Is Charisma Animal Magnetism?

By Atom Bergstrom

Atom’s Blog

Charisma is not related to hypnosis, according to the “experts.”

My experience tells me otherwise.

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Maybe the wrong “experts” are looking at charisma.

It’s currently the domain of social scientists.

Maybe medical scientists need to investigate charisma.

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I worked with a guy named Jeff Scott.

I called him Great Scott because he had charisma.

Or was it animal magnetism?

He certainly had chutzpah — shameless audacity.

And his chutzpah was not only tolerated. It was rewarded.

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Jeff and I worked in Stationery Stores, an in-plant department of Litton Industries, Guidance & Control Systems Division.

We handed out office supplies to engineers and office workers through a half door where the top half opened.

Jeff was outrageous, and that’s an understatement.

He “got away” with things that would get anyone else fired.

If our supervisor tried to discipline him, Jeff ran up to him and tweaked his nipples through his dress shirt, yelling, “Pinch your [bleep]! Pinch your [bleep]!”

What did our supervisor do? He “gave in” and laughed.

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Jeff and I took turns handing out stationery through that half door.

We sat on a stool with a gray rubber typewriter between it and our sit-upons.

Jeff broke off chunks of the typewriter pad and, using his thumb and forefinger, flicked them at everyone’s faces.

No one — not a single engineer, secretary, or office worker — protested.

Everyone — no exceptions — either blinked or moved to the left or right to cope with the impact of these little rubber missiles.

Jeff would ask, over and over, “Doesn’t that BOTHER you?”

Not a single person protested.

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Why didn’t they object?

Did Jeff intimidate them with a formidable demeanor?

Is a “formidable demeanor” a scientific concept?

It’s said that the best parking meter maids (male and female) have a “formidable demeanor.”

But Jeff was approachable — he was tall and athletic, but friendly and happy-go-lucky.

But he’d act both puzzled and perturbed when he repeated, “Doesn’t that BOTHER you?”

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I often wonder what happened to Jeff Scott.

He was a friend of the actor Martin Milner (1931-2015), so I imagine Jeff ended up with a job in Hollywood — perhaps the Capital of Charisma.

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My friend Curly Gianna had charisma too.

He walked into a bar with a gun, and the guy on the next stool asked, “Is that a real gun?”

“Yes,” replied Curly.

“No way. No one in their right mind would bring a gun into a bar. If that’s a real gun, shoot me in the foot.”

Curly did. He shot him in the foot.

The guy refused to press charges.

“I told him to shoot me in the foot,” he explained.
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