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Los Mineros, Part Two

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

A serial analysis of the quest to rescue 33 miners trapped 2,300 feet underground in a copper mine outside Copiapo, Chile…

TCMG2Levels of Meaning

With the eyes of the news media fixed on one very specific location, everything about the Los Mineros narrative is tightly focused and vividly portrayed.  There’s no mystery to it, no hidden agenda (with maybe the exception of a mining company looking to avoid liability, which itself would be no surprise).  With the focus so intense right now on the mine itself and the rescue efforts, almost every element of the narrative is visible even to a distant observer like me, who might check the story every day or two on the webs to see how the miners are doing.

It is extremely clear how the narrative is conveyed on three distinct Levels of Meaning.

All communication happens on three levels:  Cosmetic (data, information, quantification, surface descriptions, neutral language), Emotional (passion, mood, empathy, attitude, ups, downs) and Meta (symbolism, context, iconography, metaphor, perspective, interpretation, the subconscious connections).

Observe, and learn from, how the Los Mineros narrative is conveyed on these three levels:

Cosmetic: Tons of information here. Plans and backup plans described in detail.  The three four-inch pipes that have become their lifeline.  The NASA psychologists who’ve arrived to help.  The number of calories they’re eating every day (2,000), and how much water they’re supposed to drink every day (5 litres).  We know about the ’super drill’ being brought in to bore through the rock.  This early in the story, there’s still a lot of cosmetic meaning to be conveyed, an abundance of factual information.  Expect that, at some point, this level of meaning will begin to lose steam, and that the tellers of the story will begin to place more emphasis on the other two levels.

Emotional: As always, this is where the most meaning resides, where the story is most potent, and touches us most profoundly.  We know that some of Los Mineros have been depressed.  We know that they have been able to communicate with their families.  They have shared their frustration.  We feel their claustrophobia.  They have begun to play roles, and these will rouse emotions, too.  Who will give the pep talks?  Who can get them to smile?  Keeping their emotions positive will be key to their mental health during their ordeal, and so, the longer the ordeal goes on, the more crucial the emotional content of the narrative will become.

Meta: The video feed is an existential lifeline.  “I video, therefore I am.”  For this reason, its very existence is a hopeful symbol.  The handsomer guys are getting more facetime on camera.  Stars of the narrative, those who can best hold our attention, will emerge as the Cosmetic flow slows.  Bringing in the NASA psychologists to deal with the miners’ prolonged isolation is a recognition of the global significance of the narrative, and it ennobles Los Mineros by equating them with astronauts, Los Astronautas, and to the heroic qualities we ascribe them.  This blog post is, itself, meta communication about the rescue effort.

Sometimes uncovering the Meta language requires digging beneath the surface, because beneath the surface is where the Meta meaning works.  For example the number of miners, 33, has deep meta significance in the predominantly Catholic country of Chile, because 33 is commonly believed to be Jesus Christ’s age when he died on the cross.  When Los Mineros finally walk into the light, the date on the calendar will not matter, they’ll be celebrating Easter in Chile.

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Posted in Character, Communication, Emotion, Narrative | 2 Comments »

JetBlue Scene

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Jeremy Redleaf, one of the new physicists of the narrative form and the creator of this brilliant siteOJN1initated the scene when he sent me this emailJBJeremy1

about this JetBlue adJetBlue1

which is anchored by copy that saysJBJeremy2In my role of Commentor On All Things About Improvisation in Business, I responded to Jeremy’s email with this GameChangers postJBGameChangers1in which i point out that ‘the first rule of improv’ if there even is such a thing, which itself is debatable, is not to say ‘yes’ but to say ‘yes and.’   ‘Yes’ is a state of mind.  ‘Yes and’ is action.  The most fertile ground in the world is useless until it’s planted.  ‘Yes’ is the ground.  ‘And’ is the seed.  My blog post inspired Jeremy…JBJeremy2C

