Read, Write, and Be Merry!

Suitable for children and kids of all ages.
May be consumed each and every day,
Predicated by the desires of every citizen of the world,
Free of restrictions!

“Never too early, never too late!”

Question: How can we evict uncertainty from a living breathing brain (Especially if you’re the landlord and keeper of the roost.)

Answer: Add knowledge by way of the most simplistic tools, mentally and physically, available to you by way of INFUSION!

CAUTION: YOUR RESULTS MAY BE,

OR BECOME, PROBLEMATICAL

CREDO

        Young, old, or just getting there—it’s never too late to learn. Believe it or not, laughter is one of the greatest salves known to men and women of this world.

        The other evening, I read the first page of a hard-covered book. I had ceremoniously placed it on my nightstand, preparing for a brand-new learning experience. It’s actually my ever-so-humble form of a daily ritual for self-welfare. Free from any unwanted assistance, or insistence, from any elected official telling me what’s for my family's or my well-being!

        This author's statement of fact, above, entered into his ardent quest for knowledge which seriously commenced in 1955 following his military service. My God, I was 22 years old. "I didn’t have the brains God gave a shovel."

        I know more today than I’ve ever known or learned during the course of my eighty-nine years of existence on this planet. Yet my knowledge today, far outweighs any probability of me gaining fulfillment of my desire to satisfy my needs for learning.

        My old reading habits are hard to break, and I categorically refuse to alter them at this stage of the game. I refer to my books as friendly nostalgia; considering writers to be performers, educators, and more often than not, our greatest historians. Writers are also the world’s greatest storytellers.
        The past is for all—like it or not. Some believe being born with a past is immediate. Like birth, our past is not for us to choose, yet, we’re free in our ability to allow it to help each of us to become ingratiated by its remembrance.
        Hear it, smell it, see it, dream about it, and write it down before it vanishes from your brain's storage tank. I guess some folks who might know me well, might consider me a creature from the past. But what they don’t readily think about is recognizing how often the past was just yesterday, or right smack in the wee hours of the morning. If you look and listen, you have the ability to tell (if you choose to).
        What you think you can vocally do as well as anyone in the world, is yours to draw on from your past—albeit from childhood, up and until the end of this day, and perhaps tomorrow. Practice it as a personal routine, treating it as a welcome friendly personage, or sound, from your past.
        Imagine one day you might be called on to perform this special sound and or approach for an upcoming audition. In your heart of hearts, you have an unabashed awareness and confidence: “They have to pick me!”

And then do what a very well-known and successful voice-over actor, Mike Road, always did as his daily ritual:

FORGET ABOUT IT AND RETURN TO YOUR DAILY PRACTICE!

Harvey Kalmenson

Harvey, The Younger Person

My Mother Told Me That I Said, At Three Years Old:

"He No More Good"

        Maybe I did, but there’s a good chance I didn’t. C’mon, give me a break, I was only three years old. My mother was very good at blaming me for everything taking place around our apartment. The fact was, I overheard her having a private conversation with one of my aunts. Mom was specifically describing me as being a troublemaker. My mother was telling Aunt Hannah how I repeated everything I heard on the radio.

        My aunt, upon hearing my mom doing her rant about me, became very indignant. “Your kid is only four years old. None of my kids can do that, and they're all much older than him.” And my mom instantly popped up with, “And none of them have his brain power.” “Come to think of it – neither does your husband”, she blurted. With that, Aunt Hannah stomped out and down the five floors to the street of our Brownsville, Brooklyn tenement building.

Used to be

While a depression was going on

Way back then

Men were men

All standing "on" line

Waiting all day for a job

Very hard to find

Trying to remember when

And then I began listening to our little radio

A favorite of mine was “Uncle Don”

I remember Ticonderoga

About pencils that had the same name

'Cause they had a very cute jingle

No TV, just on radio, they’d all be singing:

Ticonderoga Pencils

Have claimed their name to fame

A fine American pencil

With a fine American name

(Little da harv had everything on Uncle Don's show memorized, including each and every one of the commercials.)

        Deep down in her heart, I truly think my Aunt Hannah really loved me. It was probably my mother who bore responsibility for causing all my aunts and uncles to show dislike for me, her little angel. My mother made it a point to tell the world how strong of a bloodline she had passed on to her little son, the genius. “And he’s only three”, she told anyone and everyone. (By then I might have already become five. My mother figured it was a better story if I remained only three.)

