Thoughts of a Kiwi in Minneapolis - on Hell

If I was suddenly brought before my maker and challenged to describe our last 36 months in a single word, it would most likely be 'purgatory'. It's the experience you have when trapped for an undefined period of time, in an indefinable place, contemplating your sins, going neither forward or back whilst your fate is decided - "you were good in your life Mr Dalton, but not THAT good ... ".

We are the Minneapolis undead.

Speaking of fire and brimstone, a Gallup poll in May 2002 reported that 71 % of Americans actually still believe in Hell (they'd no doubt account for a big fraction of the 100 million or so who also believe that the earth was formed less than 5,000 years ago). Yet, discussion of the concept in sermons has reached an all time low. According to religious authorities, Hell is just "too negative".

Right now I'm sitting in LAX waiting for a plane delayed 3 hours by the seasonal mid-west thunderstorms. We've been here on a sales trip and had a fair insight into what Hell looks like. Not red-hot pokers, bamboo shoots, and Val Doonigan on high rotation - just West Coast commuting. Two hours to travel 40km on the freeway last evening, most of it at near standstill speeds.

Thinking we would be home free this afternoon after the client meeting, we set off at 1 pm to find the return conditions almost identical but joyfully the journey only took 1 :45 instead. How do people maintain their sanity amidst such conditions? Oh that's right, they don't. They get their guns out and kill each other.

Midwest storms are something to be seen (and heard!).

The lightening is bright enough to read by, and the accompanying thunder can sound like it's in the room next door. Minnesota also gets its share of twisters, although nothing like the South. When a bad storm is progressing across the state, every tv channel overlays a storm warning and map of Minnesota over the program you are watching.

It's an attempt to emulate the multi-message format of many of the CNN-type news channels today. The record so far is 7 pieces of separate data on the one screen, with the talking head reduced to about 20% of the right hand side. You get stock quotes and headlines in 2 tickers across the bottom, the weather forecast, two other headlines for stories the head will talk about soon, and the main story from the talking head.

I guarantee that this will come to a tv screen near you. Soon.

Travel is a bit of an all round bastard in the US for a foreign passport holding person. Every checkpoint is a full search, and I now wear shoes without laces when traveling to speed things up a little. For travelers like me who often overnight, there is always a moment of special tension as the security staff don their gloves and rip open your bag in front of the queue at the Gate. DID I FOLD MY DIRTY UNDIES NICELY???!!!!!!

The economic storm also continues across our screens at some pace, the severity of the hangover reflecting the unprecedented length of the drunken binge that corporate America engaged in during the late 1990s. Lots of chest beating about where did the business ethics of this country go, and yearning for simpler times.

The records last less time than a week at the Olympic games - no sooner had Worldcom coughed up to $4b in mis-stated costs; Xerox admits to $6b in mis-stated income. These are blue-chip firms that most people's retirement funds are heavily invested in!

As the US dollar crashes and both the internal and external deficit reach record levels, there are no signs of either a business led recovery (Nasdaq reaching new lows this week) or a consumer side recovery (unemployment at new record high). Bugger. George's answer? Make more cars!

"Economists, heal thyselves!" I say. The singular obsession with 'shareholder value' (ie the price of stocks on the various exchanges) as the one true measure of business progress and value during the 1990s, and the insistence that executives take salary in the form of stock options to ensure they served the other 99% of shareholders interests, resulted in intense massaging of the major lever of share prices - multiples of revenue and profit.

To give you and idea of the scale of the rorting, in 1985 the average annual salary of a Fortune 50 Chief Executive was $900,000 plus up to $200,000 worth of stock in the company. By 2001 those figures had changed to an average salary of $2.9m with stock options of $8m.

Aided and abetted by the Arthur Andersens of the world, people went wild inventing schemes to pump up revenues (or hide expenses) and consequently the worth of their stock options. Be careful what you wish for Gordon Gekko! I'm with Warren Buffett - it took 8 years to get into this mess and it will take 8 years to get out.

The only solace is that two and a half years have already passed, and that Martha Bloody Stewart might get to spend time in sing-sing for insider trading her IMClone stock-holdings.

Handy hints for prison-wives perhaps?

"Stripes are in for 2002!" says www.marthastewartlivinginjail.com.

