All Aboard at the Conversation Station !

December 7, 2015December 22, 2015 WalkyTalky WalkyTalky Leave a comment

sketch by Flash — drawing by Flash Rosenberg

Humans are wired for social interaction. We want to work with people and have conversations with people. Laura Venderkam, Wall Street Journal Bookshelf (Aug 14^th 2015)

Conversation stations can include: a Restaurant, a Diner, a Café, a Park.

How about in a classroom? Among fellow students. Back and forth with the teacher. Or in class after the teacher leaves, even.

Waiting in/on line, waiting for a plane, waiting for your laundry, your coffee, your $$$ lottery winnings.

Okay, picture this: A crowded waiting room. “Everybody waiting…old man sleeping on his bags, women with that teased-up kind of hair…kids with the jitters in their legs and those wide wide open stares.” Joni Mitchell, Just Like This Train

Like Joni, for good talk, I take trains whenever possible.

Why?

Folks are more appreciative on trains. Appreciative of things like TIME. Like lounging, reading, sleeping – folks on a train create a little neighborhood together. It’s like The little neighborhood that never was. Except right now it exists while you are traveling together. Where ya going? Through time? Hey, nobody leaves the room do they? Which makes them great places to appreciate conversation.

So get your convo on in the “Club” car, the “Dome” car, the “Sightseer” car.

Ever been?

Women in purple in dome car — Purple dresses in the dome car

It’s where Amtrak-Americans gather for observation, games, and opening up. As a folk journalist, I’ve gone coast-to-coast with a cast of characters thousands of miles and over eight-minutes-long for NPR. *

The youngest get excited about stuff like: “Look at the light rail track over there!” (Apparently little kids love light rail. Perhaps post-Millennial Gen Next will popularize mass transit!)

The oldest, who maybe dislike flying or the bus, know rail travel is more civilized. Amtrak was years ahead of the sharing economy: you are forced to share a table in the dining car. But you get to hear about lives. Ethanol farmers from Kansas, rodeo clowns from El Paso – each takes your mind off your laptop and phone, talking your ear off all the way to Union Station in Chicago, LA, Portland or Spokane.

You get to feel their strong handshakes afterwards.

Rob & Bob our guides about the Empire Builder — Rob & Bob, nature guides aboard The Empire Builder

I lucked out once and got seated for dinner while crossing eastern Washington into Idaho and Montana with two nature guides: Bob & Rob. They came aboard to present a “Rails to Trails” talk. Soon the history of the Cascades and a couple of Columbia River dams came alive as the apple capitals and pear orchards flying by. The tunnel we’d come through was the second longest in the world – longest being in B.C. just north of here—and by the time the full moon over Wenatchee rose, I’d learned all about Mt’s Baker and Rainier, and Snokomish, too, so I suggested the duo do a “Bob and Ray” routine because Rob was low-voiced calm and Bob taller and more high strung in his descriptions of vineyards and the delights of Washington cherries.

Of course, there are other times, a folk journalist will sit staring out a train window, thinking: “Man I have no life.” Then out the same window, passing Ventura, here comes a view of the Pacific Ocean, sea and sky and mountains and everything in between. And then he realizes: I have all of life! And soon I’m engaged in friendly confabs up and down the California coast again…

Suddenly I hear: “Lookit, Mom! Lookit!”

What is it?

”Bubbles!” the little girl shouts pointing at a polluted river winding down there below the tracks.

“Woo Woo!” goes the train, and all is well.

Williston ND Station — Williston Station, North Dakota

BACK POCKET BANTER

Where have you traveled on a train or by ship?

What kind of acquaintances have you made on a trip?

What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever seen happen while traveling?

Did you ever learn anything new from conversations on a train, ship or plane?

What is the longest trip you’ve ever been on?

BONUS!

An additional conversation aboard Amtrak is how you are reducing your “carbon footprint” by taking a train instead of flying in an airplane. Which may lead to interesting places and a longer confab in the Dining Car.

