Socially Speaking

Numbers 95-91 in my little list of the 100 Greatest TV Theme Songs Ever.

95. One Day At A Time — Not that I’m a big huge fan of this show or this song. But there’s a nostalgic element to this for me; re-runs of this show used to run at like 11:30 on Friday nights when I was a kid, and I remember sitting up with friends as an 11 year old watching this cheesy show.

94. Good Times — How come that when I was a kid, I didn’t realize how unfunny Jimmie Walker was? In hindsight, that’s like not noticing that Kate Gosselin was domineering. Anyway, the theme song and more importantly that opening montage it played over set the tone quite well for one of the first family series to be set not in the perfect suburb or among the elite but in poverty.

93. Eight Is Enough — No, the title does not refer to the combined number of arrests for the various Bradford kids, though it could have. As I look back on many 70s comedies, I now know why they added a laugh track: they needed to. But belly up to the dinner table, kids — there’s a plate of homemade wishes on the kitchen windowsill.

92. Mad Men — I haven’t watched much of the show; while the premise sounded interesting, between fatherhood and work I don’t remember the last time I was able to watch anything on a regular enough basis to get into it. But this theme song is a smooth blend of strings and groove, and adds to the series’ allure.

91. L.A. Law — Is there a theme song that screams 80s Yuppie any more than this one? Sure, others capture other elements of that decade quite well, but for the anthem of the much maligned Yuppie, I think this was unparalleled.

This post and the series that will follow it have nothing to do with social media. Or anything of consequence. This is a simple little fun thing to do with no redeeming business value, and I make no apologies for that!

A while back, my friend Lish Dorset and I were talking about a particular TV show’s theme song, and got into a discussion of what the top TV theme songs of all time are. It’s taken me several months to revisit the subject, but I think I have my top 100 now. My rankings have nothing to do with the quality of the shows or their historical value. I also didn’t take “iconic” status as the #1 factor - let’s face it, even though we all know the Brady Bunch theme, the thing’s an annoying earworm that would be playing on the elevator to hell - so it won’t make the top 50 despite iconic status.

No, my choices are based on 1) The coolness of the music; 2) the effectiveness of the theme at setting the tone for the show; and 3) iconic, nostalgic or historic status. A song that was a hit before its use as a TV theme is disqualified (I’m talking to you, CSI) because it’s not best known as a TV theme.

I’ll put a few new ones up each chance I get. Here’s the first few:

100. “Leave It To Beaver” — Evocative of the aspirations to suburban conformity that held America during the Eisenhower era. Simply listening to it from beginning to end results in the sprouting of a white picket fence and the gestation of the “.5” of the 2.5 children.

99. “The Dick Van Dyke Show” — Iconic yet an earworm. Don’t believe me? Listen to it now and tell me it’s not in your head all stinking day.

98. “The Jeffersons” —I know, everyone knows Movin’ On Up and cites it whenever a friend moves apartments or houses. But I’m just not a fan of the faux gospel sound.

97. “Silver Spoons” — Can’t you just feel the return to family values in the air? Yknow, because together, we’re going to find our way. One of a series of kind of pablumesque family sitcoms of the early Reagan era, but it did feature Erin Gray, who’s as attractive as I thought she was when I was 14.

96. “Bewitched” — Captures 1960s suburbia as effectively as Beaver’s theme did the 50s.

Thanksgiving.  Since for most of my adult life my family has been spread across the country or even planet, this has not for years been a “get family together” holiday. Most of my Thanksgivings have been of the “gosh it’s nice to have a four day weekend” variety more than anything else. But this year, I’m actually going to take the time to remember the spirit of the day. In no particular order (except for number one), here are things I am thankful for this year:

