American Muscle. What it means today.

Once upon a time in the 1960s, America began a love affair with iconic American machines called muscle-cars.  To understand why this came about, you have revisit the the early 1960s.   A brilliant chief engineer working for Pontiac, by the name of John DeLorean, set out to make a name for himself in the auto industry.  Along with another engineer, Bill Collins, they decided to build a car which would take the Pontiac brand into a new direction.  At this time, within General Motors, there was a rule against putting large engines in medium sized cars.  The top brass at GM wanted the large engines reserved for their much more expensive, full sized luxury cars.  Well, DeLorean skirted around this rule by simply stuffing a large 6.4 Liter V8 engine in the mid-sized Pontiac Tempest and selling it as the "GTO" performance option.  Since the engine was not "standard" it went largely unnoticed by GM executives.  Well, that is until the GTOs started selling at gigantic numbers.  Instead of losing his job for brazenly ignoring GM corporate rules, DeLorean became a legend in the auto industry, and his 1964 Pontiac GTO started an automotive arms race between the Detroit Big Three.  

Each year, throughout the 1960s to the early 70s, automakers added cubic inches and bigger bores, which led to cars with obscene amounts of power.  The competition between the automakers became white hot as automakers churned out legends like the Chevy Chevelle, the GTO "Judge", the Dodge Charger, and the Ford Torino.  Ponycars, "smaller" versions of muscle-cars, such as the Pontiac Trans-Am, Chevy Camaro, Challenger, and the Ford Mustang also kept the competition hot.  Even rivalries within the same companies started up as auto brand leaders engaged in quiet, and sometimes open one-upmanship.  Pontiac during the late 1960s had no problem stepping on the toes of their Chevy cousins by building ever powerful GTOs to one-up Chevy's Chevelle, much to the ire of the Chevy brass.  Chevy came out with the 454 cubic inch V8, and just to one-up them, Pontiac responded by coming out with a 455 cubic inch V8.  Pontiac, according to auto industry expert Peter DeLorenzo, "may have well have had a pirate flag flying over their headquarters in the 1960s."  Pontiac essentially did whatever the hell they wanted so as long as the public couldn't get enough of shelling out money for their products, even if this meant pissing off other divisions within General Motors.  

 The mid 70s came around, and with tightened emission standards, and an oil embargo, the American party with muscle-cars came to an abrupt end.  Or so it seemed.  The Mustang, Camaro, and the Firebird would survive; even though they had some rather embarrassing versions come out in the early 80s.  Flip the page to the 2000s, and automotive technology had evolved.  No longer did American muscle need behemoth sized V8s to put out huge amounts of power.  The small block V8, which had actually been around for decades, hiding in the shadows of its big block brothers, had, by the mid and late 90s, evolved into a serious and very powerful machine.  Engines like the GM LS series 5.7L, 6.0L, and 7.0L V8s, the Ford 5.0L and 4.6L V8s, and the Dodge 5.7L and 6.1L V8s had shown the auto industry they could not only put out more power than their big block ancestors, but they could also use less fuel doing it. 

Detroit went right to work taking advantage of these new bad boy V8s.  Following the discontinuation of the V8 F-Body pony-cars in 2001, Pontiac was void of a rear wheel drive performance car.  Bob Lutz, then Vice Chairman of GM's product development, test drove the Australian built Holden Monaro a rear wheel drive muscle-car.  The Australians had  never ceased production of muscle-cars like the Monaro, even decades after US automakers stopped making true muscle-cars in North America.  He then decided it was a car that should be sold in the United States.  This car became the 2004 Pontiac GTO.  Like its 1964 ancestor, it arguably dropped the first bomb in the resurgence of American muscle (The Ford boys would argue the 2003 "Terminator" Mustang Cobra may have held that honor), with the Charger and more powerful Mustang quickly following, and eventually the Dodge Challenger and a resurrected Camaro. 

