I was reading this month’s “Exit Interview” in Men’s Journal featuring Tim Robbins and thought I would answer the questions they posed to him:

What adventure most changed your life?
I’d have to say it was my honeymoon. I wanted to go somewhere a little out of the ordinary. It had to be a island, but not touristy. So, we settled on this little island in the Bahamas called Elbow Cay. We stayed at this great B&B on the island. The neat thing was that there were no cars allowed and only two telephones on the island. It was the first time in my life that I was really incommunicado and I loved it - but it took me about four days to settle into it. And, it took my wife a little longer. The interesting thing was when we flew back and laid over in Miami. After being away from the world for 10 days and walking back into that airport, you could just feel the tension and bad vibes in the place.

What skill should every man have?
Every man needs to know how to be an interpreter. There are so many things we deal with on a daily basis that require interpretation. What did the wife really say? What does my client really need versus what they want? What did my son mean by that? Why is that guy looking at me that way? Stuff like that.

Do you have a scar that tells a story?
Yes, there is a scar that runs from my mid forehead down my nose and under my right eye. My dad bought a ski boat right after I got out of high school. About 4-5 weeks after we bought it, the dealer came up to our house for a check-out ride - just to make sure everything was running properly. So, we went out skiing on this reservoir in Utah where I was living at the time. After skiing for a while, we were driving around and I sat up on the motor cover in the center of the boat. We’ll then we hit the sandbar doing about 30-35 mph. I flew forward and hit the windshield bracing after stopping dead cold. 200 stitches later - there’s my scar.

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I hate waiting - especially in a Doctor’s office. Where else in the real world would a professional get away with not holding up an appointment? I had an appointment this morning at 8:45 and waited for at least 20 minutes before going back to sit in another room for 10 more minutes. I finally walked out of this particular chiropractor’s office an hour and 15 minutes later. Completely unacceptable.

Why do we put up with this? Maybe I should send them a bill for my waiting time.

A man that touched my life, in many ways, passed away yesterday - Jerry Reed. He was 71 and died from complications with emphysema.

I first met Jerry when I was about five or six years old in Baton Rouge. You see, my Dad was a HUGE Jerry Reed fan and we were always listening to his albums when I was a kid, so I really knew his music. Dad also did some concert promoting on the side and would bring a few of his heroes into town for shows every once in a while. And, this led to me getting to meet Jerry for the first time. He and Dad kept up over the years off and on and I was able to meet him again a few times more. More on that in a sec.

Most people don’t have any idea how influential a guitar player Jerry was. Ask any guitar player in Nashville and he’ll be on their top 3 list. He built a style of his own based on the finger picking techniques of Merle Travis and Chet Atkins combined with banjo techniques from Earl Scruggs. He was also a great songwriter with numerous hits for both himself and others. It’s not too shabby of a career when Elvis records two of your songs!

Then we get to his movie career - where most people knew Jerry. His breakthrough role came opposite of Burt Reynolds in “Gator”. He was great in that movie - catch it if you haven’t seen it. And from there the world came to know “The Snowman” in “Smokey and the Bandit” for which he won a People’s Choice Award for his role. He made several movies over the years after and ended up in Adam Sandler’s “Waterboy” in the mid-90’s and was great opposite of Fonzie.

On a personal note I got to spend a little bit of time with Jerry when the last album that he and Chet Atkins came out called “Sneakin’ Around.” My Dad and I went to see him in Iowa at a show and ended up having dinner with he and his wife, Prissy, after the show. But it was on the bus that afternoon that I was fortunate to be part of something that Jerry didn’t do that often. He handed me his famous Baldwin guitar and asked me to play him something. I can’t remember what I played, but he corrected me on a few things and then gave me a lesson and some pointers. His wife later told me that she had never seen him give a guitar lesson before. So, I was pretty excited to learn from a master.

I got to tend his guitar a few more times, once at a show for the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society in Nashville. I even wrote an instrumental on that guitar - something I still play today.

I still listen to his music and wish that all of his catalog would resurface. You can find a few albums here and there. My favorite was a live album he recorded here in Nashville at the Exit/In. There’s a song on there called “I’m You Guitar” that is a masterpiece and then leads into a killer version of “Guitar Man.”

My hope is that he’ll one day make it into the Country Music Hall of Fame where he belongs. The things he’s done on stage, on screen, in the studio and in the writing room all add up to an amazing career as an entertainer. I remember seeing something a few years back that called him “The Entertainer” - very fitting.

Here’s the link to his obituary at Tennessean.com: Musician, actor Jerry Reed dies at 71

I heard this one on a conference call today. I’ve never heard this one, but it’s going into my bag o’ tricks.

munge
1. A derogatory term meaning to imperfectly transform information.
2. A comprehensive rewrite of a routine, data structure or the whole program.

Here’s an interesting article I ran across this morning:

10 Reasons You’re Not Getting Your Work Done

Are you having trouble getting all your work done? Is there a project you can’t seem to find time to finish, or something you haven’t been able to get started? If it doesn’t seem you’ll ever be able to cross everything off your “to do” list at work, see if any of the following are keeping you from getting your job done.

1. You have too many distractions.
A recent survey by the research firm NFI Research found that 66 percent of senior executives and managers say e-mail is one of the biggest distractions in the workplace, followed by the crisis of the day and personal interruptions. According to the bosses surveyed, other workplace distractions include unexpected meetings, phone calls, Web surfing, socializing, instant messages and noise.

This is a pretty spot-on list. American workers are at an all time high in productivity. But, we’re all too busy to really get things done.

I have watched Iconoclasts on several occasions and absolutely love the show. Last night they paired Paul Simon and Lorne Michaels - it was a fabulous look into the similarities and differences of their personal and professional lives.

A while back, I caught the episode that paired Eddie Vedder and Laird Hamilton. That was fantastic. The new season is about to begin and I’m really looking forward to the pairing of Mike Myers and Deepak Chopra. The only drawback is that I’d love to see them do more pairings of people in the business world.