Conversations

Years ago, back when I still did this sort of thing, I went on a blind date arranged by a well-meaning friend.  The friend seemed to think we had a lot in common, although now, thinking back on this, I have some doubts he knew me that well.  Anyway, at a restaurant the conversation went like this:

Me: So, you work at the hospital.  That must be interesting."

Her:  Yes.

Me: Um, I bet there are a lot of exciting situations that happen every day.

Her: Yeah, quite often.

Me: well, uh, you probably meet a wide variety of people.

Her: (nodding head, first real sign of life) Yep.

You get the idea.  Although she eventually did have one or two sentences longer then two words, there weren't many.  She'd talk to me, but it was like I was grilling a reluctant suspect in a murder case.  She obviously was interested in going out on this date, but would not dare take the step of trying to engage in meaningful conversation.

Admittedly, this is an extreme case, but for the most part it seems that women have certain rules about how much they are willing to talk at a given time. Women may be stereotyped as the talkative one of the sexes, but it is definitely situational.  The woman you know from the office as the chatterer extreme, may be tight-lipped if you go out on a social outing. 

Again, I think this hearkens back to my "First Contact" theory.  They won't make first contact and won't make much conversation until they feel completely safe in the relationship.  So on a first date when you ask the female something about her past she'll probably just give you a quick synopsis when in fact she's dying to give you the "War and Peace" version.  As the woman begins to feel more comfortable in your presence, she'll move from a tweet answer to a short story to eventually the major novel response.

To men, this can be disconcerting.  At the beginning of the relationship they may believe she is attractive due to those short, descriptive responses, but later in the game might be a little put off when they learn every minute detail about a short trip to the store.  In fact, they may have bragged about their new girlfriend to their buddies.  They boasted that their new squeeze didn't ask one single question during the movie they went to last week.  However, when they double date later at some exciting hockey game, she asks a question about every little detail of the sport.

This eventually causes the friend to miss the game-winning goal when she wondered why the guy with the pillows on his legs, standing in front of the little cage, had such a fat bat.

Men are completely different.  Many of us, at least those past 30, have probably been influenced by the likes of the Man With No Name (Clint Eastwood) from those famous spaghetti westerns who spoke in short, but precise sentences. Normally we don’t want to say too much, but early in the relationship dance must expound relentlessly to not only try to attract the female, but also keep the conversation going.  If we didn’t do this, not only would the female try to sneak out at some juncture, but also the other people in the restaurant might suspect the quiet couple as possible terrorists.  Or at least would tsk-tsk (publicly shame) the ultra-silent pair. 

Later in the relationship, the man can comfortably slip back into the short response mode because the female will feel safer and will now be talking at length about the proper way to eat broccoli.  Of course, she will invariably report to her girlfriends how this typical male is uncommunicative and never willing to discuss his emotions.

In other words, it’s a no-win situation for the male.  Talk too little at the beginning and the female will not be interested and will seek out male companionship elsewhere.  Talk too little later in the relationship and the male is an uncaring, unemotional Neanderthal.  It’s also not safe for the male to talk too much later because then he will be characterized as a gutless wimp because, you probably guessed this, he talks too much about his emotions.  The women want a strong man who knows what he wants and doesn’t have to explain himself. 

Therefore, the best strategy for males is to go ahead and throw those lines early on and try to engage the female in mindless banter to attract her.  Then when everything is going rosy, resort to the expression used by all males for generations:

“Yes dear, whatever you say.”

Ahhhh, Thurber!

We at The Thurber Brigade know you are wondering why there isn't a sidestep this time.  We had seriously thought about doing one about the election, but since we had done one previously about the love affair between the MSM and Trump, we decided we needed something of levity. Besides, we at The Brigade believe that anyone who would think of voting for Trump has the brain capacity of a snail and therefore isn't reading humorous blogs, especially ones about relationships between men and women and so they wouldn't be of a mind to change theirs anyway. Of course, if the worst happens, expect us to revert back to our sidestep ways just so we can make snide remarks about people who voted for Trump and with the election of His Sleaziness any chance of the US joining the rest of the western world in moving forward as a civilization.  So we'll see.

Throw Me A Line

In the distant past, well, really only about four years, I wrote a blog about how men "throw lines" to begin the process of interacting with females. It gave some sage advice, ahem, and also mentioned how women don't throw lines (just like they don't make first contact. It's related).  Anyway, I suddenly realized very recently that I no longer throw lines.

Well, normally. If my testosterone levels go off the scale, say in the case of a supermodel-esque female's presence, I might. For the most part though, I instead just try to engage the female in conversation. It could be something like, "did you see the news report about the water in Barton Springs?" (A big issue here in Austin), or "I always drink a cup of water when I have a beer. It's part of my "save Jay's liver campaign.""

