Why I write this blog

I've been told by a friend that if you have a blog it should be committed to two things.  The first is a specific and easy to understand mission and the second would be short entries in support of that mission.

I have failed on both accounts.

My mission has been unclear and my entries rather long.

So consider this post a re-set and an attempt to gain interest from you in my writing with a clear perspective within a short post.

Why am I writing this blog?  I was a distracted and bad student in high school which has led me in adulthood to feel confused while believing I am stupid.  I've often accepted bad advice as truth because it was dressed up within powerful rhetoric.  I thought, What the hell, if someone said something loud enough it was probably true because who am I to question that.  I found my unexamined life has allowed me to live within the safety of a mediocre mind.  But in the context of our current crazy times I've come to realize that being a perpetual C student may not ask much but it can cost a whole hell of a lot.  

I have come to realize that I don't really believe what I think I know so I've felt a need to examine and re-examine many different ideas now because my confusion can't be calmed with a retreat to stupidity.

This blog is an attempt for me to get to know my own mind so I can resolve confusion. 

There is a Buddhist saying, "If you want enlightenment, don't seek the truth, just drop all of your opinions." 

This therefore is a blog that will describe the new possibilities one can find by honestly admitting confusion and dropping ideas that empower mediocre thinking.  

It will not be comfortable for me and I hope it will be less so for you.  If I do this well then I expect many of you to be pissed off. 

Enjoy.

Faith, Doubt and Daily Dozens

"I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

I learn by going where I have to go." (T. Roethke "The Waking")

I love the villanelle form and I especially love Theodore Roethke's villanelle, "The Waking".  The villanelle's economic cadence and the repetition reminds me of a good garage-rock song.  

The poet builds his thought with metrical punch and repeats the theme in repetitive counter punch.  

Rodney Dangerfield's dramatic self-actualization in "Back to School" was my first introduction to the villanelle when he found redemption inside Dylan Thomas' ode to on-coming death, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night."  

The Villanelle was considered by Medieval audiences to be a "country song" so my white trash heritage holds well inside my appreciation and Mr. Dangerfield's performance seems aesthetically perfect.  

It seems right the philosopher of low self-esteem ("I don't get no respect") should be troubadour to a form that wrestles with itself for insight.  

Roethke's pulitzer came from his collection that took its title from his villanelle.  Roethke suffered depression and saw the suicide of his uncle the same year his father died of cancer.  He was 15.  His villanelle speaks to the possibility of enlightenment one may find in existential examination of God's creation.  His repetitive song sings to experience and anticipatory awareness.  "God bless the ground!  I shall walk softly there.  And learn by going where I have to go."

I have always felt an inclination towards faith in Roethke's poem.  His naturalistic existentialism has mirrored my own seeking.

The last week has been one considering the power of faith and its shadow, doubt.  The occasion of the twin bicentennial births of Darwin and Lincoln have made me wind and rewind my own conviction.  I've been wresting with rhyme and refrain like a dizzy villanelle.  It's interesting that in Darwin and Lincoln you have a Janus composite with a coincidental birthday.  It's like God is a hip ironic comic.  

In one you have a man who in the midst of tranquility on the Galapagos Islands uncovered an idea that so frightened him and disrupted his childhood theology that he stood silent with it for 15 years and in the other you have a man whose skeptical faith was crystalized by brutality in such a way to reaffirm our proclamation as humans.  

Darwin's peaceful observations disrupted his own heart and made him hated by his faith and Lincoln's brutal times articulated a foundation for peaceful brotherhood which in turn secured for him a deeper faith.  They are a single-headed twin with fixed stares of curiosity and humility. 

I'm a Christian and am a member of the Evangelical Free Church.  One of the reasons I like my faith is because of the traditional call to obedience old time "e-free" members would share when they would ask, "How's your walk brother?  How's your walk sister?"  It is an active denomination that seeks personal Gospel life application.  

The church I attend is committed to expository preaching.  We pick a book of the bible and we read through it as a congregation uncovering its historical and applicable themes.  Last year was spent in the Book of Exodus. The liberation story was fascinating and interesting; the tabernacle's blueprint not so much.  

