Long Strange Trip - The Grateful Dead

I'm not a Deadhead, though I've known a few, and never attended a Grateful Dead show. Heard plenty of stories, though. Watching Long Strange Trip was a window into some of that folk rock and counter-culture history.

The documentary follows the Grateful Dead from their formation in the 1960s all the way through to the 1990s and the death of Jerry Garcia. There's a good amount of background in the early going: hippie culture in California, the musical roots of the band members, and of course a bit of the history of LSD. I learned quite a bit - I had no idea Jerry was a banjo player with several bluegrass bands in the early '60s, for instance. The history is nice for those of us who are too young to remember the '60s and didn't know much about the band members before their famous days.

The documentary doesn't pull punches on the subject of drugs. Acid parties are credited as building a sense of camaraderie, and limiting the clash of egos that is such a struggle for many musicians. There was experimentation with laughing gas in the studio, video crews who learned quickly not to drink anything the band gave them, and even a rivalry between coke-heads and acid-heads on tour. That sort of casual mind-adjustment has never been my taste, but it's interesting to see how the Dead used it to maintain the lifestyle and relationships that they wanted. All of this worked well early on, but eventually people started dying (such as Ron "Pigpen" McKernan from alcoholism, and Brent Mydland from overdose) as the lifestyle took its toll.

Unsurprisingly, none of the band members were particularly business-minded. Their first studio album went way over budget, and one of the interviews talked about how they rarely had any money left after tours since it was spent as quickly as it was made. They talk about the "wall of sound" speaker setup that cost a ridiculous amount to buy and maintain, the chaotic leadership (such as there was any), the lack of planning. It's pretty incredible to me, someone who likes plans and organization, that the whole thing held together...but somehow they made it work through those lean days. And of course, later on the commercial success came almost despite whatever the band did.

That lack of business acumen worked in their favor sometimes, too. Allowing fans to tape the live shows was seen as a terrible business move - who would buy albums if they could get a copy of a live recording? It worked to the band's advantage, though, by expanding the audience who wanted to go to live shows for more of what they'd heard on the tapes. A good number of self-identified Deadheads got their first exposure to the band from those live recordings.

To me, the whole story revolved largely around one theme: the band (especially Jerry) was interested primarily in everyone having fun. Whether that meant using drugs to get in the right mindset, or spending too much money to give fans the best concert experience possible, or having semi-controlled chaos instead of a single leader, or ignoring rules and regulations, or being the face of the Grateful Dead for legions of fans. It seems to me that in the end, Jerry had put others having fun ahead of his own well-being for too long.

Long Strange Trip was a very interesting watch. I'm sure there's plenty more depth to the story of the Grateful Dead, but this sure covered a lot. I'm glad to have had the chance to learn a little more about the band through this documentary.

Grand Rapids Tots and Beer Festival

The idea of sampling craft beers and eating interesting preparations of tater tots is a good one. The execution could use some work, though.

This festival was held in downtown Grand Rapids at Ah-Nab-Awen Park, right by the river. A friend and I drove down, found parking easily, and walked over to the park. Nice area, and there was plenty of room fenced off for the festival goers. Couldn't ask for better weather - sunny with occasional cloud cover, upper 70s, bit of a breeze off the river.

There were eight beer-serving stations, with about 30 beer options. Unfortunately, they needed about twice that many for the number of people who showed up. Compare that to last year's America On Tap festival, which had a couple of dozen serving stations. The problem isn't overcrowding - they limit the number of available tickets - so I can only assume the organizers simply didn't plan properly.

With so few places to get the beer, the lines were ridiculously long, running 20-30 minutes to get one sample. Obviously there's no way to sample every beer at that rate, or even a third of them. I ended up trying three, but no more - couldn't bring myself to stand in line any longer. I had a brown ale that was pretty good, but the others were forgettable.

The food part wasn't nearly as busy, no more than a couple of minutes wait. There were about a half-dozen stands that served a few tater tots with various toppings. Nothing amazing, but nice snacks to have in between beers. My favorite was the jalapeno popper version. They even had some dessert choices, but fried potatoes with powdered sugar or chocolate didn't seem like a particularly good idea, so I skipped those.

I like the idea of this festival, and despite the lines my friend and I had a pretty decent time. Still, I can't recommend that anyone go to this particular festival. There are enough others that don't have the organizational issues and long lines that it's kind of silly to spend money and time on this one.

A Visit to Blandford Nature Center

I recently went along on a trip to the Blandford Nature Center, as a volunteer helping out with a summer education trip.

I had no idea this place existed until this trip, although I probably would have if I'd grown up in the Grand Rapids area. They do a lot of work with area schools, bringing kids out to experience a bit of nature and see some of the wildlife being rehabilitated. It reminded me of Oregon's outdoor school program, which I attended way back when I was a sixth grader, though not nearly as involved.

