadedness, and hopefulness. It’s a messy business, and King does it with the deft agility of a world class conductor. He truly is unafraid.

Personally, I loved It. Having found King’s works as a child, I’ve always loved his treatment of children. Some critics have claimed that he is too brutal in his treatment of children (see the teenage orgy that occurs at the end of It). Perhaps those critics have led sheltered lives. I don’t know. I like King’s truths. I identify with them. There’s nothing absurd about them to me.

To the Work!

The opening line of It is a doozy! King begins his first timeline with a diary entry, writing in the first person from the perspective of Mike Hanlon, the only member of the Losers’ Club to stick around Derry after the tragic events that occurred when they were children:

The terror that would not end for another 28 years, if it ever did, began so far as I can know or tell, with a boat made of a sheet of paper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.

This goes there, that goes here, this might fit yonder…Think I got it!

The Main Clause

The terror began.

That’s it! Everything else in the sentence is window dressing. The main clause is nothing more than “The terror began.”

Additional Clauses and Phrases

King tags the subject with an adjective clause and throws an adverb clause in the predicate. Basic. Nothing fancy. But at the end of the sentence, it gets interesting. The end contains a long, trailing list of prepositional and adverbial phrases that form a bit of a drain pipe when diagrammed; they go down, down, down.

…with a boat
…made of a sheet of paper
…floating down a gutter
…swollen with rain.

The Process

In the beginning, there was a frame…

Come closer…see my pencil draft lines?

Drawing Pennywise was a blast!

The final piece: Scanned, cropped, and beautified.

I am afraid of many things: lions, tigers, the possibility of ghosts, saving for retirement…

Blatty’s The Exorcist

And for many years, I was deathly afraid of William Blatty’s The Exorcist. 

It’s a frightening novel, but not just because of the subject matter. Sure, it’s scary to think that ancient demonic entities might possess innocent children and ruin their bodies and minds just for the selfish and perverse goal of tempting men of God into devastation and destruction. That’s some sadistic stuff! But what’s even more horrific is  how this story is told.

Tone and Mood

For those of you who are lit studies neophytes, tone refers to how the author or narrator treats the characters in the novel, and mood refers to the overall feel or atmosphere of the story.

Identifying tone includes questions such as this: Is the author or narrator sympathetic, aloof, or condescending toward the characters.

Identifying mood might include questioning the seriousness of the novel – is it sarcastic, jokey, erudite, etc.

In The Exorcist, Blatty writes with a kind of dispassionate erudition: his narrator somehow stays detached yet incredibly detailed as he describes the horrors that are unleashed upon the central characters. The effect is such that the reader is ruthlessly drawn deep into the chilly darkness without any chance of relief. There isn’t the promise of absurdity or comedy like that which is offered by Stephen King. It’s just a hard, icy cold exploration of sadism, evil, and human frailty.

Pazuzu is back! Run, Fr. Merrin! Run!

So that’s my bookish, literature major explanation of my fear and awe with The Exorcist. But here’s the real reason why I spent many years hiding from this work: As a very young child, I had an evil, 15 year-old babysitter force me to watch the movie.

The True Story Behind My Fear

I was maybe six years-old when I was forced to watch The Exorcist – not much younger than sweet, innocent Regan, the girl from the movie. Her transformation wrecked me. It literally made me scream and run and hide behind the couch. And the babysitter, that terrible ghoul, snatched me up and held my head and forced me to watch!

Her boney fingers dug into my temples as she twisted my face toward the television. Tears streamed down my face as the welts and the strips of flesh peeled back from little Regan’s body. No escape for Regan. No escape for me.

That’s some seriously sinister cinematography.

The incident was actually a bit traumatic (And I’m not some milquetoast. I mean, I grew up around guys who would kick your ass if you didn’t listen to KSHE “real rock radio” and smoke Marlboro Reds). Even as a young teenager, if something triggered a thought from the movie, I’d be up all night with inexplicable fears and terrors. My step-mother would sit with me and watch I Love Lucy reruns until I’d calm down.

It really scared the bejesus out of me. Of course, the fact that I was in Catholic School and they believed in all this schtuff didn’t really help the situation.

I avoided the book and the movie for nearly two decades. Once, in my twenties, I went to a Halloween party with an Exorcist theme. The culminating event was to be a screening of the newly re-released, uncut version of the film. I made up an excuse to leave! I was afraid it would trigger the fears and night terrors again.

Just writing this post is a bit frightening. Amazing how these experiences can affect us.

Anyway, I ended up reading the novel in my thirties. It was great and terrible and extremely opulent in its sentence structures – Blatty uses many grand constructions; Hemingway would weep. And I’m happy to report that no night terrors were triggered.

