I will explain what it is I can actually do. If you just say you can talk backwards, it probably won't register with a nonbackwards talker (i.e., the rest of you) exactly what it is that I can do. So I will start by explaining.

A) If I am given a sentence, I can say it backwards, from the last word to the first word, each word backwards. I say each word how it is pronounced, not spelled. The reason for that is so when it is reversed, it will sound like it is being said forwards, with somewhat of a strange inflection, which is the best that the human mind can do.

B) I can also write the sentence backwards, like this:

:siht ekil, sdrawkcab ecnetnes eht etirw osla nac I.
 

C) I can also add the sentence, quickly, with each letter in the sentence equal to its numerical counterpart in the alphabet, i.e., a=1, b=2, c=3, d=4.....all the way to z=26. Here is an easy example; the sentence "I can talk BACKWARDS."

I can very quickly, in my head, exchange each letter in that sentence to its numerical counterpart in the alphabet. I=9, c=3, a=1, n=14, t=20, a=1, l=11, k=12, B=2, A=1, C=3, K=12, W=23, A=1, R=18, D=4, and S=19. So the sentence, "I can talk BACKWARDS"  would total, when each letter is exchanged to its numerical counterpart in the alphabet, 153.
 
Backwards Bob As A Kid

Like I said, I have been doing this since I was four or five. Technology as we know it didn't exist in the 50's and 60's to talk backwards and then reverse what you said. Now there are computers with software that can do it in ways that are unbelievable. There are small cassette recorders that are built specifically for reversal, and of course the archaic (almost) reel to reel machines that can be hooked up to reverse what is said.

When I was young and lived in New York City, I had a large family. Whenever we got together I would always ask, "Give me a problem," or "Give me a word to say backwards." They did, they all laughed, I started writing a word at a time, they laughed some more. As I got older I did sentences and bigger math problems of all types in my head, but again, without the technology available today, and a family not desirous to get me on television, I did it for family, as a joke, never realizing it could be or would eventually be for anything else.

Twenty-Six Years Old

Until I was 26, I never doubted that I could actually talk backwards, but I never checked it out either. I knew I could do it, but never tested it. Then in 1976 I was given the opportunity to hear myself in reverse. For the first time I wondered......... What if I can't do this and I've been kidding myself?  All these years it never occurred to me it wouldn't work....  

When I Found Out I Could Talk Backwards

One day, out of nowhere, my friend Bill said that some guy, I think he said some President, could write two separate sentences simultaneously with each hand. I said I could do something strange. I told him about my backwards and math abilities. For some reason he got real excited. He brought me to a music store here where he knew someone, we stood in front of this big massive reel to reel, and they gave me a sentence. My whole life I knew I could talk backwards, never doubted it. Until then. What if it didn't work and I was deluding myself all these years? Now, like a little kid being kicked screaming into the deep water for the first time, this tape recorder is on and I'm given a sentence. "My name is Bob Linkin and I came from New York to California." I am now kicked into the deep end of the water. Would I drown? So I spoke and said; "ainrofilaC ot kroY weN morf emac I dna nikniL boB si eman yM" They took their giant reel to reel, switched it over, and believe it or not, it actually worked. Another sentence, another, another. All worked. A weird inflection. the best the human mind could do. But all clear enough to make out. And all something none of these people ever saw or thought about.

Holy shit! I really could talk backwards!!!
!!!sdrawkcab klat dluoc yllaer I !tihs yloH
 
I CAN TALK BACKWARDS, SO????

That was kind of my feeling after the realization I could do it. I now possessed a gift, or whatever you want to call it, that most people would always remember as soon as they saw me. Starting back then I already was being called Backwards boB by people who found out what I could do.

But the point is, what could I do with this "gift." I was brought up in New York City, where I always heard my family say, about a worthless possession; "That and a token will get you on the subway."

So we drove home from the music store. When we got back, I asked to borrow five dollars for food. Talking backwards and a borrowed five dollar bill will buy you five dollars worth of food!

The next thing you know, I was singing a song, tapping my hands on my knee, adding license plate numbers in my head from cars passing by, saying things backwards in my brain, and sitting on a concrete slab at the self serve car wash.  

SOMETHING DID HAPPEN

My friend Bill called one day a few weeks later to tell me he got me on TV. A local show was interested. I was on TV a few times. I have the tapes. They wrote about me in the newspaper. I was a bit of a local celebrity. But this was local TV not Broadway, not Hollywood, and so it kind of just was what it was. People called me Backwards boB still. It seemed to fit. I had children. I became a dishwasher, a busboy, a waiter, a teacher. In 1986 I got on a live show out here called "TV Lite." I ways asked to be on a national show called "That's Incredible," but decided not to.

Why? By this time I was seriously doing music. I didn't want to be a freak. That was my thinking at the time. Sometimes you don't know what to do or what is going on so you just kind of flip the coin. I had kids. Something told me it wasn't the time. You know, just getting on TV or whatever just to be on TV isn't that great a thing.

I can talk and write backwards.... check out my video and see for yourself

Backwards boB