A: An ogre, because then you don’t have to tell your parents.

Q: What do you get when you cross a centaur and a fairy?

A: A catapult that never works.

Q: Why druid staves so small?

A: So they can wield them with manacles on.

Q: How do you babysit an elfling?

A: Tie their ears together and hang them on the wall.

Q: What do dwarves do during the winter?

A: Count all the djinn’s plunder they took during the summer.

Q: How can you tell when an Atlantean has been in your home?

A: Your liquor cabinet’s empty and all the mirrors are gone.

Q: What has nine arms, six teeth and smells like dung?

A: The head table at a troll wedding.

But my support for anti-hate crime legislation is divided. Hate crime is, as far as my reading has revealed to me, a strange thing. In Canada, a hate crime is a crime ‘motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or any other similar factor.’ This definition is frighteningly broad. A skinhead leaving nail bombs in synagogues could be charged with a hate crime in Canada. But, conceivably, so could your grandfather if he got into a fender-bender with an Asian man and punched him while yelling that ‘Fucking chinks can’t drive!’. A good lawyer could argue that, based on his publically uttered slur, gramps has a ‘thing’ against Asians and wouldn’t have hit someone of another race.

Now, both things are bad: Jews shouldn’t be nail bombed and Asians shouldn’t be punched. But one is clearly worse than the other (HINT: the nail bomb thing). Nevertheless, if my understanding of Canadian hate crime law is correct, there’s a possibility that, as the result of a traffic accident, these two men could wind up sharing a cell:

That’s probably not gonna happen, because what hate crime legislation really is is a way to dole out extra punishment to the people who really deserve it. It’s ‘Anti Dickhead’ law, and it probably winds up punishing the right people, i.e., racist, homophobic dickheads. But the principle behind hates crime has always bothered me because it’s so vague. I could conjure up numerous scenarios that challenge and confuse the good intentions behind persecuting hate criminals (and I have; see the P.S. at the end of this post). It’s kind of like the law that sent California pornographer Max Hardcore to jail. I’m glad he’s not doing what he does anymore, but I question the means behind how we stopped him. At the end of the day it seems capricious and subject as much to the non-legal whims of the powers involved as it does to by-the-book legislation. And that’s a problem.

(NOTE: I do support hate crime legislation, but only because the law of averages dictates that an inevitable typo will result in reportage of a ‘hat crime’. And that will be hilarious.)

Although Gaga makes it clear that she believes in respect for all students, her proclamation is a direct response to a gay student who killed himself as a result of being bullied for being gay. Fine. See DISCLAIMER #2. But what if a student is bullied because he’s a good ol’ fashioned heterosexual nerd? Just a D&D-loving, H.P. Lovecraft-reading, video game-playing, book-reading nerd? What then? Would his theoretical suicide fall under the category of ‘hate crime’?

I realize what we’re trying to do here. We’re trying to stop high school kids from killing themselves because of what other students say and do to them in the unbearable social crucible that is high school. See DISCLAIMER# 2 again. But I recoil at Lady Gaga’s notion that bullying should be a hate crime because it is, at its heart, a ridiculously Draconian suggestion. Justice-wise, it’s a napalm strike against a village of peasants with rusty mattocks, a punishment that far outstrips the crime. It just doesn’t ‘fit’. And if we want words like ‘hate’ and ‘crime’ to continue to carry any weight in Canadian society, they have to be used infrequently, and by people who know what they’re talking about. In the capacity of law, justice, and social equality, Lady Gaga isn’t qualified to weigh in on this subject, much as her fans would like her to.

Post-Blog Post-Script: Should It Be A Hate Crime?

 Assume that the ‘abuse’ theorized below is public, prolonged and pronounced.