The nature center is on the northwest side of Grand Rapids, in a fairly heavily wooded area. There are quite a few trails to walk around in the woods, though on this short visit we stuck to the shorter ones. There's also plenty of open meadow area and some swampy wetlands spots, so visitors get to see all sorts of different habitats. Our group was large enough that we split up and cycled through all the various areas a few at a time, with the center staff leading us through some areas and exploring others on our own.

In and around the central building are habitats for injured or otherwise incapacitated animals. We saw owls, turtles, rabbits, and even a bobcat. The kids I was with were particularly impressed with this part of the trip, especially when they were able to touch the turtles.

There's also a farm on the premises, growing all sorts of vegetables and other crops. Not a lot of quantity, but plenty of variety. Same with animals, with a small flock of chickens and a few pigs. They also make maple syrup in the winter - we didn't see that part in action, of course, but did pass by the barn and saw the equipment.

It's good to see these kind of nature centers available to the public, particularly for school groups. It's important for city kids to get exposure to the world as it exists outside of the urban areas where they spend so much of their time. Hopefully the Blandford Nature Center will continue to serve that need for a long time to come.

Air Show in Battle Creek

Every summer down in Battle Creek, the Air Show and Balloon Festival is held around the 4th of July. I've thought about checking it out in the past but never got around to planning a trip, but this year I spent a few hours visiting.

I have fond memories of attending air shows when I was younger, living out in Oregon. (Well, fond except for the sunburn.) I'm not enough of a airplane enthusiast to go well out of my way for a show, but since this one is only about an hour from home I decided to check it out.

A friend and I made the drive down to Battle Creek on Saturday, which this year was early in the festival. Things generally peak on July 4th, but we were happy to go on an earlier day and avoid the worst of the crowds. There were still plenty of people wandering around, but we didn't have to wait very long in any lines - just about the best we could hope for.

The festival name is a bit of a misnomer since there's a lot going on that's not in the air. The main attraction is the aerial acts, of course, but there's also a live music stage, carnival rides, half-mile car races, and even timber sports. And of course, plenty of vendors.

I was a little surprised that there weren't more planes on display on the ground. The Air Force recruiting area had one, but otherwise all the vehicles on display were cars. Guess the organizers decided not to move display models around from nearby museums.

We got to see several planes in the air, though no balloons (they were scheduled for several hours after we left). I particularly liked Kent Pietsch's act featuring a landing on top of an RV driving along the runway. The Air Force heritage flight was pretty neat, too, with a WW II-era plane flying in formation with a an F-22 fighter jet.

I had a good time for my first visit to this air show festival. I'll probably go back in the future, maybe planning a visit so I'll catch the balloon launch.

Red Hot Chili Peppers at Van Andel Arena 2017

I'm not a big fan of the Red Hot Chili Peppers (RHCP), but I like their music well enough. I wasn't planning to see them in concert, but when a friend said she could get tickets if we split the cost, I figured why not?

The concert was in Van Andel Arena in downtown Grand Rapids. It holds about 12,000 people, and it looked full to me. Not a surprise - not a lot of big names come through western Michigan, so when it happens people come out. Our seats were in the last row in one of the upper sections, but that wasn't as bad as it sounds. The arena isn't really big enough for even the furthest seats to be too far away.

We caught the tail end of one of the opening acts, Deerhoof, which wasn't particularly impressive in my opinion. Not really a surprise since I'd never heard of them before. It's harder to get involved with unfamiliar opening acts in these bigger shows, as compared to smaller venues where you can get up close and (sometimes) get better sound quality.

No such problems with RHCP. They've been around more than 30 years now, but it doesn't look like they've lost a step. Plenty of energy on stage, and considering the iffy acoustics that you get in an arena, they sounded great. I recognized about half the songs they played, which means they played plenty of older stuff, since I haven't paid much attention to anything they've done recently. They worked in a couple of covers, too - I particularly liked their rendition of Jimmy Hendrix's Fire.

The stage setup was interesting. There was the usual screen behind the band, as has become standard in the last decade or two. Largely it showed various wild color patterns, but they did sometimes have live shots of the band members. Often put through some kind of filter, so you'd see black-and-white or jerky stop-motion versions of the musicians. But the most notable component was a big field of LED lights hung over the stage and the front portion of the crowd. Those lights moved up and down and flashed on and off in some neat patterns as the band played.

There were a couple of fairly emotional moments. Flea asked for a moment of silence for Hillel Slovak, a founding member who died nearly 30 years ago. Later on, Anthony Kiedis talked for a minute about his father, who is in the late stages of life. It wasn't a sad moment, but rather a celebration of a full life. That moment in particular really resonated with me - everyone eventually is in that situation where a loved one has passed on (or will shortly). Having that mindset of celebrating the time we had with them, rather than focusing on the loss, strikes me as a healthy attitude.

