Shakespeare had a thought that resonates with me today, “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” So it is that my pet jay, Huckleberry, happens to be my touch of nature that makes my whole world kin, and makes me want to be the person Huckleberry thinks I am, forever caring and nurturing.

You might suppose Huckleberry doesn’t smile because he has no lips, but he does smile with his eyes, and I get to see that smile three times a day, eight o’clock for breakfast, twelve o’clock for lunch, and five o’clock for Happy Hour, when he gets a Beer Nut.

Like loving a wild animal, we can love eight billion humans when we step outside our homes, step outside our domestic minds. As our mutual friend Mark Twain likes to remind us, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness.”

A walk in a meadow refreshes one’s soul and makes one want to hail a fellow traveler on the other side of that meadow. 

I look forward to talking to a conference of State Parks folks from all fifty states in September. I’ve discovered over the years that folks who work on the land are about the nicest, most good-natured folks that the Earth can produce.

Those who are housebound oftentimes have a dog or cat or bird to keep them contented and in a good humor. A songbird outside one’s open window can deliver a breath of gladness and good cheer.

The folks with the best temperaments that I have had the pleasure of meeting are the Hawaiians. They tend to spend part of each day in the great out of doors, and as a result, they radiate a spirit of Aloha wherever they go. Mother Nature is a surefire resource for acquiring and maintaining a state of elation.

Should you be feeling a little “pinched” today, perhaps a little irritated with your state of affairs, take a walk on the wild side and get thee to a place in nature where your mind can do the creative thinking necessary to release negative feelings and replace them with the magic that only your own imagination can provide.

I like to think of myself as, “The Five Minute Thoreau,” for I can walk to a place in five minutes where I have a view of the Lake of the Sky that is refreshing, revitalizing, and rejuvenating. Whenever I take a friend to that spot, that friend breathes deep, rekindles animal spirits, and sheds the weight of the world. 

I’m willing to bet that if we declare a worldwide day of natural beauty, when everyone will take a step into the great outdoors, well, as the Bard suggests, it just might serve to make the whole world kin. Let us celebrate this September first as the inaugural, “Making the Whole World Kin Day.” 

Audio: https://anchor.fm/mcavoy-layne

Away back in 1961, the SAE Fraternity at the University of Oregon held a House Dance in a barn out in Creswell, thirteen miles south of Eugene. I got there early with a date I had met that afternoon, hoping she might teach me how to dance before the party started, Peggy was her name. Anyway, we were standing around making small talk when a bus pulled onto the dirt lot that fronted the barn. The bus had a rocket painted on its side, and when the doors opened, outpoured the musicians that were contracted to play while we danced, or learned how to dance in my case.

They got set-up and plugged-in while we filled our glasses from a keg in anticipation of the occasion. Finally they started to blow, we started to dance, and then something unearthly happened. A pretty girl about our own age stepped up to the microphone, kicked the heavy base of the mic stand, and swung that stand in a complete circle. Everybody stopped dancing, and we just stood there staring at her. I knew if I had a week to practice, I could not duplicate what she had done with that microphone stand. We continued to stare in awe as she started to dance like nobody we had ever seen move before, and sing like an angel sent from above, but with wings on fire.

Peggy taught me to dance that night, an easy task for her, as the music would make a cast-iron dog dance, and as we left that barn around midnight, elated and exhausted, I caught the name of the band painted on the bus below the rocket, “Ike & Tina Turner and the Ikettes.”

Fast forwarding a decade, I learned Ike & Tina would be performing in Honolulu upon returning from a tour of Asia, and as news director of KORL, I arranged an interview. They invited me up to their hotel suite in Waikiki, where I was greeted by the always ravishing Miss Turner like I was a long-lost Nutbush cousin. Ike was more standoffish, but she wanted to talk, and was ever so enchanting. Persuasive? She could talk a goldfish into coming out and taking a walk with her. Ike, on the other hand, kept to himself, until he decided to show me some jewelry that he had managed to smuggle past customs.

