Now That You’ve Been Arrested…the secret of men and women when they converse behind bars

December 30, 2015December 30, 2015 WalkyTalky WalkyTalky Leave a comment

The first time I got arrested in Minneapolis I realized two things:

You enter into what Ken Kesey called, “the cops and robbers game,” in which all old rules go out and you’ve got to play with a whole set of new ones.
You learn that it can be better to be a woman than a man.

Picture this: 577 anti-nuke protestors scaling the security fence at Honeywell Corporation hard by the Interstate 35 (Hence, Twins jacket in photo). Actor Martin Sheen is with us too — yay!– but when we land on the other side of the high wire, cops are waiting for us. They slap their plasticuffs (see same photo) on us, which they’ve been using instead for the past what, 40 years now, but still burn into your wrists?

This turns out to be the biggest arrest in the history of Minnesota protest. No kidding. (This was in the 80s, so does record still stand?)

The “Honeywell Project,” was a group of activists out to convert the corporation — you may know Honeywell for blenders, home security systems, popcorn poppers. Did you know they also made cluster bombs? And missile parts, too. The idea behind the Project was a peace conversion for Honeywell, to strike their swords into plowshares, with no loss of jobs. Did I mention Martin Sheen was with us, in his funny Minnesota ski cap (similar to guy in photo)? Marty’s tops; he plays the judge in, IN THE KING OF PRUSSIA, a 1983 dramatization about the “Plowshares Eight” who broke into a GE plant to protest nuclear weapons, pouring vials of their own blood onto secret missle plans. *

Man owns four things

that are no good at sea:

rudder, anchor, oars

and the fear of going down.

Antonio Machado * *

When you climb over and fall onto the lathered green of Honeywell Property, cops quickly slap and strap ‘em on you, pack you into vans and off you go because you’ve been arrested for criminal trespass. Heading downtown I will meet women from different “affinity” groups who live as far away as Iowa and Wisconsin. One of them notices my agitation under the stress and straining of these restrictive plasticuffs and she puts her hand on my knee.

“You know,” she says. “Nothing the police can do to us is as bad as nuclear destruction.”

Listening to her actually calms me down a little. (SEE previous blog entry on LISTENING LOUDER) Then a woman from Red Wing tells me she’s been heading to the streets to fight corporate obscenity like this for forty years. She is so serene about everything; hell, it just gets me all pissed off again.

At the Hennepin County Jail now, I’m not only arrested, I’m tired and angry too, and very much dead on my feet because we first gathered this morning at six and now it is late afternoon and still freakin’ cold in Minneapolis.

Men are led into one holding cell. The women are taken to another holding cell.

FlashSketchCoupleHandstands__14 — sketch by Flash Rosenberg

Here in my cell of men, what kind of conversations do you think you get?

“Cops. I hate cops, don’t you?”

– Yeah I hate the damn cops.

“How you feel about the Vikings?”

– They suck.

“Yeah they suck.”

– You got a cigarette, man?

As comedian Robert Klein would have put it: “Not much happening there!”

But as I’m getting fingerprinted, trying not to be afraid – they press your fingers down really hard and you’re left with tons of black ink that never come off — look at this: I can see right into the women’s cell. And I give a long hard look at the womenfolk in there.

Womenorah_FlashRosenberg_ART_023 — Womenorah by Flash Rosenberg

I can see the women in there are holding hands. The women are in some kind of a circle, surrounding one woman who appears to be on her stomach, stretched out in the middle of the circle of women. Right on the floor of the cell. The women around the circle are chanting at her. It could be something Buddhist, who knows. Kurdish even. Then they’re running their hands along the back and sides of the woman on the floor. Completing this ritual, they motion themselves into a togetherness by closing the circle and hugging.

Wow, I’m thinking. I could use all those things right now: Songs of solidarity. Sympathy. A back rub.

Because while I have always had the ability to withhold my own with any man, I can’t help think as I’m being lead back to my cell: I’m in the wrong affinity group here!

In fact I realize that if it weren’t for those women, I would never have made it through that day peaceably. [Note: This is before the men’s movement of the ‘90s, so maybe its all changed now – fellows read Robert Bly translations of Rumi to each other so maybe things changed.]