1. A gay student is subject to slurs and abuse based on his sexual orientation by heterosexual students.
2. A heterosexual student is subject to slurs and abuse based on his sexual orientation by gay students.
3. A heterosexual student is subject to gay slurs and abuse by heterosexual students, despite not being gay.
4. An openly gay student is subject to slurs and abuse based on his sexual orientation by heterosexual students, but is later revealed to be heterosexual.
5. A black student is subject to constant slurs and abuse, but it is later revealed that the abuse is rooted in negative stereotypes applicable only to other races and creeds (i.e., ‘You drunken, potato-eating motherfucker!’).
6. An Asian student is subject to constant slurs and abuse, but it is later revealed that the abuse is rooted in hitherto unheard of and seemingly ridiculous stereotypes that don’t apply to any discernable race or creed (i.e., ‘You classical music-loving’, cotton candy eatin’  motherfucker!’).
7. A neo-Nazi is subject to slurs and abuse based on his political beliefs by a group opposed to them.
8. A man with a hat attacks another, hatless man.

ANSWERS: These are all colours from the Benjamin Moore ‘Hearts And Homes Interiors Collection’. 

2.

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**Point values are given based on an opening ‘Bingo’ with the highest-scoring letter played on the available DLS.

1. AFOXISH (106)
2. AMISSET (74)
3. ASHRING (80)
4. ASSBACK (90)
5. BALLJOB (102)
6. BINGREE (76)
7. BOATISH (82)
8. BONEBAT (78)
9. BOORBID (80)
10. CAMISET (78)
11. CLUICID (80)
12. CONTISH (82)
13. CORDFUL (84)
14. CORNTOP (78)
15. CROUGHN (84)
16. DEDLING (74)
17. DISHISH (86)
18. EIEIOES (64)
19. FAGGGOT (84)
20. FAKEISH (92)
21. FARACCI (86)
22. FARBISH (88)
23. FATLIER (78)
24. FLINIKS (88)
25. FROLSCH (88)
26. GLANKER (84)
27. GRISKET (84)
28. HAMHIDE (90)
29. HATTING (80)
30. HEAMING (84)
31. HOOFEST (84)
32. HUNKING (90)
33. ILPNARY (82)
34. JAYLOAD (102)
35. JAZZLER (114)
36. JESUSES (94)
37. JEWIEST (100)
38. KLELLED (84)
39. LIONARY (78)
40. METHING (80)
41. MNEMTIC (82)
42. MOUNDLY (84)
43. MUNDIER (76)
44. NIPPLER (78)
45. NONFAUX (100)
46. NULGISH (80)
47. OBINARY (80)
48. OOZIEST (102)
49. ORGASMY (84)
50. ORLOAFT (78)
51. PENISED (76)
52. PIGLESS (76)
53. PIMPISH (90)
54. PINCOCK (94)
55. PLEAVID (84)
56. PORKILY (92)
57. POUBBED (84)
58. PREELED (76)
59. PRICELY (86)
60. PRUSION (74)
61. PUSSIER (74)
62. RACISTY (82)
63. REFARTS (78)
64. REFISTS (74)
65. RESTISK (82)
66. REQUEER (102)
67. REVELVE (84)
68. RULLIAM (74)
69. RUNGLER (70)
70. SCOLEET (74)
71. SCREWLY (88)
72. SEXHOLE (100)
73. SILMNED (76)
74. SINKIER (82)
75. SKILFIX (108)
76. SNEETHS (78)
77. SPRUITS (74)
78. STALDRY (80)
79. SQUORKS (110)
80. SWISSLY (84)
81. TAFFIER (84)
82. TAINTLY (78)
83. TAYNARY (84)
84. THRULCH (88)
85. TITILER (66)
86. TRISHED (80)
87. TROWLRY (84)
88. TURDING (72)
89. TWEXTEN (100)
90. UFARIAN (78)
91. UNFLATE (78)
92. UNLUNAR (64)
93. UNRAPED (74)
94. UNWETLY (84)
95. UNWHORE (84)
96. VADERLY (86)
97. WAITTLE (78)
98. WUNCHED (90)
99. WUTANGS (80)
100. ZISSNER (102)

They were called ‘the poor man’s Wu-Tang Clan’. Later, they were called ‘the rich man’s Wu-Tang Clan’. Then, just, ‘the Wu-Tang Clan’.  They were the Wu-Tang Clan, and they were the biggest rap group in history. Literally. There were, like ten of them, and they changed the face of hip-hop music forever.

This is their story.

PART I – BACK IN DADDY

 That’s a typo. It should say ‘BACK IN DA DAY’. Sorry.