Like everybody else in the world, I learned to love Tina Turner. From the moment she kicked that microphone stand into a perfect circle, to that interview in her suite, to the breathtaking performances I was able to catch thereafter, she stole my heart, aorta, pulmonary, ventricles and all. My breath stopped when I heard she had been summoned to entertain in the Great Beyond. But I caught my breath, set down what I was doing, fired-up my Boom 3 Speakers, and cranked-up, “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” Tina Turner Rest in Peace…

Audio: https://anchor.fm/mcavoy-layne

People sometimes ask, “How have things changed for Mark Twain in the past 35 years?” (For the first-time reader I’m winding down a career of portraying Mark Twain for the past 35 years.) And I am happy to report, one thing has changed dramatically, and it is in fact, a pleasant thing.

Perfect strangers are more apt to skip small talk and enter into a meaningful conversation with today’s impressionists of historical characters. This is a good-natured transition, and how has it happened? Well, my guess is, it’s a backlash to a soul-searing internet, a scorched-earth political landscape, and the jarring arrival of artificial intelligence, all together creating a deep-seated desire for communications of the heart.

As an example, I had a couple approach me as Mark Twain in Genoa yesterday, and ask right off the top, about Mark Twain’s travels in the Holy Land. Thirty-five years ago my first question in Genoa more likely might have been, “Mark, who’s dead in the cemetery?”

People are interested today in discovering some secrets of the heart that Mark Twain might be holding. In truth, he uses his humor like the wheel on an opera glass, to focus our attentions on more serious matters at hand, so it is always a welcome moment when I am asked about matters of the heart. Twain’s kindness, for example, is couched in humor: “Always do right, this will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.”

One engaging couple invited Mark Twain to dinner yesterday in Genoa, to finish a conversation about Joan of Arc. That cordial invitation might not have been as forthcoming back in 1988. So, to my mind, it is a good sign for all Chautauquans, that people are becoming more eager to talk face to face, eye to eye, with living history characters about history, yes, and matters of the heart.

When I left the idyllic Hawaiian Islands after fifteen years of living in those restful Islands, I brought with me a promise gleaned from the Hawaiian natives, “Whenever possible, think with the heart.” This has served me well. I don’t suppose artificial intelligence will ever be able to accomplish that. Moreover, AI is a wide-open field where bad actors can have a field day. While we humans remain stuck in slow-motion evolution, AI isn’t, and could quickly pass us by. Hollywood writers are rightfully demanding protection against AI in their strike.

Personally, I have an easier time today getting to know such great characters of living history as One-Eyed Charley Parkhurst, and that angel of mercy, Julia Bulette, than I ever could have hoped for thirty-five years ago. (Thank you, Kim Harris.)

Close mental intimacy is the new gold standard in acquiring knowledge, understanding and compassion. I would rather get cussed-out by a man I admire, than blessed by artificial intelligence. Sorry AI, but if I have a question, I’m going to ask a librarian, or an octogenarian, or the first smart person I run into…

Audio: https://anchor.fm/mcavoy-layne

Today’s national news features America’s Ambassador to China, Robert Nicholas Burns, he who speaks French, Arabic, and Greek as well as English, addressing mounting tensions with China. Of course, a little voice deep inside me shouted, “Hey, hey, this connects to Mark Twain!”

Sure enough, when the capable Minister to China, Anson Burlingame resigned in 1867, Sam Clemens was offered the position, at least that’s what he said. Others maintain that Sam applied for the position and was denied. Be that as it may, Anson Burlingame had a huge influence on an impressionable Sam Clemens when they met aboard the Ajax, bound for the Sandwich Islands in 1866. Anson told Sam, “You have great ability; I believe you have genius. What you need now is refinement of association.” Sam took Anson’s advice to heart and married Olivia Langdon.

Had Samuel become Minister to China, well, we might not be feeling the tensions that are so palpable today.

