By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Feb 7, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Warning: Deep reflective personal questions can sometimes lead to an existential crisis–that moment you begin questioning the point and meaning of life and wonder if either exist for you or the world we live in.
It happened to me today.
I asked myself a ponderous question that everyone–eventually–probably wonders about themselves:
“If I were an iPhone app, what category would I be listed under? (See list below)
• Books
• Business
• Catalogs
• Education
• Entertainment
• Finance
• Food & Drink
• Games
• Health & Fitness
• Lifestyle
• Medical
• Music
• Navigation
• News
• Photo & Video
• Productivity
• Reference
• Social Networking
• Sports
• Travel
• Utilities
• Weather
And that’s when the existential crisis set in. There’s like over 20 iPhone categories!
And yet…..and yet…not one of them fit me.
I felt like the hole in the donut. The odd man out. The outlier. The runt. The defective toy. The ….well, you get the idea.
Does life have meaning? Is there a point to life? Even if you can’t easily imagine yourself fitting neatly into any one “life” category if you were an iPhone app?
By Michael Steele, on Wed Feb 6, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET
From MSNBC:
“We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that failure to do so would betray our children and future generations,” President Obama said in his inaugural address Monday. The address devoted more sentences to the environment more than any other specific subject. “Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms.”
In that, former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele said the president indicated that climate change would be a crucial part of his second term legacy.
“When I heard that line, what struck me is this is the Obamacare of the second administration” Steele said. “Climate change is going to be the sleeping dog issue that he is going to fashion and put into play, maybe a total package or piecemeal, but I think that’s going to be part of the second term legacy.”
Many assume that social issues would take a central stage in the second term, as Obama came out in favor of gay equality, against guns, and in favor of sweeping immigration reform. While those may also play a role in second-term agenda, Steele believes it’ll be climate change that has the greatest effect.
“It’s not going to be so much the social stuff that a lot of people, certainly in the conservative movement concern themselves with, it’s going to be the bigger idea that falls into that broader vision,” Steele said. “He reformed 1/6 of the nation’s economy with healthcare. Now he’s going to go to the next level with global change in the environment.”
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Feb 6, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
“Live Fast. Die Young. Don’t take helpful parking advice.”
(Rebel without a cause….Just rebelling for rebellion’s sake.)
Ah, c’mon. Sure you do. Most of us have a deep down core spark of defiance in us that makes no sense. It’s part of what makes us cherish independence as Americans. We are a nation of immigrants whose ancestors were willing to sail across oceans to to come to America to be free and we take our freedoms seriously.
We are a nation of independent minded risk takers and entrepreneurs who want to be allowed to do our own thing and subscribe to Ben Franklin’s motto, “Don’t tread on me.”
But sometimes can take them too seriously—and even turn into a silly defiance that is taken to an absurd and pointless extreme. And that is not a helpful or enviable trait to have.
What does that look like? I’m afraid I may have inadvertently found out myself yesterday while joking with a friend. Because joking, you know, isn’t always 100% joking. It’s usually at least 10% true, which is what makes the absurd distortion funny. There is a grain of truth to it.
And sometimes it’s 15% true. Or even 50%.
Yesterday I was running late to meet a friend who was working with a new firm and he wanted me to meet with the firm and see if there were any opportunities to work together on something in the future.
To help me not waste more time since I was having trouble finding the location, I got a call when I was two minutes away helpfully explaining to me to “Park in the back. We are in the back so don’t park in the front.”
I arrived and, as you can imagine where this is going, I was seized with the same urge in me that causes me to “walk on the grass” and “touch wet paint” when I see signs telling me not to. Part curiosity, I tell myself, but certainly part rebel. And so I parked in the front. I tried going in several doors but none—surprise, surprise!—led to my friend’s firm. I called him and asked again for directions to the office explaining in golf language, “I’m on the green but don’t want to four putt.”
I walked all the way around the building, found the office and had a nice meeting. When I left my friend walked me to my car….And I kept walking and walked through the grass and mud as we had to walk around the hill on the side of the building to get back to my car which I parked in the “front” instead of the back as I was helpfully advised.
My friend started laughing and asked, “Did you really still park in the front? Even after I told you it was a pain to walk up here to the backside of the building?” It was a rhetorical question but I took the bait and thought I would have some fun trying to explain my inexplicable decision.
I went on a faux rant saying, “Look man, yeah, you told me where to park. But I’m 49 years old. Don’t you think I know how to park at my age? What are trying to say to me by talking to me that way? Do you think I’m an idiot or something? And, yeah, I interpreted the advice as you trying to control me. I don’t like being held down like that and controlled. I was sending a message by parking in the front against your advice. C’mon man, I’m not your monkey. I don’t roll that way. I park on my terms where I want to park for my own reasons and you need to get OK with that. Don’t be cramping my style by trying to micromanage everything about my life, like where I park.”