• My wife Holly and son Anthony, who remind me every day that there are more important things in life than my job, my company, social media, or anything else.
• I’m still alive and semi-kicking. I’m not as healthy as I once was, and age is starting to take its toll. But I’m alive, I can get up every day, I’m mobile, and it doesn’t take too many miracles of modern science to keep me breathing.
• My company turned three straight quarters of profit and we had a successful IPO. After the stressful past two years and not knowing what the future held, it feels indescribably good to have things clicking now. Thankful also for all the people who either stood by us or have agreed to give us a second chance.
• I have a remarkable team and extended team of people who are outstanding at what they do and help make me successful. Every one of them is a blessing.
• The Red Sox, Tigers, Cardinals, Reds and even the Nationals. And that the Yankees failed in their efforts to buy another World Series.
• Detroit. Everything about this place — from the resiliency and scrappiness and grit of its people to the simple placid beauty of watching the Detroit River flow by on a summer afternoon.
• I landed a book deal. It’s been a life goal for me to write a book someday, and now I’m doing it. I’m incredibly thankful to all the people whose efforts over the years made me look good enough to get a book deal.
• The remarkable community here in Detroit, including Dave Murray, Brandon Chesnutt, Alicia Dorset, Audrey Walker, Henry Balanon, Becks Davis, Stephen Clark, Hubert Sawyers, Adrian Pittman, Hajj Flemings, Jane Fader, Angela Hernandez, Charlie Wollberg, and dozens of others. 
• Some wicked smart people in the social media world who teach me something by example almost every day, including Geoff Livingston, Aaron Strout, Mitch Joel, David Meerman Scott, Chris Brogan, Joseph Jaffe, Peter Shankman, Olivier Blanchard, Liz Strauss, Lucretia Pruitt, Jason Keath, Amber Naslund, and many others. Every one of them teaches me something different than the others. Sometimes, I even disagree with them or they with me. That is why they are so awesome.
• Some really cool people I’ve met online and/or in various outreach efforts with GM. Some are social media rock stars, some are just rock stars in their own worlds. But I love ‘em all the same, and they are proof that online friends are damn well real friends. Brian Simpson, Jessica Randazza, George Smith, Nicole D’Alonzo, Emily Haughey, Summer Boone, Casey Mullins, Chris Moody, Anissa Mayhew, Jeff Pulver, among many others, have made my life more enjoyable through their presence in it. Thank you, guys.
•  Little things that make life fun: the Sesame Street Grover Spice Guy; Armando Galarraga and Jim Joyce reminding us what sportsmanship is; the funny look on Wayne Gretzky’s face when the pillar didn’t work during the Winter Olympics; the look on the young Chilean son’s face as his father was brought out of the San Jose mine.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Thank you to everyone who responded with so much care to the story of Rosie Faith, the injured cat I told you about Monday. I would have followed up sooner, but as you may have heard we had a small activity at GM this week that took up my full attention and I haven’t been able to do this until now. I have an update for you - if you are an animal lover or have even the slightest bit of humanity in you it will infuriate you, but we need to tell the story in order to help this cat and prevent horrible things like this from happening to other animals.

Faith was picked up Monday afternoon from the lady who notified us. She was transported to the home of the MMCR director, where Sarah was able to evaluate her late Monday. There are a few changes in the initial analysis of Faiths situation. When Sarah first approached her, she moved towards Sarah & rubbed her head in Sarah’s hands. Faith then rolled onto her back (as if to say please take a look) which allowed Sarah to do a thorough examination.

Faiths injuries are more severe than originally thought. She is the victim of animal cruelty via humans. She has severe burns to all of her tail as well as her genital area. She is not a she but is a he. The evidence shows that he (Now just Faith) was set on fire. It melted his genitals so it made it very difficult to tell if he was a boy or girl. He is able to go to the bath room. Regarding the tail damage the bottom 50% of his tail is black bone that will need to be amputated. Infection has set in, in his tail and his genitals. He is currently on pain medications as well as antibiotics.

He is scheduled to go into the vet tomorrow morning. (CB note: this note came Wednesday, so he has been to the vet as of this morning; I will update his condition for you when I learn it.) The vet will do a much more extensive examination to determine if he will need a second surgery for his neuter procedure and any additional reconstructive surgery that he will need. I know this sounds so grim but we really expect a full recovery after a tail amputation, which will have no effect on his ability to function normally.

For those of you that made donations to help cover his care we are beyond grateful & appreciate all that you have done. The initial $300 request was an estimate. But we do believe that we have gotten enough donations to cover his immediate medical & follow up care. Any donations that we received that maybe above what it takes to care for Faith, will be used to take care of the approximate 120 other precious kitties that we have in our care currently. Many of our cats are also in need of special care. Again thank you from Faith and all of our current and future kitties.

You read that correctly: someone set this cat on fire and melted his genitals! When I think of the unspeakable pain this poor animal must have gone through and still must feel, it makes me want to cry for him, and makes me want to find the horrible, evil, cowardly person who did this to him. (I’d suggest a similar punishment… but discretion probably mandates that I just suggest pressing animal cruelty charges!)

This is a sad, horrible situation — but one that can get better for this cat thanks to people like everyone who donated. Here’s a photo of this sweet little boy:

Thank you to everyone who chose to help. Click here to learn more about Mid-Michigan Cat Rescue.

Sorry for the non-social media or automotive related post; as some of you know my other passion is trying to help as many animals and animal rescue programs as possible, and my wife and I do a lot of volunteering with Mid-Michigan Cat Rescue. This story comes to us from MMCR, and I’m throwing it out to you to ask for help.

We received a call from a very concerned citizen last week. She rescued an injured 6 month old kitten from under a family member’s porch. Unfortunately she is unable to keep this sweet little girl, who is going to need a great deal of extra care and love. We need your help!

Sadly, this kitten — whom we’ve named Rosie-Faith — has a severely damaged tail. We don’t know whether it was human abuse or an animal that got to her, but she will need to have her tail amputated in order to save her life. Amputations are not only expensive but very traumatic for any animal, and Rosie-Faith will need a great deal of extra medical care, love and socializing before she is ready for a new furever home. Our rescue is currently at capacity, so our director Sarah will be personally fostering Rosie-Faith in her home in order to provide the additional medical care she will need until she is ready for adoption.