The year was 1992: Heroin was still legal and Jimmy Carter was in the White House.  Visiting then-President Bill Clinton, yes, but he was there. And at an upscale Staten Island eatery a young saucier named Raekwon, weary of being repeatedly passed over for a promotion to chef, threw in his apron. ‘Fuck this shit, I quit.’ he said, and armed with that one simple rhyme, he set out to make hip-hop history.

No one thought this was the beginning of a rap dynasty. For one thing, there was already a Rap Dynasty, a number one-rated show on CBS that combined footage from the successful 80’s drama with audio of Puff Daddy muttering ‘Uh….uh…yeah…c’mon’ overtop. Secondly, Staten Island was notoriously unfriendly to rappers, taxing all rhymes and flow, mad and otherwise, at a rate that made it impossible for a lone urban wordsmith to become financially successful. To make it in the rap game, a nigga had to incorporate, and that took help. Fortunately, Raekwon knew just where to get it.

Rae began assembling a hip-hop dream team comprised of friends, associates and former colleagues. His first conscripts were Robert Fitzgerald Diggs and Gary Grice, known respectively as RZA and GZA. As the two surviving members of the Dion Quintuplets, they had extensive performance experience and felt comfortable in front of crowds. A phone call to childhood friend, Donald ‘Cappadonna’ Donaldson brought the MC count to four. And struggling rapper U-God was brought onboard because having someone with ‘God’ in their name would officially make the group a church, rendering it exempt from taxation.

This gave the group five members, each skilled in the craft of the spitting of rhymes. But Raekwon, ever the perfectionist, wasn’t happy. If five rappers were five times better than one, he theorized, then nine rappers would be nine times better than one. The math was double-checked and confirmed, and four more members were sought out.

To lure Ghostface Killah and Inspecta Deck to the fold, Rae balanced a wooden box precariously on a stick, baited the trap with fat beats, and pulled the stick away when the pair drew near. Method Man made the cut when his car broke down in front of Raekwon’s house and he asked, in profanity-laced rhyme, to use Rae’s phone to call a tow truck. And a classified ad in a student newspaper caught the eye of Russell ‘Ol’ Dirty Bastard’ Tyrone, who had just been barred from the Staten Island College Of Nursing for sticking pins in the heads of patients.

ABOVE: An overexposed promotional photo of the original Wu-Tang Clan.

With the team assembled, the face of music was about to be changed forever. All they were missing was a name, a problem solved by adopting the title of the group’s favourite cult film. Unfortunately, touring as Teen Wolf got the group booed off stage during their fist gig, a benefit for teenagers who had been mauled by wolves. Over the next six months they toured under a variety of similarly-inspired names including The Last Starfighter, Krull, The Wizard, Mac And Me and Caddyshack II, all with minimal success. It was then that U-God suggested ‘Wu-Tang Clan’, a mysterious team of ninjitsu assassins from the little-known chop-sockey flick Enter The 36 Chambers. The group agreed, and when the first box of Wu-Tang Clan business cards arrived from Staples, it was official.

They were ready to hit the big time.

PART II – WU-TTLE MANIA SWEEPS AMERICA

If ever there was a group in the right place at the right time, it was the Wu-Tang Clan; they were punctual and had an impeccable sense of direction. America, tired of waiting for a follow-up to 1985’s ‘Superbowl Shuffle’, was hungry for something new in rap. And the Wu-Tang Clan, ladle, needle and thread in hand, was ready to sew the country’s asshole closed and keep feeding it.

The Clan appeared seemingly out of nowhere, and carried an aura of equal parts danger, mystery and danger-stry. People could only speculate on their origins and motives. Were they something to fuck with? What ruled everything around them? Which part of the listener’s anatomy, if any, would they advocate protection of? These questions and others were answered in November of 1993, when the Clan’s first album dropped and exploded like a bomb. And not those inferior, ineffectual bombs made by housewives during wartime, either. The good kind.