This modern American muscle is not your Granddads muscle.  Yes, these cars today can run 13s or even 12s in the quarter mile right from the factory, a rarity for even the biggest block powered muscle-cars from the late 60s and 70s.  But unlike their ancestors, they can handle well, brake well, required much less maintenance, and even use much less gas.  American muscle today means very likely, you will be getting the "full package" if you buy one.  No longer are these one-dimensional, straight line cars, but all around performers that are nothing to be laughed at, even against much higher priced performance cars from Europe.  Despite the rumors about American V8 muscle being replaced by hybrids, electric cars, and other such vehicles, I don't see the demand for these types of cars going away anytime soon, even in an era of 4 dollar a gallon gas.  These cars are a part of the American culture, and just as importantly, a reminder that some automakers still build cars with super-car performance abilities that not only the wealthy can realistically afford.    

The problem with video games today

I was reading an article yesterday, about how 60 dollar video games may be causing pain for the big console video game makers, and have caused the sales of video games in recent times to plummet.  I think the problem of video games is simply more than price.  What is my take?  The “replay” value of these games made today, is well, poor.  Secondly, games these days take themselves too seriously.  

First, let’s address the “replay value.”  First, non-gamers need to understand what “replay value” is.  It is the entertainment value of playing a single video game several times.  For example, I like the war strategy PC games, because I can pay 29-39 bucks for many of them, and still be entertained years after owning the game.  Hell, the FIRST Starcraft, a game that came out in 1998, still had large amounts of loyal fans playing online well into the 2000s.  Even many of the old-school console games used to have a replay value which would be considered legendary.  I can still pop in Super Mario 3, a game 22+ years old, and still be entertained today playing it as a 33 year old grown man as I did as a 12 year old.  How many 3 year old Xbox or Playstation games have similar staying power or are even memorable after a year?  Not many. The same thing happens year after year: Some game comes out with a bunch of hype, a bunch of online teaser trailers, and bunch of commercials.  Kids (and their parents) then go out and buy these 60 dollar games, then after a couple months, or even weeks after play, they sit and collect dust never to be played again.   

A direct result, in my opinion, of the seemingly non-existent replay value of today’s games is focus away from fun factor.  The big game designers have focused too much on realism, sound, and graphics and moved away from old school fun factor.  They are too realistic, too dark, and too serious.  Many of these games nowadays might as well be big budget action or science fiction movies, not video games.   Many games already use the voices and likenesses of celebrities that don't come cheap, which no doubt leads to these 60 dollar retail prices.  Don’t get me wrong, the sound and graphics of today’s video games is leaps and bounds over the old school 8 and 16 bit games, but the entertainment value of many of these games today is far from memorable.      

Other smaller reasons have also hurt the console gaming industry.  For example, I can download no frills but fun games on my cell phone for a couple bucks or less, rather than forking over 60 bucks for an overproduced, overpriced video game that will be obsolete or not worth playing again after you beat it within weeks.  Then the nickle and diming for downloadable content has also left a bitter pill in the mouths of gamers.  So I pay you 60 bucks for a game, then I pay you more at 5-10 bucks a pop to add things that should have been packaged in the game to begin with?  No thanks.   

The message is clear to the game companies. Go back to the basics of focusing on the fun factor adding to the reply factor, and while you are at it, make the prices reasonable.  You can cut down on the production costs by not hiring big name actors and actresses to use their likeness and voices.  I don't own a wii, but look at the big budget big name games of Xbox and Playstation: Halo, and the latest Call of Duty games, and compare them to a simple, but fun Super Mario wii.  Mario has so far outsold all of them combined; by itself. A basic side scrolling game based on a now 30 year old game character has outsold the big budget, heavily produced, heavily marketed games.  Compare the latest Grand Turismo (which I feel is a great racing game by the way) to a rather silly in comparison Super Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart has so far outsold it several times over.  A game with lots of fun-factor and mass appeal is outselling the very arguably too realistic Grand Turismo several fold.  If these game sales aren’t a scream from gamers to the game companies to get back to the basics, I don't know what is. 

The fine line between genius and insanty is finer than we may have thought

The fine line between insanity and genius has been a topic of historical and social discussion for quite some time.  Books, news stories, and movies, have all at times showcased similar tales of mad scientists, eccentric businessmen, and over-the-top leaders of nations.  The innovators, leaders, and creators of history were often also considered "crazy" by many of their peers.  Nikola Tesla, Joan of Arc, Garret Morgan, Harriet Tubman, Carl Sagan, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo Di Vinci, Howard Hughes, and many more, were sometimes considered crazy by the standards of their day, and arguably even by standards of today.  

