There isn’t a person among us that hasn’t been touched by the trauma of divorce.
The WordPress community is suffering a severe separation.
I’m not referring to the fight between “daddy and mommy” as others describe Automattic and WP Engine, rather the procreative and unitive aspects of visionaries and integrators.
The visionaries are the product and service leaders among us that express bold horizon goals for the open source project. They have big ideas about the power of WordPress and the kinds of problems it can solve.
The integrators are the creative and technical contributors that map out the pitfalls and milestones to reach the horizon goals expressed by the visionaries.
Like matrimony, the give and take between a visionary and an integrator is necessary to bring our best ideas to life. Neither can effectively succeed without the other. Both need each other to navigate the perilous forest on their way to the mountain summit.
As with any sacrificial love, the glimmer in a visionary’s eye needs articulation just as the integrator’s mission needs a destiny.
The relationship between visionaries and integrators is an independent third entity that is paramount and set apart.
We know this is true because it is only through the relationship that either is capable of bearing fruit.
The relationship is a living embodiment of sacrifice and potential. It belongs to neither partner alone because both are contributors and both grieve a painful loss when it terminates.
The WordPress marriage of visionaries and integrators has nurtured incredible achievements for 21 years, a remarkable hallmark in software longevity.
Before the rise of social media, WordPress gave nontechnical people a freedom of expression and discovery. It advanced the written word, and has helped ease the human toil of curation and sense-making.
The WordPress community has signaled signs of our rocky relationship since adolescence, yet we are ill-prepared walking through the shadow of the valley of disillusionment.
WordPress market penetration has stalled in the face of competing frameworks and lucrative closed systems like Shopify.
Top-down locked-in alternatives like Adobe and Sitecore continue to proliferate in the face of weak evangelization of enterprise WordPress to bring about simplicity, ownership, flexibility, the freedom to empower workers and ease toil at scale.
We’ve failed to bring economic and technical commercial buyers together on a common platform in service to their strategic goals.
Through the #wpdrama separation we ask ourselves, “Why is this happening? Why now? How did we get here?”
In our duress, we lose sight of where we are going. We look inward and blame our community.
We argue about attribution without an agreed standard (distasteful) and we speak past each other claiming overt and covert contribution without acknowledging the other (disrespectful).
The sudden exile of strong community members is a sign of death decay. So is our regression to tribalism in search of safety and stability.
We are bogged down with bad ideas and moving goal posts. Our disappointments turn into passive aggressive pettiness, anger, and then resentment. Contempt sets in with a fury, the marital death knell.
Everyone is feeling unseen and unheard, starving two of the deepest longings of every human heart.
As empty nesters in a struggling marriage must rediscover their delight in the other, the visionaries and integrators must rejoin. We need connective tissue to heal and bring new life to WordPress. Should those among us who’ve been cast aside choose to reconcile, our new path forward is through acts of contrition and penance, sincere apologies, grace, and forgiveness.
All contributors to WordPress deserve to be seen and heard. We should everyone back into the fold and celebrate their accomplishments. The tyranny of takeovers and ban hammers must be lifted, and us-vs-them language must be discarded.
Each side needs time and space to examine their conscience and be forthright about their hopes and fears, wants, and needs. Our new paradigm must addresses the serious problems of discipline, accountability, codependency, and healthy boundaries.
Individuals are reeling from lost connections with their community, their employer, a great product, a cause, and hope.
As with any war, the innocent suffer. Individual people in the WordPress community are nursing a deeper wound… The sudden and severe detachment of their personal identity to the the bold promises of open source.
Like many children of divorce, the medicinal effects of time are not sufficient because the loss is irreparable and permanent. Those who are suffering must learn to properly grieve these losses in order to restore their health.
I raise this final point because I see a confusion between self and society among some of the most outspoken among us.
Individual people who’ve dedicated time, talent, and treasure are naturally afraid. They are lamenting past choices and their future livelihood. The incessant infighting is causing long-term injury, and sense-making is nearly impossible wondering alone in the din.
Identifying one’s self with any vision or mission animates our passions and is the natural wellspring of all the good we’ve created! However, when taken to the extreme, we lose our sense of place.
Disorientation is a tragic mistake of boundary confusion by the individual person and needs to be reset to a healthy condition.
Altitude is the antidote to fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD).
It’s okay, actually optimal, to step back and reflect on where you stand personally, what lights your flame, and what you have to offer.
Until the dust settles, be sure you are taking the time to properly discern bigger questions about your own heading. What do you want? Where do you want to go?
Take care to not neglect the basics of healthy detachment! Eat well, drink water, go outside, call old friends, listen to podcasts and nostalgic music, learn something new, and practice self compassion.
Get back to your roots and why you were made. Your worth comes from who you are, not what you do.
Your children give you one of your best relationships in life. Play with them cheerfully and take on the world.
“Dad, can I join a clan?” Simon asked me, aged nine. The heck kind of question is that? And so began a half decade of strange conversations and father-son bonding in the world of social gaming.
Gaming has been a part of my childhood and social network as much as Friday night sleepovers with friends nights playing Dungeons & Dragons and board games. I recall fondly the 80’s HBO opening sequence playing in the background with summer blockbusters on loop. Like most kids my age, we began playing video games in the red glow of Pizza Hut while mom and dad sipped beer in a nearby booth. Then came the 8-bit Atari and Commodore console games, like Pong and Pac-Man and Pitfall wired into the back of 13-channel TVs. I graduated to arcades with a fondness for mechanical pinball. On an early date with my future wife at Dave & Busters, I won tickets to see Ringo Star when I beat a local radio personality in Daytona USA, a network racing simulator. All those days skipping undergrad classes to hang out at Le Fun on The Drag in Austin paid back a token win.
Simon’s desire to play games with his friends really isn’t so different. We created the Texas Empire “clan” with his friends from school in Clash Royale, a popular strategic action mobile game where players develop decks of character cards, like Pokémon, with varying abilities to battle in arenas. The game includes elements of mythical stories like a mission, us versus them, legendary quests and treasures waiting to be discovered. In time, strangers joined our clan, people we’ve never met. Over the years we’ve played hours together with all the delight and frustration one expects in any adventure.
We first played Fornite with Simon’s cousins during Christmas in 2017. That makes Simon and me “OGs,” the original gangsta honorific hailing from early hip hop culture, seen by its own adherents as a type of social game of power, money and leaderboard dominance.
As Fortnite appealed to younger gamers, parents objected to its violence: close range gunfire, sniper headshots, explosions, high falls and death by bludgeoning. I shared these concerns until I came to recognize the game’s hilarious cross-cultural references. Fortnite gameplay feels more like slapstick with cartoonish violence than battlefield realism. Players are animated avatars with bloodless eliminations and perpetual resurrection. It’s interactive Tom and Jerry and Wile E. Coyote.
Parental concern about Fortnite isn’t without merit.
As a first person shooter with sexualized characters akin to comic books and superhero films, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we see a rise in dangerous police chases and cars plowing through pedestrians along with the popularity of the ultra-realistic Grand Theft Auto where the worst of antisocial behavior is rewarded.
I understand the game’s influence on the adolescent mind. Perhaps gaming keeps me young? My wife can certainly vouch for my regression while gaming.
I’ll not enter the chicken-egg debate on whether gaming imitates life or vice versa. I suspect they feed each other and am inclined to leave empirical data to scientists.
Instead, I want to share the deeper connection I’m enjoying with my son through gaming.
Firstly, I’ve not been dismissive of gaming as a silly waste of time, nor the passions gaming elicits. Fortnite is a cultural phenomenon. It’s the hinge pin of countless experiences Zoomer kids get and their parents do not get.
Every generation presses parental boundaries in dancing, music, fashion and technology. Social gaming is part of that progression.
