The Blue Angels -- What you see is what you think.

Seafair is over; the Blue Angels have left town. Did you just hear hateful, god-awful, ear-splitting noise --- or like some boosters, did you hear “the sound of freedom?” It depends….

What are the Blue Angels? Why are the Blue Angels? What do the Blue Angels mean?
On April 24, 1946, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Chief of Naval Operations, ordered the establishment of an air acrobatic team “to enhance Navy and Marine Corps recruiting efforts and to represent the naval service to the United States, its elected leadership and foreign nations.” Note “its elected leadership” -- an underlying mission was to generate public and political support for a larger Navy allocation of what would clearly be shrinking War Dept. and Navy Dept. budgets. (Consolidation into the DOD came later, in 1947.) It was a brilliant move; you can’t steam a battleship into Kansas, but you can show off naval aviation anywhere in the country.



Public and political support: these are still the missions today, perhaps the prime mission.



Within a week, Lt. Commander "Butch" Voris, a World War II fighter ace, was charged with creating a flight demonstration team. Voris selected three fellow instructors and went to work. The group perfected its initial maneuvers in secret over the Florida Everglades so that, in Voris' words, "...if anything happened, just the alligators would know."



Only two weeks later, the team gave its first demonstration before delighted Navy officials. One month later, Voris led his diamond of four F6F-5 Grumman Hellcats through their inaugural, 15-minute public performance at home base, Naval Air Station Jacksonville.


Over the past 63 years, the team has grown from the diamond four to eight plus Fat Albert and to a huge support staff. They graduated from pistons to jets in 1949, taking off in Grumman’s F9F Panther. The first time I saw them was in 1957, off Virginia Beach. I was thrilled… by then they were flying the Grumman F9F Cougar.

In 1986, they adopted the McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing’s) F/A-18 Hornet. Those are still the angels’ chariots, 23 years later.


In this show season, the team will have flown their F/A 18s in 70 air shows at 35 sites in the United States. A total of 15 officers voluntarily serve with the Blue Angels. Pilots rotate out every two years. Blue Angels officers return to the fleet after their tours of duty.

“Boss,” the Blue Angels’ Commanding Officer, who flies point in the diamond, No. 1, must have at least 3,000 tactical-jet flight hours and have commanded a tactical-jet squadron. This season, Boss is Commander Greg McWherter.

The Events Coordinator, who calls the shots on all scheduling and logistical matters and flies Number 8, is a Naval or Marine Corps Officer who, like the pilots of Numbers 2 through 7, must have a minimum of 1,250 tactical-jet flight hours. This year, she is Lt Commander Amy Tomlinson.



Career-oriented officers and enlisted men specializing in airframe and power plant maintenance, communications, avionics, administration, aviation medicine, public affairs and supply fill 108 support positions.

So that’s the what, the who, and the why of the Blue Angels. Audience?

• Some 15 million spectators view the squadron during air shows each season (March through November) and 50,000 more are visited at schools, retirement homes and hospitals.
• Key to the pr/lobbying process is to invite media reps and VIPs to fly. The squadron has two F/A 18 D’s, two-seaters, for just this use. Three media members are selected at each show site and a handful of VIPs from television, sports, music and the movie industry are taken for spins -- literally.

Danger?

• During its history, 26 Blue Angels pilots have been killed in air show or training accidents, with considerable collateral damage. Through the 2009 season there have been 264 pilots in the squadron's history. That’s a 10% fatality rate. In a peace-time assignment.

Costs? The Great Mystery

• An oft repeated number on internet sites is $20 million for the squadron, but I can find no hard source for that.
• I examined the Navy budget for 2009, searching for Blue Angels, demo teams, air shows, etc. No entries.
• A 2005 GAO report to Congress said the Angel’s costs are carried – or buried is more like it -- in the Navy’s recruiting advertising budget, which this year is about $115million.
  

So what might the costs be? An F/A 18 costs about $29million. Is the Navy still buying them? Some critics have nattered about fuel costs, but that is only a pittance. An F/A 18 burns roughly 8,000 pounds in an hour show or 1,200 gals @$2.35 (I hope the Navy pays wholesale), so the squadron total for four days of flitting about is under $100,000. Fuel isn’t the issue.

