This; And also that

We’ve all used the old “behind you!” trick to get someone to turn around. Was a time, that was a real effective hustle. The mark turns, you pocket his change. Done and done. But word spreads. Stuff gets incorporated into TV movies. And then one day you notice nobody’s buying it any more.
Tonight my six-year-old son executed an exciting new take on this old chestnut that I thought was worth sharing with the rest of the grifting community.
So, he’s trying to tickle me but, frankly, he can’t, because I’m just too fast and canny. Then he says: “Look, behind you. Momma’s trying to give you a potato.” I turned to look. No potato.
Later, after he’d gone to bed and I could find some time to think — to think! — I sat down and puzzled through why this had been such an effective swindle. It came down to two key elements: (1) who runs a grift with potatoes nowadays? Just about nobody. And (2) why “trying”? What was that about? He’d hit on just the sort of extra detail that fogs a mark’s mind.
Anyways, all you grifters out there, enjoy. And to the rest of you, please don’t spread the word by incorporating this technique into a TV movie.

I’ve been working on a sitcom script for the last little bit and that’s meant wrestling a lot with dialog. I know good dialog starts with being a good listener, and I’ve been trying to get out a little more to coffee shops, dude ranches, laser tag emporiums, and other places where “real people” hang out, to hear how they speak and to pick up language I might not have used myself.
I’m also trying to come up with a handful of basic working techniques that’ll help me get more consistent and credible results. I thought some of the folks who drop by this site might be interested in sharing techniques we’ve been taught or figured out. If you’re feeling generous, add a comment to this post — no technique too small, too cheesy, or too obvious.
Here are a few of the things I’ve been messing around with:
backstory-a-licious: The clearer the character’s backstory and driving motives, the more personal their reactions to any situation. This week I finally figgered out the backstory for one key character in the sitcom. It was a pretty simple sketch of a backstory, but even that really helped turn his words from “generic Cecil banter” to something more specific.
messing up the tennis match: I find I too easily get into dialog volleys of “Ingmar, what’d you have for dinner?” “Well Dave, I had tacos for dinner. How about you?” Dialog can start to get into this predictable back and forth as I race toward a particular plot objective (for example: “feed Ingmar and Dave!”). The aforementioned backstories help remind me to stay focused on what drives the characters, not just the plot point that’s driven me to write this particular scene. I’ve also been encouraging characters to interject more tangents, and I’ve been occasionally allowing them a genuine word fumble — something that’ll surprise the other characters and hopefully the audience.
keying in on key phrases: for some characters I focus in a phrase or two that they use. They don’t even have to actually use it in the piece, it’s just something I keep in the back o’ my mind as I write their lines. For example, in this micro-musical I was messing around with, there’s a character whose voice keys off the phrase “How ’bout that?” (stolen from a kid who played Tom Sawyer at Disneyland — as he walked away he called out to my kids with a light twang: “I’ll come back later and we’ll go look for treasure — how ’bout that?”) Whenever I thought I was getting off track on that character’s voice, I’d ask myself “is this the sorta thing my ‘how ’bout that’ guy would say?”
So that’s a few from me. How ’bout that? And how ’bout you? — any dialog tips/techniques/tricks you’d be up for sharing?
-Cecil

It’s comforting to know we still have fire fighters amongst us — people dedicated to finding fires and then fighting them. Fire needs to be fought.
There are other primal forces that need to be fought, of course. I’d like to be a wind fighter. I’d go around putting out dangerous winds. Or perhaps a dirt fighter. Or I could combine both, and I’d fight hazardous dirt-wind constructs, like dust storms. But there doesn’t seem to be a market there. It’s hard to fight wind and dirt, sure. But also, maybe we just don’t fear wind or dirt as quite much as we fear fire. Certainly, we don’t fear them as much as we should.
We have disease fighters, and we call them doctors, nurses, researchers. We have crime fighters, and we call them police or detectives. Some people call them “bobbies.”
It’s different with fire. It’s a different kind of fear. Our fear of fire makes us smaller, crouching, even cold. We need to be reassured straight-shot with a steady gaze. A roundabout word won’t cut it. We need to be told yes, there are fires. There will always be fires. But have no fear.
There are fire fighters too.