Ever since Minneapolis, I’ve preferred talking with women. Post-prison, I’ve even loved singing with them, which I highly recommend.

Back Pocket Banter When Talking to the Police

Once I was walking with my friend, the comedian Paul Lyons. Just strolling, we suddenly saw a policeman out in front of a neighbor’s house.

“Did you call for backup?” Mr. Lyons asked the policeman.

Works!

* IN THE KING OF PRUSSIA http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084130/

Honeywell Project history: http://www.wri-irg.org/en/node/3101

** Antonio Machado https://poetrydispatch.wordpress.com/tag/antonio-machado/

Doesn’t matter which direction you point your prayer rug. Rumi

That’s it for this time — cheers, Ha!nk

Listening Louder: Conversation as Recognition of The Other

December 29, 2015 WalkyTalky WalkyTalky Leave a comment

When you listen better you think better; when you think better you do better.

Dr. Shana L. Redmond, USC Professor

By the other I don’t mean another device like the one this guy is wailing at.

I’m talking about another person. This is about being curious and listening louder.

As art forms go, listening is little studied, scarcely taught. It is the opposite of passive.

The Art of Conversation A Guided Tour of a Neglected Pleasure by Catherine Blyth

Recognizing the “other” is not as scary as it first appears. But to recognize and actually listen is easier than you might imagine.

“Look at that,” I said to a woman in a modern coffeehouse in San Diego. Written on the wall was, “A yawn is a scream for coffee.”

“Purple is a striking color on you,” I told someone at a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on Ventura Boulevard.

Next, I asked a man about his dog.

“What kind of mutt is that?”

No response. I remembered how sensitive people are about their pets.

“I mean mongrel,” I corrected myself. “ Sorry. What kind of mongrel is that?”

“No, that’s okay. He’s a rescue,” came the response, as it usually does.

Are you frustrated that sometimes the only conversation you get to overhear in cafes is, “Text me that,” or “I’ll call you with that.”

This patter is what passes for direct communication? (I know, at least we never hear, “Just fax it over,” anymore.)

And yes, it does save paper. Here’s another paper-saving technique: talk to each other.

In these modern times, conversational coffeehouses are everywhere.

Some of the best are:

* Operated by a church, featuring inspirational music and subsistence level pricing.

* University cafeterias, prices low and conversations loud, involving classes, Profs, arguments over New York bagels versus California bagels.

* Bowling alleys, the sound of crashing pins able to block out everyone else so you can stimulate inner conversation with yourself. Or just listen louder.

* Pizza parlors and other places featuring “groaning boards” – long, shareable tables where gentlemen sit sometimes, talking the morning away. (Fine for eating/eavesdropping; see my upcoming menu/memoir, Table For Three? for more on the subject)

Back Pocket Banter (things to know and ask as folk journalists)

What raised your curiosity today?

What’s the last thing you overheard?

What’s your go-to stimulating drink of choice?

We’re sitting in a coffeehouse. What can I learn from you?

Imagine engaging in a “battle of wits.” What happens?

Bonus

Starved for conversation after moving from NYC to LA, I made arrangements to meet up with two like-minded companeros who would pick a different coffeehouse — joints called Insomnia, Highland Grounds, or Open Latte — and set about holding weekly confabs about a current book or movie. For a couple of three hours, this was called “Nick Night,” because my friend Tip considered his friend Nick a special guest promising stimulating intellectual inquiry.

Nick got married, he and Shannon had a daughter and left Los Angeles to raise her right in Portland. Recently I visited him up there, not far from a branch of Powell’s Bookstore on Belmont, in a joint called Dick’s. There we continued where we left off. Sometimes you have to go a long way for good convo with a pal, or as Allen Ginsberg wrote in his 1955 poem “Howl,” someone, “who drove cross country seventy two hours to find out if I had a vision or you had a vision or he had a vision to find out Eternity.” *

* http://www.shmoop.com/howl/

Dr. Shana L. Redmond’s book Anthem: http://nyupress.org/books/9780814770412/

Catherine Blyth’s book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Conversation-Neglected-Pleasure/dp/1592404979