Maintenance, salaries, training, etc. would be done as part of naval aviation, were there Angels or not. Certainly there are incremental expenses for a travelling air demonstration team – some 45 people travel 240 days a year – so transport expenses, room and board, communications, pr and all the rest. How much? If it’s $500/day/pp, that is only $5.5 million.

Whatever the true costs of this recruiting and lobbying effort, if the Dept. of Navy knows, they aren’t telling Congress nor us citizens.

Does it work? We don’t know and neither does the Navy.

• Guess what? Studies show that people who go to air shows like them. Duh!
• Rear Adm. Eugene Carroll, deputy director of the Defense Information Center: "No study has been conducted to determine how effective the teams are as recruiting gimmicks." Note he uses the word “gimmicks.”
  

So, are the Blue Angels just a gimmick? What do the Blue Angels mean?

• You may have watched an uplifting demonstration of America’s might at a time of national self-doubt. Perhaps, but, like me,
• You also may have seen taxpayer dollars being frittered away on superficial public relations at a time of ballooning national deficits.

• You may have seen a thrilling demonstration of American ingenuity and leadership in aerospace engineering, or – like me,
• You may have seen unnecessary environmental stress -- wasted fuel, exhaust emissions, noise pollution.

• You may have see evidence of our having the finest airmen in the world to protect us and project our force – yes, but at the same time, like me,
• You may have witnessed a depressing demonstration of America’s love affair with armaments,
• and the military-industrial complex’s shameful manipulation of public opinion.
  

The point is that what you saw last weekend is a function of what lies behind your eyes – those attitudes and beliefs and values you brought with you to Seafair. What you saw is what you think…

I think I’d rather see that money, whatever the total truly is, spent on pre-schools for armed service families, or for more PTSD clinicians, or for more dependent family subsidies, especially to forestall foreclosures. Yes, the Angels are thrilling, but we have better things to do.

Passing Pesto

Pesto-day was yesterday, our annual orgy of plucking basil, grating parmesan and romano, peeling garlic, pouring olive oil, crushing walnuts, and packaging finished product in small containers for freezing, all while drinking wine and listening to music. Saturday was a chill and rainy break in a run of lovely northern summer days. We headed for Pike Place market early, eschewed the usual dawdle, and got back before the Blue Angels’ bridge closure.

The basil this year was not from Sosio’s, where I have been a regular fruit and vegetable shopper since living in the market for a couple of years before Ann and I married. Sosio’s is the best in the market – knowledgable, friendly, great merchandising of top quality produce, irreverent. One day, Ann sent me off with a list, more like a directive. George read over my shoulder, spotted Ann’s admonition “good peaches”, and announced to the crowd in his gravelly barker’s voice “Oh My God, Fletch is not shopping for bad peaches today.”

Why the disloyalty? When we arrived, we cruised the temporary, tented stalls set up on cobbled Market Way, mainly local growers of organics, heirlooms, gigantic cabbages and romaines, hybrid oddities, and so on. Just to see what they had. One young Vietnamese couple offered huge bundles of basil at less than half the cost of those in the permanent stalls, so we guiltily hid those when we went to Sosio for garlic, onions, heirlooms and such.

Off to DeLaurenti’s for parm and romano (and some fresh mozzarella for a caprese dinner.) Their romano fuldi was chosen for its pungency; the parm is an Argentine – but Italians made up the largest bloc of Argentine settlers, so that’s OK.

The roar of Angels over the island didn’t spoil the mood as the kitchen filled with rich scents of basil, cheeses, wine, garlic and oil. This morning, my hands still faintly echo all that.

Lunch was bread dipped in fresh pesto… and wine… and music… and grins. Another milestone of summer….

Travels with Granddaughters

Ann and I spent the last half of June travelling through Austria with granddaughters Corriell and Liza. In early July, we took granddaughter Ella and a friend on a short sail in the San Juans. What a contrast!

