Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

People have said for decades, “Word-of-mouth is the best kind of advertising. That's the best kind: word-of-mouth.” You hear this so often when you sell advertising that my friend Bob Lepine used to joke about opening The Word of Mouth Advertising Agency. He said he was going to hire people to sit at bus stops and ride the elevators in tall buildings and say to people, “Have you tried that new restaurant over on Fifth Street? It's GREAT!” The funniest part of Bob's idea is that it probably would've actually worked.The power of the buzz – word-of-mouth advertising – lies in its credibility. But the only way to create buzz is to rock a person's world so hard that they can't help but talk about it to their friends.I'm going to try to do that today.Ray Bard of Bard Press, the publisher of my bestselling Wizard of Ads trilogy, looked at the new hardback book about to be released by Wizard Academy Press and wrote me an email. (I was walking out the door to meet Ray for lunch when a boxful of advance copies arrived from the printer. On impulse, I grabbed one for Ray.) These comments by email were completely unsolicited:RoyGreat to see you and catch up yesterday. And, thanks for the new Wizard Academy Press book. I usually refrain from providing comments about books after they're published (I've made enough mistakes myself over the years) but there is one issue that may deserve attention.When I got home last night I gave the book a quick look. It felt good in the hand and the inside contents looked good. Although the title sounded like a political book and provided no information about the content, I know that it can get by as it is. The other, more difficult issue, is the price. When I first saw the $13.95 I thought it was a mistake but noticed it was printed in two places. The last time 300 page hard cover business books sold for $13.95 was probably 30 years ago. The retail price is a statement of what you think the value of the book is. When most similar business books are selling for twice as much today, you can see the message this sends.If the publisher is pursing a strong merchandising strategy with lots of face out retail space I recommend pushing the retail into the “value” category. Unless you have a new distribution effort, I would not recommend it for this book. And, the $13.95 is way beyond “value” pricing.For what my opinion is worth, I would have priced it at $30. and sold it at $20 for special customers. I think you can see the difference in psychology.Again, I regret bringing this up now, but I know the book will be used in the company's marketing efforts. And, as it is, the price sends just the opposite message you want.RayRay Bard is America's most successful publisher of business books. He is responsible for putting two of my books on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list and one on the New York Times list, so I listen carefully to what Ray says.He's right. Thirteen ninety-five is way too cheap for a 314 page hardback containing this kind of detailed information about how to make online marketing actually work. These pages are chock full of little-known techniques for improving online marketing results. More than a dozen Fortune 500 companies have paid the authors huge amounts of money to learn this stuff. That's why our plan all along was to price the second printing at 25.95. But this first printing exists only to create a buzz. That's why we're giving you 2 additional copies for each one you buy at just $13.95. We know you'll give them to friends. We know your friends will be rocked. We know your friends will talk about it to their friends. It's all about the buzz and this book contains some fabulous honey. By the way, shipping is free if you live in the US, so you'll have a grand total of only 4.65 per book in each of your 3 hardback copies.Wizard Academy Press is gambling that the information contained in this book will give you a heady buzz and be worth mentioning to your friends.I'll let you know in a few weeks how the experiment turns out. In the meantime, why not get 3 copies headed your way?Roy H. Williams

Standing inside Chapel Dulcinea recently, I looked up to see the great ribs beneath the roof beams above me and thought, “Jonah in the belly of the whale.” Do you remember the story? It's only four short chapters, a 5-minute read. The next morning, Princess Pennie went back to Dulcinea with me and we sat together while I read the book of Jonah aloud. Somehow, it felt like the right thing to do.Let me summarize it for you: Running from God, Jonah boards a ship headed in the opposite direction from the place he knew he was supposed to go. (Have you ever rebelled, brazenly, from what was expected of you by someone else?) And then a storm came. (Somehow they always do.) Thrown overboard, Jonah is swallowed by “a great fish” in whose belly he reevaluates his priorities and finds his soul again. Jonah's time of reflection and prayer in the belly of the beast is a marvelous thing to read. The fish then vomits Jonah unceremoniously onto the beach. (Ever been unceremoniously barfed by circumstances following a storm that hugely kicked your ass? Me too.) Now this is where the story gets interesting to me: Jonah, having survived the crisis, finally does what he should, but with a really bad attitude. The tale