Net Cotton Content / On Life and Marketing, Creativity and Ethics

"Stay loose and play tight."

Here's a beautiful message, reprinted with permission, I received this morning from Parker MacDonell.

A weekend recording artist and entertainer, weeknight music publisher, and the official banker for Our Town, Parker is a member of the Old Bohemians, the presenting sponsor of this evening's opening night performance of Our Town.

Parker is a role model for both business and artistic sides of life. Read his words, please, because they apply to you, too, if you are exploring the outer reaches of your ability:

Artie - tomorrow is your debut (at least in this century) as Stage Manager in Our Town. Tonight you are going to have dress rehearsal, then you will go home and practice your lines one more time with Alisa. Then you will try to go to sleep, and my wish for you is that sleep comes easily so that you are as alive and aware as possible tomorrow. We are very much looking forward to being there with you tomorrow night.

"Stay loose and play tight" is now my standard exhortation to myself and those with whom I am about to go on stage. I heard it for the first time in 1978. I was playing in a band called Sonora (that name alone should help you get to sleep tonight) in Los Angeles. One of the guys in the band, Dave Sheils, had an older brother who was an agent with the William Morris Agency. Big stuff, that agency. So Dave was always bugging his brother Peter to help our band.

One day Peter calls me — I was the business manager of said band as well as the bass player — and said, "I got you guys a gig. Any time that Chuck Berry or Bo Diddley play in California, you guys will be on stage as their back up band." Wow! All we had to do was join the union. No problem.

But get to rehearse with these 50's rock stairs before the show? We did not. Instead, we were told to learn every song from Chuck Berry's "Golden Hits" album, which we dutifully did, and be prepared to think quickly on stage.

Our first gig with Sir Chuck was at Knott's Berry Farm, a poor man's Disney Land in Orange County, CA. The show was scheduled for 8 p.m., so we were there and set up far in advance.  Maybe we thought we'd get a little rehearsal at the sound check. No such luck. Instead, as the crowd was starting to chant "Chuck, Chuck, Chuck" at 7:55 with the curtain still down, we looked around and said, "Where is he?" At exactly 7:58, the back door to the stage opened, and there he was, guitar in hand, all alone.

He walked over to his amp, plugged in his guitar, turned all the knobs up to 10 — I swear this was before Spinal Tap — and played an out-of-tune E chord. The crowd stirred, sensing that the Great One was in the building. He walked up to the mic, turned it 180 degrees so that he was facing us with his back to the stage curtain, and said, "Have I ever played with you guys before?" 

"No sir, Mr. Berry, sir, we have never played with you."   

"Okay, I want you to watch my right foot. When I put that foot down, you start to play. When I lift it up, you stop playing.  Down is start, up is stop. You got that? Okay, I want you guys to stay loose and play tight."

With that he launched into "Johnny B. Goode" as the curtain went up and the crowd went crazy. There was only one problem. On his record, he played the song in B flat. (One of the little secrets to his unusual sound was that he played in the flat keys instead of the usual guitar keys of E, A, G and D.) But because he was at least 50 years old at the time of this story, he had decided to play this song in a lower key to make it easier to sing. So while he was playing in A flat, we were in B flat or some other key unrelated to A flat. It sounded a little like that piece that Charles Ives composed for two marching bands who were to march past each other playing the same tune in two keys that were as far apart as two keys could be (a flatted fifth from each other). What worked as 20th century atonal music for Charles Ives did not work so well for the song that NASA chose to put on the Voyager spacecraft as a representation of earthly rock 'n roll for any extraterrestrials who might find the Voyager.

Finally, our piano player Jim King yelled out the correct key and we got into the groove with Chuck. He played this song and two others with his back to the audience to tumultuous applause. Then he turned his mic stand around and said to the audience, "Thank you. With your permission, we will now begin our performance."

You will be great. You, unlike my friends in Sonora and Chuck Berry have rehearsed your work with each other. So, my friend, my wish for you tomorrow and the rest of this week is that you stay loose and play tight.

Peace,

Parker

Thank you, Parker, my friend.

Let's dance our way into dress rehearsal. Here's Sir Chuck and some crazy kids with all the latest moves...

Do You Know Music?

Remember Bird? Bird of the Phoenix Movement is the Yale classmate who re-befriended me after 25 years at our class reunion last year.

Now, from Bird's nest in Australia comes 8 Ball Aitken. I met him last year when they were on a tour of the eastern United States.

He's a dear boy. Really. And a damn fine guitarist. And a smooth singer.

You be the judge
Let me know if you think 8 Ball is the real deal.

Here's his latest:

Watch your mind.

I see that Bexley native Daniel Pink is speaking at the Columbus School for Girls. Admission is free.

I've assigned his book, A Whole New Mind, to the MBA students in my creativity class at Ohio State. The book is a great read on creativity, describing what we understand about how our minds work. And I hear he's a great speaker.

Let's go. Bring your mind.

Here are the details from the local suburban newspaper and from CSG.