Liza and Corriell are 16 and 18. Cee is emotional, empathetic, intuitive. Liza, in her quirky bicycle hat is cerebral, analytic, questing for information. Both are open, interested, curious and confident. They made for delightful travelling companions as we explored together the vestiges of Austro-Hungarian Empire; the baroque excesses of the Roman church; the creative tumult of Vienna’s fin de siècle renaissance in art, music, philosophy, architecture and psychiatry; the charm of the Tyrol. And how well they related to one another, noting and sharing, each in their own way -- not a harsh word between them. (But what they could do to a hotel room! Each stop looked like a luggage bomb had gone off five minutes after check-in.) Amy and Jeff observed that we have given the girls a set of shared memories at a time when their lives are about to diverge into adulthood; a nice insight for us.

Ella and friend Nina are 9 and 10. High energy and short attention spans cooped up on a small sailboat make for moments of delight, moments of frustration. The beauty of the islands, the mountain views, the passing pilot whales and seals had to compete with cocooning in the V berth to read, plot pranks, pig out on purloined chips and cherries, and immerse themselves in Nintendos and I-pods. (If you want interaction with grandkids, banish that Nintendo!) They put on after-dinner musical reviews on the foredeck, braved the 48° water, hiked ashore, and eagerly awaited return to Frappuccino land. Ellas’s dad, Grant, who had sailed these waters when he was nine, provided the parental heavy hand, leaving to Ann and I the boat handling and guilty pleasures of indulging kids.

Travels with grandchildren – perhaps 18 is too late, maybe nine is too early. I regret not having done it with Peter and Frank. I hope I have the energy to do it when Christopher, Ella, Max, Molly, and Parker reach 13 or so… only time will tell.

Arts Governance #4: Creative Tension

Arts orgs require a more complex leadership structure than do service orgs. A service org, such as Horizon House which I serve as a Trustee, needs one chief – an executive director, CEO, managing director, whatever s/he might be called. But an arts org needs a two-person leadership team to be fully effective – one to provide artistic direction, the other to manage the resources and logistics of delivery.

To be fully productive usually means managing tensions between the two. The artistic leader provides the creative vision, pushing the envelope to stimulate and challenge both the audience and his or her musicians or actors or artists. And since the artistic product is the raison d’etre of the enterprise, the artistic director inherently has the initiative.

But unless there is counter pressure, that artistic reach can sink an arts org in a sea of red ink or a steady loss of audience left too far behind. It is the tough job of an arts executive director to provide “elasticity” of the envelope while protecting it from tearing by reefing in the creative dreams to suit what is feasible in terms of time, money and manpower. And that makes for tension. Where that tension is tolerated, respectful and creatively resolved, an arts org will thrive.

The best example I’ve seen was as a trustee of Pacific Northwest Ballet back in the ‘90’s. I worked with executive director Arthur Jacobus and with Francia Russell and Kent Stowell, co-artistic directors, to prepare a five-year plan for a Ford matching grant application. The ambitions of Francia and Kent for an expanded corps, more performance time, and expensive new productions were gently, supportively, but firmly reined in by Arthur. They provided the yeast while he leavened the dough. And that productive tension yielded season on season of creative initiatives, audience and board support and operating surpluses. It was when Arthur left to become Exec Director of the Oakland Symphony and the board (unwisely in my opinion) appointed Kent and Francia co-artistic and co-executive directors, that the org lost its rudder, over-reached and soon was awash in red ink.

Another good example is Seattle Chamber Music Society’s team of artistic director Toby Saks and executive director Connie Cooper. They operate in a healthy, mutually respectful collaboration that has brought SCMS more than fifteen years of artistic excellence, solid finances, increasing audience sophistication, and growing esteem among chamber musicians.

For some arts orgs, SRJO being one, the early years and initial small scale mandates that founders fill multi-roles – artistic director, executive director, development and marketing director and more. But there comes a time when too many hats inhibit one or another of the roles and/or the effort simply becomes too draining. What the board then needs do is to put two in tandem, a strong artistic director (or co-artistic directors) and an equally strong managing director. The first, to continue to stretch and dream of what product is to be produced; the other, to define the feasible, develop and deliver the needed resources, and – sometimes -- to challenge the artists to dream in new directions.

