Conversations By Nature: after seeing the movie “The Revenant”

January 15, 2016January 29, 2016 WalkyTalky WalkyTalky 3 Comments

Got to travel

Over mountains

Gotta travel

Over seas

Gotta travel

Til we win Death or Glory by The Clash

Travelers must be content As You Like It

The new Leonard DiCaprio movie “The Revenant,” takes you deep into the wilderness, featuring breathtaking scenes from the mountains of western Canada down to Tierra del Fuego Argentina. It takes place in 1823 in Montana and South Dakota. And despite the difficulty of his character’s journey, I’m here today to tell you that conversations for the rest of us along the trail? No walk in the park either.

First off, there’s not that much talking when communing best with the woods. As counselors up at Camp Lookout in northern Michigan, we had this rule while hiking: “Silence on the Trail!”

Beautiful idea, right?

But as an adult, please don’t yell me to shaddup for singing side two of “Abbey Road” or my favorite Dan Fogelberg choruses as we scale the high Sierra. You are supposed to sing, and loudly – try Broadway show tunes — when attempting to scare away the bears. (spoiler alert: Did Not Work for DiCaprio)

Dayhike on Death Canyon shelf — August in the Grand Tetons

According to Joseph Campbell (and others, of course) the bear is the oldest worshipped deity in the world. And like bears, every hiker you pass out there has their own way of being. Different from city walking where you ignore everybody you come in close contact with (because FILL-IN URBAN AVOIDANCE STRATEGY HERE), far outside the megalopolis, guess what: You can actually include and welcome humans to your side. Why? Because where it’s you vs. nature out there (one cannot emphasize the “out-thereness” of outdoors enough), any chance to join forces may come in handy so I’m here to encourage it.

We’re talking about survival among the rawest elements of life! Plus, chances to relate in ways no human ever has a chance to. (Be sure to take along a Marmot rain jacket – talk about a real lifesaver.)

Backpack Banter for Urbanized Campers

To anyone crossing your path, “Have a good one,” is short and sweet. “Howdy,” is even shorter. These greetings — or say, “May the peace of the wilderness be with you!” – force the opposing trailblazer to return with a “Have a good one!” (Albeit just in passing, because I can’t stop continuing to get down this trail/up the trail/to my campsite/and am lacking breath from sweating through another dang switchback/I need to push on farther along without any help from you no thank you very mucho…)

Note: Trail Etiquette 101 gives those going uphill the right of way. Trail Etiquette 101.1 teaches that if time allows, you may offer comments about passing trekker’s t-shirts and ball caps, as in: “Star Trek, cool…” or “the Wyoming cowboy. Cool,” or “Harvard? Really?”

Advanced Trail Etiquette says avoid, “May the force be with you” or asking about their gear, because there is nothing like humblebragsters going on about having proper rain gear in places like the Grand Tetons (see Marmot) because while it may be the youngest of the Rockies range, they do create their own weather system, putting you as warily in the moment as those furry little marmots bouncing boulder to boulder just ahead of you.

But hey, it’s your gambol; you can pretty much say anything. Let’s face it, in nature one is unrestrained. And you will probably not see that hiker again. So go ahead freely: “Next summer I gotta get me one of them umbrella hats!”*

Convo To Go

Feeling burned out on your trail? Put these in your pack to poke ’em with:

“I feel absolutely tree ripened out here, don’t you?”

“That there is a Jeffrey Pine. Yep. Go on up and smell it. Yes, you can scratch the bark and smell it. Is that vanilla? Butterscotch? Crazy, right? Well, there are over 300 different kinds of pine — funny you should ask — pinus, if you will. The Jeffrey grows mostly in the Sierra range. Did you know also that the presence of trees have been shown by a study to lower violent crime?”

Bonus

With just a few folks left around the campfire, folk singing & conversational storytelling having crackled down to a cool blue whisper, might be time for employing the following to blow whatever minds are still open:

“Ever tried living in Deep Time? When you slow down a little first, get away from the very next thing in front of you and go back like to when you are in nature— living in deeper and deeper time, the slower and slower it gets, stretching out in its passing to where you go all the way back and accept yourself as a part of the Story of Evolution itself. You realize you are part of this living being floating through the universe where the percentage of calcium in your tears is the same as in the oceans. That’s what aging is: part of it as all of it processes. So now you can quit worrying; humans have been here for 20 thousand years. The mammoths 10 million years. Dinosaurs 100 million years. Forget about wondering whether to get dirty in nature. And don’t worry about whether we should kiss, because there is more bacteria in your mouth than in all the humans who ever lived on the planet.”

Questions

Did you ever want to be a park ranger when you were a child?

Which national parks have you visited? How about overseas?

Did you ever get angry during a camping trip and what was the cause?

What’s the most amazing highway you’ve ever traveled upon?

What was the scariest thing to ever happen to you while camping?

Describe the coolest animal you’ve ever seen out there.

How would your friends describe you in relation to camping or hiking?

Bonus Convo!

If you are in the eastern U.S., try: Did you know that “Hudson” as in the Hudson River means “great waters constantly in motion”?