That is, not until I tried to diagram the opening line!

Let’s Get to It!

A first stab at the draft…

The Opening Line

We have a basic compound-complex sentence with the primary clause and secondary clauses joined together with a semicolon. Of course, that’s where the trouble begins…

Here’s the Full Line

“Like the brief doomed flare of exploding suns that registers dimly on blind men’s eyes, the beginning of the horror passed almost unnoticed; in the shriek of what followed, in fact, was forgotten and perhaps not connected to the horror at all.”

William Blatty, The Exorcist

Primary Clause

We have a primary clause that begins with a fabulous introductory element, containing prepositional phrases, a participle phrase, and a nice adjective clause:

Like the brief doomed flare of exploding suns that registers dimly on blind men’s eyes, the beginning of the horror passed almost unnoticed;

Secondary Clause and the Buggaboo

Here’s where the horror really begins, Blatty!

Semicolons are used to separate independent clauses. Ergo, what comes after the semicolon should be an independent clause. Unfortunately, Blatty’s secondary clause doesn’t have a subject:

in the shriek of what followed, in fact, was forgotten and perhaps not connected to the horror at all.

What was forgotten, Willy? Tell me!

If we can imply that the subject of the secondary clause is a reference to the subject of the primary clause, “the beginning,” then we’re good to go; we can throw in an implied pronoun. But why didn’t he just write,  “…it was forgotten.” I’ve been deconstructing sentences for quite awhile, and I’ve not seen this construction before.

Nailing in the subjects and verbs to each clause

The Exorcist – All elements in place

The Exorcist – Pre-artwork

The Exorcist – Finished product

Invitation to Grammarians

As always, I’m totally willing to accept others’ opinions on my diagrams. If you have a better idea, please let me know.

This document is presented as a white paper of a presentation that I gave to Enterprise Banks in 2010.

At First Banks, Inc., I worked in communications in both operations and information technology. Both positions involved communicating highly technical data to our entire corporate body – from grandmas to whiz kids. It was a fun and challenging task.

The following presentation explains the four methods that we used to communicate our policies and information security goals to the entire corporate body of First Banks, Inc.

Four Methods of Communication

Four Methods of Communicating to a Corporate Body

At First Banks, Inc., we used four different methods to communicate to our corporate body:

1. compulsory, online classes
2. direct mail
3. email
4. events and presentations

In my role as the Information Security Policy and Procedure Administrator at First Bank, I was directly responsible for all aspects of these communications – identifying the targets, the messages, the methods, and the followup.

1. Compulsory Online Classes

Most of our information security classes were designed for all levels of employees, so our communications strategy needed to be needle sharp: quick, punchy, easily digestible, and most importantly, effective.

I worked with our information security team to identify the core messages that we needed to communicate. Having established our required goals, I further compartmentalized them into easily digestible subcategories.

At First Bank, we utilized a proprietary testing application, but I built nearly all of the coursework in PowerPoint. I found PowerPoint to be effective, efficient, and easy to use. Most of the graphical elements were created in Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop, but all layouts, shapes, and text were created using PowerPoint.

2. Direct Mail

Direct Mail is a Great Way to Create a Sense of Permanence to Your Message

Yes, direct mail can be expensive and ineffective if done incorrectly.

At First Bank though, we did it right. Our direct mail communications efforts were effective for three primary reasons:

1. First, the messages were never sent in isolation: we only used direct mail to bolster our other communication goals.
2. Second, we used specially trained branch personnel, called Information Security Liaisons, to help disseminate our hard copy messages. These employees knew who, what, when, and how to use these communications pieces in their supported areas.
3. Finally, we had fun with it. We utilized color, humor, sugar, name dropping, and wit.

What’s the big payback? Permanence. Handheld communications pieces stick around. A well-designed poster will continue to get attention and act as a reminder for several days. A letter with the CEO’s signature will retain importance and add credence to your efforts. A box of chocolates with informational stickers affixed to them pays you back with every return visit.

3. Email

Goal: You Don’t Want Them to Hit Delete!

Email, I believe, has the potential to be the most ineffective medium of communication. Our number one goal isn’t the message. Our number one goal is getting the receiver to actually read the message before they hit delete!

As a communications designer, I was extremely lucky to work at a bank. Why? Because due to the high level of compliance regulations and proprietary software used within a bank, banks must have highly standardized software across the entire organization. Therefore, I could rest assured that my HTML/CSS email design would render identically on all employee computers. This allowed me to push the limits of the HTML/CSS email design.