Swingin’ To The Cool Sounds Of The Wu-Tang Clan was an instant hit, garnering respect and admiration from fans and critics alike. Seven of the album’s eight tracks became Top 10 Hits, including ‘Are You Ready For Some Football?’ which was later rescored by Hank Williams Jr. to become the NHL’s theme song. The album was a diatribe against poverty, aggression, violence and the urban experience, articulated with a freshness and brilliance too long absent from rap music. Plus, the songs rhymed, which was nice. When the Wu-Tang Clan spoke, it was with the authority of numbers. One guy rapping about how the government cut off food stamps in his neighborhood and used the money they’d saved to build a food-stamp burning machine could be ignored. Two guys rapping about it wasn’t a big deal, either; maybe the second guy was retarded and was just repeating everything the first guy rapped. ‘Tards do that’s sometimes. But nine guys?  That was a presence to be reckoned with. For the first time ever, Americans were afraid of young black men.

Wary of resting on their laurels, the Wu-Tang released their follow-up album, Frampton Comes Alive, the very next day. It featured U-God playing a rare Les Paul Custom with three humbucking pickups as opposed to the usual two pickups found on most Gibson Les Pauls at the time. Alive showed a more playful side of the Clan and began introducing listeners to the group’s individual members and styles. Songs like Method Man’s ‘M.E.T.H.O.D. Man’ were proficient and educational, and had elementary schools across the country praising the group for improving kids’ ability to spell. This led to a number of educational follow-up hits like ‘Yo, Let’s Learn State Capitals’, ‘My Nigga Ferdinand Magellan’ and ‘177 Divided By 3 Is 59’, in which Method Man literally schooled struggling math students:

The Wu-Tang Clan were best appreciated, however, in concert. A carnival atmosphere pervaded the group’s live shows, except instead of the calliope there was thudding bass, instead of the ring toss there were people throwing their sets into the air, and instead of the laughter of children there was misogynist profanity. The smell of funnel cake, however, remained, thanks to Clan fans’ predilection for a bio-engineered strain of marijuana that smelled like fried dough and icing sugar when lit. Hardcore fans, ‘Clansmen’, gathered at venues hours and even days before the group arrived to perform. Eventually, the sky would reverberate with the sound of nine individual jet-packs and each member of the Wu-Tang Clan would descend from the heavens and land on a special stage modified to fit nine rappers. The front row would don protective goggles and hoist handmade Wu-Tang cuspidors, a signal that the group could begin spitting rhymes.

The group’s love and respect for their fans was evident in the detail and consideration showed during each live performance.  The Wu-Tang Clan not only gave shout outs to the crowd, but also gave Shout out to the crowd in case anyone had a stain on their clothes. There was a special mosh pit for pregnant mothers and the elderly.  At halftime fans were treated to toasted pumpernickel bagels topped with fresh honey from the Clan’s apiary of domesticated killah bees. Each show culminated with a special ‘Wu & A’ session that allowed audience members to ask one question to a member of their choice. ‘Have you seen my keys?’ was the most popular.

The incredible success of the Clan’s live album Rhymes In Mean Time: Live in Greenwich allowed the band to sign dozens of endorsement deals with a wide range of products and services. If a young girl began her journey into womanhood in the late 90’s, chances are she used Wu-Tang brand panty shields (‘For your Ol’ Dirty time of the month’).

The Clan was flying high on wings of rhymes. But fame, as they say, is a bitch. And the Wu-Tang Clan’s fame was in a very bad mood, and was about to pick a fight with her men for no reason whatsoever.

 PART III – ‘WE’RE BLACKER THAN JESUS.’

In the summer of 1996 the Clan announced a hiatus from touring so they could work on their third studio album. It was, Raekwon promised, to be the Gone With The Wind of hip hop albums, in that it would be epic, poignant and would make white people think black people didn’t know how to speak proper English.

The album, released on July 5, 1997 and bankrolled by the Independent Grocers Alliance, was called IGA, Please! and was panned by critics.  Foremost among detractors was the NAASP, the National Association of American Scrabble Players, who challenged the group’s frequent use of the word ‘nigga’. The album was also a letdown for longtime Clan fans, who claimed that the group’s commercial success had caused it to lose touch with its gritty, urban roots. Tracks like ‘Li’l Fork For Salad, Big Fork For Fish’, ‘Topiary Animals, Yo’ and ‘We’ve Lost Touch With Our Gritty, Urban Roots’ seemed to support such accusations. It was also highly criticized for its use of unauthorized samples, borrowing riffs from thirty-seven different artists’ tracks. This accusation was dismissed by Raekwon in an interview with Rolling Stone, where he stated that:

‘The Wu-Tang Clan’s material is one hundred percent original. We have nothing but the deepest R-E-S-P-E-C-T for our fellow musicians, and would never sample their music without their permission. That would be bad. Really really bad. Shamon, y’know. We want to rock and roll all night and party every day, and we would do anything for the love of our fans, but we won’t do that. Writing our own lyrics and performing our own music: these are a few of our favourite things.’

