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...

Knowing what I know now.

Today, I get to give the fifth grade graduation speech at Dana Elementary. That's where I was the Principal for a Day last fall.

Here's the speech. I hope it is worthy.

(If you get to give a speech, feel free to use this one.)

Knowing What I Know Now
A speech for the graduating fifth graders
Dana Elementary, June 4, 2008

Thank you, Mr. K. I really admire you.

Hello, students. Graduating from fifth grade is a big deal.

I am here to congratulate you. You are moving forward. That’s great. Congratulations.

And I am here to congratulate your teachers and your parents. Your kids are growing up and going to school. Going to school is among the most important parts of growing up. Congratulations on helping these kids.

Someday you will be old. Maybe as old as I am. Maybe you will have gray hair and a bow tie.

I don’t wish this for you.

Sometimes people my age look at you and say, “Oh, I wish I were going into the sixth grade again.”

That’s what some old people say. “Oh, I wish I were graduating from the fifth grade.”

I think they mean it, but I think they are wrong.

They mean it because you are so wonderful, so full of pickles. You know what I mean by “full of pickles.” You wake up in the morning and you are determined to do something that is exciting, meaningful and fun. You want to climb that tree, swim in that pool, ride that bike. You are full of pickles. You are full of life.

From an older person’s perspective that looks great.

But, here’s what I think: when an older person wants to be 11 or 12 years old again, that older person is forgetting something.

The older person is forgetting that entering sixth grade is not carefree and happy-go-lucky.

The older person is forgetting that being 11 or 12 is really very difficult.

The older person is forgetting that, long ago, when the older person was 11 or 12, there were challenges. And those challenges were important. They certainly seemed important at the time.

The older person is also thinking, “I wish I were going into the sixth grade again, knowing what I know now.”

That’s an important phrase: “knowing what I know now.”

After all, image yourself going back to second grade and reliving it. Not just watching today’s second graders, but being one of them.

Second grade was good, but you don’t want to relive it. Unless, of course, you could relive it, knowing what you know now.

If you could do that, you would be the world’s best second grader. You would know more about reading and math. You would know better how to please the teacher. You would be on every winning team during recess.

Of course, you would have to explain to everyone every day, why you are about four years older — and four years bigger — than everyone else in the class.

It would be like me showing up for sixth grade.

You would look at me and ask: “What’s with the new kid in the bow tie? And, wait, he’s not a kid.”

Keep your pants on.

I've been thinking a lot about pants.

I just saw a young woman shivering in the grocery store. It's pretty cold in there, presumably because the food must be kept fresh.

But she was shivering and seemed to not understand why. (She wore a face that said, "Why am I so cold inside this store.") I could have told her why: Her pants were falling down.

But I did not tell her why. Because, if I had told her why, I would have been judged:

1. A fashion idiot. Pants are supposed to be falling down. Everyone knows that.
2. A criminal. A jury of my peers would send me to the Big House for such harassment.

Please pull up your pants.
At the risk of encroaching on your right to sag, I invite you to keep your drawers up around your waist.

I know, I know: it's cool to have your pants falling down. But it's also stupid. If you have to keep pulling up your pants, you might pause to wonder, "Is there something more important on which I might concentrate?"

May I introduce you to the belt? It's the greatest invention since the belt loop.

Cool is cool. Cool and stupid is, really, just stupid.

Perhaps, it's all in how you put them on.
Check out this video. Ryan tells me that it was made by a company that does not even work for Levi Strauss.

They just made the video — and now it's been enjoyed nearly 3.5 million times on YouTube.

Wish I'd thought to make this:

What Is Your 90-day Self-Education Budget?

Would you be willing to spend $100,000 for an MBA?

Yet you might hesitate before spending $2,500 to learn how to meditate.

But, wait. What's the value of being able to meditate? For me, meditation has brought me more value than my MBA. (Sure, I learned about cost-benefit analysis, but then I calculated that meditation is more valuable. Go figure.)

You can learn almost anything in 90 days
What's your self-education budget for the next 90 days? How much are you willing to spend to learn new subjects? Or to dig deeper into the topics you already know?

Once you have a budget, what would you study?

Here are three questions that might lead you to the answer:

1. If you went back to college, what degree would you seek?
2. If you had a $100 gift card for a bookstore, what section would you first go to?
3. If you could wave a magic wand, what new knowledge or skills would you grant yourself?
   

A couple years ago, I decided to re-teach myself cursive handwriting. It's made me a better writer -- and a better listener, because I can take better notes.

So what are you going to study during the next 90 days?

Why must you answer this?
No one else is as interested in your continuing education as you are. It's time to be a little selfish about learning.

