Talkers and Listeners

There are two kinds of people in the world: talkers and listeners.

On a scale of one to ten, ten being your great-uncle after three martinis and zero being the cloistered Sister Mary Frances, I’m around a three, maybe a two and half.

There’s a one physical reason I maintain silence over speech and it is simply that my vocal cords are slightly damaged; talking loud enough for the other party to hear me is difficult. And there’s my feeble attempt to honor the Benedictine Order’s preference for silence. And then there’s the real reason, which is, when I am talking I get the impression that the listener doesn't give a rat's you-know-what about what I have to say, which is understandable because I don’t either most of the time.

And I might as well add that I have an electro-mechanical defect, that is, my brain and my mouth are not synchronized very well. It seems there’s a delay between the thought of a word and speaking the word. A spoken sentence for me is like a four cylinder Volkswagen Beetle sputtering down the road on two cylinders. Add to that a healthy portion of what is now called “inner dialogue” and I’m just annoying to listen to.

The golden-tongued have no such delay. My beloved wife, for an example, can go from zero to sixty words per minute faster than a Tesla Model S at a drag strip. Thought and spoken word weave into one coherent sentence, paragraph, and story.

Not that talkers don’t have their difficult members. Who wants to endure the monologue of the over-talker? Whole paragraphs reside in his mind waiting to be unloaded on the unsuspecting. He is the proverbial mouth looking for an ear.

I love a good conversation when I can really listen to what the other person thinks and why. I enjoy hearing words formed into sentences. I like the sound of voices. I can listen to National Public Radio's fund-raising segments even though I am not concentrating on the words being said. There is a pleasant cadence to the voices. The same with baseball games broadcast on the radio. There is nothing quite like the sound of a good baseball play-by-play man talking you through the game, moving in and out of the silence.

The truth is talkers need listeners and listeners need talkers. Put two listeners together and the silence can be life-sapping. Two talkers together remind me of a high school cafeteria food fight: throw something, duck, repeat.

There is a popular story of two famous non-talking, men of letters, Samuel Coleridge and William Wordsworth that sums up this listener's frame of mind. It goes like this:

"Wordsworth goes to visit Coleridge at his cottage, walks in, sits down and does not utter a word for three hours. Neither does Coleridge. Wordsworth then rises and, as he leaves, thanks his friend for a perfect evening." *

Now that is my idea of a good time.

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* Roger Rosenblott, Time Magazine essay, the Silent Friendships of Men

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(John, give me a number between 1 and 10.)

Foods I don't get. Part 2.

1. Overcooked, boiled vegetables. Can someone tell me what is enticing about cooking sliced carrots until they have no flavor and have the consistency of baby food? Same with any other vegetable.

2. Pho. The name itself puts me off for some reason, maybe because it's pronounced faux, as in fake, as in not really good food. Yes, I have tried it. My daughter likes it as do other people I know. I just don't get the rice noodle.

3. Rice pudding. Can we talk? Anything that looks as nasty as rice pudding or its cousin tapioca can not taste good. I don't care how you trick it up.

And the worst of them all one more time: chicken pot pie -- yes, I have talked about this before but I have to bring it up again because my wife just heated one up and I took a look inside. Gooey substance, green peas, carrots and an occasional piece of overcooked chicken. Unless I'm starving on some deserted island, there is no way I'm eating that.

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For Want of a Bar of Soap.

I have lived in my house, "lo these many years."

I have paid for my house, or contributed towards its payment, I have painted its wood, mowed its lawn, and washed its windows. I have, for over thirty years, added my sweat and equity to this house in which my wife and I have lived. And she has turned out rather nicely, if I do say so myself.

Yet . . . yet, when I am searching, in this modest little house of ours, for a bar of soap, a simple, little bar of shower soap -- I can find not a one.

Oh, we have soap. We have soaps in many colors and shapes. Soaps wrapped in fancy papers, bearing fancy names. Some even wrapped in rough, corrugated paper with hemp bows tied around them. Impostors. Wolves in sheep clothes. I do not want these soaps.

