Friends

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about friendships. The problem is that there are not enough good words to describe the range of positive relationships. The two most common are “friends” and “acquaintances.”

There are people I have known for many years, that I have a great deal of respect for, that are much for than acquaintances, but if I call them “friends,” what do I call the people that I see often and have many shared experiences and shared interests? Best friends or BFFL (best friend for life) seems sort of trite.

The basic building blocks of relationships are shared experiences and shared interests. Obviously, these vary a lot from relationship to relationship. My closest friends are the people I play music with. Music speaks directly to the heart, so playing music together builds strong relationships through shared experiences, shared passions, and strong emotions. Other musicians are also among my good friends because we have a common language and shared interest. I presume people who play golf together, go hunting together, or ride motorcycles together have similar relationships.

I once asked a fellow musician if she had any good friends that had never heard her play. Her answer was one that that I have not recovered from yet. She said, “I have chosen to give my life to making music, if a friend has never even bothered to come hear me play, they wouldn’t be much of a friend.”

Along those lines, if someone showed open disdain for the things you love, whether it is music, photography, or fishing, it would be hard to maintain much of a friendship. Two of my passions in life are music and photography. For me, photography is an individual pursuit, while music is a team sport. Therefore I don’t have as many photographer friends as musician friends. But if you have spent fifty years trying to make beautiful pictures and someone says to you, “How can you enjoy life with that thing (camera) in front of your face?” It becomes hard to call that person a friend. That doesn’t mean that we don’t occasionally hurt the people we are close to, often just trying to be funny, but we do have to know when to apologize and when to be sincere. The old movie said, “Love is never having to say you are sorry.” Actually, love is saying you are sorry a lot.

In a marriage relationship, we have to plan for shared experiences and shared interests. That is what makes a long term relationship possible. Other relationships are the same way. For friendships to be real, we have to share interests, share passions, and share experiences.

Watch your heart - and the press.

Presidential candidate John McCain drew some flack this week from The New York Times for a presumed impropriety with a female lobbyist. I don’t know anything about John McCain’s personal life, but I do know that a person has to very careful with how things might look to others.

Thirty years ago my wife and I agreed that we would never be alone with a person of the opposite sex. This has been a good rule if at times a little difficult to maintain. This means that when meeting with friends, clients, or associates there may need to be three people there. If meeting with a female salesperson or associate, I always ask somebody else to come along, or else we meet in a very public place, such as a coffeehouse.

When my wife was on staff with a church, she never had one-on-one meetings except with other women. I have female friends, but I always make sure that either their husbands, my wife, or a third party is present when we talk.

I believe this plan came originally from Billy Graham. Billy and his wife have the same rule and it has served them well for decades.

This rule has served us well as well. Not only does this system prevent any appearance of impropriety, it also goes a long way in keeping our lives pure.

Big Ears

My definition of a good musician is one that can play a wide variety of styles and genres. A person who likes a wide range of music we say has “big ears.” As musicians the best thing we can do is listen to all kinds of music.

My heroes are the people who can play in a blues band on Friday, sing a contemporary song at a wedding Saturday afternoon, play in a country band on Saturday night, and lead worship on Sunday morning.

The worst thing we can do is be publicly critical or condescending of a style of music that is not our favorite. I remember when the jazz musician, Stan Kenton, criticized country music. His stature as a musician dropped many points in many people’s eyes. I’ve heard country musicians make fun of hip-hop and vice versa. Please resist this temptation. It only makes you look uninformed or worse.

I was thinking of this while watching a little bit of the Grammy’s the other night. There were 110 Grammy’s given. Only a handful were presented on air, but the Grammy for best polka album or the best traditional folk album is just as important Song of the Year. And I didn’t hear anybody making fun of another genre. We are all in this together.

Empowering

Louise and I were out of town for a few days. When we returned, I noticed a bar stool sitting in the back room. I was told that there were some screws loose. I quickly grabbed a screwdriver, tightened the screws and returned the stool to the counter.