Tension is inevitable within such a team, but when respectfully and properly balanced, and monitored and moderated by an alert board, it is a productive tension that keeps an arts organization vital, vibrant, and capable of serving its constituents.

Oil? Cold Turkey Time

My sweet cousin-in-law, Sylvia, wrote on her Facebook page "My heartfelt apologies on behalf of the incredibly short-sighted, greedy, never-learn-from-our-mistakes human race to Mother Earth for the horrible damage we have wrought upon the gorgeous Gulf Coast."

To that I can say Amen! ... but apologies are not enough. It's time to act. Our leaders (are there any in sight?) must marshall this nation's will to break our dependency on cheap petroleum from tin-horn autocrats (friends or foes) by going cold turkey.

What does that mean? Perhaps a $3 tax on gas at the pump; tax deductions for trading in petrol cars for electrics or converting to natural gas; subsidies for natural gas storage, transport and neighborhood stations; excise tax on all but domestically produced crude oil; subsidized research into alternative, renewable sources; and subsidies for bio-diesel engines. And immediate cancellation of all continental shelf oil drilling. The gas tax and excise tax revenues are to be pledged to these energy habit-changing programs and not to fund other federal goodies.

Will it hurt? You bet. So does going cold turkey off alcohol or heroine -- and our habit is just as destructive as those.

Now, Mr. Obama, Now....

A Death of Kodaly

I was reminded this morning, upon hearing some Kodaly, of a short tale that came to me suddenly and full blown while listening to Kodaly's Duo for Violin and Cello at a Seattle Chamber Music Summer Festival concert a few years ago. I don't know how such things happen, but just for the hell of it, here it is....

A Death of Kodály


The Nazi patrol must have heard it, too – the sinuous keening of a violin snaking its way through the moonless forest; we all held our breath.

“Merde!” whispered Kostan, in his international patois of swearwords, “what the hell is that?” in his native Hungarian. I said it sounded like the theme from Kodály’s duo for violin and cello. “Tres merde!” He spat out orders to Bela and The Knife (we never did learn his name): “go, get him before the basta Boche do!” They melted away in silence. “All we need next is a fucking (in English) cello.”

We waited in silence, eleven of us and three mules loaded with plastic explosive and detonators. The crying violin ceased. Another interminable wait, then three figures, like wraiths emerging from the ground, Bela and The Knife, pushing forward an older man – perhaps 50 or so, it was hard to judge these Hungarian country folk, so ground down since the mobilization of ’42 and the abduction of Horthy in Fall of ‘44.

He was not peasant, after all, Kostan’s interrogation revealed, but a teacher. “Of music?” “No, of languages. The violin is just my companion.” “Which?” “German and English.” ”Shit” spat out Kostan, “Western, decadent shit.”

“Hungary is a bridge” bravely answered the old man, “a bridge between East and West – between the culture of the West and your new society coming from the East.” He had correctly sized up his guardians/captors as red partisans. “We need to know many languages to play our role in the new Europe.”

“The dawn comes from the East, old man” said Kostan sardonically. “Now Hungary is to be for Hungarians; we need know only Russian.” “What was that you were playing?”

“Only folk themes. No real piece.”

“It sounded like Kodály” I interjected in my painful Hungarian. “That’s because Kodály sounds Magyar”, said the oldster. “Where are you from? Not Hungary. What brings you here?”

“Right, I learned Hungarian from my parents in Pittsburgh. I’m American.”

Kostan: “Shut up, both of you. I ask the questions here.”

“Many Hungarians went to America”, said teacher in his English. “Our loss; your gain.”

“Yes, teachers like you, and mathematicians and musicians and just steel-workers like my Dad. Our gain; maybe that’s why I’ve come back to help.” What indeed brings me here? I thought. Dropped into Transdanubia with two Tommy sappers to help harass the German retreat from besieged Budapest, to blow rail lines and impede escape to Vienna and Bratislava. Now we were just eleven, eight red partisan and the three of us, survivors, never sure whether we were harassee or harasser.

I went on: “My mother loved Kodály; I grew up with him.”

