"Me Talk Pretty One Day"

Apologies to David Sedaris for cadging the title of one of his best-selling books for this blog, which is probably skimmed over by tens of people (I can only hope).

If you’ve never read one of Sedaris’ subversively funny yet oddly sweet books of personal essays, get thee to a book store (or, if you’re a cheapskate like me, your local library) and start gobbling them down.

One of the subjects Sedaris comes back to again and again is his large, off-the-wall Greek-American family, which includes his actress-comedienne sister Amy. Being the youngest in an Irish-American brood of five with its own cast of immediate and extended family characters, I can relate. So far, the Bradys haven’t produced any notables like David and Amy, but I’ll bet the constant chatter that bounced off the four walls of our modest family Cape was also echoing throughout the Sedaris family abode.

And it wasn’t only the kids who were running off at the mouth. Houses were small (there were no McMuffins back then, let alone McMansions) and families were large (having only two or three kids meant you simply weren’t doing your part to propagate the Catholic faith). A popular saying was, “Children should be seen and not heard” which, loosely translated, meant: “We need to have an adult conversation now. We have no choice but to have it in front of you, so shut up and don’t interrupt!”

One of the big benefits of this cozy family arrangement was that there was no “firewall” between kid speak and adult talk. We were exposed to a slew of wildly inventive and mildly inappropriate bons mots like, “Get off the table Mabel, the two dollars is for beer,” “I’m hotter than a dog passing peach pits” or “Look who made the Irish sports page” (aka the obituaries).

All of this chitchat instilled in us a love of language that set me off on my writerly way and, I suspect, may have done the same for Sedaris.

Nowadays, I despair not only at the dearth of clan conversation but the dust-on-the-divan quality of it. I guess it’s hard to hold a dishy dialogue when you have four people inhabiting a living room that’s the size of my one-bedroom apartment, or an SUV that could do double duty as Army transport in downtown Kabul. Maybe that’s why I hear “awesome” used to exhaustion or “like” like, a lot.

But I think the final nail in juicy conversation’s coffin is the rabid use of digital and cell phone cameras, not to mention video cameras. Why bother using verbal gymnastics to describe an event when you can simply aim, shoot and upload?

I don’t own a camera, digital or otherwise, or a cell phone (vile contraptions!). What I do own is one helluva linguistic legacy, which is amply demonstrated by the following ditty, courtesy of my grandfather, the late Cecil Murphy:

“My fingers press my only cent,

My mind upon the rum is bent,

But three things I want:


Tobacco, rum, and snuff.


If I snuff I cannot puff,


If I puff I cannot snuff.


Hoping for better times to come,


Here’s my cent, gimme a rum.“

If you ask me, that’s, like, pretty awesome.

Who the Hell Do I Think I Am?

I once heard a sharp-witted commentator on NPR define an expert as “someone who knows slightly more about a subject than you.”

I’d like to refine that dead-on assessment to add “but they get a lot more jazzed about it.”

What subject gets my knickers in a twist?

The English language.

Its use and abuse. Its refinement and profanity. Its rhyme and reason. Its rules and misdeeds. How it swings when you hit the right notes and falls on deaf ears when you don’t.

By now you’re probably thinking, “So how are you ‘slightly’ more expert in the English language than yours truly?” In other words, “Who the hell do I think I am?”

I could bore you with my resume and portfolio*. Or, I could give you the hard-won appraisal of a hard-nosed professional, Sister Helen.

When I was in the seventh grade, there was a school-wide essay contest with the theme, "What Christmas Means to Me." The winner would receive a certificate and have their handiwork read over the PA system.

It was a pretty pedestrian assignment, but Sister Helen was built like an army tank and had an eraser-throwing arm that could have landed her in the bullpen at Yankee Stadium. If one of her students could ace this thing and give her bragging rights around the convent, they'd have it made for the rest of the school year.

I gave it my best shot and handed in my paper. The next day, Sister Helen summoned me to her desk. With forty sets of eyes riveted on my back, I made my knee-knocking way to the front of the classroom, where Sister H. started strenuously quizzing me about the origins of my essay. Had I really written it on my own? With no help from my parents? Sisters? Brothers? I answered truthfully to all queries and must have finally convinced her because her next words were, "Gloria, you are a very good writer."

As the saying goes, "Praise from Caesar is praise, indeed." Since that life-defining day, writing is how I've earned my coin and, I hope, entertained my readers. Whether it's creating advertising for a variety of clients or writing an e-mail to family, friends and the occassional jackass politician, I am, and always will be, a fairly happy ink-stained wretch. However, when I see the obscene piles of money being pulled down by those Wall Street boys, I start to think I should have paid more attention in Sister Ann’s math class.

By the way, I won the essay contest and still have the certificate to prove it.

*www.creativehotlist.com/gbrady2

You didn’t think I’d let slip the chance for a little self-promotion, did you?

What the Hell is This Blog About?

Back in the early Nineties, when the present-day independent film scene was just taking off and the Sundance Film Festival was the place for wool cap-wearing auteur wannabes to shill their latest screenplays, these cinematic upstarts began sporting t-shirts that read, “What I really want to do is direct.”

If I were to create a t-shirt along those same lines, it would proclaim, “What I really want to be is a rock star.”

As much as I admire J. D. Salinger, Ian McEwan, Gore Vidal and Marilynne Robinson, I want to be Thom Yorke, Jack White, Kim Deal and, it goes without saying, Keith Richards.

Who wouldn’t want to ply their trade in front of thousands of screaming fans with sex and drugs as a professional perk instead of sitting in a dark room, staring at a computer screen, with your only audience an overweight cat who occasionally needles you for attention? As for the sex and drugs, well, there’s always internet porn and your umpteenth cigarette of the day.

There is one thing, though, that bridges the gap between the public adulation of a musical performance and the private agony of the writing process – hitting the right key. (And no, I don’t mean your typing skills.)

“Music is what language wishes it could be,” stated Irish poet and philosopher John O’Donohue.

Think about that for a minute. While the writer sweats, second guesses and loses sleep over the right word and the almost right word (much like I’m doing now), we know that whatever we commit to paper will never elicit the universal, soul-stirring immediacy of a musical piece that disappears into the ether. Blame the hubris of Nimrod as he ordered the building of the Tower of Babel.

Now, go back to O’Donohue’s statement again, but this time, listen to it. Like a small symphony, it compels, it delights and it’s elegant as hell. In short, it’s as close to pitch perfect as words, strung so masterfully together, are likely to get.

Which brings me, finally, to the title of this piece, “What the Hell is This Blog About?” (Keep your pants on, I’m almost finished.)

What I mean to do is give my POV on language wherever it plays itself out – music, books, art, newspapers, magazines, films, TV, advertising, the internet and even what comes out of the Average Joe’s mouth.

In short, I want to have my way with words.

But what I really want is to be a rock star.