This year we're in the book of Acts.  This book is a narrative of the 1st century Christians and their spiritual existence.  We spoke recently of the possibility that, for some, Christianity is a phase.  This theme spilled into the small group bible study my wife and I attend and we shared stories of friends who have rejected their faith

I'm not surprised by the rejection many people have.  I haven't always been a believer and still doubt if I truly am one of "the elect" - the Calvinistic concept of a select group of folks destined for Heaven (but of course I think Calvinists uptight pilgrims inclined more to their head then to their fellows' aching hearts.  And for me aching hearts matter more than theological rubrics.)  

I'm a Christian because it is compelling for me to believe of God disrupting the pattern of religious authority by dying a criminal's death and as Bob Dylan said, "You're gonna have to serve somebody . . ."  

But I have been an inconsistent believer.  I've identified in my life as a Roman Catholic, Agnostic, Atheist, Nihilist, Nazarene, Atheist again, Born Again, Atheist again, Unitarian, Buddhist, Atheist again, and finally (for the last six years) a Christian.  I at first called myself a follower of Jesus Christ, then a believer and finally a simple Christian.  

I resisted the title Christian because I thought it would carry a cultural implication that I only vote Republican and love Nascar.  Neither group appeals to me and I didn't want to mislead people.  But I've surrendered to the fact that I am a Christian and find peace in that knowledge.  The label works for me because it summarizes the essence of my faith in the person of Jesus Christ rather than in the person of Chuck O'Connor.  

I have of course been told by an atheist friend that I can't be a Christian because I'm too curious and have been told by a former Christian mentor that I am no longer a Christian because I voted for Barack Obama.  

But in my heart I am a Christian. 

The reason for my conviction is in my doubt and the balm Christ gives me inside my confusion.  One of my favorite passages of scripture is Matthew 6:34-37.  I quote from the contemporary translation, "The Message" "Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow.  God will help you deal with whatever things come up when the time comes."  It's an answer to my doubt and motivates patience, humility and awareness.  

The Indian born Jesuit trained priest and therapist Anthony deMello said that spirituality is not subtle, sentimental or dreamy.  He writes in his book Awareness that, "Spirituality means waking up.  Most people, even though they don't know it are asleep.  They're born asleep, the live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up.  They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence . . . all is well . . . though everything is a mess, all is well.  Strange paradox, to be sure.  But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep.  They are having a nightmare."

I am often still asleep.  I worry about my job, will Jackie and I have children, will they be healthy, will tax cuts stimulate the economy or should we be Keynesian?  I doubt, but I trust Christ's caution against worry.  

One of the practices that has become a habit is that upon waking I spend some quiet time with my journal and devotional books.  After an hour I write down 12 things for which I am grateful.  I then email this list to about 60 people as near as my wife and as far away as Australia.  I then in turn receive lists from about 6 to 8 people. Anyone who has worked in direct mail would say a 10%+ return rate is pretty good.  I start my day with gratitude and leaven my doubt with an appreciation for what I have. My heart aches with the appreciation I find in other's gratitude. Today's list consisted of the following:

1. A healthy breakfast

2. A home I can afford and share with my best friend, my wife

3. Work-out clothes I can put on and wear to the gym today

4. A gym membership I can afford

5. A healthy body that allows exercise

6. An I-pod that holds my music

7. "Genius" software on my I-pod that allows me to be surprised by my own music

8. Simple pleasures

9. The enjoyment of simplicity

10. A holiday with scheduled rest

11. John Hawkinson - one of my oldest friends is in town and we have plans to see each other tonight

12. The wisdom of stillness

Let me know if you would like me to share my gratitude with you.  I'll put your email on my routing list.  I'd love to wake slowly with you and mingle our stories of doubt,faith and gratitude.  

"This shaking keeps me steady.  I should know.

What falls away is always.  And is near.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go."

Facebook Melancholia

FaceBook Melancholia: (DSM III 296.32 2.0) A mood disorder triggered within one who opts into the Facebook community. The mechanism of disease is activated when one realizes the digital immediacy offered by Facebook is inconsistent with the physical/emotional intimacy long-lost friendships once promised. This disorder causes mixed feelings of joy, sadness, regret and gratitude. Clinical trials -have shown that some Facebook-Melancholia-sufferers risk an onset of depression but elevated depressive symptoms associated with Facebook Melancholia are usually resigned to specific ethnicities, most notably the Irish.

I am suffering Facebook Melancholia.

The damn social network triggers off a hell of unintended memories.