A Mishmash of Babbled Memories

One day I broke the point
Of my father's favorite pencil
No pencil sharpener
My little mind began to rush
What is going to happen to me now
My mother didn’t trust me
Even though I was a little angel,
She still didn’t trust me
I was only 3½, maybe four
I had taken the pencil from my father's drawer
My mom was a whistleblower
“Wait until your father gets home”
She bellowed in my face!
“Uncle Don” came on the radio
“All you kids, learn how to read and write”, he said!
Dad came through the door
Mom blew the whistle with delight!
Instinctively I said, without hesitation, “Uncle Don told me to do it”!!
Dad picked me up
Not to worry, he handed me another pencil.
“Better he learns how to write”, dad said with a big smile.
To that mom replied, “He’s such a little actor”.

What a great beginning to the divinity of Show Biz, don’t you think? Let’s see now; I began waiting "on" line when I was three years old. I guess my mother was right, maybe my aunt Hannah was as well. Perhaps there is a difference between being in line, or standing on one!

        That night, as my dad rubbed my back and sang to me as I fell asleep—he reminded me about it in much later years—he whispered, “Real men don’t cry”. I learned through the years that my dad really didn’t mean it. On the day he dropped me off at the Union Station here in Los Angeles, I saw my father cry for the very first time in my life. I was on my way to basic training and then on to Korea; I had joined the United States Army.

        We were apart for some seventeen months. Upon return, we both shed a tear or two together. The fact is real men do cry. Some even learn to read and write at a very early age. What helps to keep me thinking like a much younger person might endeavor to do, is my daily faculty for reading and writing each day.

        "Uncle Don was a children's radio program that aired on WOR radio from 1928 to 1947. The host was Uncle Don Carney, a former vaudeville performer." His most appreciated listener was a very young actor named Harvey Kalmenson. There were rumors going around Newburgh, New York (a town in upstate New York we had moved to when I was four) that I had changed my name to “da harv”. Not true. I didn’t become “da harv” until I visited Chicago after meeting Cathy, much, much later on in my life.

About Kids In General

        A point from da harv: As a teacher and casting director, I have personally had the pleasure of being in close contact with many children with beginnings from all over this planet of ours. From meager households to the God-gifted environments of those endowed with overwhelming wealth.

        I’ve personally found a pattern towards gaining great responsiveness, whether they be white-collar or blue, from children from all walks of life. Certainly, there are kids who are outright genuinely gifted in learning. In many ways, all children have many things in common, gifted or not.

        Both my mom and dad loved reading to us kids; and along with singing, it managed to help us cultivate a worldly form of responsiveness and learning. Intellect, you might say! The point is, kids can translate being read to, and or being sung to, into receiving love. As clearly stated as I can possibly make it, reading and singing will almost always stimulate the very best a child has to offer.

        Laughter has been and always will be a factor created during any form of cultivation for children and adults as well. Who we are today, where we were yesterday, and what we strive for on the morrow of life is what our Kalmenson & Kalmenson Method is all about. That isn’t to say a past personal experience, of grief or misjudgment, couldn’t also prove to serve you well as your future unfolds, becoming the present life you lead.

        Many of the world’s greatest minds were anointed with scars they carried with great pride of resolve, forever… Each of life’s indifferences towards you is not yours to hold tightly. Only what each individual seeks may ever be grasped, shared, or held…if only momentarily.

Harvey Kalmenson

Around My House

Around My House and Perhaps Yours As Well

Age 28

        Around my house, a while back, I could do it all. As you can imagine, there was actually a time when climbing to my rooftop wasn’t a contest for me. In those days I had a very rickety ladder, I’d press the ladder up against the side of the building, climb to the top rung, and then easily pull myself up the rest of the way. I will admit to having a great deal of fun watching some of my older neighbors standing by and enjoying my display of ego-driven dexterity while providing some entertainment for them.

        Are you kidding me… that was sixty-one years ago. Today, the same feat of cat-like macho would need a helicopter going up, and most likely, my friends at the fire department will be called in to rescue me. My then-wife didn’t think my antics were the least bit funny; truthfully, it scared the living hell out of her!

        I recall one of those days when I was busily showing off to a group of neighbors. I was suddenly gripped by severe pain in the calf of my left leg. I literally made it down the ladder one rung at a time. On this particular day, the fun for me became a thing of the past.

        My regular chores became noticeably harder and harder to manage. Some years had slipped by, seemingly overnight. Along with many physical attributes disappearing without my immediate recognition, taken from my repertoire of skills. I had somehow become:

Age 45

        During the next ten years, it became impossible for me to compete in tournament handball. Truth be told, for a vast number of lifetime athletes, there will be a variety of physical aggravations to suffer through during our allotted span of life. I don’t intend to bore anyone with my personal tales of woe along the way. Honestly, not being able to compete in sports was a personal wake-up call. It brings along a certain annoyance in life, not appreciated by men and women far too young to be forced to suddenly veer away from a singularly important wedge in their lifestyle.

