THESE VITAL SPEECHES

4
CICERO SPEECHWRITING AWARDS
who has a patented process. Maybe this
time it will work. I don’t know.
***
I love this quote from Abraham
Maslow: “The story of humankind is
the story of men and women selling
themselves short.”
That’s our story. We grow up thinking
we have to justify ourselves to
people. At some point there in the crib,
we look up and see we’re surrounded
by giants. We think, “I can’t talk, I
can’t walk, I can’t do anything these
other people can do and, oh God, I just
pooped my pants again! I must suck.”
Isn’t that the original sin? The original
sin is that we think we’re unworthy
of love and so we spend the rest of
our lives selling ourselves short, when
it turns out we were worthy all along.
And that’s really what my novel, The
Downside of Up, is all about.
It’s about a freelance speechwriter
who looks successful but when the book
opens is maybe one unpaid invoice
away from being out on the street. It’s
about learning to believe in yourself
when every fiber of your body is telling
you you suck … and everyone around
you is nodding in agreement.
That’s the story in every narrative.
Somebody goes on a journey,
sells themselves short, and then has to
redeem themselves.
That’s the story of Anna Karenina
and it’s the story of George Costanza.
It’s the story of Willie Loman and it’s
the story of Homer Simpson. And it’s
the story of Paul Lavallier, the speechwriter
in The Downside of Up. It’s his
journey from selling himself short to
owning the stage on which he stands.
Why a novel about a speechwriter?
Why not? I guess you write what you
know.
Here’s the story. It was a Saturday
afternoon in May, a few years ago.
I was in Aruba, inside the Seaport
Conference Center, rehearsing a cast
production number for a big hotel
business conference.
And somebody says to me, “Hey,
read the CEO’s speech, really good.
But you know that part where you
quote Charles Dickens? Where you say
the opening lines of a Tale of Two Cities
went ‘It was the best of times, it was
the worst of times?’”
Yeah.
“Well, I always thought those were
the opening lines, too. But they’re not.”
WHAT?!! Bam! Laptop open, how
could I have screwed this up so bad?
What an idiot! I didn’t do my homework.
Actually, I don’t think I ever even
read A Tale of Two Cities. I just saw
the movie. What a poseur. That’s poser
with an eur. It’s phonier if you say it in
French.
Onto the internet. I find it on line,
open it up and ... Wait a minute! I was
right. “It WAS the best of times. It
WAS the worst of times.” Right there
on the top of the first page. And it just
kept going.
“… it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light,
it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us,
we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to Heaven,
we were all going direct the other
way—”
On and on it went. One sentence.
And what it said, I could have just
opened the speech with all of it. It
said everything about what my client’s
industry was going through. But I
didn’t. I shut it down and went back to
rehearsals.
That was the first part. The second
part was later, when I was joking
with one of the division presidents. I
said, “You know, I don’t want to be a
speechwriter forever. No, no, no. My
dream job is to be a failed CEO. That’s
where the real money is.
“These CEOs who tank a company
and walk away with a couple of hundred
million? That’s insane. I could fail
for a LOT less than that. I could fail
for $25 million. How hard could it be?
You know, make a few speeches, fly
around to company locations, blame the
previous CEO. I would be great at that.
They pay these guys a hundred or
two hundred million to go away …
that’s an inefficient use of capital. If I
can fail for $25 million, corporations
should be lining up for the service. I’ll
reduce the market value of failure and
the whole economy will boom.”
It’s funny. And it’s true. And it’s
stupid. These ARE the best of times
AND the worst of times.
So I went back to work and on and
off during that week, I kept thinking
about that opening sentence from Dickens
and about that joke. And it seemed
to me that somewhere in between those
two thoughts there was a story of our
times. A story of us at our best and a
story of us at our worst. A novel.
And by the time I got on the plane
to fly home, I had a story plotted out.
It was the story of a corporate speechwriter
who makes a joke at a party
about wanting to be a failed CEO …
and to his surprise someone takes him
up on it. All he has to do is go down
with the ship and he’s rich.
But the same intuitions and sense
of purpose that made him a good
speechwriter, all that kicks in. He can’t
help himself … he has to start rewriting
the script.
And when he discovers that while
he’s getting rich, 11,000 families will be
poorer—and that some of the aspects
of the deal might not pass SEC muster—he
has to take action. Because,
you know, what good is the use of the
corporate jet when you’re in jail?
And this is a true story… I was on
the plane home with my laptop open,
knocking out my first few exploratory
paragraphs and this woman next to me
interrupts me. Obviously, she’s been
reading over my shoulder.
“You writing a novel?”
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
“I’m a copy editor in New York.”
“Really? So, how’m I doing?”
She wrinkled her nose and shook
her head. Not well, it appeared.
Thanks, I thought. God sent you,
didn’t he? I’ve just had a CEO, two
division presidents and a couple of
producers tell me I was a genius. And
to put the universe back in balance,
somebody needs to tell me I suck.
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