Posi-ffiti!  Yes!  I love threads like this.  As usual, I’d tweeted a link to my blog post. I decided to yes-and Jeremy by calling JetBlue’s attention to its error with a Tweet.  I was able to Google their CMO, Marty St. George and find his Twitter account.  JBTweet2To Marty’s credit, he tweeted back within 15 mins.  This already puts @martysg and JetBlue way ahead of most CMOs in brand narrative game.  It also tells me that this is one vigilant, sensitive cat.  Dude’s running it like Ochocincomartysg1

here @martysg commits the improvisation error of denying.  He does this by being vague–what does “if you said ‘no quotation marks’ I might be with you” mean, anyway?–and acting as if I’d accused him of misquoting ‘John’, and seems to be saying that the mistake is not theirs, but mine, for calling them out on the wrong thing.  I responded by suggesting the ‘Posi-ffiti’ gameJBTweet3

and further suggested how to initiate the game…JBTweet11

@martysg blocks the game… martysg2By acting as if I’d said something I hadn’t–that ‘The Posi-ffiti Game’ would have to be played without ‘John’s’ permission–Marty kills the scene.  This was probably his intention.  He also implies that quoting people without their permission is MY style.  In one statement, he refuses my gift and pimps my character.  Nice.  This is classic old school management style, a familiar corporate game I call, “Parry and Thrust.”  It’s played  by stalling, and staying non-committal (”Hm…if….I might…”) and then landing a knockout blow (”Do something unethical?  Not us.  YOU maybe.  Not us.”)

Look, everybody understands that a CMO like @martysg will not alter an ad campaign because some nitpicker tweets him about the word ‘and’ in an ad.  Like I said, he gets credit for being open enough to have the conversation in the first place.  This is more responsiveness from a tweet than you’d get from 90% of all the CMOs in the world.  It is, however, short of the kind of action a person would get from an improvisational brand like Southwest Airlines.  Furthermore, what happened when @martysg did respond is precisely the point of my blog post.  The conversation didn’t go anywhere because Marty St. George ‘yessed’ and he did not ‘and.’

How might Marty have yes-anded?  Anyone who’s gone through a GameChangers workshop can give you a dozen games that would be more productive than ‘Parry and Thrust.’

The good news coming out of this exchange is that all is not lost.  Jeremy Redleaf has a new job description for OddJobNation: “Posi-ffiti Artist.”

To an improviser, Lost is just the first step on the way to Found.

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Posted in Additions and Edits, Agreement Principle, Branding, Character, Communication, Dialogue, Games, Gifts, Initiations, Issues, Listening, Narrative, Scenes, story | No Comments »

The Trapped Chilean Miner Game

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

Several years ago, in a Level One improv class at I.O. West, I did a scene with Parvesh Cheena where he and I were given the situation of being trapped together in an elevator.   I immediately began McGuyvering my way out of the situation.   (”You got a paper clip?  We’ll pick the lock on that panel and…blah blah blah.”)  Big rookie mistake.  Our teacher, Sarah Gee, said to me, “If you get out of the elevator the scene’s over.  Show us who you are to one another while you’re trapped!”

TrappedMiners1This broke today over CNN. The 33 men trapped in a Chilean copper mine have begun to assume different roles that will help them survive the time, estimated to be months, it will take rescuers to drill through 2300 feet of solid rock to rescue them.  This is brilliant.  They’re designing a game to help them get out alive without going batshit crazy while they’re waiting to be rescued.  This is going to give us all a good look at how a game works, and how it informs and inspires group strategies.  One thing is already clear:  There are some good improvisers trapped in that mine.

To review, here are the elements of a game: Environment, Roles, Rules, Objective(s).

Let’s begin with the Objective.  Simple:  ‘Get out of here alive without going crazy.’  Same as most survival strategies.

The Environment of the Trapped Chilean Miner Game could not be more starkly defined:  A pool of darkness deep beneath the surface of the earth, and the rest of the world watching up above.  The contrasts between the Down Below and the Up Above are extreme, an archetype embedded deep in every human’s subconscious.  The Well, the Fallen Rubble, the Cave, the Mine–all tap deep into our unconscious, where our memories of the womb are stored.   As my friend Richard Wynn Taylor says, “It will remind us of something we’ve never seen before.”

The Roles, as stated in the CNN story, are developing.  One of the miners has become a spiritual leader.  Another an entertainer who sings Elvis songs.  Expect that all or most of the miners will eventually define roles for themselves, some as group characters (’peacekeepers,’ ’storytellers,’ ’spokespeople,’ ‘mediators’ etc. etc.)  Some of the miners will play more than one role, depending on the scene they’re in.  Eventually some of them may trade roles, taking turns speaking to the media, for example.  What’s also interesting about the roles element of the game is that all 33 men trapped in the cave will, for the duration of their rescue, abandon the roles they were playing when they went Down Below: None of them will be playing the role of a miner.  Note also that ‘trapped miner’ is not a role.  It’s a circumstance.  Your circumstance does not define your role; it’s your behavior in your circumstance that defines your role.

