Guess Who's Coming To Dinner Part IV

I've always been a big fan of David Attenborough and his BBC's documentaries. I've always loved those "Life" series and those other series like "The Blue Planet". The man is an icon and ask yourselves is there a worthwhile natural history documentary out there without Sir David. For Christ sake, this Emperor penguin waited for three days on this ice flow just for his autograph. He's got groupies on all continents. He's a modern day Dr. Doolittle. Just look at this clip of how he charmed the pants off of this little robin when he was here in New Zealand. Just 15 minutes with this Lyre bird and he's taught it all these different sounds. The man is amazing.As a guest at my dinner party he was almost too amazing, too iconic (see Ali and Obama from previous posts). I see Sir David as a bit more low key though and almost more familiar too everyone so I don't see myself nor my guests too intimidated by actually having him over. The man has been everywhere. He has these trademark segues in his series where he'll be standing on a rock island off the coast of Argentina with some Elephant seals and than midway through the sentence he'll be in northern Greenland cuddling an Artic Fox. I'd be most interested in his travel stories as much as his animal ones. I'm not too worried about the mix with the other guests because I feel I've got a good balance going. Sir David was always on the short list but I was a bit worried about which direction my dinner party was going. Since it appears to be on the older, respected side when then I think he's a perfect fit and I'll be doing a lot of listening. That seems fine to me.

Six Degrees of Demi Moore

A lot of people are aware of the theory of "Six Degrees of Separation". I love the whole idea and love bringing it up in general conversation. I also love the piss take "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" which has long since taken on a life of it's own. Now, I won't Tweet and I won't Facebook but when applied to the theory of "Six Degrees" it becomes downright fascinating. Just as an experiment I wanted to see where "six degrees of tweet" would take me. I laid down the ground rules quite quickly and then changed them almost as quickly again. It's my game and I can make up the rules as I like. Anyways, here are the rules: Start with "fill in the blank" star and by using only the 30 or so followers on their tweet page see where six steps will take you. Of those 30 I could only use the one that seemed the most random that I knew of. Turns out the Dalai Lama doesn't have a Twitter account. Bummer, I thought that would be an interesting place to start. So I turned to Madonna. Almost as religious as the Dalai but with more friends. Turns out, she has started an "official" Twitter account in September 09 but has made no tweets since leaving a link to her website. I suppose this was to stop fake tweeters from pretending to be her but that left her followers in the lurch and one of them was Obama! Snap! I was 0-2 at this stage and I thought this idea might be a bit of a wash but I saw that Demi Moore was also one of Madonna's jilted followers. I do know the she and her partner Ashton Kustner are one of the leaders of the Twitter cult so I decided to go that way. I also will throw in one of the tweets from their page and then one of my own so that you can be enlightened.
Step 0: Demi Moore
Tweets: . @billgates Nice to have you in the world of Twitter. Look forward to your tweets! Everyone please give him a warm Twitter welcome!
Finndego Tweets: You know your fucking powerful when you get to welcome Bill Gates to the club.

Step 1: Madonna
Tweets: @mileycyrus Hey Miley! It's Madonna
Finndego Tweets: Hey Miley, you want to fucking try me. Look what I did to Britney. You will never be me. I will rip your head off and drink your blood before you ever get near me!

Step 2: Martha Stewart
Tweets: p://twitpic.com/zjtqc - Genghis Khan (g.k.) the new puppy trying to find a place in NYC to pee. this tree surround was a handy place for
Finndego Tweets: Couldn't find a place to pee in NYC so I bought Central Park so that he could have a tree to piss on. Shame about those people in Haiti.

Step 3: Serena Williams
Tweets: @FataM666 Are you serious?
Finndego Tweets: Are you serious? Martha Stewart follows me? She so gangsta since she got outta prison. Wu Tang!

Step 4: Green Day
Tweets: Rolling Stone names "American Idiot" 22nd Best Album of the Decade http://bit.ly/8naoie
Finndego Tweets: So proud of you guys for hanging around until you got the recognition you deserved! BTW, did you know Serena Williams follows you?

Step 5: Katy Perry
Tweets: Sat by Chris Rock @"Hope for Haiti" Telethon which was an AMAZING success! On his way out he said, "see ya at the next disaster!" OMG!!!
Finndego Tweets: BTW, the next disaster is probably your career, unless you start kissing more girls!

Step 6: Amy Winehouse
Tweets: this is bollocks.
Finndego Tweets: Is that your career or Katy Perry's?

