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Stuck In Traffic
"Current Events, Cultural Phenomena, True Stories"
Issue #26 - September, 1997
Contents:
James Brown Bum
Talking to the homeless people and the crazy people in downtown
Atlanta.
Whose Best Interests?
An examination of the issues that cause the Teamsters to strike
against UPS.
Generic Vacation Sights
How to avoid learning anything from your vacation.
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True Story
James Brown Bum
During a recent vacation trip to Atlanta, I had the opportunity
to talk to a crazy man. Stark, raving, mad. Not just a little
bit imbalanced, but crazy as a loon.
For those of us who don't already live in large metropolitan
cities, walking through the downtown area of a major urban
center is both exciting and discomforting at the same time. The
exciting part come, I think, from the fact that there's so much
activity. In a big city, everyone seems to be rushing around.
There's something about a big city that makes the daily grind
of our lives a little more lively, a little more important. The
discomforting part of the experience comes from simply being a
stranger in a new place. We don't know where everything is, so
we have trouble navigating the streets. We find ourselves
gawking at the huge skyscrapers that the locals don't even take
a second look at. We know that we're obviously "not from around
here" and it makes us self-conscious.
And then, there are the homeless. I think the other
discomforting thing about being a visitor to a major urban
center are the homeless people. I don't know how the locals
manage to callously walk by these folks day in and day out for
years at a time without it having a major impact on their lives.
I wish I could say that I don't understand how people can just
ignore the homeless, but I would be a hypocrite because I'm
afraid I learned to do the same thing during my trip.
I stayed in Atlanta for about a week. And everyday I had to
walk back and forth through several city blocks in the heart of
downtown. And I got quickly initiated in encounters with the
homeless.
There was one man in particular who caused me lots of anguish.
I never learned his name, but I began to think of him as the
toothless man.
He was about 35 or 40 dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt,
neither of which has seen the wet side of a washer in a long time.
His hair was thick with grease. But the thing that was the most
amazing about this man was that he had almost no teeth and the
ones he had left were jutting out from his jaw at unhealthy
angles. It was as if the few teeth he had left made his mouth
seem even more empty than if he had no teeth at all. Every time
he approached me, I got to hear his tale of woe and misery.
Everyday he would tell me that he had just been kicked out of
the homeless shelter because he had AIDS and he wasn't asking
for a hand out but he was trying to raise seven dollars so
that he and his wife and daughter could have a place to sleep
that night. His wife and daughter were supposedly right around
the corner but I never saw them. And oh by the way, he wasn't
just trying to get money for booze. He could assure me of that.
How much of this man's story was true and how much wasn't? What
would one have to do to get kicked out of a homeless shelter?
Wasn't there some sort of charitable organization that could
take him in? Why was his story the same every day I saw him? And
most importantly, why did he approach me with his story instead
of one of the many other people walking down the street at the
same time? Did it have anything to do with the fact that I gave
him a dollar the first time I met him?
It got to the point were I dreaded the particular block that he
inhabited. I never gave him any more money after the first time.
I would always say something like, "Sorry, I'm in a rush." or,
"No Thank you," or anything else just to keep on walking and
not get dragged into a conversation.
But even though I learned how to get by him, it never got easy.
I would always feel sad after I left him behind.
I relate my encounters with the Toothless Man in order to
contrast him with the man I came to think of as "The James Brown
Bum" These two gentlemen taught me that not all homeless people
are crazy, and not all crazy people necessarily end up like the
homeless. One needs to learn to tell the difference.
My visit to Atlanta happened to include a Sunday, which is a
totally different experience in the downtown area of major
urban center than any other time during the week. During the
business week, the homeless folks are diluted somewhat by the
sheer numbers of people. Since there are so many people milling
about the homeless people can't possibly make eye contact with
everyone. So it's easier to avoid them. Even on a Saturday,
there are usually enough people around that you don't have to
have a personal encounter with every homeless person out there.
