“We’re about to drop 20,000 beach balls,” said the young white rapper, a Beastie Boy clone whose name I failed to catch. The lunch break had ended and the second half of the Get Motivated business seminar launched with a dance party and a big giveaway. Whoever danced the best, both freestyle and in accordance with specific moves shouted out over the mic, would soon be taking an all expenses paid trip to Disney World in sunny Orlando, Florida. It didn’t take long for the near-capacity crowd at the FedEx Forum to get wild and loose, pushing up the ceiling, slapping the crap out of their invisible ponies and shouting, “whoo, whoo,” in all the right places. The DJ had the arena throbbing with muscled up covers of Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock and Roll,” and Van Halen’s “Jump” while tri-colored beach balls descended from the heavens and the rapper chanted, “Stuck in the ‘80’s, stuck in the 80’s, stuck in the 80’s.” Some things defy satire. The Get Motivated business seminar, with its many loving references to the super-awesome Reagan era, is one of them.
I’m sure some of you are now wondering, “What gives? Why are you writing about a Get Motivated business seminar on your performing arts blog?” Well, why wouldn’t I write about a good old fashioned Medicine show where songs are sung, lectures on the moral life delivered, freaks paraded before your very eyes, and miracles performed on the quarter-hour? Only instead of promising cures for baldness or a lack of male vigor at Get Motivated the crowd was encouraged to liberate itself from financial advisers and invest independently. Perhaps with the aid of an inexpensive real estate course or a $39-a-month-website subscription. Celebrity speakers, dwarfed by the vastness of the arena, power-walked onto a wrestling ring-sized stage as music blared, streamers flew, and pyro erupted. Their perfect Pepsodent smiles were blown up larger than life on the jumbotron. 20,000 beach balls fell from the sky. The stories were all about overcoming terminal illness, family tragedy, tragic family, terrorism and mean reporters who make fun of your husband the President because he can’t pronounce the word nuclear. The people on stage at Get Motivated had seen it all. And they were winning.