I do not want to smell like oatmeal, or wheat, or honeysuckle, or shea butter. I do not want soap made from goat's milk or peaches. I do not want sand, or salt, or pieces of maple bark in my soap, and I certainly do not want lavender. But, right now, in my house I find all of the above and not one that bears the old names in which I am familiar.

Dial, Irish Spring, Zest . . . oh we few, we happy few . . . I know you are out there somewhere . . .

,,,,,

i - THiS

Okay, I admit it.

I have a little i-envy. But, it's justified.

I can't walk into my favorite restaurant without thinking that some undeserving diner is becoming its mayor because of the i-app, Foursquare.

I can't ask a friend where the closest Jack-in-the Box is without getting an, "excuse-me-while-I-whip-out-my-imap," response.

If I want to change seats on an upcoming flight I have break out my laptop, or even worse, call an 800 number, which is today's equivalent of yesterday's pay phone.

The problem is I don't really NEED an iphone/pad/pod. I wish I did, but I don't.

I've considered getting one of those high-pressure/make-contacts jobs that would require the appropriate i-gadget, but I haven't.

There's just no compelling reason for me to to i-up, as it were, unless one considers an iPhone-for-iPhone's sake a compelling reason to buy. (Does the iPhone possess an intrinsic value or an assigned value?)

Regardless, I guess I'll be like Aesop's fox who, when he couldn't reach the sweet-looking but high hanging grapes, walked away saying, "they were probably sour anyway" . . . but not on Apple's i-Phone.

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My Failed Job Interviews

Image: Psychology Today

If human resources departments gave grades for job interviews I would be given an F. That's right, an F for Failed, or another word that begins with the same letter.

I'm just no good at it.

I guess I have been fortunate. I had never needed to do a serious job interview until I was near fifty, then for whatever reason, I decided I needed to get a real job, the kind where you have to take tests, and answer scientifically chosen questions about yourself and your knowledge of the business.

And then to be interviewed, which was to become my stumbling block.

"Why do you want to work here at Schmedly and Sons?"

This is a tricky one. "Because I'm looking for a job you stupid SOB," is not the right answer.

"Tell me a weakness you have as it relates to business." 

If I know that I am supposed to say, "I work too much and expect too little in compensation because that's the way my depression-era parents raised me," shouldn't I assume that he knows I am going to say it and that it's not true.

Once, when applying for a sales position, I was asked why I considered myself a good salesman. My answer was that I must not be a good salesman because if I was a good salesman I wouldn't be looking for a job. Wrong answer. I didn't get the job.

On another interview I was asked to talk about myself and my experience. I hate talking about myself, so I asked her if she had read my resume. She replied, yes, curtly, and asked me to talk about myself anyway. I said, read the resume, that's what they are for. Wrong attitude. She ended the interview.

The weirdest HR guy I ever met didn't say much of anything. He just smiled, nodded, and said, "go on," like a priest in the confessional. I soon ran out of things to talk about and by the third, "go on," I think I was rambling on about my kids and camping or some such nonsense.

Needless to say, I wasn't offered the job.

I do think it's about time for a more human approach to the hiring process, but even then, I doubt if I will be very good at it.

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Earth Humans . . .

Yes, you.

Please refrain from the following:

1. Any use of the phrase: "You go girl." As sympathetic as I am to the fairer sex and their desire for sororal identification -- this has got to stop. Any male use of the phrase will trigger immediate vaporization.

2. Physically uncoordinated white people should not give the high-five after every minor successful moment. You look stupid. Actually, the high-fiving needs to stop all together, but persons with no eye-hand coordination should have never started. By the way, persons of color stopped high-fiving in the 80's.

3. Please stop using cell phone text language in common speech. Someone called me a " b f f " the other day. I assumed any word abbreviation with an " f " must be a reference of the unrepeatable kind. Apparently not. Please stop anyway. At least to anyone over 50 years of age.

(Older humans, it means: "best friend forever.")

Thank you.

(Your suggestions gladly accepted)

It's 3AM & I'm Watching a Barry Manilow Ad. Why?

Last night, after attending an inspiring performance of Mozart's, Don Giovanni, I could not sleep . . . possibly and additionally, the effect of the cold medicine I am on.

So I flipped on the TV. It was about 3AM.