Sam enjoyed a short sinecure as secretary to Nevada Senator William Stewart back in 1867. “Help yourself to the whiskey and cigars, Sam, and wade right in.” 

So Sam went right to work humoring some of Nevada’s finest. In answering a request for a post office at Baldwin’s Ranch, Sam replied, “What the mischief do you suppose you want with a post office in Baldwin Ranch? It would not do you any good. If any letters came there, you couldn’t read them, you know. What you want is a nice jail.”

On another occasion, when a Nevada clergyman petitioned Senator Stewart in a letter, to present a bill to incorporate the Episcopal Church of Nevada, Sam took the liberty to reply, “Petition your state legislature, because Congress don’t know anything about religion.”

Samuel claimed he retired from the employ of Old Bully-raggin’ Billy Stewart, and that “Thanks to Bill Stewart, history will show that men do not own mines in Nevada, but holes in the ground, and that a hole in the ground is not taxable. From here on, that staunch old bulwark of the state will be known as, The Great Gould & Curry Hole-In-The-Ground.”

Stewart, on the other hand, claimed he had to fire Clemens, and maintained, “Sam Clemens was the most lovable scamp and nuisance that ever blighted Nevada.”

So, if Sam had become a popular Minister to China, might his indelible humor still be a tonic today? Perhaps we should allow Samuel to speak on his own behalf. Sam observed about fellow humorist Artemus Ward following Ward’s death in 1867, “He seems never to have written a harsh thing against anybody -neither have I, for that matter -at least nothing harsh enough for a body to fret about.”

Personally, I got to teach school at St. Joseph’s College in Hong Kong a while back, and fell in love with the Chinese people. Were I appointed Minister to China today as an impressionist of Mark Twain, well, I might hang in there just long enough to see a permanent jollification set in, then retire gracefully to Lake Tahoe…

Audio: https://anchor.fm/mcavoy-layne

Before I became Mark Twain and embarked upon a thirty-five-year journey, I was Jim Thorpe, Member of the Sac & Fox Nation, and the best athlete in the world. But let me explain…

In the fourth grade I went to the Orinda Theater with my brothers to see “The Jim Thorpe Story” starring Burt Lancaster. In that movie, a young Jim Thorpe misses his school bus, and races that bus to school. He runs over hills and dales and beats that bus to school by a full minute.

I was very impressionable in the fourth grade, so the next morning I hid in the bushes at our bus stop, waited for our bus to come & go, and took off running down a cow trail toward Del Rey Elementary. I could see the bus as it stopped to pick up more of my classmates, while I ran steadily ahead. Then the bus would pull ahead of me, and it was game on! As the bus turned into Lost Valley I lost sight of it, but ran gallantly on, as Jim Thorpe.

When I arrived at Del Rey I discovered the bus had already arrived, unloaded my classmates and was parked comfortably in the yard. I’ll never forget the look on the secretary’s face as I entered the school office all flushed, hot & sweaty. She pushed her glasses up onto her nose, put her hands on her hips and asked, “Well, who do we have here?”

“Jim Thorpe, Ma’am.”

“Well, Mr. Thorpe, you got yourself a tardy slip.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

She made out my tardy slip and handed it to me like it was the Magna Carta or something. Actually, it was my Declaration of Independence, for suddenly it was official. It said right there on my tardy slip that I was Jim Thorpe, and I walked down that empty hall toward my classroom with a spring in my step. I might have lost my race with our school bus, but for that moment in time I was the world’s greatest athlete, and my heart was big as a basketball.

That same day I checked “The Jim Thorpe Story” out of the school library and read it under the covers with a flashlight after my mother had kissed me goodnight.

I remember how it made me smile to read that Stockholm’s King Gustav had placed an Olympic Gold Medal around Jim’s neck and declared, “You’re the world’s greatest athlete, Jim Thorpe.” To wit Jim replied, “Thanks, King.” And I made a mental note to say thanks when I was awarded an Olympic Gold Medal. I’m still waiting for that opportunity.

