John Wayne's 100th birthday is tomorrow. Sort of. The name on the birth certificate issued to this individual on May 26, 1907, was Marion Morrison.
Morrison did not become John Wayne until some time later. He had moved to California with his family, played football at USC, and was attracted to playing in the movies. At that point, Marion Morrison started to morph into John Wayne.
John Wayne himself called it "the Wayne thing," in an anniversary piece in last Sunday's New York Times:
“When I started, I knew I was no actor, and I went to work on this Wayne thing. I figured I needed a gimmick, so I dreamed up the drawl, the squint and a way of moving meant to suggest that I wasn’t looking for trouble but would just as soon throw a bottle at your head as not. I practiced in front of a mirror.”
I wish I could tell you how many times I did exactly the same thing – practice the Wayne thing – when I walked out of the Metro Theatre into the sunlight after a Saturday John Wayne double feature. Lord, I wish I had pictures. I didn't want to be myself: I wanted to be John Wayne. I sort of moseyed up to the bicycle rack, arms flexed slightly away from my sides, my head as still as I could hold it, mouth open, lips drawn back, feet shuffling forward as if against some kind of resistance. Not looking for trouble, brother. But look out, anyway.
Pulled the bike out of the rack, pulled its head around, left foot on the pedal, leg up and over, settling easy into the saddle. Glanced over my shoulder at the pilgrims, said, "Yeo-o-o-o," under my voice so nobody could hear, and headed out for Tucson, which in my case was one block over and 10 blocks down.
I was good for about 10 minutes of this, then a plane would fly over, and I was distracted into some other realm. Marion Morrison was good for it for about 50 years, and he became an American idol. The mirror was the key. People believe what they see in a mirror. I couldn't tell you how better I look in a mirror than in a photograph. In the photograph my jaw is a tiny bit soft. In the mirror, its line has remained distinct for six decades.
They don't call them "vanity mirrors" for nothing. That's unsettling enough for me. Imagine if you were Marion Morrison, looking in the mirror in your 60s and seeing John Wayne there, as chiseled as the Ringo Kid in the mirror, compared to what Rooster Cogburn looked like up there on the screen.
I don't know. It makes me think of Willie Nelson. If you have ever listened to your voice recorded, you know it doesn't sound like you. Years ago I started to worry about Willie, never really knowing what that voice of his sounded like. In an interview I asked him about it, actually fearful he would say, "Yes, I really would like to know what I sound like." Instead, he said he'd been listening to himself so long, he had been able to reconcile the two sounds.
I hope Marion Morrison had the same luck. I hope he remembered what he looked like, before John Wayne became his idol in the mirror.
May 25, 2007
May 14, 2007
A fuzzy pink CO2 fog
As you may know, contributors to global warming – power plants, internal combustion engines, etc. – are ranked by the tons of carbon dioxide they release into the atmosphere. Driving a car is a major contributor to global warming; on NPR last week I heard a report that driving from San Diego to St. Louis, for example, would release several tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, even more than an airplane flown the same distance.
Knowing this, I wish to name shopping catalogues – Bloomingdale's, to be specific – as major contributors to global warming. They must be stopped, before it is too late.
On Friday, May 4, a mail truck, puffing out CO2, arrived at our house, and the mailman placed into our box a Bloomingdale's catalogue distributed especially for Mother's Day. I already knew one thing we were going to do on Mother's Day – a brunch of homemade brownies, coffee ice cream, and Champagne – and carrying the catalogue back to the house, I thought it would be fun to give Karen a gift as well.
All the gifts were beyond my price range until I arrived at a page showing a pair of very fuzzy pink thong-style slippers, by UGG, the famous Australian boot company. She loves fuzzy slippers, and these were very cute. I made a mental note. That was on Friday. On Sunday, I made an excuse to be away from the house. Karen was just leafing through the Bloomie's catalogue as I was about to leave. "Look at these," she said with delight and showed me the page with the pink slippers. It was obvious that she loved them, and I felt great. I bit my tongue and said they were very cute.