ends with Jonah being unbelievably petty and small, a pale shadow of the giant he had been during his time in the belly of the beast.Evidently, I'm not the only person who can go from high thoughts to low thoughts in a very short period of time. And neither are you.Interestingly, Jonah's pendulum swing was the inverse of Elijah's. Whereas Jonah went from high thoughts in the belly of the beast to low thoughts during his mission, Elijah went from high thoughts during his mission on the top of Mount Carmel (where he called down fire from heaven to burn up an offering to God in front of a huge crowd of witnesses,) to low thoughts immediately after his triumph. “Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day's journey into the desert. He came to a broom tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. 'I have had enough, LORD ,' he said. 'Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.' Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep.” When Elijah awakened, he went to spend some time in a cave at Mount Horeb. Read the 19th chapter of 1st Kings and you'll recognize another belly, another whale.Every caterpillar must go into the cocoon if she will spread her newfound wings.Some will find Chapel Dulcinea to be the belly of the whale, a place for reflection in times of crisis. Others will find Dulcinea to be the cave at Horeb, a place to regain their balance after riding an emotional rollercoaster. For thousands of young couples, Dulcinea will be the cocoon from which will emerge the two-winged butterfly of marriage. But always it will be a place of transformative change.No one but Pennie knew that I was contemplating the book of Jonah and the value of reflection, so it came as a soft surprise when Bryan Eisenberg forwarded to me a quote he thought I might find interesting: “The Internet radically redefines a person's psychological relationship to time and space. Attention is riveted on what is tangible, useful, instantly available; the stimulus for deeper thought and reflection may be lacking. Yet human beings have a vital need for time and inner quiet to ponder and examine life and its mysteries… Understanding and wisdom are the fruit of a contemplative eye upon the world, and do not come from a mere accumulation of facts, no matter how interesting.” – Pope John Paul II, Sunday, May 12, 2002I hope you don't mind that I chose to share with you something less tangible and instantly useful this week.Come see us.Roy H. Williams

Hi Roy,Thanks for the mention in the MMM today. It never ceases to amaze me the buzz something like that creates.Reading it also reminds me of the other conversation that took place at the same time, when you and Dave were talking about how a chef reduces the sauce to intensify the flavour and how that process can be related to writing. That conversation adds clarity to today's argument raging in the US about 60's vs. 30's.CheersSteveThe “other conversation” mentioned in this email from my partner Steve Rae was with Dave Martin, the Academy graduate and friend in whose restaurant we were dining. Following my discussion of paint with Bob Shrubsall, Dave and I began discussing how impact grows when it's concentrated into less of the carrier vehicle. This is the secret of perfume, reduction sauce, and the edge of an axe. But just as sharpening an axe or simmering the water from sauce takes time and patience, editing words from descriptions is not a task for the anxious or twitchy.Easy reading is damned hard writing.Think of this principle as The Law of Refined Essence.I've always been a fan of David Ogilvy and J. Peterman, two of the great masters of evocative description, and both were advocates of long and colorful copy. These men were legends in their day but I believe that day is fading. The rules of communication are shifting beneath our feet.Haven't you noticed?We're entering an era of stimuli bombardment, visual ecstasy, sound bites, the micro attention span. A committed reader is a rare bird.Over-communication has accelerated beyond critical mass and the resulting explosion has fragmented the public mind.So the new rule is to say what you've got to say. And say it hot.Speaking to authors, Elizabeth Spencer said, “Don't overwrite description in a story – you haven't got time.” I believe her advice rings truer today than ever.What do you believe?Roy H. Williams

People who try to stay “on the cutting edge” tend to see everything as new. But the thing that has been will be again. And that which currently is, has been, long before our time.If this observation seems familiar to you, it's probably because you remember it from a book written a few thousand years ago. Solomon went looking for the meaning of life and the essay he wrote about his journey, Ecclesiastes, opens with a similar observation about the cyclical nature of things.I call such observations Laws of the Universe and I depend on them to make my clients rich. Sounds like a book title, doesn't it? The Wizard's Laws of the Universe? Perhaps I'll write it someday.Right now I'm looking at a business card I've been carrying in my wallet since late autumn, 2000; Pennie and I were in Stratford, Ontario, while the Bush-Gore “hanging chad” debate raged in Florida. No one was sure who had been elected president. So at dinner in the basement of Fellini's, my partner Steve Rae casually asked, “So what do you think will happen if your boy gets elected?”My reply was detached and instant. “We'll be at war within a year.”Stunned, the table went quiet until Dave Martin, our host, set down his fork and asked, “Why?”