ACTIVITIES

Ever ask a diner woman or porter on board what’s their favorite song? They’ll sing it for you.

Williston North Dakota — Leaving Williston ND

* A folk journalist walks into an Amtrak

http://savvytraveler.publicradio.org/show/rundowns/2003/20030516/rd20030516.shtml

Freestylers & Foreigners: Fear and Locomotiving on the Southwest Chief There are only three trans-continental trains in the U.S. And, with Amtrak planning on dropping some of its long-distance routes, you might want to put a choo-choo trip across the States higher on your travel to-do list. Hank Rosenfeld took this to heart when he boarded Amtrak Train #4 at LA’s Union Station with a cast of characters including golden-agers and their grandchildren, Central American tourists and ex-cons let out of Lompoc that morning. And all the while, on his 48-hour trip to Detroit, Hank experiences the romance of the rail.

Quick Openers: Sure Fire Ways To Clever Convo

December 7, 2015December 7, 2015 WalkyTalky WalkyTalky Leave a comment

The goal: to get to where the words fall, from a muse-filled sky, down through your mind, and off the end of your quilled tongue. Author Ken Kesey

Comedy loves heart. Paul Sills, founding guru at Second City

At the feet of the great satirist Paul Krassner *

Ready for a few folk journalistically-tested quick openers?

These convo firestarters tend to be terse, bent toward further conversage.

(For one-liners bent toward getting the heck out of a bad conversation in one quick of a hurry SEE WITCRAFT How to Extricate From Any Conversation — TK)

But hey, you take a chance, am I right? The cartoonist Mark Alan Stamaty of “Macdoodle Street” fame in the Village Voice, drew one that I kept above my typewriter for years. Its theme: “You have to risk it all every day!”

Now some folks have, as it has become known through cultural history, “the gift for gab.” (In some parts of the country: “the gift of gab.”) Usually these high-energy individuals are able to get away with lines like, “Is that a smile? Are you smiling right now?”

Or this one:

Quick Opener, “Don’t they miss you?” Semi-startled, you answer: “Who?”

Quick Opener Comeback: “Heaven. I know they must be missing an angel right about now.”

Yuck. By adding authenticity to your game, you can avoid this superficial subtext–shallower-than-spit level of a conman. Here’s how to insert yourself into another person’s space. Do what Paul Sills, guru of Second City advises. His mother Viola Spolin wrote the first handbook on improvisational theater games and Sills told us in an NYC class one day something I’ve never forgotten: “Encourage the laggards.”

He meant that in the everyday battle for existence, leaning inside with a quick jab, uttering the first sentence, is not that hard. So try to encourage those you cannot.

“You are in the safest place in the universe,” he’d tell us. “On a stage.”

Our teacher was right. What a safety in freedom we all felt about firing that first volley. We could say anything. Perhaps Sills’ approach came from Shakespeare’s “As You Like It,” wherein Jacques says: “The whole world is a stage, and all the men and women merely actors.”

But how can you continue offstage, backstage, in real life, without acting out every anxiety, all your neuroses falling out all over everybody because after all, Shakespeare’s Jacques was a melancholy man after all.

Think of professional athletes who “make a play.” A folk journalist is just as serious about playmaking. (And often makes plays at being serious, too.) What do I mean by this?

Make a play for making room enough so a conversation can become as big as your subject’s world. Because when you explore, you find interesting people. People get more interesting by telling you a tale. They might reveal their dreams, or say something obscene, something simple as recalling an episode of their favorite show, or talk about where they went that time with their first love.

BACK POCKET BANTER (Other Quick Openers)

Noticing how pictures on the fronts of t-shirts are just about the same size as a small TV screen, “What is that funny thing on your shirt?”

From mall to boardwalk, it is easy to be encourageable, “Where did you buy that lovely dress? Did you make it yourself?”

“Is that good? What you’re reading. What’s it about?”

“I love the rain don’t you?” (Stolen from Woody Allen where his next line is, “It washes the memories off the sidewalks of life.” May be inapplicable in some western climes.)