I drove to Fashion Valley, a huge and popular mall on the upscale side in San Diego's Mission Valley. It is a distance of about 10 miles. I went early, to avoid crowds. I felt very pleased with myself, locating this gift and actually obtaining it a full week before the event. I would get it gift-wrapped and hide it in the garage until Mother's Day.
But Bloomie's didn't have the slippers. The shoe department was huge, and UGG products were featured in their own display, but no fuzzy pink slippers such as those in a dated catalogue reaching me less than 48 hours prior. The nice salesperson said sometimes items show up in the catalogues that are not actually shipped to individual stores. That didn't make sense to me, but of course that didn't matter. I pictured tens, or hundreds, of men, in similar conversations with salespersons, and the miles they had driven to meet this fate, and the effect on global warming of a company who dangles a Mother's Day gift item before men, as desirable as the Holy Grail, and as impossible to find.
"You might try online, or phone them," suggested the nice salesperson. "Thanks," I said, not encouraged. So low had fallen my expectations of Bloomingdale's that I checked Nordstrom and Sak's before I left. I was amazed, in Nordstrom, shoe and service capital of the planet, to hear a salesperson say there were no UGG products at all in the store, and the next shipment was expected sometime this summer.
I limped home, tons of CO2 trailing behind me. Bloomie's online showed me the slippers in availability that jumped from size 5 to size 11. Five would leave Karen's heel out on the bare ground, and 11 might look good on Daisy Duck. The phone call brought the same result. Could I back-order them? No, they simply were not available on the planet in a size 8. Defiantly, I Googled for an UGG site. There it was, showing vast availability of the "Fluff Flip Flop" in five colors, except the Baby Pink between sizes 5 and 11. What an insult to a size-8 global demographic. It must have been that I had to get the catalogue out of the mailbox, scan it immediately and sprint into the house to the telephone to have any chance at all of obtaining Baby Pink Fluff Flip Flops in any size between 5 and 11.
So I ordered Baby Blue, cut the picture of the Baby Pink ones out of the catalogue, tucked them into Karen's Mother's Day card, and told her over brownies and ice cream that I couldn't get pink, and the blue ones were back-ordered until June 6. She was gracious about it. Then last Thursday, The New York Times ran a Bloomie's Mother's Day ad featuring the Baby Pink Fluff Flip Flops. I saw men and sons rising to the bait, and the clouds of disappointment and CO2 hanging over the U.S. on Sunday morning. Next time you harp at Mobil, Shell and Chevron for wrecking the environment, don't forget about Bloomie's, too.
Knowing this, I wish to name shopping catalogues – Bloomingdale's, to be specific – as major contributors to global warming. They must be stopped, before it is too late.
On Friday, May 4, a mail truck, puffing out CO2, arrived at our house, and the mailman placed into our box a Bloomingdale's catalogue distributed especially for Mother's Day. I already knew one thing we were going to do on Mother's Day – a brunch of homemade brownies, coffee ice cream, and Champagne – and carrying the catalogue back to the house, I thought it would be fun to give Karen a gift as well.
All the gifts were beyond my price range until I arrived at a page showing a pair of very fuzzy pink thong-style slippers, by UGG, the famous Australian boot company. She loves fuzzy slippers, and these were very cute. I made a mental note. That was on Friday. On Sunday, I made an excuse to be away from the house. Karen was just leafing through the Bloomie's catalogue as I was about to leave. "Look at these," she said with delight and showed me the page with the pink slippers. It was obvious that she loved them, and I felt great. I bit my tongue and said they were very cute.
I drove to Fashion Valley, a huge and popular mall on the upscale side in San Diego's Mission Valley. It is a distance of about 10 miles. I went early, to avoid crowds. I felt very pleased with myself, locating this gift and actually obtaining it a full week before the event. I would get it gift-wrapped and hide it in the garage until Mother's Day.
