February 4th, 2020
Starbucks on Canal at St Charles
New Orleans, Louisiana
Lately, I’ve practiced impromptu speaking by making short thirty second videos on topics of interest. I vamp based upon my limited knowledge and what I read from at hand information. This morning, I went to visit the Roosevelt Hotel, once the home away from home of Governor Huey Long. Long makes a likeable character who was even more liberal than Franklin D. Roosevelt, inventor of the New Deal.
He wanted every family to have an employed parent, a car and a decent house. No matter how well intentioned, he leveraged the concept of patronage. He never hesitated to shake down an employee or a government contractor for a donation. Most of these facts came to my attention from the historical marker by the “Deduct Box”, a replica of the lock box where Long kept these donations in cash.
No one ever found the original lock box, once rumored to hold a half million dollars in ready to spend cash. An assassin’s bullet ended Long’s life suddenly, preventing him from running for President. Long was asked before he fell into a coma, but wouldn’t tell. His wife, Rose, completed his term as a senator from the State of Louisiana. She might have known the location of the box, although the marker didn’t talk too much about Rose.
Putting all that information into a thirty second video cannot be done. I think of three or four facts and then click the record button. Compared to a tape recorder using a tiny mike in the 1970s, the phone makes a pretty good recording, but I have no way of editing out the imperfections of casual speech, plosives like p and b or sibilant s sounds. I’ve learned techniques for making these flaws almost vanish as I talk, but I’m taping on the fly. I want it to sound casual.
I hate when I stall, stalling to remember a fact. This morning, I stalled remembering that the sunshine making a mural glow was from the sun, then arising in the southeast. Sunday, I said notary when I wanted to say notarized. I could delete and make another take, but I’m happy to just move on and try again with a different subject. I wish I sounded like a radio announcer, but I’m afraid I sound like a talking clown. I prefer clowns who keep silent too.
I make about eight of these shorts daily, and I actually take a few minutes to listen to what I’ve said. I’ll never find time to transcribe the talk for the sake of adding it to my online journal. I’m hardly Howard Cosell yet, the mouth of the south, but I wonder if I’ll ever have the power to say what I need to say when it needs to be said without getting tongue tied?
John Mayer
Say
Lyrics
Take all of your wasted honor
Every little past frustration
Take all of your so-called problems,
Better put 'em in quotations
Say what you need to say
Say what you need to say
Say what you need to say
Say what you need to say
Say what you need to say
Say what you need to say
Say what you need to say
Say what you need to say
Walking like a one man army
Fighting with the shadows in your head
Living out the same old moment
Knowing you'd be better off instead,
If you could only
Say what you need to say
Say what you need to say
Say what you need to say
Say what you need to say
Say what you need to say
Say what you need to say
Say what you need to say
Say what you need to say
Have no fear for giving in
Have no fear for giving over
You'd better know that in the end
Its better to say too much
Then never say what you need to say again
Even if your hands are shaking
And your faith is broken
Even as the eyes are closing
Do it with a heart wide open
Say what you need to say, say what you need to say
Say what you need to say, say what you need to say
Say what you need to say, say what you need to say
Say what you need to say, say what you need to say
Say what you need to say, say what you need to say
Say what you need to say, say what you need to say
Say what you need to say, say what you need to say
Say what you need to say, say what you need to say
Say what you need to say, say what you need to say
Say what you need to say, say what you need to say
Say what you need to say, say what you need to say
Say what you need to say, say what you need to say
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: John Mayer
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