“Never put a Texan in the White House,” were the eight short words of my answer. Then, looking across the table at Bob Shrubsall, I said, “They tell me you know more about the science of paint than anyone I'll ever meet. Is that true?” Bob, in the understated way that is typical of Canadians, shared a little of his lifelong obsession with pigmentation and how it had led him into a specialized course of higher education that culminated in several college degrees and a career in research and development.“So what makes one paint different from another?” I asked.This question obviously energized Bob, so I pulled out a pen and began writing down what he said; “Paint, any paint,” he said, “is composed of only 4 things: pigment, vehicle, additives, and resin.”Funny thing. Advertising is like that, too.The pigment of an ad is its color, tone, temperament or style. It's what makes us recognize the ad as part of a specific campaign. Think of this “ad pigment” as brand essence. Most ads today are evocatively pale due to a lack of pigment.The vehicle of an ad is the media which delivers it; newspaper, television, radio, outdoor, direct mail, internet, yellow pages and word-of-mouth are all vehicles of message delivery.The additives of advertising are the specific message points it hopes to deliver.The resin of an ad is what makes it stick in your mind. Surprising Broca and adding a Third Gravitating Body are just two methods of adding stickiness. Ultimately though, your ad's resin is the salience of the message as measured by the central executive of Working Memory in the dorsolateral prefrontal association area of the brain's left hemisphere.Yes, there are laws of the universe. And one of them is that lots of things are like paint. Advertising is like paint. Reputations are like paint. It pays to understand paint.Half the people reading this memo were likely irritated by the hyper-generalized nature of the 8-word statement I made at dinner in the basement of Fellini's. “It's more complicated than that, dammit! To say 'never put a Texan in the White House' is just shallow and simplistic and childish and irresponsible.”Yeah, you're probably right.But we did invade Afghanistan 10 months later.Roy H. Williams

A few years ago, your customer could compare you only to your competitor down the street. But information gathering and comparison shopping have since become effortless, thanks to the internet. Tens of millions of us are gathering and comparing info 24/7 in the comfort and seclusion of our own homes.But we're not “your customer,” right?I recently spoke to an audience of 1600 businesspeople at a conference in Las Vegas. Just before I walked onstage into the spotlight, my host whispered into my ear, “It would probably be better if you didn't make any references to the internet, because this audience is almost exclusively 55 and older.” I smiled and nodded at him just as the man at the microphone said “Roy H. Williams” and I walked out from behind the curtain to meet my fate.Taking center stage, I raised my hand and asked, “How many of you have used a search engine in the last 7 days to research a purchase that you were considering?” At least 90 percent of the hands in the room were instantly raised. I looked offstage and shot a smile to my host who was staring bug-eyed at the ocean of fingers.But I suppose none of those people were “your customer,” either.To get in step with the times, you must begin seeing the internet as an information directory at your customer's fingertips, because I can assure you that's how your customer sees it.But unlike yesterday's yellow pages, this new information directory is consumer reactive, offering sights and sounds and detailed information. “To heck with letting your fingers do the walking. Let your fingers trigger the adventure.” Today's new directory can deliver streaming video of your best salesperson making his best presentation on his best day, directly into your customer's home. It can answer all your customer's questions and calm their unspoken fears. But no salesman is going to schedule an appointment with you to make sure you're “in the book.” This is a call you have to initiate on your own.The times, they are a'changing.Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's enough to tell your customer, “Call or come into the store before closing time and our friendly staff will be happy to answer all your questions.” Yes, perhaps “your customer” has lots of free time and nothing better to do with it. Perhaps things aren't changing at all. Perhaps the old methods of marketing will always work.But then I am reminded of C.S. Lewis, who said: “The safest road to hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”Yeah. That's it. Just keep on doing what you've always done. I'm sure it will all work out.Roy H. Williams

