Beto calling to this faraway town: Get involved, get busy, come on down | MARK HUGHES COBB
Young Mark finds it hilarious I've given talks on interview techniques, given my not-so-secret identity as Awkward Turtleman: Boy Blunder.
But given sufficient drip-drip-drip of time, stalagmites accumulate towers of wisdom and calcium carbonate, lava, mud, peat, pitch, sand, sinter and the crystallized urine of pack rats, so that metaphor didn't stretch.
Over decades being paid to care about other people's words and stories, I've garnered tricks.
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I start such chats with a rundown of names, intended to impress, but also baffle and dizzy, what with 30-plus years talking with everyone from politicians to bug scientists, dwarf clowns to urban legend experts, Woodstock veterans to NPR talkers, rattlesnake wranglers to Playboy photographers and models, and a slew of creators of some of the world's finest literature, music, performance and other life-enriching aims.
For a quick spin-troduction, I whip out posting up for Margaret Atwood, live at the Bama Theatre; dinner and drinks (well one) with Kurt Vonnegut, where my "Bear" Bryant anecdote brought a burst of cigar-laugh; both Penn and Teller; Sidney Poitier, River Phoenix, Neil Gaiman, Mavis Staples, Ira Glass, Harry Belafonte, Aimee Mann, Fannie Flagg, Dick Dale, Little Steven Van Zandt, and anyone else who might make you believe that, while knowing I'm as far from cool as the molten core of Earth, I sometimes get to talk with cool.
Techniques:
Ask questions
Pay attention.
As I've told dozens of interns and others who weren't listening, "Fake your enthusiasm." Pretending you care will carry you far, or at least past doors marked "reticence," "fear of sounding stupid" and and "anticipation of being misquoted and maybe suing later."
Ice-breakers can work, anything from "I've been a fan since I was 12 and first heard cowbell!" or "You were the best-ever Elphaba" to "You haven't been back to Tuscaloosa since 1985, when you were a visiting writer at UA, and finishing up 'The Handmaid's Tale.' Was it something we said?"
If you're like me — shy, weird, capable of stumbling over words I've been saying all my life when talking with basically anyone who's not my inner voices — a quick chuckle, chortle, snicker or guffaw eases passage, makes everything flow smoother.
When I got the email from Beto O'Rourke, I thought OK, he's been a U.S. congressman; you've spoken with those. OK, he's been a presidential candidate; you've been in the room with a few of those. OK, he's a figure widely seen on TV and social media, and has written and published a couple of books and numerous articles, and is respected for candor and outspokenness, and OK, you have been wasting your life.
Though the lanky Texan has a slew of credits, and much to say on many topics of interest ― sure, he's lost races, but closely, in deep-red Texas, and running as a Democrat, which is to say 20 points down automatically, given propaganda painting the D as Demonic — there's just one picture in his office: John Graham Mellor.
You might bett-oh recognize him as Joe Strummer, jagged edge of The Clash, voice behind most of its harrowing, belting blasts, a guy who somehow fused Woody Guthrie, the Beach Boys and Little Richard into the sonic wakeup call I didn't know I was waiting for until I woke.
The self-titled "The Clash" wasn't the first punk record I owned; that was "The Ramones." But by the time "I'm So Bored with the USA" and their furious cover of "I Fought the Law" segued into "London's Burning," I was converted in a way that, love 'em as I do, I just wasn't by Joey and faux-brothers Ramone, who tended to sound at a comic remove.
Then came "Give 'Em Enough Rope," and I did, and then ... record three.
The chords were so sharp, so strident, I had the oddly longest time sussing them out. Like much great art, it's at heart surprisingly simple: Staccato Em to staccato F; with an occasional G for flavor.
"London Calling" sounded like a trumpet call to the apocalypse. As a moody teenager, convinced I'd been born in the wrong world, this resonated. What was I rebelling against, this healthy white male raised in the security of a middle-class environment? Like Brando in "The Wild Ones," I'd say "Whaddya got?"
Strummer begins howling those chords, wordlessly like a demented rooster, then:
"London calling to the faraway towns/Now war is declared, and battle come down."
Hey, faraway towns: That's me!
Though the boys were still battling law — or the overbearing authority and repression it too-often seemed to stand for — they were warning about the state of the world — Burning again, or in other words, Thursday ― and issuing a wake-up bellow to the listless, the apathetic, the disdainful and despairing:
"London calling/and I don't wanna shout/but while we were talking/I saw you nodding out."
Please: Shout.
Like me, Beto found "London Calling" stunning. It drove him into the arms of punk, and counterparts: hacktivism, rock 'n' roll, writing, and with a maturing drive for seeing that the ice age isn't coming, political activism.
We swapped tales of growing up odd in traditional states; about the duality of loving a place for its people, progress and ideas, while feeling its deep flaws; and how often we thought about jumping ship for a comfortably progressive place.
We spoke about the crime of apathy; my words, not his. When I hear friends, thoughtful, intelligent folks, say they won't vote, because nothing matters, I think, but rarely say due to the fury: How dare you. People have literally died to protect this right.
One of the most poignant things Beto said: "Like everyone, I need some bucking up right now." Thursday at his Easterseals West Alabama appearance, sponsored by Ernest and Hadley Booksellers, he'll be paying attention, and from all I can tell, not faking it.
Beto described Alabama as a sacred place, and meant it unironically. Births, and birthrights, come in blood.
Mark Hughes Cobb is the editor of Tusk. Reach him at mark.cobb@tuscaloosanews.com.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Bonding over 'London Calling' and the wake-up | MARK HUGHES COBB