Social media seems so easy; the whole point of its pleasure is its sense of casual familiarity. But we need a new art of conversation for the new conversations we are having—and the first rule of that art must be to remember that we are talking to human beings. Stephen Marche, “The Epidemic of Facelessness” NY Times February 15 2015

Wacky Tacky!! (Laughrodesiacs easy as cake & other Idioms for Idiots)

December 24, 2015January 5, 2016 WalkyTalky WalkyTalky Leave a comment

Prepare for mirth! Shakespeare’s Pericles

Shakespeare knew witty wordplay often beat violent swordplay. Look at this exchange of dialogue from Two Gentlemen of Verona

Thurio

Sir, if you spend word for word with me, I shall

make your wit bankrupt.

Valentine

I know it well, sir; you have an exchequer of words,

and, I think, no other treasure to give your

followers, for it appears by their bare liveries,

that they live by your bare words.

I had a job once in Santa Monica that involved trying to make folks laugh. Not as a stand up comic; I was in the street, a folk journalist interviewing tourists along the downtown Promenade, a three-block stretch filled with performers of all kinds.

If I could make a person laugh in 30 seconds, the rules allowed me to keep their dollar.And even if the joke failed – as it usually did, being a riddle more than a joke— the follow-up often proved oddball enough to elicit a reaction.

“All right,” I said, gathering an audience. “This game is called Laughrodesiacs. Which means, this joke should lead to lovemaking!”

But wow it was hard, trying to make a person laugh in a competitive situation.

Who can handle that kind of pressure? Not me, but in a more relaxed party conversation say, among friends and acquaintances, everyone appreciates a good joke well delivered.

Instead of just giving you one-liners (Milton Berle published a thousand-page book of the classics.), here’s a tip to creating your own: Look at the title of this blog. See how it came with subtitles? Now, on your email, take a look at the heading template that says: “Subject.” Subject headings are just like subtitles. They can act as new age icebreakers, spices tossed in/added for effect. How you add them can affect the conversation in a humorous fashion and in the next breath (giggle intake and exhale) take it in a humorous direction.

So are you ready to put a jump in your conversation and get reactions out of people?

Activity To Try

When in doubt disrupt. Technology breaks into so much of our interaction. Why not fight back? Flip that script, doing it as the football announcers say, “in space,” by dropping into running conversations the opposite of the expected.

Ladies and Gentlemen…I guess that takes in most of you. Groucho Marx

Expressions like Groucho’s are available galore! For example, feel free the next time someone tells you something outrageous, instead of exclaiming, “Goodness gracious!” try: “Gracious goodness!”

See how they respond.

The next time you see one of those species geni purple-matted workout womenly wonders walk past, wish them, “Yoga Morning!”

Sure, it may seem as if you’re “throwing caution to the wind,” by flying solo without fear but really it can be, “easy as cake!” A “piece of pie.” See how easy it is to twist up a couple idioms and go for it instead of forgoing it.

For similar idioms consult, “Like A Breeze” from Chimayo Press

http://www.chimayopress.com/other-esl-efl-titles-all/#.VnsNZ0uvvHg

Back Pocket Banter

Playwright Tom Stoppard says humor is close to love because “both promote healing.” Do you have a favorite joke?

What’s the best show you’ve ever seen? Best concert?

What actor would you like to play you in a movie? Tell me what happens in this flick – plot, music, locale?

Do you have a skill you can do that maybe nobody else can do it the way you do?

Can you show it to me?

Right now?!

All right then. Looks like you and I are on our way to Happy Camp! (Yreka!)

The Perfect Xmas Present (Start up yer convo!)

December 23, 2015December 23, 2015 WalkyTalky WalkyTalky Leave a comment

Good Humor Man

December 22, 2015December 29, 2015 WalkyTalky WalkyTalky Leave a comment

Well!

The summer in Michigan I drove a Good Humor ice cream truck I approached every customer as if I were The Good Humor man. Being on and playful every block I drove, from East Detroit all the way to St. Clair Shores. Was I living a pun? Better than living a lie, I guess. I was held up and robbed, my truck was attacked — but still I remained in a goodly humor. Best as I could, despite all.