Memories are dangerous and lively things, as my friend Paul Luikart noted.  He cites, in his blog, Stephen Hawking's concept Background Radiation, "a kind of radiation that's ever-present out there in the blackness of space . . . left over from the big bang," and what kind of individual background radiation we all have. What kind of memories hang behind the lives we live?

My Facebook Melancholia creates critical exposure to my Background Radiation.

Jason Stamp friended me yesterday. He and I performed Pinocchio together during Christmas Break at MSU in East Lansing, 1989.

How did 20 years happen?

A social network back then was a case of Little Kings shared with friendly theatre freaks.

I try to tell myself that it's just the endless Chicago Winter and the fact that 30 degrees (F) feels like spring but I know it's something else.

How did twenty years happen?

The stubborn Midwest cold that ignores my gripes is the same bitterness Greg Mills and I would grumble about when we woke at 7 AM in the Bush I era to make our Pinnocchio call time at the Fairchild Theatre. We would crunch through the frozen snow towards the basement studio where Greg would play Tony one of the bad kids taken away to become a donkey by Jason Stamp's Coach-master and I played Spruce the Wood-Elf - a conceit invented by John Baldwin our director to allow for Pinocchio's magical growing nose.

We trudged hung-over towards the theatre where 4 shows full of grade-school kids would be waiting. We urged each other on with the promise of hot coffee and donuts. We would grunt like caveman weathering a glacial creep keeping each other's spirits up during the morning walk.

Greg: (Crunch of snow) Coffee.

(Crunch of snow)

(Crunch of snow)

(Crunch of snow)

Me: (Crunch of snow) Donuts.

How did 20 years happen?

I now have 386 friends according to my FaceBook profile and with each new friendship request I feel like Hamlet, Act III in the midst of a digital Denmark muttering, "To friend or not to friend . . ."?

The status updates create the most longing (coincidentally Jason is going to get his wife donuts). Self-pity and regret creep in and I'm alone on this social media parapet Booth-like wrestling the Dane's mortal coil.

Arthur Schopenhauer simplified Hamlet's soliloquy as our state of being, " . . . so wretched that complete non-existence would be decidedly preferable," yet, "there is something in us, however, which tells us that this is not so, that this is not the end of things."

I meet old friends up close in posted photos and 25 random things and the knowledge of what once was tightens with my memories of what I imagined would be.

There is a lyric by Paul Westerberg on his Mono disc in a song called 2 days 'til tomorrow that reads, "From a distance you look peaceful and so far away up close . . ." Westerberg wrote that tune among others after a 5 year silence and a nervous break-down. He was making good from the bad left over when his major label record contract and promises of being the next big thing flamed out. He put it together in his basement alone probably in the middle of a Minnesota Winter not unlike the Dante hell of a Chicago January.

I've brought Westerberg's sense of intimacy to my relationships. I credit this lesson to my Pop. The Old Man would wax stoic over Altes Golden Lager (Fassbier) when things got a little hot between him and my Mom. When the Old Lady needed transparency to quiet her anxiety and avoid the blackness of rejection, Pop would meet her confusion with a cigarette-choked mumble, "You figger it out."

I never thought I'd miss the people I left behind but I do. I hear my Pop's choked laugh, "You figger it out."

Facebook contains a dangerous amount of background radiation. Mary V posted party pics from 1993 and at once I realized that the "grunge era" was an era (and it is gone). I noticed the page-boy Eddie Vedder bob on Rob and wondered if his colleagues at Bell & Ross now would forgive him such an "Evenflow" doo.

This stuff has a half-life. There's Danny my theatre company partner and my favorite actor (now in California); Kate in full riot grrrl dress (now back in Detroit); Keegan (famous now impersonating President Obama on MadTV); and Randy (gone to the next life God bless him).

The boys' sin in Pinocchio was to stay young forever in the land of play. Boys who strive after the land of play become donkeys. To crave youth makes one a jackass.

I was a jackass back in that time with these friends. I would play a head-game and measure myself against my favorite men's defining age. I didn't do this to set goals but instead did it in the hopes of slowing time through nervous rationalization in the hopes of telling myself I could yet be somebody, someday.

At 22 I told myself that Dustin Hoffman was 30 when the Graduate was made, and at 30 I told myself Raymond Carver was 40 when he finally was published, and when I woke unemployed at 40 this year I told myself Shaw was nearly 70 when he landed his Nobel Prize.