But Bloomie's didn't have the slippers. The shoe department was huge, and UGG products were featured in their own display, but no fuzzy pink slippers such as those in a dated catalogue reaching me less than 48 hours prior. The nice salesperson said sometimes items show up in the catalogues that are not actually shipped to individual stores. That didn't make sense to me, but of course that didn't matter. I pictured tens, or hundreds, of men, in similar conversations with salespersons, and the miles they had driven to meet this fate, and the effect on global warming of a company who dangles a Mother's Day gift item before men, as desirable as the Holy Grail, and as impossible to find.
"You might try online, or phone them," suggested the nice salesperson. "Thanks," I said, not encouraged. So low had fallen my expectations of Bloomingdale's that I checked Nordstrom and Sak's before I left. I was amazed, in Nordstrom, shoe and service capital of the planet, to hear a salesperson say there were no UGG products at all in the store, and the next shipment was expected sometime this summer.
I limped home, tons of CO2 trailing behind me. Bloomie's online showed me the slippers in availability that jumped from size 5 to size 11. Five would leave Karen's heel out on the bare ground, and 11 might look good on Daisy Duck. The phone call brought the same result. Could I back-order them? No, they simply were not available on the planet in a size 8. Defiantly, I Googled for an UGG site. There it was, showing vast availability of the "Fluff Flip Flop" in five colors, except the Baby Pink between sizes 5 and 11. What an insult to a size-8 global demographic. It must have been that I had to get the catalogue out of the mailbox, scan it immediately and sprint into the house to the telephone to have any chance at all of obtaining Baby Pink Fluff Flip Flops in any size between 5 and 11.
So I ordered Baby Blue, cut the picture of the Baby Pink ones out of the catalogue, tucked them into Karen's Mother's Day card, and told her over brownies and ice cream that I couldn't get pink, and the blue ones were back-ordered until June 6. She was gracious about it. Then last Thursday, The New York Times ran a Bloomie's Mother's Day ad featuring the Baby Pink Fluff Flip Flops. I saw men and sons rising to the bait, and the clouds of disappointment and CO2 hanging over the U.S. on Sunday morning. Next time you harp at Mobil, Shell and Chevron for wrecking the environment, don't forget about Bloomie's, too.
May 02, 2007
Talk this way
My brain has been trained to think about which words to use, and what order to put them in, to achieve a specific effect.
The effect is intended for the reader of what is known in newspapers as a general interest/humor column. I think, consider, mentally test, type, read, pause, edit, and then begin the process again, with the next sentence.
Over time – 35-odd years – I have gotten so practiced at it that I do it automatically.
But should I talk that way? Verbally relate to family and friends that way? When I look at my wife, and want to tell her something, should I think, consider, mentally test, begin, pause, and edit? Is that any way to treat a sentence in plain spoken English?
I am starting to think not. My wife, Karen, is the second dear person to tell me that I talk like I’m writing a column. Apparently the 650-700-word column has become my language template. I can see why. If you are going to write a column, or essays, for a living, you better be good at it. If nobody reads it, you won’t be writing a column very long. I think I will undertake an analysis. For example, I saw that last sentence, about analysis, as I gazed out of the window after the sentence that ended, “column very long.”
I won’t analyze here. Typing the words, “the sentence that ended,” I was reminded of a favorite E.B. White line (I just had to revise this sentence so the line can begin here): “Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process, and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.”
That wonderful observation can be applied to so many functions in life, including love, and certainly column writing. Imagine how discouraged a reader might be, after five or six paragraphs like the last two. I must say, I had to rewrite the last sentence three times. But no more! Analysis over!
Where does one go for a template laid out for plain speaking and clear understanding in real time? What profession requires thinking on your feet? What is the key to extemporaneous speaking? I know extemporaneous speaking is taught, in high school and college. But if it must be taught, and learned, then what is extemporaneous about it? I can hear a dear person saying, “You talk like you were an extemporaneous speaker.”