Fortnite is full of current music, funny TikTok dances, film references and “collabs” with special “merch” growing much faster than Facebook could change its name. The game is a metaverse, a deep mix of popular film, songs, luxury brands and celebrities in traditional and social media. Beyond in-game experiences, Fortnite is reinforced by wildly popular YouTube channels, Twitch streams and subreddits. It’s a commercial powerhouse pursued by Roblox and Minecraft. Earlier this year, Disney opened its vault of intellectual property for gaming partnerships. For parents, social gaming provides the pulse of what interests our kids and their friends.
Secondly, I recognize powerful marketing forces are targeting the perpetually elusive teenage audiences in a way business ethics and psychology have yet to articulate.
We don’t widely understand the benefits and damage of convenience versus privacy in digital culture. My hunch is Simon is viewed as a persona, not a person.
Wherever his individual dignity might be blurred, I will get involved to help him see his place in the big picture. I talk openly with my kids about the effects of media, including gaming, to help them develop an awareness, to guard against their own manipulation.
Did you know you can watch entire films within Fortnite? Some in-game film characters like Deadpool really aren’t appropriate for preteens, so again, parent involvement is key.
We’ve seen the Millennium Falcon land in game with a Star Wars pre-release live interview with director J.J. Abrams. We’ve seen live concerts by popular musical artists like Marshmello and Travis Scott and Ariana Grande, each with their own in-game skins and battle gear. These spectacular virtual events are design and engineering marvels, with millions of kids participating simultaneously. They’re all the kids text and talk about at school for a week. I’m reminded of the arena concerts and music festivals of my youth. Fortnite is hosting generational coming-of-age experiences marked by music and artistry that are vastly more popular than Woodstock, Lallapalooza and Coachella.
Parents: Watch for Unfair Practices and Manipulation in Social Games
Thirteen design patents and terms of use for in-game purchasing systems were examined.
Video games are increasingly monetized with in-game purchasing options called microtransactions.
Patented game systems exploit behavioral tracking data to optimize purchasing offers.
Some player-game dynamics may be viewed as an information asymmetry.
In-game purchasing systems lack basic consumer guarantees and protections.
Game developers research, test and iterate for maximum financial value. They know how to induce player behaviors and which behaviors are lucrative. In Clash Royale, the win/loss ratio of decks to each other is publicly available. The game publisher Supercell surely has even better metrics. Parents and gamers should be wary.
Likewise, be aware of targeted recruiting ads in games and popular gaming YouTube channels. I’ve seen them from all the US armed forces Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and Space Force. Personally, I’m a fan having spent a good deal of my youth in junior and collegiate ROTC programs. I think a military career is something every American ought to discern. Still, parents be aware and ready to have the conversation.
The addictive nature of gaming cannot be mitigated, both in our neurological and psychological attraction to flickering light, audio and pace, and our tendency to avoid responsibilities, duties and struggles in real life. I may have a little more street cred in telling Simon to “turn it off” when I too would rather goof off all day than deal with life head on.
And speaking of work, I’d wager Microsoft and Epic Games host more web-based conference calls than all the direct business apps combined. At least on the weekend before the global pandemic. Gaming should be balanced with outdoor activity, team sports and rough and tumble play that teach kids to explore our physical world and their own potential.
The Benefits of Gaming
From what I can tell, gaming appeals to higher order senses:
A sense of mission and purpose, which appeal to deeper motivations of meaning;
A sense of right and wrong, of rules, of fair play, justice and mercy;
A sense of the new and novel, an appeal to openness and a call to exploration;
A sense of adventure and challenge;
A sense of potential, of failing and trying again, of pushing one’s self to achieve a goal, and the satisfaction of success;
A sense of accomplishment and completion;
A sense of place, one’s orientation in a world and among others;
A sense of intent, with urgency. Social games often involve rapid communication among teammates who organize in a joint pursuit toward a cause they cannot achieve alone.
As boys are generally more attracted to gaming than girls, I wonder if boys fared better socially during the pandemic than girls. YouTube and Twitch streaming, which also skew more toward male audiences, are filled with gaming channels pushing social interactions and improving gameplay. Girls, on the other hand, have a more isolated social experience on platforms like TikTok and Instagram that are less interactive, with more visual comparisons in fashion and beauty, and highly opinionated comment features.
Our Bond Beyond Gaming
I’ve led a seasonal prayer breakfast for men for 13 years. Every Friday morning at 6:00 am, we meet for coffee, tacos, fellowship and structured conversation. We watch a brief video or a talk given to the group, and discuss in small groups and conclude with a brief reflection by clergy. These meetings are well attended, usually between 60 and 70 guys representing dozens of ministries in our parish and neighboring parishes. The idea is to develop meaningful connections with friends, to help each other grow closer to God, to become better husbands, fathers and leaders in our community.
The program is specifically designed to accommodate dads of our parish school. Meetings are bound to the school year, and they wrap before the school Mass. And yet, I can count on one hand the number of men who’ve invited their teenage sons to join.
Just before his 14th birthday, I suggested to Simon he might enjoy going with me. To my delight, I’ve not once had to wake him up or force him to attend, nor has he ever whined about having to wake up so early. When I come downstairs at 4:45 in the morning, he is dressed and ready to go. We arrive around 5 am to make coffee, set up tables and goof off with the rest of the set-up team.
Incredibly, Simon recruited a half-dozen of his classmates to join our breakout table. I already knew each of these boys from our Clash Royale clan, but it’s in these meetings that I’ve really gotten to know them. I know their parents, their siblings and classroom drama. I know when essays and science projects and homework are due. I know each boy’s individual quirks and idiosyncrasies and insecurities, who is funny and outgoing, and who is shy and reserved. I see how they tease each other, as men do, as a means of testing one another, asserting the primitive hierarchies in which we size each other up and orient ourselves. I watch the proverbial iron sharpening iron. Paradoxically, their verbal sparring is a deep sign of respect, as if to say, “I know you. I know what you can handle, and it’s more than you know.”
I sit at their table to foster fellowship on their terms. I guard against an overly churchy experience; it’s enough that they are even at church outside of Mass, among the good men of our parish. It is here the boys encounter the individual priests, deacons, doctors, cops, tradesman, teachers, attorneys, salesman, entrepreneurs, fathers and grandfathers. They personally know heroes of war, a pioneer in laser technologies, a jeweler, mechanics, a UT Tower shooting first responder and leaders in political parties and popular companies. And all these men know Simon and his friends. For the boys, it’s masculine initiation with civility in true friendship and shared interests beyond gaming.
At this age, inevitably, common interest in games is the beginning of exploring other interests. Fortunately, I’m in a position to discuss gaming nuance because I too enjoy games. I know the frustration of losing to a broken game mechanic, or lost wifi connection or sudden interruption. I can speak to real disappointment, and consequently, I’ve earned a degree of trust and openness talk about the game of life.
At our table, created a new game I call, “Ask me anything.” I invite Simon and his friends to stump me with the hardest questions they can muster. I’ve fielded incredibly intelligent questions. It’s mentally taxing because there isn’t any room for lying. Kids can smell bullshit before they step in it. When I don’t know an answer, I give them the satisfaction of beating me. Then we investigate the question together on our phones. We rely on search, images of great cathedrals, the lives of saints, the wisdom of church fathers and zooming into maps of Israel.
As Roman Catholics, we also have two books on our table that guide us in the game.
The first is sacred scripture, the Bible, or more accurately, a canon of 73 books with collective human wisdom extending back 4000 years to the early Hebrew texts. The second book is the Catechism, a synthesis of what the magisterium holds to be true on hundreds of matters. The genius of the Catechism is in how it’s structured to make deep insights approachable.
