Studio A

I don’t know why I was surprised to find the Motown Museum in Detroit. I guess that shows my ignorance of American culture. Ironically ignorance of the Canadian culture is something we northerners tend to accuse our southern neighbors of too easily. Regardless, for all its greatness and cultural impacts, Motown emerged from five little houses along Grand Boulevard. One house for the finance department, one house for the music school that would teach the Motown artists music theory and choreography, one for the sales and public relations departments, one where the stars learned to behave, dress, and conduct themselves like stars, and one to house the infamous Studio A.

The museum itself consists of two small unassuming houses. Only the crowd on the front lawn and the Hitsville sign on the house gave any clues to the treasures that lie inside. The Marvelettes, the Velvelettes, the Temptations, the Supremes, and the Jackson are but a few of the wonders to have started from humble beginnings in Studio A. Modeled after the Ford Assembly line, Motown and Studio A operated as an assembly line for young talent that would enter Barry Gordy’s brain child as raw talent and emerge as superstar caliber artists. Ironically Barry Gordy stole this idea of an assembly line for talent from his time working on the Ford assembly line, a job he hated even though it was a key part of his inspiration.

I made the journey with Brooks family, who happen to be native Detroiters. We had a great tour guide, who had a little trouble separating himself from the giants whose stories he was telling. He kept using words like, “We would do this. We would do that.” As if he were actually there when Diana Ross was recording her licks, which was a little distracting. Other than that, he was incredibly knowledge and shared great insights into Barry Gordy’s business acumen and talents. Gordy had a good role model for entrepreneurship in his father who owned five family businesses. The Gordy’s had eight kids and as they grew up each kid would contribute $10 a month to the family coop, then each had an opportunity to borrow from the family coop and start their own business. This is exactly what Barry Gordy did. He started Motown or Tamala (http://45-sleeves.com/USA/tamla/taml-us.htm) as the original label was called with an $800 loan from the Gordy family coop fund.

Interestingly many of the Motown artists knew each other from childhood and grew up within blocks of each other. This leant a family atmosphere to the business and created an environment where many artists collaborated with each other. It seems that in the 50s and 60s Detroit was a literal cesspool of talent emerging upon the world. Like most people, I had read about Motown, not all of it very nice in regards to Barry Gordy, but no one can argue his success or that of his artists.

The greatest part was that the tour didn’t end at Studio A. Afterward we went to an amazing little restaurant in Greek Town, called the Golden Fleece, then onto the Astoria Bakery for desert. The array of treats in the Astoria was a little overwhelming and I was barely able to constrain myself to a simple chocolate dipped rice crispy square. We ended the afternoon with a tour of Mrs. Brooks’s childhood neighborhood someplace the Detroit born couple wouldn’t visit after dark. It was a stark reminder of the contrast of what Detroit was and what it is now.

Do you want to be courageous and powerful? OR, do you want to be happy and at peace?

These are two questions I find myself asking quite a bit lately. Not that I want to be powerful, per se, but financially autonomous wouldn’t be bad.  In my quest for financial independence, I have had to take a lot of calculated risks in my life, few of which have brought me peace or happiness. According to the great philosopher, Epicurus, “You don’t develop courage by being happy in your relationships every day. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.” If Epicurus’s view is an accurate assessment, then I must be pretty courageous as I have been overcoming adversity since the day I was born. So maybe I am approaching this entire equation incorrectly. That said, achieving financial independence is my ultimate goal and the pursuit of that goal often brings into close proximity of powerful individuals.  

So how does power play into the notion of happiness. More importantly how does being close to those in power affect happiness? My favorite happiness author, Gretchen Rubin, tends to steer clear of the power question and focus more on the little things you can do in your life that will make you happy. After my recent investigations into power, happiness, and integrity, I think she is taking the correct approach.