Out of those examples, lets look at Nikola Tesla for example, talked to pigeons, had a obsession over the number three, and was creeped out by women's jewelry, other peoples hair, and germs.  By today's standards and back at the turn of the 20th century, Tesla was largely considered having one or more mental illnesses.  However, the man could do complicated math problems in his head, before anyone thought of complicated adding machines, super-computers, or calculators.  He had schematics for complex inventions stored in his head.  He performed large scale experiments that involved sending electricity without wires to power light bulbs 30 miles away.  This is an experiment that has not been replicated to this day.   His biggest contribution was that he came up powering the country (and essentially the world) with alternating current, taking 19th century society out of the world of candles and gas lamps, into the 20th century world of lights, computers, and cell phones.  Wireless remote control?  Tesla.  Radar?  Tesla.  Electric car starter?  Tesla.  We would have not been able to use a cell phone, listen to the radio, use the internet, start our car engines, or even power our appliances had it not been for Tesla.  Yet, the man was clearly insane.    

In 2010, Stockholm's Karolinska Institute, did a scientific study to address if there is indeed a connection between genius and insanity.  Without getting into the weeds, it found that those who are very creative people have certain brain receptors that are very similar to those found in diagnosed schizophrenics.  So essentially, science adds credence to the belief that the fine line between insanity and genius apparently is razor thin. 

It's very easy to look at a creative thinker and assume insanity.  The ideas, determination, and innovations, and often personalities of these types of people, are outside of the mainstream.  Furthermore, they often do not care what the mainstream thinks of their ideas, even if their innovations and ideas stand to benefit the same people that find them nutty.  You have to think outside of "normal" to march to the beat of your own drum without shame or hesitation.  And for this reason, these types of men and women show the same lack of hesitation to act boldly, and who lack the fear of ridicule and failure. Decades, even hundreds of years after the deaths of these historical figures who walked the fine line between genius and madness; their inventions, ideas, literature, music, and innovations remain with us to this day.  So, the next time you see that eccentric, possibly socially awkward person, he may already have one foot into a mental institution, or he may be the future inventor of a speed-of-light spacecraft.  

Leadership

"The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly."
-Jim Rohn

The above quote captures the complexity of leadership.  My mother used to tell me as a child, “be a leader, not a follower.”  In today’s society, the leader holds a special place in the social and cultural collective consciousness, and it makes sense:  History remembers great leaders and even many of the terrible ones, and rarely those who followed them.  Many of us dream to be in that esteemed position of leadership, to enjoy the perks and prestige, and the power and influence over others.  Some of us seek to be leaders rather it’s a position on your local home owner’s association committee, being the owner of a small business, the CEO of a big corporation, or the President of the United States.   

However, there is another side of leadership that all would-be leaders must realize.  The life of a leader is very often a solitary one.  Walking to the beat of your own drummer is usually a one man (or woman) show.  This can be particularly difficult since humans are social creatures.  The reality is; most of humans turn out as followers and a very small amount become leaders.  I won’t get into the debate on rather this is a born or acquired trait, but this is the reality.  The animal kingdom mirrors this reality.  Not every female elephant becomes the matriarch of the herd.  Not every male lion gets his own pride.         

Though you get credit for the success of your leadership, you are also under the microscope when your leadership decisions fail or otherwise cause negative results.  Napoleon once said, “Victory is fleeting, defeat is forever”.  A good leader must realize that you can be successful 99 out of 100 times, but the one time you fail can cause your followers to turn on you, and lose your position of influence and leadership.  You are also in constant competition to maintain your leadership position.  Going back to the example of animals, the male lion spends more time protecting his position and territory from rival male lions than he does hunting for food.  Right, wrong, or indifferent; as a leader, there is constant pressure from rivals looking to take your place or simply see to it that you are removed.  Leaders are both revered and hated, sometimes for no logical reason, so beware of the latter.       