But on the Sunday morning that I was in Atlanta, it seemed almost
like I was the only "homeful" person on the streets. Just about
every business was closed, there were no cars on the streets, and
it was remarkably quiet.
I was headed for the McDonald's for breakfast, but almost turned
around when I got close to it. Since McDonald's was one of the
few places open and since it was one of the few places where
there were people walking in and out, just about every homeless
person in the area was congregated outside. Each was taking their
turn at trying to stop people walking by and get some money out
of them. It was like some sort of weird receiving line.
I decided to brave the receiving line. It wasn't like I felt
threatened by these poor folks or anything. They obviously had
no intentions of causing any real trouble. It was just the
psychic angst that made me leery. Once inside, managed to find
a table without a view of the street, so I could eat without
having to look at these folks. But still, I felt terrible.
That's when James Brown walked in.
Not _the_ James Brown of course, but a 50-ish year old black
man walked into the restaurant dressed in an outfit that looked
just like something James Brown would wear on stage. He didn't
have the jewelry or the glitter that James Brown has. But you
could take one look at him and know that his alter-ego was
James brown. He even had that weird hair cut that James Brown
has.
He walked in carrying the biggest damn boom box I've ever seen
in my entire life. And he was walking in as if he were strolling
among throngs of fans, waving to everyone, grinning from ear to
ear, putting on a show with his presence. Clearly this man was
not quite right in the head.
The staff at McDonald's converged on him as soon as they noticed
him coming in and there was quite a showdown in the middle of
McDonald's. The James Brown Bum was still in his own little world
of teeming fans while the McDonald's manager, a tall, husky
black woman with long braided hair stood in his way and yelled
at him that he couldn't stay in there.
And then, in what appeared to be an attempt to tune her out. He
pops a cassette tape into the boom box and starts playing some
sort of bootleg James Brown tape. I didn't recognize the
particular tune, but it was classic James Brown at his best. It
was one of those tunes that can only be described as "funky."
And get funky he did. He started moving and dancing in the aisle
just as if he were on stage. The McDonald's manager did a
remarkable job at yelling above the music and keeping in front of
this gyrating man so that he couldn't get any further into the
restaurant. And remarkably, she managed to do this while never
laying a hand on him. But the problem was that it was a small
narrow restaurant and the two of them were blocking the only way
out of the restaurant and I was ready to go.
Now, I'm usually the sort of person that will avoid being the
center of attention like the plague. For better or worse, I
just try to keep away from controversy and confrontation. I
pick my battles very carefully.
But there was something about that morning that made me
different. And I couldn't tell you why, but there was something
about my encounters with the Toothless man that made me get
involved in the fracas with the James Brown bum. There was
something about all those people out front begging for
money that made something in me snap.
I've always enjoyed listening to James Brown tunes. And even
though I never bought a James Brown album until just very
recently, I've always stopped and listened to his songs when
I run across them on the radio. He has a presence that's
unmistakable. He has managed to combine the blues with an
upbeat, almost aristocratic showmanship that few have managed
to duplicate. And his songs have permeated our culture to the
point that even I, a middle class white boy from a the heart of
suburbia knows the words to many James Brown tunes.
So while I was watching this odd confrontation in front of me,
I began to feel something pulling me into the scene. I knew I
was going to do something. I could feel the past few days welling
up inside me, but I had no idea how it was going to manifest
itself.
"Hey My Brother!" I found my self shouting in the god awfullest
contrived black accent you've ever heard in your life, "You
gonna hafta get on the Good Foot!"
For you poor souls out there who haven't had the James Brown
experience, "Good Foot" is one of James Brown's most legendary
songs and it happens to be my favorite of his songs. To try to
put this into literary terms, in this song, dancing on one's
"Good Foot" is a metaphor for being in tune with the world,
getting everything right easily and naturally. It's a song
about competence and the good feelings that come with it. It's
the equivalent of "being in the zone" as some say.