Early-morning television is a Twilight Zone of programming for the abnormal. It is, it seems, for those poor souls who can not sleep at night, whose only distraction is television's least entertaining infomercials, lawyer ads, televangelists, Shopping Channels, and occasional ad for a music CD. Normal people are not drawn into this world. The normal do not know it is there. But I was there and I was watching.

Enter Barry, as in Manilow, and his newest CD ad.

What can I say about that opening shot? First, there is this bronzish hue to the whole screen, possibly done to evoke an 80's feel to match the albums's theme. I remember the brown colors of that era, and they are not pleasant memories . . . then there is that mug . . . which is, how do I say this, which is . . . an admixture of blow-dried bouffont hairdo and girl makeup on an oddly angular face. It is 3AM and Lady Di has melded with Kramer on my TV screen and they are trying to sell me 80's music. It is scary, really.

Then there's the ad's kitschy tagline:

"Barry Manilow. Showman our Our Century. Songs of the '80's." Now, I'm so turned-off I keep watching.

"Islands in the Stream," the voiceover says, "Chicago's, Hard to Say I'm Sorry, Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time and Stevie Wonder's, I Just Called to Say I Love You." And of course, that full screened bouffont singing a line or two from each unfortunately unforgettable tune. I am sitting on the edge of the couch, jaw-dropped, and stunned.

"Who buys this stuff?" I thought. "Some sleep-deprived schlep like me, I guess. I have got get some sleep." Maybe, it was just a nightmare.

How to Lose Weight. Maybe.

I have decided at the ripe old age of 56 that there is only one way for me to lose weight: stop eating, anything. Ever.

In order for me to lose 1 pound per week, given my age and other incidentals, I am allowed to consume 1,800 kilo-calories a day. That's not much.

A quarter-pounder meal at McDonald's would be well over half of that. The cookies that sit temptingly at the Central Market check out counter? 800 calories each. Two of those babies and I am done for the day.

But really the problem is that there is no guarantee that, even given this effort, the pounds will come off. To the contrary, last week, after 7 days of 1800 k/cals a day, (did I say that wasn't much?) my scale moved nary a notch. Which means, they say, that I need to drop consumption to around 1600 calories a day -- which brings me back to my introductory conclusion:

I might as well stop eating at all. Really. Bummer.

More ShamWow, Bullet Blender, & Ron Popeil.

The comments on the last post got me thinking of other memorable pitches. But first, if you haven't seen the Shamwow commercial, here is a short version. http://www.shamwow.com/

Two readers suggested the Magic Bullet Blender, one of my favorite "love to hate" infomercials. It's the ad that has the older lady smoking in the corner and the smarmy 80's type, "thirty-something" couples sitting around a kitchen counter. I disliked it so much I even watched the Spanish version. Really. And I do not speak Spanish. The part I don't get is that every vegetable that they put into the magic blender has already been chopped so that it fits. If I am chopping already why not just chop some more?

I had almost forgotten about the godfather of TV pitchmen, Ron Popeil. He invented the "Veg-O-Matic," which was so well known that it was spoofed on Saturday Night Live. His ancestry in the business goes back to Atlantic City boardwalk days like that of Billy Mays. He and his hairplugs annoy me so much I can't take my eyes off his infomercials. Which reminds me, does anyone remember the spray on hair "thickener" for the balding. It was a spray paint with fibers in it that, when applied, colored the bald spots of your head. Really. I am not making this up. I remember Ron Popeil spraying this stuff on the bald spot on his head.

Popeil invented dozens of products including the best selling Rotisserie Grill whose ad had the wonderful "hook" line, "I am selling these grills at the special television low price of $99 -- but only if you can tell three people where you got it." Genius.

In Praise of the Pitchman

I had been compiling notes on TV pitchmen this last month, and lo and behold, the Sunday New York Times Magazine ran an article on one of my favorites, Billy Mays. More on Billy later.

My first encounter with the pitchman was in my hometown of Wilmington, Delaware at the age of about thirteen years. I was with my mother in the old, downtown Wilmington Dry Goods on the south end of Market Street. She was probably doing what most Wilmingtonians did before the days of KMart, that is, shopping at the "Dry Goods" for socks, underwear, etc.