But if the group was worried about record sales, it didn’t show. They were still making more money than they knew what to do with, and their spending was becoming the stuff of legend in the music industry. Raekwon’s lavish 40 acre estate in the Alleghany Mountains featured a swimming pool filled with Cristal champagne, and a second pool filled with soda for designated drivers. U-God sported a diamond-encrusted grill, incisors and molars. Method Man had all his silverware gold-plated, his gold records platinum-ed, and his platinum Amex card coated in uranium.  And Method Man owned two pairs of sneakers, a rarity in the hip hop community.

It was during this period that individual members of the Clan began to branch out on their own, working on a series of solo projects. For these albums, members created and adopted names and personas different from the ones fans were familiar with. While these rap nom de plumes allowed Clan members a certain degree of creative license, the sheer volume of albums and monikers proved confusing for fans. Between nine members, the group had more than a hundred ‘alter egos’ and nicknames, including Phat Diabetic, MC Paintypants, Docta Doom OBGYN, DJ Mitigating Circumstances, Ol’ Klodhoppa, Spanish Bigfoot, Cowboy Claire, Smirnoff McPhee, Denver Haze, Captain Highlina, Rhymes LaRue, Flip Bitterdick, Copperplate Bold Condensed, Inkredulaz, Babe Roof, Miles ‘Midas’ Mufflers, Prequel Jones, Kal-el Da Lumpy Nigga, Gran’ Kanyon, Medium-Sized Wayne, Nick Silly, Pendragon Popcollar Bed-Stuy III, Con-fetti, Stutz Himler The Hip Hop Führer, Lazy Lion, The Long Tall Balla, Petite Poo, Freebee The Pro Bono Rapper, Pancake Malloy, Snoop Doggy Leibowicz, Brio C Note-O, Da Marketing Managa, Ice³ , Poisonous Gary, Grand Theft Otto, Mountain Dew^TM The Rapper, Damon Knight, DJ Jazzy Tim, Skribe The Death Row Bailiff, Réal Humdinger, Li’l Big Tinylarge, Da Focus Pulla,Uncle Jemima, Twerp Hamhock, Shabë, Harlem Gravy, Killah Bea Arthur, The Duluth Pimp, Überfly, Baby Duck, Ol’ Pussytoe, Bolex , Abin Sur, The Hadoukener, Boneburner, Gunslinger Gary, Goldenspine, Splish Splash Bling Blang, Silvafish, Harlem Cabbage, Phlat Soda, Dreamzickle, Whoppa Jr. Wit’ Cheeze, Magnum .357 P.I., Humphrey Hump, Ghetto Flax, Splatterfoott, Homina Homina, Goatee The Horned Rapper, Diamond Wordsworth Longfellow, William ‘Dollar Bill’ Dollar Will I. Am Canadian!, Pinko The Commie MC, Lavalier Mike, Kipton Da Bachala, Deep Blue Tugjob, Cheese Q. Caboose, Charles N. Charge, Wayward P.S.P., Showboat Huxtable, Zqxkj, Rich Uncle Pennybags, Groo, Jive Alive, Wee Pine Nut, Joey Cashew, Platinum Tylenol, Icy Hot, Boomerang Huang, The Yemeni Yeti, Rabbi Pirannah, Butterthroat, Kid Zangief, Glock Paddycake, Etaoin Shrdlu, Dewy Decimal, Jay Zed, Heavy Syrup, NAAC-3PO and Fine Art. This practice caused considerable confusion, not only among fans but among band members themselves. In August of 1997, Method Man performed a drive-by shooting on 12 Gauge Rub-A-Dub, a rapper he was beefing with. Only later was it discovered that the two men were the same person.