One of the benefits of a classic Catholic education is the Catechism. It’s an iterative collection of human knowledge, much like the continuous delivery models in modern gaming and progressive web applications. The Catechism includes academic thinking in an approachable essay writing style with an index to help us find answers to difficult questions. It teaches logic with scholastic terms from old books. It builds vocabulary with proper words, and sentences, and paragraphs arranged to form big ideas. Like modern games, the Catechism is a cultural intersectionality.
Chris Harrison’s visual diagram of 63,000+ biblical cross references is a beautiful artistic rendering of connectivity. Source.
Combined with the Bible as the Catechism is intended, both books have strong potency appealing to people across time and culture and geography. The books are hyperlinked texts, like the web, with tens of thousands of cross references in ancient myths, parables, mystical wisdom, poetry and stories that transcend time. Understanding religion as part of humanity’s metaphorical substrate taps into the same awe and wonder a child feels in an immersive game.
My Advice to Parents of Gamers…
Recognize the value of play as part of natural human development. From our infancy, we gain knowledge through mimicry. We learn objects exist and events occur independently of our actions. As embodies souls, we attribute meaning to the physical world. The great psychologist Jean Piaget contributed volumes of work to the field of child development on the principles of learning through play.
Understand games engage the mind through story. They involve plot, characters, setting and ancient modes of conflict with a clear beginning, middle and end. We participate in dramatic nuances of negotiation, token economies, ownership and cunning strategy. Games are an immersive form of storytelling, the way humankind has always gained wisdom and experience.
Don’t yell at your kids to stop playing, or to go to bed, get off the X-box, turn off the TV, etc. First of all, they’re on a conference call. Everyone in the game can hear you screaming. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard a parent yell at their kids, “Turn it off, NOW!” I cannot help wondering, even if they’re unaware that others are listening, are they not mindful of the separation they’re sowing among their own progeny?
Worse, harshly insisting on an unexpected end to gameplay puts a kid in a terrible spot. Do not force your child to choose between obeying you and being disloyal to their friends.
Keep in mind, when a kid is in a game, they’ve made a tacit commitment to his teammates to help them fulfill a quest. If they have to leave early, your child can easily cause the entire team to fail at the mission. Do that two or three or four times, and their friends will not want them to join the team. Quitting early leads to feelings of wasted time better spent without your child’s participation. Being excluded from play is not good for a child’s healthy development. We want our kids to have positive connections with their friends, to feel welcome and wanted.
Even in solo games, sudden quitting will lose accomplishments if the game doesn’t autosave progress. Imagine the frustration of your computer crashing before you could save a document or spreadsheet. The lost time and energy is maddening. When a kid whines, throws a tantrum and withdrawals because you made them stop suddenly without warning, are they really any different than us?
Feelings of disappointment and frustration are real and avoidable. A good parent doesn’t demand blind obedience when doing so leads to the anxiety of unfinished business or betrayal. Set boundaries in a respectful manner.
Figure out how long a typical game lasts and set time boundaries. Be sure to account time to boot up machines, get logged in, connect with friends and start a game. If there isn’t enough time, say “Not right now,” and suggest a better time. And when that time comes, let them play freely.
A Fortnite solo mission might take twenty minutes. A squad mission takes about the same time. A Clash Royale battle is three to five minutes. Some games haver countdown timers. Puzzle and strategy games like Sudoku can be stopped and started with little notice.
Recognize they may have underestimated the time it takes to complete a quest. Just as we all overestimate our ability to handle more than we can, give them a little padding, especially if they’re just learning a new game.
Help them develop internal discipline of timing, when they play and for how long. If they struggle with this – and most will – then be a good parent with external discipline. Say no. Don’t take their disappointment personally. Don’t give in to bad attitudes and bad behavior like whining, yelling, tantrums or slamming things. Set firm boundaries and enforce them.
Help them visualize responsibility and what it’ll be like when they transition away from the game. For example…
“You can play your game for one hour. After that, we have to [leave the house, eat dinner, go to bed, etc].”
Or ask, “Can you get to a stopping point?”
Take an active role. Don’t be passive. Games are not babysitters or mindless distractions.On the contrary, games engage deep neurological circuitry to activate physical and emotional centers of the brain. As such, they should be limited and appropriate for your child’s age, temperament and maturity.
Be mindful with whom they’re gaming. I’d caution against allowing lone gamers to join their group without your supervision. Games ought to reinforce friendships they know personally like cousins, classmates and neighborhood kids. I’ve noticed the further removed a player is from personally knowing the people with whom they play, the more apt they are to antisocial behavior like cursing, stealing loot and sabotage.
I’ve not seen the contrary hold true. In my experience, online gamers that meet in person often don’t always an interpersonal connection. There is an obvious mission when playing together, but that doesn’t always translate outside the game. I’ve seen gamers with different personalities and values find they don’t really have anything in common at all except the game itself.
Play with them! Games are fun! Humans have an incredibly long maturation period before they leave their parental nest. And yet, every older parent says, “Time flies. Before I knew it, they were gone.”
Make memories. Spend time in playful activity you both enjoy.
Feature image is The trial-Ned Kelly Series (1947) by Sid Nolan in Canberra’s National Gallery of Australia. Nolan captures the trial of Australia’s notorious bushranger outlaw noted for his bulletproof armor in his final shootout with police. Like Fortnite, the artist employs bold bold colors, sunlight and landscapes to quickly render the unfolding drama.
This summer I had the unplanned occasion to visit the two deadliest sites for mass shootings by a single gunman in the United States.
On a rare rainy evening in Las Vegas, I strolled alone five miles, from the McLaren car rental terminal to the Linq hotel. As I walked the desolate southern end of the Las Vegas Strip, Southwest flights with optimistic gamblers roared over my head close enough for me to see the pilots’ faces. At the Welcome to Las Vegas sign, tourists queued patiently for selfies with an Elvis impersonator. I passed by the old Glass Pool Inn made famous in Casino and Leaving Las Vegas.
Approaching Mandalay Bay, the golden windows seemed to have lost their glittery luster since I first saw them in 1999. I looked to the 32nd floor corner where Stephen Paddock fired more than 1000 rounds down on a crowd of concertgoers in an open cement lot across Las Vegas Boulevard, killing 60 people. Standing in the breach, thinking of terrified people taking precious little shelter, one gets a sense of his cowardice in shooting helpless victims from a makeshift sniper’s nest.
Pausing at the site brought to mind my own mortality, of senseless death, and strange claims of bravery by apologists of extreme violence. Terrorism can never be held as an act of courage because it’s fundamentally an act of taking, not giving. It’s selfish, not sacrificial. Courage is a universal human virtue just as theft is a universal vice. In our bones, rational people know that indulging in one’s murderous rage is not courageous.
It’s far more difficult to master one’s passions, to face the inherent struggle of life head-on. Thoreau is right.
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things..”
Henry David Thoreau
As I scanned the Mandala Bay windows, I thought of how I’ve done the same in Dallas, looking toward the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository where Lee Harvey Oswald shot President John F. Kennedy. In a moment of awestruck, I wondered why, and what I might do if I were in the crowd. Or more terrifying, if I looked down on a hapless crowd with dead malice in my heart.
The City of Dallas has done our nation a great service in preserving the place for people to grieve, to never forget the horror of innocence lost through violence. Televised. Dealey Plaza has an air of the sacred, set apart from the world, outside of time, inside an outdoor cathedral with walls of steel and brick and noise and bustle.
Not so in Las Vegas. There isn’t a memorial.
I attended the University of Texas in Austin in 1996, thirty years after Charles Whitman’s shot and killed 15 people from the Main building tower, which at the time had been the deadliest shooting by a lone gunman in US History. In 1966, nearly four years after Kennedy’s assassination, Whitman took a high perch and fired down on victims going about their day. As the first mass shooting in a public place, his violence precipitated the creation of police SWAT tactics, and the continual rise of militarized law enforcement.