We were both laughing at the absurd childish rant I was pretending to have…and said goodbye. And as I drove off, I realized that about 50% of what I said (as a joke)—deep, deep down in my murky inchoate psyche—was had a trace (or more than a trace) of truth to it. Wow! And completely ridiculous. But there it is. And something I need to consciously battle against in areas of my life that are more consequential than deciding where to park.
So, my commitment to myself. Next time someone offers me helpful parking instructions, I am going to take them up on it. Maybe not ever detail but as a general matter if I am told to park in the back, I will at least park in the back or on the side of the road and not in the front. And tell myself that it doesn’t make me a “sell out….to ‘the man'” if I do that.
It will just make me 5 minutes earlier and keep me from getting mud on my shoes.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Feb 5, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Why it is important to pay attention to detail –and spelling. And album covers.
Because the song doesn’t remain the same. Or even similar.
I was 17 and on a date with my high school buddy Maronda Buchta (now McKinney) and we were going to a rock concert –Rush.
We met early and had lots of time to kill and had listened to the latest Rush album enough times we already knew more about Tom Sawyer than we’d ever imagined.
So I suggested we swing by a record store off Shelbyville road and pick up the album by “That Neil guy” and added “You know. Who sings Cinnamon Girl. From the movie Rust Never Sleeps.”
Maronda was easy going and agreed. So I walked into the record store and asked for the two best cassettes they could recommend by the big rock star “Neil ….Neil something…”
The sales clerk and manager scurried to the back and grabbed two cassette tapes which didn’t seem quiet right when I glanced at them. but I didn’t want to debate and just said I’ll take them both and spent my last few dollars and was out the door.
We pulled out of the parking lot and headed to Freedom Hall. I had already furiously opened the cassettes outside the store and threw away the box and receipt.
And as we began cruising downtown I asked Maronda to put in the “Neil guy …the, uh, ummm, Neil. What did the sales clerk say his last name was? Oh yeah. Neil Diamond!”
Maronda looked deeply wounded and concerned for me. And speaking in what seemed like painfully slow motion, she explained”Neil Diamond doesn’t sing Cinnamon Girl.” And then started laughing hysterically at me, which people were wont to do then (and now).
Neil D had looked hip enough on the album cover to sing a few Neil Young songs —but Neil never sought that role and was never comfortable in it.
And after scouring both cassettes unsuccessfully for the the song Cinnamon Girl, I gave up and slipped in the cassette .
Has anyone ever chosen to listen to Song Sung Blue to pump yourself up before a concert? I have and it didn’t work well. I like Neil Diamond just fine but not before Rush concert. After all, Neil Young and Neil Diamond are as different as Cinnamon Girl and Cinnamon Butter.
And to this day, 32 years later, I still check 2 or 3 times when selecting to buy or listen to music by Neil Young.
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Steely Dan versus Nicki Minaj —and my curmudgeonly moment.
My favorite band is Steely Dan. And that makes me lucky. Steely Dan emerged during my generation and creates gorgeous music with clever lyrics that have substance and meaning. But mostly they create extraordinary music that sweeps you away in the magical way that only great music can do.
So who is unlucky with music? At the risk of sounding old and crusty, I think today’s younger generation are being shortchanged. Too much of the music is mere shock and gimmickry. It reminds me of a stand-up comedian who has material that isn’t funny and elicits laughs by using over-the-top crude language. The weaker the material, the cruder the language becomes–until you eventually have merely a string of expletives that are barely held together by the semblance of a humorous story.
An unfortunate amount of the most popular music today seems to be similarly crafted. Instead of going for the cheap laugh, they go for the cheap lyric (that’s really not even a lyric at all). It’s musical but not really music. It’s edgy but too often empty—void of meaning. It’s catchy but not clever. It’s crude rather than creative. Today’s music doesn’t flow smoothly and transport us to a better place but rather stuns us with sounds that seem more like bullets that never hit their target yet were fired in anger.
I know I am vastly over-generalizing. But that’s something older people get to do. Young people have hip lingo. Older people get to rif generally without being a slave to the detail expected of younger writers and thinkers. No doubt about it, there is great music being created by the younger generation. But there’s too much what I’ll call Nicki Minaj “Did it on ’em” tirades that I dare call music.
Steely Dan and the music of my earlier generation is created by bands who love music and were drawn to music for what it could do to make life not only more bearable but more enjoyable. Today’s bands often seem like an unrepentant “Id”, as Freud called it, creating techno sounds reflecting uncoordinated instincts shouted in frustration—music that aims more at venting than creating. Its highest form of meaning may well be cathartic—leaving behind lyrics it’s hard to imagine will be appreciated 20 years from now.
