Author: Rocco Giuliano
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When They See a Gun They Kill You Right Away
Some years ago, I got a mysterious email from one Henrique Rivera, who ran the oldest private detective agency in Mexico City. Rivera was traveling to Boston to be installed as the new president of the World Association of Detectives at a gala event at the Park Plaza Hotel. Rivera lacked faith in his speechwriting…
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Chocolates, Keychains and Entrenching Tools
Writing corporate video scripts can be boring, so I’ve always made it a point to throw in some private joke, merely to keep myself amused. For a period of time in the late 1980s, I often included the phrase “Tierra del Fuego and the Aleutian Islands” in scripts I wrote for Humongous Electronics Company (HEC).…
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Take Out the Attractive Women
Many of the video scripts I wrote as an employee of the Humongous Electronics Company (HEC) were dramatic scenarios meant to illustrate the right and wrong ways of doing things. One script involved a sales manager who comes close to getting HEC into legal trouble because he didn’t understand the arcane laws restricting trade with…
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Las Abuelas Must Cry
For many years, I was engaged to script the annual stockholder’s meeting video for a massive global enterprise headquartered in a Spanish-speaking country, despite the fact that my knowledge of the Spanish language is limited to “Soy innocente, no hecho nada.” The most prominent stockholders of Empresa de Hormigón Huerta (EHH) were the elderly widows of the…
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Jensen Sits Stone-Faced and Bemused
Once upon a time I worked for the Humongous Electronics Company — HEC — which insiders referred to as HEC, pronounced like the mild “oath or intensifier.” This usage was discouraged as detrimental to consistent branding, but flourished nonetheless. However, the company having long since gone out of business, I will use the term throughout…
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Pod Goes Ballistic
Many years ago I was hired to write speeches for the CEO of an international hotel chain. Let’s call it Big Bucks Hotels and Resorts. Let’s call the CEO Nicolaus Pod. With a major BBHR investor event coming up, I was also writing speeches for the executive VPs, one of whom we’ll call V. P.…