NOTICE: This memo ends with a link to an ad writing course description. So don't be surprised.The last line in most TV or radio ads is usually a “call to action,” right? Especially if the ad was produced locally:“Hurry. These prices won't last long.”“Act Now. Offer expires soon.”“You must be present to win.”We say these things because we're trying to create a sense of urgency. We want to see customers respond immediately, so we yank the chain of self-interest. But the public is growing tired of having its chain yanked. And for this reason, ads that attempt to create a sense of urgency are becoming passé. We're developing an immunity to ad-speak.From the Great Depression through WWII, any product with the courage to advertise relentlessly was assured a place in the national consciousness. Mass media was cheap and all of America could easily be reached by it. You had three TV networks, a local newspaper and a small group of AM radio stations. Take your pick.Then we tumbled into the 60s and advertising got creative. Along came the 70s, FM radio arrived and right behind it, cable TV.Babies born in 1980 emerged into a plastic world of flashing lights and shallow hype. Cartoons like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were interrupted by ads for the Popeil Pocket Fisherman and the amazing Veg-O-matic. “It makes mounds and mounds of julienne fries! But wait! There's more!” Disco music and line dancing and riding the mechanical bull. Pop like a flashcube, baby. Then in 1983, Michael Jackson swept the Grammies and Madonna leapt onto the charts with Material Girl. “We are liv-ing in a material world. And I am a material girl.”Fast forward a quarter century: Never has a generation had so much to do and so little time. We're drowning in recreational opportunities. The Saturday morning cartoons of childhood blossomed into their own round-the-clock cartoon network and the nightly news has become a series of non-stop news channels. Comedy has its own unending comedy channel, movies their own 24-hour movie channel and department stores have morphed into a theme park of superstores known as Power Centers where we can watch the retail giants slug it out for our discretionary dollar: Circuit City vs. Best Buy. Linens'n'Things vs. Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Lowe's vs. Home Depot, OfficeMax vs. Office Depot, and PetsMart vs. Petco.What is a citizen to do?Those jaded infants of 1980 are turning 25 this year and they bring with them a new sensibility: Use technology to block out a too-much world.1. Digital Video Recorders allow us to skip TV commercials.2. Satellite radio and iPods allow us to hide from radio ads.3. Video games allow us to run from reality as we withdraw into an online world unreachable by modern advertising.MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) like EverQuest and WarCraft are a movie that never ends. The reality hook is that you are connected with other people who know you only as you have chosen to be known. Think of it as the ultimate costume party.Did you know that you can type a text message on the keys of your cell phone that will instantly appear on the cell phone of a friend? This “instant messaging” is slow and laborious, but millions do it as a way of showing courtesy to their friends. “Ring the phone when your message can't wait, send a text when it can.” Non-interruption is a high value among the emerging generation and they're beginning to spread an appreciation of it to their Baby Boomer parents as well.Bottom line: Our growing immunity to ad-speak means that the believability of ads that attempt to trigger urgency must be linked to the credibility of your desperation. So how do you think these “Hurry! Hurry!” lines are going to work in the future?“Prices so low we can't say them on the air!”“We won't be undersold!”“Be one of the first 200 people through the door and receive a free gift!”The marketplace is changing far more quickly than is advertising.That's why I'm here; to help you get in step with today's consumers. Do it and move ahead of the curve to where the sky is bright and the air is sweet.Let me know if you're interested.Roy H. WilliamsAuthor of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times bestselling Wizard of Ads trilogy

I wrote three memos to you this week, but decided not to send the first two. The first one, We Are Sancho Panza, is the dancing safari into symbolic thought that I promised you in last week's memo. It begins, “Who can explain our four-century attraction to Don Quixote? The book is hard reading and dull, full of inconsistencies, and confusing. A little like the Bible. And yet Quixote is the second most widely-read book on earth; second only to… yes, the Bible.” Powerful and flexible symbolic thought includes all forms of metaphor, simile and corollary. Its function is to relate that which is not understood to that which is understood. Even as the Psalmist wrote in Psalm 42, “deep calleth unto deep…” symbolic language calls to the unconscious; deep waters to deeper still.I decided not to send you We Are Sancho Panza because it might have been misconstrued as a spiritual ambush. Some might even have called it religious. It definitely travels beyond the boundaries I impose on these Monday Morning Memos, so don't click that link unless you really want to go there. You have been warned.The second memo I wrote but chose not to send was some very specific advice about radio advertising called “How to Make a Fabulous :30 from the Average :60.” But I decided to save those seven simple steps to deliver at an event I'll be doing in Dallas in May as a gift to my friend, Eric Rhoads, in honor of his 50th birthday.So having written two