Two months after visiting Las Vegas, I walked along Orange Avenue in Orlando looking to the entrance where Omar Mateen sustained a three-hour killing spree at the Pulse nightclub. He continued unabated, killing 49 people, and injuring 53, until first responders breeched a rear wall with overwhelming force to end the violence.
In both Orlando and Las Vegas, revelers planned a fun evening of music and dancing, never imagining the extraordinary danger they’d soon face. Both shootings happened at night to an unsuspecting and vulnerable crowd.
I have friends who abandoned plans to be at each location the night of each shooting. The next morning in Las Vegas, a flight attendant friend recalls a quiet flight out of town full of collective trauma. One girl in particular stared out the window vacantly in soiled clothes. She had no luggage, having abandoned it and gone straight to the airport from the scene of the shooting. Upon landing, she burst into tears, overwhelmed from the safety of home and her survivor’s guilt. In Orlando, a friend happened to take an alternate route home after his service shift instead of his routine of grabbing an 3am donut across the street from Pulse. Their stories makes the events feel personal.
Reflecting on these events and firearms in general, I think reasonable people recognize legitimate and matched defense against an unjust aggressor as both a right and grave duty in preservation of the common good. Unfortunately, civil discourse inevitably departs from legal and moral debate, and into the realm of rights and justice, us and them. Both sides argue ad nauseum, I’ve nothing interesting to add except my wonder that the foaming rage of society’s bellwether issues might be deeply rooted in individual temperament. Too often logic and compassion give way to the exposition of strange alligator brain circuitry around safety and protection like autonomic disgust, gag reflexes, in-group/out-group suspicion and personal identity within these groups.
Instead, I’m wondering about deeper questions.
Why does the blood of martyrs galvanize movements?
We see the best example of explosive growth following Christian martyrs who give their lives, in stark contrast to terrorists who take lives. This is true in ancient and modern times, throughout the world.
Spending time at the Pulse memorial, amid the images of smiling friends and sorrowful artifacts, one laments the grave evil of taking life. In our natural repulsion to violence, we can look past differences to see individual people. In the faces of victims and their grieving families, we recognize injustice and vulnerability, and if we’re lucky, the very face of Christ.
Even for non-Christians and non-believers, Christ is the ideal of human vulnerability, a sinless life given in exchange for every injustice ever committed anywhere at any time. Even if people cannot articulate their feelings of injustice, they feel it in their body as easily as a child senses unfairness in a game.
Why is there not a memorial in Las Vegas?
Planning has been underway a long time, yet the movement hasn’t yet coalesced in memory of loved ones. The answer is probably rooted in circumstance:
Superstition – Las Vegas is fundamentally a gambling town, where Frank Sinatra implores Luck to be a Lady Tonight, and the MGM redesigned its lion entrance that scared the whales away. Like a barren concrete desert, the otherwise prime real estate is forever marred by tragic loss.
Destination – Many of the victims traveled to Las Vegas to see the concert. I can’t imagine the pain of family members in making arrangements to bring their loved ones home, let alone have the creative energy to participate in an appropriate memorial.
Shadows – The marketing mantra, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” plays into the secretive nature of sin. The attitude gives license, a wink-wink-nudge-nudge inside approval of boorish behavior. Perhaps in Las Vegas, a mass killing is on the end of a wide spectrum of degradation best left unspoken, like another hole in the desert.
Why are we drawn to visiting sites of terror?
Insisting on the preservation of life is an act of love, a fundamental principal of morality. An act of defense may have the unfortunate double effect of preservation of life and taking of life, where one is intended and the other is not.
Like Oklahoma City, these memorials are best when they reflect deeper values of life. The macabre is alluring because it foretells our own future. We cannot look away.
Feature image is México by Graciela Iturbide (1990) at the Fundación MAPFRE in Madrid. The image captures the startled flight of a murder of black crows from the safety of a live oak, perhaps from gunfire, allegories of death, danger, a bad omen and in stark contrast to the Holy Spirit commonly depicted as a white dove.
I confess my childlike excitement for theme restaurants and bars.
Generally overpriced, often with mediocre service, I so appreciate temporal escape through casual dining and ambiance flair.
I’m reflecting on my attraction to campy destinations after visiting Jock Lindsey’s Hanger Bar in Disney Springs in Orlando, Florida. My nephew works there as part of the Disney College Program, and being part of a global brand renowned for detail and customer service, I’m enthralled by the attention paid in creating such a unique destination.
From the outside, Hangar Bar appears to be a local explorer business / veteran pilot hangout. The facade invites charter seaplane swamp tours amid spare aviation parts, wings and propellors. Once seated at a round booth inside a detailed diving bell, I remarked it feels like we’ve stepped into an Indiana Jones movie. Only then did I realize Jock Lindsey is Indiana’s pilot in the original 1981 film our family just happened to watch a week ago. What a delightful surprise, both in synchronicity and within an experience so masterfully crafted to remind me of its inspiration.
The Walt Disney Company faced disdain when it began acquiring creative rights of huge franchises like Star Wars and Marvel in the 2000s and 2010s. Fans feared the branding machine would not hold true to stories and nerd culture. The genius of acquiring source content is undeniable as these stories weave their way into experiences well beyond film and comic books to theme parks, rides, gaming, apparel and collectible merchandise.
Props to the Imagineering team for developing such an obscure character. The restaurant is filled with Indiana Jones easter eggs like the Peruvian idol along with masculine touches like sturdy aluminum plates, heavy glassware and mechanic shop towels for napkins.
Comfort Food
I remember Chili’s as a throwback to the great chili cook-offs throughout the Southwest. Walls were adorned with vintage signs, tools, bottles and sports gear as well as photos of people mingling in tents and campsites with ribbon winners and champion banners. The modern Brinker version of Chili’s is a bland facsimile with a loyalty award program. When my former Omnicom employer GSD&M had the national advertising account, I recall learning people tend to order the same dish because familiarity is the main appeal of national chains. People expect to get the same dish prepared the way with ingredients sourced from the same factories and distributors.
In the spirit of Keep Austin Weird, an irritatingly funny meme has persisted for years in the r/Austin sub-reddit. The Chili’s at 45th/Lamar is recommended as a top local restaurant for its frosty margs and skillet queso. The joke stands in defiance as Austin matures from hippy cowboy college town state capital to a large metropolitan city with a developing bourgeois food culture. Indeed I do like the chicken soft tacos, chips and salsa.
Threadgills is an institution with Austin as its theme, including live music and Southern comfort fare. Janis Joplin began her career at the original gas station on Lamar Boulevard. The downtown location is built upon the former Armadillo World Headquarters where everyone from Willie Nelson to Frank Zappa to Bruce Springsteen performed. I recall one birthday meal catching the yodeling cowboy Don Walser playing in the main dining room. What a treat to hear a Texas Panhandle legend on a random evening. The menu featured classic dishes like chicken fried steak, cheese grits, catfish, meatloaf, green beans and fried okra with jalapeño cornbread. We always took visitors to Threadgills to get a taste of what made Austin great. Sadly, both locations are now closed.
While a student at the University of Texas, I became a regular at the at TGI Friday’s in the old Radisson Hotel on Town Lake. The two Friday’s in Austin (the other in the upscale Arboretum in the “way north” part of town) were apparently the most profitable in the US during the 1990s. Nostalgic for the Gay Nineties a century prior, this popular chain featured bright red and white striped awnings, hanging ferns, and tables set around a large bar of heavy oak, brass fittings and mirror backing. In college, I must’ve eaten a thousand fried turkey and ham Monte Cristo sandwiches with jelly and powdered sugar. Sweet and savory with high calories, how I once burned them easily.