Think And You'll Get Work

The venerable ad agency, J. Walter Thompson once (or more) published a full-page advertisement entitled, "Write and you'll get work."

It featured a dozen or so very thought provoking – and daunting – questions for any aspiring copywriter. A talented writer could take months to answer them.

I wish I could find a copy of that ad. (I'm not looking to land a copywriter job at J. Walter. It was simply inspiring.)

Perhaps you've seen the interview questions at Microsoft? These might be for real, or not. Either way, they are good for the head.

For exercise, puzzle over one a day.

Which Lie Would You Prefer?

Let's say you grew up modestly. Comfortably, but modestly.

You were in a safe neighborhood. You had friends. You enjoyed food, schooling, and health care. There was some extraordinary travel.

But your parents weren't keen on shopping as a form of entertainment. From time to time they would say, "We really can't afford that."

When your friends' parents were Big Spenders, your parents said something humble like, "They must be richer than we are." Or, if your parents wanted to be snide, they'd say, "They must give more to charity than we do."

So time passes and suddenly you're 30.
And you find out that – all along – your parents had lied about your family economic situation.

Which lie would you rather discover?

1. Your parents had no resources. They ran up big debts to pay for everything. They did this for you. You don't have to pay off those loans, but you might pause to feel guilty, because you were an ungrateful, spoiled snot-nose when you were little.

2. Your parents were actually billionaires. They never spent much because they feared you might suffer a lifelong case of affluenza. They did this for you. They didn't want a lot of stuff for themselves, either, so they just put the money aside and lived like normal, lucky (but not that lucky) people.

I asked my daughter this today and we had a good laugh. Then she asked, "So, are we billionaires?"

I'll never tell.

Weirdos Writing

There's something weird about writers. Mainly it's this: they write.

I mean, why write when there are so many things happening? Late breaking news right now!

With so much happening on television — the election is in TEN months! — how can writers find the time to write?

All their writing, we know what that is. It's a cry for help.

So let's help the writers. We should start by reading what they are writing. That way, we'll better understand the heartache and misspent ambition that leads them to write when they could be watching television. 

Don't touch that dial.

Don't change that channel.

Don't change!

But, First, A Message From Within
Remember when weirdos congregated in Kinko's in the middle of the night, publishing their manifestos?

Well, right now, these same loons are publishing their manifestos in the discomfort of their own homes. They're blogging (egad) and self-publishing.

Speaking of self-publishers, none of us has a good reason for not writing a book.

In an AP article carried in the February 5th Columbus Dispatch, writer Candace Choi describes how "new writers [are] reaching readers without using publishing houses." A sidebar (missing from the online version) offers these resources:

A price comparison

Three online self-publishing services and their costs:

• CreateSpace, a subsidiary of Amazon.com: $3.15 a book plus 2 cents for each black-and-white page and 12 cents for each color page. Publisher's commission: 20 percent of the list price on CreateSpace (30 percent on Amazon.com)
• Lulu.com: $4.53 a book (in paperback) plus 2 cents for each black-and-white page and 15 cents for each color page. Publisher's commission: 20 percent
• Blurb.com: $12.95 (20 to 40 pages in paperback) and $22.95 (20 to 40 pages in hardcover) a book, with pricing in 40-page increments (to a maximum of 440 pages). Publisher's commission: none

When are you starting your book? When are you finishing it?

Time To Write Your Book

Each of us has a book inside. Where's yours?

I believe that it's a good idea to start as a writer of children's literature. After all, all of us have been child readers (or reading children). And, to be sure, there is no more worthy audience.

How to start?
Here's a message I just received from Newbery Award Winner Jerry Spinelli via the Highlights Foundation, where I spent a week last summer:

Write your book. Underline your. (Not someone else's). That's one of those things that sounds so obvious that it's not even worth saying, but in fact it is.

Writing your book simply has to do with tapping into whatever we have. We all grow up, and all we're doing is simply making use of something that is as common as gravity—memories. When we grow up, our past is not irretrievably lost to us, like the juice squeezed from an orange. The past stays with us. Tap into it for your writing.

If I were training you to be writers, I would say pick your best experiences and write at least a hundred pages, covering your life up to age fifteen or so. You'll be giving yourself a lifetime's worth of material to draw on, like ore in the ground. It's just a matter of extracting it, refining it, and purifying it until you're laying out pure wrought iron.

This tip comes from a workshop given by Jerry at the Highlights Foundation Writers Workshop at Chautauqua. If you'd like to learn from Jerry in person, join them for the 2008 workshop. Find out more here.

About Jerry Spinelli
With titles like Do the Funky Pickle, There's A Girl in My Hammerlock, and Who Put That Hair in My Toothbrush?, Jerry Spinelli has won the hearts of many young readers. His 1991 release Maniac Magee won the Newbery Medal, and his eighteenth book, Wringer, received a Newbery Honor. Jerry's latest, Milkweed (Knopf), has been called "stunning" by Kirkus Reviews.

Where You Stand Depends On How You Sit

Don't get up. (That's an old joke.)

How much of your life do you spend seated? Are you comfortable? Maybe it's time to change your perch.