Which brings me back to my point about sounding old and crusty. But remember, music teaches us that things aren’t always what they sound like. Maybe I’m not old and crusty then– but a little saddened that today’s musicians don’t ask more of themselves. And disappointed to see the magic that music can be to each generation diminished just a little and it’s raw and natural power ignored in favor of something different and, I contend, cheaper.
One of the many Steely Dan songs I never tire of is FM. A song about the shift from AM radio in the 1970s with the refrain “No static at all”, which symbolized the move to FM. And yet much of the music offered up today seems to celebrate static and, in terms of its persona, seems better suited for AM. Another is Caves of Altimira. I heard the song for the first time while in college and was drawn in by its irresistibly compelling sound. And after a while came to appreciate the lyrics and learned what they meant.
It was through a Steely Dan song that I learned about the famous cave in Spain with vivid and colorful cave paintings featuring drawings and paintings of wild mammals and Paleolithic humans. All set to a mellifluous saxophone solo that allowed me to escape into my curiosity and connected me with my past.
When’s the last time you can say something like that about a recent pop song?
New GDP numbers were released last week. For the first time since the depths of the financial crisis in 2009, the economy actually shrank. And things were just starting to look pretty solid! What the heck happened? You know, I actually think the Gipper may have an answer here.
Yeah. Pretty much. Look deeper at the GDP numbers and it becomes clear that government really is the problem here. Consumer spending was up. Business spending on equipment was way up and housing investment was also way up. Sooo…. What gives?
Defense spending in particular was dramatically pared back in the last months of 2012. Businesses also depleted their inventories but that’s no big deal since consumer spending was up and they’ll have to restock at some point. The real story here is cuts in federal spending. This is what austerity looks like, my friends. At a time when our recovery is still on shaky legs, cuts in federal spending could easily send us right back into a recessionary tailspin. In fact, if federal spending had just remained even, we would have had over 1% growth. Not amazing but positive territory.
But you might say, this is probably a one-time deal right? After all, we had the whole fiscal cliff situation and they were probably preparing for the sequester cuts that were supposed to take effect in January.
That’s all true but it’s also not the whole story. Take a look at this chart. Since the beginning of 2009, the private sector has been in positive territory, consistently contributing to economic growth. Meanwhile the private sector has mostly been a drag with this final quarter being one of the most dramatic examples.
What’s more, we’ve just ended the payroll tax cut so middle-class folks will have less money in their pockets and may very well start spending less. We’ve also still got large sequester cuts on the horizon that could drive public spending down even further, and Republicans still seem to think it might be fun to use a government shutdown or debt ceiling crisis to force further cuts. You guys sure know how to show a girl a good time.
Look, there’s no question that over the long term, we’ve got to balance budgets and pay down our debts. But short term deficit hawkishness is hurting us badly. Our problem is not relief for storm victims or Federal money for family planning services, it’s a tax base that is too low to support rising health care costs and an aging population over the long term. Let’s deal with those problems over the long term. But for now, Congress, how about we just try to avoid shooting ourselves in the foot. I know blaming government for a lack of spending is not the type of blaming government that the GOP enjoys, but in lean times it’s the only type of blaming government we can afford. You know, what would really be great is some stimulus but I understand that’s probably too much to ask. For now, let’s just keep the government from reversing the private sector-led recovery that’s already underway.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Feb 4, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
A kinder, gentler Breaking Bad?
I love this series but it can be over-the-top with fringe plot developments and crazy characters as the mild mannered former high school chemistry teacher, Walter White, becomes a successful meth dealer.
I was wondered the other night what it might look like if Breaking Bad had been written with a more mainstream and gentler, kinder theme. Maybe call it, “Veering incautiously” instead of the rogue sounding “Breaking Bad.” And instead of making Walter White an ever-hardening meth dealer, write a more mainstream method for handling his personal crisis. What if, for example, instead of cooking and selling meth, Walter instead became a celebrated shoe cobbler (selling custom made and hand crafted suede shoes that become very popular in some circles)?
Sure the series may have a different feel and tone, but would it also be more plausible? Would it widen potential audience appeal since more people can identify with shoe-makers than meth dealers?
Here’s a video clip giving us a peek of what this series might have looked like as Walter sells a pair of blue suede shoes to internationally known shoe fashion designer Tuco Salamanaca. (Just imagine shoes and not methamphetamine is being transacted in this scene.) Tuco is renown for his exacting taste and relentless drive for perfection in his shoe line. Despite being skeptical about Walter at first—and being obviously flustered that the shoes he tries on are too “tight” —Tuco is still won over by Walter’s attention to detail and skilled craftsmanship. In fact, so much so, Tuco buys them on the spot (even though they are an unusual “blue” shade) and suggests future purchases for his shoe line in pink and yellow.
But there is still the critical question, Would the series work as well with Walter as shoe cobbler —or is something lost.
Warning: Foul language even though we are pretending they are talking about shoe design.