“Do you hear that? What’s that song they’re playing?”

Even, “Whacha’ doin?” when gently expressed can get the ball to their side. The Beatles did a whole song with that as their title. **

“I really admire your shoes” is most always welcomed by young women.

And young men have been known to lead with one of the following three:

“Yo!” “Wazzup?” And, “Nice car! Hey!”

Or the equally played betimes: “Hey! Nice car!”

NEXT TIME: “Onward!” Author Henry Miller and radio storyteller Jean Shepherd both said this I think, although Jean (flicklives.com) was more known for “Excelsior!”

* Hear my conversation with Paul Krassner, publisher of The Realist and co-founder of the Youth International Party: The Yippies!

http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2012/11/27/29428/paul-krassner-turned-on-groucho-and-told-john-yoko/

* * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpWrNS2UTgA

Learner’s Permit for Life: A folk journalist’s ticket to ride

December 1, 2015December 21, 2015 WalkyTalky WalkyTalky Leave a comment

The key to the future of the world is finding the optimistic stories and letting them be known. Pete Seeger

From the book "Twentieth Century Etiquette An Up-To-Date Book For Polite Society" by AnnIe Randall White — “There are few who do not ardently desire to become good conversationalists.” From the book “Twentieth Century Etiquette An Up-To-Date Book For Polite Society” by Annie Randall White

So what does a folk journalist do? And do you care?

That’s a lesson I learned out there: if you don’t care about your fellow conversant, why carry such a heavy microphone? (Although, yes, flash drive cards have gotten much lighter, I learned at the feet of folks carrying Wollensaks* and other portably massive recording machiens.)

Why stick a mic smack dab into the snoot of every Mr. and Mrs. America? Just to get a story?

Well, yes.

You’ll find them on every block. Spending forty years taking it to the streets of this great entertainment nation — not living in the street, though I’ve interviewed the houseless and as Dylan said, Who aint homeless? — but as a foreign correspondent too, in Athens and Jerusalem, your friendly neighborhood folk journalist has been fired out of newsrooms from New York to San Francisco.

Also from Los Angeles to Santa Monica.

That’s the nature of the business. But you learn some things. A folk journalist gets nothing less than a learner’s permit for life.**

The world opens when you open with a question. Folk journalists are so freewheeling with questions, they can come off more as “suggestions.” They come with low-expectations. You are trying to create a space (ala RAM DASS; more about him later) where a person can feel comfortable to chat.

I’ve learned so much on mic. And off, of course, with the result being slapped, kicked (Ahh, Athens!), chased out of shops, run down streets by cops. All in the service of asking for that story never heard before.

The famous quote by E.M. Forster comes to mind: “Only connect.”

How?

By presenting voices from America. (More about STUDS TERKEL later) One records people professionally for radio, but also, any average woman-on-the-street-travelling-marshmallow-face-painted-every-kid-who-has-a-podcast gets to pop the vox populi by posing questions. Creating a space by invading someone else’s. The rightly timed question can bring a moment to life that might help a fellow find meaning in their own.

One of the beauties of this job is nobody knows where a conversation can lead.

How to make your great big convo begin?

Are you taking notes? Because poet Robert Bly (More on him, etc.) has the answer!

Bly says, “Ask a question. And listen.”

QUESTIONS

As a folk journalist, some approaches I’ll open with:

“What was the best year of your life?”

“How do you handle stress?”

“What is your conception of God?”

“What’s the richest you’ve ever been?”

“What is the most beautiful word in the (fill in) language?”

“What does this line mean: And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. ”

“Do you have a podcast?”

“How do you like your Burning Man experience thus far?”

TIP

Here’s a simple way to start (See Post on “Quick Openers”): “Need any help with that?”

Kind of an easygoing outreach that oft-times returns a response your way and who knows what’s next.

