Anyone who has flown more than a few times probably has an airline horror story. Comedians have built bits, or even entire sets, around them.
Dan Piraro has an airline horror story too. He’s the guy who created the Bizarro comic strip, and still does the Sunday version. (His friend Wayno now handles the Monday through Saturday panels.)
In his blog post from mid-December, Dan recounts his air travel travails as he and his wife were trying to get back to their home in Mexico. But he also provides a very healthy dose of perspective.
Please read the entire post if you can. If not, chew on this nugget like it’s airline food:
My wife and I have befriended numerous Mexicans who have never flown on a commercial airline or visited anywhere farther than a half-tank of gas from home. This is common among low-income Mexicans, but they don’t complain. They place their happiness in their families and friends, not in material possessions or travel trophies. That may sound corny, but it’s true, and we find it inspiring.
It is all too easy for us developed-nation-types to forget that around 80% of the over 8 billion people on this planet have never been on an airplane, much less visited a vacation resort. And compared to the legions of displaced refugees worldwide, what my wife and I experienced over the weekend was but an annoying inconvenience compared to their treatment for months, years, or a lifetime.
Even when it’s bad, we’ve got it good.
And that perfect vacation photo on Facebook or Instagram pales in comparison to a life that seems “poor” but is actually quite rich.
They place their happiness in their families and friends, not in material possessions or travel trophies.
Kudos to Mr. Bizarro for his reality check. It’s plane (and plain) wisdom.
Warren Buffett is one of the richest people in the world.
But I’m not talking about his bank account.
Over his lifetime, the “Oracle of Omaha” has amassed a wealth of wisdom about how to live. Check out this excerpt from his Thanksgiving letter to shareholders last year. (It was his final one, as he turns over the company reins to others.)
“Greatness does not come about through accumulating great amounts of money, great amounts of publicity or great power in government. When you help someone in any of thousands of ways, you help the world. Kindness is costless but also priceless. Whether you are religious or not, it’s hard to beat The Golden Rule as a guide to behavior.”
Help someone… anyone… and help the world.
And your kindness account can never be depleted. Quite the opposite: the more you give, the richer you become.
Here’s to a year filled with heaping helpings of helping!
Warren’s full letter to shareholders is here. The excerpt above comes from his “final thoughts” at the end of it.
1 response to “Warren piece”
Kevin Sullivan
Praise Warren. He also said, “You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong”. He really may be an oracle.
Below is a post I made way back in 2015. (TBH, I didn’t even think I had a blog back then, but apparently so.) Reposting now in tribute to Bob Weir, who passed away this past weekend at the age of 78. (Also note that the “final show” referenced in my original post wasn’t really the final show… Bobby kept on truckin’ with Dead & Co. and The Wolf Bros. pretty much until the end.
“These songs are … living critters and they’re visitors from another world — another dimension or whatever you want to call it — that come through the artists to visit this world, have a look around, tell their stories. I don’t know exactly how that works, but I do know that it’s real.” – Bob Weir in a 2022 interview with NPR.
20 years ago, I couldn’t stand the Grateful Dead. I don’t like the smell of patchouli and I don’t care for $5 grilled cheese sandwiches made on the carburetor of a ’72 VW Microbus.
18 years ago, I married my wife, who is a big fan of the Dead. So I’ve listened to more than my fair share of their music since then. And it’s grown on me. Granted, I still could do without an 18-minute version of a 2-minute cover song (looking at you, “Good Lovin'”) or “Drums > Space.” But I really do enjoy many of their songs, and have a great appreciation for the fan base they’ve cultivated over the last 50 years. Whether you love them or hate them (and there doesn’t seem to be much middle ground), you have to admit that they are one of the most generous bands around, in the sense that they view music as a gift to be shared, and not commerce to be peddled. Tapers have always been welcome at their shows, and their bootlegs have helped them grow their fan base.
Two nights ago, The Grateful Dead played their final show at Soldier Field in Chicago. (Some would argue they played their final show 20 years ago when Jerry Garcia passed away.) We are on vacation and went to see a live stream of the show on a Jumbotron at an outdoor bar in Florida. It was my first time seeing them live (or semi-live on a Jumbotron). There were plenty of other fans there watching as well. How many bands could pull that off – having people spend a vacation night watching one of their concerts from a thousand miles away?
I know that there are a lot of preconceived notions about Deadheads, but as a passionate live music fan I tip my hat to them, because they obviously love live music. The Dead may not be the most technically precise band around, but they have a groove that runs a mile deep and have built a passionate community around that. More bands should be like them.
2 responses to “Eternally Grateful… still”
Chuck Wiggins
I’m ambivalent at best about the Grateful Dead’s music, but there’s no discounting the incredible community built around it. And there’s one song that transcends my ambivalence and reins among my all-time favorite songs from anyone – Unbroken Chain.
I didn’t hurt it while working on a home improvement project. I come up woefully short on Red Green’s favorite saying:
I slammed my thumb in a car door.
Anticipating your follow-up question, let the record show that I was stone-cold sober.
I slammed it in the door of a Honda CR-V. But it wasn’t one of the three that we own.
I was coming back from the graveside service for my dear friend LJ. And I was riding shotgun with Felicity, the widow of my friend Ned. When we got back to the church, I was both distracted and distraught. And I slammed the passenger door onto my left thumb. Making an awful day even worse.
