Real Good Talk

So, what do you think, son?

Um … I don’t really … get it?

Oh.

I think it might be too grown-up for me.

No, that’s not it. I understood it pretty well when I was your age. I probably didn’t lay it well enough out for you.

No, it’s not your fault. I just — don’t understand.

Well, then, it is my fault, and I’ll just have to explain better, okay?

Okay.

So, maybe you just need a better understanding of the basics.

Probably.

Okay, so. Let me see.  Okay.  Back in the ‘70s —

The 1970s?

That's right.  See, there was this movie called Deliverance. John Boorman. Great flick. Uh — probably, that is a little too grown-up for you right now, but anyway, in this movie, a bunch of these city guys go on a rafting trip in this really remote area, out in the woods, in the country, right? And what happens is — well, someday you’ll see the movie, but the point is, at one point in the movie, they stumble across this old cabin with these hill people in it, and one of them is this — well, obviously just profoundly mentally disabled kid with a banjo, he kind of looks like this …

Ha!

No, no. Don’t laugh. That’s not for laughing at.

Sorry.

My fault, I shouldn’t have — I mean, you have to have respect for people, even when they’re —

I know, Dad. I’m sorry.

Anyway, there’s this scene where the kid, and this other guy, who also has a banjo, they do this kind of banjo duet that starts out real simple, right?  But then it gets just like, crazy wild, very complicated, tremendous technical … banjo … virtuosity, right?

Okay.

And this song, it’s called “Dueling Banjos.”

Oh.

And it became this huge hit at the time, which was pretty unusual, because even back then you didn’t hear a lot of banjo on top forty radio.

Right.

And it became this like, indelible cultural icon, “Dueling Banjos,” right?

Uh-huh.

You got that?

Okay.

So — okay, now. Do you even know who Marlon Brando was?

Nuh-uh.

Okay. Well, Brando was this actor, widely seen by a lot of people as just, you know. The preeminent film and theater actor of his generation. Me, I don’t know. I don’t really see it, but that was the opinion. Anyway, he had this very distinctive voice, and in some of his later films, he really started to — well, like in The Godfather?  He was all “Tell Luca Brazi to come in.”

Haha! Oh. Sorry.

No, no. It’s okay to laugh at that. That’s fine.

But you said —

Yeah, I know. This is different.

Oh. Okay.

So, because he had such a distinctive voice, and such a recognizable way of speaking, practically everyone in the world at that time did a Marlon Brando impersonation, get it?

I … guess so.

So you, see, you put the two things together, and you get —

Dueling Brandos! Oh, I get it!

Right! See, it’s the song, “Dueling Banjos,” used as a backdrop for two guys doing their —

You’re over-explaining it, Dad.

Sorry. So. We good now? You want to watch the rest?

Sure, I guess.

What? Is there something else you don’t understand?

Well. What was that thing about the wolverine?

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I think maybe they must’ve just been really high when they wrote that.

Oh. Cool.

Yeah.

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I love you, Dad.

I love you too, sweetheart.