Because after that? (Don’t get nervous now) We’re off and running! And walking and talking and listen…

Art of Listening: A good talker makes a good listener. You pay your listeners by a few "brilliant flashes of silence" now and then, the compliment of supposing that they have something to say, and that you are desirous of listening to them. — The Art of Listening: A good talker makes a good listener…. You pay your listeners by a few “brilliant flashes of silence” now and then, the compliment of supposing that they have something to say, and that you are desirous of listening to them.

* http://www.clydesight.com/wollensak_reel_to_reel_tape_recorder/Wollensak_history.html

** A learner’s permit is a state-approved pre-driver’s license issued at 15-16 after proper study behind the wheel

Building Better Mouth Raps

November 30, 2015December 21, 2015 WalkyTalky WalkyTalky Leave a comment

Technology has replaced culture. But people haven’t noticed it’s gone yet.

Exene Cervenka of the band X

Interviewing red carpet style — Interviewing a great screenwriter red carpet style

Ready to roll? Ready to roll your tongue and take WalkyTalky as your battle-blasted tool kit (at least five tools, in case MLB is interested)? My aim is to arm you with effective verbal lines of attack and retreat so that the amazing back-and-forth which makes conversations worth conducting in the first place, will feature you at your dazzling best.

Ready to play? Make a play? Be a playmaker?

As a folk journalist, I’ve always needed the quick and lively turns of phrase to help connect with folks I meet out in that non-stop networked-up world of there-aint-no-stopping-them-now big broadcast bluster. Whew, right? I’m hoping that WT.US* can likewise put a charge into your own back-and-forth badinage and b.s.

How?

First by employing sentences to power up yours and mine’s ancient art of conversation piece into a rebooting re-beautification project. You know how hard it is, right, you find yourself on line or off the cuff, negotiating your way through today’s hypestertextual state of the art conversationals that Say whaaaaa?

A failed state, alas. But here’s when it hit me: I was nursing another of those fabulous nitrogen-tapped cold brew on draft (heavy on the yak butter) nespressos at Open Latte. You know the joint, located on the border between Santa Monica and the rest of the continent.

And suddenly I realized: We live in incredible times.

The lesson is how to live them? By getting busy, hurry hurry hurrying to turn this crazy life into lively conversation? Let’s get our Convo on, etc?

Well, as it turns out, one of the best ways to do that, is by Slowwwing down.

I was having a conversation with my grandfather. He’d just turned 100. I tried to impress him by dropping some Shakespeare.

“Time is of the essence. Isn’t that right, Papa John?”

“Maybe time is the essence,” Papa John replied.

Next: A Learner’s Permit For Life!

* WTUS not affiliated with any radio stations, yet.

Words to Get Going With? (Milton Berle said he spent the first 30 minutes of his act clearing his throat)

November 29, 2015December 21, 2015 WalkyTalky WalkyTalky 1 Comment

“In a world where the rules are breaking down, where the world is changing so fast in all directions that a lot of people have a sense of bewilderment. You don’t actually know what the rules are anymore.” Salman Rushdie

Hello again out there, Hank here, welcome to you all, to “WalkyTalky,” which is what I am, really, my reason for being here as a human, because I walk around town and I talk to people as a folk journalist, listening to them. Conducting conversations for NPR, newspapers, magazines, sites for sore eyes.

Pretty much any electrical outlet in the storm.

Times are tough, right tough for folks looking for a good talk. Am I right?

Like my friend Kris in North Dakota says, “the thing is” technology connects us in so many new ways. At the same time things appear to be pulling apart everywhere we look. But just as a few fantastic discoveries have changed the world, I’m confident there’s enough time left to discover another.

Imagine the voice of the radio announcer, stirring up underneath himself such stirring music that aides him as he intones: And, as we find ourselves more and more forever facing books on computers and faces inside our phones…friends, do you tend to, in the face of it:

1) Shut down and just say nothing at all?

2) Bark at it all from the outside you chirping tweety bird maddog blogging machine that you most wannabe?

or are you finding yourself

3) Disconnecting, into what Beatle John called, Iiiiiii…solation.*

4) Taking up an armful of words in order to fire back, and thusly: Engage!

