Bill Mann

MANN OVERBOARD

There’s a big difference between glib and witty. 

I’ve known plenty of guys in radio, who, besides having the requisite “good pipes” (a stentorian voice) can always talk quickly, but rarely cleverly. They’re glib. They have the alleged gift of gab.

Wit is a rarer commodity by far, and it seems we have a lot fewer witty people today in the media, people who can say the wrong thing the right way. 

It wasn’t that long ago, in far more literate times, that wits were widely admired and quoted. One of them, of course, was the illustrious writer Dorothy Parker. I often quote her here. Here’s another of her wittier lines, one I’d almost forgotten: 

When a young actress invited Parker to precede her through a revolving door, the actress said haughtily, “Age before beauty.” Parker, upon entering the door, turned back and replied, “Pearls before swine.” 

Then there was a clever Parker contemporary, actress Tallulah Bankhead. She once told a male friend on the phone, “I’ll come over and make love to you at 5:00. If I’m late, start without me.” 

And let’s not forget their ultra-clever contemporary, Groucho Marx, and one of his classic lines that comes to mind in our current sad era of antisemitism. 

When Groucho was denied playing privileges at a restricted country club, he wisecracked: “Only one of my parents is Jewish. Can I play nine holes?” 

My pal, Bay area comic Fred Reiss, once had this witty line about spiky-haired Food Network star Guy Fieri, wisecracking, “I’d never  let my daughter date a boy whose hair can cause severe tire damage.” 

We once even had witty and funny poets, like the great Ogden Nash. Sample line:  

“It’s not the cough that carries you off … It’s the coffin they carry you offin.” 

Local joke: Two Seattle counterfeiters arrive with a bunch of misprinted bills they figure they can dump in a small town. 

They ask a cashier at a local store, “You got change for an 18?”

The cashier counters: “How do you want it, 3‘s, 6’s or 9’s?” 

(Rim shot!)

The Life Aquatic: Things here are going swimmingly. The YMCA has enlisted several much-needed new lifeguards and is expanding the pool hours, something we regulars applaud. Our Mountain View Pool, a tremendous but aging community resource, is getting quite crowded these days. Ask super-fit PT City Manager John Mauro, who now has more than one way to get his cardio in besides winning every marathon he enters. I shared a lap lane with Mauro at Mountain View the other day, and he flew past me, logging two laps to my every one. 

A puzzlement: Like some of you, I’ve gotten hooked on the New York Times’ clever and challenging games located downpage. Probably the best-known is Wordle, where you try to guess a word with five tries. I recently logged 25 straight wins before I crashed and burned. As of this writing, my wife is up over 125 straight wins. 

We team up to play Spelling Bee, another Times word-finding game, one I don’t attempt by myself. We both almost always reach the penultimate level, Genius. But my son and his wife put us to shame by reaching the very highest level, Queen Bee, guessing every one of the 50 or so hidden words each day. Having an extensive vocabulary is a big asset here, but then again, my son and his wife are both graduates of Portland’s brainy Reed College. 

Finally, Knock-knock-maybe-you-can-come-in dept.: Easily the best front-door welcome mat I’ve ever seen. It reads, “Got a Warrant?” 

PT-based, wit-impaired humorist Bill Mann has, for some reason, been hired as a columnist at four major metro dailies.