Failing to take in the big picture

In 1982 I attended a concert to see Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The house was packed. Thousands of fans had the same plan. Let’s go to the big concert hall in town and rock out to one of the most popular acts of the day.

One young woman was slightly more ambitious than the rest of us. During the headliner’s set, she jumped up onto the stage. This is a big no-no in the business. I’ve experienced this from the perspective of an audience member and as a member of the band on stage. It’s not good.

Her spot was extreme stage right. She climbed up and found herself looking out at an audience larger than any gathering of people she’d ever seen. She appeared lost for a moment, as if it never occurred to her she’d actually get there, on stage. It wasn’t hard to see that she had no idea what to do. Then inspiration hit.

She was two steps away from Benmont Tench, the Heartbreakers’ keyboard player. He was playing beautifully, as he so often did, with no idea that an out-of-control fan was standing directly behind him. He was focused on the band, as he was nightly and rightly. The fan implemented her very bad idea. She crossed those two steps and aggressively grabbed Benmont’s butt.

As you might imagine, Benmont reacted with absolute shock. Security came to their senses and hustled the young woman off the stage. And that was that…almost.

A few years later I was living in Greenwich Village, playing in a band professionally, and working a day job at a music management and marketing company to pay for rent and groceries. I typically walked to the job, from my apartment on Bleecker Street to the office on West 26th and Broadway, just a few blocks up from the famed Flatiron Building.

One morning as I wandered up 5th Avenue, possibly suffering the effects of being overserved the night before, I noticed a small knot of people standing along the curb watching a young man. He was eating an apple and appeared to be oblivious to the crowd gathered not 10 feet in front of him. That’s odd, I thought.

As I approached, I recognized the young man as Michael J. Fox, one of the most popular actors of the day. I felt instant pity for him. Here he was just standing on the sidewalk eating an apple, yet he was beset by fans hovering in his orbit everywhere he went.

My pace wasn’t all that quick by NYC standards that morning, but as I cruised by I turned my head and in my best cynical New Yorker style said, “It must be nice to be famous, huh?” The comment was meant to be sarcastic. But the joke was on me.

In front of me a voice blurted out, “Nice acting! Keep walking.” It was then I noticed the camera, and that the crowd of spectators was a film crew, not a collection of fans. I’d just ruined a shot in what was to become the movie “Bright Lights, Big City.” Oops.

Story number three is a curve ball, but it evidences the same human foible that created the first two situations.

My young friend is a new private pilot. I flew him to Sebring, Florida, for breakfast and a tour of the Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 1240‘s hangar there. Three high schools use the space as a lab of sorts, where they’ve built an AirCam with Story Musgrave and are working on additional aircraft build projects now.

As we departed, my friend Jon was taxiing the airplane like a pro. Three airplanes were actively in the pattern, using Runway 1. Another was at the hold short line. We were airplane number five headed toward the run-up area with every intention of taking off on Runway 1, because the wind favored that runway and multiple other aircraft were already using it.

As we approached the run-up area we noted two radio calls. One was an airplane turning base to final for Runway 1. The other was an airplane calling short final for Runway 19. The same stretch of pavement, headed in the opposite direction. Rather than playing a game of high-risk chicken, the CFI and student headed for Runway 1 called a go-around and executed it beautifully. The aircraft calling Runway 19 landed, apparently without a care in the world that they’d just created an unsafe condition.

All three of these stories stem from the same issue. Or, more accurately, issues.

In each case the errant individual failed to take in the big picture. Each of us were so wrapped up in our own personal plan we ignored the multiple signs that we were not the center of the universe. Not in that moment. Not ever.

The young lady at the concert didn’t think ahead enough to realize that her flirtation with a momentary thrill was going to lead to a night in jail, a court appearance, and a significant fine. Ouch! She didn’t get to see the rest of the concert, either.

I was too wrapped up in my own little tunnel vision of life at that moment to realize I’d be better off to just walk on and remain silent. Nobody else was engaging the man eating the apple, there was no reason I had to. Yet I did, to my great embarrassment.

The wrong-way pilot will likely suffer no penalty, although it would seem reasonable that he should. He ignored regulations about entering the pattern at a non-towered airport. He chose to persist in his plan even as it became clear he’d be going head-to-head with another airplane on final approach. His complete lack of concern for his safety, that of his passengers, or those in the other airplane would suggest he should not be flying. Yet he does.

Life is not about us, exclusively. We need to behave ourselves and remain on guard for our flirtations with buttheadedness.

We will all make mistakes. Many in fact. But sometimes those mistakes are clearly labeled as errors to be avoided. If we insist on buffaloing into any and all situations as we see fit, something bad is likely to be the result one day. And it won’t just be the risk of ever seeing Michael J. Fox in person again and having to apologize for blowing a shot. It might be something much worse and tragically irreversible. A result we will have to live with forevermore, if we survive the experience at all.