If you are in the western U.S.: Did you know that “Pacific” like in the ocean means “peace”?

Bonus Activities!

Take a day hike without your phone.

Ask some friends to join you for some outdoor activity or sport.

Tell a story around a campfire. (Remember that certain scary tales, like featuring Bloody Fingers! and other body parts, may drive more people into their tents than keep them conversing/smoldering by the fire.)

Relate a tale from time spent at summer camp.

Write a short letter thanking the person who introduced you to the natural world.

Dayhike on switchback below — Folk journalist switchbacking out, walking stick on rock.

VINCENTIO

But is it true? or else is it your pleasure,

Like pleasant travellers, to break a jest

Upon the company you overtake?

HORTENSIO

I do assure thee, father, so it is.

The Taming of the Shrew

In my first interview with a Sierra bear we were frightened and embarrassed, both of us, but the bear’s behavior was better than mine.

John Muir

Above photos by Daniel Mandil, Robert J. Rees.

Jock Talk: sports convos for all occasions

January 9, 2016January 9, 2016 WalkyTalky WalkyTalky Leave a comment

GREMIO: What! this gentleman will out-talk us all.

PETRUCHIO: Hortensio, to what end are all these words? The Taming of the Shrew

Welcome back Sports Fans!

With the NFL playoffs underway this weekend, let’s talk sports!

Women may love to talk, but guys never shut up. Listen to talk radio. Sports talk radio. Or notice while watching a sports telecast: they’re just out to out muscle each other. But wouldn’t it be more entertaining and instructive if instead of just talking to fill dead air, they spoke at a clever level of conversation?

Baseball is the greatest conversation topic ever. Civil War author Bruce Catton

Sure is! The statistical depths and storytelling alone make for endless summers and off-seasons of excellent, lingo-filled confabs. And George Carlin’s comparison of Football and Baseball — “stadium” vs. “park,” “spearing, piling on” vs. “the sacrifice,” “a sustained ground attack” vs. “going home” — is one of the finest examinations of the language we use when discussing sports. Here it is, literally:

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/humor7.shtml

Football field in Middletown, Connecticut

Back in the mid-1970s, every Sunday night in Middletown USA, Bob Glasspiegel hosted a conversational sports show on WESU 88.1 FM. He called it, “Jock Talk.” Think of the Algonquin Roundtable only with sports wits batting it around the bases.

I think this is the appeal of your better podcasts, which reach funny and informative levels of give and take by the practice of sharply-shaped words leading to good interviews = good conversation. [SEE LINKS PAGE FOR SOME PODCASTS]

As part of the WESU’s “Jock Talk” active listenership, I was asked to do color commentary on some basketball broadcasts with the aforementioned announcer Bob Glasspiegel. We were having a conversation on the air about the relative merits of “streaking” naked during halftime (college males randomly ran wild and nude across campuses during a certain dull point in the ‘70s; something left over from the freedoms fought for by the cultural revolutions of the ’60s.). I made some remark and suddenly our play-by-play guy punched me.

Luckily it was radio. But I was so startled, I fearfully refrained from offering any decent conversation the rest of the game. (Or “tilt” as they were called back east where Wesleyan University plays its games) At another game when someone streaked across the b-ball court — okay, my dorm mate, but he was very drunk and it was the ’70s — I had to interview him before and after the event. Not easy, as he was one of those guys, as a coach remarked later, who “wouldn’t say shit if he had a mouthful.” Years later, while doing similar color commentary on NYU broadcasts (“Go Violets!”), I got into a physical fight with the mascot from the opposing team. (A “Judge” from Brandeis, was it?)

Anyway, the above experiences are rendered as this folk journalist’s way of saying: good conversation need not always lead to such results. It’s up to you. You can be the catalyst for everyone else’s creative convos. Perhaps you’ll help today’s podcasts usher in a new golden age of storytelling, who knows?

Back Pocket Banter

Have you ever called a talk show on the radio? How about C-Span on TV?

What did you discuss?

Was it like a real conversation or did you just state your opinion and hang up?

What kind of podcast would you like to be part of?

Activity

Call a talk show or sports show on radio or TV.

Bonus

Michael O’Donohue, one of the original SNL writers, told a story of going to a baseball game with a blind friend and describing the action to him as it progressed inning by inning. Late in the game, “Thwack!” – a fly ball to left field and it is going to be a home run. At that point O’Donohue pulls out a souvenir baseball he brought to the game. While continuing the play-by-play: “It’s a long fly ball to deep left back back back…” he suddenly slams the souvenir ball into the stomach of his blind companion. “Home Run!!!”

“[Mychal] Thompson watches players walk into arenas today with their oversized headphones and wonders if they even bother talking to each other anymore as they did back in his day. Casual conversations aren’t the only thing Thompson misses.” Ben Bolch on the former Laker basketball player, LA Times, December 24 2013

ADD Jock Talk: this video creates dialogue where there was none. Certainly nothing like this!

http://nesn.com/2015/01/nfl-bad-lip-reading-returns-with-hilarious-2015-edition-video/

“My Brain on Football,” a future memoir if I can remember any of it

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

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!)