Friday’s was the last bastion of signature mixed blended drinks for the populous. Their separate drink menu featured scores of smoothies, slides and exotic teas prepared by “mixologists.” As a regular with other dear friends who worked downtown, I am still in contact with my Friday’s bartenders, one of whom is a prominent attorney, the other a GM of another fascinating chain, Top Golf.
I loved everything about Pizza Hut as a kid. The Italian bistro featured red vinyl booths with Tiffany style hanging lights and candles set in Venetian glass holders that we’d blow out as soon as we sat down. “Knock it off,” my dad would act all irritated and relight them with his cigarette lighter tilted so the wax wouldn’t spill. “Here are some quarters, go play Pac-man.”
We played video games until the deep dish pizza arrived, leaving mom and dad to enjoy a pitcher of beer. We drank Dr. Pepper in giant red plastic tumblers. I still recall a class field trip to meet executives in the hut-shaped building in Newton, Kansas. Our local franchise is one of the first in the company’s storied history just a few miles north of the original Pizza Hut in Wichita.
I wish we had the same pizza experience for my kids. The closest I’ve found is Campisi’s in Dallas just south of the SMU campus where I used to work as a valet. Formerly the Egyptian Lounge with alleged mob ties, Campisi’s is a dark room with rich red booths lit by low candles. Jack Ruby ate there, as he frequently did, the night before he assassinated Lee Harvey Oswald in the Dallas Police garage.
I could go on with fun memories at Rainforest Cafe, Showbiz Pizza, Magic Time Machine, Medieval Times, Dick’s Last Resort, Chevy’s, Joe’s Crab Shack, Bubba Gump, Hard Rock and Planet Hollywood.
Austin is rising with its own fast casual chains in Torchy’s, Taco Deli, Rudy’s, Mighty Fine and P. Terry’s. Chuy’s manages to hold true to its quirky mix of Elvis and Tex Mex even as it’s traded on the NASDAQ .
So many concepts stand on their own. Encounter at LAX, Shark Bar, Katz’s, Musso and Frank. Then there are the countless meals on sidewalks and inside markets, kitschy boats and trains. Touristy aquariums, Brazilian churrascarias, French bakeries, Cajun Mardi Gras, Chinese gardens and Irish gastropubs all blend into an American spirit of mixed culture and consumer gluttony.
My appreciation for themed destinations is both in stewardship and systems. I love designers that take care in creating an immersive experience beyond function. And I appreciate the engineering challenges of executing well at scale. When done right, we patrons enjoy a few hours of leisurely respite, the moments that give purpose to a life lived well in companionship.
Feature image is Juan Luna’s Blood Compact by Vicente Manansala (1962) at the Fukuoka Museum in Japan. It’s a cupic adaption of the Filipino artist’s original depicting the 1565 pact between Bohol islanders and Spanish conquistadors, a friendship expressed over food and wine.
A typical Saturday night in the COVID era for our family involves pizza, wings, Dr. Pepper, watching Shark Tank reruns, and a movie.
The movie is truly a bonus when our collective mood settles on a comedy or a drama or action.
We’re the kind of family that talks through movies. God, it’d be maddening for any visitor, I’m sure!
April and I are blessed with teenagers who indulge our nostalgia for music and movies we loved at their age. More accurately, they share our affinity for the “meta”, that is creativity as a thing in and of itself. Our conversation is often about the process, the thinking behind the outcome. We discuss the affect and the effect. We reflect on the the words beneath the words, the historical context behind an obscure reference, or as Paul Harvey used to say, “The rest of the story.”
Our meta dialogue about movies usually extends well past the length of the film. In recent months, we’ve watched a variety of films from different eras that hold up quite well. Rambo, Saving Private Ryan, Gran Torino, and Million Dollar Baby.
Richard Linklater’s cult-classic Dazed and Confused is of particular interest. Released in 1994, it’s set in 1976 with many of the sites still recognizable to us here in Austin. The movie sparked conversations around obvious themes of peer pressure, high school cliques, hazing and general teenage hang-out culture in the immediate aftermath of no-fault divorce.
Our kids felt like the movie in some ways isn’t relatable because bullying and violence are of a lesser concern in the modern high-school experience, whereas the acceptance of drugs are more open. We smell weed in every major city we visit. The general acceptance of hooking up is more complicated as dating pivots toward a swipe-left transactional experience. A film that blends the coming-of-age story of middle-schoolers and high-schoolers feels inherently risky.
For a perspective of the teenage club scene in Los Angeles, check out Eric Weinstein’s interview of Less Than Zero author Bret Easton Ellis. Episode #7: The Dark Laureate of Generation X YouTube | Apple Podcast | Spotify
The Shark Tank Meta
Shark Tank captures the entrepreneurial spirit driving America’s economy with an approachable business language that focuses attention on problems and the founder’s ingenuity.
It’s a terrific show for families. Any parent who sees an inkling of business aptitude in their kids should tune in. We also enjoy The Profit with Marcus Lemonis and various turn-around shows from celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey, again with a meta perspective on the fallibility of people that yields poor results.
These business shows highlight gamesmanship from the lens of success. They routinely ask, “Why does the company exists?” On Shark Tank, founders must tighten their pitch to be effective. Undoubtedly they receive sound coaching in preparation for both the investors, and the medium of television. We root for the underdog, and shutter when at pretentious behavior.
Having started several businesses, invested in others, received an executive MBA and counseled countless company leaders, I’m convinced the show offers genuine business substance beyond its stylized delivery.
We see the dark arts of persuasion and high-stakes negotiation. We calculate valuations, hear good marketing advice and have a sense of what it takes to bring a product to the masses.
Last night, one segment stood out to me. It began with a high angle shot of the founder meditating in the back room followed by a series of behind-the-scenes cut filmmakers and cameramen and the director conducting an action countdown. We expected to see a bad pitch like the horrible singers on America’s Got Talent who manage to break through to professional rounds to the feigned annoyance of Simon Cowell and public ridicule.
Not so. Peaceful Fruits founder Evan Delahanty struck me as a creative soul out of water. He ran a perfect pitch for superfruit Acai, careful to pronounce ah-sigh-ee, and make his case for social capitalism which remains a prominent part of the brand’s story.
Shark Lori Greiner appeared smitten with him. She has a refined intuition about founders, much like her fellow shark Barbara Corcoran who happens to be my favorite. Delehanty didn’t get a deal, but he struck me as someone else that should have been funded, perhaps not on this idea, but as a creative person in need of patronage.
The Napoleon Dynamite Double Meta
After Shark Tank, we decided to watch a comedy favorite. Released in 2004, Napoleon Dynamite endures not because the characters are quirky, but because they’re true.
The First Meta: Story
I suppose one could argue the film’s thematic elements are timeless. That’s true, we see indelible American experiences.
We see rural life caught in the amber of dated fashion and technology to wonderful comedic effect. We laughed at nerdy graphic t-shirts, iZOD polos, jean shorts, limited dial-up bandwidth, and 60-foot phone cords offering precious moments of privacy. These props provide anachronistic backdrop that keeps us wondering, is this supposed to be happening in the 1980s? The 1990s?
No. Napoleon Dynamite is perfectly set in 2004 in Preston, Idaho, a real place in a real time that’s worth adding time to visit on road trips to Yellowstone National Park.
The most obvious theme is Be Yourself. Napoleon certainly arcs from a lanky creative wannabe to an actual creative artist. While he enjoys drawing, and has vivid fantasies, he’s objectively terrible and he initially lies to Pedro about having a girlfriend. Napoleon suffers scorn and bullying until finally letting his freak flag fly via freeform dance in front of the student body at Pedro’s election.