Because here comes your chance to hitch a ride on the road to better handling a confusing world’s daily swirl of events.

How?

By using words to take action with!

People are always excited when I tell them I’m writing this web log. Because they see new conversations everywhere they look and work on their iChatty Cathy podcasting home-studio screens of some sort or another sort. They agree with me that modern youth’s socialization doesn’t prepare them for presenting one’s self well in the oldest form of the art: face-to-face conversation.

Another way of saying this is, Can we tawk?

WalkyTalky will present fun ways to forget your social fears and forge ahead, screenlessly happy again.

How?

By helping you converse – take part in actual conversations— by pulling from your quiver the sharpest words fireable — zing! fling! sing!– for any occasion. Perfectly useable at any appropriate (and inappropriate) time, by employing at-the-ready retorts, references from movies, songs, TV cartoons from 1964 and yes, by going even deeper (like that’s possible), you’ll win your life with words. Some of these things you’ve never heard before (thanks ghod!) but can one day utilize to your own delight, because I’m telling you folks, We’ve got a great big Convo and baby we’re gonna ride! [SING-A-LONG PARODY OF “CONVOY” FROM MOVIE “CONVOY” TK]

So let’s roll.

Why and why now?

Because as Beck sings, My time is a piece of wax fallin’ on a termite/who’s choking on the splinters.

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/beck/loser_20015293.html

(If you have time, check out this hilarious video of it * *)

Yes, because time’s a-wastin’, just say the word.

Words are the way to share time together, most excellently and well-played, sir!

And they’re surely some of the best ways to continue a conversation…

Fingerpuppet Freud interview amuses Amtrak passengers aboard Southwest Chief

*www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bnls10DO1Y

* *

What is a folk journalist?

November 24, 2015December 1, 2015 WalkyTalky WalkyTalky Leave a comment

Feeling Nostalgic For A Good Cuppa Conversation

: Typical folk journalist conversation with typically friendly North Dakotan

The other night I was on a panel with three authors. Sponsored by IWOSC (Independent Writers of Southern California), the topic was “Nostalgia,” and when the moderator turned to me and I leaned into the microphone, this came out: “I’m nostalgic for good conversation.”

Well, the evening proceeded and indeed, a fascinating back-and-forth ensued, with writers trading stories from the biographies they’d completed about old-time Hollywood figures like Spike Jones, Cecil B. DeMille, the Marx Brothers, even Elizabeth Montgomery from the show Bewitched.

At one point, after moderator Bob Birchard said he saw Richard III on a TV show called Omnibus in the 1950s, I threw in: “Ever wonder why with all these new channels today, there’s no Shakespeare kind of Bard-TV thing presenting all the films made from his plays?” Which led to a conversation about theater vs film vs TV, etc.

A folk journalist doesn’t just ask questions. He makes suggestions. Suggestions that instead of getting simple “yes” or “no” answers, lead to something more: creative conversation.

“Feel the buzz of the holidays in here?” I said today to someone at Peet’s.

In this web log I’ll show you what helps me, as a folk journalist, connect with people. How when we walk and talk our way daily through a jungle of what passes like a parade of people here, there and everywhere — mixing metaphors just like that may in fact help you engage in life at your dazzling best.

Ready to play?

“How?” you’re still wondering?

I’m getting to it.

In Gloria Steinem’s new book My Life On The Road, she calls for, “in-person politics and face-to-face organizing. She extols the virtues of conversation circles in arousing empathy and creating connections, but insists that such breakthroughs are simply not possible online. ‘The miraculous and impersonal Internet is not enough,’ she writes.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/books/review/gloria-steinems-my-life-on-the-road.html?ref=review

Ann Friedman, reporter on the piece, says Steinem is “foolish to play down” the potential of conversing on the web.

Do you agree? With whom? And why?

Next Time: Saying Whaaaaaaa? Let’s Talk About How We Try and Talk with each other, because I mean, really, who doesn’t like a good talking to, right?