But remember, the high end shoe market is a brutally competitive business. So this scene may not be too far off the mark. ; )
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Feb 4, 2013 at 9:15 AM ET
From wardrobe malfunctions to Beyonce’s half-time show with more highlights than the first or second half, some are claiming the NFL is starting to use too much sex to sell football.
Starting?
Hmmm. I am old enough to recall this little Super Bowl commercial from the early 1970s.
It didn’t warp me or cause me to buy Noxema. Or to become a bigger Joe Namath fan.
It did to me becoming a Charlie’s Angels fan a few years later at age 13.
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I have a confession to make.
You know how some people say that for many women going to the Kentucky Derby is all about the hats?
Well….I have a similar dirty little secret.
I watch the Super Bowl mostly for the commercials.
Then the football.
And then the hats.
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My personal Super Bowl story.
It wasn’t way back when. Actually, it was year ago last January. The NFL had helped successfully pass anti-concussion legislation in over 30 states (mostly states with NFL teams) and now was going to the remaining states hoping to make a clean sweep on this important health issue for our student-athletes. Kentucky was selected because the timing seemed ripe.
Read the rest of… John Y. Brown, III: Super Bowl Wrap Up
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Feb 1, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
“You look just like…”
I have never liked hearing this sentence and I suspect most people don’t. It means someone else out there in the universe is basically a carbon copy of you and, hence, one of your is unnecessary. Or at least you aren’t as special or unique, a feeling we all like to have.
I had someone tell me yesterday, “I can’t remember the person’s name….Oh, the name doesn’t even matter. But you (speaking to me) look so much like this guy…..(Pause)
Actually, it’s a silhouette of a generic male. I know that sounds nondescript and dull. And may even sound like an insult but I don’t mean it that way. It’s just whenever I see you, I think of that black silhouette image of a generic person. There’s just something about you that reminds me of this image….It’s so odd. And really uncanny”
OK. That really didn’t happen to me.
And I hope it never does.
I can deal with being told I look like a real person. But when I am ….it sometimes feels as uninspiring little like this imaginary interaction.
Q: I’m a veteran lobbyist in a midsize state. I have a client I’ve represented for six years. Decent client, pays fine, nothing to write home about. Now a large firm that is typically on the other side of things wants to hire me away—for twice the money. What should I do?
—Initials and Location Withheld
Good question. Depends on your financial circumstances and the value you place on your professional reputation, loyalty and your principles—assuming you have them. Let’s go one at a time:
1) Do you need the money badly? Is your practice struggling? Do you have a family to support? Start at 0 and add 1 point for each “yes.”
2) How important to you is the respect of your peers?
“Very” = subtract 2
“Somewhat” = subtract 1
“Not very important” = 0
3) Do you think loyalty is an extremely important trait, a somewhat important trait or a not very important trait in a lobbyist?
“Very” = subtract 2
“Somewhat” = subtract 1
“Not very important” = 0
4) Do you think it’s very important, somewhat important or unimportant to agree with your clients’ view?
“Very” = subtract 2
“Somewhat” = subtract 1
“Unimportant” = Do Not Pass Go: Proceed directly to “Free Parking” in the office of your new client.
Tally your points. If you have a positive number, take the new client and drop the old one. If you have a negative number, stand pat. If you’re at 0, flip a coin.
While we’re on the subject, a Missouri lobbyist named Brian Grace just issued a challenge to his corridor colleagues: Take on one nonprofit group pro bono as a client. Should you decide to switch teams, I recommend that as a way to ease your conscience.
Q: Okay, I know you usually do questions from politicians, but how about politicians’ spouses? Here’s my question: My husband just got elected to the state Legislature. I’ve heard it’s a cesspool up there. And I’ve already caught him checking out one of his interns as she was walking away from him. Let me be honest: I love him, but he’s not a great-looking guy and so I probably shouldn’t worry. Or should I?
—E.B., Location Withheld
Yes, you should worry. He’s got three strikes against him already: 1) He’s got enough of an ego to seek office, which suggests that he probably enjoys attention; 2) You caught him ogling his intern; and 3) He’s not very good-looking. You’ve misinterpreted No. 3. You think that because of his homeliness, he won’t be able to attract women up there? I can promise you, it won’t matter. Handsome pols/athletes/movie stars are probably less likely to cheat—they’ve had a lifetime of opportunities for romance. For those who are less attractive, the initial brush with fame may be their first chance for significant romantic opportunities, and thus more difficult to resist.
Kissinger noted that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. He was referring to the presidency, not the power of a minority party freshman rep in the Wyoming Legislature. But to a 20-year-old sophomore at Casper College, that could be a distinction without a difference. Remember, when you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Whoops, sorry, bad pun.
Read the rest of… Jeff Smith: Do As I Say — A Political Advice Column
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