And, if we're not learning, we're not growing. What's that feel like?

For me, not learning felt like this: one day, I recognized that the newest band I'd heard of was Steely Dan.

Are you reelin' in the years,
Stowin' away the time?
Are you gatherin' up the tears?
Have you had enough of mine?

What do you want to learn?

Here's what I want to learn this summer
In no particular order, here's a hasty list:

1. How to teach teenagers. I've taught seventh grade on Sundays for years. It's what I do best. But I want to learn more about brain and behavioral development during adolescence.
2. How to ride Amtrak across the country. It's time for a second honeymoon. The first one took us to the Grand Canyon. (Is it still there?)
3. How to collaborate in the theatre. How to act. How to memorize. How to rehearse. How to perform. (How to do it without losing money.) Our Town is June 26-28.
4. How to better teach the Ethics of Speech, Creativity, and Storytelling. I'd like to develop each one of these topics into one- and three-day curricula for schools, colleges and businesses.
5. How to read well enough to hear the protagonist's heartbeat. Can that be done?
6. How to fix a flat tire on a bicycle. It's going to happen sooner or later. I don't want to be a sitting duck -- or to continue feeling helpless while on the way to my next flat tire.
7. How to park without scraping the tires against the curb. (I had to buy a new tire yesterday. I wore out the sides before I wore out the bottom. That's dopey.) Let this be my Summer of Tires.
8. How to be a better friend.
9. How to listen better.

What do you want to learn?
Let's remember the admonition to "acquire a teacher."

The "News"

Watching the six o'clock news is a bad idea. Frankly, I think this goes for watching televised news at any time.

Perhaps your career truly requires that you know exactly what is going on all the time. Perhaps you are a commodities trader and need to know the weather in the Outback.

Then, I guess, you must watch the news. (Are you sure you're being paid enough to invest your precious life this way?)

However, if the world will go on without your being constantly glued to the television, here is an argument to consider...

Why You Might Consider
Never Watching The "News" Again
My teacher, Thich Nhat Hhan, over whose books I've already fawned, suggests that televised news is depressing. Surely you would agree that the content is mainly death and destruction -- plus a lot of useless stupidity and bombast.

The wise monk discourages readers from watching such corrosive programming.

What do you think, wise monk? Is watching the so-called "news" truly good for you? Or are you simply wallowing in other's misery, intending to show some respect?

Is Generation X avoiding television news -- in favor of The Daily Show -- because they are ignorant? Or, wait: is it because they are wiser?

If you want to know what is going on, CNN and Fox and the like are the worst way to find out. You see a blur of images without any time to digest. It's information without comprehension.

You want to know what's going on? Read the news. (I read The New York Times, The New Yorker, Haaretz, and The Columbus Dispatch. My smarter friends read The Economist and, as a tonic, The Skeptic.)

My family ejected television
from our home and lives
eight years before 9/11.
On that miserable day, I saw the central images of the terrorism -- airplanes flying into buildings -- with my colleagues at work. But my wife and children did not. (In fact, my wife didn't see the central video image until, years later, we saw Fahrenheit 911.)

On 9/12, at home, we didn't share the ghastly photographs from The New York Times with our children. They were excellent photographs, but is the knowledge gained by viewing them worth the spirit sacrificed?

How many times did the average American see the central image? I'd guess 400 times. Maybe 800. What is the effect on the psychology and soul of watching thousands of real people murdered over and over and over and over and over again?

Why would anyone watch this sadness so many times?

To see it once is to be shocked. To see it a second time is to be appalled, to begin to comprehend the horror. To see it a third time is to pay some respects, to worship.

But to see it 400 times? What is that -- beyond mindless ghoulishness?

I'm A Second-Generation Weirdo
My father felt obliged to watch the news. Yet he would quietly shake his head at each unnecessary report of some local murder.

One time, he explained:

"There are so many angry people in this world. Many of them have guns. Sometimes they kill people.

"That's not news. That's probability."

My dad should have been a monk. (The kind that still has children.)

What makes watching "news" worthwhile?

What's Not Negotiable?

Where do you draw the line?

Are you willing to do anything? Is nothing beneath you?

Of course not.

But where do you draw the line?

The List of Non-Negotiables
What's on your list of non-negotiables? These are the things that you simply refuse to compromise. You won't bend on these standards.

Another way to come up with this list is to imagine what, on your deathbed, you simply must have accomplished.

What's On My List?
Thanks for asking. I'm touched that you care.

For me, the idea of teaching is generating a couple non-negotiables:

1. Each month, I must be in a classroom teaching.
2. Each day, I must be a teacher less formally.

I just don't want to be 95 and wondering why I never was a teacher.

