Robert Klein

I’m sorry, it saves a lot of conversation.

Cary Grant (playing “Commander Andy Crewson”) in the 1957 movie Kiss Them For Me, after walking up to a civilian and punching him in the face.

Forgive me, gentle reader, for again and again, I have chosen unwisely. Wrongly. The people to converse with. But should this mean that violence should automatically follow?

Folk journalists must be careful when working: language is lethal! Poet Amiri Baraka warned, “Language is inflammatory and TV is the gasoline.”

But for our purposes – going against the grain and screens — by talking face-to-face, the light comedian’s touch is preferred. I try to keep more in tune with Robert Klein who sang on one of his first lps, “I had no punches/but I had a few punchlines!” *

I know what you’re thinking: Is folk journalism too dangerous a profession? How about as a hobby then? Because why oh why do I find myself on the end of so many fists?

(The term, “wrong end of a fist” seems weird to me. The right end of a fist is the wrist, right? Never been punched by a wrist, have you?)

The folk journalist’s wish to talk to someone is a seeking to bring a person into my world. Someone not myself. Bring them in, make them part of my family. And perhaps add interesting stories to my life. Like Bob Dylan put it in Black Diamond Bay: “Seems every time you turn around/there’s another hard luck story that you’re gonna hear/And there’s nothing anyone can say.”

Well Bob, actually there is a lot they can say. To me. And one reason to make the attempt by asking is that aside from other people (and nature’s forests, etc), there is nothing left to do alone but record or write down the words. And then continue to tell them.

After all, who are you by yourself if you’re not connecting with another human being? But is there a safe line you can attach to keep the convo from crashing?

Bruce Springsteen sings that he’s, “just a scared and lonely rider” in Born To Run, and the fear is definitely a factor folk journalists live with. Perhaps there are people I shouldn’t be talking to. Is it true they can smell the fear?

It is 1992, I’m strolling with a friend in New York’s Little Italy after seeing the movie Hairspray, John Waters’ movie about race relations in the 1960s. Another couple passes by. I exclaim, “Hairspray!” a remark to my friend to notice how the couple passing us both wear throwback piled-high big hair-dos just like….D’oh! Two seconds later, I’m being chased down Mulberry Street and ducking to hide inside a bodega behind the two Dominican brothers who run the joint hoping they’ll protect me.

The guy in the passing couple wanted to punch me out! Can you believe it?

Thus, I learned that no matter if you offer it with joyous intent or simply as an icebreaker, every comment/outburst does not lead to conversation.

Back Pocket Banter

Ever go over the line in conversation? What happens?

Do you remain silent in situations where you’d like to speak? Why?

What situations have you found yourself in where silence was required?

What’s the oddest or scariest situation brought on by something you said?

Ever tried to converse with silliness as a way out of a dangerous situation?

Activity

Some conversations MUST TO AVOID

– Once a movie starts. Come on people!

– Bicycle to car. Car to bicycle convo seems safe (aside from “Get the heck outta my way!”) but there are way too many variables the other way.

– Talking with Rebels. I’m talking about the Upstarts Upstairs. Best to let the kids have their music. Includes keeping leaders of NYC’s Savage Skulls motorcycle club at the long end of your recording device. Interviewing this fellow, I wondered why he wore a swastika button on his leather jacket. His answer: “I wear that because I don’t believe in that. Nazis-ism and shit.”

(Oh. Okay. Who could challenge that? Not even Wordsworth could’ve made words work there.)

– With someone already multitasking. When they’re walking, talking or telling you their computer problems? Best to maintain silence.

– Talking to Someone Speaking in Tongues is not a good idea. Why interrupt? Also true around Zombies or anyone else giving chase and

(Whoops. Hadda get outta there.)

* Favorite Robert Klein record, his second lp, from 1974.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/mind-over-matter-mw0000310584

More re Klein: http://www.ajhs.org/robertklein

Never miss a good chance to shut up.

Will Rogers

The first time I got arrested in Minneapolis I realized two things:

You enter into what Ken Kesey called, “the cops and robbers game,” in which all old rules go out and you’ve got to play with a whole set of new ones.
You learn that it can be better to be a woman than a man.

Picture this: 577 anti-nuke protestors scaling the security fence at Honeywell Corporation hard by the Interstate 35 (Hence, Twins jacket in photo). Actor Martin Sheen is with us too — yay!– but when we land on the other side of the high wire, cops are waiting for us. They slap their plasticuffs (see same photo) on us, which they’ve been using instead for the past what, 40 years now, but still burn into your wrists?