It wasn’t until several minutes later that I realized that there is not one of our fifteen employees who are not capable of turning a screwdriver. When I related this incident to other small business owners, they all agreed that this is a common problem among entrepreneurs. We are so use to quickly solving problems that we have inadvertently trained our people to wait for us to solve their problems, no matter how small.

I realized that by not allowing, in fact insisting, that problems be solved by those present, I have made much more work for myself and stunted the growth of the business. This is probably why most start-ups need a new person to take the business to the next level. The entrepreneur is just not willing or able to hand over responsibility to others.

I would like to think that I have learned my lesson, but the truth is doing things myself is part of my make-up. “Empowering” others does not come easy.

There seem to be two types of people. Corporate types who can easily say, “That’s not MY job.” And entrepreneurs types who think everything is their job. It is hard to find a middle ground.

Music and Food

Wake up in the middle of the night in a truck stop,
Stumble in the restaurant, wonderin’ why I don’t stop.
Steve Earle – Guitar Town

I don’t know about Earle, but I do it for the food. Jennifer Lynn Smith played Homer’s last weekend. After the gig, the inevitable question came up. What’s for breakfast? Even though Jennifer is a Prius driving folkie, I recommended Village Inn – the skillet breakfast with sausage and some Tabasco. It seemed like the perfect ending to a great night of good music. She agreed and off they went for a post gig feast.

Which brings up the question, does different genres require different food. We usually think of blues and barbeque, country and fried chicken, and folk and tofu. During my early rock and roll days, every gig was finished off with two eggs over easy, hash browns with ketchup, and toast. But I don’t know if the definitive study has been made. If anybody has a clear opinion on this let me know.

Artists and athletes

I have always been a little concerned about calling a musician or a singer an artist as is the norm in the music business. But lately the term is beginning to make more sense. A performer is as much an artist as a painter or sculptor is in that sense that it is a form of creative self-expression and requires both skill and heart.

But singers, musicians, dancers, and actors are more than artists, they are also athletes. As athletes, they must train, practice, and rehearse to train their muscles to react instantly without thought. Also like athletes they may face injuries, health, and just plain getting old. But unlike in athletics, the creative side does not diminish with age. As we get older, we may not be able to play as fast, or hit the highest notes, but we can certainly play with more expression and passion as we have the gift of time behind us.

In the past it seemed like musical history was made by young people, but I am not sure that is the case now or will it be in the future. Creativity does not rely solely on flexible fingers and vocal cords. It takes clear thinking, a passion for life, and time and skill to get the art recorded in a form that others can enjoy it.

Send me a man who reads.

When I was a child by family subscribed to “Reader’s Digest.” I was always the first one to grab it. The second thing I did was go through and read all the jokes. But the very first thing I read, even before all the jokes and cute stories, was an ongoing ad series by The International Paper Company. It was a series of biographies and vignettes about people and what they liked to read. The title and punch line was always “Send me a man who reads.” ( I understand that this series ran in several national magazines in 1960-61.)

The whole point of the series was that reading is the single most affective habit and the greatest skill we can possess. There is no greater predictor of success in life than how much and what a person reads.

I am constantly amazed at the amount of information available on virtually every subject. There are books, magazines, videos, conventions, conferences, trade organizations, and on-line forums on any and every thing a person can think of. The bottom line is this: there is no excuse for ignorance.

For a Christian, primary reading should be the Bible, but after that the possibilities seem endless. The Bible has inspired more writing than any other subject in history. There are commentaries, study guides, insights, and opinions on anything a person would ever need to know.

But reading other subjects is also worthwhile. I would not consider any major endeavor without first reading everything I can find on the subject. Before we opened Homer’s Coffee House, I read six or seven books about coffee for example. I am constantly amazed by people who have very limited knowledge about an activity that they are deeply involved with, when all they need to do visit the library or a bookstore and find tons of literature about the subject.