Now that is my sixth step. If you look at Amy's followers, down on the bottom row you will see,who else but Demi Moore the Twitter overlord.Did you also know that Demi Moore starred in "A Few Good Men" with Kevin Bacon. The circle is now complete.

Update

I hope everyone had a good holidays. I was pretty busy and you may have noticed a distinct lack of posts the last month or so. I wanted to have some time off and it's always such a busy period that I'm sure you'll understand. After having to work both Christmas and New Year I've got the next three weeks off and hopefully some more time for the blog. I'll be trying to add an RSS feed so that you guys can get notified when I publish a new post. I'd also like to finish off the Dinner Party series. I know who the next two guests are I just have to put the pieces together. I've got more pieces in the pipeline and we'll have to see how they pan out Thanks, Mark

It's All About Communication: The Directors Cut

I'd like to thank everyone for their positive feed back about the Communication post. It must have struck a vein with some people because I got some really good comments about it. There were some things that I had left out because I didn't want to ramble on too much and because I sort of went off in a few other directions and it didn't seem to fit in. Since it seemed so popular, I thought I'd go back to those ideas that got left out and try and rehash them. Here are some of them:
Empathy: I'm really shit at it. It's not that I don't feel it or don't want to show it, it's just that I'm not very good at it. I find that women, in general, are much better at it and that is an admirable trait. I feel that women over empathize sometimes but the key is when and to whom they do it with. I don't imagine most guys require too much empathy when they get a nail through their favourite work boots. It's a "bugger" moment, we get over it and move on. We really don't require too much empathy on that level but a women would give it anyways because they are, for the most part, sympathetic creatures and we love them for it. Watch though, a women break a heel on a shoe. Her friends will gather round and console her like her puppy got run over. There are absolutely two different levels of empathy given.
Now with me, let's say a male friend of mine is getting a divorce. I'd really feel for him, even if his wife was a complete troll. My lack of empathy though limits how much I can help him and I really struggle with that.I'm basically limited to "sorry for you mate" or "let me know if you need a place to crash" or even " do you need help moving out, because I've got a trailer?". That might be helpful and everything but he might need a bit more than that. I get all tongue-tied and start saying stupid things like "well at least the kids are young,they won't really remember any of this". With the loss of a grandparent or even an older parent I fall into the old cliches of "he lived a good long life" or "at least he went in his sleep". I hate it! I'm not very good good at receiving that sort of empathy but that's another story.
When it gets to this level of loss women come into their own. Because they spend so much time crying over a broken heel or the goldfish dying or something. When something big happens they are fully trained up on what needs to be done and what needs to be said. It's amazing! They also break through the gender barrier and the empathy is genuinely appreciated by both men and women because we all know that it is sincere. In conclusion, I console myself that even though I might be shit at giving empathy, I am sincere and as long as that comes through then hopefully that is appreciated because unfortunately, that's usually the best I can do.

Culture Clash: I'd be generalizing if I said that most Americans like to talk about themselves and that most of the Dutch like to talk about "you" and that most Kiwi's like to talk about the Holy Trinity (cars,cows and fishing). Because I'm an American who lived in Holland that now lives in New Zealand, I get myself caught up in these generalizations. In New Zealand, it's hard sometimes to talk about myself or what I'm doing because Kiwi's don't do that. It's not an ego thing for me, it's just my manner of conversation, a starter let's say. I hope that by saying what I've been up to that that will be reciprocated and I can find out what the other person has been up to. That way, as a converted Dutchman, I can swoop in and ask them how they "feel" about that and why they did it and what they were "feeling" at the time they did it. Kiwi's clam up though almost as soon as I hit Stage 1 (me talking about what I did). I hardly ever get the chance to explore Stage 2 (how they "felt" about it) unless of course, they had to fix the radiator on their car because they hit a cow on they way back from fishing. I can almost empathize with that! It's an ongoing project. I'll let you know how I get on.