Oh, sure, you could say that is still throwing a line, but it's nowhere in the realm of "what's a super model doing here at the local bar?" Or "you must be a thief because you've stolen my heart" (Heard those, didn't use them).  No, it's just me trying to get someone to talk to me. No different really than if a guy sat next to me at the bar and I wanted to do more than just drink my beer or work on a blog. i.e. Talk.

It could be age. Maybe I'm so old (hey, no snide thoughts there buster) that I no longer believe I have the silver tongue of my youth or that I no longer possess the youthful imperative that young males have to hook up. However, I think it's that I have just become more accepting of the situation. In other words, I have the thought that if the target wants to engage good, if not, no big deal.

In the old days, I'm positive I was the master of throwing lines. For example, I remember telling a women drinking wine at a brewpub: "You know it's against the law to drink wine at a beer brewing establishment?  So I'm going to have to ask you for some ID." Or one I'm still not proud of, but it seemed to work: I made a bet with my buddy this morning that I would meet the most beautiful woman in the world and it looks like he owes me ten bucks."

Now, before you judge me too harshly, remember this was the 70s-80s and Austin.  Women were much different in attitude back then and if not more accepting of goofy lines, more understanding of how difficult it is for guys making contact. Even today I trust women understand the challenges of a guy making contact when he's alone and there are two females or when two guys are winging it and encounter a single (nervous) woman.

I also feel obligated to mention that the venues of those years were completely different then today. In Austin we had fantastic and cool places to hang such as The Split Rail, The Back Room, Steamboat and everyone's favorite The Armadillo.  Ahhhh. Throwing lines at those places was so common and expected and, well fun, that everyone just went with it.

Oops, I digress.  Be careful when an Austinite begins a sentence with "in the old days in Austin...".

Anyway, I don't do that anymore. Yes I'm older and admittedly I'm not as successful as in my youth, but part of the problem is that many older women still think they are teenagers. One of my rules is that if a female I'm interested in is past the age of 35 she may no longer play games.

Oh, you know what I'm talking about. Things like acting coy/aloof when in fact she is interested; not willing to say more than yes and no to the guy's questions when she really wants to tell him her life history; unwilling to call him after they exchange numbers even though she's already put him on speed dial. You get it.

Too many older women gripe about us dudes going out with younger females (the reason behind my hunting tips blog) but still want to act like the situation has not changed. Well, it has.  If we have to risk the perils and depression of rejection, why not take a chance on a younger model?  If we must always take the chance that we will become the butt of numerous females complaints about men being animals for our brash desire to be with a female, why not go for someone not jaded by years of relationships they disliked but were unwilling to take a bold step and try to start a new one on their own?

I'm sure there are other older guys out there who still feel the imperative that tells them they must go home with a female. However, I have encountered quite a few like me who accept that if we succeed it's great, yet don't despair if we go home alone. After all, although it's sure nice to wake up with a warm body beside you, it's also nice to be able to watch football all day without someone reminding us to mow the lawn, or to be able to drink beer late into the night and watch "Die Hard" or other action movies instead of having wine and cheese parties.

(oh, you knew I was going to drop a Bruce Willis picture in here somewhere, right?)

So females need to drop the games and do their part to reach out to someone or quit complaining when they see us old geezers with a younger, partying-crazy version of themselves.

 Ahhh, James Thurber!

Whew, aren't you glad this wasn't another sidestep about police brutality or some other topical issue? Although there are plenty of lousy things going on right now, we at The Thurber Brigade believed we needed to get back on track. However, with the weirdness that is the Donald Trump candidacy and the ever present police anger management-less force on the streets, there's no guarantee that a sidestep won't reappear.

Another Murder by Police, Another Sidestep

America was founded by a bunch of radical liberal rabble-rousers.  They had the audacious idea that man should pick his leaders, not God (the king supposedly was ordained by God by being born into the right family).

They also refused to give respect to someone just because that person "took the King's shilling." In other words, just by putting on the uniform didn't mean they'd respect you. You had to earn respect in this country.

After the Revolutionary War, the Tories (conservatives) fled the country, but since that time have slowly filtered back into US society and even have had a measure of power since the 1990s.  Nowhere can you see this better then in the respect conservatives give to police just because they wear the uniform. They are heroes Faux News proclaims. Doesn't matter that the only heroic thing they may have done is hold the door for someone with an armful of groceries.

Likewise, when a policeman (or woman) kills a civilian, conservatives immediately will claim the victim deserved it.  "Oh, he was running away," "He didn't do as commanded," "He had a checkered past," are a few of the justifications they use for killing an unarmed, non-guilty civilian.  Of course, loyal Thurber Brigaders have read my take on how this latter would be if the shoe were on the other foot.

