Pithy Title Here

Caffeinated

2012-01-02T11:31:00.000-08:00

Wherever you live, you're likely used to the stereotypical questions that come from others upon hearing where you live. Live in Atlanta? "How about that heat?" Maine? "How's the lobstah?" Denver? "Do you ski?"

Seattle, comes with more than a few stereotypes. The first question after "So, you don't mind the rain?" is usually, "Gee, but you guys have some great coffee, huh?"

Stereotypes are rooted in truth. It cannot be disputed that it rains here with some frequency. But stereotypes are also oversimplifications, so it won't surprise you to hear that while it rains, you rarely need an umbrella.

Similarly, the coffee stereotype is something that amuses me to no end. I find it hard to believe Seattle is any more caffeine-addled than other U.S. cities. And while there may be a coffee shop on every corner, it's not so dissimilar to New York, Chicago or any other major city when it's usually a Starbucks on every block.

We do have our coffee fanatics. I have a coworker that can expound for hours on the virtues of vacuum coffee presses. While that isn't my cup of Joe, it illustrates that coffee is treated by many as something more like wine. People who enjoy subtle differences in flavors and so forth.

I don't think that's only a Seattle thing, though I think we have Seattle-based Starbucks to blame (and, if you like coffee, thank) for taking to the masses. It's nearly impossible to imagine a nation where the only choice is to grab a can of Folgers and brew it up.

I am surprised, though, as more and more people have started to prefer "artisan" coffee that the bulk of the country seems to start and end with Starbucks as the go-to coffee of choice. I realize it may be a convenience since you cannot throw a rock without hitting at least one Starbucks.

I have noticed here in Seattle that many people have taken to the Third Wave for choosing their coffees. Essentially, this is an effort to appeal to sustainably farmed and traded high quality coffee that comes in smaller batches.

I realize that not everyone wants a "gourmet" cup of coffee and, to be honest, I'll be the first one to grab a cup of gas station coffee on a road trip. So please don't read this as snobbery as much as this: if you're willing to pay Starbucks prices, why not try some others that might surprise you. Some suggestions:

Stumptown Coffee Roasters - They do not, from what I can tell, have Internet retailing, but if you live in Seattle, Portland or (for real) New York City, you can get your hands on it. Honestly, if you're a Starbucks fan, this is the one to take the Pepsi Challenge with. The grocery store across the street from me carries most of their wares and I have yet to try any of their stuff and not enjoy it.

Middle Fork Roasters - While Stumptown is based in Portland, OR, Middle Fork is right here in Seattle. A smaller operation, but they do have online retail. I've been drinking the Middle Fork Blend pretty frequently. This is coffee for coffee's sake. They don't have a coffeehouse that I know of in town. No one selling you CDs or travel mugs. Just coffee to drink.

Blue Bottle Coffee - Based in Oakland, CA, this might be the best of all of these. If you're not in The San Francisco Bay Area or New York, you will not find a retail location, though they do have online ordering. I recommend the Chiapas blend, which doesn't seem to be on the site at the moment (the Oaxaca sounds like it's reasonably similar). My wife and I had a friend in from Dallas who is a coffee fan and she not only burned through our bag of Chiapas, she went home and ordered a bunch more.

Holualoa Kona Coffee Company - OK, this one is more expensive. The official growing area for Kona coffee is about 40 square miles. Most often you will see Kona blends which will be a small amount of coffee from Kona with mostly stuff from Latin America. But if you want a cup of American grown and roasted coffee, you need 100% Kona beans. Maui makes some coffee, too, but from what I can gather, Kona is the more sought-after stuff. It is incredibly smooth, but because of the small growing area, it is virtually impossible to produce in quantities large enough for major coffee roasters (e.g. Starbucks). That also makes it expensive. But hey... if you like coffee, you almost owe it to yourself to try. I toured this plantation and sampled their coffees. All were great and, the small operations of the plantation let you get close to the action. I'm sure other Kona roasters offer similar experiences, so check them out. And, like I said... you're supporting the good ol' USA when you buy.

Any suggestions you have? I love try new ones...

The Best Albums of 2011

2011-12-16T22:58:00.000-08:00

I can't even pretend I listened to every new album worth hearing this year. And now that some of the "official" lists are out, I realize that any list I make here is likely going to be terribly incomplete. For instance, you won't see Adele's 21 on this list, despite the fact that it's apparently amazing.

I did listen to a lot, though. And let's be clear... this was an underwhelming year. I'm pretty sure even if I included a certain British chanteuse and Bon Iver, this list would still be a struggle. Unlike last year, which was a veritable cornucopia of bad-ass tunes, this year swung and missed more often than not.

Anyhow, let's try this. As always, second opinions provided so you don't think I'm nuts.

Honorable mentions

Jay-Z & Kanye West - Watch the Throne - You know, it's good. My issue was more that both of these guys are so much more than good. Maybe I need to chill out, but I kept feeling this could have been so much more.

Youth Lagoon - The Year of Hibernation - My hat's off to this kid. I heard this was made in an Idaho bedroom... and it sounds like it. In all the right ways.

