Jon Anne is VITAL's Co-Publisher and Editor in Chief. She's also the President of the Milwaukee Press Club and a member of the best tribe in the world. On the rare occasions when she steals a moment for herself, she likes to hole up in her attic office in the middle of the night, writing her manifesto and playing online computer games.
There are only three paths in life for a free spirit: lazy dreamer, maverick and leader. Of course there’s a fourth option, and one that many attempt – some to the end of their days – avoidance of embracing one’s true nature. The strongest of these reassure themselves that they’re “doing the right thing” by attaining middle management status so their kids can have the opportunities they didn’t (though I believe this is a myth, and that foregoing your own fulfillment sets a terrible example). Others spend their lives bouncing from job to job, looking for that magical situation in which they can finally be happy.
But for those who recognize their own nature and acknowledge its calling, none of the choices are easy (assuming the absence of a trust fund). Lazy dreamer is the most attractive option for the young. Life is simple: when you have ten bucks, you get three beers at your corner bar. You might have a guitar, or a cat, or a collection of first edition Raymond Carver hardbacks – things you cherish not for their material value, but because they’re special to you. You’re probably satisfactorily under-employed somewhere that offers a flexible schedule. Your friends are artists and activists, and collectively you reinforce each others’ belief in simple pleasures and the evils of material enslavement. It’s a good life for awhile, and some folks keep with it all of their days.
For others, there comes a time – typically in one’s late 20s or early 30s – when la vie bohème loses its charm. You may want to set up house with your baby, you might be tired of being broke all the time or perhaps you’re simply sick of hearing that you’re a chronic fuck-up. At this disheartening fork in the road, there are two paths: the aforementioned denial of your nature (at least temporarily) or the reinvention of yourself as a maverick.
Mavericks are the mythic darlings of American culture. They work tirelessly in pursuit of their personal goals while bowing to no man; they are the innovators, the self-made millionaires, the rock stars. They don’t punch a time clock. For hard-working free spirits, this is probably the best life imaginable. It’s helpful to have an in-demand business skill you can hone into a personal empire, but even if you don’t you can dedicate yourself to becoming a skilled artisan and make a nice living while maintaining your independence.
One thing not taught in maverick school, though, is the catch: the successful ones will find themselves at another fork in the road, and they’ll have to make a choice: to stay free and accept the limits of the one-man band, or to build something larger than one person can achieve.
It’s the very definition of irony. While mavericks enjoy (immensely, really) widespread fraternity with other mavericks, with the people for whom they provide services and with any envious joe they find on a barstool at 5:30 on a Friday night with their shirtsleeves rolled up and their Blackberry still on, leaders enjoy no such thing.
The transition is sneaky. The typical maverick starts small, building a core group of talented, like-minded people all focused on "the mission,” just like he is. Everyone is in a key role, so everyone is equal. The crew works hard and often plays hard together. It’s kind of intoxicating.
For awhile. The nasty surprise for many mavericks is that, at the end of the day, it’s ultimately a “real” job for the others and at some point each of them will critically assess whether this is their best personal opportunity and how much they can invest in it for the return. They also look to him to be told what to do, which means that the once-free spirit now has to constantly assess processes, performance and short and long-term goals. In other words, he has to be the boss.
And this is when the maverick has to grow up or go home, to figure out whether fulfillment lies in the initial dream or the cultivated goal. By the time he reaches this point on the map, he already spends little time doing the things he enjoyed in the first place – he teaches others to do them so he can bring in business and “be the face” of the organization. It doesn’t happen all at once, so frequently the boss still thinks he’s one of the guys long after the rest of the team is secretly relieved when he’s out of the office on calls.
I think a little part of every maverick dies inside when he realizes he’s arrived at that fork. One path leads to continued independence, possibly at the expense of opportunity, the other to the greater responsibilities and concomitant rewards of leadership.
It’s not as easy as it looks, and it’s understandable why so many sane people avoid it at all costs. But true leadership is needed at every level of our existence, from family to government and everything in between, and free-spirits-turned-leaders are our best hope for a future built on hard work and a unified vision. This July, as we head into the presidential election with not one, but two nominees who built their initial reputations on personal credibility, it seems many of us may be feeling the same way. And it’s about time. Let’s keep it in mind between now and November. VS
“Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.”
—George Bernard Shaw
This article/blog/column also appears as "Editors Desk" in the print and online editions of VITAL.
I am superstitious, so I'm wondering what's coming our way based on three signs I was given this morning.
1. A practically mythical turtle, whose singularly rare appearance is supposed to portend a major event, has been found by Cleveland Metroparks Zoo researchers in a lake in Vietnam.
2. An earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale shook southern Illinois early this morning. Its epicenter was 38 miles northwest of Evansville and the quake was felt as far away as Florida.
3. I hit 92% of the notes in AFL's "Miss Murder" on Guitar Hero 3. I was playing on medium, but 4 stars is 4 stars, and unprecedented. As recently as last night I could only hit 79%, but this morning I passed 90% twice.
