Starting a conversation in mixed company is almost prohibitively difficult. However, there are some clues to help us along. Here I have entered some observations into a brief outline and following commentary regarding the worst ways one might start a dinner conversation in mixed company. By simply avoiding these gaffes, you will be well on your way to an evening that satisfies you and your new friends.

“Why you are never coming with us to our boat in Antibes?” Giancarlo, my father’s Italian business partner, asks me through his thick accent as he furrows his brow. “You are not liking to be with us?”

It’s a dark boreal evening in January, 1977, and I’m in Paris for my junior year of college, living in a palatial duplex in the chic Montparnasse neighborhood with Giancarlo and Patricia, his American wife. When I arrived in September, they invited me to crash in their chambre de bonne—maid’s quarters. When I went to look for my own place, not wanting to be the homme who came to dîner, they were offended, and insisted I stay with them.

Sky Mall! The perfect magazine for those of us who forgot to pack a book, or have to put our Kindle or iPad away because the EMF generated by such devices will cause the universe to divide by 0 thus bringing an end to existence as we know it, but not before the plane we’re

[continue reading…]

SIDE A
1. Hard rockin’ statement of intent
2. Slightly less rockin’ followup
3. Style/tempo shift to inform fans/critics that you aren’t a one-trick pony
4. Get back on your one-trick pony
5. Mid-tempo ballad/mini-epic (depending on available space)

Dear CBS:

You’re probably wondering why there are numerous dots instead of a noun at the beginning of the title. It’s because I couldn’t think of a catchy, yet comprehensive name for this. I was originally going to call it ‘Kids Say the Darndest Things, Still’ but the world has apparently changed. It seems a middle aged man with a tape recorder and a camera can’t just ‘borrow’ children off the street without all sorts of kerfuffle and pepper spray. In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have tried to use that van for interviewing the tots. America, sadly, has lost its innocence.