The above Pun Passage is from a book published in 1901 called, “Twentieth Century Etiquette, An Up-To-Date Book For Polite Society” by Annie Randall White. http://www.amazon.com/Twentieth-century-etiquette-up-date/dp/B00088XFZQ

I think puns give us another opportunity to present words in a fun way in conversation. Especially when talking with younger folk. Puns are one shout out at creating a space for kids to join in and play.

I asked the Dalai Lama why Buddhists giggle so much and he said what I like about laughter is when people laugh they can have new ideas. Because creativity is allied to relaxation and that’s allied to play. John Cleese

“Engine Engine Number 9

Going down Chicago line

If the train runs off the track

Do you want your money back?”

Do you remember this? Was it a mantra chanted only amongst us kids in the Midwest? Because there, in the heart of northwest Detroit, it was known. Many a game featured it up top, to kickoff the backyard activity.

Words like this, employed to pick-and-choose fellow humans for our social games go deep. What’s more social than choosing up sides or more important to learn than, Who goes next? Who’s going now? Taking turns prepared kids for the exchange involved in conversing. Wherever our choice landed was followed by the question: Do you want your money back?

Whomever that fickle finger of fate* pointed to, then responded: “Yes” or “No.” And counting off each syllable, “N…O…” landed you from person to person. All to see who gets picked to go next, to play, to speak, to run and hide or seek.

As we live, so do we sing.

Allen Lomax

The chanting of songs as the social media of its day, greasing the wheels of the circle as we included and excluded each other by simply counting. (NOTE TO those still suffering from APLS— Always Picked Last Syndrome –you might consult the “Left Out” series of tomes.)

Thinking back, which friend came up with those chants?

How are schoolyard expressions invented?

My favorite got recited during every touch football tilt. Before you were allowed to rush the quarterback you had to chant:

“One Mississippi, two Mississippi…”

“One dog, two dog three dog…”

“One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand…”

Sometimes we’d go as high as ten Mississippis!

Think about that. It’s not like years later, when adults sit and try to come up with an idea. Kids are constantly creating. Ideas never stop flowing. The creativity flows from play, the ideas from creating. Kids don’t sit and think, Darn it I need a new idea. Children are constantly discovering them. It seems to have been so easy then, but so difficult to come up with brilliance like that as adults. Who plays like that anymore?

Speaking of play and players, former footballer for the NY Giants, Michael Strahan has a new book out called “Wake Up Happy.”

http://www.amazon.com/Wake-Up-Happy-Dream-Transforming/dp/1476775680

The great guru Paul Sills of Second City once told us in class, “When you watch children play, the engaging harmony you see is very close to faith.”

This line came to me in a dream one night: There is so much love in the love of play.

Back Pocket Banter (Things a folk journalist introduces to the conversation)

Are there songs you recall from school playgrounds while growing up?

What kind of games did you play as a child?

Play any games with family members in the car? * *

What’s the best family trip you ever went on?

Where would you like to drive today if we could go anywhere?

BONUS!

Discuss your favorite kind of car, your favorite thing in the car, favorite radio station, or songs to sing along the road.

What do you imagine it would be like to ride in a driverless car? Would you want to take a nap during the commute?

If you could change the traffic laws, what rule would you have?

Tell a story you would like to tell in a car, or one that you heard in a car.

* Fickle Finger of Fate refers to the “Laugh In” a comedy TV show (dates TK)

** “I spy something….” (adding the color of a house, street sign, cloud)

Link to a folk journalist with 4th graders, asking about their latest literary achievements.

http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2009/10/31/2099/kids-read-the-darndest-things-hank-rosenfeld-disco/

It is not what is said that is important; it is what has been received.

Christabel Burniston, British pioneer in oral communication

Earliest Conversations Known To (this) Man & the problem with um….oh yeah, Attention Spans Today!

December 21, 2015December 29, 2015 WalkyTalky WalkyTalky Leave a comment

Play is young people’s work.

Gisele Ragusa, Education Specialist at USC

“Want a penny? Go kiss Jack Benny!”