This period is considered to be the beginning of the Wu-Tang Clan’s downfall. Due to excess spending and depreciation of ‘Wu Bucks’, the band’s self-printed currency, they were struggling financially. A series of ill-conceived concert events did little to help. The Clan’s 1998 team-up with Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend, dubbed the ‘Wu Who Tour’, barely made enough to cover promotional costs. And a 10-part, 20-hour Ken Burns documentary about America’s love of baseball, hip-hop and the correlation between the two (Pitching Wu: America’s Love Of Baseball, Hip-Hop And The Correlation Between The Two) dried up the last of the group’s cash flow. The financial toll began to show. During their videos, the group now picked up all the money they threw at the camera. They switched from smoking Phillies Bunts to the much cheaper Punxsutawney Blunts. And transportation cutbacks meant the group only had hoes in the same area code.

The group was also struggling with the erratic behaviour of Raekwon. Hitherto the even-headed leader of the Clan, Rae had begun to exhibit all the signs of a fame-related nervous breakdown. During a live televised fundraiser for victims of hip-hop-related violence, he claimed that ‘Kate Bush doesn’t care about black people.” He bought the Elephant Man’s bones and kept them in a glass case in his garage. Not Joseph Merrick, the neurofibromatosic Englishman, but the Jamaican dancehall musician. And he began to use violence to deal with industry rivals and adversaries. Sausage magnate Jimmy Dean was found shot in the face on the same day Raekwon’s own Cuban Links breakfast meat cylinders made their debut, and many suspected foul play.

In October of 1999 the group sent Syd Barrett to Rae’s house with a ‘Congratulations On Your Retirement’ fruit basket, letting him know in no uncertain terms that he was no longer a member.

The Wu-Tang’s final public appearance took place on November 3, 1999, when the group reunited for a concert on the roof of the famed Apple Building on Saville Row in London. Unfortunately, the concert was cut short when the man living in the penthouse banged on his ceiling to complain about the noise. The group returned to New York dispirited, bankrupt, and slightly gassy from airplane food. As fast as it had begun, the Wu-Tang Clan’s meteoric rise was over.

Which is weird, because meteors don’t rise, they fall. But you get the point.

THE AFTERMATH

Today, little remains of the Wu-Tang Clan’s hip-hop empire. Their recording studio lies vacant, infested with coyotes and wild fennel. Their lavish estates and beloved possessions have been auctioned off to creditors and people who mistakenly raised their hands during auctions. And their once groundbreaking lyrics are now used by the editors of Wiccan cooking magazines as copy placeholder. But for fans, the Wu-Tang Clan are a cultural benchmark evocative of a very special time.  A time when the nation and the world came under the sway of nine black men who routinely gathered onstage and performed as a single, explosively creative musical supergroup the likes of which will never be seen again.

Actually.…y’know what? I was thinking of Parliament this whole time.

Never mind.

The Aztecs, for example used a base-12 system, so a 30^th birthday would be no big deal.  But turning 36 might have made an Aztec feel his age. If he hadn’t been slain by Europeans or sacrificed for playing on the losing team during an Intra-kingdom basketball tournament, a 36 year-old Aztec would be considered an old man. He’d be dreading his yearly physical: “Hmmm,” the Aztec doctor would mutter, looking at the X-Ray, “that heart better come out. Lay down on the altar while I scrub up.”

Computers use the hexadecimal, or base-16 system, so 16 is a milestone in a computer’s life. Ironic, since Moore’s law renders most computers obsolete long before then. Maybe that explains the angst of HAL and Skynet and all the other computers bent on destroying mankind: they’re the technological equivalent of grumpy old men.

Humans count the lives of dogs in increments of 7, which is kind of unfair to your dog when it comes to his birthdays. One day he’s 14, the next day he’s 21. Not only have his teen years have completely passed you by, but now he’s eligible to be drafted. Cicadas are even worse off – they appear every 17 years.  A cicada’s 17^th birthday is followed by his 34^th, and then by his 51^st. Because of this, cicadas are notoriously unfashionable: they show up to birthday parties dressed in the garb of 17, 34 and 51 years ago. You see a lot of denim overalls, bell bottoms and pillbox hats at cicada birthday parties.