If you have ever had the opportunity to read Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power, you might find some of his assertions to be a little removed from your own personal moral compass (http://www2.tech.purdue.edu/cgt/courses/cgt411/covey/48_laws_of_power.htm).  In fact, many of the laws he describes would be considered sociopathic behaviors. A few of which are specifically called out in recent academic works such as “Organizational sociopaths: rarely challenged, often promoted. Why?” written by Richard Pech and Bret Slade (http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1630654&show=pdf).  Here are some examples:

·         Law #3 conceal your intentions, a sociopathic behavior cited by Pech and Slade that can be combatted by transparency. 

·         Law #17 keep others in suspended terror: cultivate an air of unpredictability, do I need to cite an academic to point out that this is just plain wrong?

·         Law #8 make other people come to you; use bate if necessary, isn’t that just a tad bit manipulative?

·         Law #33 discover each man’s thumbscrew, doesn’t that sound just a little sadistic?

·         Law #14 pose as a friend, work as a spy, my personal favorite

So how can you be truly happy if you are doing so many nasty things unless you really have no moral compunctions or compass that would create cognitive dissonance for you? There has to be a better way. According to a recent article by Harvard professors Jal Mehta and Christopher Winship, morality and power is largely due to the perceptions of those observing the actions of powerful individuals. They cite the rhetoric of Obama and Bush in regards to Muslims and Islam as examples. Apparently they are remarkably similar. However, I am not talking about perceptions. I am talking about integrity and power. Not that the two are mutually exclusive, but I am questioning whether you can have power according to the traditional definitions – political power, corporate power, organizational power, financial power – and have moral integrity and happiness if you aren’t a sociopath.

According to Steven Lukes, author of Power:  A Radical View, 2005, power is “unavoidably value-dependent,” in other words “both its definition and any given use of it, once defined, are inextricably tied to a given set of (probably unacknowledged) value-assumptions which predetermine the range of its empirical application.” Does this mean that your values determine whether you employe certain aspects of power, such as laws #3 and #17 above?

Returning to my initial questions about finding happiness while overcoming adversity and living in the shadow of power, I offer up the following advice. Keep your happiness endeavors anchored in the moments of the day. Gretchen Ruben does, it seems, have it right. Keep yourself healthy by eating well and getting enough sleep and exercise. This will greatly enhance your ability to deal with stress and find the energy to pursue your happiness in spite of the adversity or shades of power you find yourself needing to deal with. Don’t let negative self-talk invade your thoughts. Remember Rene Descartes, “I think therefore I am.” Try to find something to be thankful for every day. Today I am thankful for the short little Latino man who told me I was beautiful and wished me a happy day in the dairy isle of the grocery store. Yesterday I was thankful for my Dad and that he is healthy enough to spend the day working on his fishing boat. Tomorrow I am sure I will find a good friend or happy moment to be thankful for. It is these small acknowledgements that help me to find happiness and even a little peace in the shadow of power and the face of uncertainty.

Tickle My Funny Bone

After all the hard and serious touristing stuff I’ve been doing down here in the Ohio/Michigan area this week I decided to try something a little different. This weekend I visited the local Funny Bones Comedy Club with the Murrays who just happen to be in town (http://funnybonecentral.com/ComedyClub/598ade70-e983-48dc-a984-8bd8c86291ab/Toledo_Funny_Bone).

The venue itself was OK other than the fact that the club is in the back of a restaurant that neither the male half of the Murrays nor I could see an emergency exit for.  This kind of freaked him out because it would definitely not be up to the Canadian fire codes. Also, when it was time to leave it took forever to get out because we were all bottlenecked through the only exit.

But on to the more important stuff of funny business. We saw two comedians – Adrian Crosby and Rob Schneider. The first comedian was OK. I didn’t get a lot of his racial humor, but that is probably because I am from Canada and we face a different set of racial issues. This guy’s jokes were mostly focused around African American – Euro American relations and the relative sizes of their penises. I guess the stereo type of the large African American penis is alive and well in the United States. I don’t really know how well his jokes went over in that he was probably the only African American in a room filled with a group or rather large white people; and I do mean filled.