It’s simple – “just send me a person who reads.”

There is a lion in the street!

Ever since I have been involved in retail, I have been trying to figure out the relationship between the weather and the amount of customers. This week I finally figured it out.

The weather has very little effect on business, but the weather forecast has a lot. Monday and Tuesday the television news was filled with gloom and doom – we are all going to die – news of an impending ice storm. Throughout those days we had steady rain, but the temperature remained near or above freezing with little to no ice on the streets. Business was down by 50%. (Other areas did fair worse, but our city dodged the ice.)

Finally the fear mongers got tired, the temperature dropped into the 20’s, and today with icy streets, business is back to normal. Would somebody like to explain this to me?

Proverbs 22:13 says, “The sluggard says, ‘There is a lion outside!’ or, ‘I will be murdered in the streets!’” Ecclesiastes 11:4 says, “Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.”

The victory belongs to the ones who are willing to go out and face the world, not huddle in front of their TV’s hearing about how bad things are. This applies not just to the weather, but in every other situation as well.

Jumping to Conclusions

The other day, two ladies were setting in the window at Homer’s. I asked if they needed anything else and one committed on the neighborhood being rather shabby. (Keep in mind that we are in one of the top 5 or 6 counties in the nation in per capita income.) I asked why she thought that and she said, because they had been setting there for over an hour and had not seen a single cab go by. I asked where they were from and she said Detroit. I presume there are neighborhoods where the taxi drivers don’t want to go in Detroit.

I decided to not explain that everybody in Overland Park has 2.3 cars and there isn’t much need for taxis. I also didn’t point out that the taxis we do have are unmarked Lincoln Town Cars. I volunteered to call them a cab, and sure enough when the cab arrived it was a silver, unmarked Lincoln.

A few days later a young man asked me what nationality I was. He was amazed when I told him that I was an American and, in fact, had lived in Kansas my whole life. He said he was quite surprised because I had a deep voice and American’s have high pitched voices. As near as I could tell he was an American. I don’t know where he had been.

This week a well-dressed man came in asked us to steam some milk, pull a double shot of espresso, and then pour the steamed milk over the espresso. I wrote “latte” on the ticket. He apparently he didn’t know that he had just described the most basic coffeehouse drink there is. I presume he also walks into McDonalds and asked them grind some beef, fry it on a grill, and put it in a bun, not realizing he had just described a hamburger.

It just keeps getting weirder out there folks.

Music, food, & drink

Somebody has probably done a study on this, but there seems to be quite a difference in what the fans of different performers eat and drink. At Homer’s Coffee House, for example, some are a bit predictable and some are not.

It is not surprising that when Randy Davenport plays that we would sell a lot of brewed coffee and apple pie because he plays country with patriotic themes. More surprising is that Kenny Gamble fans would eat so much carrot cake.

I don’t know why Bob Jenkins fans drink decaf lattes. I don’t know if it is because Bob is stimulating enough without caffiene, or they just are planning on getting to bed early.

I would be surprised if the high energy guitar sounds of Sky Blue would bring in the soy drinkers. But soy and herb teas seem to fit The Subs just fine.

Mission Blues fans drink a lot of milk shakes. Maybe it is because they heat up the place.

Maybe I will do a more detailed survey. This may be a whole new branch of science.

Disposable vs reuseable

It is a common misconception that young people are more environmentally conscience than older people. My experience shows the opposite to be true. College age and younger people are about ten times more likely to request disposable plates and cups than older people. But last night was still amazing.

Three young people (college age) came in and ordered pie. As I began to serve them pie on glass plates with stainless silverware, they asked if they could have them to go. I put the three pieces of pie in styrofoam boxes (which I hate to do), put them in a plastic bag and tossed in plastic forks. They paid the bill and immediately went over and sat down at a table, took out the boxes and began eating out of the styrofoam boxes with the plastic forks.