I guess it goes without mentioning, that the next book I would check out of our library at Del Ray Elementary was, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.”

As a Chautauquan you can never fail, for it is a success to be one…

Listen to the Audio: https://anchor.fm/mcavoy-layne

If we are what we eat, well, today we can become a previously extinct prehistoric animal that nobody has seen for thousands of years. Yes the Aussies have created a humongous meatball made entirely of wooly mammoth meat grown in a laboratory. No one has yet dared to try a forkful of this delicacy, for fear he might start growing toenails a foot and a half long, then start scratching an itchy ear with that foot. Imagine having an itchy ear, and accidentally removing that ear with a 5,000-year-old foot. Or maybe growing a three-foot tail to get caught in the car door. 

Without any takers, and not ready yet to replace the hotdog in Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest on July 4^th, Australia’s mammoth meatball remains on display at a science museum.

When I was a kid, we would sometimes call a windy politician a, “meatball.” I don’t hear that epithet anymore, I suppose it’s too mild, but it might be coming back into vogue with the arrival of the Wooly Mammoth Meatball. I would not like to be called a Wooly Mammoth Meatball, but it could happen. 

The ungetaroundable fact is, we are going to have to start engineering our food in a lab or starve. Cultured meat will not require land or water, and, will be resistant to pollution. 

I confess to having always wanted to be in the Guinness Book of World Records, and I thought once I might make it, after I became the first clown diver in the world to miss the pool and land on his feet, but they didn’t believe me at Guinness, and I didn’t have the video. However, that door was opened again by the possibility of my becoming the first person in the world willing to subsist entirely on Wooly Mammoth Meatballs. Then that door was closed by a friend who reminded me that the Wooly Mammoths died from climate change.

But were I a chicken, and could write in chicken-scratch, (some say I do) I would be holding up a chicken-scratch sign today that would read, “Eat Engineered Chicken! Maybe McDonalds is already doing that and not telling us.

There is some good news that comes with the arrival of an engineered chicken. Now when we are asked, “Which came first the chicken or the engineered egg?” Well, we should know the answer. And it now occurs to me to ask AI’s Bard, “Which came first the chicken or the egg?” but I digress.

Why not treat plastic with a protein so it will taste good, then treat that plastic with pepsin and other powerful enzymes to make it digestible. That way, we could come home from the grocery store, unload the groceries, then sit down and eat the plastic bags. Well, I might make it into the Guinness Book of World Records yet if I can just pull that one off…onward & upward!

Listen to the Audio >

I don’t pretend to know the secrets of a good public talk myself, but I have been in the company of good public talkers for many years and have learned a good deal from them. Here is a little of what I have learned…

People don’t want a message; they want a story. So if you wrap your message in a story it will be like wrapping your dog’s medicine in a treat.

First, work your client’s special interest into your opening remarks, then work your client’s special interest into the middle of your talk, and finally, in thanking your client, work your client’s special interest into your closing remarks.

This discipline once prompted the following acknowledgement, “What a wonderful coincidence, Mr. Twain, that you played bridge in the Civil War and on the Overland Stagecoach, and here in Virginia City!  We are all bridge players!” Well, that was no coincidence, but we never let the truth stand in the way of a good story.

Draw mental pictures in your story as often as possible. Chuck Jones, by his own admission, came up with the cartoon series, “Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner,” after reading Mark Twain’s description of the coyote and the jackass rabbit in his book, Roughing It.

Then, while it is still fresh in your mind, go over your material as soon as possible after delivering it. A reporter who once intended to interview Arnold Palmer immediately after Arnie had won a tournament was frustrated to find Arnold out on the driving range, practicing. Be like Arnie, and make improvements while the subject is still warm.

Fear public speaking? A young lady once confided to me that she would rather have a coyote gnaw on her arm, than to speak in public. Have confidence that your personality, sincerity, and your parent’s faith in you, will see you through. Speaking from the heart will always win the house.

