What Would Lloyd Dobler Do?
This past weekend I brought my daughter Emma to the Santa Barbara Fair. She’s two years old and her main area of interest lies in seeing the animals – especially the goats, piggies and bunnies. Since the very beginning she’s always had a fascination with all animals and has no fear of touching them, errr, tackling them.
Anyway, before we brought Emma to see the animals, we partook in one of the other mandatory activities of going to the fair – carnival food! I mean, how can you be in the land of the Carny without eating corndogs, cotton candy or funnel cakes? While I was waiting for my lunch to be served up I started watching the kettle corn vendor next to me. He was a man in his late fifties or early sixties and he had a wooden paddle submerged into a giant metal pot. Clearly he had this practiced motion and craft that was necessary to produce the hundreds of pounds of kettle corn that he must churn out every day.
It got me thinking about the lack artisanship in the United States. I mean, creating something locally really is a dying breed. We don’t produce anything in the U.S. anymore. I immediately thought of that scene in Say Anything where Lloyd Dobler talks about what he wants to do for a living:
Everything is now outsourced overseas to the lowest bidder. We complain that there isn’t any industry in our country and then we go shop at Walmart. Does that make any sense? Maybe it’s just a vicious cycle. We don’t have any jobs, so therefore we shop at Walmart because it’s cheaper and all we can afford. Yet, the more we shop at Walmart, the more we feed the business practice of sending foreign manufacturing, technology and service jobs overseas.
This is why the kettle corn maker was such a fascinating thing to think about. Here is a guy that has practiced a craft for probably the last 30+ years of his life. He lives on the road churning out a thousand bags of kettle corn for the masses, then packs it up every few days and starts all over again. New town, new people – but the same practiced craft over and over again. How many Fortune 500 CEOs do you think could do what he does? How many of them could make anything themselves?
We simply don’t place enough value on craftsmanship. We say we want high-quality, locally made products, but we’re not willing to pay for them. We say we value the local worker and 15 minutes later we ensuring his demise because we shop at stores that undercut him by having six year olds in Malaysia produce their products.
I’m trying to help in whatever small way I can. I try to buy most of my produce at the farmer’s market from local growers. I buy wine, almost exclusively from local vineyards I’ve visited. I try support local restaurants and stay away from chains. And I never, ever, shop at Walmart. Still, I’m always looking for more that I can do.
What else can we be doing to support the American worker? What would Lloyd Dobler do?
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americancliche
The American Worker – What would Lloyd Dobler do?: http://ping.fm/MIFi7
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
May 4th, 2010
Teachu Alesson
You could not be more wrong.
You blather about a we who does not exist when you write idiocy like “We don’t produce anything in the U.S. anymore”, ” We don’t have any jobs”, “we shop at Walmart”.
You do not get economics, politics, power and governance, clearly.
Many Americans as workers do not offer any value to American employers and hence these Americans are not employed.
They cannot think independently. They cannot reason from cause to effect. They lack calculation skills, typically involving percents, fractions, ratios, first-order algebraic equations.
They lack expression skills of all kinds. They cannot speak properly nor can they write. They cannot tell stories, a key skill for selling.
They lack knowing about chemistry and physics and thus cannot work in any of the many electro-chemical industries, which are key to an advanced economy.
And yet, through 1985 or so, the curricula of public school America focused on the key subjects of algebra, calculus, chemistry, physics, biology, and literature. Since then, changes to curricula have reduced these subjects to mere window dressing.
Today, what children learn during their first two years of college is what children learned in high school during the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
The public education establishment of protected union workers lack sufficiently skilled teachers who could teach the already-mentioned subjects at level that would suitably train Americans for work in an advanced economy.
Most of these teachers would not have graduated from colleges and universities only 20 years ago.
And I have yet to mention how many Americans have bodies incapable of doing any work.
Because many are obese or overweight, many cannot engage in lightweight physical activity let alone heavy-duty physical activity.
May 4th, 2010
Scott
Teachu Alesson,
You raise some interesting points. Unfortunately, you lose any credibility to be taken seriously when you enter a fake name and email.
It’s very easy to sling mud and say that I don’t get economics, politics, power and governance while you hide behind chickenshit anonymity. What makes you an expert? Back up what you’re saying.
There’s a line from a Jay Z song that I’m quite fond of that is especially fitting in talking about your comment:
“You know the type, as loud as a motorbike, but wouldn’t bust a grape in a fruit fight.”
That’s you my friend.
-S
May 4th, 2010
bamakettlecorn
What Would Lloyd Dobler Do? | American Cliche | Scott Parent http://bit.ly/aFEZm9
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
May 4th, 2010
Jeff S
Made in America?
At Rose Publishing, 98% of our product is written, edited, printed, packaged, marketed and distributed in Carson & Culver City CA.
Why?
The quality of product is paramount.
Nuff said!
Drive around industrial areas, you will see steel fabricators, gasket makers, wood mills, breweries, fish packers, wire benders, injection molders, guitar makers, the list goes on and on…
May 5th, 2010
Scott Parent
Jeff – There are still some American made products, but as a whole we are an outsourced to the lowest bidder sort of culture. Agree?
-S
May 6th, 2010
GARY
WHAT SCOTT MEANS IS WE ARE IN A CATCH-22 DAMNED IF DON’T AND BEING DAMNED WHEN WE DO AND THE ONLY WAY OUT OF THIS IS TO TUFFEN UP AND DO THE RIGHT THING FOR AMERICA YOU ARE RIGHT ON THE MARK SCOTT GARY-TULSA OK
May 11th, 2010
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