Though the boom box played on, all the other commotion stopped
as if someone had thrown the switch. I had that weird "all eyes
are on you" feeling. I immediately regretted having done that.
No doubt I had just offended every black person in the restaurant,
which was about 50% of the customers, many of them dressed in
their Sunday best. But the since the James Brown bum and the
McDonald's manager had stopped. There was just enough room to
squeeze by them and get the hell out of there. And that's exactly
what I did, while keeping my eyes fixed firmly to the floor.
I had no idea that this would cause the James Brown bum to
follow me out.
As I was walking down the sidewalk, he ran up beside me
chattering 90 miles an hour. He was showing me all sorts of
James Brown memorabilia that he had with him. Tapes, pictures,
newspaper clippings, etc. etc. We talked abut James Brown for
several minutes but I don't have a clue what we talked about
because he was so excited that he was unintelligible. I did
understand the point at which he tried to sell me a James
Brown casette tape, which I fended off by lying to his face
that "I already had that one."
But we chatted with each other for several minutes in the
nicest way, like two strangers that had met for the first time
in church. And all the other homeless people kinda stood
around and stared. But we were having a pretty good time and at
the end we shook hands and went our separate ways.
I wish I could say that my experience with the James Brown bum
had given me a tremendous insight into solving the homeless
problem, but it didn't. I wish I could say that my experience
with him had made a difference in his life, but it didn't. The
man was just as crazy at the end of the ordeal as he was in the
beginning. And most of all, I wish I could explain why my troubled
encounters with the Toothless Man had caused me to get involved
in the confrontation with the James Brown bum, but I can't.
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Current Events
Whose Best Interests?
I watched the unfolding events of the Teamsters' strike against
UPS with only the most tepid enthusiasm. Contract negotiations
between a company and a labor union just aren't that interesting.
And I refuse to treat contract negotiations as being a situation
in which one side loses and the other wins. Contracts are
contracts. Both sides win when the contract is signed. But
frankly, there wasn't that much else going on in August since
Congress had set off on its traditional August break and many
state legislatures had done the same. It has been a slow news
month, and the strike seems to have caught the country's
attention by default rather than by being important.
Since I refuse to view contract negotiations as a competition,
I also refused to take a position on which side was "right" and
which side was "wrong". But I can't help but make some
observations over how this so-called drama played out in the
media. And I can't help but notice the difference in the
theoretical role of unions and the actual role played by the
Teamsters in this particular strike.
Let me just say up front, that I fully support the right of
people to unionize. In industries where job skills are easily
transferable and employees are easily replaceable, unions have
the potential to create a mutual support system among its
members. They can help their members with career development
and training as well as help out with things like group
insurance and benefits. And since unions have a much higher
profile than individual employees, they can also ensure that
employees are being treated fairly. The biggest benefit of
course is the collective bargaining power they exercise when
negotiating wages with the employer. Unions are cartels of
labor. And like other cartels, they work by representing a
statistically significant percentage of the work force in a
particular company or industry.
True to form, the media have covered the strike against UPS
strictly in terms of conflict. The Teamsters were on one "side"
and the management of UPS was on the other "side" and there
was going to be both a "winner" and a "loser". Most media in
the United States portrayed the Teamsters as the "good" guys
and the UPS management as the "bad" guys. The TV was filled
with angry comments from strikers on the picket lines, full
of venom and ill-will. One striking UPS driver even went so far
as to say on national TV that UPS was holding him in slavery
and oppressing him. Though he was unable to articulate the
nature of his oppression or why he was on strike.
In addition to hyperbolic TV sound bites from striking Teamsters,
the news coverage of the strike consisted of many panic
mongering stories about how the nation's economy was being
seriously damaged by the absence of UPS from the package
delivery industry. Inconvenient? Yes. Damaging? No. At least I
find it difficult to believe the UPS's absence could affect
the nation's Gross Domestic Product in any sort of statistically
significant way. The services UPS provides are highly
substitutable and there are lots of other companies and
government agencies that can fill the void. The United States
Postal Service, Federal Express, Airborne, Emory, etc. etc. And
all these companies rushed to fill in the gaps that UPS left
while it was shut down. Even the United States Postal service,
which is not exactly known for its quick reactions to shifting
market forces, instituted Sunday deliveries to help fill in the
gaps that UPS left.
