Edward Spurlock, ACB, CL

Researchers at Stanford analyzed four years of posts on the Random Acts of Pizza Reddit, according to Lily Hay Newman at Slate.com.

The study, published as “How to Ask for a Favor: A Case Study on the Success of Altruistic Requests,” examined more than 21,000 posts from Random Acts of Pizza, and teased out some information on which requests worked and which didn’t.

Reading Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work –

Emma Coats, a former storyboard artist at Pixar, outline the basic structure of a fairy tale as a kind of Mad Lib that you can fill in with your own elements:

“Once upon a time, there was ______. Every day, ______. One day, ______. Because of that, ______. Because of that, ______. Until finally, ______.”

Pick your favorite story and try to fill in the blanks. It’s striking how often it works.

BTW, Emma Coats has a Tumblr, and describes herself as “freelance director of films, boarder of story, and sometime public speaker.”

14 July 2013: here’s a post I wrote last year, when I was Area Governor for District 55, Area K52. The district chose to do the Tall Tales Speech Contest instead of the Humorous Speech Contest. I wrote the following story (somewhat based on my own experiences as a bicycle racer) as an example of a Tall Tale.

4 September 2012: last week, I attended the AGLCC Tall Tales and Table Topics contest. The contest Toastmaster offered up a tall tale of his own to warm up the crowd for the contestants – a story about being hired to be Arnold Schwarzenegger’s personal trainer.

I’ve long known theoretically what a tall tale is, but I had something of a writer’s block when I had the chance to compete in our club’s Tall Tales contest the last time it was held several years ago. After hearing the tall tales at last Monday’s contest, however, I was reminded of a story I came up with many years ago.

As an Area Governor, I can’t compete in any Tall Tales contests this year. I thought I would share this story with the clubs in my Area, in case any members want to compete in the upcoming contests, but are suffering from writer’s block as I was.

Enjoy!

Five Bike Racers You Meet In Heaven

I’ve told the story of how I got the scars on my arms before, but I’ve never told anyone the whole story – before today, that is.

The year was 1984, and I was a bicycle racer. An inspired bicycle racer.

The source of my inspiration was Bernard Hinault, one of the greatest French bicycle racers of all time. Hinault sprinted like a dragster, climbed like a rocket, and descended like a madman.

In 1984, Hinault had won the Tour de France four times already, and everyone knew it was just a matter of time before he won it a fifth time and joined the ranks of cycling’s immortals, men like Simpson, Garin, Bottechia, Bobet and Coppi.

I idolized Bernard Hinault.

In the first race of the season, I was so excited that I accidentally grabbed the brake levers at the start of the final bunch sprint of 200 riders. The heat caused by the friction of the brake pads on my rims caused both tires to blow out with 50 meters to go. I was forced to settle for second place.

In the next race, I decided to attack early and cruise to a solo victory. I started my attack by accelerating along the side of the pack.

Just as I got even with the front of the pack, I saw the figure of a man in a red suit directly ahead of me. It was the Devil himself – Didi Senft, the Tour de France Devil, that is.

I had to swerve into the ditch to keep from hitting Didi and causing an international incident. The peloton took advantage of my bad luck and accelerated like they were leaving the Devil in their dust (as indeed they were).

Did I give up?

Ask yourself – would a man inspired by Bernard Hinault just give up?

I got back on my bike and accelerated quickly – so quickly, I left a ten-meter streak of burned rubber on the road, and the Doppler effect of my speed caused Didi’s cheers to sound like a sticky cassette tape – “Allez! Allez! All-lez! Aaaa…leeez…”

I passed a pair of motorcyclists riding Ninja 900s – one of them tried to draft off of me, but was forced to back off. I saw the racing pack ahead of me, just rounding a tight corner.

I waited until the last possible instant to brake, and that’s when I discovered that I was in trouble. The corner was much tighter than it had appeared, and I was going much too fast to make the turn. I braked as hard as I could – the brake pads burst into flames! – but it wasn’t enough.

I shot across the road, onto the flat grassy shoulder, and came to a sudden stop against a barbed wire fence. But my troubles were only beginning.

What I didn’t know was that the rancher who owned the land had decided to electrify his fence, and had run the wires from his fence charger parallel to some  high-voltage lines way overhead, forming a crude transformer.

My bicycle tires insulated me when I first hit the fence, but when I stood up and grabbed the fence wire to steady myself, I took the full force of the current. The lights of San Antonio dimmed as the current passed through my heart, killing me instantly.

I found myself floating down a long featureless white corridor. I reached the end of the corridor, and was met by five bike racers. I recognized Tommy Simpson, and Maurice Garin (smoking his usual cigarette), and Ottavio Bottechia, and Louison Bobet. The fifth racer was Fausto Coppi, the great Italian “champion of champions”, the campionissimo.

Fausto held out a bicycle for me and said, “Hurry, my friend, the race is about to start.” I mounted the bicycle – it fit perfectly – and we started off.

We were just out on an afternoon training race, six racers pretty evenly matched. We sprinted for light poles, and traded some trash talk. Garin told me, “You ride very well — for an American.”

We turned a corner and started up a mountain road, and things got serious. Simpson attacked first, Bobet got on his wheel, and Coppi and I followed. Garin spat out his cigarette and tried to follow, but he and Bottechia were the first to drop back. I counter-attacked and Coppi came with me. We opened a lead on Simpson and Bobet.

On and on we climbed, trading the lead back and forth. I looked back and saw that Simpson and Bobet had regrouped with Bottechia and Garin – but the race was going to be won by either me or Coppi. I also saw that a fifth rider had come up behind the others. He had a long white beard like Didi, but he was dressed all in white.

Soon we were in the last kilometer of the race, riding on sheer guts. As we passed under the banner marking the last 200 meters to the finish, I was shocked to see that the rider with the beard had caught us – and was passing us!

Fausto and I were maxed out, but the rider in white climbed past us like a rocket, sprinted across the finish line like a dragster, and started down the road going down the mountain on the other side, descending like a madman.

Fausto and I rolled over the finish line, still side-by-side, and coasted to a stop. I turned to Coppi and asked, “Who was THAT?”

Suddenly, I felt a jolt, and heard a distant voice yell “CLEAR!” I felt a stronger jolt, and heard another distant voice say, “I’ve got a pulse!”

I found myself flying backward through the featureless white tunnel, and came to in an ambulance, with paramedics working to revive me. But I’ll always remember the words Fausto said to me just before I was revived:

“It’s the same thing every year. He watches the Tour de France, gets on a bike, and pretends He‘s Bernard Hinault!”

note: the following was the first post from the blog I started as K52 Area Governor last year. It was originally published 3 September 2012 – Ed

Welcome to Area K52!

A few weeks ago, I was checking out the list of Area and Division Governors on the District 55 website. I swear, all I wanted to do was find out which Area my friend Erica had been appointed to be Governor of.

While reading through the list of Austin-area clubs in Divisions J, K, and L, I noticed that Area K52 didn’t have a Governor listed.

I thought about it overnight, and emailed the District Governor the next day. After a few back-and-forth emails, I applied and was appointed the new Area Governor for Area K52 on July 31st – a month later than most of my colleagues.

And you may say to yourself, “My God – what have I done?”