Know The Difference?

I remember as a wee lad hearing my maternal grandmother speak of someone saying, "He doesn't know sshhhtt from Shinola." She had a way of saying THAT word (not Shinola; the other one) where there was no mistaking what she was saying and yet it didn't seem to be the real, dirty word.

I remember feeling well on my way to mature manhood because, at probably no more than eight years-old, I knew the difference between the two.

I remember my "Nan" as she was known, threatening to "backhand me across the room" on several occasions, but she never did; as in, "David Lee if you don't stop drumming on that table I'm going to backhand you across this room." There were numerous switchings however with limbs from the elm tree in her front yard, but still we knew we were loved unconditionally.

I remember "sassing" her, once, to very near her breaking point.  We had walked in her house from playing outside. "David Lee is that dog sshhtt on your shoes?!" I looked and replied, "We'll it's not Shinola."

If you're not familiar with this pithy little colloquialism, or even if you are, check out this father / "son" talk from the movie The Jerk.  

I hadn't thought of Shinola in years, that is until I ran across a brave new venture in Detroit, Michigan. When I read about this new company, I wondered if they knew "sshhtt from Shinola." Turns out they did. They actually purchased the rights to the Shinola name from the now defunct shoe polish company.

Not only have these brave souls started a company named Shinola, in Detroit, of all places, but it is a watch-making company. Do these people know that watches are being made in Asian and Middle-Eastern countries for pennies? In fact, most "Swiss" watches are made in China. 

"Lest anyone doubt that the watches it makes are Swiss, watchmaker Swiss Mountaineer emblazons Switzerland’s national flag on the dial of each timepiece. Does it matter that except for their Swiss movement, the watches’ components are made at a factory in Shenzhen, China? Or that Swiss Mountaineer is owned by a Hong Kong company called Golden Hawk? Under Swiss rules that are as precise as its clockworks, Golden Hawk can label its watches Swiss-made as long as at least 50 percent of the value of the movement comes from Switzerland." from the New York Times

Shinola, the company, is going to be fun to watch (no pun intended). I think it is a wonderful thing that young entrepreneurs are creating a company that makes extremely well-made products in the heart of industrial America. And it's not just watches. Shinola is also making bicycles and leather goods, AND shoe polish--how could they not. Please know that I am not being paid or compensated in any way to endorse Shinola, but just as I could from a very young age, I can discern the crappy from the cool, and this new Shinola is cool indeed. Check them out at The Shinola Story.

Coming Of Age in 1969

It may have been "twenty years ago today,
Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play,"

But 45 years ago today, the band was in Washington D.C. marching in the presidential inauguration parade of Richard M. Nixon.

I had turned eighteen just a few days earlier, a senior in high school, and playing drums in an all-city marching band from Tulsa. I expected to be wide-eyed with wonder at being in the Nation's capital, and playing "Oklahoma!" for our newly-elected president. What grabbed my attention though and held me spellbound were the anti-war, anti-establishment protests dominating the scene.

It is not hyperbole to say that it all oozed in to my psyche. In retrospect it is not surprising either. Just a few days before the inauguration, I had registered for the draft (the Selective Service). Ironically, I could not register to vote, because, although at that time an eighteen year-old was old enough for armed service, he was not ______________ enough (fill in the blank: mature, intelligent, responsible, informed, serious-minded, etc.) to vote. Already at just eighteen that kind of stuff became a seed of suspicion toward the "establishment" for me. Of course the reigning zeitgeist made for very fertile ground for those varieties of seeds. 

In the months before all of this, my "life" as a drummer had taken me to Detroit, Montreal, Quebec and New York City where protests and riots were everywhere. A Time magazine reporter writing about the era said, "America seems to be verging toward a national nervous breakdown."

I can remember on one of those trips sneaking out of the hotel where our group was staying in NYC and going to Greenwich Village to hang out in the music clubs, hoping to see the likes of Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and so on. I didn't, but the experience was heady; in a drug-free way (at least for me).

1969 still seems larger than life to me: The Jets (with Joe Namath) won the Super Bowl, The Beatles gave their last live performance (on the roof of the Abbey Road Studios)*, the secret bombing of Cambodia, student takeover at Harvard, The Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village, July 8 the first withdrawal of troops from Vietnam, Easy Rider released, Edward Kennedy drives off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, killing Mary Jo Kopechne, The first man of the moon, the Manson "family" killed actress Sharon Tate who was eight months pregnant with Roman Polanski's child, Woodstock: 3 days of Peace and Music, The Brady Bunch premiered, the Amazing Mets won the World Series, Sesame Street made its debut on PBS, the first draft lottery since WWII was held.