As you are called up to the podium, picture the sunny-side-up eggs you are going to have for breakfast the following morning. This will serve to ground you, let you look past the moment, and put your mind at ease.

Practice setting bookmarks in your program in case you are asked a question, or a thought comes to you that you want to touch on, and you will be able to return to the exact spot where you left off without missing a beat.

Try to leave time for a few questions from the audience. I always thought of it as my favorite part of the program, for if you don’t have an answer, at least you can come up with an opinion.

And finally, perhaps foremost, when you are once again alone with your thoughts, and have gone over your program to your satisfaction, give yourself a much deserved pat on the back, because talking in public ain’t easy…

Listen to the Audio: https://anchor.fm/mcavoy-layne

We learn from declassified documents and an excellent article in The Week magazine, that back in 1961 a brave 25-year-old leader of an Air Force ordinance disposal team got an urgent call. Lt. Jack ReVelle was assigned the daunting task of finding and disarming two hydrogen bombs that fell from a B-52 bomber seconds before crashing in North Carolina.

Jack found, and personally diffused the primary corps of those hydrogen bombs, carrying each of them against his breast to safety. Had either one of those uranium and plutonium filled bombs detonated, well, North Carolina would not need area codes today because nobody would be living there, much less playing golf at Pinehurst. 

RIP Dr. Jack ReVelle, who, in 2020, died in his sleep from complications caused by exposure to radiation.

Accidents happen. Nuclear accidents have a military code name, “Broken Arrow.” How ironic, sad and senseless it would be, were the world to end from a broken arrow.

This is no longer thumb wrestling, friends. How do you spell “escalation” in 2023? D-O-O-M-S-D-A-Y! The fellow who has his finger on Russia’s nuclear arsenal has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes. There is a warrant for his arrest, and the more losses he suffers in his Ukraine misadventure, the more likely he is to resort to nuclear weapons.

No, the thumb wrestling days between Gorbachev and Reagan are long over, this is serious business, with survival in the balance. When a Russian warplane sideswipes an American drone over the Black Sea, well, it is time for the rest of the world to unify, condemn this hazardous game of chicken, and demand that all parties, “Stand Down!” 

At this critical point in time we need all the world’s 195 countries to speak as one voice. Impossible? Not really…

In Maui’s Race to End the Arms Race, scheduled for July first, Maui high school students will don sashes to represent each nation of the world, run their 10k race, then make their case for an end to the arms race toward a war nobody can win. Each student will have one minute to make their case, and in one hour and a half we will have heard the words that will stop the doomsday clock and save this blue ball that we have all come to love.

I’ve been told by a few that this is merely a pipe dream, and it could never happen, but I maintain if you don’t have dreams, you can’t have dreams come true. Against the assault of 195 high school kids representing the entire world, appealing for a drawdown, well, nothing can stand. As Maui’s Bruno Mars might like to say, “Hot Damn…Don’t believe me, just watch!”

Listen to the Audio: https://anchor.fm/mcavoy-layne

Just as there is a vast difference between the comedian and the humorist, 

there is an equally vast difference between the opinion columnist and the journalist. 

But let me try to make my case…

The comedian’s job is to make us laugh, and laughter is good for us, it keeps us from souring, and cuts down on the doctor bills like crazy. Albeit sometimes the comedian incites laughter at the expense of another person, and we leave the hall feeling a little guilty about being provoked by pejorative comedy.

Laughter without a thread of philosophy woven into it, is but a sneeze at humor. Genuine humor is replete with wisdom.  And if a piece of humor is to last, it must do two things, it must preach and it must teach, not professedly, but if done effectively, that piece of humor will last forever -which is thirty years.

The humorist is showing us the good-natured side of the truth, and is not looking for a laugh, but merely looking for a nod of acknowledgement, or perhaps the hint of a smile that appears when one recognizes effective irony or satire. But most importantly, humor lessens people’s hatred. In today’s congress the only bipartisan common denominator appears to be humor impairment, though there will always be those who will laugh at a senator’s bad joke. 