I went over and told them that I would be happy to put the pie on plates or give them "real" forks, but they said no, they were fine.

This is not that unusual. Eating out of plastic boxes is uncool enough, but the intentional waste of resources is inexuseable. With this sort of cavalier attitude toward single-use items, it is no wonder this country consumes far more than our share of natural resources.

Keep the main thing the main thing

The new Sprint Center in downtown Kansas City opens this week; the same week that Gary Forsee lost his job as the head of Sprint. In addition to spending millions for naming rights for the new arena, Forsee oversaw the merger with Nextel and was well respected in community affairs circles.

Unfortunately he missed one little issue – Sprint telephones don’t work. I was one of the thousands who left Sprint for another carrier after years of frustration with weak signals, dropped calls, and just plain lousy sound quality. I now enjoy talking on the phone again since I can understand what the other person is saying and I don’t live in constant fear of missing calls or loosing the signal in mid-sentence.

The lesson here, for the rest of us, is simple. Remember to keep the main thing the main thing. Don’t get distracted by side issues while ignoring the basic product or service you are trying to provide.

The same is true in our personal lives. Our relationship with God and others is the main thing. It is easy to get caught up in less important issues.

Praising vs Performing

I play in the Christian blues/rock band, “Sky Blue” in addition to my church’s praise band, so, I think a lot about the differences. The purpose, and therefore the focus, of the two are quite different. The purpose of the praise band is to lead worship, to help people see God more clearly. The focus is on the Lord. The purpose of the blues band is to entertain and the focus is on the audience. This results in some dramatic differences in the approach.

At church we do simple songs that the audience can sing along. We do not want to detract from the worship with either bad playing or virtuoso playing. We want the music to be transparent. The challenge is to keep the music from being a concert.

In Sky Blue the opposite is true. Even though a secondary goal is for people to see God more clearly, the primary focus is on the audience. We want them to know that Christians can have fun and make great music. We want them to go away thinking “What a great band!”

Two bands, two purposes, two approaches to performing – it can be a challenge to keep the two sorted out. Granted, it is easier for me because in Sky Blue I play a lead instrument and sing. In the church band, I play bass and don’t sing, so the two are dissimilar to my brain..

Most of the people reading this are probably in the same situations. What is your experience?

Bicycles

The other day some friends stopped by for coffee in the middle of their bicycle ride. They commented that the two miles from their house was quite a ride. Since I have ridden over 100 miles in a day on more than one occasion, I was not too sympathetic. When they left I noticed that they were riding “Cruiser” bikes, the kind with fat tires, wide soft seats, flat handlebars, and not very many gears.

My bicycle is not exactly the newest technology, but it does have narrow tires to reduce rolling resistance, drop handle bars for better weight distribution and better aerodynamics, a narrow seat that is actually more comfortable in the long run, and 12-speeds for hills.

I figured there might be a life lesson here. Sometimes the comfortable way is not the best way. Like pedaling a heavy cushy bike compared to a light responsive bicycle, taking the easy way out may result in a lot less satisfaction in the end. God never intended for us to be comfortable all the time. He expects us to attack life with gusto. That Lazy-Boy chair and big screen TV may be barriers to a contented and satisfying life. We need to stretch ourselves and maybe go for what looks like a little discomfort. It may be that, like that dropped handlebar, skinny-tire bicycle; it is a whole lot more satisfying in the long run.

90 and going strong

Today I attended a birthday celebration for a friend who turned 90. Bill was a pilot. He began flying DC-3’s for TWA in 1942. He met his wife her first day on the job as a flight attendant. They have been married 58 years.

In 1977, when the FAA said he was too old to fly passengers, he moved to Pakistan and then South America to keep flying. He returned to Kansas where he has been an encourager and an inspiration to thousands of people.

