Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

Archives for August 2023

Uh-oh, Ozempic: What in Tarnation Will This New Snake Oil Cure Next?

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Wouldn’t you have thought medical diagnosis and treatment would get more clear-cut over time? Quite the opposite, in my lifetime. Seems like we’re going back to the days of the medicine man.

We are now discovering that drugs for one problem work on other problems, even better. Ozempic was made for diabetes but for reasons still unclear, now suddenly it’s a miracle diet drug, if you miraculously have like a thousand dollars a month to pay for it out of pocket.

Meanwhile, I swear, we’re also now inventing diseases in order to justify expensive drugs. The other night, I heard a commercial for a drug called Vabysmo, which cures a malady entitled “Wet AMD.”

I never heard anyone in the 1980s complaining about having “Wet AMD.” Maybe they kept it to themselves?

(Which reminds me of the 1950s baseball pitcher who said he was lucky to have played “before they invented the rotator cuff.”)

We also keep hearing about this drug that helps people who have a disease that causes their eyes to bulge out.

That may not be a disease at all.

My old man used to tell an old joke about a guy whose ears were ringing and his eyes were bulging out. So he went to the doctor and the doctor told him he had only six months to live.

What would he do with his remaining time on earth?

He bought a Rolls Royce. He bought a great big mansion. And then he went to a tailor to get a whole new closet full of expensive suits.

The tailor asked his collar size, and he said fifteen and a half. Tailor didn’t think so, and he got out the tape measure. “You’re sixteen and a half.”

Guy insisted he was fifteen and a half.

Tailor said, “Okay, but if you keep wearing your collars an inch too small, pretty soon your ears’ll be ringing and your eyes’ll be bulging out.”

Sniper, Take Out the Subject: Killing the Conversational Assassin Within Us All

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Yesterday’s post about making the most of what you and a stranger have in common reminded me of this excerpt from my book, An Effort to Understand (Disruption Books, 2021). A number of readers have told me they particularly enjoyed it; maybe you will too. —DM

I call it the Irish style of communication, but that’s just because I think of myself as Irish. It really should just be called “civilized” communication.

Most of us know how it works, because most of us do it every day. But not all of us. Not the Conversational Assassins.

First, Irish communication:

You and your conversation partner say stuff back and forth, looking for points of agreement over which the two of you can bond. Then you use that plateau of agreement to launch into a new topic, on which you both continue to seek cozy points of common interest and shared sentiment. 

So, say the city of Seattle comes up for some reason, and I mention that I became fascinated by that town at a young age because I liked the Seattle Seahawks when I was a kid. I was a big fan of their quarterback Jim Zorn back then, and I love their cool modern uniforms now.

Now, suppose you hate Seattle, hate the Seahawks, hate their uniforms, and vaguely remember Zorn. Here’s what you say, Irish style: You say, “Zorn! Wasn’t he a scrappy little left-hander?”

And I say, “Yes! He was tiny, and they were a mediocre team and he carried them on his shoulders during those years.”

And then you talk about your favorite underdog team. And speaking of underdogs, the other person asks if you’ve ever heard his theory about how you can make steady money betting on underdogs who are playing at home? And so on and so forth.

And you keep doing this unless and until you two find something really meaningful to talk about—or you run out of things you care to discuss—or the other person says something so preposterous or monstrous that you are morally compelled to beat him or her over the head with a folding chair. Whichever comes first.

Usually, if you practice this kind of civilized communication for long enough, you both find yourselves drunk on beer or high on coffee and life, and feeling better, for having just turned a stranger into an acquaintance and made your world a little warmer.

Irish communication comes so naturally to me—and to most of us, really—that it can be hard to see it as an actual technique. Until, that is, you run into a person, as you occasionally do, who practices its very opposite:

Conversational Assassination.

I have at least a few Conversational Assassins in my life. They are actually warm and caring people. Big smilers and easy huggers. And bright! But they’re utterly horrible to talk to. Because they are the exact opposite of Irish communicators. 

Instead of automatically searching their conversation partner’s utterings for commonality, Conversational Assassins zero in on the smallest difference. 