My promises are also part of my list of non-negotiables.

What's on your list?

On Meditation

Net Cotton Content reader, Ann Marie Mecera asks,

"I would love to try meditation. However, the thought of sitting still for more than five minutes makes me squirm. Any pointers for those of us who sorely need meditation because we think we need to be doing several things at one time?"

I, too, struggle with sitting still. Life wants us in constant motion.

In response, Jim Coe reminds us of the lost tourist in New York City who asks a passer-by, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" The answer? "Practice, practice, practice."

Jim's right: meditation is a practice, not a skill. The only next step is to practice.

Is It Easy?
When five minutes seems like the limit, I meditate for five minutes. If I can sit easily for six minutes, I stay for six.

I remember what the Transcendental Meditation folks taught me: We don't assess the quality of our meditation on whether it is good or well done, but rather whether it is easy. We seek only to sit peacefully, not to express some grand talent.

The TM teachers never ask, "Was it good?" They ask, "Was it easy?"

What Now?
While I've enjoyed TM, if you seek a less expensive toe in the water, here are some possibilities:

1. read Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
2. read anything by Thich Nhat Hanh
3. simply sit quietly ... with eyes closed ... as you inhale, think a word (try "open-minded") ... as you exhale, think a related word (such as "acceptance"). I also like "understanding"/"compassion" and "curiosity"/"creativity."

Let's leap over disbelief and the counter-cultural weirdness of sitting quietly.

For me, meditation works.

"You have my permission."

Several years ago, I returned from a mind-expanding trip.

Not that kind of "trip."

This trip included a real airplane.

It was mind- and heart-expanding, but I didn't realize it. Something must have changed in me. But I just didn't see it. I didn't realize the impact on me of what I'd learned.

Education can be that way. Travel is certainly that way. At the time, it's just plain: fun and challenging.

Then, later, it hits you.

Here's When It Hit Me
I was sitting, back at Young Isaac, chatting with a friend, colleague and teacher, Rachel Hillman.

(Rachel's the one who taught me about the effect of stress on my health.)

Anyway, Rachel hears me describe my trip and says quietly to me:

Sounds like you're ready to change your life. Do you want to change your life? Is that what you're saying?

I didn't realize I was saying this. I hadn't thought about changing my life. I mumbled the usual defense of the status quo.

So she adds these priceless words:

If you are waiting for someone's permission to change your life, I give you my permission.

I mean, it's not as if you need my permission to change your life. But now you have it.

These words have rung in my ears for more than five years. About two years ago, they started ringing in my heart.

Do You Need Permission?
So, allow me to give you some permission.

As Rachel said to me: If you are waiting for someone's permission to change your life, I give you my permission.

I mean, it's not as if you need my permission to change your life. But now you have it.

Now that you have my permission, what change will you permit in your own life?

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.

Your Name Again?

Let me get this to you before I forget.

I just heard part of an NPR interview on Fresh Air with Martha Weinman Lear, who was discussing her book, Where Did I Leave My Glasses? The What, When and Why of Normal Memory Loss. (No, I haven't read it. That's your job.)

During the interview, Ms. Lear describes how she mitigates her memory when it is working slowly. She tells of being at a party and not remembering the name of someone she's talking to. Another friend walks up and she can't remember his name either. She says she has learned to simply not raise the issue, hoping that they already know each other. If one requests an introduction, she excuses herself to the bathroom.

I like this. Then again, if I'm going to spend the entire night in the bathroom, I'll just stay home.

Does This Happen To You?
Let's say you are at a restaurant.

You glance across the room and see someone who you know, but whose name eludes you. Let's call him HWCBN (He Who Cannot Be Named). You fear that, within 20 minutes (if not immediately), HWCBN (oh, no, now waving at you!) will visit your table to say hello.

Etiquette will oblige you to introduce your tablemate, Chuck, to He Who Cannot Be Named.

Dang. I dislike that feeling. And it happens enough that I have come up with this foolproof solution.

And it's free for you, as a perk for being a reader of Net Cotton Content.

A Foolproof Solution
Follow these four easy steps:

1. Get up before HWCBN does.
2. Go to HWCBN's table.
3. Offer a hearty hello!
4. Lean down and say quietly, "I'm so glad to see you here. I have this awkward problem. I'm having lunch with a fellow and I simply can't remember his name! Will you please help me out? Yes? Come over to my table, maybe when you're leaving anyway, and introduce yourself to him."

If this makes you feel feeble, you can always add, "I think it's 'Chuck'."

That should clear up all your memory problems.

Let me know how this works for you. It's never failed me.

(And I know something of forgetting names.)