Luckily, although conservative ideology has held sway for a few decades, we're beginning to see cracks in the surety that police can do no wrong because, well, they are the police.

So you may have guessed that this Thurber Brigade Sidestep is caused by yet another murder of a civilian by the police. The Tulsa murder looks pretty open and shut, but remember there was video of Rodney King being pounded by police for speeding, police killing an unarmed naked man, et al, and in each case the police walk free. So pardon me if I have doubts about justice here in the US.

The number of people killed by police in the US so far in 2016 is well over 700.  By contrast in Europe, not counting terrorists, they have killed less than 10 (I made this number up, but it's low. Check the link to see why it's probably accurate). If you read my "tips for tourists" blog from last year you know that there are a wide range of reasons why US police kill civilians: from running away, standing still, doing as told, flashing your headlights, etc. So I won't rehash that.

I had started work on a book on police brutality back in the 90s and in my research discovered thousands of cases of police malfeasance.  So believe me when I say it's not just a few bad apples as most conservatives will try to explain. It's extensive.  I didn't find a publisher for the book, so ended up with just an article instead.

What all of the above is trying to explain is that we desperately need police reform.  I've written a few articles on that too, but if you don't want to read them (Part I and Part II), let me bullet-point a few ideas.

•  Traffic enforcement should be handled by a completely separate—unarmed—city unit. Police were handed this chore because cities were too cheap to come up with a separate force. Having police do it is equivalent to having them inspect restaurants or investigate building code violations.
•  Disarm half the police force.  Do cops need weapons at a car crash? To block off streets for a parade?
•  There should be specialized units within the police for different duties. For example, a rapid deployment force that is armed to handle bank robberies, assaults, etc.  A special unit for terrorist attacks/hostage situations (like the current SWAT).  A detective unit to investigate crimes (pretty much as it currently stands).  A civil action unit to handle non-violent emergencies such as car crashes, tornadoes, etc.  A special unit to handle domestic disputes/mental issues. This latter group would have an unarmed social worker/psychiatrist to make contact and an armed officer as backup.
•  Extensive testing to see if the police applicant should be allowed to carry a weapon and testing to see of an applicant has the temperament to be on a police force.  In other words, stop hiring people who desperately need anger management treatment, or high school jocks who blow up when they don't get the same respect they had while on the team.
•  A minimum two-year length training academy to become an officer.  This would include extensive work on how to de-escalate situations and NOT use a weapon.

These are just some simple starting points on how to bring our police up to the same level as those in other industrialized nations such as the UK or Germany—who have little violence by police on citizens.  If we don't have reform, if we don't hold police accountable for their actions, we'll continue to see more and more murder by police and riots by those who object.

Ahhh, James Thurber

Yes, The Thurber Brigade has strayed again from it's coverage of The War Between Men and Women.  The Brigade would normally apologize for yet another sidestep—except that we don't believe citizens should remain quiet when injustice surfaces. Paraphrasing Barbara Jordan, when you remain silent to these injustices it means that future generations will believe you were okay with them. So The Brigade will try to get back to the straight and narrow soon, but no promises.

Listen to This

Years ago my parents came to Austin to visit me on Thanksgiving. As a relatively poor person then I couldn't afford to travel to see them, so I only went up to their place in Kansas at Christmas.  For years I had been cooking a turkey and everything else for my friends and roommates who would also stay in town. So even though I was very experienced at this, my Mom said we had to go out for Thanksgiving dinner. No amount of arguing could convince her otherwise (Dad always went along), so out we went. We tried multiple restaurants and they either had a 2-hour wait list or were out of turkey. We finally stopped at one place that at least had food, but pretty much all we got was whatever they had left. I think I had sausage.

This has been an ongoing thing in my life: no one will listen to me.

In my parents case I'm pretty sure it's because I'm the youngest child and still just a little kid more attune to playing basketball and roller skating then adult activities.

I believe this may have been the main reason I took up writing (you've bought my books, right?). Oh sure, I really love telling stories, but it means something special to me that there might actually be people out there reading my writing and, well, in effect listening to me.

Sadly, it's more than parents who won't listen. As you can guess (this is a blog about The War Between Men and Women after all) many of my former girlfriends didn't listen to me.  It would range from where we should go on a date: Her: Where do you want to go to eat? Me: How about Hut's? No, I don't like that. Me: Where do you want to go then? I don't care; to not listening to instructions on doing something: Me: Make sure you loosen the lug nuts a little before jacking up the car. Her, later after not changing the tire: I was unable to remove the lug nuts because the tire kept turning.