        Wake-up calls aren’t the same for each human being. I’m not even certain that each of us receives individual signals of wake-up calls coming in. I guess many of us are actually oblivious to any form of a wake-up call at all. It’s not like setting an alarm clock. For some people even setting their clock doesn’t do the trick. There are people who place their alarm clock on the other side of a bedroom which forces them to get out of bed in the morning to make the damn thing stop ringing or buzzing in the morning, or whatever time of day or night they may choose.

        The vast number of people who need some sort of device to be awakened is totally different than what I grew up with. Today, most of the younger spirits around town are hooked on their cell phones for almost everything. But the kind of human wake-up call I refer to is that of the human condition. A person may think they have trained themselves to be prepared for any number of the bumps presented in order to supplant ill tidings forced upon us by the unforeseen.

        During this upcoming November, God willing, I will become:

Age 89

        I can’t tell you the number of wake-up calls I’ve received during the course of my lifetime to date. The human condition is so often ignored. The younger we are, the more ignorant we are of our mortality. What is often foisted upon us unceremoniously, whatever the source may be, is most likely a condition we have not been trained to deal with. It has become apparent to me that many of the very most important events in a lifetime are the very things none of us have been trained for.

        Many folks share the time-honored belief that who we are is governed by the environment we are raised. There are psychologists who flatly state: the environment is responsible for seventy-five percent of what we turn out to be, stemming from the neighborhood we grew up in.

        During my lifetime, I’ve experienced a huge variety of personalities from all over the world. I doubt that you can name a nook or cranny that doesn’t have a person or two who desires to be an actor. Anyone, and everyone, is eligible to enter into the world of theatrical gospel. Regardless of what the environment might be, or from whence a future thespian of great promise was raised, stand back and make way. There will always be room for a few more at the top. And while you're looking, please don’t forget the bottom. From the past, present, and in tomorrow’s future, people who derived great prominence from the most meager beginnings have shown up at the highest levels receiving worldwide acclaim.

        And now a minor note from da harv, derived from my earliest environment in Brooklyn, New York:

“If and when you happen to step in shit during life’s travels… 

it’s not always your fault… especially if you take into consideration a simple fact:

You weren’t necessarily trained for it!”

A toast to all the world's firemen!

HK

What You Don't Know...

From My Schoolyard “mit” Love!

        You almost had to be there to fully understand my community of East Flatbush in Brooklyn, New York, and what it was like for any of us kids in our World War II era—still not yet having reached the aristocracy of teenage—what we thought to be "manhood".

“What you don’t know, don’t hurt.

So don’t let anybody tell you, what you don’t know!”

(Cause dat can kill ya)

        The above paragraph probably would have begun with a special kind of Brooklynite lead-in: “listen to me”, “ready to learn”, “get a life”, “I’m your friend”, and “would I lie”. Then, one of my favorites: “That’s (dats) a crock.”

        And if you’re interested, it’s an important thing for you to understand about Brooklyn kids—almost all of us used hand gestures when we talked to one another. I.e., With hands palms up, a strange look at the kid who's trying to explain something to me or us, and my lead-in... Continuing in such conversations there were words along with facial expressions to match like in the TV series decades later such as “Welcome Back Kotter”, the role of Vinnie Barbarino played by John Travolta. Some of the intelligentsia might use referring to our hand movements as gestures.

        Like many of the depictions appearing first and foremost as the driving force for the then sitcoms of the day, what they accomplished was far more than merely mental nourishment—there for no other reason but to make us laugh. Much has been written about the lessons we learned from “Kotter” and his crowd.

        The fact of the matter is really nothing new. Stand-up comedy almost always stems from the hearts and minds of comics stepping back in time with stories about families, friends, neighborhoods, and a vast wealth of nostalgia they’ve all seemed to have accumulated from their lived-in past.

        Stories have always been my personal glory to recall. Thinking about good things never fails to make me feel better. So, without any real effort, please let me share another of my fondest memories. This one is short, sweet, and directly to the point. The words may bend a little as I recall them, but the body of this nostalgia of mine is recalled with my great intent of avoiding exaggeration.

        The year was 1968. My two daughters were eight and ten years old. We lived in a house we had purchased in 1961 (for a grand total of $23,000) in a place called Encino Village in Southern California. It still belongs to our family. Rumor has it that the place has grown in value during the course of the last sixty-one years. Hopefully, so have I.

If you happen to have a kid or two

Make sure to get to them quickly

With a kiss from you

Hopefully, they’ll remember

As have I

There’s beauty in yesterday

Smiles to always recall

Daddy's home, Daddy's home

They’d always shout

As if it was just yesterday

When the two of them were home!

HK