As a leader, it is a common mistake to be indecisive in an attempt to prevent making a bad decision which could lead to you losing your position as a leader.  This is often the worst thing you can do.  American military doctrine states that a bad decision is always better than indecision.  Followers would rather follow a decisive leader who makes crappy decisions, rather than an indecisive one who fears making decisions at all.  It is a very fine line to walk, because you don’t want to make too many bad decisions which could undermine your position and the confidence of your followers.    

So my bottom line here?  For would-be leaders:  Go into leadership with both eyes open.  Learn from the leaders of history, the present, and even those in the animal kingdom (seriously).  Be mindful of not just the prestige and perks, but the sometimes uncomfortable, awkward, and stressful sides of leadership.  It is fine that you may not be cut out for leadership, because when it’s all said and done, the majority of human beings that walk this earth are not leaders.   

Ulysses S. Grant, an unlikely role model, and an analysis of the power of determination.

“In every battle there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten, then he who continues the attack wins.”  -Ulysses S. Grant


As I child, I had little interest in traditional "children's books".  I was into history and biographies from a very young age.  I remember as a 6 and 7 year old going to my local Carnegie library reading books about the railroads, the auto industry, wars, and ancient civilizations.  I learned about many historical figures and events.  The American Civil War, in particular, had me interested immediately.  One character that stuck out to me was Ulysses S. Grant.  He graduated at the bottom of his west point class, and was unsuccessful in almost anything except the military.  He was also called a drunk by his detractors and enemies.  He did however, maintain a sense of courage and determination which is nothing less than legendary.  His determination would ultimately have history remembering him as the most successful commander of the American Civil War, and arguably the most successful American military commander as a whole.  He is also the only American general to have caused the surrender of three entire armies.  An example of this determination was at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862, when his army was getting a thumping on the first day of the fight.  His friend, General Sherman remarked, "We've had the devils own day, haven't we?"  Grant's response was, "lick em tomorrow."  Such an attitude shows that despite crappy circumstances and mass carnage, one is willing to keep the determined attitude he will be successful.  Sure enough, the next day, he took the fight to his enemy and won the day.       

So, what does this have to do with me?  I was never at the "head of the class" in terms of school (at least after middle school).  I was never the best athlete (though I did plenty of different sports, i didn't do any phenomenally great).  I was never "OMG you're a damn genius!!!" intelligent either.  But one thing I have always been blessed with is determination; the same determination which drove General Grant to win again and again, regardless of the odds.  Growing up in the inner city of the North-side of Pittsburgh PA in the 80s and 90s; let's just say, your prospects and odds for great success in life (and sometimes survival for that matter) weren't exactly a foregone conclusion.  I was determined not to become a statistic as countless others had, or to give up on life, content with poverty and obscurity.  I was driven to not only survive my circumstances, but thrive through passionate determination.

I was not (and am not) the brightest bulb in the pack when it came to advanced math and biology, but I always enjoyed high school, despite average a rather unimpressive C+/B- average.  My goals were:  Finish school, get into college and also finish, join the military, which would get experience in a lucrative and rewarding job field of my choosing, get out of the military, and then find a good job.  In that exact order.  For someone who had a rough junior year in high school (again, I sucked in calculus and biology) getting through college while trying to support myself to pay for it was a daunting task.  Through determination, good fortune, and seizing opportunities, I accomplished my goals.  Was it easy?  No.  Right after joining the army, 9/11 took place, which got me the eventual guaranteed trip to war.  I got out of the military right before the economy took a crap.  So, despite my sometimes poor timing, bad luck, negative detractors, and seemingly implausible odds, my determination kept me fighting, picked me up when I stumbled, helped me keep beating the odds, and helped me find success again and again.  Getting depressed and feeling sorry for myself when life became a big bowl of suck, was never an option for me.    


Determination, in my view, is the single, most powerful virtue of man.  A determined man or woman is a force to be reckoned with, and can accomplish anything.  General Ulysses S. Grant and many others, serve is no-kidding, no BS, historical examples of how powerful such a tool is in the right hands.  My early studies of Grant in particular, helped me discover this God-given virtue; determination, and use it to my advantage.  I hope and pray that all us can use this determination not only for continued personal success, but also for the betterment of mankind and society as a whole.