Whats in a name - Durwood Fincher Home Page
“What is your name ?” Durwood Fincher demanded.
While driving comfortably around in his Cadillac Escalade, Fincher had first seen the
man walking painfully on Ponce De Leon Avenue. It was obvious that this man was
homeless, his arms and gnarled hands, held near to his thin body, his atrophied muscles
turning the act of walking into hard labor.
“My name?” the man responded nearly inaudibly without making eye contact. Durwood
remembered the response as puzzled from a man who looked so “sad, but with a radiant
smile.”
Often over a few weeks after first seeing him, Durwood had stopped the man he knew as
“Crib” on the street, giving him money and developing a relationship. Wondering why
his friends called him Crib , Fincher wanted to know his new friend’s real name.
“My friends call me Crip , because of this,” looking down at his body that moved much
like than that of the tin man on The Wizard of Oz.
2
Then it hit Durwood Fincher like a baseball bat. He had thought the street name was Crib,
but suddenly realized the homeless man was saying, “Crip”. “No! No!” Durwood almost
shouted, determined to call him by his real name. “You can’t do that. You can’t let
people call you that anymore! What is your real name?”
Finally the homeless man made eye contact and looked into the eyes of perhaps the first
person who ever wanted to know his real name. “My name, my name is Enoch,” he said
softly.
“Enoch? Enoch! You have a Bible name, that’s a great name. Buddy, you have a name
from the Bible and you are letting people call you Crip?” Through “turtle” tears, this man
began to regain his image as a real man, not just some cripple living on the street. All
because someone cared enough to become his friend and know his real name.
Durwood Fincher is a busy man. On the road traveling over 200 days a year, if anyone
needs an excuse to be too busy to stop and take time to know a homeless man, it is him.
With a client list that would impress anyone, his list of accomplishments continues to
grow. Featured over 12 times on Regis and Kathie Lee/Kelli as well as on Dick Clark’s
bloopers, his way of communicating does have a way of getting attention.
He was born and raised in Macon, GA. His parents were divorced because of his father’s
alcoholism, leaving his brother and he to be brought up in a broken but loving home. His
3
Mom was a committed Christian, offering an early foundation that taught him to give. “I
wondered why I gave fifty cents every Sunday. Mom gave $2 or $3 dollars, and we didn’t
have much money.” After doing this consistently for years, he finally asked his mom why
they gave even when they didn’t have much.
“You are really going to have to learn this on your own one day, but I have found that
when you give back to God what he has given to you, then what we keep seems to go a
lot further.”
As Durwood shared the memory, tears streamed down his face indicating his gratitude to
his now deceased mom for that lesson, which is the cornerstone of his lifestyle. “She
would be proud of how what I do with a lot of my money, I’ve made myself comfortable,
yes, but I’ve touched a lot of lives and those very lives have touched me deeply. I now
know that you learn to live when you learn to give.”
After graduating from Georgia Southern, he remained at the university to teach English,
speech and debate. This was during the time when the school was integrating in 1971,
and Fincher had an idea to do a musical with an interracial cast. “This had never been
done! We chose to do The Boyfriend, and everyone became involved, black and white.
The audience was filled with families full of pride for such a great occasion to be
involved. Two television stations came out to get the rumble in the jungle. They expected
the worst,” remembered Durwood. “But it was all so good, the orchestra came out, the
show started, and the audience was spellbound with pride. With no bad news, both
4
stations left with their crews and reported nothing. They missed it! Something huge
happened that night, and you can’t recreate originals, and they missed it. Tumultuous
applause and thunderous ovations, all because of what did happen!”
His passion was evident. “It was then that I realized that whatever you are looking for in
life you will find. If you are looking for negatives, God knows it’s out there.”
Wanting to be a great teacher, Durwood developed creative ways to get his students
involved. “There would be kids who were physically sick when they had to speak in
front of the class, so I would tell them, have you ever heard on the nightly news of
anyone who died from speaking in public?” His humorous ways would put the kids at
ease, making his class one of the campus favorites.
One day an opportunity presented itself, and it changed his career direction forever.
“Candid Camera was in town, and they were looking for someone who could talk
gibberish, so I went for an interview,” he said smiling, remembering how he would
splash a little gibberish at his students and how they loved it. Allen Funt, the show’s
director was doing the interviews and when Durwood went in, he spoke to the secretary,
and she responded. “What did you say?” He seemed so serious, but she could not quite
understand him. Then both the secretary and Mr. Funt looked at Fincher. “I think we
found our man, cancel the rest of the interviews,” said the director and the rest as they say
is not history, it is however, history in the making. That was the day Mr. Doubletalk was
born.
5
From that date, he was booked across the country as the stiff Dr. Robert Payne, a well
qualified but seemingly boring expert from the government’s Department of Health and
Education Welfare, a typical speaker to corporate America.