All of the main characters support the theme of Be Yourself. Pedro starts the trend with his confidence in approaching the prettiest girl in class, and his laissez faire attitude when she rejects him. His wig is the only hint of his insecurity. Deb presses her business interests and stands up to shallow ideas of womanhood. Kip and Lafawnduh enjoy a strangely connected relationship rooted in their openness to the other as who they are. Uncle Rico’s shining moment isn’t stuck in 1982, it’s at the very end of the movie when we see him scramble to straighten up his van and personal living space to welcome a surprise female visitor, played by the real-life wife of Kip.
We also experience teenage angst. Arguably the most popular filmmaker to explore this theme, John Hughes elevated sexual conquest in line with the consequences of the culture he lived, namely no-fault divorce and Western divorce of the unitive and procreative nature of intercourse.
The Second Meta: Creation
A generation after John Hughes, husband and wife writers Jared and Jerusha Hess crafted the anti-jock mouth-breathing nerd.
Napoleon’s character seems born out of the region’s Mormon tradition, both in Jared’s upbringing, and actor Jon Heder’s refusal to ever participate in a sex scene because of his personal faith and morality. We can’t help but wonder if this pronouncement stymied his Hollywood career.
Famously, Napoleon Dynamite’s minuscule $400,000 budget makes the $44M financial windfall at the box office all the more remarkable. In the decade prior, we saw the same phenomenon with Blair Witch Project and El Mariachi. The effects stand in contrast to 9-figure bombs.
Imagine what inspiration might come from systems thinking applied to scale vs franchise production. Would 100 films with $1M budgets yield more return than a $100M shot at a blockbuster?
Institutional hive minds in Big Hollywood and Big Business are forcing a strange creative death march. Leaders are over-functioning, the effect is the same as an overproduced auto-tune song.
Creative people in business need air cover just as they do in the academy, arts and exploratory fields. Humanity makes the biggest strides in creative endeavors when artists, designers, thinkers and scientists have license and safety. It’s incumbent on business leaders to suss out innovators in their ranks and protect them for the health of their business. If not, these people will suffer the malaise of middle management and administration until they finally leave.
These meta conversation have an impact on the way my kids think. One thing I’ve noticed they don’t merely enjoy the social influencers of their generation. Sure, they laugh at silliness on TikTok and Instagram and YouTube. More so, they’re fascinated by the brands their favorite influencers constructed. My kids are gaining a level of financial and media literacy around the construction of these platforms, as well as their potential.
My hope is to provide a competitive edge through empathy and big picture thinking. We’ll see how it holds up. Until then, we’re enjoying our Saturday Nights together!
Feature image is The Dancing Couple by Jan Steen (1663) at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Steen’s work is emblematic of the transient nature of life. Good vibes among bubbles, cut flowers, and broken egg shells suggest earthly pleasures are temporary, and thus, point to our deeper need for everlasting values.
As we close a difficult year, take personal stock.
I have an enduring interest in the place where nature and culture meet, that is, the transformation of chaos to order. I feel comfortable in the transition of idea to action, and am grateful for the experience.
My vocation as an executive producer suits me because dreaming about potential happens continuously, from pre-market research to pitching new business to crafting an exciting deal to continuous delivery.
I’ve had a curious attraction to stairways and doors during my travels. They fascinate me, especially stairs with a turn up around a corner or into a basement door. I can’t help but wonder, where do those stairs lead? What’s up there? What’s behind that door. I’m susceptible to the allure and potential, the secrets and possibilities.
One of my all-time favorite travel books is Stairway Walks in Los Angeles. It fits nicely into my pocket, and served as a guide for some of my earliest dates with my wife, April. Many Saturday mornings, we hiked the neighborhoods of Los Feliz, Silverlake and Santa Monica.
We moved into a small bungalow at Linai Apartments at the crest of a hill South Pasadena above Foothill Blvd, the old Route 66. I loved driving up and down the winding roads to and and from home lined with lush foliage and tall palms. I could never quite see around the bends, that perfect moment of anticipation between nothing and something.
As the end of 2020 draws near, I’ve been reflecting on what the new year will bring. The fear of a pandemic may be turning toward the hope for a vaccine. The pendulum of civil discourse in the US and the UK is swinging in a new direction.
I sense a liminal period where exasperated people are keen to move away from the status quo. But to whom? And to where?
Ultimately, these are personal questions each of us must ponder. Take the time you need to imagine how you’d like the new year to shape up for you. What can you learn? What can you imagine and create? What do you need to move forward?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCcFyR0MITQ
Feature image is Destruction in the Course of Empire series by Thomas Cole (1833-36) depicting the rise and fall of civilization. I highly recommend the Dallas-based band by the same name. They are talented friends from the 1990s who I knew during another period of transformation. Ptah is a personal favorite song while contemplating Cole’s work that inspired their self-titled debut album .
I’ve done a good deal of research in fields of trauma, grief and self compassion. In a past life, I worked as a volunteer crisis counselor for survivors of sexual assault. I continue to work with people coping with immense pain and suffering in their primary relationships via online forums and group meetups.
Every psychology expert I’ve read talks about paths to healing being through pain, not around it. When we avoid difficult conversations, when we take up mindless habits, when we fail to tell the truth – or worse, when we lie – we are prolonging and compounding the challenges of life. Suffering is an inevitable consequence of being.
In military circles, the source of so much biz speak, we hear the hoorah phrase, “Embrace the suck.” There is something uplifting and liberating about accepting one’s fate and acknowledging life is inherently difficult.
It’s good to see these ideas manifest within the solutions-selling methods of Zigler, Boress, Sandler and Kaplan. They’re fundamentally bound in sympathy (too often confused with empathy) for the person with whom we meet. That’s why I’ve never totally identified as a salesman or a support rep or marketer or product guru.
Client discovery calls are personal encounters with a genuine dose of vulnerability. At some level, people are laying themselves open to criticism. They’re admitting past mistakes, hasty decisions, lost time and money and effort.
What a privilege it is for us to be present in these moments! We can listen without judgement, offer words of understanding, encouragement and affirmation. We can be healers of sorts through insightful questions and consultation and genuine hope for a better way. We’re poised to help with an amazing offering from preeminent experts facing hard problems head on. We go through the pain, not around it.
Force Management is a sales training methodology leading me to examine a couple areas of personal improvement around the mindset of pain. I’ll share a couple of personal journal notes I took during the course…
Patience. I often see the end solution very quickly, whether that is with a buyer, or with an internal team process. When I encounter resistance or disagreement, I’m prone to discouragement or taking slow action personally. I need to hedge against the presumption that I’m right. I need to be open to what this person might teach me, and think creatively about working together. When I fail to do this, I’m opening myself up to being misunderstood, cocksure, and perceived as not being a team player.
Naiveté. I can be overly positive to a fault. I make assumptions that people see things as I do, and will behave as I would. When they do not, I feel frustrated, disappointed or even betrayed. I need to hedge against hyper optimism with a dose of healthy skepticism. Honest questions like, “How can this fail?” and Think-Says-Feels-Does empathy maps can offer helpful perspective. When I fail to do this, I’m opening myself up to sliding toward animosity, resentment and contempt.
Magic happens when we let people open up. Simply by listening and playing back what we hear, we set ourselves apart. In the din of work, at all levels across verticals and within disciplines, people have an almost desperate need to be heard, to feel understood. “I hear you” and “What I heard you say” are powerful connectors.
We may not always win the deal, but neither do we lose.
Feature image is Mary Magdalene as Melancholy by Artemesia Gentileschi (1622-25) in the Museo Sumaya, Mexico City. Gentileschi is recognized as master in an era when few women had the opportunity for artistic training.
Idaho dad is a refreshing call to tune in and chill out.
Nathan Apodaca is an unassuming father, like me, who’s teenage daughter introduced him to TikTok, like mine. Unlike me, his account @420doggface208 touched a societal nerve with a sensational video.