Just recently this woman became very angry with me because she came to pick up a ladder I had (I was out, told her exactly where to find it) and she picked up a small step stool instead. A completely wasted trip to her. It didn't matter that I told her explicitly where to find it, it somehow was my fault for the wasted trip.

My brother might be as bad as girlfriends about listening to me. It could be a combination of still thinking I'm the little guy who crept into his room to listen to his records, or because of the inherent competition between brothers. This happens most often when traveling. For example I'll say go down a certain street and he decides someway else might be faster. It isn't of course, but he sure wasn't going to listen to this little squirt.

Some people will say these examples are more of a case of not agreeing rather than not listening. However, in the context of "he won't listen to me" it is not a hearing or agreeing problem, it's a paying attention to me problem. i.e. "Well, I'm sure not going to listen to that guy."  I may have sage advice, but they are not going to take it.

I also believe this is a habit/plight of most Americans today due to social media. It's the "Instant Message Syndrome." People are so used to short blurbs of communication they will not—or are no longer capable of—listening to longer messages. So if you say the stepladder in the garage is hanging on the wall, all they pick up is ladder and garage.

Okay, I admit this syndrome is creeping into my own life in the way of emails. I'm notorious for skimming my email and sometimes not picking up the full message. I actually blame Robert Ludlum for this. I love his books, such as "The Bourne Identity," et al, but I think he sometimes goes into too much detail about the surroundings or scene. So I skim to get to the action. I ascribe to Hemingway's belief that you should be brief.

So I'm working on getting better with my emails, I just hope I can convince those around me to do the same when I talk to them. Until then, don't be surprised to see me walking down the street with someone and constantly rolling my eyes. It's becoming a tic.

This ain't TRASH!

People love gossip.  Oh, sure, there are some high-brow folks who will scrunch their noses at the thought of gossip filling the air, but you can still catch them sneaking a peek at "People" for news about Angelina and Brad's latest public snit, or what Jennifer says about that noticeable tummy bump.

Humans just love to hear—and talk about —other people.

"Writing Trash and Hunting Buffalo" is my new e-book about gossip. More particularly it's about a Vietnam vet turned gossip columnist who writes biting articles about Hollywood elite in order to bring them back to Earth.

Of course, this book complicates things by infusing symbolism, bitter rivalries, head-strong personalities and personal tics throughout its pages.

For example, the buffalo in the title (and the Warriors who hunt them) represent a dying visage/ideal of our past. They have a link to the main character too, but you'll have to figure out why.

I wrote this book partly because I had these memories of going to Grandma's house in Hays, Kansas as a child and finding these glitzy gossip rags on her coffee table. When the adults weren't looking, I'd grab a few and go to the basement to look them over. As a testosterone-laden kid I mainly liked the pictures of scantily-clad, young starlets. However, thinking back to those memories as an adult, the contrast of the strait-laced Midwestern older woman reading these Babylon chronicles really struck a nerve. So the book points out this internal war between the stereotypical concepts of the Midwest versus The Hollywood jet-set.

Although I knew it would have a Midwestern aspect, initially I thought the main character would be from Iowa. As a Star Trek fan I wanted to give a nod to Captain Kirk as I always choose him over Picard in the debate over the best captain of the Enterprise. I eventually settled on Hutchinson, Kansas as the character's childhood home because of an article I once saw in the 80s that said that city had more millionaires per capita than anywhere (one of the characters is rich).  Okay, my parents lived there for a number of years and that may have been a slight factor too. 

Probably the biggest underlying theme of the book concerns what happens to your soul when you become the thing you despise.  The main character is a pretty straight-as-an-arrow Midwesterner thrown amongst a hedonistic, money-grubbing society he absolutely hates. He has some childhood issues that feed his animosity and reinforce his contempt for those who believe they are superior.  This pretty much makes him a walking time bomb. Yes, it's not light reading.

Okay, it's no Hemingway novel, but I do pay homage to him with a quote from the main character: "To a writer, a bar is the most important place in his life—after the desk his typewriter sits on."

After all, Hemingway was a hard-drinking journalist/novelist.  

Speaking of journalist/novelists, I also had to mention the University of Texas in the book. The main character received his journalism degree from there. I did this partly because Walter Cronkite studied there (yes, a journalism God), but I also earned a journalism degree from UT. As a side note, they used to offer a class called "The journalist as novelist."  Clever link to Hemingway, eh? Sadly, I never got to take the course.

 

So BUY TRASH.  You'll love the characters and get excited about the barroom fights, but maybe you'll also love the internal struggle to maintain your soul while surrounded by a world alien to your beliefs. Happy hunting.

The Thurber Brigade does not apologize for this sidestep (even though it's the third in a row). James Thurber would love TRASH.