Not only has the deadline passed for us to take her, but the longer this little angel goes without medical care, the worse her odds of recovery are. Can you help her have a second chance? We need to raise $300 ASAP. If you’d like to consider donating, please click here http://bit.ly/cUy5xu

CB here… my family and I will be donating to get things started. But we could really use your help. Please consider helping this sweetie.

Per the rules of #Movember, I’m starting the month clean shaven. The real mystery: will there be anything but silver in my mustache/goatee when it comes in?

Since somewhere around 10th grade or so, I haven’t been the kind of guy who’d just do something because all his friends were doing it.  But a whole lot of my friends in the social media space are doing something this month, and they’re doing it for an important reason… so I’m going to do something because all the cool kids are doing it.

#Movember is to men’s health and men’s cancer awareness what the pink ribbon is to women’s health and breast cancer awareness. Men across the social web are committing to “change the face of men’s health and men’s cancer awareness” by literally changing their faces — growing a mustache if they don’t have facial hair, or shaving it off if they do usually wear it. Teams across the country raise money for men’s cancer causes as part of the effort as well.

Few things can make a grown man cry, weep, or squirm like the idea of a prostate exam. Of course, one of the things that would be worse is prostate cancer. Or testicular cancer. So part of the aim of #Movember is to get guys to figure out that they’re not invincible, and that as unpleasant as examinations for prostate and testicular cancer might be, they are miles better than the alternative.

My father is a prostate cancer survivor, so in his honor I’m joining the effort. There’s good teams to join: Team Austin, Team RDU, Team Boston… I think I have the rest of the day to play the “which team will I join” game (maybe I should hire Scott Boras as my agent?). But in the end, it won’t matter whose “team” I join — because we’re all on the same team.

I’ll be posting a photo per day for the month of November as I grow my face out. I haven’t worn a goatee since my DC days — but for this cause, I’ll put up with the embarrassment of the fact that, like the hair on my head, my facial hair now comes in gray. My wife hates facial hair, but for this cause she’s lifting her ban on my growing my face out.  I hope you’ll consider joining. I hope you’ll consider pledging to any of the teams. Most of all, guys, I hope you’ll change the face of your own health and make regular exams part of your routine.

#Movember it is.

So I’m watching a freak of nature happening tonight; fires started as high winds blew down power lines and were subsequently whipped by high winds into infernos. More than 80 fires burned across my adopted hometown today. It’s a sad and frightening thing - both because of the speed at which it happened, and because so many of those affected have nothing left and nowhere else to go.

I’m also watching irresponsible coverage from national news outlets desperate to push the “arson” angle despite overwhelming evidence that Mother Nature was overwhelmingly to blame. Unfortunately, here in Detroit we’ve gotten used to national media looking for negative angles to pursue on Detroit; it almost doesn’t surprise anymore.

I’m also watching a disgraceful display on many national news websites, where at least half of the reader comments are of the “let ‘em burn” variety. I’m left wondering how anyone with a conscience can take glee in the suffering of fellow human beings, or how some Americans can be so vitriolic in wishing ill on fellow Americans. And I’m left wondering what happened to the concept of compassion and empathy.

Social media offers such wonderful possibilities for people to connect, to build relationships, to find commonalities and bring people together. The web also offers people the choice to be ugly in cowardly anonymity, to say things online that they’d never dream of being rude or callous enough to say in person.  We each have the choice to use the tools of the web to be whatever kind of person we wish. I often tell my eight year old that the way to know somebody’s true character is observing what they do when they think nobody’s watching. I think an amendment to that might be that the way to know someone’s true character is how they behave when the Net ensures that no one can know for sure who they are.

Thankfully, the good mostly outweighs the bad — online and in real life. My wish tonight, though, is that all of us — especially myself — remember when we’re engaging online that even when we’re in heated disagreements, we still have a responsibility to be decent people, and we watch what we say or how we say it. Civility is not, contrary to what we might see sometimes, an outdated or dead concept. I hope we all dedicate ourselves to practicing it more fervently.

Back in late January, about 5-6 weeks before SXSW 2010, I was sitting with Detroit semi-legend (and soon to be father) Henry Balanon in the Volt Bar at the Renaissance Center Marriott in downtown Detroit. We each had an idea we wanted to run past each other — and as it turned out, they were similar ideas. Over Ketel One and tonics, we quickly realized that we might be onto something.

I had Chevrolet at SXSW as a major sponsor and was scheming out a road trip that might draw some attention to our presence in Austin before the event began. Henry had a plan to get to SXSW and wanted to get there in such a way that did something to benefit Detroit. As Chevrolet is a great Detroit brand and we were sponsoring South By, Henry wondered whether we’d be willing to work with him on a road trip idea. “Wait a second,” I remember saying, “I had been thinking this, but what if we did that instead?” Excitedly and pretty much in back-of-cocktail napkin fashion, he and I spent about two hours bouncing ideas off each other and mapping out what would eventually, with the help of LOTS of other people, become the Chevrolet SXSW Road Trip Challenge.

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Are you using the real-time web in creative, innovative and fresh ways to make positive change in your field? Then we want to hear YOU speak at #140conf Detroit!