Between turning the negotiations into a battle between good and
evil and panic mongering about the strike's economic importance,
there was precious little coverage about the issues over which
the Teamsters were striking. Were UPS employees being underpaid?
No. Were they being unfairly treated? No. Were their benefits
out of line with their industry? No. The issues that were
preventing the contract from being completed and signed had
little to do with the individual members of the Teamsters. First
there was the issue of how many part-time positions there
should be at UPS and the second issue was over who controls the
pension funds of union members.
The package delivery business is highly seasonal, meaning that
there are periods of the year (Christmas) where the volume of
their business increases dramatically and then there are
seasons of the year (summer) where the volume of business is
low. Because of this seasonal nature of the business, UPS uses
part-time workers to augment its workforce as needed. There are
of course advantages and disadvantages to using part-time
workers. On the one hand, the cost associated with part-time
workers is not as high as full time workers when you factor in
benefits, etc. On the other hand, full time workers are worth
more because they are more productive due to their long term
experience and investment in the company as a career, not just
a job. In any company, UPS included, there is an optimal mix of
part-time and full time employees. By forcing the company to
reduce its numbers of part-time employees, the Teamsters have
likely shifted the balance of full-time and part-time employees
away from the optimal mix and will hurt UPS in the long run by
making it less competitive than its competitors. One would
think that hurting the business interests of UPS would also
hurt the interests of the full time employees. So it would
appear that the Teamsters' attempts to artificially and
arbitrarily set the number of part-time and full-time workers
are short sighted, even though well intentioned.
The debate over pension control seems to be even more short
sighted when you consider the fact that the Teamster's so far
have failed to cite any evidence of financial misconduct of the
pension fund by UPS management. Nor has the Teamsters union been
able to cite even cases of poor judgment by UPS management or
under performance of the pension fund's investments. This issue
has nothing to do with whether the union members were being well
served by the company or not. The bottom line is that it is a
power grab by the union leadership to control one of the key
benefits of working with the company. Again, one has to ask if
the union members interests are being served or not by this
power grab. This is an especially valid question since, in the
very same month, Federal judges have found the Teamsters'
leadership guilty of misusing the money under its control.
In theory at least, unions have an important role to play in a
free economy and the people's right to freely associate with
each other is as sacred a part of our Constitution as the right
to free speech. But at least in the case of the Teamsters strike
against UPS, it appears that perhaps the union has not lived
up to its potential. Unionized UPS employees should be asking
themselves if the Teamsters have truly represented their best
interests or not.
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Cultural Phenomena
Generic Vacation Sights
I am fortunate enough to be able to travel on occasion, just
for fun and vacation. I wouldn't consider myself a worldly
traveler, but I've had enough opportunity to visit different
areas of the United States and a couple of other countries to
begin to get a feel for how cultures differ. Even within the
United States there people can be very different depending where
they are from. Folks from the east coast of the United States
tend to dress differently than folks on the west coast. Folks
from the Northern states tend to speak differently than folks
from the deep South. The differences are more than superficial.
People from different areas of the country have different
lifestyles, different values, different attitudes. While we are
all closely related there are distinctly identifiable cultures
within the United States.
No big news there. Every grade school child learns the lesson
about how the United States is a country whose strength is
built on the diversity of its people. And we learn that the
United States simultaneously embraces "The Melting Pot Theory"
and people's right to preserve their cultural identity.
As far as I can tell, there are two main motivations for the
average person to spend significant sums of their discretionary
income to travel long distances across the country. First, there
are natural wonders. The Grand Canyon. Niagra Falls. Yosimite.