The key must be to eliminate the thinking part. When I say this, I mean two kinds of thinking. One is thinking of the right word to use. That is fine, even essential, for column writing. But it slows speech way down. Maybe by only five seconds, but five seconds of dead air in a conversation is a long time, particularly with the facial language associated with trying to think of the right word. I could devise an exercise: every day, have a three-minute conversation with myself in the bathroom mirror. Watch my facial language, as I’m told they do in speech classes, and experience the aggravation that goes with watching me trying to think of the right word.
The other kind of thinking is what I have come to called meandering. Some people have the facility to think in a straight line. I am a meanderer. Again, it belongs to the writing template. A person one-third of the way through a medium-long sentence will mention, as part of that sentence, something that I find immediately interesting. My mind leaves the conversation and meanders off for a closer look at the interesting thing. The other person, finishing what was an important sentence for him or her, replete with purpose and meaning, sees that my eyes are fixed on a point in the middle distance over his or her shoulder, and rightfully concludes I haven’t heard what they took the time and effort to say.
So. Eliminate the thinking part. I’ll have to think about that.
The effect is intended for the reader of what is known in newspapers as a general interest/humor column. I think, consider, mentally test, type, read, pause, edit, and then begin the process again, with the next sentence.
Over time – 35-odd years – I have gotten so practiced at it that I do it automatically.
But should I talk that way? Verbally relate to family and friends that way? When I look at my wife, and want to tell her something, should I think, consider, mentally test, begin, pause, and edit? Is that any way to treat a sentence in plain spoken English?
I am starting to think not. My wife, Karen, is the second dear person to tell me that I talk like I’m writing a column. Apparently the 650-700-word column has become my language template. I can see why. If you are going to write a column, or essays, for a living, you better be good at it. If nobody reads it, you won’t be writing a column very long. I think I will undertake an analysis. For example, I saw that last sentence, about analysis, as I gazed out of the window after the sentence that ended, “column very long.”
I won’t analyze here. Typing the words, “the sentence that ended,” I was reminded of a favorite E.B. White line (I just had to revise this sentence so the line can begin here): “Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process, and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.”
That wonderful observation can be applied to so many functions in life, including love, and certainly column writing. Imagine how discouraged a reader might be, after five or six paragraphs like the last two. I must say, I had to rewrite the last sentence three times. But no more! Analysis over!
Where does one go for a template laid out for plain speaking and clear understanding in real time? What profession requires thinking on your feet? What is the key to extemporaneous speaking? I know extemporaneous speaking is taught, in high school and college. But if it must be taught, and learned, then what is extemporaneous about it? I can hear a dear person saying, “You talk like you were an extemporaneous speaker.”
The key must be to eliminate the thinking part. When I say this, I mean two kinds of thinking. One is thinking of the right word to use. That is fine, even essential, for column writing. But it slows speech way down. Maybe by only five seconds, but five seconds of dead air in a conversation is a long time, particularly with the facial language associated with trying to think of the right word. I could devise an exercise: every day, have a three-minute conversation with myself in the bathroom mirror. Watch my facial language, as I’m told they do in speech classes, and experience the aggravation that goes with watching me trying to think of the right word.
The other kind of thinking is what I have come to called meandering. Some people have the facility to think in a straight line. I am a meanderer. Again, it belongs to the writing template. A person one-third of the way through a medium-long sentence will mention, as part of that sentence, something that I find immediately interesting. My mind leaves the conversation and meanders off for a closer look at the interesting thing. The other person, finishing what was an important sentence for him or her, replete with purpose and meaning, sees that my eyes are fixed on a point in the middle distance over his or her shoulder, and rightfully concludes I haven’t heard what they took the time and effort to say.
So. Eliminate the thinking part. I’ll have to think about that.
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