Expect that in the coming weeks, we’ll be hearing about the Rules of the TCMG. These Rules will be designed to create agreement and establish ground rules for the miners’ interactions.  The rules will initially address the fundamentals such as sleeping, eating, sharing resources, communicating with Up Above etc., and then get more detailed.  The rules of a game will not be designed to create sameness or repetition, but to liberate performance, by empowering players to play their roles well.  The miners cannot afford to get weary of their roles.  It will be interesting to see how many rules will be set or influenced Up Above.

Unlike a reality TV show like Jersey Shore, where editors manipulate the juxtaposition of shots to create scenes and the sequence of events to construct a narrative, the ‘live-ness’ of this scene will demand improvisation, and that means the miners will be the primary architects of their narrative.

The intense focus on this particular scene by the world media, is going to make the elements of the game highly visible.  We will be able to track how well the trapped miners are doing by how focused and productive they are in playing their game.

What’s going to hold our interest about the Chilean Miner scene will not be the drama of whether or not they make it out alive.  The objective, the ‘Will they or won’t they’ aspect of the narrative, will only carry it so far.  What will hold our interest is how the miners behave in the meantime.  How well we get to know them.  Who they are to their families, and to one another.  What kind of character traits emerge. This is true of any narrative.  If you want to hold your audience’s interest, don’t focus on how you want it to end, but on how you want it to be.

When the miners’ survival becomes imminent, their game will transform from a survival strategy to a business strategy.  To the objective of ‘Get out of here alive without going crazy,’ they will undoubtedly add, ‘Make Money.’  When the miners finally walk into the light, the game may change, but it will not end.

Buena suerte, Mineros!

ChileanMiners2

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Posted in Agreement Principle, Casting, Character, Environment, Focus, Fundamentals, Games, Group Mind, Narrative, Objectives, Scenes, story | 1 Comment »

GameChangers Glossary, A to G

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

Adapted from GameChangers–Improvisation for Business in the Networked World, by Mike Bonifer:

Addition–Entering a scene in progress for the purpose of contributing immediately to the team’s performance; contributing to a scene; giving a gift

Agreement, The Agreement Principle–A principle of improvisation, characterized by players’ openness towards each other and an organization or communications network’s openness at its edge; the group consensus around a game or theme that informs a scene

Audience–Those within and outside of an organization whose reactions and opinions will determine the success of a scene or performance

Audience, External–People outside an organization or network, including customers (and potential customers), competitors, bloggers, users, fans, viewers, etc. whose reactions ultimately determine the value of a performance or narrative

Audience, Internal–People inside an organization or network, whose judgment acts as a kind of filter on scenes and narratives before they reach the External Audience

Blocking–A performance-related problem that occurs when players impede the progress of a scene by refusing the gifts offered them by their teammates

Callback–The act of recalling information that was stated by a player earlier in a scene or in a previous scene.

Cast–Players who share the same business objective; also called a Group or Team; can also refer to the employees of an entire division or organization (Disney, for example, refers to all employees as ‘cast members’)

Casting–The process of selecting players who will comprise a business team

Character–Traits that make a player unique as an individual and consistently valuable to his or her team

Close, Del–Credited as one of the originators of longform improvisation, and one of its most influential teachers, Close (1934-1999) created ‘Harold,’ probably the most-performed structure for group improv theater performances; his proteges include Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, John Belushi, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey; legend has it that he willed his skull to the Goodman Theater in Chicago to be used in future productions of Hamlet, in which he was to be billed as playing the role of Yorick

Coach–A person who casts a team; an objective observer and critic of a team’s performance; one who establishes game-based strategies and standards of preparation and performance in directing a team toward its objectives; manager; director

Cosmetic Communication/Meaning–The surface level of communication within a scene, primarily through spoken dialogue; data; information. (See ‘Emotional Communication/Meaning‘ and ‘Meta Communication/Meaning‘)

Crazy Town–A performance-related problem that occurs when players indulge in fantasies, magical thinking, or egoistic behavior, until the scene becomes un-moored from any actionable reality.

