How to deliver a racist rant

Before we dive into the racism, I’d like to remind you of my Copy Riddles program.

​​Somebody once told me that Copy Riddles is expensive, considering it just teaches you one niche copywriting skill.

I have to agree. But I also have more to say about it at the end of this email.

For now, let me tell you about the late great Patrice O’Neal.

As you might know, Patrice was black — a fact that will be relevant in just a moment.

Patrice was also the favorite comedian of a huge number of top comedians of the past few decades. Bill Burr, Norm Macdonald, Andrew Schulz — those are a just a few top comedians I found after a two-minute Google search, who all said there was nobody as funny as Patrice.

I’m using that to set up a contrast to the following. Because racist rants aren’t funny, are they?

Maybe they are. Or maybe they can be.

Take for example, Patrice’s HBO special, One Night Stand. It aired in 2005.

Patrice opens up without any of the usual, “Good to be back, how are you guys doing” fluff. Instead, he launches straight into his material. He says:

“So how many people are getting sick of the Hindu obstacle course at the airport?”

The audience laughs uncomfortably. They’re sensing this might not be stuff they should be laughing at, and they’re wondering where Patrice is leading them.

In fact, the audience is right to be wary.

Patrice is about to launch into a 5-minute racist comedy rant, mocking and imitating Indian people who work at airport security and who run convenience stores.

“I don’t mind foreigners,” says Patrice at one point, “but don’t be FROM your country.” And after he finishes mocking Indian accents, Patrice moves on to Mexicans.

This is the kind of stuff that wouldn’t fly for white comedians since the days of Don Rickles in the late 60s and early 70s.

And in fact, it wouldn’t fly for Patrice either, not in 2005. Except for one thing.

In between saying “How many people are tired of the Hindu obstacle course” and launching into his racist impressions, Patrice delivers one miraculous, life-saving line.

​​It goes like this:

“So how many people are tired of the Hindu obstacle course at airport? [He pauses while a few nervous laughs acknowledge the inappropriateness of this statement. Then he continues] I mean… I’m a racist, but it’s getting…”

… and here Patrice continues into the rest of his set, with the audience suddenly loose and laughing, and ready to laugh more at the rest of his jokes, racist though they are.

My point is not that you should be racist.

My point is also not that you should laugh along with racists, or condone racist behavior.

My point is simply how much you can get away with, if you correctly anticipate your audience’s objection, and call that objection out ahead of time. Even if you don’t do anything else but call it out.

Now back to my Copy Riddles course.

It’s true that Copy Riddles is expensive. It’s also true it only teaches you one copywriting skill, and a niche one at that.

On the other hand, experts in the field, like Ben Settle, John Carlton, and Gary Halbert, have all said that this one niche skill is what all copywriting comes down to.

All these guys have made millions of dollars from copywriting, and some have specifically credited millions in earnings just to this one skill.

When you look at it that way, maybe Copy Riddles isn’t so expensive after all.

Of course, it’s going to depend on your situation, and what you’re looking to do.

If you’d like to find out more about Copy Riddles, and see if it could be a fit in your quest to write more effectively, and even make good money in the process, then take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

New evidence that women tell amazing stories

The late, great Patrice O’Neal — the man was literally great, weighing in at over 300 pounds — had a standup comedy routine about how women tell terrible stories.

“I always make my girlfriend tell me the end of any story she’s getting ready to tell me first, before I invest in the whole,” Patrice said. Then he gave an example:

“‘What’s the end of the story?'”

“‘Somebody got shot!'”

The big man grimaces and weighs his options hard for a moment.

“‘… ughhh… all right. Go ahead. Try to tell the story.'”

I thought of this last night as replies poured in to my email yesterday.

That email started with the story of a friend who wants to introduce more stories into her corporate presentations. The email ended by asking my readers to write in with their questions about storytelling.

So far, less than 12 hours later, I’ve gotten more than 40 replies to that email. And here’s what got me:

Except for one of those replies, which came from the friend I referenced in yesterday’s email, who also happens to read this newsletter and also happens to be a woman, all 40+ replies came from men.

I thought this was very curious.

For the record, my almost nonexistent bro-aura means I do not repel female readers in general. And typically, whenever I ask for feedback or solicit replies in an email, I get a healthy mix of both men and women replying.

And yet, yesterday, no women replied, except for my friend, who might have replied only because the email talked about her.

Clearly, all this is evidence that Patrice O’Neal was wrong, that women in fact tell amazing stories, and that they do not need any help with telling stories better.

But what about all those luckless men?

Many of them did ask really “male” questions, basically variations of:

“I want to know the algorithm that produces stories that are guaranteed to force every reader to read even if they don’t want to read and even if they don’t know me or want to know me, and also the algorithm should never fail and it should always specify exactly which word to insert in the next slot in the word-chain, given the totality of input that preceded it.”

I’ll tell you right now, I do not have that algorithm. And if I did, I wouldn’t share.

Fortunately, other men wrote in with more reasonable questions like:

– Where do I find stories to tell, or how do I come up with them?
– How do I know if my stories will be interesting to readers?
– How do I tie a random story into the thing I’m selling?
– Which types of stories to avoid?

All reasonable questions. But I won’t talk about them in any detail in the presentation I am preparing.

The reason why I won’t talk about them is that I’ve already created an entire course that addresses all of those questions in detail, and then some.

This course is clearly not meant for women, since they apparently don’t need it. But if you’re a man, looking for a rational, systematic, solution-oriented method to write sales emails, including ones with stories, then go here:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/