Thoughts of a Kiwi in Minneapolis - on Vacations

I actually had a Friday off recently to go to the world famous North Shore of Lake Superior and stay in the Lutsen resort. Lake Superior certainly is superior in size. My best basis for comparison would be Lake Taupo in New Zealand - and it lends us a useful measuring stick. At anyone time, from any vantage point on the shore of Lake Superior, from horizon to horizon you can view about 2% of the lake area.

You can view about 80% of Taupo at one time using the same rule.

I use the term 'resort' loosely - imagine a cross between the Merimbula Beach Motel (Lonely Planet Accommodation Guide review "mostly harmless") and a poorly kept Cobb and Co restaurant. Resort? Last resort perhaps.

We did have a good time with friends (yes, we made some at last thanks to Noah and Lesley!) and engaged in ski-lift mountain biking. The nearby ski-field opens up in summer with some of the chair-lifts converted to bike carriers - 10 minutes up and 4 down. Spectacular, even if the 'mountain' is about the size of Mount Victoria in Wellington.

Funnily enough our friends are largely foreigners, and their tales of dealing with the Minnesota way of life are as hilarious as our own. A Scandinavian couple arrived in March last year wearing summer clothes, having scoped in an Atlas that Minneapolis was about the same latitude as France just North of Bordeaux. There was 20 inches of snow on the ground.

Clearly some geography in their medical and dental training would have been useful - a climatic map of the world illustrates that the urban center with a climate closest to Minneapolis is in fact Moscow.

We are off to Colorado for the 4th of July weekend. Not much chance of fireworks there I suspect, but once again the mountain biking should be spectacular. Colorado is reeling NOT from the economic effects of the recent forest fires, but from the economic effects of the forest fires being sensationally over- reported on every tv channel news program for the last month.

Less than 1 % of the total area of state forest has been affected (which in turn is a tiny percentage of the whole state), and significantly more area burned in Sydney over summer than has been affected in the entire state of Colorado. Meantime tourists have been ringing to ask if the Denver airport is still open given that the whole city has been burned down ...

US travel is still badly affected by 9/11 (the shorthand for September 11, 2001) and the recession to the point of it being a dying industry. Imagine what 500 Boeing 737's look like lined up on a shiny windless desert plain and you get the idea of the reduction in planes in the air since 2001 (and whole airlines in some cases). In some cases airlines have moved back to older, smaller aircraft and cheaper pilots in desperate attempts to get the economics of a full plane. An older Northwest small plane recently lost its landing gear at Minneapolis airport as it came in to land, causing further ructions among fliers.

I was told a lovely tale by a fellow traveller (wonder if the FBI keyword filtering picks that phrase up when this gets screened in Washington?) about hard landings. Its probably an urban legend but a good one just the same!

The story goes that a pilot has ka-thunked his plane onto the runway so hard that luggage spills from the racks, cabin crew are heard to shriek and passengers are all left rubbing their rosary beads. As the last travelers trudge past the pilot and chief steward at the exit door, a little old lady who has observed that no-one has dared give any feedback, stops to speak to the pilot.

"So, did you land this plane tonight sonny?"

As the pilot opens his mouth to offer a sweet reply, he is swiftly cut off by the little old lady ...

..."or were we shot down??"

Thoughts of a Kiwi in Minneapolis - on Government

So what is the toughest job in this country do you think? President? Head of the Fed? Mayor of New York? Perhaps one of those $5 an hour Mall service workers?

My conclusion would be 'satirist'.

How can someone hope to make a living through sarcasm and hyperbole poking Ajax at everyday events when for a fact 211 out of the 241 Congressional representatives investigating Enron and Arthur Andersen received campaign contributions from both Enron and AA? When within 12 months of having a republican President we had both a recession and a war? When within 24 months the federal government has actually run out of money and the phrase "read my lips, no new taxes" has come back to haunt Bush junior as well?

Among the current flurries is the news that the entire American rail system run by Amtrak is bankrupt and in need of an immediate float of $200m to pay the wages this week. Someone forgot to read their credit agreements and with $4b currently borrowed the private sector has cried "enough!" The $220m is almost enough to get them through to the next round of federal handouts when another billion will be needed to keep these people in jobs. The only profitable line in the whole country runs from New York to Washington DC.

Go figure.

Joking about 9/11 is still very taboo. The country remains on high alert, expecting terrorist action at any time. Flights for the 4th of July weekend are at record lows, and recently our entire 50 story building was evacuated when a cardboard box was found leaning against a lamp post outside.