In the 1980s, I gave up on the traditional chair at my desk. Since then, I've sat in desk chairs from time to time, but I've taken long vacations with odd thangs.

On My Knees
My first visit to another chair planet, was with the kneeling chair.

As the sketch shows, some of the body's weight is transferred from the bum to the knees. Is this good for me? The fellow who talked me into it (an editor at a famous design magazine) said this over a pizza dinner: "See what happens when I fold this piece of pizza in half? [cheese starts falling off] The cheese starts falling off? That cheese is the stuff that is trying to stay in place on your bones. You don't want that to happen. Look what happens when I fold this pizza into a z-shape. Aha! The cheese stays in place. That's good."

So SAT friends: bones are to pizza crust, what the rest of us is to cheese.

The pizza was good and the chair was comfortable. But not really. Oh, I don't really know.

No Chair At All
During the 1990s, I decided that having an office was isolating me from people with whom I've chosen to work. It was lonely in my own little box. So I moved into the hall. Rather than a desk, I stood next to some shelves. I stood there for about two years. It was pretty comfortable. I eventually got a bar stool, though. And then we moved and the space planners put me behind a traditional desk.

Today, I'm On The Ball
Ashley Routson — the Youngster who is founding YIQ (our Knowledge Planning Department) — has been sitting at her desk on an exercise ball. She's smart and studied criminology in college, so I believe her when she says, "It's good for the core."

I think the core is the mozzarella on the pizza, but I'm not sure.

Now I'm sitting on my own ball. This gives Monica, who sits beside me and tells me what to do all day, delight. She can sing out, "Artie's on the ball!"

Walking At Work
What I'd really like to do is walk all day.

I saw an article in the Times a couple years ago about a doctor-professor at the Mayo Clinic who walks — ambles really at 0.7 miles per hour — all day. He put a board across the rails of his treadmill and placed his computer on the board. By the end of the day, he's logged several miles. And, as anyone with backaches should know: walking is better than standing, standing is better than sitting.

As Two Wheeling's Doug Morgan says, "They key to fitness isn't exercise; it's activity." He won't send you to the gym. He'll replace your car with a bicycle.

Here's what life might be if we replaced desks with treadmills, meeting rooms with walking tracks, and fancy footwear with sensible shoes.

I'm all for it.

What are you sitting on?

Living Life As If...

Here's a great creativity exercise. Live life for one day — or for an entire week — as if.

As if what?

Right.

You first need to figure out as if what. You get to choose.

Here are some suggestions used by my creativity students and me over the years (and a couple suggestions I just made up):

• Live life as if your dominant arm is broken. Use a sling if you want.
• Live life as if you have lost your voice. Smile when others tease you.
• Live life as if your PDA is broken. Enjoy the lack of distraction.
• Live life as if you don't own a television. Turn off TV. Turn on life.
• Live life as if you are seeing everyone (even your most constant companions) for the first time. You won't continue to overlook beauty.
• Live life as if breaking any law will earn you the death penalty. First jaywalking and speeding. Then add laws of etiquette and religion. Then add laws of other nations and religions. Quit when this makes you too nervous.
• Live life as if you can't hear anyone's voice without direct eye contact. You might hear more.

And here is a weird environmental option:

• Live life as if you must carry throughout the day all the trash you create. (Please, don't carry your "day stream" or "night soil.") We often think that our trash problems are resolved when our trashcans are emptied. For the earth and our landfills, that's when the problem is just starting. (Want to reduce what you have to carry? Reconsider this.)

The goal isn't necessarily to live as if forever. Rather, living life as if is just a way of not taking everything for granted. A way of seeing everything in a new way.

How will you live life for a day? As if what?

Dead Creatives

I've long thought about teaching a course in creativity in which the only readings are obituaries. That's because creativity can make life worth living, but it can't keep you alive. Not forever.

For example, here are two obituaries that appeared adjacently in this Tuesday's New York Times.

• The first is for P.K. Sethi who co-invented the Jaipur foot, a prosthetic limb that costs about $30. Left unpatented, the Jaipur foot provides the ability to walk — even dance (as Sudha Chandra does in Bollywood's Nache Mayuri) — to people in 25 countries,  many of whom lost their feet in the explosion of land mines. What a fabulously creative gift to the world.

If you read "P.K. Sethi, 80; Invented Low-Tech Limb," you'll see an interesting creative journey. He didn't plan to be an orthopedic surgeon. He was asked to do it in a hurry by a hospital administrator. That strange twist led to this invention. Are you open to strange twists?

• The second is for "Shmuel Berenbaum, 87, Talmudic Scholar." Rabbi Berenbaum saved his educational tradition — "a world that was otherwise lost" — by fleeing the Second World War in Europe — to Shanghai. Daring!

Creative? He taught the first five books of the Bible for 50 years "and never repeated himself."

I bet they never met, but they are buried together in The New York Times with our admiration. May their teaching, inventions and very lives be an everlasting blessing for those of us who survive them.

What can we learn from these two creative souls?