When his truck broke down, Apodaca grabbed his old longboard, a bottle of Ocean Spray juice and skated to work jamming to Fleetwood Mac’s classic song Dreams from 1977. His morning commute with its playful indifference stands against the dumpster fire of 2020. It’s a nostalgic response perfectly set, an uplifting reminder of the impermanence of tough times. Things didn’t always suck. Things will get better. It’s a liberating act of submission, an “Ahh, hell with it.”
Apodaca’s video became an immediate hit. Savvy brand managers at Ocean Spray gave him a new truck. Fleetwood Mac enjoyed renewed interest in their music. As art impersonates life, bandmates Mick Fleetwood, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks created their own video tributes. Together they’re an additive body of work, a ray of light in an otherwise difficult year.
Now here you go again You say you want your freedom Well, who am I to keep you down? It’s only right that you should play the way you feel it But listen carefully to the sound of your loneliness Like a heartbeat drives you mad In the stillness of what you had And what you lost And what you had And what you lost
Dreams lyrics by Fleetwood Mac
The Dreams soundtrack is more than an infectious reflective groove. Analytical psychologist Carl Jung saw dreams as the psyche’s attempt to communicate with the conscious mind, to bring forth an awareness of what is real and true. As the gateway to our subconscious personality, we should listen to our dreams to better know ourselves and our place in the world. Dreams can orient us so that we might bring orderly peace to uncertain chaos.
Beyond the personal connection to dreams, Jungian philosophy describes the collective unconscious as a universal meta psyche, a creative life force in which all people are connected.
The flash of popular attention on a meme is testimony to a deeper connection we all feel when we see something special. Even if aided by an algorithm designed to bring it to our attention, and UX designed to encourage us to share, the audience must still decide to consume and share. When the ensuing cycle of sharing outside of the social platform crosses over to competing platforms and news coverage and virtual and physical water coolers, we’re catching a glimpse of the collective unconsious.
Phil Collins has seen a similar resurgence via memes anchored in his 1981 signature song, In the Air Tonight.
Here’s a recent example from YouTube stars TwinsthenewTrend who share their reactions from hearing the song for the first time.
We can see the collective unconscious playing out beautifully between the interplay of two people bound since pre-birth. I find myself reacting to their reaction, a connective playback that makes the twins creative artists in their own right.
In a curious foretelling, they turn away from Collins’s piercing gaze on the iconic album cover. “It look like he starin’ into my soul. I’m scared. I can’t look at him! For real!”
I saw what you did I say you with my own two eyes You can wipe off that grin I know where you’ve been It’s all been a pack of lies.
In the Air Tonight lyrics by Phil Collins
The brilliance of this video is that the teens don’t hold back. They listen and open themselves up to learning something new. They’re quite expressive to the point we feel them.
Notice how initial looks of suspicion immediately give way to bobbing heads and curiosity. Their reactions are so much fun! “Oooh, like a ring entrance… Play that thing… Oh yeah… like a WWE entrance!”
Then that magical beat drops. The twins are visibly overwhelmed as mystically as Heaven for the Church Expectant. It’s almost too much to bear. Listen to their sheer joy: “Wake em up!… That was cold!… I ain’t gonna lie, I ain’t never seen nobody drop a beat three minutes into a song… He killed it… That’s unique… Let’s wake ’em up!”
Collins croons, “I’ve been waiting for this moment all of my life! Hold on!” We see what the twins see. We too are lured into the anticipation and the late-song climax. Together we experience a musical intercourse, a unitive act of mutual sharing that is additive in nature. Our reaction to their fresh perspective yields a renewed joy to a classic experience that’s always been there, waiting to be revealed.
My kids Mary and Simon had the same sort of reaction when I first played In the Air Tonight for them in 2017. I remember exactly where it happened.
We were headed to San Marcos for a “Friendsgiving” on Thanksgiving day. With light traffic on the lower deck of Interstate 35 through Austin, I cranked the car’s radio to near max volume. Normally my wife April would complain and turn it down, but she didn’t, recognizing in the moment one of my “memory makers” (I’ll address nostalgia shortly.)
Speeding through the concrete walls, we all felt the longing of distant guitars driving a moaning melody. The soaring vocals with Collins’s pleading edge overtake us right up to the explosive drop of that timeless beat. My kids loved the song instantly. We still pause and vibe whenever we hear it.
Why is memory so vivid? Perhaps the same reason the twins’ video is so remarkable. We live vicariously through a virgin experience with all the feels. Magic happens when we’re open to it.
In the Air Tonight is a special creation story. Phil Collins achieved infamy through his vulnerability and artful discipline.
First, he accepted his role as a daring artist, open and susceptible. Crafting something new for public consumption requires us to lay ourselves bare. We’re drawn to artists when they exhibit courage, a fleeting virtue admired across time and region and culture. The artist faces real risk of embarrassment or humiliation or worse: silence and rejection and privation when they subsist on their art.
For Collins, the song exposed deep personal wounds. It’s as if he had to purge out of himself, an exorcism with medicinal effect, like cauterizing a gash on his soul. He bravely cries out in confused anguish. We recognize it as the inherent suffering in life, the club’s cover charge for merely being.
I don’t know what this song is about. When I was writing this I was going through a divorce. And the only thing I can say about it is that it’s obviously in anger. It’s the angry side, or the bitter side of a separation.
Phi Collins on the creation of In the Air Tonight [BBC]
Secondly, Collins disciplined himself to avoid the high-hat cymbals and snares that might become a crutch of the mere mortal drummer in the house band at your local pub. Where percussionists dutifully establish order so the guitars and keys and singers might harmonize with mathematical synchronicity, Collins constrained himself so that he might find something fresh, unique and set apart. He experimented on a relatively new instrument, the Roland CR-78 to achieve the innovative gated reverb sound.
The result is legendary. Collins managed to create music that’ll transcend the lifetime from which it emerged. In the Air Tonight is recognized in every top 100 list of the 1980’s, a decade marked by the distinct sound of society crawling out of the rubble of a war-torn century. LA Weekly calls this work “the sleekest, most melodramatic drum break in history.” As the root of so many memes, we can expect his song will endure as long as generations continue to discover it
Why? And how did this happen?
Collins seems to tap into a primal hyper vigilance deep within our unconscious mind. Embedded within such a mournful song, his break hits like a tribal warning gong. Pay attention! There is danger about! It’s a clap of rolling thunder after lightening flashes. How else do we explain our excitement as the song builds? When every dad, and now their kids, break out air drum sticks to mark the infamous beat, we’re acting out something deep within all of us.
Apodaca’s Morning Vibe and Collins’s In the Air Tonight show us how creative breakthroughs come from constraint.
Great plays in games are remarkable because they happen within field boundaries and rules to govern just competition. Engineering marvels are bound by the laws of physics. Master painters are constrained by their canvas.
Reasonable theological arguments are made from the idea that more comes from less (see Peter Kreeft’s Twenty Arguments for God’s Existence). If we follow the axiom to its logical conclusion, God as Creator brought everything from nothing. The ultimate is (every thing) came from the ultimate is not (no thing). Imagine the absence of light and elemental matter as the ultimate constraint, and therefore, the ultimate source of all beauty.
The mystical idea of a personal encounter with an eternal life force is belief born in the religious realm. The Christian invokes the Holy Spirit, the Buddhist meditates on Dharma, the secularist practices mindfulness. Opening one’s self up to the creative element inherent in nature requires an act of self-emptying, like free driver, so you may sink down deep into the dark.
Tapping the collective unconscious embraces suffering. It requires a sacrificial act, to leave worldly concerns behind, to constrain passion and desire. One must give up something meaningful to find meaning. Beauty in both memes came from grieving personal loss, acceptance of fate, and sharing their experience with the world.