Not that it ranks with these noteworthy events, but in May of 1969, I graduated from high school and in the Fall started school at Oklahoma Baptist University. Why OBU? Apparently they had a dearth of drummers and offered me a percussion scholarship.

At OBU, I was a part of the weirdly-worldly (not an official designation, in fact, I just now made that up). It wasn't hard to qualify for this label; OBU at the time was in a bit of a bubble: intentionally and strategically, protected from the rising counterculture. I guess it was because I had the privilege of travel and experience, plus the overrated mystique of being a drummer in a rock and roll band, or maybe it was all in my head. I had already been a part of a few minor protests and moratoriums: seeking the change of the voting age from 21 to 18, some anti-war stuff, etc.

There was one though: it seemed profound at the time. 

The Kent State shootings occurred at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. The Ohio National Guard fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds on unarmed college students on Monday, May 4, 1970, killing four students and wounding nine others.

As a result, a student protests were organized across the country. Hundreds of universities cancelled classes and locked down buildings. I was proud to be a part of the event at OBU. But as we sat through the day and overnight on the OBU Oval, wearing black arm bands, discussing the state of our country and world, and wondering whether we could make a difference, it all seemed a little silly and isolated. Maybe we did make some difference though. At least I was different. I wanted to DO something. I still do.

Don't skip this part. Back then, no doubt I had delusions of importance and occasional altruism. The fact is I was pretty self-absorbed; oh, not in a Justin Bieber brand of narcissism kind of way, but in a way that dictates at least this: for all of those who knew me back then, please forgive me. Maybe the Washington Elite was right--maybe I was too stupid to vote at 18. The dean of students who encouraged me not to return to OBU for my sophomore year certainly would agree with that.

My intent here is not to romanticize those days, but if I have, well... After all this was my first Coming-of-Age. It should be a bit romantic, right?

---

*Have you heard the rumor? Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are re-uniting at the Grammy Awards this year.

Good Story

Thanks to all who played the game--you know the one in this post: And The Winner Is...

Several, who just by recognizing the typeface used in the titling of the show, correctly identified my pick for the Best TV Drama Ever. The type face is called FrizQuadrata and the show is Law & Order.

Now if you have a few minutes let me tell you why Law & Order (the original) is important; and the best ever. 

You could talk about its importance by citing things like: 

• It's the longest-running crime drama on American primetime television. Its record of 20 seasons is a tie with Gunsmoke for the longest-running live-action scripted American prime-time series. Both series are surpassed only by the animated series The Simpsons (in its 25th season as of 2013).
• It's the largest drama franchise with several spin-offs including the still running Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
• It continues to have a strong syndication presence and is now on NetFlix®.
• It has the coolest theme song and sound effects of any show ever. It's DONK, DONK sound effect on scene changes is iconic.

But to me, the real importance of Law & Order is that it is one of the very few examples we have of superb writing, character development, relevance, and excellent acting. How did they do it week after week for 20 years?

It has all the elements of great story--something that is becoming extremely rare these days. Sadly! Not only do we not have good stories written for TV and film, but it seems like we are as humans living mostly boring stories.

One of my favorite is books is by Robert McKee called "Story."  Robert McKee teaches writers in sold-out audiences around the world. He himself has written numerous TV and feature film scripts. His "Story" class is considered the ultimate class for screenwriters and filmmakers.

In his book, he talks about the demise of good stories. He gives several causes and then writes:

"The final cause for the decline of story runs very deep. Values, the positive/negative charges of life, are at the soul of our art. The writer shapes story around a perception of what's worth living for, what's worth dying for, what's foolish to pursue, the meaning of justice, truth--the essential values. In decades past, writer and society more or less agreed on those questions, but more and more ours has become an age of moral and ethical cynicism, relativism, and subjectivism--a great confusion of values. As the family disintegrates and sexual antagonisms rise, who, for example, feels he understands the nature of love? And how, if you do have a conviction, do you express it to an ever-more skeptical audience?
"This erosion of values has brought with it a corresponding erosion of story. Unlike writers in the past, we can assume nothing. First we must dig deeply into life to uncover new insights, new refinements of value and meaning, then create a story vehicle that expresses our interpretation to an increasingly agnostic world. No small task."

That, dear friends, is not just good advice for writing good story. It's vital to living a good story.

Agree?