you’ll ever get from your six-year-old
is the one that comes
after you’ve taken him and a friend of his trick or treating
two skipping ninjas out in the dark
going as long and as far as they want
extracting candy ninja-style from houses
you were sure weren’t open for trick or treat business.
Then later, back at the house, they eat a kit-kat or two
they play, they’re pooped, friend goes home.
House goes still. CD plays Tony Bennet
bouncing off the evening’s plates and glasses.
You sit down.
And you get
that hug.

I’m 39 and convinced that I’m middle aged.
Which is fine by me. In fact, I like it. It’s kind of like I’m floating around in the middle of a lake in an inflatable tube. There’s lots of water on all sides. My feet are trailing in the water while my head leans back onto the perfect cushion that is the side of my inflatable tube.
I’m not sure what the tube symbolizes. Possibly just that I really like floating around in inflatable tubes. I think the water may be time. And my feet are probably standing in for “actions considered but not taken.”
Anyways, however the imagery shakes out, it’s really not a bad place to be.
I’ve been asking my fellow 35-40+ year-old friends what they think the last few days — “Are we middle aged?” — and many of them seem pretty sure that we have a ways to go. “Didn’t you get the memo?” they ask. “40 is the new 30.”
But I don’t know. I’m not so sure the 30-year-olds are ready to sign off on that.

If I had a coffeehouse, this would be my motto:
“A frightened clientele is an obedient clientele.”
Or perhaps:
“A nervous clientele is a loyal clientele.”
I’d spray my customers with hormones as they
walked through the door.
To mark them.
I’d control the colors they wore.
I’d make the colors dance for me.
Dance pretty colors, dance!
The lemonade would always
be out of season.

Crickly crack.
Warm mice
pop spin slice.
Crickle.
Are
eating
my crickly.
Eating my
crickly
music.
music.
music.

My 6-year-old son’s having a playdate right now. There are clinking noises and murmurs coming through the open door to his room. And then I hear my son say this: “I’ll trade you a Jewish Bible.” A what?!
You heard right, he’s trying to trade his friend a Torah, that ancient fount of sacred wisdom. “What are you gonna trade for?” I call out, hoping it’s a Koran or The Book of Mormon or somesuch — something we can use. But no, it’s for Lego pieces.
And that’s what the world’s come to, my friends — 6-year-olds trying to trade their Torahs for Lego pieces.
This never would have happened when Bill Clinton was president.

Buying sushi tonight, the bill comes to $19.80, and the nice guy at the register laughs “1980! — that was a good year!”
“Yeah!” I sez. “Yeah.” And I hand him my credit card.
“You had hair down to your ass!” he says to me, “I bet.” And this gives me pause. Where exactly did that come from? Down to my ass?
“No, I had big puffy hair,” I correct him. “My hair doesn’t grow down, it grows sort of out and up. Like Art Garfunkel.” And I show him what I mean with my hands, using the universal gestures for “big” and “puffy.”
“Oh,” he says. I think he may be a little sad now, around the edges. But he picks himself back up pretty fast. “You wore high heel shoes!” he says.
And I say, “No, no I didn’t.
“We all did!” he says.
“No,” I say, a little more firmly. “I was 13. I had braces.” I don’t tell him this, because I don’t want to bum him out, but I’m pretty sure I was wearing wallabies back then, which are almost the exact opposite of high heels.
“Oh,” he says, and hands me my card back with a receipt to sign.
He’s tried so hard to turn me into some sort of heavy metal call girl, back in 1980. Like maybe one of the secondary prostitutes in Risky Business. But he’s failed. He can’t change the past.