Now, the difference between the opinion columnist and the journalist is similar to that of the comedian and the humorist.

As Mark Twain might like to remind us, “The heaven-born mission of journalism is to disseminate truth; and elevate the tone of public morals and manners, and make all men more gentle, and in all ways better, and holier, and happier.” Twain’s humor is like that of his friend Howells, it “flows softly, is pervasive, refreshing, health-giving, and makes no more show, and no more noise than the circulation of the blood.”

In full disclosure, the stump-tail opinion columnist deals in sagebrush humor, malaprops, hyperbole, half-truths, innuendos, double entendres and assonance.  These are tools a journalist will not touch with a bargepole.  No, a journalist will not risk her reputation by reaching into the grab-bag of tools available to the opinion columnist, as it should be. The author John Irving reminds us, “It’s hard work and great art to make life not so serious.” 

The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor will be (or was) awarded to Adam Sandler at a performance featuring some of the biggest names in comedy at the Kennedy Center on March 19. Watch Sandler’s acceptance speech, and just for fun, decide for yourself whether Adam Sandler is a comedian or a humorist. 

In closing, a former winner of the Mark Twain Prize, Jon Stewart attests, “Comedy doesn’t change the world, but it’s a bellwether. We’re the banana peel in the coal mine.”

Listen to the Audio: https://anchor.fm/mcavoy-layne

As I wind down a gratifying career as an impressionist of Mark Twain, certain hilarious, if embarrassing, moments come to mind. Back in ’88, having discovered how much fun it can be to stop time and step into history, I accepted an invitation to the governor’s mansion to present, “Becoming Mark Twain.” Excited? Yes. I donned my new white suit, grabbed a cigar, and headed down to Carson City. Full to the brim with pride at having memorized an hour-long program, I forgot to put gasoline in my vehicle and ran out of gas at the top of Spooner.

So I stood out there on Highway 50 in my white suit, waved my cigar, and hoped somebody would recognize Mark Twain and give him a lift.

Several folks passed us by before an elderly gentleman, perhaps the oldest person ever to sit behind a steering wheel, pulled his chicken truck off the road and took us in.

As I climbed into the cab, feathers flew everywhere and I started sneezing. I thanked the elderly gentleman, and once we were back on the highway, he looked me over, and said, “You look like, maybe…somebody I should know.”

I smiled, and feeling full of myself, extended my hand, “Me, mui viejo, Mark Twain!”

He scratched the stubble on his chin, smiled, extended his hand, and boasted with no little pride, “Me, Ponce de Leon!”

So there we were, Ponce de Leon and Mark Twain, riding in a chicken truck down Highway 50 into Carson City. He was kind enough to take me straight to the governor’s mansion and drop me off. We shook hands again and I hoped he might always remember meeting Mark Twain, because I knew I would always remember meeting Ponce de Leon.

Another amusing, if embarrassing incident happened at the Nugget, when John Ascuaga brought out his pet elephant Bertha to warm up the crowd for Mark Twain. While Bertha was enjoying a round of applause, Bertha’s handler saddled up to me and said, “You brought me some trouble, Mr. Twain.”

Quite surprised, I asked, “Well now, how could that be?”

“Mr. Ascuaga and his daughter are giving me conflicting orders. Miss Ascuaga is telling me to follow Bertha, while Mr. Ascuaga is telling me to follow you around with this shovel.”

The very next day I was elated to get a call from Carol Piper Marshall, asking if I would present two shows a day, six days a week at Piper’s Opera House for the four months of summer…wow. I was able to try out Twain material on 200 live audiences and find out which passages recite, and which passages I should save for a rainy day. If Carol had told me back then, that we were launching a career to span 35 years, and that I would be presenting the last hurrah back at Piper’s in September of 2023, well, I should have asked for her hand and kissed it…

Audio:  https://anchor.fm/mcavoy-layne