The Clintons have always been brilliant politicians, possibly among the most amazing in all of American history. Bill's got a little narcissistic egg on his face at the moment after his recent over-indulgences on his wife's campaign trail, but he'll pull back and be fine in a few years when America once again remembers the good times under his presidency. He's golden, so no need to worry about him - as a nation we apparently live to forgive him, and I say that as a person who's lived long in that camp, and in regards to many things, probably always will. I admit I can't quite get past the unsolved mystery of Vince Foster, but maybe I'm just a conspiracy nut. I'm sure all those crime scene photos went missing due to a simple clerical error. It happens all the time.
I digress, but not really. You have to admit that his death couldn't have come at a better time for the beleaguered couple, at least as the whole Whitewater ordeal ended up playing out. No matter what the truth, now merely an unfortunate footnote in the storied history of Bill Clinton's presidential legacy, Foster's death caused Ken Starr and crew to jump all over its irregularities, adding to the confusion of an already impossibly convoluted mess and drawing attention away from the facts of the investigation.
For the record, I am NOT accusing the Clintons of arranging for Vince Foster's death. I'm just saying they're lucky. And I'm reminded of old Vince because of another extremely lucky thing that happened to Sen. Clinton's presidential campaign this week. In case you've been sleeping under a rock and have somehow seen my blog but not the news, former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro has stepped down from her post as a surrogate and Clinton finance committee member after making some rather awkward remarks about Barack Obama's race advantage. In short, she asserted that if Obama were not a black man, he wouldn't be doing as well as he is. Then - horror! - she refused to apologize, instead resigning from the campaign so she could continue to speak out against what she sees as a sexist media bent on running Hillary down because she's a woman while being swept away by the grand notion of a black president.
Think about it. Ferraro is 72 years old, her personal political halcyon days long past. She's a loooong time friend of the Clintons with a decent reputation and she looks like that grandma who still gets her hair and eyebrows done every week. She's got name recognition but nothing to lose. And now that she's gone Ronin, she's free - even expected - to say things Hillary would never get away with. Lucky for Clintion, at the least. Possibly brilliant. Only time will tell, or not. Some mysteries are better left unsolved.
Bewilderingly, this simple phrase has rekindled Milwaukee’s on-again, off-again debate about public art.
On one side is the art community, with illuminati ranging from MARN Executive Director and Hotcakes Gallery owner Mike Brenner to Milwaukee Art Museum CEO David Gordon to Brooks Barrow, owner of a gallery of the same name, protesting the proposed life-size bronze statue to be installed on Milwaukee’s Riverwalk. On the other side is Dave Fantle of Visit Milwaukee, ersatz patron organization of the piece, working in concert with Dean Amhaus and Spirit of Milwaukee. In what can probably be best categorized as a clumsy PR strategy, Dave made a very enthusiastic, very public announcement about the impending arrival of the leather-jacketed 70s TV icon, assuming that people would understand and embrace the installation.
I say it was clumsy PR because in the end, what should have been a simple addition to the many attractions of our Riverwalk has become contentious, with Brenner and Barrow loudly threatening to leave the city and Gordon imploring (in a very genteel way, of course) Visit Milwaukee to see reason and keep the Fonz off Wisconsin Avenue. In an email exchange of my own with him (which I chose not to copy to the known universe), I asked him for clarification of Visit Milwaukee’s motives with the piece, why it was announced as a fait accompli and what, if anything, he had done to connect with the art community in making his decision. His responses felt pre-rehearsed to me, doggedly breezy and optimistic. Polite but firm.
I wasn’t satisfied; email is a pretty pathetic tool for meaningful discourse, so we met to discuss this whole crazy affair. He was seated at a table at Mocha when I arrived, holding a printed, marked-up copy of VITAL managing editor Amy Elliott’s recent anti-Fonz blog. We went over it in some detail, each of us probably carrying certain assumptions about the other’s viewpoint. He wasn’t happy, and I must admit that at first I wasn’t really concerned about his discomfort. I maintained to him that the issue wasn’t the statue itself, but the feeling that we so rarely commission public art these days in Milwaukee and this Fonzie thing came out of nowhere, with no discussion, no open bidding process and no effort made toward community buy-in. In short, the whole thing was lacking in transparency, a thing most people don’t utilize when it’s there but that everyone decries when it seems not to be.
In response, Dave explained in greater detail his position and the genesis of the statue itself. Now, the whole thing makes much more sense to me and in fact is no skin off anybody’s nose. I asked Dave if I could publish some of his comments and he agreed. Perhaps they will shed some light.
In a nutshell: a while back, Dave Fantle and Dean Amhaus looked into TV Land’s sponsored program of erecting statues of TV icons in the cities where their programs took place. There’s one of Mary Tyler Moore in Minneapolis, of Bob Newhart in Chicago, of Ralph Cramden in New York. You get the idea. So Dave and Dean met with TV Land. It is their job, after all, to draw positive attention to the city, and in communities where these statues had been erected, the city-derived PR value had exceeded an average of $3 million each. That’s pretty cool.