Bill never misses an opportunity to talk about his faith or about the great life God has given him. Because their life is filled with friends and vitality, you would never guess their age. Both Bill and Evelyn seem twenty years younger than the calendar indicates.

I often talk about the need to finish the race strong, and here are two people who are doing it.

Music Fans?

At a music conference I attended a few months, one of the speakers committed that only about 10% of the population is music fans. I was surprised by this statement because I thought everyone (well, almost everyone) loved music. I quickly realized that this percentage depends a lot on your definition of "fan."

His definition of a music fan was simply someone who liked a wide variety of music, could listen to a song all the way through, could identify different instruments and styles of playing, and could recognize virtuoso playing when they heard it. It turns out that there are not as many people in this category as most musicians believe.

The speaker was a radio consultant – the type of person that record companies hire to try to get their records played on the radio. His comment was in response to a question about why radio stations play the same tedious, unimaginative, handful of songs over and over when there are tens of thousands of recordings released every year, most of them quite good. He was explaining that radio stations are not as dumb as they seem because the vast majority of people don’t want to hear anything new and most people have very limited taste when it comes to music – probably because they only listen to a handful of boring unimaginative songs over and over again.

This would explain why it is easier to get ten thousand people to pay $75 to go to an arena, where they can’t see or hear, to see a well known performer than it is to get one hundred people to go to a much more intimate setting, with great sound, to see a solid band for fraction of the cost.

I became aware of this year’s ago when I would invite friends over to listen to music – usually a new artist that I wanted to share. I always came away frustrated because before the first cut was through they would be talking over the music about something else. I quickly learned that not many of my friends were anywhere near as interested in music as I was. For the next twenty years, music became a very personal thing where I would discover new artist, buy their records, become fans, and never tell anybody else. Only recently have I developed friends with similar interests that I can share music ideas with.

I guess the point is: God made us all different. We each have our own interests and passions. I seldom watch a football game all the way through and I would have a great deal of difficulty telling the difference between one play to the next, or one position to another. I couldn’t tell you when deer season starts, but I know the difference between a Telecaster and a Stratocaster. Isn’t it great that God didn’t make us all the same?

Be careful who you hang with

Homer’s Coffee House hosts an open mike jam session every Monday night during the summer. This is a time designed to promote community and give new or first-time performers a chance to play. At the same time it gives more established performers an opportunity to play songs that they might not normally do.

We just go around the circle and give everybody a chance to play and sing. The variety of people who show up each Monday is amazing. It is not unusual to have a person who has never sung in public before do a number followed by professional rock and roller singing a country or folk song. We never know what is going to happen.

I have noticed an interesting phenomenon. Some nights everybody sounds great, and other nights, it seems, everybody is struggling just to stay in tune. The reason, I believe, is that we are greatly influenced by those around us. If there are two or three people in a row who are having a hard time carrying a tune, the next person up, even if they are an experienced musician, is likely to struggle to stay on pitch. Conversely, a few good musicians elevate the whole group to do better.

I think this principle applies to other areas of life as well. If we surround ourselves with quality people, we are likely to perform better ourselves. The opposite is also true. If those around us are goof-offs and low-achievers, our own expectations are soon going to be diminished. This does not mean that we should totally avoid people we think are somehow “inferior,” but it does mean that we need to choose our friends wisely. It means that we need to be in a positive work environment if we want to accomplish great things.

Years ago, I played music with a guy whose favorite saying was, “Dumb is contagious.” Turns out that he was restating what the book of Proverbs says when it cautions us to not be companions of fools, but rather associate ourselves with people who will help us learn and grow.

Craftsman Part II

A friend was in last week lamenting about the quality of workmanship from the people who had come to repair her apartment. I concurred about how hard it was to find people who knew how to do stuff. I wrote about that in this blog back on September 8. Then I pointed out that our educational system is upside down with the best students discouraged from learning a craft. This leaves us with the lowest performing people doing the most important work, like repairing cars and putting on roofs.