Denying–A form of blocking in which a player repeatedly contradicts or ignores other players, confusing the audience and fellow players; refusing to recognize another player’s reality

Edit–The action of making an entrance for the purpose of shifting the scene’s focus, or to begin a new scene; edits usually occur in concert with other players exiting the scene

Emotional Communication/Meaning–The most dynamic and meaningful level of communication in a scene. conveying its players’ passions and desires, where reactions (both positive and negative), and reinforcements/alienation are strongest

Energy–The pitch at which a player or group performs (and modulates) its performance; an umbrella term for the level of activity and intensity the audience observes in the group, and that players in the group experience in one another

Entrance–A player’s first appearance in a scene

Environment–The setting in which members of team collaborate to achieve their objective; any place where players interact; more expansively, any place where an audience experiences a brand; the overall business climate in which an organization operates, shaped by factors such as regulatory agencies, competitors, geopolitical factors and the desires, attitudes and beliefs of customers

Exit–A player’s departure from a scene

Fantasizing–A performance-related issue that occurs when players build outlandish, or wildly fictitious scenarios that do not acknowledge or act on the real world environment or the businessa; magical thinking; (see ‘Crazy Town‘ and ‘Invention‘)

Flatlining–A performance-related problem that occurs when players show no energy or life, impeding or halting a scene’s progress

Game–Rules, roles, environment and objective(s) defined; an exploration of a theme; a strategy used to achieve a business-related objective; games fall into two broad categories – productive and unproductive

GameChanger–A player who has mastered the art and practical techniques of business improvisation; a manager/coach or player with the ability to identify and support productive games and quickly change or edit unproductive ones

Gift–A move that supports the scene and the players in it; ‘giving gifts’ is one of the most powerful and effective moves a player can make

Grandstanding–A performance-related issue that occurs when a player wastes time and effort trying to contribute something ‘heroic’ to a scene; holding back for effect instead of engaging in the moment; habitually swinging for the fences or reaching for the ‘Wow Factor’; going for a home run when a single would better serve the scene

Group Mind– The tangible web of connectivity between players that achieved through a shared focus on a game and the exploration of a theme; the collective unconscious; not the same as ‘Group Think‘

Group Think–Rubber-stamping; going along to get along; consensus for its own sake; agreement that does not involve a game or theme; behavior that is not intended to achieve the objective, but rather to reinforce status; uncritical or unquestioning support for a political agenda, ideology or hierarchy

TO BE CONTINUED….

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Posted in Additions and Edits, Agreement Principle, Branding, Casting, Character, Coaching, Communication, Dialogue, Emotion, Entrances, Environment, Fundamentals, Games, Gifts, Group Mind, Issues, Narrative, Objectives, Scenes, Themes | No Comments »

Fools With Rules

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

This one’s for the golfers…

I used to joke with our neighbor back in Indiana, Euline Kieffner, that the reason she and I loved golf so much was that there was nothing more alluring to folks who’d grown up on farms like we had than a mown field with no manure in it.  Until four or five years ago, I was enchanted by the game of golf, and literally could not get enough of it.  I played and practiced it religiously, at one point working my way all the way down to a four-handicap, which is pretty damn good.  I could play.

Golf is a great game that can teach a person a lot about patience, persistence, imagination, focus, character, and the difference between trying to force positive outcomes and letting positive outcomes emanate from an open mind.  As my business focus has changed, so has my relationship with the game.  Today, I play rarely, maybe two or three times a year, and only on social occasions.   The romance is gone.  Occasionally, my Taylor-Mades and I stare wistfully at one another across a crowded garage, and remember how it used to be between us.

What fascinates me most about the sport of golf today, sad to say, is the wreckage to its most visible brand experience–the PGA Tour.  We’re talking multi-vehicle pile-up. Its shiningest star has lost most of his luster and its TV ratings have tanked in tandem with the Tiger brand.  The Tour’s newcomers have apparently had no life experiences to differentiate them from one another–all they know is golf.  Its core demographic is aging.  Its most interesting personalities have retired.