If you look closely at the photo above (masochist!), you’ll see a drill hole at the top of my nail. You’re supposed to use a small drill bit and hand-drill it into the nail to relieve the pressure ASAP. I waited too long to try that home remedy. It helped a bit, but not much.
It’s been more than a month. The thumb feels much better now, but still looks uglier than sin.
Yet every time I look at my ugly thumb, I’m reminded of my friendship with LJ. Which is beautiful. I’m reminded of all the misery he went through during his cancer treatments. Yet he never complained. The thumb is daily reminder that pain is part of life. And that when you’re down, friends can lift you up.
I know the thumb will get better. I also know that even after it has fully healed, there’ll still be a hole in my heart.
I’m not a goth, but honestly, I may paint that nail with black nail polish after it gets better. To keep the reminder handy. And to keep LJ in my heart.
It turns out that Erika Wennerstrom (lead singer/main songwriter/leader of the band Heartless Bastards) is even cooler than I thought she was. (And I thought she was pretty cool before this past weekend.)
Her solo show at The Columbia (the one that came to be thanks to some random connections – as blogged about in these pages last week) was even more amazing than I thought it would be.
Erika’s otherworldly voice in an old church = pure magic!
My friend Laura owns the church that served as the venue. Her husband Eric (my friend and co-worker) recently had surgery, so Laura asked her friend Keith and me to be on-site early to help with getting set up for the show. We helped Erika unload her merchandise, install batteries in the fake candles, and generally served as grips and go-fers. When the doors opened, I was the ticket-taker (really just checking names off the list). Showbiz ain’t always glamorous. But the show was stellar.
Better yet, Erika was super-nice. So was Steve, the local musician who served as her sound guy. And Erica (with a “c”) who worked the merch booth. That starts with Erika – she picked Steve to run sound because she’s known him forever, and knows that he’ll get the sound right without causing any drama. And Erica was Steve’s friend. Surrounding yourself with good people and treating folks kindly makes a big difference in the experience. You can be a rock star without acting like one.
But the biggest karma award goes to Laura. The venue where Erika played her holiday shows in years past was asking for a pretty hefty percentage of the ticket sales this year. Whereas Laura donated her space for the show. Which meant more ticket sales overall, and more money going to the artist. No everyone would be in a position to donate use of an old church as a venue… but not everyone who owned an old church would let someone play there without worrying about their “cut” of the sales.
120 people were at the show – nearly all of them had never been there before, and many raved about the space. Laura’s “investment” in helping out an artist will pay dividends down the line, as the word spreads about The Columbia as a cool venue. Whatever she could’ve made in rental fees on Friday night, she’ll make tenfold over the next year.
Be helpful. Be kind. Don’t be heartless. Music to my ears!
I took a vacation day on Thursday yet I still bookended the day with two very important meetings. That’s just the kind of mover and shaker I am.
The morning meeting was a gathering of the greatest creative minds in the Tri-State area. Oh, and I was there too! It was an informal holiday season gathering of a bunch of graphic designers, illustrators, writers, art directors, [insert other ad agency title here], etc. A coffee klatch of the cool kids, organized by my buddy Keith.
I don’t miss the ad agency business, but I do miss the magic of being part of a larger creative team. And these folks are Creative with a capital C. There are a lot of laughs whenever we get together, and it’s amazing to witness how quickly everyone can build on someone else’s thought or joke. I imagine that it must be similar to being in the writing room on The Simpsons.
It takes years of practice to be able to make those uncanny connections that others don’t see. But these dudes (yes, it was a sausagefest) have been doing it for decades. They see the world with an artist’s eye – and the world is better for it.
In the evening, I attended a board meeting of a heart foundation. (Translation: the monthly “hoppy hour” gathering with the lifelong friends I made at Xavier four decades ago.) This was our 64th straight month of meeting up, but it was the first without our brother-from-another-mother LJ. We needed the connection and camaraderie more than ever with him gone. The chance to share a few more memories and a lot of laughs is the best heart medicine around.
Start the day with a creative circle. End it with a gratitude group. Those are the type of “work meetings” I need to have more often!
I’ve always liked comedian Brian Regan. I think he’s one of the funniest standups going, and has been for years. His bit about going to the emergency room is an all-time great.
His material is clean, too, which earns extra credit in my book.
Brian’s got a four-episode series on Netflix called “Standing Up and Away!”
It’s an interesting format: he does some standup, but they intersperse a few short pre-recorded comedy sketches into the show, and he takes a question from the audience at the end (ala “The Carol Burnett Show”).
I watched all four episodes over the past couple of days and thoroughly enjoyed the stand-up bits and the video sketches. And “Cincinnati” even gets some air time in a recorded sketch – with a callback during the audience questions segment!
If you’re looking for some laughs — and who isn’t these days? — it’s well worth the investment of 24 minutes per episode.
Kevin Sullivan on Warren piece: “Praise Warren. He also said, “You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long…” Jan 15, 08:48
Damian on Eternally Grateful… still: “Thanks for reading, and thanks for sharing that song, Chuck! You’re absolutely right that the Deadhead community is amazing.” Jan 15, 08:17
Chuck Wiggins on Eternally Grateful… still: “I’m ambivalent at best about the Grateful Dead’s music, but there’s no discounting the incredible community built around it. And…” Jan 14, 09:05
Kevin Sullivan on Spoken and Unspoken: “You lived the brotherhood Damian, and that is a full plate. Peace to you and peace to John.” Nov 18, 16:54
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