At First Bank, we used email in four different ways:

1. simple, single-message emails that were applicable to all employees
2. targeted emails that were directed at a specific vector of employees
3. newsletters that were directed to our security awareness steering committee members
4. invitations and information about presentations or events

4. Events and Presentations

Information Security Liaisons were trained in key branches throughout the country.

Events and presentations were used primarily to communicate general messages to branch personnel – not necessarily back office personnel. Because we had branches across the country, many of these presentations and events were conducted remotely, using SharePoint and other web based communications tools.

In order to coordinate and organize events and presentations across the country, we identified and trained key personnel in key branches. We called them Information Security Liaisons.

Our Information Security Liaisons were a fantastic help. If I needed to fly to Florida and give a presentation, our Info Sec Liaison would pave the way by ratcheting up awareness: reminding employees of messages that we’d sent, handing out flyers, ensuring that their direct reports were informed and communicating to their staff.

Also, I think that it’s important to note that these liaisons spoke the same cultural language as our target audiences in those areas: employees in Southern California are quite a bit different from employees in Houston, Texas, and all of them are different to me, a hick from Southern Illinois! I can’t say enough positive comments about our Liaisons. They were priceless.

For reasons beyond my understanding, I have been able to recite the first sentence of John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany ever since the first and only time that I read the novel.

A Prayer for Owen Meany

I have no recollection of trying to memorize the sentence. I do remember rereading the opening passage after finishing the book, and it was at that point that I was able to recite from memory the first line. It is perhaps my only super power: the ability to recite the first sentence of this great American novel without any great effort. Who then is my arch nemesis? Dementia? Alzheimers? Apologies. I digress.

Onto the Business

I love John Irving. Reading his novels makes me feel like a real adult. They are broad and sweeping portraits of American families and American dysfunction, but not in the gothic or studiously sincere ways of writers such as Steinbeck or Faulkner. Irving’s Americana prose is jaunty: his tone is simultaneously critical, naieve, and compassionate.

A Prayer for Owen Meany was the first Irving novel that I read. I was immediately hooked.

The Opening Line…

“I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice – not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.”

Talk about a spoiler alert, huh? Little Owen’s gonna kill the narrator’s Momma and somehow be redeemed by the person who loved her most. Amazing. As I sit here, remembering how this plays out, I desperately want to reread it again. The glory is in the exposition.

The Diagram

Scritch, scratch, draft, draft

The Frame

Subjects and Verbs

A place for everything, and everything in its place…kind of

Artwork completed

The first sentence of A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY

I feel pretty good about most of what’s going on in this diagram, but there are some questions that I don’t have answered.

Problem One

I was unsure of where to place the not in the phrase, not because of his voice. Typically, not is an adverb, so I placed it under the verbal, to remember, but that creates a problem with the direct object, a boy. Clearly, he remembers the boy. Unfortunately for me, the not is used to negate one phrase and two clauses under the verbal, to remember, but it isn’t used to negate the third and final clause:

• not because of his voice
• not because he was the smallest person
• not even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death
• but because he is the reason I believe in God

I took the safe route and stuck it under the verbal because frankly, I didn’t know what else to do with it.

Problem Two

I had no idea how to handle the connecting of the phrases and clauses under the aforementioned verbal, to remember. I couldn’t find anything online that would explain how to connect these compound clauses. In the end, I just went with a simple coordinating conjunction line. If our goal is to parse the sentence in order to better understand the relationship of each part to each part, I think the coordinating junction connnecting line does the job.

Feedback?

I’d love to hear from anyone with better ideas If you have a better diagram, let me know! Thanks for reading!

When my friend Rusty counseled me about getting some essentials from Nashbar.com, I listened. If a 65 year-old man who rides centuries offers you advice about your bike, you take it to heart.

I ride about 100 miles each week, commuting to work everyday, meeting friends for coffee, and taking larger rides, 25 miles or so, with friends on the weekend. Rusty said that if I’m doing that amount of riding, then I should pick a couple essentials:

1. Saddle bag with an extra tube and tire removal tubes
2. Pedals with cleats and a pair of shoes to fit them

He suggested that I use Nashbar.com for these purchases. I’m happy to report, that the experience went well.

Louis Garneau Valet 30 Saddle Bag, Nashbar Tube, and Nashbar Tire Levers

This tight little satchel does a great job of holding just the essentials: one tube and tire removal tools. With its economic size and understated, utilitarian style, it’s the perfect fit.

Price from Nashbar.com:

• Louis Garneau saddle bag: $14.99
• Nashbar tire tube: $4.79
• Nashbar tire levers: $3.99

Louis Garneau Little Butler Seat Bag

A wee, little satchel!

