The Two Commandments of George Carlin - 4/4/06

George Carlin once said that you could distill the Ten Commandments down to two:

1. Don't kill anybody.

2. Don't take anything that isn't yours.

He went on to outline how most of the Commandments boil down to taking something that isn't yours or wanting to take something that isn't yours. For example, if you have sex with someone else's spouse... NOT YOURS! If you covet someone else's spouse or car, or whatever... YOU ARE DESIROUS OF SOMETHING THAT ISN'T YOURS. Get the picture?

I would argue we could distill this even further down to one Commandment:

DON'T TAKE ANYTHING THAT ISN'T YOURS!

Killing is taking something that isn't yours... someone else's life.

It's a good rule by which to live. I bring this up because I have lately been on the receiving end of a lot of folks taking or trying to take things from me that aren't theirs. It's starting to irritate me.

Case in point, someone recently went into my pants (while I wasn't wearing them, of course) and took all the cash out of my wallet. It happened in a place I trust almost equal to my home. I felt violated. Shouldn't have happened. Don't know how people sleep at night soundly after committing acts like these. Worse, it had to be someone I know.

This ripples outward. I once had a song I wrote in the early nineties outright ripped off by a much bigger band. Their manager was my doctor's brother-in-law. The doctor gave the brother-in-law my demo. Song got stolen, right down to the basic arrangement and melody. Words were changed. The band not only got away with it, but also won a GRAMMY for the tune. Why didn't I sue? Bad lawyer gave me bad advice. Don't sue or you'll be blacklisted. Wrong. Any publicity in this business is good publicity.

I worked in corporate America for a while. I once priced a $220 million deal using a program I wrote. Spit out the analysis on the other side into a spreadsheet. My boss... who pretended to be my buddy... removed my name from the top of the work and passed it off as his own. When the deal closed, in no small part due to my hard work, he drove away with a new BMW car and motorcycle, for starters. I didn't even get a bonus that year. Why? To give me the bonus, he would have had to admit he didn't do the work that made the money.

And on we go from there. We conceive of the Digital Café Tour and excecute it very well. What happens next? Guess? We've already fended off several managers of other bands literally DEMANDING to get videos made in our series. Of course, they wanted us to do that on our dime.

There are so many vultures out there and not enough meat. That's what I'm seeing. Everyone is looking to get a pound of flesh. There seems to be a hierarchy of mediocrity entrenched in our culture. This bunch of oxygen thieves exists by either squelching creativity or poaching off it... or a combination of both.

Answer? I don't have one. However, there is truth in nursery rhymes. Remember the Little Red Hen? She asks all the people who live in the house to help her make dinner. Who's going to help me plant the corn? Not I, said everyone she asks. No one will help. Then, they all show up to eat when the dinner is made... except the hen doesn't let them eat.

That may be the key. If you're going to do everything yourself, then very selfishly guard the spoils of your personal war.

I'm not suggesting we all become mistrustful and jaded. I'm saying, looking out for one's own interests every so often doesn't make one a bad person. Try this on for size... The biggest mistake I make, and see other people make, is that I am selfless with people who are selfish with me. I think the key is only to be selfless with people who are selfless back. In a sense, that is creating a reliable support network for me. It's almost like being selfless with the selfless is selfish... Full circle. It sure makes time get spent more wisely.

Could you imagine a world where no one takes anything that isn't theirs to take? Me neither.

What's the answer? A lawyer friend of mine said, "In contract law, you don't prepare for the marriage. You prepare for the divorce." Tough words, but true.

Therefore My Ten Commandments are:

1. Get it in writing... whatever it is.

2. Get a deposit on the money you're owed.

3. Don't deliver any work you've done until paid in full.

4. Don't hire friends to do expensive jobs for you at a discount. You have no lever to force the issue if they do it wrong. You get what you pay for.

5. There is no such thing as job security, so don't bank on that.

6. Don't leave your cash lying around.

7. Trust is earned and can always be broken, so trust a very tight circle of people who have earned it.

8. There is black. There is white. There is the gray area in between. Expect most people to live in the gray area.

9. Don't play cards with a guy named Doc.

10. Don't take anything that isn't yours.

It all comes back to the immortal words of Grandmaster Carlin, in the end.

Enough of my yapping. My last few blogs have been very nice nice. I thought a small bit of venom was in order. Ciao for now.