American politics overall is not much humorous relief for anyone. Bush has established another all-time US governmental record, this time in the environmental field. In a mere 9 months he has managed to undo over 15 years of glacial improvement in the chance the next generations might inherit a cleaner, greener world. Drilling in Alaska, dumping in rivers (no permit now required at all), draining of wetlands, lowering of emission standards for industry, vetoing the Kyoto agreement (good on ya Aussies for standing right behind George Bush and rejecting it as well! Ya wankers!) and car emissions. If its green, its holding back the economic recovery.

Harpers magazine, a fine source of counterpoint to the Bush-brigade reported a couple of interesting calculations - if every US flag that had been attached to the aerial of an SUV since September 11 was removed, the resulting saving in petrol would mean the Alaskan oil field could be happily left as wilderness (a fluttering flag reduces fuel economy by about 0.5%).

Alternatively, if every SUV in California returned 1-mpg better fuel economy, the effect would be doubled. Fat chance.

Making my own living has been a little easier lately - the company has started to mature a little with the addition of a sales team, a real Chief Operating Officer (complete with Ivy League MBA) and a 7-figure bank balance. My role still seems to revolve around advancing corporate Darwinian theories and weeding out the weak in the herd. Weekends are more frequent, and hours are shorter.

Our good friend Ivan has recently become visa'd and employed by a local construction firm as project manager and site construction supervisor. He is suffering a whole new level of culture shock hanging out with real mid-west blokes on a building site. They are very wary of someone from as far away as Australia, and he was treated to warm and hospitable questioning such as "so, is your wife a bit of a looker Ivan?" Fortunately she is. And a good cook too mate.

When they need a plumber or electrician for the project, guess what you do in Minnesota? Call the Union office and they allocate someone to your job. Ah yes, the free market.

Thoughts of a Kiwi in Minneapolis - on Minnesota

A few surprising things have come out of Minnesota in their time, including of course our favourite movie-making brothers the Coens. Here's a "who would have guessed?" list for your entertainment:

1. Bob Dylan
2. Terry Gilliam
3. Prince
4. Kevin Sorbo (Hercules to you)
5. F. Scott Fitzgerald
6. Judy Garland (speaking of irony, Toto)
7. Charles Lindbergh
8. Peter Graves, the guy from Mission Impossible
9. Peter Krause, the guy on 6 Feet Under who plays Nate
10. The man who invented the Pop-up toaster, whose name has slipped my mind

So what is day to day life like in the only US State where Mother Nature actually has a serious attempt to kill you twice a year?

Shopping in MN is now reduced to dragging ourselves to one of the nearby cookie-cutter Malls and getting things as quickly as possible. Grocery shopping is amazing - in one supermarket we don't even enter S of the 11 aisles. Eight whole aisles of crap that we don't eat or consume 1 item from, or even feel the need to look at any more - 45 varieties of cheese balls, Cola, beef jerky and jello. Woo hoo.

Minneapolis is a series of cookie cutter settlements, each centered on such a cookie cutter Mall. The Mall contains a supermarket, a Kinkos, a Starbucks, the Gap, Home Depot, a Walgreens drug store, and 9 or 10 other franchised stores that are repeated in each location. Variety is supplied by an occasional Barnes and Noble or Petsmart, which can't afford to be in every location.

The American small business dream is quite different to the rest of the world, where a person would be happy to create a successful cafe, bakery, retail store or boutique in a good location, then generate a great customer base and enough money to not have to work every Saturday.

In the USA, if you came up with that lucky combination of product, service and style your first thought would be "franchise". How can I repeat this exact recipe across the entire nation and thereby bleed it dry of the very essence that made it a desirable place to go and spend time and money in the first place?

Lesley concludes that it is all part of the dumbing down of a nation of people who might otherwise be tempted to vote Democratic at the next presidential election. The American populace cannot decode the complex signals that we receive as seasoned shoppers in high streets and small towns where under 'normal' circumstances no two shops are the same or offer the same merchandise. How do you know if this is good? How do you know where the khaki slacks are? How do you know if there is a pickle on the Burger? Its all far too messy to have to go in, explore and find out for yourself. You need a sign, a symbol - be it a big M, a big GAP, or a big Starbuck.