Last Sunday, while I did a little work in the office, more out of habit than anything, I had the PGA Championship—the last of the four ‘majors’ of the season—on the TV in the background. It held no inherent interest for me. And then, all of a sudden, it did.  Several of the game’s young lions—Rory McElroy from Scotland(?), a long-hitting lefthander with high follow-through named Bubba, a cool German named Kaymer I’d never heard of before, and Dustin Johnson, who hits it insanely long, were all fighting for the lead, along with a caddyshacker named Wen-Chong from China, who learned to play on that country’s first golf course, which was built only 20 years ago.  All of a sudden, it was a story worth following.

DustinJohnson1Over the last five or six holes the tournament’s drama became palpable.  None of the young guys were holding back, no one was playing not to lose, they were all winding up, letting it rip, and playing for the win, and it was riveting.  The tournament came down to a tie between two players, Bubba and the German, Kaymer, with Johnson playing the final hole of the tournament with a chance to win it.  He missed his par putt to win.  We were looking at a three-player, three-hole playoff for the championship.

And then, all of a sudden, we weren’t.  A PGA Tournament official pulled Johnson aside as he walked off the 18th green and told him that he had violated a rule by grounding his club in a hazard along the 18th fairway, one of the 1000+ sand bunkers that lined the course.

I’m not going to get into the specifics here, except to say that technically the officials were correct—Johnson had, in fact, let his club touch the sand prior to making his second shot.  Narratively, however, the PGA people blew it like I’ve never seen a call blown in a lifetime of watching sports.  There was no possible way for Johnson to know that the spot where his ball sat—a spot that had been trampled by tens of thousands of people during the tournament, and was tightly framed by hundreds in the gallery as he made his swing—was a hazard.  Besides that, if there had once been a border to the sand bunker, that border had been erased by the week’s crowds to the point where it no longer existed.  Given this, there was no way for the PGA officials to know for sure from looking at a replay whether the ball was ‘in’ a bunker or not.

This wasn’t some snap judgment in the heat of the moment by a referee or ump.  This was a deliberation.  A review.  A consideration.  And then, a horrible decision that took all the life out of the story.  Johnson was penalized two strokes, and eliminated from the playoff.

The tragedy of this decision goes way beyond any personal setback to Mr. Johnson.  The PGA brand desperately needed this story, needed the drama to keep building with the playoff between three of its new stars.  They had it.  It was happening.  The audience was engaged.  There was real enthusiasm from the broadcasters.  It was turning into the most interesting finish to a tournament in years.  All the PGA officials had to do was stay out of its way.  Instead, they committed the golfer’s most grievous mistake: they over-thought the shot.  And then they shanked it.

This was not the behavior of people concerned about what’s best for the game of golf, about supporting their brand’s narrative, or about nurturing the next generation of golfers.  This was vainglorious meddling by middle-aged men desperate for attention and fearing nothing as much as their own impotence.

Oh yeah, Kaymer won the playoff, but who cared?  Nobody outside of Kaymer’s girlfriend is talking about it.  All the fan conversation is about the idiotic ruling.

We see this a lot in business.  A compelling narrative begins to unfold, or an idea seems to be gathering momentum, and then, from out of nowhere, an expressionless manager with a rule book derails it.  It sucks for everyone involved except the person with the rule book.

If the rules don’t support your brand’s narrative, don’t change the narrative, change the rules.  If your managers, like those PGA officials, aren’t nuanced enough to understand what it takes to support your narrative, change managers.  This is what the PGA needs to do, pronto, to get its ailing game back on track.

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Posted in Branding, Character, Focus, Games, Issues, Narrative, story | No Comments »

Who Is Josh Weinstein?

Monday, June 21st, 2010

On his excellent MBAStoryteller site (yes! more MBA storytellers!) Nabil Laoudji, who’s in the Sloan MBA program at MIT, posted this 2006 video by Josh Weinstein.

Weinstein’s video demonstrates brilliantly how our perceptions shape our opinions.  That’s the obvious learning.

There are other, subtler ideas expressed in this video, too, which is why I really dig it.  It has lots of subtext:

The absence of knowledge makes perceptions more malleable. Because Weinstein is unknown to his subjects, slight adjustments in his appearance seem to cause wild fluctuations in perceptions (the edits themselves also shape perception, but I’ll comment only with subjects’ behavior here).  Anyone or any brand that seeks to limit knowledge?  This is why.  Manipulation of perceptions.  In a business environment where knowledge is so easily shared and transferred, limiting knowledge in order to manipulate perceptions is not good business.