If you’re really terrified of aging, you may chose to follow the example of Princeton mathematician John Nash. He proposed a base-26 system in which numbers corresponded to the 26-letter Latin alphabet. So your 16^th birthday would be your P^th, your 20^th your T^th, etc. When you turn 27, you simply start again at AA. Be warned, however: adopt this system and you could conceivably be invited to a 76 year-old woman’s XXX birthday party.

And what of entities beyond the lifespan and ken of mere humans? Could there not be a breed of mortal yet exceedingly long-lived godlike beings somewhere in the universe? Beings who measure their lives not in years, but in aeons? When do they start to feel the pinch of old age? Do they ever wake up in the heart of the sun where they dwell one day and mutter “I can’t believe I’m 10²³ years old already. I haven’t devoured half the worlds I thought I would.” More to the point, have you ever tried to buy 10²³ birthday candles? It’s damn near impossible, even if you write to the manufacturer.

In the end, though, the only real safeguard against feeling old is a general lack of knowledge about numbers. I failed math three times in high school (or was it two? which is more?), and become less interested in it with every passing day. For me, ignorance is not only bliss, it’s eternal youth, too.

1. What durable protective material was used to put Han Solo into hybernation? 

a)    Carbonite

b)    Dolomite

2. Which of the bug-eyed, waxen-faced horrors pictured below served as personal aide to Jabba The Hutt?

a) 
b) 

3. Of the following names, which one is a species from the Star Wars universe and not a sound made while vomiting?

a) Pffutt

b) Mwoulf

c) Ackblag

d) Ugnaught

e) Glor

4. According to Ben Kenobi, “________________ always ride single file to hide their numbers.”

a) Sandpeople

b) Fat People

c) Wave Babies

d) Latvians

5. Of the following names, which one is a droid from the Star Wars universe and not a wholesale industrial lubricant?

a) TVT24-7

b) GUNK L1004

c) Rd-90

d)  2-1B

e) WD-40

6. Of the following names, which one is a planet from the Star Wars universe and not a dish at an Italian restaurant?

a) Bagnun

b) Orzo

c) Nduja

d) Mon Calamari

e) Hey Badda-Boom Bada-Bing Bottomless Salad

7. Of the following names, which one is a Jedi Master and not a foreign brand of soda with the word ‘Master’ in front of it?

a) Master Quwat Jabal

b) Master Ooroo

c) Master Baidu

d) Master Kas

e) Master Fanta

8. Of the following names, which one is a Sith Lord and not a small Canadian town with the word ‘Darth’ in front of it? 

a) Darth Shediac

b) Darth Mattice-Val Cote

c) Darth Bindloss

d) Darth Traya

I am an advertising copywriter, which means I write copy (‘copy’ refers specifically to words in the context of advertising, as opposed to imagery) to convince people to buy products. I do a thousand other things, too, in the course of my day, but if I were to boil my job description down to three words, it would be ‘I use words.’ Last night, I had the pleasure of reviewing portfolios at an Advertising Student Portfolio Night that was attended wholly by copywriting students. This was a treat for me, because it gave me a chance to talk about something I actually know a little bit about

I offered all the copywriting students I saw the same advice about what I think an industry-ready portfolio should look like, and I’m offering it again here to anyone who cares.

I think a great copywriting portfolio includes five print campaigns of three ads each. That’s it. Let me tell you why I think that.

I believe that print advertising is the most basic, most effective way to convey new information. For me a print ad is a finite, static space wherein a message is focused, conveyed and confirmed using words, pictures, or a combination of both.  The ad industry makes very clear definitions between magazine ads, newspaper ads, billboards, and ads in bus shelters, but I’m not doing that here. All those media (and many more) have the above definition and, hence, the same restrictions and challenges, in common. From a writer’s POV, print is the most difficult medium in advertising to execute in because you can’t rely on anything other then the print execution itself to explain itself. The purpose of a student advertising portfolio is to provide the reader with a rapid-fire assessment of your skills and talents. Print is an excellent medium to do this in.