Tire changing tools and one replacement tube: Snug as bugs in rugs

Shoes, Cleats, and Pedals

Rusty recommended that I get some shoes with cleats and pedals. He said that I’d be able to go further faster with cleated shoes.

I bristled at this suggested at first because I didn’t want to be bothered by having to swap out shoes just because I wanted to run to the grocery or go the gym.

“Just get some mountain bike shoes and convertable pedals,” Rusty said.

After a few weeks of indecision, I decided to pull the trigger. I bought a set of Nashbar Soho Pedals and a pair of Shimano SH-CT70 Cycling Shoes. The pedals came with Shimano SPD style cleat hardware. The shoes came with instructions on how to attach the hardware. It was all pretty easy.

And Rusty’s right: The cleats make a huge difference!

After a couple of adjustments, I feel really confident in them. I’ve got a couple hundred miles in them now, and I think they’re great. I wear my the Shimano shoes in the gym and the store – no problems. If anyone is on the fence about switching to cleats, I would highly recommend making the shift. It really is a game changer.

Price from Nashbar.com:

• Nashbar Soho Pedals: $29.99
• Shimano SH-CT70 Cycling Shoes: $89.99

Shimano SPD style cleats

Nashbar Soho style, cleated pedals

Shimano Shoes

Shimano shoe attached to the cleat

The job of a preamble is to set the stage for a document: it lays out the general scope and purpose of a work. In today’s language, we’d call it a mission statement.

The finished piece

As a mission statement, I think the Preamble to the Constitution does very well. It conveys an immense amount of data in a highly economical fashion: it’s one big mutha of a grammatically correct sentence!

About the Language in the Preamble

According to Wikipedia, “the Preamble was placed in the Constitution during the last days of the Constitutional Convention by the Committee on Style [ed. What a great title for a committee!], which wrote its final draft.” This would put the writing of the Preamble around the fall of 1787. At this time, America was just beginning to develop a language of its own.

While we wouldn’t have fully developed and independent voices of writers and orators like Lincoln, Whitman, or Thoreau for another 100 years or so, by the late 1700s, our nation had been far enough removed from the Crown to develop some of its own style.

In the Preamble, we can see that our backwater, colonial forefathers had begun to toss aside the high British constricts of language that might have us dance around our point rather than go straight for the jugular. Niceties, shmicities! Our concrete, somewhat-naive, mush-mouthedness had already begun to flourish! Yankee doodle dandy, baby!

The Preamble

The full text of the Preamble is nothing more than one big ol’ sentence:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The first page of the Constitution of the United States of America. The Preamble is the sentence at the top above Article I.

Breaking Down the Elements

I struggled with one phrase in this sentence. Everything else was gravy. At its heart, the Preamble is a simple sentence: it’s one independent clause.

I am still somewhat shaky about the “in order to” phrase. In the draft, you can see that I struggled with it from the beginning.

Subject and Verb of the Clause

Let’s begin with the subject and verb of our clause:

We | do ordain and establish

Verb Function: Direct Object

Both verbs in our compound verb, ordain and establish, give us a direct object: this Constitution. The prepositional phrase, for the United States, modifies the direct object, Constitution, and the prepositional phrase, of America, modifies the object of the preposition, United States.

We | do ordain and establish | this Constitution for the United States of America

Boom. That’s it. We are ordainin’ and establishin’ a constitution! Whatcha gonna do about it King George?

Appositive Phrase in the Subject

Our subject has an appositive phrase, which is a phrase or word that renames a noun (example: Jack’s dog, Rex – “Rex” would be an appositive). In this case, our appositive phrase is: the People of these United States. Today, this phrase is well known and accepted – it’s kind of a part of our emotional fabric: We are the people! Power to us! Ironically, it wasn’t always there!

The back story to how and why the appositive phrase was added reveals that it was more of a legal CYA (cover your …) for future issues than a rallying cry for the masses (see this section of the Wikipedia article for a bit more).

We, the People of the United States, | do ordain and establish | this Constitution for the United States of America

My first attempt at framing out this beast. Unfortunately, I made a mistake and had to redo the whole thing – twice

A closer look at the finished frame

Now, all I have to do is spell the words correctly – which can be a challenge sometimes because we all make mistakes, and I don’t use erasable pens!

That’s really all there is to this sentence. Oh yeah, there is that pesky infinitive phrase in the middle that explains why we’re creating this constitution. It’s a monster, so hold on!