Consistent character encourages learning. Weinstein’s character, a slightly bemused, inquisitive observer of human nature, seems consistent throughout.  As a storyteller, he uses this truth to get honest reactions from his subjects—that is, because he’s consistently in character, we can be pretty sure the subjects’ reactions are their own, and not something he has manipulated them into doing   Imagine if, instead, he’d played different characters in the interviews—aggressive, stupid, coy, flirty—we would not have been half as interested in or trusting of what his subjects had to say.  He and we would not have learned half as much.

Interrogation is not dialogue. The questions all go one way.  Weinstein does this to control the narrative and make a point.  Generally, however, dialogue is much more productive than interrogation.

This is what a lot of market research looks like. Like market research, Weinstein’s film is a series of snapshots.  It is an interrogation of the audience, not a dialogue.  Because of the way the interviews are conducted, the audience’s multi-faceted responses are nearly all flawed.  It doesn’t matter how much data you have if its facets are flawed and unrelated.  Many facets do not a diamond make. It is the interrelationship of the facets, their connection to one another, that illuminates the stone.

Admit your ignorance. Nearly everyone in the video is willing to guess about Weinstein’s identity, and in doing so they accept a ‘rule of the game’ that underscores their ignorance.  This is a fine storytelling device for Weinstein’s video, but it’s a toxic game in business.  For some managers, however, this is THE  game.  A conversation consists of them waiting for a ‘gotcha’ moment, when they can prove you wrong, ignorant, or both.  People pretending to know what they’re talking about are just as much to blame for this game as those who expose them.   Beware of games designed to show up anyone’s ignorance!  Admitting your ignorance is a first step toward learning.  Guessing, or faking knowledge, is not.  Ultimately, Weinstein’s video delivers the goods in the form of questions answered, but not before he demonstrates just how elusive the goods can be.

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Posted in Character, Education, Games, Leadership, Networked World, Problem Solving, Relationships, Scenes | No Comments »

Harpo’s Rules

Sunday, June 20th, 2010

Harpo1Underneath his fright wig and his goofy screen persona, Harpo Marx was one beautiful human being.  In his autobiography, Harpo Speaks, he lists his family’s rules.  It’s some of the wisest advice a father ever gave his children:

1.  Life has been created for you to enjoy, but you won’t enjoy it unless you pay for it with some good, hard work. This is one price that will never be marked down.

2.  You can work at whatever you want to as long as you do it as well as you can and clean up afterwards and you’re at the table at mealtime and in bed at bedtime.

3.  Respect what the others do. Respect Dad’s harp, Mom’s paints, Billy’s piano, Alex’s set of tools, Jimmy’s designs, and Minnie’s menagerie.

4.  If anything makes you sore, come out with it. Maybe the rest of us are itching for a fight too.

5.  If anything strikes you as funny, out with that too. Let’s all the rest of us have a laugh.

6. If you have an impulse to do something you’re not sure is right, go ahead and do it. Take a chance. Chances are, if you don’t you’ll regret it–unless you break the rules about mealtime and bedtime, in which case you’ll sure as hell regret it.

7.  If it’s a question of whether to do what’s fun or what is supposed to be good for you, and nobody is hurt by whichever you do, always do what’s fun.

8.  If things get too much for you and you feel the whole world’s against you, go stand on your head. If you can think of anything crazier to do, do it.

9.  Don’t worry about what other people think. The only person in the world important enough to conform to is yourself.

10.  Anybody who misteats a pet or breaks a pool cue is docked a month’s pay.

Hope your Father’s Day was as happy as mine!

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Posted in Character, Coaching, Education, Games, Leadership | 1 Comment »

Fern and Betty

Friday, May 7th, 2010

I got my love of playing games from my mother, Fern.  When I was growing up, we watched all the TV game shows that our manually-adjusted outdoor antenna (with TV watchers inside the house shouting outside to the antenna-turner, “Too far!” or “Keep turning!” or “You had it!  Turn back!”) and our black-and-white Philco allowed.  One of our favorites was Password, and our favorite Password shows were those that featured Betty White as one of the guest celebrities.  We loved Betty.  She was smart, beautiful, funny, and Fern never failed to point out that she was married to the host of Password, Allen Ludden.  Having a husband who hosted a TV game show on which you were a celebrity guest was, I always figured, Fern’s dream marriage, not, as reality would have it, marriage to a farmer from Indiana who rehabilitated castoff horses by turning our farm into a riding stable open to a public that by and large did not know how to ride.  Fern’s game was much harder to play and, for her, not nearly as much fun as Betty’s was.