I try to buy time like this and I realize I am just an ass.

How did twenty years happen?

Facebook Melancholia is no fun. I miss my friends.

Being up close so far away is not that peaceful.

Frugality, sharing food and fatherhood

My wife Jackie is frugal and she likes to share food.

Last Christmas as we made our way out East to visit her family we stopped in Amish country to get some grub. It was as if Jackie was inspired by the bearded and buggy-whipped Puritans. I was amazed as we stood in line at the local Wendy's and watched her calculate utility costs. She automatically determined the value equation of a fast-food super-sized soft-drink convincing me that one extra-large Diet Coke shared would be worth more than two large drinks or a medium-sized soft-drink and a large soft-drink; or an extra-large soft-drink and any other sized soft-drink; or two small soft drinks (please feel free to fill in the potential combinations yourself). And since neither of us drink soft-drinks all that often we should be able to overlook the cost to our enjoyment the lack of variety a shared Extra-Large brings.

I balked at her logic but felt silly arguing for my own soda-pop while surrounded by families wearing sack-cloth, head-scarves and sincere Quaker piety. I surrendered and to my surprise wasn't hindered by swapping a straw over burgers. Plus sharing an extra-large limited our soda-pop intake therefore eliminating too many pee-stops during the last leg of our car trip. Jackie informed me that maximizing our hydration while minimizing bladder discomfort was one of the factors she considered when suggesting the shared extra-large.

She's not frugal because she's cheap or because she enjoys calculating the derivative benefits of marginal cost curves. She enjoys sharing because to do so can amplify a simple pleasure and make it an event.

When reading the above back to Jackie she said that she, "sounds like a crazy person." And to some extent she is. She employs reason in a world of self-gratification not to simply gratify herself but to extend her boundaries to include others.

On our first date at a local breakfast place here in Chicago Jackie suggested that I order the "Bliss Cakes" and she would order the egg special. This would ensure that we could enjoy a breakfast made up of both sweet and savory flavors. We wouldn't get bored.

Her desire to share is an odd behavior to me because I come from a family of six that occupied a three bedroom bungalow in a Detroit working class neighborhood. We were a surly group chilled by the long shadow of Irish alcoholic resentment. My brother used to bite himself on the arm and go running to my Mom blaming me for the abuse so that he could win her favor and gain some modest (albeit undeserved) affection. She'd give him a treat while I received punishment. I wonder still if his self-mutilation was designed for his pleasure or my pain. I'm still not sure which one he valued more.

Jackie's free-handed generosity and the practical joy it brings was felt with full effect during a recent lay-off I experienced. She responded to my shame and depression with a willingness to organize our finances and reassured me that home-cooked meals and Netflix movie nights would be luxuries that would warm her heart. She never once denied me my fears or guilt or anxieties and she shared my confusion and hurt. Her frugal nature mined the now-shrunken assets we had and made me mindful of the value found in living life with gratitude and integrity. And when my depression seemed critical she shared with me her love and hope to help me understand I can escape the long-shadow of my disappointing child-hood and find new life in sharing prayers and feelings.

A good friend of mine once asked me after my first marriage crumbled if I would want to be married again. I said to him that I wasn't sure. The freedom of not having to deal with another's selfishness was a tempting and enjoyable pleasure. I secretly felt the tug of my broken home and thought to myself, "marriage is a trap." My friend seemed confused and asked if I wanted to be a father. I said to him that being a father demands that I find someone I can share life with. He agreed but didn't understand that my response wasn't so much a pre-requisite but a cynical riddle I posited as proof that marriage wasn't possible. I thought then that a life shared is not a reality because the sacrifices it demands would interfere with one's expectations and therefore become complicated and competitive. Eventually a relationship would always tend towards my brother's principle of self-harm to gain short term pleasure.

All this was before Jackie. I fell in love with her because I watched how she continually made space for the hurting and harmed. Her willingness to speak truth into people's self-deception with a kindness that demanded nothing was a wonder I delighted and delight in. She is a believer in Jesus Christ but unlike the many Christians I know who seek the justice of a vengeful theology, she embodies the Savior as He drew circles in the dirt and challenged the theology of the self-righteous by positing, "whoever is without sin, cast the first stone."