memos to you and deciding to send neither, I wandered over to Academy Hall to peep in at a guest lecture in progress. There, on our mammoth projection screen, it read: “What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?” An interesting question, it immediately triggered a deeper one: “What would you attempt if you knew nothing you did would ever work out?”The first question urges you to dream big. The second, to be truly committed.What is worth doing even if you can't succeed? Is there a mountain worth climbing even if there's no hope of ever reaching the top? Think about it. Standing on the top of the mountain is a moment, supposedly the moment “that makes it worth it all.” Makes it worth all what? A lifetime of disconnection, alienation and misplaced priorities? The world's saddest person is that tragic has-been who speaks incessantly about his or her shining moment long ago. Do you really want to be the woman who “used to be” Miss America? Or the man who “used to play” professional sports?No mountain climber ever stays long on the summit. But the brevity of these visits isn't because someone drove them off to take their place. They leave because there is nothing more to do. The movie is over. The credits are rolling. Holding an empty popcorn bucket and a soft-drink cup, they go looking for a trash can and a bathroom.Susan Ertz once wrote, “Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.” Life, if you will, is that rainy Sunday afternoon. What are you going to do with it?I'm talking about embracing a commitment to something far bigger than your own small and petty desires.Commitment is not to be found in brave talk, bold resolution, or dramatic gesture. And she will not be measured quickly. Strong and silent, Commitment steps into the light only in those dark and quiet moments when it would be easier to creep, unseen, away.How deep is your Commitment to what you're doing with your life? I ask only because I care.And it's never too late to change.Roy H. Williams

“And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flame are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one.” In this strange passage from Little Gidding, poet T.S. Eliot links the mental image of a rose to the image of an infolded knot of flame. We see the connection; yes, a rose does look something like a knot of fire.Much has been written about intuition and creativity. Most of it is wrong.Allow me to explain; Intuition is merely pattern recognition, a principal function of the right hemisphere of your brain. Centered in that wordless realm, intuition whispers, “I've seen this movie, or one similar to it, so I think I know how it ends.” But your right brain is without word-language, so this thought must emerge in your consciousness only as a hunch, a gut feeling, a precognition, an inexplicable insight. When such insights flow unrestricted from the right brain to the left and then out through the tip of a pen, they become powerful, poetic language, such as that of T.S. Elliot above. When from the tip of a brush, fine art. And when from the point of a draftsman's pencil, a new invention.Intuition and art, indeed all “creativity,” is based upon seeing the link between two dissimilar things that have no obvious connection.Gutenberg connected coins to books and invented the printing press. The link between them: duplication. “Gosh, if a coin die will stamp an image onto countless pieces of metal to make coins, couldn't the same be done with letters of the alphabet to make the pages of a book? All I would need is something to hold the movable letters in place that could then be easily lifted up and pressed down. A wine press! I'll use the plate of a wine press to hold the letters!” And the world was changed that day.Your left brain is the home of sequential, logical, analytical thought – business thought – always seeking to forecast a result; “What is the next step? How do I get to the next level? What would be correct?” For those familiar with the Myers-Briggs instrument, left-brain preferences are identified by the S and J designations.Your right brain is the place of complex, fantastical abstract thought, ever seeking to find a pattern. (Obviously the N and P preference in Myers-Briggs terminology, though to my knowledge the MBTI people have never acknowledged these preferences to be rooted in Dr. Roger Sperry's brain lateralization. Dr. Sperry's findings on the two hemispheres of the brain and their respective functions earned him the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1981.) When the right brain begins to out-shout the left, we begin seeing connections and patterns that aren't really there. Ever see the Russell Crowe movie, A Beautiful Mind? Badda-bing, badda-bang, a right brain goes out of control and now you've got a genius weirdo on your hands. (Chances are you know at least one person who fits this description.)Symbolic thought is the key to discovery. We'll talk more about it next week. Unless, of course, the beagle in my brain gets a whiff of something more interesting and then arooo! aroo-aroooo! we're off and running. That Russell Crowe character got nothin' on the beagle.Yours,Roy H. Williams