BettyWhite1A few years ago, I was asked by a network executive to videotape interviews with the alumnae of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, including Betty White.  The show had been off the air for many years but Mary clearly maintained her star status, and the rest of the cast deferred to her as such.  I, however, only had eyes for Betty.  Then, as now, she lit up the room with those smiling, sparkling eyes, and the sincere attention she gave to those around her.  Listening, I am more convinced all the time, is the secret to relating to the world, and Betty listens with the best.  Her ego does not get in the way of her reception, and as a result, her picture is always crystal clear.  What you experience is not the illusion of a human being, it is human.  It is not a portrayal, not a role.  It is true character.

After we had completed our interview, Betty and I had a chance to talk, and I got to tell her the one thing I really wanted to tell her, how my mom had been a big fan of hers since the Password days, and how she celebrated the relationship between Ms. White and her dream husband, Allen Ludden.  Then, on pure impulse, I asked Betty she’d mind calling Fern on my mobile phone and saying hello.  This was a no-no for someone doing my job, a line you did not cross, it was like kitchen help taking a seat at the dinner table.  But all I could think about was how happy Fern would be to get a phone call from Betty White.  “Of course I will”  Betty said.

Fern was not home.  The call went to voice mail.   Betty didn’t miss a beat.  “Fern, this is Betty White,” she said.  “I’m standing here with a handsome young man who claims to be your son, and he tells me you’re a Password fan.  That is so sweet of you.  We had so much fun on that show, didn’t we?…”  I don’t remember the rest of what she said, but I remember that the tone of her message was as if she and Fern were old high school classmates who hadn’t seen each other in ages.  Which, in a way, they were.

A couple of days later, the network executive called and the conversation eventually came around, as I figured it would, to the subject of the call I’d asked Betty to make to Fern.  “At first, I thought what you did was okay, and later I thought it wasn’t okay,”  said the exec.  She said she had no choice but to fire me.  I could not have cared less.  The happiness in my mother’s voice when she phoned to tell me about the voice mail from her BFF, Betty, was worth a thousand gigs.

I imagine that Betty White’s life has been a series of encounters just like this one, in which she has given the gift of herself, and treated her fans as her equals, her collaborators in a joyful conversation.  (”We had fun, didn’t we, Fern?”)  This is why she is still young and her world is still unfolding at the age of 88, and she’s hosting Saturday Night Live tomorrow night.

FernMeCasino1

3 AM, French Lick (Indiana) Casino

I see this same spirit in my mother, who, at the age of 82, still lives on the farm in Indiana, quilts, bowls, plays bingo, gambles in Vegas, sings in the choir, gardens, cooks amazing meals, mows the huge yard and can drink with the young folks at the Shamrock Pub until closing time.  When I talk to her on the phone, she’s usually the one who ends the conversation because, hey, she’s got things to do and has to get going.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mother!  Break a leg, Betty!  We love you both!

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Who Made You?

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

Bird was not her given name, but everybody called her Bird because they said she was just like that, light and long of neck and attention-getting beautiful.  From the time she could walk, it always seemed as if at any second she was going to lift up to her tiptoes and start flying, that’s how excited she was about life.

When Bird was 12 years old, she and her older brother, Cam, were playing with a group of children in a park at the foot of the remote mountain in Colorado where they lived.  A gang of men appeared out of nowhere and abducted Bird at gunpoint.  Cam escaped and made it back up the mountain.  Bird’s abduction was all over the news, but she could not be found, and after awhile, everyone assumed she never would be.

For three years, the gang held her hostage.  She was made to do menial labor and was raped repeatedly by men twice and three times her age.  The gang eventually sold her to a Canadian man who was in the fur business, and wanted her for his mistress while he was on business trips.  At the age of 16, she was pregnant with the Canadian’s child.

She named the baby Jay-Bee.