So that if I say I like Seattle, I like the Seahawks, I like Jim Zorn and I like the modern uniforms—and the Assassin also loves the Seahawks, Seattle and Zorn—the Assassin will respond by saying, “Oh, those new uniforms are the absolute worst! How can you like them?”

So I’ll change the subject. I’ll mention that I won a free Caribbean vacation over New Year’s, all expenses paid, to a little resort where everybody has their own private cabana and free booze all day!

“What’s the food like?” will come the response. “Did you look into that? Because I went to a resort in the Caribbean once and the food was just terrible.”

They are. Stone cold. Conversational Assassins.

I’ve studied these people. I’ve even dared to confront them about their homicidal tendencies. When I have, the response is inevitably, “That’s what I love about you. You don’t mind a good argument!” Well yes, John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald and James Earl Ray Combined—but I don’t consider frozen yogurt flavors a suitable subject for a kitchen-clearing donnybrook.

Conversational Assassins are not terrible people. They’re just terrible people to talk to, because they gravitate toward disagreement, like moths to a flaming asshole.

Like a lot of Americans, these days. 

Don’t be one of them.

***

If you liked that, there are about 70 more essays where it came from. Order your copy of An Effort to Understand, from Amazon or wherever you buy your books. —DM

Communicating with Strangers: It’s Not What You Have in Common—It’s What You Make of What You Have in Common

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Young people generally try to avoid making conversation with people they don’t know, for three reasons:

1. They are terrified of a minute or a half-hour of awkwardness, which they actually think could kill them. By the time they reach middle-age, they’ll have had long relationships based on awkwardness.

2. If there is awkwardness, they take it personally, not being experienced enough to realize that there really are some fine people you just don’t click with (and some seriously goofy ones who you do).

3. They haven’t lived enough adventures and misadventures to realize that they have something in common with just about everybody.

Now, if older people are terrified of talking to strangers, it’s because they don’t know how to take full advantage of the things they have in common, to create an instant bond.

On the other hand, I almost feel I take too much advantage, of even seemingly small connections. Like a goddamn salesman, I can become close acquaintances with you in a half hour if you speak English, are not a flaming jerk or a listless drudge and you:

• Ever lived around Detroit, where I was born and visited a lot as a kid and also as an adult. I find the place fascinating and want to talk and hear all about it.

• Ever lived around Cleveland. I grew up nearby, and (like Detroit) Cleveland is not a town, it’s a way of life, and a philosophy and an epic tale all rolled up into one. When someone says they’re from Cleveland or Detroit, you two don’t start talking about fucking restaurants. You start talking about life.

• Ever lived around Chicago. Especially when I’m out of town and run into an ex-Chicagoan—wow! I once had a Chicago ex-pat pouring me wine and reading me his poems about my own neighborhood—in the middle of the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador. One of my happiest memories—and one of his too, I am sure.

• Love New York. (Or hate it in a compelling way.)

• Have visited Middletown, Ohio, where my dad grew up (and died).

• Have visited Ottawa, Ill., where I spent a happy little hunk of a long-ago summer writing a magazine story.

• Ever owned an unreliable car.

• Ever worked as a golf course greenskeeper.

• Ever heard of the Halifax explosion.

• Ever rode a motorcycle any distance or sailed any distance or ridden a train any distance. We can be brothers and sisters within two drinks. Because those kinds of trips are ways of life and philosophies and epic tales, too.

• Not to mention read any book I ever loved, saw any movie I ever loved, loved any sports team or star I ever loved—or have any acquaintance with any of the many human beings I have ever loved (or loathed).

I can take any one of those common interests or experiences and, with just a little effort on my partner’s part, turn it into an afternoon of conversation, with all the possible associations and tributaries and obvious connections and related stories. I’ll get you going, you’ll get me going and we’ll be telling each other long stories short—but not too short!

And if we’re especially charged up by our chemistry and the coffee or the beer, we’ll soon be having four conversations at once—what another friend of mine calls “concentric conversations.” And we’ll be promising one another, sincerely in the moment, to keep in touch.

Oh, the talk we will have, you and me—whoever you are!