Getting confidence and keeping confidence – emotional muscle – is like getting and keeping any other muscle; it just requires daily exercise.But where does confidence come from? Is it merely a feeling – the product of an optimistic attitude gained through positive thinking rituals learned at motivational seminars – or is it something more substantial?According to Baltasar Gracian, confidence comes from authority, “…and the highest authority is that which rests on an adequate knowledge of things and long experience in different occupations. Master the subject matter and you will come and go with grace and ease and speak with the force of a teacher; for it is easy to master one's listeners if one first masters knowledge. No sort of abstract speculation can give you this authority; only continual practice in one occupation or another. Mastery arrives from an action done often and well… Authority originates in nature and is perfected by art. Those who attain this quality find things already done for them. Superiority itself lends them ease and nothing holds them back: they shine, both in words and deeds, in every situation. Even mediocrity, helped out by authority, has a certain eminence, and a little showiness can make everything come out right.”Keys to confidence:1. Do your homework. Know what you're talking about. Study, prepare, experiment, then experiment some more. Become an expert. Prepare true answers – not canned responses – for the questions you'll probably never be asked.2. Tell the truth. You can't have real confidence when you know you're lying. A lie that makes you a dollar today will cost you a hundred dollars tomorrow due to the erosion of your own confidence. When you don't know the answer, say, “I don't know, but I'll find out and get back to you,” and then do it for the building of your own confidence even if you suspect the person has utterly forgotten your promise. The confidence you gain in yourself will make the whole exercise worthwhile. There's that word again; exercise.3. Be a Little Bit Showy. Most people are average, and average is always boring. Experts, due to their deep knowledge of the subject and the ease with which they speak of it, are free to be entertaining. And the response you get to your performance will only increase your confidence.Baltasar Gracian, by the way, lived three and a half centuries ago but his advice remains on target because some things never change.Roy H. Williams

This year marks the 400-year anniversary of the publication of Don Quixote, so I seized the opportunity to spend some hours in the study of 1605. (Arooo! Aroo-Aroooo!) And as all such beagle runs will do, this one led to a delightful surprise in the form of one 'Baltasar Gracian,' a Spaniard who was 4 years old when Don Quixote was published and 15 when Cervantes died.As an adult, Gracian was rival to Niccolo Machiavelli, author of The Prince, and his writings are the rich, sweet antidote to the bitter sting of Machiavellian code. Gracian's interpreter, Christopher Mauer, describes him this way; “In Gracian's world, no rules, no instructions, no set of [7?] habits lead directly to success. Rules are inflexible; no book of instructions will ever compete with the randomness of human activity; and any habit or pattern of behavior makes us predictable and therefore vulnerable to others: it is easy to shoot the bird that flies in a straight line, or defeat the person who always plays his cards in the same manner… For Gracian it is a melancholy fact of life that fools outnumber the intelligent and a large part of their foolishness lies in an inability to move beyond appearances to what lies within. Funny, subtle, loyal to his friends and a lover of natural beauty, Gracian is far more delightful company than his Jesuit records suggest.” Yes, Gracian was a Jesuit priest who stayed in trouble with his uptight superiors.Here are a few examples of his anti-Machiavellian wisdom:“The eyes of the soul are drawn to inner beauty, as those of the body are to outer.”“The French have always been gallant, and this was the path that led Louis XII to immortality. Those who had insulted him when he was Duke of Orleans feared his succession to the throne. But he turned vengeance into gallantry with these inestimable words: 'You have nothing to fear. The King of France does not avenge the injuries done to the Duke of Orleans…'”“It takes subtlety to turn a defect into a distinction. Be first to confess your faults and you'll have the last word: this is not self-scorn but heroic boldness. Unlike what happens when we praise ourselves, self-criticism can make us seem nobler.”“Some come home from their travels as uncouth as they departed. Those of little depth make little use of worldly observation. Ambrosia was not made for the taste of fools, and no such knowledge is found in redneck bastards, who never stir from the here and now.”Okay, I'll admit I substituted “redneck bastards” for Gracian's original invective, but only because I thought it fit the paragraph. By the way, I have nothing but deep respect for the agrarian lifestyle and I revel in the earthy wisdom of farmers. Singer-songwriter Willie Nelson is not a redneck bastard. Eric's father, (the fictional TV character from That 70's Show) Red Forman, is. The Redneck Bastard is every man of closed-minded platitudes and belligerent, self-righteous certainty who has neither the will to understand his adversary's heart nor a hunger to learn the truth. The Ku Klux Klan exists because of Redneck Bastards.Thank you for not being one.Roy H. Williams