When Jay-Bee was six months old, Bird accompanied the Canadian to a business conference in Iowa, where he crossed paths with Bill and Lewis, managers of a real estate syndicate acquiring and developing raw land west of the Mississippi.  The Canadian could sense that Bill and Lewis were major players, connected at the highest levels of government and the intelligence community.  He also sensed that they were enamored of Bird, who it turns out had a gift for languages and knew a surprising lot about raw land west of the Rockies.  The more Bird contributed to the conversation, the better Bill and Lewis liked the Canadian.  So he let her talk.  And sure enough, they invited the Canadian to join their company.

The Canadian turned out to be a miserable employee, capricious, and ill-suited to the relentless pace of the real estate business.  On top of it, he was a raging alcoholic.  Worst of all, he abused Bird and the baby.  When Bill caught a glimpse of this behavior one day in the company parking lot,  he fired the Canadian on the spot.  Lewis, a lawyer, arranged for Bird to get a divorce.  After the divorce, she got her real estate license, whereupon, to her surprise, Bill and Lewis invited her to join the company.

She brought Jay-Bee to work with her every day, and he soon became the company pet.  Bill, who at that time had no children of his own, took a particular shine to the boy, and nicknamed him ‘Pompous.”  She never told anyone about her life before the Canadian.  She couldn’t.  She had no memory of it.  Somewhere, during the time she’d been held hostage by her abductors, she had perfected her ability to forget.

A number of years later, Bill and Lewis asked Bird to join them on a business trip.  They didn’t tell her where they were going.  They took the Gulfstream, landed on a private field at night, got into a waiting limo and checked into their hotel.  In the morning, when Bird looked out the window of her hotel, her heart fluttered like it had wings.  There, in front of her, like a childhood dream remembered, was the mountain where she had grown up.

Still numb, Bird went with Bill and Lewis to a meeting of local officials, and at the meeting, representing his town council, was her brother, Cam.

It took them a second to recognize each other, but the instant they did, she flew across the room to him and they  hugged and cried.  The meeting wasn’t much of a meeting after that.  It was, instead, a celebration that didn’t end for two days, a big dance around a brother and sister and members of their clan who couldn’t stop crying and smiling at the same time.  Bird’s memories of her happy childhood came back to her during those two days.  She remembered that when she was a child, her very favorite thing was to look at a flower, a bird, anything beautiful, and ask of it, “Who made you?”, and that this is what she had been doing when she wandered off from the other children on the day she got abducted from the park.

Bill and Lewis made a killing on their real estate deals, of course, and Bird played an important role in their success.  Lewis went on to become governor of Louisiana and Bill and his wife, Julia, moved to Washington, where he held a number of high-ranking positions in government.  My suspicion is that Bird and Bill were in love.  We will never know for sure.  What we know is this:

We know that Bird gave away whatever money she’d made to charities that supported the poor rural community on the mountain where she had grown up.

We know that on the ten-year anniversary of its founding, Bill invited everyone who’d ever worked for their real estate company  to join him in Washington, D.C. for a big party.

We know that Lewis, driving alone from Louisiana to D.C. for the anniversary party, stopped at a motel in Tennessee, put a gun to his head and killed himself.

We know that Bird, who was living in Iowa at the time, brought Jay-Bee, who was twelve years old, with her to D.C. for the anniversary party.

We know that during this bittersweet trip, Bird visited Bill and Julia at their large home on the Potomac and ask them to let Jay-Bee live with them and their son, Lewis (named after Bill’s partner) and take care of his education.  We know that Bill and his wife raised Jay-Bee as their own son, and that Jay-Bee himself became a prominent player in Washington, advocating for his mother’s causes.

We do not know for sure what happened to Bird.  Some stories say she died of a broken heart soon after returning from D.C..  Some say she died an old alcoholic, alone, broke, and on the streets.  Some say she lived to an old age, doing social work for her community until the end of her days.

We know that today she is commemorated on a gold American one-dollar coin and that her given name was Sacagawea.

And we know that whoever made the flowers and the birds and anything in beautiful in nature, made her, too.

Random Pattern - 82

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What He Said

Saturday, April 17th, 2010
Tecumseh

Tecumseh

Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.

Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their views,and demand that they respect yours.

Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.

Seek to make your life long and of service to your people.

Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.

Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a stranger if in a lonely place.

Show respect to all people, but grovel to none.

When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life and strength.

Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living.  If you see no reason for giving thanks,the fault lies in yourself.

When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death,so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.

Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.

- Tecumseh of the Shawnee Nation, whose tribe hunted and lived on the land in Indiana where I grew up

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