This turns out to be the biggest arrest in the history of Minnesota protest. No kidding. (This was in the 80s, so does record still stand?)

The “Honeywell Project,” was a group of activists out to convert the corporation — you may know Honeywell for blenders, home security systems, popcorn poppers. Did you know they also made cluster bombs? And missile parts, too. The idea behind the Project was a peace conversion for Honeywell, to strike their swords into plowshares, with no loss of jobs. Did I mention Martin Sheen was with us, in his funny Minnesota ski cap (similar to guy in photo)? Marty’s tops; he plays the judge in, IN THE KING OF PRUSSIA, a 1983 dramatization about the “Plowshares Eight” who broke into a GE plant to protest nuclear weapons, pouring vials of their own blood onto secret missle plans. *

Man owns four things

that are no good at sea:

rudder, anchor, oars

and the fear of going down.

Antonio Machado * *

When you climb over and fall onto the lathered green of Honeywell Property, cops quickly slap and strap ‘em on you, pack you into vans and off you go because you’ve been arrested for criminal trespass. Heading downtown I will meet women from different “affinity” groups who live as far away as Iowa and Wisconsin. One of them notices my agitation under the stress and straining of these restrictive plasticuffs and she puts her hand on my knee.

“You know,” she says. “Nothing the police can do to us is as bad as nuclear destruction.”

Listening to her actually calms me down a little. (SEE previous blog entry on LISTENING LOUDER) Then a woman from Red Wing tells me she’s been heading to the streets to fight corporate obscenity like this for forty years. She is so serene about everything; hell, it just gets me all pissed off again.

At the Hennepin County Jail now, I’m not only arrested, I’m tired and angry too, and very much dead on my feet because we first gathered this morning at six and now it is late afternoon and still freakin’ cold in Minneapolis.

Men are led into one holding cell. The women are taken to another holding cell.

FlashSketchCoupleHandstands__14 — sketch by Flash Rosenberg

Here in my cell of men, what kind of conversations do you think you get?

“Cops. I hate cops, don’t you?”

– Yeah I hate the damn cops.

“How you feel about the Vikings?”

– They suck.

“Yeah they suck.”

– You got a cigarette, man?

As comedian Robert Klein would have put it: “Not much happening there!”

But as I’m getting fingerprinted, trying not to be afraid – they press your fingers down really hard and you’re left with tons of black ink that never come off — look at this: I can see right into the women’s cell. And I give a long hard look at the womenfolk in there.

Womenorah_FlashRosenberg_ART_023 — Womenorah by Flash Rosenberg

I can see the women in there are holding hands. The women are in some kind of a circle, surrounding one woman who appears to be on her stomach, stretched out in the middle of the circle of women. Right on the floor of the cell. The women around the circle are chanting at her. It could be something Buddhist, who knows. Kurdish even. Then they’re running their hands along the back and sides of the woman on the floor. Completing this ritual, they motion themselves into a togetherness by closing the circle and hugging.

Wow, I’m thinking. I could use all those things right now: Songs of solidarity. Sympathy. A back rub.

Because while I have always had the ability to withhold my own with any man, I can’t help think as I’m being lead back to my cell: I’m in the wrong affinity group here!

In fact I realize that if it weren’t for those women, I would never have made it through that day peaceably. [Note: This is before the men’s movement of the ‘90s, so maybe its all changed now – fellows read Robert Bly translations of Rumi to each other so maybe things changed.]

Ever since Minneapolis, I’ve preferred talking with women. Post-prison, I’ve even loved singing with them, which I highly recommend.

Back Pocket Banter When Talking to the Police

Once I was walking with my friend, the comedian Paul Lyons. Just strolling, we suddenly saw a policeman out in front of a neighbor’s house.

“Did you call for backup?” Mr. Lyons asked the policeman.

Works!

* IN THE KING OF PRUSSIA http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084130/

Honeywell Project history: http://www.wri-irg.org/en/node/3101

** Antonio Machado https://poetrydispatch.wordpress.com/tag/antonio-machado/

Doesn’t matter which direction you point your prayer rug. Rumi

That’s it for this time — cheers, Ha!nk

CONVOS I WISH I HADN’T: Choosing the Wrong People/How Silence Can Be Golden

Now That You’ve Been Arrested…the secret of men and women when they converse behind bars