Sharing Your Thoughts, Hogging The Floor

I tried to listen to an older episode of Comedy and Everything Else, with David Spade as the guest, and I couldn't get through it because he kept monopolizing the conch.  He would talk for 5 minutes at a stretch, uninterrupted and un-encouraged, totally ruining the concept of podcast as conversation; as in normal life, when someone turns dialogue into monologue, your mind automatically tunes out.  My old roommate Bolles clued me in on that, perhaps after one of my 15 minute rants about how much I hate my job.

Spade doing the "Hollywood Minute", remember when he kept it brief?

But you know the tune-out is a real issue when even a stand-up comedian can induce it; these guys are trained professionals at monopolizing microphones, but even for them, it takes a lot of work to justify an uninterrupted speech.  These comics say it takes a year to perfect a 20-minute set, and even then, that set isn't always all that funny;  you can take that same comedian, put them in a conversation on a podcast, and they'll be just as interesting off the cuff, as long as they're trading and interacting with the other people.  On this Spade podcast, I could only pay attention to him immediately after Todd or Jimmy had said something, otherwise he became the adult voices on peanuts, and my mind wandered to thoughts of whether I had to fart or actually shit.

Why do newscasts have two anchors - at any given time, only one person can talk, so why not pool those salaries and hire a single chick who's more fuckable?  The TV wizards have probably figured out that a viewer's mind snaps back to attention as soon as one voice shifts to another; the change in speaker is like a change in tone, without it, even the most engaging voices become a monotonous drone.  If the media has figured this out, how come other communicators haven't done the same?

Of all the unappealing things about religion - the ban on casual sex, the negative attitude towards drugs, being totally full of shit - the one that might turn people off the most is having to go to church; you can tell us not to fuck, you can tell us not to do drugs, but just don't do it in a 20 minute speech.  The only churches that are respectable as entertainment are Black Churches, and their sermons incorporate elements of conversation; with applause breaks for amens and hossanahs, the audience can renew each others attention by interacting with the orator.

Jeremiah Wright gets plenty of amens, still, even he couldn't get the country to listen to the whole "God Damn America" speech, if they had, there wouldn't have been a controversy.

Like anyone else, during my school years, I must've listened to tens of thousands of hours of lectures, retaining about 1% of what was said; most of the learning was done on the homework assignments, where there was an interaction between myself and the material.  When I listen to Fresh Air, the NPR interview show, I retain way more information, even though there's no incentive, such as the threat of a looming test - it just happens naturally because of the conversational nature of the interaction.  The attention-span hourglass gets reset each time the other person starts talking.

The educational establishment should switch modes from monologue to dialogue. They try to do this in college with discussion sections, but those offer only one lesson: that there is such a thing as a stupid question.  The dialogue needs to be between two smart people, perhaps one knowledgeable and the other playing the part of an intelligent ignoramus.

The Greek philosophers were pretty smart guys, they used to create texts called Socratic Dialogues, which were imaginary conversations between two philosophers; for example in The Republic, Socrates and his colleagues discuss how to set up an ideal society that avoids the pitfalls of human weakness.  I haven't checked that one out, I'm too engrossed in listening to Bill Simmons and Adam Carolla, discussing how to set up your home office so you don't get caught masturbating.  Still, if I were to learn about Plato, I would want it to be in the format of two jerk-offs, trading riffs on the nature of society.

The modern thinker, also wondering if its a fart or a shit.

I should probably wrap this thing up, I don't want to drone on interminably, but with the written word, its not as bad because the reader can easily backtrack, catching up when they realize they've spaced out.  With that in mind, I'll end with an object lesson for people like David Spade: there comes a point where you've rambled on for so long, that there's only one thing that would get people's attention - if you actually stopped talking.