I was meandering around the old, creaky hardwood floors and noticed a man standing on a box with a very small amplification system from which I heard him extolling the virtues of a liquid one could apply to eyeglasses which kept them from getting "steamed-up" or fingerprint marked. He had a small steaming machine that shot a stream of steam into the air, and he demonstrated the effectiveness of the lotion by going back and forth to the steam with the eyeglasses before and after the product was applied. He did the same with the oily fingerprints. It worked beautifully.

I remember the tinny sound of his voice, the slicked back black hair just like Billy Mays', and mostly his ability to speak quickly and clearly with no hesitation or self-doubt. He performed his act seamlessly, gesticulating, talking, pausing, and polishing as if every word and action had been choreographed -- but not to look choreographed. And it worked. I watched the pitch several times through. I also remember wishing that I had need of such a product because if I did I would most certainly purchase it.

Actually, pitchmen are embedded deeply in the American psyche. If I say "miracle elixir", you think of a western cowboy show with the pitchman promising the listeners that his elixir will cure everything from dandruff to "rheumatiz," plus help the cows produce more milk. The traveling pitchman usually tried to get out of town before anyone actually used the product, but also usually got mixed into the plot somehow. Every show from Bonanza to the Rifleman had a pitchman episode.

A century later, in the 60's and on broadcast television commercials, the same guy was selling Ginzu knives that cut tomatoes into paper thin slices, "so thin they had only one side," and never needed sharpening. The Ginzu knife inventor wrote the unforgettable sales copy, "But wait, there's more . . ." which has been used in virtually every infomercial since. It's the kind of simple perfection that every would-be wordsmith admires enviously, I know I do.

But I'm going on too long, so I'll continue tomorrow with cable television and Billy Mays, or as the Ginzu man said -- "but wait, there's more . . ."

The Sock/Time Problem.

While getting dressed this morning, and already late for work, I pulled two similar but different socks out of the drawer. I discovered the difference after being seated to don the misfits, and after having one foot socked. I do not mind telling you that I like properly fitting socks so this was a sock vs. time dilemma. I could get up, spend another 5 minutes finding the one I needed, or go the rest of the day with, not just mismatched socks, but one sock which was too small.

This is a problem because I do not like to be late and because I do like socks.

The effective cause of my dilemma is the plethora of socks from which one can choose these days. Years ago, when J.C. Penney, my sock merchant of choice, had only one sock specie, and 3 sub-specie colors, I had no problem at all -- the worst that could happen was mismatching a black and a blue. But, since Penney's, et. al., began carrying hundreds of species I have been forced to experiment and have yet to find my way back home.

I know -- sad but true.

I do have one pair of socks that I love. They are running socks used only for the running event day. In each pair, there is a right foot orientation sock and a left foot orientation sock, making them fit snugly, plus just the right amount of padding at heal and ball of foot. I wonder why someone hasn't applied that idea for everyday-use business socks?

I don't know, but until they do, I will miss the old black, acrylic, crew sock that had the right amount of padding, stayed in place on the calf, and were easy to find on the JC Penny display.

Oh, the good times . . .

Shoes and Socks, Gone Wild . . .

Flickr photo by Thurrock Phil


I remember when it hit me. Why then, and not years earlier I do not know. I am sure that the change was not as sudden as it appeared at that moment. I was standing in front of the sock rack at the JC Penney's in the Northeast Mall, dumbfounded, looking for the black and blue socks; the soft acrylic, half-calf kind that everyone, including me, wore. Besides blue and black, there was brown and gray. I had purchased my socks at the same place, in this small corner of Mr. Penney's fine establishment for years and today I wanted a three pack of navy blue. That's it: drive up, park, get the socks, pay, go home.

No problemo, pero, no mas.

The old, modest JC Penney sock rack had been replaced with rows of socks, and hundreds of varieties. A whole fancy wall of socks with dozens of colors, lengths, and materials. Where were the normal-guy blue socks? I looked but never found them. I have been more or less sock-testing ever since. And dissatisfied.

(Next post: toothpaste. I can't find the white Crest. And who buys red, white and blue gel with flavor specs?)