Things went well, progressing all the way to the plans being drawn for the statue and Milwaukee’s share of the funding being mostly secured from corporate and private donors (the original price was much higher than $85,000) when a call came from TV Land. Bad news, they said, we’re re-branding and pulling Happy Days from the airwaves. So it’s a no-can-do for now on the statue. We’ll get back to you if something changes.
It’s an understatement to say the news was disappointing. A lot of work had been done and the support of the donors (Harley Davidson, CBS 58 and others) had been enthusiastic. So Dave decided to see if Visit Milwaukee could finish it without the network. They accepted bids from “four or five” area sculptors, chosen for their credentials and price range (not through an open bidding process), selecting Gerald Sawyer, who’s done other public art sculptures locally. The money is coming in and the statue will be installed in 2008.
That’s it. Cost to the public? $0. Benefit? Well, Dave lent me a binder with hundreds and hundreds of print, radio and TV clips from India to Canada, from the Tuscaloosa Farm Report to Forbes. Most importantly, Dave stresses, these aren’t clips about 26% poverty or a broken school system or hyper-segregation. Nor are they sweetheart placements about our “beautiful lakefront,” “renowned art museum” or other features cities typically tout to sell themselves. Nope, this is simply for fun, a light chuckle at the end of a harrowing newscast. So far the media value (a formula used by PR folks to assess how well their campaign performs) is close to $3 million and unveiling day is still far off. Look for at least one of the major morning TV shows to do a piece on it then, which alone will put the value over the mark.
Amy states in her editorial that this isn’t about art, but about marketing. And she’s right. It’s not supposed to be art. It’s supposed to be for fun, a reason maybe to walk from the convention center to the Riverwalk if you’re in town on business or an amusing photo opp with your kids or friends, maybe something to tell your sister about when you get back home to Akron. It’s really only art in the sense that it will be a sculpture, hopefully well-done, hopefully sturdily installed. In 100 years the Fonz may have as little face recognition as Pere Marquette does now. And that’s okay.
I still maintain that Visit Milwaukee, Spirit of Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Seven and other organizations charged with boosterism and economic development in our region haven’t the greatest track record of community engagement. I believe this is because they have a near-sighted understanding of what community is. Having sat in a number of gatherings for these organizations, I believe their intentions are altruistic, but like any other business or industry, they can rely too heavily on their established network of contacts and sources. It creates insular thinking, as well as a sense that if the people around you are aware of what you’re doing and approve, then everyone who matters is aware and approves.
That’s a mistake. In this case it backfired, whether Visit Milwaukee wants to acknowledge it or not. In reality, they were well within their rights and are doing something harmless and fun that will probably bring a lot of pleasure to people over many years. But perceptually, they operated without regard for an affected constituency, in this case the art community. It’s easy to keep your head down when you have so much to do, but it’s critical to come up for air anyway. You never know who’s going to be there when you surface. VS
On December 1, after almost four wonderful years in our current offices in Riverwest, we're moving to the Arts Building in Walker's Point, located at 133 W. Pittsburgh Ave. The space is amazing, affordable and will allow us to warehouse client materials from our distribution business all in one spot plus have secure parking, an exterior sign and a few other niceties we've always lusted after. We'll also be surrounded by artist studios and other creatively-fueled small businesses, both in the building and in the neighborhood in general. We simply couldn't be more excited. In the meantime, there's so much to do with the build-out and the holidays and all, so I imagine we'll all be a little tired by the end of the year. But hopefully in a good way. We'll post pictures when everything is ship-shape and hold an open house sometime in the spring, maybe during Gallery Night.
I don't know if you all know this either, but the lovely and talented Element Everest has joined our team to help us with advertising sales and marketing. We met when we were interviewing her for a story in October's Music Issue and she knocked my socks off. She's a tour de force and I love how she has no fear. She believes in what we're doing and she's out there talking to people every day about getting involved and being part of it too. You may already know Element from Radio Milwaukee, where she continues to work in promotions and pull the occasional air shift, or you may know her from local hip hop group Black Elephant. Or you may have just picked up her new, debut solo record, Life Is A Heist. My favorite cut is "Famous." It's the "You're So Vain" for the new generation- funny, biting and spot-on insightful. I'm digging it and you will too.
Here's another fun thing: I have a recipe in WMSE's new cookbook, WMSEats. It's for Lunch Lady Lurlene's Wacky Cake. I love wacky cake. It's the best chocolate cake in the world and it's really cheap and easy to make. Coincidentally, it's also naturally vegan, although I ruin that with white icing or cream cheese frosting every time. The whole book is really great, filled with tasty recipes from drinks to comfort food to fancier stuff, all submitted by local WMSE supporters and listeners. You can get your own during their pledge drive, which started October 31 and goes until they raise $125k. Contribute by phone at 414-799-1917 or online.
That's it for now. I'm off to fill out an occupancy permit application and look at an artist's portfolio. I am so lucky to have my life.
Jon Anne is VITAL's Co-Publisher and Editor in Chief. She's also the President of the Milwaukee Press Club and a member of the best tribe in the world. On the rare occasions when she steals a moment for herself, she likes to hole up in her attic office in the middle of the night, writing her manifesto and playing online computer games.