Kostan: “This Kodály, the composer, right? One of the toadies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire allied with the Kaiser, right? Now a Budapest parasite, right?”

Both teacher and I reacted. “No, no, a great Hungarian”; “a cultural asset”; “his music is timeless”; “his views are very liberal”; “he translates Magyar music for the world”.

“For the Western world” Kostan disdained. “He sells our folk arts to the wealthy, an exploiter of native culture, one who works to keep us ‘native’ and in chains. He is a collaborator, an enemy of the people.”

“You can’t politicize his art.” “The Nazis weren’t even born when he wrote that theme.” “He composes for the world.” “He writes from the soul, not to serve some political plot.” “Art is art; politics is politics.” I can’t remember clearly who said what, teacher’s and my protests tumbling forth.

Kostan coldly looked at us. “Art.” He spat. “All art is politics. Art is rooted in its society. You judge art by who creates it, to what use it is put, then and now…. And now, we must move.” To Bela and The Knife: “This teacher is of no use to us and good use to Germans. Get rid of him. No shooting.”

“No! You can’t!” I protested, but the three were disappearing into the wood even as I started up. Moments later, Bela re-appeared with violin in hand. “What do I do with this?” “Bury it”, said Kostan, ”it’s just a violin.”

I stared open-mouthed.

Kostan paused; then in his Hung-lish: “Americanski, you too bourgeois for health. You good go west when Red army comes. I no can longer protect you after kill Nazis.”

His chill words crackled with truth.

Zoltan Kodaly stayed in Budapest throughout the war, and became an important part of Communist Hungary's arts and teaching communities. He is regarded as a national hero by Hungarians of all political stripes.

Directing or Managing ... or Meddling?

“If you’re managing, you’re meddling.” So said a lecturer in a Chicago conference; he was talking about trustees of retirement communities. I was there in my role with Horizon House. But it’s true for all boards, large or small, corporate or non-profit. His admonition is right on -- when trustees or directors begin to manage, it signals there’s something wrong. As a trustee of Horizon House, Seattle’s leading continuous care retirement community, I hear his admonition ring in my ears when I feel the urge to tell staff how to do their job.

Directors should be stepping in only

• when staff has asked for help
• or when a job must be done for which staff is unavailable
• or when management must be changed in order to carry out the org’s mission.

But in each case, directors should be asking themselves ‘what is the underlying problem indicated by a need to step in?’

Directors of small, young theatre, dance and music companies often have no choice but to help manage, for they are chronically understaffed. So is that “wrong?” No, not wrong, but unsustainable over time. Committed, volunteer directors and part-time staff can keep an enterprise moving for a time, in some cases for years. But eventually they wear out; if an org is to sustain itself, the time comes for adequate staff resources and professional management systems.

That’s been the case with SRJO: we have reached that awkward stage of being too big to run out of a part-time Exec Director’s back pocket yet too small to afford a full time staff yet too large and complicated to run out of someone’s back pocket. Our directors have stepped up to undertake management tasks in order to get everything done. Our season brochure and concert programs have been produced via collaboration between staff and directors; our fund raising letters are director-written; our terrific new SRJO blog is produced by Bruce Moore, a director; our Jazz Scholars project is mainly director-managed by Susan Jenkins.

But long term, this isn’t healthy. Such shared project management may strain the trustee/executive director relationship as well as compromise the objectivity and independence that trustees must protect.

It’s a stage of growth with all the strains and emotions of a painful adolescence. And like adolescence, it is best grown through and put behind one.

Jim Tune, President of ArtsFund, has seen a number of arts orgs founder by failing to get through that transition. Whether the problem is lack of funding to afford professionals or resistance to change on the part of long-term directors and/or founders, the “problem” is best viewed as an opportunity to arm the organization with the professional staff and systems that will enable it to reach more audience and become a sustainable contributor to the community’s arts culture. Sustainability demands change and growth.

So, what are we doing at SRJO? Setting about to fund supplemental staff – no mean task in this economy – and recruit executive talent. But with transition to executive staff, directors should be able to withdraw from managing (or meddling) and focus on directing, on mission and vision once again.