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.)

Don Rickles and the Comedians

The recent passing of the great Don Rickles got me reminiscing about Rickles and the comedians I've enjoyed over the years.

My earliest memory of  Mr. Rickles dates to the summer of 1969.  I got a summer job through a buddy of mine whose father and grandfather worked for a carpet outlet store. We were the company's carpet-hauling muscle for the summer.

My friend's father was kind enough to pick me up every day at the street-corner and we'd drive in together. One day he put a tape into the car's cassette player (very high-tech for the time) and said, "you boys will like this." We did. It was Rickles and he roasted everyone: Jews, Blacks, Catholics, Italians, Irish. My employers were Jewish and they laughed hardest at the Jewish jokes. I was hooked.

My earliest memory of comedians, in general, was watching the Ed Sullivan Show with my father who loved laughter and a good joke. His favorite comic was Alan King. I liked him too, even at that young age, but the first comedian who appealed to me as a boy was Allan Sherman and his album, My Son the Nut, and its chart-topping hit, Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh. That was 1963. My parents owned the album. I would lay on the floor, face up, with my head to the "stereo" and play it over and over again, and even today can follow along with most of the songs.

Jonathan Winters was another old favorite of mine. Winters is rightly called a comic genius and the inspiration to the more widely-known genius, Robin Williams, who could make me laugh as well. In the 60s, I loved Steve Allen and his talk show skits, and Dick Cavett, although the latter wasn't a comedian, per se, but his quick wit as an interviewer appealed to me as did the king of late night interviews, Johnny Carson.

In the early 70s, Steve Martin turned the comic world upside down for the baby-boomers with his satirical skits, Wild and Crazy Guys, and King Tut. Martin and the talented group of Saturday Night Live satirists brought something new to TV comedy. They walk in the footsteps of  Mel Brooks, Norman Lear, and Woody Allen. Billy Crystal combines qualities of both Mel Brooks' satire and the storytelling of Alan King (see the movie Mr. Saturday Night).

I'm not old enough to have seen Charlie Chaplin in silent-theater although I did watch re-runs on television, but never quite got him. I did get his comedic descendants, The Three Stooges. I'm old enough to have seen comedy change from slapstick to joke-telling to satire. And like all art forms, it has its highs and lows.

I was never a big fan of Lucille Ball or Jerry Lewis even though I recognize the talent, it just doesn't make me laugh. The old Dave Letterman shows I thought were funny. I did like some of Carole Burnett's work. I generally don't care for female stand-ups. My favorite female comic is Julia Louis-Dreyfus, although in the TV sitcom Veep, funny she is, but listening to a female use the F word a half dozen times an episode puts me off. Language, humor and everything else that is a part of daily life say something about who we are and what we value, and Veep descends into the banality of street jargon. That being said, her work in Seinfeld is as good as it gets. Hilariously funny.

I probably should add my favorite, more recent sitcoms, Office and Parks and Recreation, which I think are very funny, and cleverly written and performed, and which added another comic element to the sitcom, the acknowledgment of the third-party observer by the actors.

We find something funny for various reasons but it's almost always a "fracture" in reality as in an understated or exaggerated word, expression, or action, or a common frustration, or the accidental minor misfortunes of others. Humor like romance can't be analyzed and enjoyed simultaneously, it can't be commanded, and it's another one of those hard to define qualities that separate the homo-sapien from the lower animals. Cows don't stand around and tell jokes.

Or do they?

THE FAR SIDE, GARY LARSON

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Postlogue

I like the self-deprecating humor of the Jewish comedians: Rickles, Sherman, King, Brooks, Allen, and Crystal, which has its origin, I think, in the Jewish pathos (see the movie Fiddler on the Roof).

The one Catholic boy that fits perfectly into the tradition mentioned above and who I have overlooked is the great Jackie Gleason.

One last song from Sherman which shows his cleverness with words, and which, I think, still stands today as a pretty funny tune (of course, the video's images were added later).

One Hippopotomi


 

The Best Cup of Coffee in Texas.

I've been known to use a little hyperbole from time to time. This is not one of those times.

Fort Worth has a new coffee shop and it's in the Meadowbrook area. I mention the location because we Eastsiders have grown accustomed to driving miles to get a decent cup of fresh coffee. No mas.

Not hyperbole: This is the best cappuccino I've had this side of the Mississippi.

Coffee Folk opened last weekend serving coffee from a beautifully renovated trailer just outside the Firehouse Pottery. Coffee Folk's roaster is Spella Cafe from Portland, Oregon. Of Spella the New York Times wrote, "the best espresso in Portland." I mention that because the Coffee Folk folk are serious about procuring good coffee.

My first visit was today, Saturday, their second weekend open. My wife and daughter had been and reported to me that the coffee was very good, my expectations were high.

I liked it so much I returned an hour later for a second cup.

I'm not a coffee snob but I do appreciate when coffee's done right. For me, the high watermark is a cappuccino from La Colombe in Philadelphia. Every time I order a macchiato, espresso, or cappuccino, it's compared to La Colombe's. If La Colombe is a 10 on a good day everything else in these United States has been less, until today. The Coffee Folk cappuccino was as good and maybe a little bit better than La Colombe's. I'll admit the tipping point in that opinion may be that Coffee Folk is a bicycle ride from my house. And that there is a secondary enjoyment to this coffee bar for those of us in Meadowbrook who have endured less than stellar food and restaurant availability, and that is seeing and conversing with dozens of neighbors who are enjoying good coffee as well.

But the coffee is the centerpiece of this table and the coffee is good.

Thank you Coffee Folk.

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Coffee Folk is just outside at the Fireside Pottery at the corner of Meadowbrook and Oakland Boulevards, Fort Worth, Texas. For now they're open Friday and Saturday only. Coffee Folk also serves a small selection of fresh pastries from Rooster Bakery in Fort Worth and a selection of teas.

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Photo credits
Top: Rebecca Smith
Bottom: Jaime Brabander / The Plumbing Place