This is contrary to scripture where the Bible tells us to work with our hands and honor those who do. When God came to Earth as a man, He chose to do so as a craftsman – Jesus, the woodworker.

I was reminded this week that a big part of the problem is the way craftsman are portrayed in the media. I happened to be watching “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” The set-up was that this four year old was showing great promise as an appliance repairman. I thought they were going to show a four year old who had dismantled his mother’s washing machine or a kid with the vacuum cleaner in pieces on the floor. Instead they showed a little boy bent over with part of his behind showing. I wonder how many hundreds of young people decided not to be appliance repairing repairmen with that one clip. I know if I was a sixteen year old with plans to go to technical school, I would have reconsidered after seeing just that one ten-second clip.

What the video really showed was that TV producers consider themselves better than appliance repairmen. This is a premise I would seriously doubt.

Servanthood

My mother and I just returned from an Alaskan cruise aboard the Royal Caribbean ship, “The Visions of the Sea.” It was a fun trip, but the thing that impressed me most was the crew.

There were 755 crew members from 51 different countries on board. Needless to say they came in all shapes and colors from many different backgrounds. The one thing they had in common was a servant’s heart. Along with that came a strong work ethic and a desire to please, not only the passengers, but each other.

We made an effort to get to know some of the crew and find out a little about them. Some were taking time off from college or right out of school, others were seasoned professionals, while I’m sure others just needed the money. But they honestly respected each other and worked hard to make the cruise a wonderful experience for everyone involved.

One of the crew members commented that the crew was like the United Nations except that here they actually liked each other. My observation is that at the U.N. the purpose is to defend your countries honor at all cost; on board ship, the purpose is to work together and get the job done. This makes a huge difference. I half jokingly suggested that we should fire the United Nations and give the job over to the crew of a cruise ship, after all most of the nations are well represented. I honestly believe that a solution could be found to most of the world’s problems within a few days.

Jesus talked a lot about being a servant. He emphasized the importance of having a servant’s heart and looking out for the other guy. As usual, we have the wrong people in places of authority. Usually, only those looking out for themselves make it to be leaders of their countries. Ambassadors are then giving the job of honoring their country and its leaders. Few have any desire or motivation to actually solve problems and help those in need.

Unfortunately, I didn’t encounter any ship crew members who wanted to go to the U.N., they would rather serve each other and their guests.

Simplicity

Several years ago I was doing both still photography and video work. I decided to drop the video because it wasn’t that much fun. I later realized why. Still photography takes a slice of life and distills it down to a clean glimpse. It seeks it tell the story in a small rectangular slice of time. Video, on the other hand, adds chaos to an already busy world.

That is why I don’t watch television. When I get home, I have had enough sound, movement, and color for the day. I don’t need manufactured stimulus to distract me.

Simplicity is a concept that seems to get short changed a lot. I see many places where complication and layers of complexity are added with little reason. For example, since I have a background in sound systems, I pay attention to things like microphones and speakers. In many places, wireless mikes have replaced wired microphones, adding complexity and unreliability with little other benefit. Every sound guy knows that wired mikes sound better, have less noise issues, and cost a lot less than wireless. Why then do they spend hundreds of dollars on microphones, receivers, and batteries for a mike that spends its life on a stand?

Cars are another example. Hybrids are big news, but they are exceedingly complicated. In the long term, that means unreliable and expensive to repair. Diesel cars are simply by comparison, get similar mileage, and last several times longer. Yet diesels have been slow to catch on in the U.S., possibly because they are simple and don’t have the high-tech image of the hybrids.

The old adage K.I.S.S., Keep It Simple Stupid, has gone out of favor. We have added layers of complexity to even the simplest pleasures such as shopping for music and talking on the telephone. I believe our lives would be a lot better if we looked for simple solutions not the most complicated solutions. The Bible says to aspire to a simply life. I am not ready to join the Amish, but I think they make some good points. A simpler life is a better life.