It's all about Communication

I've never felt like a great communicator. I mentioned in an earlier post that I was envious of Noam Chomsky's ability to vocalize his thoughts. I often have those "I wish I had said that" moments. For example, my earlier post regarding the mine where I work and opening up of conservation land for mining. It was a story that I was passionate about and meant a lot to me. I was very disappointed when I finished it because I didn't feel that I had hit the mark that I wanted to. I posted it anyways because I'm not intending to take this blog too serious where I was going to rewrite and reedit posts. I usually write what comes to mind at that moment but this is one where I had already had lots of discussion with people about at and away from work. I had thought about it for a few days and mulled it over but when it came to writing it all down I felt it came up a bit short. I wasn't able to convey my thoughts as I had intended even though I had spent some time thinking about it.
On the other hand I also have a lot of those "I wish I hadn't said that moments" too. My mouth often works faster than my brain. For example, years ago when I got my first "real job" in Holland on my very first day I went to the lunchroom and sat down at a table with a couple of girls from the office and introduced myself. They were talking about the movie "Indecent Proposal" where Robert Redford offers Demi Moore a million dollars to sleep with him. The good looking girl (I forget her name) said that she would sleep with him too for a million dollars. At this point I should have got up from the table and got myself a cup of coffee or something. Instead the mouth open and asked her if she would sleep with him for 10 dollars. She thought about it and said "yes". Fair enough, I mean it is Robert Redford after all. It was about here that that I should have got up and walked over to the wall and started to bang my head against it but instead I asked her if she would sleep with me for a million dollars. She said she would have to think about it. I should have left it there. Instead mouth opened again and I asked her if she would sleep with me for 10 dollars. She laughed and said "No way!". I said "Why not? We've already established that you are a whore, now we're just negotiating the price!"
She never talked to me again if she didn't have to. I tried to apologize and say that I was just paraphrasing a quote from Winston Churchill, but I might have just gone and banged my head against the wall like I should have in the first place. It's not what we're saying it's how we're saying it. It's all about communication.
Linguistically, (I think I just made that word up) I've also had a bit of a rough ride throughout my life. Coming from Massachusetts doesn't help. We have a peculiar accent that makes us sound like mental deficients with an aversion for the letter "R". Our contribution to the English language is limited to "wicked", "awesome" (usually used together), "doofus" and "douchebag" (otherwise known as "doosh"). After I escaped Massachusetts, I was surprised how quickly I was able to lose the accent. It is still there a bit and it comes back quite quickly if I'm back there or with my family. By the time I got to Holland it was reasonably gone but then I started learning Dutch. It's a reasonably hard language to learn(especially if everyone wants to talk English to you to show how clever they are) and I would say that it took me two to three years before I really felt comfortable with it. I took Spanish and Latin in high school but I never felt that I had a feel for languages but I thought I did a good job with learning it.
Learning a language in a foreign country usually follows 10 certain steps:

1. "I know we are in your country but could we please talk my language?"
2. How do you say "Fuck Off" and "Shit".
3. How do you say "Three beers please?"
4. "Could you translate what he just said?"
5. "Hey guess what? I just looked at the newspaper and recognised three words!"
6. "Your talking to me but I'm not sure what you mean. I either need a shower or I stink or both."
7. You talk your language and I'll talk mine and we'll hope for the best.
8. You talk your language and I'll talk both yours and mine but we'll go real slow.
9. "Yes, let's all have big laugh at my expense because I just tried to order a toilet roll for dessert" Hardy haha!!!
10. I've got it now. You can now fuck off you piece of shit! Yeah for me.

In the beginning everything sounded like one big long word but eventually it began to slow down and I began to separate words from the nonsense. One time, friends and I were in France on a ski trip and we had been out at a bar and I kept hearing the phrase "Wat bedoel je". Later when we got back to the apartment I asked what it meant. They said "What do you mean?" I said again "What doe 'wat bedoel je' mean"? They said "what do you mean?" Thinking I wasn't saying it properly, I tried it real slow for effect " what does "wwwaaattt bbbeddooooeell jjjee" mean?" Again with the "what do you mean". I grumbled that they could all take a flying fuck and trumbled off to my bed. "Wat bedoel je" means "What do you mean" in Dutch. I did learn quickly though after that. I only did the odd jobs at the time and spent a lot of time watching "Lingo" hosted by Francois Boulange which was a Dutch TV "word bingo" game. I quickly developed a large vocabulary of 5 letter words.
Now, I'm in New Zealand and I sound like something between this, this and this. I've even had people ask me if I came from South Africa. Because of my accent, I have a lot of people who call me Mike here. I used to correct people but now I've gotten over it. I've had jobs where people have only ever known me as Mike. Whatever! At work now, I often have to repeat myself because people don't understand me especially when I talk on the radio. A while back they had a bit of a giggle because I needed a flashlight. They call them a torch here. I had always thought that a torch was a bit of wood with some rags or hay wrapped around it but hey that's me Have a chuckle! Mrs. Finndego sent me out to get some Jelly for the kids. I came back with some jam. She wanted Jell-O. Jelly is something that I put on a sandwich with some peanut butter. If I ask her where the keys are she says they are on the bench I have to go look on the counter. To me a bench is something is something you sit on, preferably in a park. I'm just silly that way because I'm the one who isn't good at communication.