I felt for the guy when he did the big build up for Rob Schneider and had us all clapping and cheering for Schneider then the guy didn’t show up. Not only did Mr. Schneider take his time showing up. It was obvious that the Crosby guy was running out of jokes and really stretching, but he handled it graciously and did his best.

I do have to admit that Schneider (Deuce Bigilow, Male Gigolo - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0205000/) was worth the wait. He was subtle, jarring, intelligent, relevant, and even a little daring. Maybe even more than a little daring when you consider where he was and the audience he faced. He didn’t shy away from controversial subjects such as gun control, immigration, and inter-racial marriage. He even talked about Obama passing into law that Monsanto can’t be sued if their Genetically Modified plants make their way onto an organic farmer’s land. What he didn’t mention is that for years Monsanto has been suing these organic farmers for patent infringement whenever their seeds or plants ended up on an organic farmer’s farm.  Still, it was nice to see a west coast perspective on the world get a little bit of exposure and laughter. Maybe this is the way things start.

Thank you Rob Schneider for an enjoyable evening filled with great, silly, and sometimes thought provoking laughs. I am just a quirky Canadian visiting your fair country and you lightened my heart to know that folks down here do not really have an insular perspective (we outsiders just think you do) and that free speech in America is not only alive but celebrated in unexpected places.

On Mud Hens and the All American Pastime

So, what is a Mud Hen? The historical definition is a duck-like bird that has a blackish head, likes to live in the swamp, and can be found nesting in areas from Canada to Argentina (http://www.answers.com/topic/mud-hen). Of course these aren’t the Mud Hens I am referring to, nor am I talking about the racially negative term used in some southern parts of the United States (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mud%20hen). Nope, I am talking about the Toledo Mud Hens: a triple AAA minor league fast ball team that happens to be affiliated with the Detroit Tigers.

The name Mud Hens has a long tradition dating back to 1896 when the team was owned by Charles Strobel, and the baseball park was located across the street from a swamp. Now the fact that the baseball park was located next to a swamp isn’t all that surprising. For thousands of years the Toledo area was known as the “Great Black Swamp” and even the First Nations (Aboriginals in the US) avoided it.

Animals, flora, and fauna flourished, but it wasn’t so good for people. In 1825 a wooden road from Perrsyburg (where I now reside) and Fremont was built and few brave individuals settled there. However, it wasn’t the healthiest place to live and people who passed through or tried to reside there often ended up with a condition known as the shakes (http://www.hicksville-ohio.com/History/blackswamp.htm).

By 1837, the US settlers were already busily at work draining the swamp, an effort that lasted well into the 20^th century, which brings us back to the Mud Hens and the All American Past Time. Obviously the team has a long history and has been part of the national league since 1965, along with other great teams such as the New York Yankees. The Mud Hens have also been associated with some other great teams you might have heard of such as the Philadelphia Phillies, Cleveland Indians, and Minnesota Twins, just to name a few. Back in the day it wasn’t unheard of for minor league teams to play exhibition games with the big leaguers; however, most of that stopped when the Chicago White Stockings refused to play the Mud Hens in an exhibition game in the late 1940s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledo_Mud_Hens).

But all of that history aside, it was a wonderful experience to be out in the sunshine with all of the excitement and adieu that goes along with a typical American ball game. They played the Charlotte Knights and gave them a good thrashing (four runs to two.)  I imagine the game experience of the 21^st century is not at all what it was around this time in the 20^th century. Today they have big television screens that tell you when to make noise. There are applause volume calculating machines and voice enhanced announcers that sound just like every other announcer. I guarantee you that the hotdogs aren’t as good as they used to be with all those artificial colorings and flavors, and the popcorn is probably genetically modified. Nobody seemed to be too dressed up like they would have in the old days; although this was a weekday and not after church, which is when the games used to be played. The fireworks are probably just as cool as they used to be, and the intermission games are probably just a corny today as they were a hundred years ago. The rules are still the same (most of the rules that baseball abides by today have been in place since 1893.)  And of course there were no swamp smells, insects, or hens other than those on the field.