I still live in the long-shadow of a child-hood remembered for scarcity and pain but recently have come to trust the value found in frugality and sharing food. Jackie and I are talking about starting a family. This is something I never would have considered two years ago but fatherhood seems possible knowing that I have escaped the riddle of my own cynicism and found someone I truly can share life with.

Fear, Hate or Hope

I just finished seeing the new documentary on Lee Atwater entitled "Boogie Man". I love the way it picked apart the Republican political playbook. It is pretty simple, you spread fear with wedge issues and get third parties to promote the fears then deny the racism, hatred and fear you spread. And if cornered then you act like a Patriot and proclaim you are a victim of the elite media. It was simultaneously funny and nauseating to watch Tom Delay flash his creepy grin and say Lee Atwater's downfall came because he spoke the truth. Wow! No wonder Atwater got brain cancer. His polluted mind must have forced the grey matter to rebel and create a tumor just to hobble any chance of biological integrity in the face of such moral degradation.

It is hard to believe people believed this crap but I am reading a book by Reinhold Niebuhr entitled "Moral Man & Immoral Society" where he argues that individual desire for good gets clouded at a collective level due to social pressure. A reasoned person could hold fast to their sense of right but, "The individual character of conscience does not preclude the determination of most moral judgments by the opinions of the group. Most individuals lack the intellectual penetration to form independent judgments and therefore accept the moral opinions of their society. Even when they do form their own judgments there is no certainty that their sense of obligation toward moral values, defined by their own mind, will be powerful enough to overcome the fear of social disapproval."

The documentary's revelations had even more punch for me in light of this quote and because yesterday I engaged in a conversation with an old friend who is very conservative and a fan of guys like Hannity and Limbaugh. She is the type of person who believes America is some sort of New Israel where an Evangelical theocracy must happen as our birthright. It makes sense because she travels in circles that keep her well-connected to fellow Country Club Baby Boomers who have attached their narcissism to an odd form of white, wealthy bible living. Many seem to do so to reconcile the guilt left-over from multiple divorces and probably the joys found in mid 1970s key parties.

To be fair, they honestly feel a sincere sadness over abortion issues (and enjoy their money) so the Republican's pro-life, low-tax pledge becomes for them God's party. I share my friend's faith but not her politics nor her skewed historical perspective. It is hard to ponder Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson as willing members of a mega-church prayer group or the fact that all of the founding fathers ignored the pleas of real bible believers like the Quakers to abolish slavery at our founding. Our Judeo-Christian founders ignored the biblical pleas of a brotherhood of man because of course it wasn't economically expedient. So much for our history as a Christian nation eh?

After my conversation with my friend I could see how our historical collective moral blindness is alive and well and still at least partially wrapped in Atwater's cloak of fear.

She started spouting off to me messages that I had heard on evening newscasts during the pre-election hype but dismissed as silly. Maybe it is because I live in Illinois and a major city but I thought the belief that Obama is a Muslim, or a terrorist or a Socialist were ideas too absurd to motivate any type of acceptance. That was until I heard the raw fear in my friend's voice, "He's a Muslim!" "He believes we have 57 states. That's because there are 57 Muslim territories!!" "They hate us!!" "If he is a Christian, why did he change his name to a Muslim name?! Hussein!!! Hussein means sword!!!" "He said we would be a Muslim nation!!!" I couldn't believe it and strongly disagreed but didn't break through at all. Today I received an email about how Barack Obama had an American name Barry but changed it to Barack in college because he is a Muslim and no media is reporting this. I wrote back that in March Newsweek had done a cover story on this.

I am saddened by this continued fear that passes as faith and courage in our country. I also am humbled by President Elect Obama's intelligence to craft a communications strategy that obviated the Atwater plan by employing direct courage, calm and hope. There are generational dynamics at work here that Boomers won't get (primarily because their self-centered minds convince them of their right to be the authors of all social experience) but, the pragmatist X and pluralist Millennial generations don't take too well to fear. The former because they had to live with enough of it as latch-key kids watching their divorced boomer parents leverage it in their self-centered campaigns for love and approval and the latter because it is irrelevant to their sense of specialness.

Atwater admitted as he was dying that he didn't stand for anything and didn't believe anything he peddled. He also said that his strategy to use hate and fear to win elections damaged our country's collective integrity. Most conservatives who subscribe to Atwater's form of politics will be, as Niebuhr illustrated, blind to Lee's amoral power-lust because it interferes with the moral rationalizations that allow their comfort. I wish my friend would get this but anything that opposes the social construct she has created only seems to reinforce the strategy of fear and makes me duped by the conspiracy theory.

