WITCRAFT: How to Blow Up Any Conversation *and get the heck out

January 7, 2016January 30, 2016 WalkyTalky WalkyTalky Leave a comment

Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me:

the brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not

able to invent anything that tends to laughter, more

than I invent or is invented on me: I am not only

witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other

men.

Sir John Falstaff in Henry IV Part II

Wit shall not go unrewarded while I am king of this country.

Stephano in The Tempest

Is it true you run a chain of brothels from coast to coast?

Groucho Marx in West Virginia to a hotel clerk

%22Listening%22 to Groucho's advice in 1939 — Brecher & Marx in 1937 or 8

Standing around at a New Year’s Eve celebration, sitting at a dinner party, cornered in a club stuck with someone with a story that you have zero interest in.

How did/do you handle it?

How about when somebody is just jaw-jacking about anything, but in a way that no matter how meandering still achieves a certain story-like wonderful roundness? And it is being fed to you in a way that you get?

You’re not in the Twilight Zone. Rather, you’ve just stepped inside a conversation containing witcraft.

This is where allasudden you feel “a flash of lightening” — this, according to musician/actor/humorist and raconteur Oscar Levant (ask your great grandmother or her new boyfriend) — how he described verbal humor. In one of his memoirs – he wrote at least three— called, “The Unimportance of Being Oscar,” Levant says that when Groucho Marx and S.J. Perelman were asked who was the fastest wit around, this is what they told English critic, Kenneth Tynan: “George S. Kaufman, Oscar Levant and screenwriter Irving Brecher.”

This was 1954. Kaufman and Perelman wrote movies for the Marx Brothers in the 1930s. And so did Brecher. I spent six years with Irv “the Nerve” (as Harpo Marx called him) in the 2000s as we worked on his memoirs, detailing his friendships with and writings for Groucho, Harpo and Chico, Milton Berle, Jack Benny and George Burns, among others. Hanging out with Irv, I bore witness (never bored!) to his comedic gifts and takes and I’ve considered him my droll model ever since. Look, how rapt:

Hank watches Irv sing %22Hello I must be going%22 at the AERO 037 — Brecher in conversation after screening one of his Marx Bros movies in 2005

Witcraft. Irving Brecher proved a master at this, meaning he was funny as hell in magically getting out of conversations that he found dull or annoying or that asked him for money like those talking snake oil salesmen/TV pitchmen and blowhards out of all proportions.

Remember Jerry Seinfeld’s surefire way of dismissing them?

(JERRY ANSWERS PHONE; IT’S A GUY WHO WANTS HIM TO SWITCH LONG DISTANCE TELEPHONE SERVICES)

SEINFELD: Oh gee I can’t talk now, why don’t you give me your home number and I’ll call you later?

CALLER: I’m sorry we’re not allowed to do that.

SEINFELD: I guess you don’t want people calling you at home.

CALLER: No.

JERRY: Well now you know how I feel. (HANGS UP)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hllDWSbuDsQ

Likewise, Brecher was a superbly skilled athlete making plays in the game of life.

One time visiting, I arrived at his apartment on Wilshire in Westwood right as he appeared in the middle of an important phone call. He waved me into his study with one finger on his lips, leaned into the black landline from his favorite chair, and this is what I heard:

“Before I give you the number,” Irv was saying, “I want to be sure. What’s the price of that record offer again?”

Out of the speakerphone came a male telemarketer’s voice: “It’s 19.95, sir.”

“That’s the full price then?” asked Irv.

“Plus 4.95, shipping and handling,” said the voice.

“I thought you said 19.95,” Irv barked back. “Are you taking advantage of me because I’m 92 and don’t hear too well?”

“No sir,” the voice said. “The cds are 19.95, and then 4.95 for shipping and handling.”

“That’s a little too much.”

“It was printed right on the TV screen, sir.”

“Maybe it’s printed, but I didn’t see that shipping and handling. My eyes are so bad that this morning when I woke up, I couldn’t find my hearing aid.”

“So the total would be 24.90,” the voice pushed on, missing the gag.

“I’ll tell you what,” Irv said. “I’ll just take the shipping and handling.”

A pause. Then the voice said: “What?”

“Just bill me for the shipping and handling,” explained Irv. “Don’t send the albums. I can’t afford it.”

“You want us to bill you for shipping and handling? Without the cds? Uh,” the voice wavered. “We’ve never done that before.”

“Well, I’d rather not deal with pioneers.” Irv said. “So if you’ll excuse me.”

He pushed the button that disconnected the call and looked up.

“Pretty good, huh?” he said.

Now this was no performance put on by a master of merriment for my amusement—Irv was amusing himself. “People call them pranks,” he said. “But it’s more than that. It’s quiet outrage.”

I understood he could get mad at being bothered.

“But,” I asked. “Why don’t you just get caller i.d.?”

Said Brecher: “I’d just as soon talk to them and screw them around.”

COVER_PHOTO2 — Chico and Harpo wonder who is this guy dressed up as Groucho. It’s Irv, AKA “Brecho!”

THIS JUST IN~!

I just read in Dick Cavett’s recent book Brief Encounters (Henry Holt, 2014) where Groucho was on the phone and fired back with this wittily crafted line: “Extension 4-8-2, eh? 4-8-2. Sounds like a cannibal story.”

Activity

As kids, we used to call pranks like what Irv pulled, “phony phone calls.”

