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I know why the untuned
----------------------------------Thunderbird pings

Maya Angelou delivered the inspirational speech to the National Automobile Dealers Association. And guess what? It worked.

BY TODD LAPPIN | There are some things that writers do for love, and there are others that they do purely for the bucks. The reading public may not want to hear about it, but chasing mammon into unlikely places is an accepted fact of life among the literary set, most of whom know that love thrives best when it rests upon a foundation of greenbacks. The trick is to make sure that the loot is sufficient to outweigh any indignities the acquiring of it might entail.

To the annals of such things, Maya Angelou's appearance as inspirational speaker before the annual convention of the National Automobile Dealers Association must now be added.

Angelou, of course, is one of America's foremost literary personalities, known best for her memoir "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" and -- somewhat less favorably -- for the interminable poem she recited at the request of President Clinton during his first inauguration ceremony in 1993.

To that résumé she can now add a brand-new, all-dealer-options entry.

The NADA convention, which took place over the weekend in San Francisco, draws several thousand car dealers from all over the world. They are mostly middle-aged, golf-playing men with name tags who wander about perusing the offerings of some 400 exhibitors, whose products range from luxurious, TV-equipped converted vans to the TranServe II+ transmission servicing machine, a modern marvel that can change transmission fluid in less than 10 minutes -- even in low-flow vehicles! To lure visitors in, a remarkable number of exhibitors had placed putting greens in front of their displays.

All very well and fine. But why Angelou? Why here? Why now? Why?

An exhaustive Salon investigation traced Angelou's presence on the convention roster to a meeting of the NADA convention committee last May. At that time, Leonard Fitchner of Fitchner Chevrolet-Geo in Laurel, Mont., a longtime Angelou fan, suggested that she be brought in to speak on Sunday. "This is our inspirational session," explained Kathi Brown, NADA's workshop coordinator. "It's our chance to hear from people other than the usual auto industry figures. We look for someone who has an inspiring story to tell, who can tell it well. Last year we invited Robert Urich."

On the inspirational-speech circuit, it isn't easy to top a hack TV actor who beat cancer, but Angelou is an old pro. According to Tina Wright of the Lordly & Dame (its actual name) speakers bureau, Maya Angelou routinely accepts speaking invitations from "colleges and corporations." And the, uh, compensation? Wright declined to disclose how much Angelou typically collects in exchange for her appearances. "The only time she picks and chooses is when a host can't afford her honorarium," she explained, adding that Angelou's NADA talk was part of a multi-stop tour through California that also includes appearances at the University of California at San Diego and Chico State.

Thus it came to pass that on a rainy Sunday morning, roughly 500 convention attendees began streaming into San Francisco's Bill Graham Civic Arena -- the dealers wearing name tags trimmed in brown, their spouses wearing matching tags in light purple. And to be fair -- not that many of them looked like the plaid-suited hero of "Fargo." Behind the main stage, a projection screen displayed a picture of the sun poking through a bank of clouds, while screens on either side of the stage carried the NADA logo above the words "The Voice of the Dealer: 82nd Annual Convention."

The service started a little late, beginning with a performance of Mozart's "Requiem" by the Golden Gate Boys Choir & Bell Ringers. The audience then rose to sing "Morning Has Broken," and the mass lifting of 500 car dealers' voices in a Cat Stevens song was in itself more than inspiring. And then Angelou took the stage in a bright red dress, accompanied by Charles Smith, NADA's Western Region director.

Smith took the podium first, telling of hardships he'd endured over the course of his career -- most notably in 1985, when his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, a building at the dealership exploded (killing one employee and severely burning three more), the local economy hit the skids and his mother passed away. From all this, Smith said, he learned that "it is the problems in our lives that give meaning to it."

The boys in the choir sang "How Can I Keep from Singing" and "To Celebrate This Joyous Day," then Smith led a silent prayer before turning to the task of welcoming the guest speaker, whom he introduced as "the most influential female writer of her generation" and an author with "a deep understanding of the American psyche."

Angelou took the stage amid loud applause, and began her speech with a song, setting the tone for her presentation by singing verses from a 19th century spiritual: "When it looks like the sun wasn't gonna shine anymore, God puts a rainbow in the sky."

She spoke for about 45 minutes, and she delivered. You forgot the oddness of a poet being paid to lift the spirits of a large group of people whom our society has lumped in the trustworthiness bin with Tricky Dick. It was good, simple stuff, and she seemed to mean it. She praised the virtues of a cheerful spirit and "simple gestures that are not small gestures." She talked of her Uncle Willy, a crippled Arkansas shopkeeper who'd taught her how to do multiplication as a child. She implored the crowd to "dare to say yes to kindness," and she observed that "life loves the liver of it."

And when she was done, the crowd really did seem refreshed. The dealers and their spouses headed for the doors, filing out onto the sidewalk, where the rain had stopped falling -- curiously -- for the first time in more than 24 hours. Some smoked cigarettes and others smoked cigars, but all were smiling and polite, even as they waited in long lines to board the buses that would take them back to the convention center a few blocks away.

It was one Dick Olsen from Bison Ford in Great Falls, Mont., who suggested that God and mammon may not be so far apart after all -- either on the lecture circuit or on the showroom floor. Standing patiently in line in his bomber jacket, plaid shirt and khakis, he explained, "Ms. Angelou spoke to what's important in life, and that's what really counts. Our industry isn't all that different from others, even though our reputation suggests that's not what people expect."
SALON | Feb. 9, 1999

Todd Lappin is a writer in San Francisco.