One afternoon in the summer of 1989, I was sitting in my living room playing my 12-string Yamaha guitar. I was learning a few songs from the latest James Taylor album. About that time, my roommate Harry Wilson came walking in the apartment with his tennis doubles partner Shannon Ruscoe. I had no idea that the course of my life would completely change that afternoon.
I had never seen Shannon before that moment when, suddenly, he started to belt out the lyrics to one of the Taylor songs I was playing on my 12-string. I tossed him the lyrics to some other songs and he pulled up a chair and sang several more with me that afternoon.
Later in the week, I called Shannon and soon we started to get together in the evenings to learn a few more songs. We thought it might be a good thing to try our best Simon and Garfunkel impression at a party sometime. At the time, we were always thinking of unique ways to meet women – preferably blond sorority girls with bad taste in men (in other words, an interest in guys like us).
A few months after I started rehearsing with Shannon, my grandmother Virginia unexpectedly sent me a check for $1000. It was a portion of a small insurance policy my grandfather had taken out a few years before he died in December of 1988. That $1000 was to become the basis of my first real-life experiment with capitalism.
After I deposited the $1000 in the bank, I called Shannon with a plan of action. I told him there was an Alvarez Yairi guitar on sale for $650 at Backstage Music (www.backstagemusic.com), which is near Mississippi State University where we both went to graduate school. I told Shannon I could buy it and still have enough money to rent microphones, speakers, and amplifiers from Backstage owner Jim Beaty for at least our first half-dozen gigs. “Gig” is a hip musical term for “job.” I was a long-haired Democrat in those days.
Our next move was to convince some foolish businessman to let us set up our rented equipment in his bar for at least one night. I was already risking everything I owned on this venture. Nonetheless, I took another risk in the form of an offer to the manager of a small Mexican restaurant called J.C. Garcia’s on Highway 12.
When we met with one of the managers, I asked him to pick the slowest night of the week. He said that was Tuesday. We offered to play two one-hour sets between 9 and 11 p.m. for the low price of $0.00. The catch was that if he sold $2000 worth of drinks that night – which he already said was his slowest – he had to hire us to come back and play the next week for $200 cash and free beer.
That Tuesday night, I packed the restaurant with scores of my Sigma Chi fraternity brothers. Shannon, who worked part-time at the Chi Omega House, made sure the place was packed with loud (and thirsty) sorority girls. By the end of the night, they had consumed $2100 worth of drinks. Needless to say, I had a new job.
Within three months, three bars in town were hiring us regularly. The third to hire us, the Bully III, was run by a guy named David Odom who would become a very close friend. David upped our pay to $250 per night and added a free meal to the free beer offer. By the end of the summer, fraternities were hiring us to play two-hour Bar-B-Qs for $350, free beer, and, of course, free Bar-B-Q.
Then there were the out-of-town gigs. And later on there was even Nashville. During my last full month of graduate school I was hired to play 22 of the 30 nights of April. My little experiment with capitalism let me leave graduate school weeks later with a doctorate and a pocketful of cash. I didn’t have one red cent of debt. Not a single student loan.
Most people reading this American success story already understand the basic principles that govern the occupational aspect of my philosophy of life. For those who don’t, I’ll spell it out for them:
1. Capitalism is the worst economic system ever invented, as long as you exclude all other economic systems used over the course of human history.
Of course, capitalism is not for everyone. It rewards people who are able to realistically assess their talents, just as it rewards risk-takers. It also punishes cowards, day-dreamers, and those with justifiably low self-esteem.
2. The secret to occupational happiness is tricking others into paying you to do things you would probably do for free.
Obviously, when I was in my twenties, I would have played my guitar, consumed beer, and talked to good-looking women for free. But tricking people into paying me for it was a stroke of genius. Today, I still follow the same general principle. If you don’t believe me, read some of my columns or watch one of my speeches. I am, essentially, a professional smart-aleck who makes fun of multiculturalism and political correctness. I also drum up protests and lawsuits against liberals. It’s all fun and people pay me for it. In fact, every penny I have made since the late 1980s has been made doing something I intrinsically enjoy.
3. You must continue to follow principle #2 until you save enough money to pay people to do all the things you don’t like to do.
People often ask me how long I intend to speak out and write about politically correct liberals and their crazy antics. But take a look at me. I don’t have a chauffeur to drive me around. I don’t have anyone to light my cigars, much less flick my ashes. And, tomorrow, I have to walk right out and mow the lawn in 90 degree weather.
In other words, folks, I may have a few more columns to write. But I hope you enjoyed this one because I sure enjoyed writing it. Just don’t tell anyone I would do this for free. It’ll be our little secret.
Mike S. Adams (www.DrAdams.org) will be paid handsomely to offend liberals at N.C. State University on August 30th. Go to his website for more details.
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Mike S. Adams was born in Columbus, Mississippi on October 30, 1964. While a student at Clear Lake High School in Houston, TX, his team won the state 5A soccer championship. Mike Adams graduated from C.L.H.S. in 1983 with a 1.8 GPA. Mike Adams was ranked 734 among a class of 740, largely as a result of flunking English all four years of high school. After obtaining an Associate's degree in psychology from San Jacinto College, Mike Adams moved on to Mississippi State University where he joined the Sigma Chi Fraternity. While living in the fraternity house, his GPA rose to 3.4, allowing him to finish his B.A., and then to pursue a Master's in Psychology. In 1990, Mike Adams turned down a chance to pursue a PhD in psychology from the University of Georgia, opting instead to remain at Mississippi State to study Sociology/Criminology. This decision was made entirely on the basis of his reluctance to quit his night job as member of a musical duo. Playing music in bars and at fraternity parties and weddings financed his education. Mike Adams also played for free beer.
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Upon getting his doctorate in 1993, Adams, then an atheist and a Democrat, was hired by UNC-Wilmington to teach in the criminal justice program. A few years later, Adams abandoned his atheism and also became a Republican. He also nearly abandoned teaching when he took a one-year leave of absence to study law at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1998. After returning to teach at UNC-Wilmington, Adams won the Faculty Member of the Year award (issued by the Office of the Dean of Students) for the second time in 2000.
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After his involvement in a well publicized free speech controversy in the wake of the 911 terror attacks, Adams became a vocal critic of the diversity movement in academia. After making appearances on shows like Hannity and Colmes, the O'Reilly Factor, and Scarborough Country, Adams was asked to write a column for Townhall.com.
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Today Mike Adams enjoys the privilege of expressing himself both as a teacher and a writer. Mike Adams is also an avid hunter and reader of classic literature. Mike Adams published his first book, Welcome to the Ivory Tower of Babel, in 2004. His second book, Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts "Womyn" On Campus, was published in 2008.
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