Once Dr. Payne begins his talk about government affairs, he sees his audience beginning
to mentally drift off. “You can see them getting comfortable.” Then he mumbles a little
bit of what sounds like important information, and no one quite gets it.
“They start to look around, wondering if they are the only one who is lost in what this
important man is saying, it happens every time. Then someone pokes someone and
shrugs their shoulders, like, what is he talking about? Then I go into straight humor and
they start rolling with laughter! Then I have their undivided attention as Mr. Doubletalk!”
Gibberish may seem easy, but his skill in making you think you should understand him is
what makes him so great at what he does. He comes across so believable. (On his website
you can see Regis Philbin playing a joke and Kelli, and her body language in trying to
understand him is hilarious www.mr.doubletalk.com ).
Through his humor, he always has an inspiring message of hope and optimism. But after
9/11, even Durwood Fincher was at a loss for words. “Two days after 9/11, everyone who
had me scheduled to speak cancelled, and I was waiting on my last call.” He
remembered. “People were not traveling, they wanted to be home with their families.
6
When the phone rang, I told my client I had been waiting on his call. But then he caught
me off guard, completely.” Durwood’s eyes welled with tears as he recalled the emotion
in the call of that CEO.
“I have hundreds of people here who can’t get home. They are worried and there are no
flights or rental cars. We are all stuck, and you are the only one I trust right now. Will
you come? I know I’m asking a lot.” Said the hopeful CEO.
Durwood took a deep breath, feeling what everyone else in the nation seemed to be
feeling. Fear, uncertainty, and a need to stay put. But in his mind he was quickly seeking
God to see what he should do. Could he do the unthinkable? Go be a comedian 48 hours
after 9/11? In his mind he heard this, “Durwood, he’s got more faith in you than you do
in yourself right now!” Getting back on the phone, knowing it might take several hours,
he agreed to drive to Florida and speak to this group.
“The CEO introduced me as Dr. Payne, and the audience looked painfully in dread. I
knew I had to bring them back into the room, they were all mentally home holding their
children. What does one say after such a tradegy?”
“Something amazing happened that night, I can’t even explain it. It was God.” Durwood
seemed drained just thinking about all the emotions raging in that one room. “This was
Goliath! I started this overt doubletalk, it was cartoonish. But then I could see it. A
chuckle here, and laugh there. Suddenly napkins were being used across the room to wipe
7
the tears. I know what happened. We laughed until we cried. Everyone needed to cry, so
behind laughter tears were shed. Not able to explain it, lives were changed that night, and
it was God. He showed up and everyone there knew it,” Fincher recalled emotionally.
“And like I can’t do very often, I said a very loud ‘Thank You God’ at the end of my talk,
and a standing ovation rocked the house. Then we all turned around to find rows of ice
cream with every kind of topping you could think of. We all ate with no guilt and enjoyed
every bit. We all knew we had to face reality, but for now, we needed that moment.”
“What makes me really crazy is that some people don’t get that! Some people never
experience God, how can that be?” He seemed genuinely concerned about those who
don’t know God.
“I’m a blessed man, and I know it. I know what I am supposed to be doing, I’m having
fun and I’ve made some money so that I could help others. I can’t image people who
walk around with out that.” Durwood said.
When asked what he might suggest to anyone who wants that same sense of purpose, he
was eloquent. “Everybody is somebody else’s hope.”
“You may think I was Enoch’s hope, but in reality he is mine. I saw him at Thanksgiving
and gave him a $100 bill. He was so happy that even his rusty body skipped. Later I
asked him if he got a room or bought a steak, and he said something amazing.”
8
“Mr. D., I was able to share some of that money with those less fortunate, thanks to you
that money helped others have a good thanksgiving,” Enoch said.
“Those less fortunate?” Durwood said loudly as he recalled those piercing words. “Did
you hear that? This man is living on the street with a body that is hard to move! I told him
that day that he was where we all needed to be, inside our hearts.”
Learning from friends like Enoch, Fincher knows optimism is a key ingredient to the
success of anyone’s career. Just turning an attitude around can make all the difference in
the world, as it has done for Enoch. “I’ll sum it all up with one last thought: Optimism is
the faith that leads to achievement, cause nothing ever gets done without hope and
confidence. Want to know who said that? Helen Keller. Deaf, dumb, and blind, and an
optimist who made history.
9
Corporate America has offered a lot of press lately. Bad news for Enron or Delta can
mean good opportunities for competitors. The daily grind in any typical office can change
10
on a dime when a deal is made or lost. Regardless of your typical day, this huge machine
of economics affects us all.
For most, that daily schedule becomes a routine that can last decades.
Those will skill in any arena stand out, but from time to time, a master emerges.
Durwood Fincher has mastered his craft as a speaker, but has received standing ovations
from across the country with a client list that