There are also natural wonders that are less spectacular, but
just as enjoyable. Beaches are a great vacation spot because we
don't get to see them often and we enjoy spending our recreational
time on them. Mountains are great for hiking and camping, which
we many people enjoy, but don't get to do very often.
The second main motivation for travel, as far as I can see, is
to experience cultures other than our own. Even small cultural
differences can be very enjoyable. A laid-back Southerner can
have a huge eye opening experience just be traveling to
California and experiencing the California beach lifestyle.
You can't come back from a vacation to a different culture
without learning a little bit about your own.
Or can you?
I have this bad habit of observing other vacationers as much
as I observe the natives. I like to watch how they interact
with "the locals". I like to watch how they interact with each
other. I find it insightful to see how the sorts of things
they've done to prepare for their trip.
Watching families is particularly interesting. Just by watching
who is walking in front of/behind/beside of who can say a lot
about a family. Just looking at the expressions on their faces
can say a lot. Vacations by their nature, interrupt or daily
routine and put families under some stress which can't help but
surface in their actions. But the thing I find most interesting
about watching other vacationers, and the thing I find the most
sad about watching other vacationers is the lengths they will go
to insulate themselves from the very sites and sounds they
have spent so much money to experience.
Vacationers that never stray from the local Chamber of Commerce
approved tourist attractions do themselves no favors. Vacationers
that only take pictures of the landmarks but not of the people
that live in and among the landmarks are denying themselves the
real vacation experience. Vacationers that they have spent so much
time and effort to seek.
But the biggest self-defeating mistake that I see vacationers
making is what I call "the generic vacation sight" mistake.
They will eat at the local McDonald's instead of trying out the
local Mom and Pop restaurant that might actually have something
tasty on their menu. They only interact with the most generic
service people at the hotel but never take a minute to talk to
the local cab driver. They never take the time to participate
in the recreations that the locals participate in. They don't
go to the churches that the locals go to. They don't shop in the
same stores that the locals do.
And the sad part of the whole thing is that there is a booming
industry in providing generic diversions from the real vacation
experience. Some of the biggest offenders are the generic
restaurant/nightclub scene. Places like, "Planet Hollywood" and
"The Hard Rock Cafe" are typical examples.
Let me share with you a little secret. Every Hard Rock Cafe
across the planet is basically exactly the same as every other
Hard Rock Cafe. Once you've been in one, you've been in them
all. And there's no way the "Planet Hollywood" is going to give
you a feel for what the local people and the local culture is
like.
When you have the opportunity to travel. Don't waste the
opportunity to actually visit.
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About Stuck In Traffic
Stuck In Traffic is a monthly magazine dedicated to evaluating
current events, examining cultural phenomena, and sharing true
stories.
Why "Stuck In Traffic"?
Because getting stuck in traffic is good for you. It's an
opportunity to think, ponder, and reflect on all things, from
the personal to the global. As Robert Pirsig wrote in _Zen and
the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, "Let's consider a
reevaluation of the situation in which we assume that the
stuckness now occurring, the zero of consciousness, isn't the
worst of all possible situations, but the best possible situation
you could be in. After all, it's exactly this stuckness that
Zen Buddhists go to so much trouble to induce...."
Submissions
Submissions to Stuck In Traffic are always welcome. If you have
something on your mind or a personal story you'd like to share,
please do. You don't have to be a great writer to be published
here, just sincere.
Contact Information
All queries, submissions, subscription requests, comments, and
hate-mail about Stuck In Traffic should be sent to Calvin Stacy
Powers preferably via E-mail (
[email protected]) or by mail (2012
Talloway Drive, Cary,NC USA 27511).
Copyright Notice
Stuck In Traffic is published and copyrighted by Calvin Stacy
Powers who reserves all rights. Individual articles are
copyrighted by their respective authors. Unsigned articles are
authored by Calvin Stacy Powers.
Permission is granted to redistribute and republish Stuck In
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For permission to republish an individual article, contact the
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