“Want a nickel? Get me a pickle!”

“Want a dollar? Go upstairs and holler!”

Children’s game in Detroit, circa 1960s

Remember how fun all your various and sundry youthful back-and-forth could be?

Those first calls-and-responses, how you remained playground true? Instead of lining up the way the teachers told us, we circled up, setting off and calling out! Was your banter also cruel? Think taunting. The drawing of lines in the dirt. Telling tattletales. Topping.

At my school in Detroit, topping was expressed this way: “Capped on you!” Cap was our slang for that sharply jabbed comeback line. It could be slashing, sardonic, like an early killer app when applied rightly to knock everyone out. What Funkmaster George Clinton called playing, “the dozens.” *

“[Today] They call it ‘dissing each other,’ Clinton said. “That’s like something you doing starting at five, six, seven years old right on through school. ‘Your momma this, your poppa that’. But you aint supposed to let anyone get to you up to the point that you want to fight.”

Making words before war. Words so we wouldn’t go to war. Playing badinage badminton instead of bullying someone down to the gravel. “Up against the locker, red neck mutha!”

But can you relate today?

Not about capping on each other. I mean, as an adult, do you know how best to talk with wee ones, those beginning conversants just getting their chat on?

Welcome to their world by getting in their game, where children love to live in the best moments made available to them at the time.

By paying respectful attention to them, you get to “Be There Then” instead of off with all them other adults yoga-ing back and forth in an attempt to be here now. So cultivate convo. Arthur Miller wrote in “Death of A Salesman” that “Attention must be paid!”

To which you add: “And paid in advance! Or you get nothing!”

Back Pocket Banter

What are you doing right now?

Ever seen anybody do this? (Do some kind of repetitive physical shtick – they’ll love it.)

Hey, that’s a really nice _____ (drawing, sneaker glow-glob, skateboard)

What is that over there? By pointing out something you’ll click with them.

What games do you like to play?

Activity

If all else fails, treat them like adults. Use simple language and say something complimentary. Humans of all ages love to be complimented; you’ll be surprised at the sentences you set off.

Mimic a child. Move in outrageous ways. (Convo Tip: Doing something outrageous often beats saying something outrageous, which doesn’t turn heads anymore unless you are trying to get thrown out of a Peet’s Coffee store in North Berkeley or somewhere by being anti-pc.)

Sharing books with children is always great. Another popular way to communicate is by singing. As Catherine Blyth writes in her book The Art of Conversation A Guided Tour of a Neglected Pleasure: “The key to social harmony is taking turns and timing.” **

Studies indicate that dinner conversation is a more potent vocabulary-booster than reading, and stories around the kitchen table help children build resilience. Amy K. Weisberg, Topanga Elementary Teacher, Topanga Canyon Messenger January 16 2014

Bonus!

Actor and singer-songwriter Rob Elk offers this playful song to inspire the youngins…

Make Something!

I’m going to get some glue, maybe some string!

And in a couple of hours I’m going to make something!

Get a bunch of paper and some Play-Doh!

I’ll make some thing to last you never know!

‘Cuz I always feel great when I create a little something!

Well, its a rainy day can’t go out to play!

And who wants to watch YouTube anyway? (Used to be TV)!

Break out the scissors. Hey mamma throw in some paint!

The way I’m working so quiet you’d think I was a saint !

‘Cuz making something makes me feel so good!

Just like I knew it always would! !

Some macaroni art for my mom!

Some pipe cleaner men for my dad!

Something for you with hearts on it if you don’t make me mad!

And when I’m done. Well baby I’ve gotta run!

If you’re looking for someone to clean up this mess I’m not the one!

I’m not a janitor, I’m just a kid!

And if you think I made up this song well yes I did!

‘Cuz making something makes me feel so good!

Just like I knew it always would! !

‘Cuz I always feel great when I create a little something! !!!!!

Here’s another Rob Elk funny song, this one in time for Christmas:

http://www.madmusic.com/song_details.aspx?SongID=39390

* George Clinton interview with Gerry Fialka: http://laughtears.com/GClinton.html

** Catherine Blyth book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Conversation-Neglected-Pleasure/dp/1592404979