Of these five print campaigns of three ads each, I believe at least two of them should be headline-driven.  This means, essentially, words describing a product and/or its attributes and/or benefits composed in a clever, compelling way. The words in a headline campaign should do the ‘heavy lifting’, as industry parlance goes. Copywriting students should do headline ads because, like it or not, this advertising formula (a picture of something with words beside it) isn’t going away any time soon. As an ad copywriter, you will write thousands of headlines in your lifetime. So showing you can do it well, or at least have the potential to do it well, proves you have the basic skill a writer needs (i.e., the ability to write) to survive.

The other print ads in your book should be visually-driven. This means that an interesting image (as opposed to words) does the ‘heavy lifting’. This shows that, besides being handy with a turn of phrase, you’re also able to shift mental gears when necessary and think in pictures. Again, this is a valuable skill to have, because there are situations when words won’t help you. The words ‘I’m so hungry I could eat horse’ do not translate meaningfully into French (or so I’ve been told) so a different tack is needed. Visual thinking is simply another tool in your toolbox of a brain.

One type of ad a student copywriter should never have in their book is a ‘long copy’ ad. This is an ad with a ‘long’ amount of ‘copy’ (hence the clever name) that, as far as I can tell, students are forced to create at the behest of their teachers. You shouldn’t write them because no one will read them. It’s not you; it’s just human nature. People don’t like to read anything that doesn’t immediately interest them. Think how bored you are reading this. Now, the more astute among you will no doubt charge that it’s an advertising copywriter’s job to make boring subject matter interesting. It is. But given that a student copywriter has a short amount of time to produce work of a quality and quantity that will impress potential employers, I can’t in good conscience say that crafting and re-crafting a 3000-word missive about the deliciousness of Triscuits is going to pay off huge. If you want to prove an adroit grasp of grammar and punctuation, write 20 – 30 words of supporting ‘body copy’ about a product appearing in one of your headline-driven ads. This is a more realistic example of how much copy you’ll be asked to write at any given time anyway; few advertisers do long copy ads in the first place.

Let’s talk about web stuff. I know how important the Internet is in commerce. ‘Kay? But I disagree strongly with the mandatory inclusion of things like web banners and iPhone apps in a student portfolio. Why? Because, from what I’ve seen, it results in students fitting mediocre ideas to the demands of a medium instead of letting a great idea speak for itself. If you want to produce an ad tailored to a specific medium, I’m personally more impressed with students who tackle a less glamourous medium than the web or an iPhone app. The marketplace is full of ad spaces that can give a student copywriter the chance to prove how clever they are: the handles on grocery carts, decals on convenience store freezers, tear-away coupons at the bottom of other ads, etc. Plus, by executing an ad in one of these mediums, you’ll have a point of difference between you and all the other students who cranked out the same banner in your ‘Writing For The Web 101’ class. (NOTE: One of the most memorable pieces of student work I saw at last night’s Advertising Student Portfolio Night was a handmade stencil of the Pabst Blue Ribbon logo that could be included in cases of beer and used to quickly spray paint the PBR logo anywhere. The student had made it herself from a piece of cardboard, and included photos of the stencil actually being used. I loved this piece because a), it would invariably appeal to the urban white-collar hipsters who drink PBR and, b), it was a refreshing low-tech contrast to the dozens of web banners, apps and QR code stuff other students had in their portfolios. In an industry that stakes its livelihood on originality, that girl did something no one else was doing, which is the truest benchmark of originality I can think of).

If, however, you insist on putting web, TV, radio or any other executions that rely on electronic media in your book, my advice is to execute it and present it in the medium it’s intended for. If it’s a web banner that explodes, mock up a web banner that explodes and send me a link. If it’s a radio ad, record a radio ad (NOTE: At last night’s Advertising Student Portfolio Night one student actually had radio ads he’d recorded on his iPhone for me to listen to. It sounds like a stupidly obviously thing to do, but it was the first time I’d seen it done.) As a student, no one is expecting you to make it perfect, but there’s something to be said for playing to the strengths of whatever medium you’re using. All too often I see a web banner laid out on paper that requires a 400-word description to make it comprehensible. And I think we’ve already covered the general public’s hatred for reading.

Anywho, that’s my advice for advertising copywriters. Naturally, you can take it or leave it.

Either way, I’ll probably be working for you someday soon.