Olympia 6 - 1162. Funny How Things Change.

It was a black telephone secured to a wall near the kitchen and in a passageway leading to the den. It was the old-style phone, made and issued universally by ATT long before the days of touch-tone. Back then it was ATT or no phone service at all. The phone's location discouraged long, gossipy conversations, it being in this short hallway, but folks didn't talk on the phone much in those days. Non-local telephone calls, or "long distance" was expensive, and used mostly for emergency or for a special holiday "hello." The phrase, "I'm on long distance," was a commonly heard phrase, meaning, "don't bother me, this is important." Up into the late 70's meetings could be put on hold while someone was called for a "long-distance" call.

Olympia 6-1162 was the black phone's number, I remember it, now 40 years after I last used it.

Yesterday, in contrast, I was on my cell phone so long the battery went dead. I did not remember one phone number of my frequently called numbers. Not one. I needed to reach my wife or son and started to call from my office phone, but could not remember a number. I had to email other family members so that they could forward me a phone number. I finally reached someone who gave me a number.

The very fact that anyone can be reached at anytime kind of changes our relations to one another and the way we do things. We start worrying about someone if they don't answer after several tries. I felt cut-off the two hours my cell phone was without charge. What if something goes wrong? How will I know? The obligation and burden to be available at all times is the unintended consequence of "cell phones" and is implicit to the modern sensibility -- especially those under 30. As Marshall McLuhan said, "the telephone is an irresistible intruder in time and space."* (emphasis mine)

Are we better off? Probably not -- especially when our brains, like our batteries, go dead.

(*The Medium is the Message, Marshall McLuhan)

Pillow Talk?

I refer, not to the conversation between a man and woman as they are lying in bed -- but to the fact that the older I get the more important it is to me that I sleep with my pillow. The skinny, non-descript, fiber-filled, K-Mart pillow with a plain-blue, cotton cover. It fits neatly in the hollow between my head and neck when folded in half. If I don't have this pillow or something very close, I get a neck ache and can't sleep. When I'm traveling and leave it at home, which I recently did, I'm doomed.

My thin pillow is running counter to the big pillow trend. Beds that once had one pillow per person, now are laden with pillows of many shapes, sizes and fabrics all designed to give the bed a boudoir look. This wasn't true when I was first married. Pillows had their place hidden under the sheets and blanket at the headboard. Today, the female inspired pillow boom-cycle make the pre-cleared bed uncomfortable for anything but looking at. Our bed at home has no less than 8 pillows. And they have migrated from bed to coach to comfortable chair. There are more pillows in my house than places to put them. Where' does this end?

My sleeping needs are modest, I don't need sheets with 400 stitches per inch or feather comforters or matching pillows; but I do need my thin pillow, I wish I didn't but I do.

I Used to Eat Dirt . . . and other food trends.

If you were born between the years 1950 and 1960 it is altogether possible that you, at some time or other, took a taste of your front yard. Why kids before then and kids after then didn't, I don't know, but my scientific inquiries into the matter have led me to conclude that the 50's was the period of children eating dirt. I was one of them.

Now we find that those 50's kids were cutting edge food enthusiasts. According to many reports of health and food trends, pro-biotics is considered at the top of the hip food list http://bit.ly/eeVWJU. For those not in the know, pro-biotics research suggests that bacteria found in healthy soil is an important element to a healthy stomach and intestine, which are critical to overall health. Want to meet girls in the pro-biotics world? Use the phrase, Gut Flora, it gets them every time.

Yet another food trend is salt. Not the Morton's blue cylinder box. The kind from the Himalaya's or the Dead Sea or some other far off place. Central Market in Keller has dozens of choices including many colors and textures. I'm just glad I can eat salt again of any kind. But I would like to meet the marketing guys who decide where their salt is going to come from and what story to tell of its healing properties.

Water is a trend, although a downhill one -- actually, not the water but its bottle. The landfills are filled with them, making drinking a bottle of Fiji Water in Austin as dangerous as wearing mink in New York. Soccer mom beware, you may be spray-painted mid-sip by a crazed (and thirsty, no doubt) eco-terrorist. Then again, if you acquire status from drinking a $2 bottle of water you probably deserve it.