So sadly, franchises thrive in a nation where sameness and familiarity are craved. Inevitably the recipe that created the first success is never repeated by a franchisee no matter how closely they follow the franchisee manual or attend uplifting weekend seminars on making your franchise a success.

I am convinced franchisification is one of the first signs of the decline of civilization as we know it. Americans must have a truly awful time in Rome, London and Paris looking for the Malls. I fear the day someone decides to re-name San Francisco 'San Franchisco' - I wonder what a Franchiscan monk would look like? They could easily maintain a vow of silence as they cruise by the Mall in their Buick looking for a sign from God.

We have finally tracked down a gourmet luxury that we heard of a few months ago. Its horrendously expensive and only sold at the most mother-earth of co-operative type markets, packaged in a re-useable glass container that you return to the store for $1.50 credit. What is it? Grass fed cow's milk. Pure, unadulterated, unhomogenised, cream-floats-to-the-top bliss.

What will they think of next?

Thoughts of a Kiwi in Minneapolis - on Civilisation

The triumph of style over substance in this country is complete - from presidents right on down. As I have observed before, every coffee store in town has 57 variations on the menu but the crap you get served is just like the crap the last person collected. A lot to do with paying $5 an hour to barista-monkeys methinks, but also something to do with America's penchant for reducing everything to the lowest common denominator, which in Starbucks case is a milky, burnt flavored bitter bucket of poop with a cherry on top.

I read recently an analysis of how the so-called ascent of US civilization and the transition of the economy away from dependency on dirty old manufacturing (let the third world do the dirty work!) to an 80% service economy has actually reduced the real average wage and standard of living.

A warning to other 'civilized' economies thinking that a 'knowledge' economy or service economy sounds sexier than making stuff - be prepared to live in a world where most of the service you receive will be from people who don't like giving it, have another job besides, are paid a less than subsistence wage to do it and would have been happier on an assembly line or on a farm. You never had to tell a Dodge bumper bar or a cow's arse to have a nice day like the franchise manual dictates.

But, we are not especially unhappy with our lot. Our trip back to NZ earlier in the year was an inverse oasis of substance over style for a start. Like walking into the Lord of the Rings for a month. Since we've been back, NZ has been regularly featured on television as the new vogue holiday destination (obviously someone decent in charge of tourism in NZ these days). We watched and re-watched the multisport Eco-Challenge race set in gorgeous Wanaka and surrounding mountains. The channel featuring it ran it twice a day, every day for a week - it was the talk of every office water fountain in town.

Apart from continuing the impression that the NZ landscape somehow genetically builds a race of superhuman athletes who can run and cycle for 5 days without sleep (well almost, bad luck Nathan F.), the program also brought us some fine ironic humour which had us rolling on the floor every viewing. One of the teams featured in the documentary was a Russian team (the first Russian team ever). The leader spoke with a thick accent and with highly entertaining Rusglish. No voice over or sub-titles

required however. Then they interviewed the evergreen Cathy Lynch. Her accent was deemed to be so incomprehensible to Americans, she received sub-titles, interspersed with every 10 words. Native speakers could easily work out that the horse was not a 'buckin' mongrel.

Ironically the great American way nearly prevented our January trip before we even left the ground - payment for the tickets was demanded (from Discount Dan the travel man) at very short notice so Lesley took the option of using the Internet payment option on our Wells Fargo bank account.

When the travel agent rang 5 days later to ask where the money was, imagine our astonishment to discover when ringing the bank that the web payment process merely generated a memo in someone's (paper) in-tray from w'hich they hand-wrote a bank cheque and posted it to the payee. Allow 7-10 days for the service thank you.

Wells Fargo was recently awarded the 'Leading Online Bank in the USA' title by industry analysts.

Our reflection on life in the Antipodes was just how easy everything was to do, and consequently how relaxed people are. The USA teaches you to grit your teeth and prepare for battle, whether its standing in line for lunch, going to the bank, answering the phone to the army of telemarketing arks who want to sell you life insurance, or driving on the Freeways amidst the stream of flag waving 80 mph Detroit behemoths (who said dinosaurs were extinct by the way?). Everything has a bit of 'grrrrrrr' in it.

We've definitely become pushier, more aggressive, and more vocal - is it possible we are actually becoming American? Not quite, but the starkness of the cultural contrast that we so critically observed when we arrived has faded a little. Life in Minnesota can suck the funny out of just about anything, and I fear we have become a little bit immune to the inanity of it all.