Nostalgia is a reasonable proof of quality culture. I’ve observed in Zoomers a particular interest in music and style from the 1990’s. They want the same connection to their musical past. We Gen-Xers did the same thing. We stayed close to the classic rock riffs and beats influencing popular hip hop, grunge and alternative rock.
As a father, I take special care in making memories with my family, as every dad ought. After all, we parents are primary arbiters of culture to our children. We should take care to guide them into society. If we don’t, society will take their precious little hands and guide them into uncertain chaos. Hanzel and Gretel suffered immense danger when their father abandoned them.
Fleetwood Mac has objective quality. We can tell because it’s enduring and interconnected. Dreams connects to other cultural hits from which my kids are aware. They recognize Edge of Seventeen in the hilarious jukebox scene in School of Rock when Joan Cusack permits herself a relaxed moment singing with Jack Black. And who can forget Forrest Gump’s running montage to Go Your Own Way, an inspirational track timeless in its pace, strive and potential.
It’s such a joy to relive these connections with our kids. They’re deeply curious about what made certain music popular, and why. Their instant, on-demand, crowd-sourced experience is so different than ours. We experienced a collective introduction of music through narrow media channels like Dick Clark’s American Bandstand and the Top 40 Countdown, Soul Train, Columbia Music mail order subscriptions, and the rise of MTV.
We lived through a self-fulfilling prophesy of sorts: the corporate filter of what would be popular helped to define what would actually be popular. History tells us they got it right, too. Renewed interest in Boomer bands like Fleetwood Mac and Phil Collins aren’t a fluke. TikTok and YouTube are making these bands accessible to a new generation because they’re discoverable. Sales of these classic bands are popping off today.
Did the music execs of yesteryear know something we didn’t? Did they have a consumer data feedback loop? Yes, they did! The industry’s data aggregation and analytics weren’t as sophisticated as today’s marketing tech, but they had data from albums and concert ticket sales. DJ’s fielded call-in requests. Music makers could sense the “it” factor in talent to the degree they could manufacture it in boy bands and girl bands. They listened to their gut on what would and wouldn’t work.
Recognizing the bubble gum pop has a place, the inauthenticity is evident. We know this because the music doesn’t endure. When we hear it again, it’s the same flash in a pan, an iterative experiment.
The Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland has a fun permanent exhibit of One Hit Wonders. If you’ve never been, you should go. Your kids will love it!
They’ll love this meme too. Enjoy!
Feature image is We inhabit the corrosive littoral of habit by James Gleeson (1940) in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Gleeson’s work is marked by his exploration of the subconscious via religion, mythology, literature and psychology.
When my kids turn twelve, I have a tradition of teaching them how to drive on that Father’s Day.
Mary’s first time driving, Father’s Day 2016Simon’s first time driving, Father’s Day 2020
“Why would you let a 12-year old drive?!”
Part of my vocation as a father is to develop within my kids an adventurous spirit. I’m not a helicopter parent, I’m more free-range. Children are their own persons with their own interests and ambitions. Behold the world is out there for them to explore!
I’m also terrified of the idea of losing my children suddenly in an avoidable car crash. I figure I can give them a leg up with training, practice and comfort dealing with uncertainty.
We drive a stick-shift 2001 Jeep Wrangler “TJ” Sahara edition. I bought it on a whim from a retired couple in Georgetown because I wanted a convertible and a 4×4. This Jeep is the perfect vehicle to learn how to drive. It’s got a very forgiving clutch in low gear, it’s easy to control, and it rolls easily over curbs (oh, my!).
We drive in abandon parking lots. Before I hand over the keys, I give them “the talk.” I explain that driving involves an intimate joining of man and machine. They are to take command while respecting the power they control. Great things happen when they have the freedom to go into the world and tame it.
I implore them to be geeentle. Be suuubtle. Don’t mash the brake or pop the clutch or jam the gas. Don’t jerk the wheel. Take your time and roll out slooowly. “Yes, Dad.” They hear the words, but the anticipation is palpable.
I park, we switch seats, and I’m completely hands off. Move the seat up, seatbelt, adjust your mirror, adjust the other mirror, can you see behind you? “Yes, Dad.” We go through the strange handles and knobs. There’s the turn signal, the wipers, the lights. They rotate the wheel a bit.
We cut the engine and go through all five gears plus reverse. They get a feel for how the stick feels wiggling it in neutral. They put it in gear, release the handbrake, pull the handbrake, back to neutral. We take several minutes for them to get familiar with the environment.
Starting the engine is always fun. After double-confirming they’re in neutral and holding the clutch, they turn the ignition. Inevitably they hold too long and grind the starter. I admit, I start sweating a bit. Anticipation is peaking.
They struggle to release the e-brake, and now, holding all motion with their left foot, they gently ease off the clutch. The old Jeep crawls forward ever so slowly, inch by inch until we’re moving! It’s thrilling!
Hilarity ensues.
We can’t really talk about steering, it takes practice to get a sense of how much a vehicle will turn. Inevitably, they over rotate and panic. Hint: wide open spaces really help. Mary duffed her first so badly, she headed straight for a curbed island.
“Whoa, honey, slow down! Turn! Turn!” quickly gave way to “Give it gas, hammer it!” when she couldn’t avoid the island. Thank God we were in a Jeep, it just crushed right over the concrete and grass and back off the other side. We bounced around, and I laughed, “Let’s go!”
Simon stalled at the bottom of a curved hill. When he restarted, he popped the clutch hard and slammed the gas. The tires screeched a trailing skid, his first burnout, my mind racing ahead a few years expecting it probably won’t be his last. At the apex, he hit the curb hard forcing me to grab the wheel lest we roll the Jeep. That would not have been good. He kept the tach running strong, never stalled again.
When we’re done looping around, both kids can easily run from a standing start up through the gears. We stay off surface streets and let them cruise while the Texas sun sets on a hot June evening. My favorite part is the cooling open air while they gain confidence; driving the old man around is a breeze.
I stop for ice cream on the way home, a just summer reward for a job well done. We get home and retell the stories, and then to their friends. “You’re dad is so cool, my parents won’t let me drive.” That’s a shame. They should.
She got a 96 out of 100, the highest score ever given by this particular DPS officer.
Here’s the kicker: she did it in a lifted 1999 Chevy Suburban 4×4 383 stroker that reaks of oil, WD-40 and the musky stench of Cajun Navy (TEXAS Divison).
Do the math people, that’s a classic vehicle and it’s an absolute unit. It’s also the only street legal vehicle in my fleet.
Her parallel parking is so perfect, it instantly became a thing of legend. The other kids literally just abandoned their Subarus and Hondas in tears. They couldn’t bare the witness of such power and grace.
I take all the credit. All those years of valet parking cars for boujee Dallasites finally paid off. SUCK IT MISTERS NEIMAN AND MARCUS!
Like any normal father, I taught her to drive a stick shift when she turned 12. She was there when that snowstorm slammed us on that lonely drive between Detroit and Toronto. She was there when we burned donuts at the grave of Billy the Kid on the way to bury mom out in New Mexico. She was there when we drove deep into Utah’s offroad trails at Canyonlands National Park. She was there every time I’ve been pulled over for speeding, rolling red lights and driving on medians.
Mary understands ticket-avoidance because every red-blooded American cop knows there is a proper time and place for tomfoolery. It’s NUANCE people!
Our biggest fear was that damn passenger door. You have to know how to wiggle the handle just right, otherwise you’re trapped. Normally we’d explain this exit to a new rider lest they die in a fiery death.
However, we couldn’t risk vehicular failure, it only passed inspection when I slipped my mechanic a two-fer coupon so he could take his lady out to the Chili’s for a skillet queso and some frosty margs. No fear, I coached Mary well. When the officer couldn’t open the door, Mary said, “It sticks when it’s humid, let me do it.” The officer was so giddy of the sight she just witnessed, zero Fs were given.