A Troubling Infinitive Phrase

Here is the offending phrase (which I believe is an infinitive phrase):

…in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity

I’m 99% sure that this is an infinitive phrase. I know that the words, in order to, are a compound particle, meaning that they require an additional word or words to make sense. If the words, in order, were removed, I’d be 100% positive that I was working with an infinitive verb construction:

To form, establish, insure, provide, promote, and secure, we are creatin’ this here constitution! Booya, Britian!

That being so, I am basing my judgement on nothing more than the fact that I can’t see any other possibility for the phrase, in order to, other than acting as a particle to create an infinitive verb construction in the same way that the word, to, does in an infinitive verb. As such, all we have to do now is evaluate the six verb phrases in the infinitive verb construction:

We are makin’ this here con-stee-two-shun in order to…

1. form a more perfect Union
2. establish Justice
3. insure domestic Tranquility
4. provide for the common defence
5. promote the general Welfare
6. secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity

Each verb phrase is giving us a direct object except for number four, which is just a subject/verb construction with the prepositional phrase, for the common defence, tacked on to modify the verb, provide.

Any questions?

Artwork

This was one of the most frustrating pieces that I’ve ever done! I am not an artist (obviously), but I do think that I can squeak out some cool doodles from time to time. Unfortunately, I kept messing up the drawing on this one. In total, I think I redrew this entire piece three times! I easily have an entire day in this piece. Crazy!

The finished piece

My last, best effort at adding artwork to this diagram

A Call to Grammarians

Anyone who would like to argue with my grammatical choices in this sentence, please feel free to leave a comment below. I totally welcome your critique. I’m not 100% on this one. Your help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for reading!

Doodles, Diagrams, and Good Books is a 150-page adult activity book that is designed to entertain and inform. For the publisher, the key element is this: it must be printed on paper. This ain’t no ebook.

Concept

Doodles, Diagrams, and Good Books serves the buyer three slices of literary fun:

1. Visually stunning, original images of the opening lines from some of the greatest works of literature
2. Discussions about the impact and importance of those opening lines
3. Grammatical instruction on the sublime art of sentence diagramming – complete with fill-in-the-blanks diagram challenges

Eye Candy for All

This book will present readers with the first sentences or lines from the greatest and most loved works of literature in the form of whimsical illustrations and grammatically correct, hand-drawn diagrams.

Experience your most treasured literary memories parsed into elegant grammatical diagrams and accompanied by stark illustrations.

J. D. Salinger’s THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

J. D. Salinger’s THE CATCHER IN THE RYE.

Graham Greene’s THE QUIET AMERICAN

Whispers in the Hall

What does it all mean? What’s the purpose of the opening sentence? It’s certainly not the best sentence in the book. Why focus on it?

Literary purpose of an opening line

“What’s so great about this book? The boy’s a pussy and he takes the Lord’s name in vain over and over and over! Why would you study this crap?”

Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye

In my junior year as an undergraduate, venerable American literature professor, Dr. Ron Black, assigned our class J. D. Salinger’s classic and controversial masterwork, The Catcher in the Rye. At the time, I was dating a beautiful and intellectually innocent redneck from the wild river town of Prairie Du Rocher, Illinois. One night, Catcher stumbled into her hands. As you might expect, she didn’t get it.

She was appalled at the language and she detested the main character. Having grown up around good old boys who were raised with a shotgun in one hand and a can of Budweiser in the other, Holden Caulfield was nothing more than a panty waist pussy who whined like a little girl and took the Lord’s name in vain far too much.

Defending my professor, I launched into my best attempt to parrot Dr. Black’s lectures. I explained the anti-hero concept and Salinger’s use of motif and his economy of language and how Holden’s voice was prescient of future generations of disillusioned youth. My grandiose stammering did little to impress her.

“What’s so great about that? The book is still full of terrible language and has a sissy for a hero. It ain’t great to me!”

I took this story back to Dr. Black and asked him how he would have responded in such a situation. What exactly is it that makes this book, or any book, a great work of literature? He sighed sympathetically, pursed his lips in thought, and said:

“You know what makes a book great to me? When I finish a great book, I mean, when it’s a really good book, I am immediately compelled to reread the first page.”

That didn’t mean much to my dear redneck girlfriend, but it stayed with me. Several years later, I reread Catcher. As I finished it, I could hardly wait to go back and reread the first page. It was a revelation. Everything was there in the first rambling, self-important, spoiled, bratty opening line – mood, tone, voice, foreshadowing, character. The opening line of Catcher is the perfect ending to a perfect beginning.

UNDER CONSTRUCTIONS

Grammatical structure of an opening line

Some opening lines are cathedrals of grammatical elements. Some are simple. Examining the grammatical structure can provide insight into how

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