Overall it was an enjoyable show. Not my usual style, but I'm glad I was talked into going. RHCP is still worth seeing after all these years.

Reeds Lake Run 2017

This weekend was the 39th annual Reeds Lake Run in East Grand Rapids.

I like running in the Reeds Lake area. I've gone there several times to jog, when I get tired of the same old scenery around my neighborhood. Reeds Lake is fairly small and surrounded by quite a bit of private property, so there's only a fairly short stretch where you actually run by the lake. But the surrounding neighborhood streets are nice to run through also.

I've run in this race a few times in prior years, but always the 5k distance. This time I did the 10k distance. With warm and humid weather it was tiring, but I enjoyed it. The races are run at different times, so some people did both. One run for the morning was plenty for me, though. Took me just over 53 minutes, which is more or less what I expected and right about the middle of the pack for my age group.

Getting down to the event was less than ideal since I didn't think about the area being closed off for the 5k race. It was already underway by the time I arrived, so I ended up parking about a mile away and walking in. Might have to arrive a bit earlier next time, or at least pick up my registration packet the night before.

Parking troubles aside, this is a great event. Nice area to run through, well organized, and they include everyone with additional events like a kids run and handcycle races. I plan to be there next year for the 40th anniversary!

The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I picked up The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt from the library recently. It was recommended by the Make Me Smart podcast, which I listen to regularly.

Seeing the term "righteous" in the title immediately made me think of this as a religious book, but that's not really the case. The theme of the book is morals and ethics, and of course religion does play a role, but not a major one. The author explains the use of "righteous" in his introduction as an intentional way to point out that the human mind is not just moral, but also judgmental and critical and intolerant (as in "self-righteous").

That's something of a negative start, but it's an important point that drives much of what Haidt has to say. The book is divided into three sections, each of which presents a principle of moral psychology:

1. Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second. Haidt describes the mind as being like a rider (reasoning) on an elephant (intuition - comprised of emotions, gut reactions, etc). When the elephant has a reaction to something, the rider's primary job is to support that reaction. While it's possible for the reasoning rider to change the elephant's direction, it's difficult and rare. Most of the time, our reason looks for a way to justify whatever our gut feels to be true, ignoring evidence or arguments to the contrary.

2. There's more to morality than harm and fairness. This section presents the Moral Foundation Theory, which describes how different morality systems around the world can all be traced back to a few "foundations". The MoralFoundations.org website describes the theory and foundations as well as some of the research supporting the theory. I think this makes a lot of sense - just about everyone has a sense of "liberty" (to use one foundation as an example) but exactly what that means can be very different between people or cultures.

3. Morality binds and blinds. Moral systems are about more than just personal beliefs, they apply to the groups that we identify with. We gravitate toward groups that line up with our intuitions, and those groups also influence our ways of thinking and behavior. People are willing to do things for their groups that aren't necessarily in their individual interests. That can lead to positive or negative results - the same group instincts can lead to supporting charitable organizations or becoming suicide bombers. We're rarely willing to listen to points of view that run counter to the interests of our groups, even if we would benefit at an individual level. Religious and political associations are used as two examples of groups that can have significant impact on how their individual members behave.

I'm far from an expert on ethics or the philosophy of the mind, but the ideas that Haidt presents in this book certainly seem to make sense to me. I've long thought that most people behave in a largely rational manner if you consider that they have an internal set of assumptions (which they are rarely willing to reconsider, despite whatever evidence may exist to the contrary). Haidt's rider-elephant metaphor fits nicely into that concept, so it wasn't much of a stretch to wrap my mind around his model.

Understanding this is one thing, but it can still be difficult to accept for those of us that consider ourselves rational people. I like to think that presenting evidence and well-ordered arguments is a good way to convince people (including myself). When I really stop and think about it, though, there are examples everywhere that reasoning really is secondary to intuition, including many that Haidt describes in the first third of this book. It's especially true in cases where time is short, either because a snap decision is required or because I simply don't bother to spend a lot of time on something.

This model of "intuition first, reasoning second" has obvious applications for advertising, political campaigns, and other kinds of marketing. If you want people to buy your product or vote for your candidate, you need to present something they identify immediately as good, at an instinctual level. Then you can add logical arguments to that gut reaction to seal the deal. Sounds obvious, but it's not always easy, particularly if you're trying to convince a diverse group.

The Righteous Mind was a very interesting read, though not a quick or easy one. The morality model presented by Haidt is a good fit for explaining how diverse groups of people can have such different ideas about what is moral or ethical. I consider my time with this book to be well spent.