Anyway, the next time you see your child eating something from the front yard go easy on him, who knows, worms may wriggle their way to a food trend yet.

Bialystock, Bloom and Thanksgiving?

One of the small pleasures of being a parent of 4 children was watching, with them, the movies and TV shows that I have enjoyed over the years; the old Disney movies, Snow White, Cinderella, Old Yeller, The Song of the South, Love Bug, and TV shows like the Three Stooges, Bugs Bunny, and Bonanza. As they got older and more selective, they made requests: Anne of Green Gables was one that lasted a few years, then as teenagers, we pulled out the good stuff like, The Guns of Navarone, The Producers, The Blues Brothers, Family Vacation, et. al.

Here's the point: Once in a while, I'll telephone one of the boys and they will answer with a line from the Mel Brooks 1968 movie, The Producers:

"Bialystock and Bloom," (lilt and tone of the secretary, Ulla, pronouncing Bloom: "Blue'-oom")

I act as if they had just said "hello", carrying on as normal, but it makes me smile.

And that's what I'm thankful for, Mel Brooks, and the line: "Bialystock and Bloom." Without that line I would have forgone a whole lot of smiles.

Is it Heredity, Choice or Environment?

I lose things.

Pretty much anything and everything, from reading glasses to sunglasses, keys, wallets, rings, watches, clothes, books, pillows, you name it, I have lost it. I lost my car for a day. I even left my wife at a rest stop on the freeway (more on that later).

This is not something for which to be proud, if there were a 12 step program for "losers" I would humbly attend. Unlike other congenital diseases I can blame no one but myself. I have been smart enough to support myself, wife and four kids so it's not like I'm that intellectually challenged.

Part of it may be that we have much stuff to remember. Just to get out of the house every morning one has keys, wallets, money, phone, folders, books, and PDA's . . . plus doors to lock, alarms to set, heat or a/c adjustments; then there are the things in the wallet one must never forget, insurance and license renewals; not to mention the two renewals on the car itself, registration and inspection, which I never remember. Add that to multiple birthdays, anniversarys, holidays, meetings, practices, recitals, IRS forms, and there is no wonder I forget things. It's just too damned much.

I could take the academics excuse, that the contemplatation of the important things like existence itself and its meaning, are the true things to remember. But, I am not an academic. I just don't remember where I put the keys or parked the car, where I lay my glasses down last, or put the book I was reading.

And leaving my wife at the reststop?

Long before we had children, my wife and I had a full size van, with the two back seats taken out so that on long trips one of us could sleep. We were on such a trip and she was sleeping and I stopped at a freeway reststop to use the men's room. When I was in said mens room, she awoke and went into the ladies room, I returned, and like a bad I Love Lucy episode, took off without her. Before cellphones or pagers. But we did have CB radio. And yes, I was alerted via CB radio that I had forgotten something --- with some very funny comments by the truck drivers who relayed the message my "left-behind" wife had given them.

Free Meals?

The Wall Street Journal reported last Saturday in their Food and Wine section that several, nationally popular food bloggers have been criticized for accepting free meals from restaurants in a food blogger version of a "quid pro quo."
Food and Fort Worth would like to issue the following statement on our complimentary meal policy:
Food and Fort Worth has never accepted a free meal from a restaurant or food establishment of any kind.
Have I have been offered a complimentary meal?
Uhhhh, well, uhhhh, No.
Would I accept, if offered a complimentary meal?
Let me make this perfectly clear, I have not, nor will I ever accept a free meal . . . unless, and I consider this important, that it is obvious to me that it is in the best interest of my readers, and only then when the form of payment usually accepted is denied by the proprietor or manager on duty because he or she considers it expedient at the moment to do so.
Okay?
---------------------------------------------------------------
For those interested, some of the food weblogs mentioned in the WSJ report and their comp meal policy ( I have not visited all of the sites):
Eater.com / free meals must be disclosed
Chow.com / free meals accepted when restaurant not under review
egullet.com / free meals can be accepted but must be disclosed
tablehopper.com / accepts free meals
amateurgourmet.com / had accepted free meals no longer does
restaurantgirl.com / has implemented a no comp policy