“Hello? Is your refrigerator running? Ya better go catch it!”

“Do you have Dr. Pepper in a can? Well, let him out!”

Try these at home, sure. But Brecher’s way was wicked, a nasty mastering of the deadpan. He admired Jack E. Leonard, Fred Allen’s antically addled quippage. Livewire ire, ridiculing societal conventions. The same anti-establishment attitude Irv wrote into the characters Groucho played: J. Cheever Loophole in “At the Circus” and S. Quentin Quale in “Go West.” (They even leap out of their movies and speak directly to the audience.)

Groucho’s wordplay would rip and snort through anything to do with sex and death. “Lulu Belle,” he greets a floozy in Go West’s version of Mos Eisley’s Cantina, “I didn’t recognize you standing up.”

Saloon in GO WEST — Harpo with a gun at the bar while his brothers look on in GO WEST saloon

Back Pocket Banter

Do you spend time with people who bore you? Why? And how do you get out of such conversations?

Can you learn something from a dull person about yourself?

Who is your most boring relative? Do you get stuck with them for long periods at family gatherings, or hide in avoidance?

If you could, who would you give a “greatest buffoon” award to?

Do you repeatedly use catch phrases in conversation, or hear other people start sentences with, “At any rate,” “To make a long story short,” “To tell you the truth,” “In other words,” etc?

Bonus Activity

Watch “My Dinner With Andre” a movie containing some of the greatest back-and-forth you ever eavesdropped into, with director Andre Gregory and writer Wallace Shawn. Enlightening stories told by two delightful and delighted friends— all of it happening in an emptying New York restaurant, featuring an ancient waiter seemingly waiting for Godot.

Bonus Back Pocket Banter

Interrupt a boring confab with a swift kick to the midsection. (Kidding!) Better to say, “Excuse me, have we met before?” And then walk away.

Wear a button that says: “You Should Get To Know Me.” This worked surprisingly well during Freshman Orientation for my college friend David Schreff, who now consults w/ Fortune 500 companies and taught the Jimmy Carter White House administration how to speed-read.

As a surefire final try: “I’m sorry but I have to go to the bathroom now that you’ve made me so excited about your_______.” (Whatever that person was droning about)

When All Else Fails: As Catherine Blythe writes with resignation, “Be kind to the bore (one day he could be you)” (pg. 142)

http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Conversation-Neglected-Pleasure/dp/1592404979

Bonus Bonus

Irv Brecher made the English language funny – what’s better than that? And one of the funniest and timeless of conversations is called, “The Two Thousand Year Old Man,” with Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner.

Reporter: What language did you speak two thousand years ago?

Two Thousand Year Old Man: Uhh…basically, Rock. Rock talk.

Reporter: What’s that –

Two Thousand Year Old Man: Uhh…hey put that rock down. Don’t throw that rock at me!

Four minutes worth of the 2000 Year Old Man:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOTKDgrdvdg

Well friends, I can almost hear Sinatra singing…

It’s such an ancient pitch
But one that I’d never switch
‘Cause there’s no nicer wit(ch) than you

“Witchcraft.” http://www.metrolyrics.com/witchcraft-lyrics-frank-sinatra.html

So until next time, remember:

Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand. Mark Twain

Here’s a link to more Irving Brecher stories:

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=irving+brecher

Dick Cavett’s recent book with some Groucho memories:

http://us.macmillan.com/briefencounters/dickcavett

Weather Or Not: inclement conversation and its lack of contents

January 6, 2016January 6, 2016 WalkyTalky WalkyTalky Leave a comment

For conversation, weather is a gift. Ross McCammon in “Works Well With Others”

Now that we’ve got some weather (El Nino slamming southern California), how do we talk about it? Some tips perhaps, from a folk journalist confabbing about this fabulous storm system rolling out of the Pacific seas?

Mark Twain is often cited for, “Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.” But this disputes that attribution: http://www.twainquotes.com/Weather.html

I got into one conversation while out looking for a rainbow after a break in the action this afternoon. A UPS delivery man told me after I complained about the weather and its aftermath, “You’ll only see a rainbow when God is talking to you.”

“Well,” I replied, “what about if I see a double rainbow?”

“That’s when God brings along one of his angels.”

* * *

Now, check out this story about a man making El Nino breakfast in an underpass, in a column today by the great LA TIMES writer, Steve Lopez:

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lopez-rain-20160106-column.html

As members of the MMMS used to say — ‘NUFF SAID! (MMMS, for those unaffiliated with Stan Lee and his fellow comic book creators, was the “Merry Marvel Marching Society” which included MMMS buttons for kids like me who had subscriptions – ! – to Spidey, X-Men, FF, and DD.)

That’s my rap/let’s talk soon!

Link to chat with the author of “Works Well With Others,” Ross McCammon:

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2015/11/04/works-well-with-others-ross-mccammon

A New Year of Conversations !

January 4, 2016January 4, 2016 WalkyTalky WalkyTalky Leave a comment

A little less conversation, a little more action please Elvis Presley

An old year is gone and a new one has begun.

Saying farewell to folks remembered as excellent conversationalists…

Saying hello to new interactive games that help young people converse…

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/herocomplex/la-et-hc-the-player-oxenfree-20160104-story.html

“In short, to make conversing the game.”

That’s my game too so let’s convo soon shall we?

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/elvispresley/alittlelessconversation.html

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!)