My hope is the hope that President Obama won with becomes a continued strategy for public discourse. I hope we empower our individual minds to question messages of fear and find a way to bend the collective mind to "hope".

But Niebuhr also said, "Power is poison" so, the Democrats could fall victim to the same hate that defined Atwater. At the very least we can all recite another Niebuhr classic when the going gets too hateful, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

An object lesson in the danger of brand simplicity

Watching the latest political season I asked some friends how the heck could the conservative movement start with a guy like Buckley and lead to Palin.

Consider for yourself:

Buckley Vs. Palin

Did you watch both? How the heck did this happen.

David Brooks has a great editorial in today's NYT opinion page explaining the obvious decline, its origins, and its ramifications.

And to me it has direct implications on how all public communications professionals need to think and re-think our choices.

First, simple messages that ask our audience to think very little may have short term benefits but long-term negative consequences. Primarily because when we put things in stark terms that depend upon negative factors (hate, fear, derision, resentment) we exit the arena of ideas for the arena of emotion. Now, many brand theorists today say it is emotion that drives choice and I agree but when the emotion is devoid of an idea than it is simply adrenaline and eventually it will wear out. The idea behind the emotion matters. When Buckley threatened to punch Chomsky in the nose it was because he had an ideological gripe with him. It wasn't because Chomsky simply represented a handle (e.g. "The Media Elite").

Second, simply stated, complexity counts. When we ask our audience to stop thinking then they will and that is dangerous. Even more dangerous we ask only those that don't want to think to be part of our conversation. This leads to the loop of noise I wrote about earlier and in an age of consumer co-creation how dangerous is it to risk relationship for the sake of delusional addiction?

Today's economic news indicates what is bred when emotions are developed devoid of ideas. The market psychology is panic. In the short term it was fun for people to use their homes as ATMs on their lawn but the long-term consequential melt-down stops the party.

Communications needs to consider the arena of ideas and long-term consequence if it is to breed the kind of passionate loyalty the fledgling conservative movement once had.

If not, then we risk brands with Palinesque depth and I don't think many consumers will want to dive headfirst into a pool that shallow.

Life Before TV, The Internet, and Blogs

This past Friday I had the privilege to participate in an old-fashioned hootenanny as part of a wedding rehearsal celebration.  Wooden card table chairs were set up auditorium style in the front room of this old Queen Anne style home.  It felt like what life must have been like before TV, the Internet and Blogs. You had an upright piano in the corner, a rickety old music stand, and the only evidence of modernity were the digital cameras, cell phones and a PA system.  I loved it.  One of my favorite singer-song-writers Mark Erelli suggests that everyone should learn an instrument so evenings like this past Friday can happen more often.  His opinion has motivated my clumsy guitar-playing and song-writing.  I was able to play a tune that I wrote for my wife and watch all kinds of cool stuff.  One of my favorites was when a grandmother did a beat poetry version of "The Love Song of J. Edgar Prufrock" accompanied by her grandson on saxophone.  "To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet," was a quote a friend of mine in college always held up as a sad reference to the false intimacy generated by modern life but, hearing it within the context of an evening where folks risked public embarrassment as a means of humble honor to a couple they loved caused me to pause and consider it  again.  There is so much talk of co-creation and brand hijacking and consumer-generated content in the business of marketing and advertising.  It seems every brand plan I participate in has some 360 degree tactic that allows the target to use Youtube in an inventive way to create brand content.  But I've kind of doubted most of the times we have suggested these tactics.  The problem is, unlike the hootenanny or TS Eliot's poem, the vast digital world wide web lacks the tactical sensibility to enjoy the face that is co-creating or hi-jacking or consumer-generating.  When grandma stepped back and watched her grandson blow some sweet blues we all were witness to the moment in the moment with her.  It was awesome.  The Internet is anonymous and remote. I may be branded hypocrite for using it to sing the praises of live unprofessional entertainment over digital consumer content but I feel compelled to do it anyway.  My feeling is that until we think of communication tactics that can motivate face to face risk taking like a live front room hootenanny then the latest lauded digital gimmick will seem a little impotent to me.