The War on Drugs - Slave Ambient - Thisclose to being on the list. The suite of songs surrounding "Come to the City" is arguably one of the year's best stretches of album.

The list

10) Foo Fighters - Wasting Light
Second opinion: Spin

So few bands just know how to rock the hell out and Dave Grohl's band continues to do things that a whole faction of politicos in his home state of Virginia probably wants to make illegal. From the first chords of "Bridge is Burning," it's all vintage Foos, but without anything to prove. Perhaps it's the reintegration of Pat Smear into the mix, because while this band has hit more than it's missed, this is the first disc since The Colour and the the Shape - Smear's last effort with the band - that hit this hard.

9) Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
Second Opinion: Los Angeles Times

I was sitting at a 4th of July party when first track "White Noise" came on. The song is anything but. It was one of those moments where conversation had to be stopped to inquire just what this was. And months later, I'm still listening to it... and the rest of the album. Layered with themes and beats, every song brings a new scene to mind and propels itself into the next. It's fantastic work.

8) Death Cab for Cutie - Codes and Keys
Second opinion: Entertainment Weekly

If they're going to make us wait until who knows when for a new Postal Service album, at least the Bellingham, WA outfit that is Death Cab can put out music that makes the wait oh-so-much-more bearable. It's more of a slow burn than a lot of their recent previous work... no New Year, no one possessing your heart. But it's a slow burn that goes deep. Opening with "Home is Fire" is strong, but things are still rolling by the time "Underneath the Sycamore" comes along. And between - and after - is all good melodies, strong lyrics and many moments that glisten.

7) The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Belong
Second Opinion: Pitchfork

I have a friend who has seen this band live and says they suck. And I believe her. I remember seeing Smashing Pumpkins and being completely underwhelmed. How could a band that sounds so good in the studio just... suck live? I haven't seen POBPAH live, so I don't know if it's true. But I did hear this album. Produced by Flood and Alan Moulder - who happened to make the Pumpkins sound good on CD - Belong changes the game for this band. The indie shoegaze of the band's debut pales in comparison to this. It's an argument for your favorite indie band to work with a real producer. The opening title track just kills. And for the next four songs, it stays that good. Songs that we didn't know this band could write... much less perform. If an album took my by surprise this year, it's this one.

6) Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto
Second opinion: Spin

It had to happen: a Coldplay album not superior to its predecessor. From such great heights, this is still a great listen. So many experiments work, including "Princess of China" with Rihanna. "Paradise" is everything a Coldplay track should be. What's missing? Hard to say, though it feels like urgency. On every Coldplay disc to date, especially Viva la Vida, it seemed like the band wasn't just trying new things and trying to be the best... it felt like they thought it was important. This album is hardly going through the motions; indeed, it features some of the more ambitious experimentations the band has tried. It's more that, for the first time, some of the tricks don't charm. Would that every band's slight misfire could be as good as this.

5) Radiohead - The King of Limbs
Second Opinion: The Guardian

An odd album, to be sure, but the patient reap giant rewards. The morose front end of the album challenges listeners to more than any material since Kid A. "Morning Mr. Magpie" manages to keep that front end energetic despite Thom Yorke's contention that his melody has been stolen. It comes back in "Little by Little," which is, plainly vintage Radiohead. What blows you away are the closers, though. "Give Up the Ghost" is a gift that keeps on giving, revealing new sides to itself with every listen. Final track "Seperator," though, is the true killer. Nearly a perfect song, it proved to be the album's most provocative, building speculation of a quick follow-up album (sadly wrong), but doing what any good performance should do: leave you wanting more.

4) Lady Gaga - Born this Way
Second Opinion: NME

Not even gonna apologize for this one. Not one bit. Why don't more pop artists take risks? Take the artist part to heart? Find me another pop artists that could make a song like "Judas" - easily one of the year's best singles - and do it in a way that isn't just there to shock. DJs had to be salivating over the possibilities with a song like "Schie?e", which shouldn't work but does. Sure, everyone got tired of "Edge of Glory," but it's the songs that didn't get the airplay where Gaga gets to push the limits. Dare I say this had the feel of an album that foretells great things? On The Fame Monster she made defining pop. Here, she tries every weapon in the arsenal with more success than not, but the question is what does she do with the lessons learned? Hopefully, it something epic.

3) Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
Second Opinion: Pitchfork

I'm sorry, but this is what Mumford & Sons don't do. Introspective to points of pain, Fleet Foxes build on their previous work with gloriously beautiful complicated music. You go from the pulsating "Battery Kinzie" to songs like "The Cascades" that just shimmer. Of course the harmonies remain, but the musicianship reaches new heights. Every piece works to a grand extent.

2) Mates of State - Mountaintops
Second Opinion: NPR

The album opens with "Palomino," which, as far as I'm concerned is the single best song of the year. Everything this band does well is done more than well on this track and the tracks that follow are easily the best we've heard from this two-piece... and they've hit some nice highs before. On previous albums, there were always standout tracks, but never have these Mates put together such a complete set of songs. Wearing the challenges of marriages on their sleeves on a song like "Mistakes," synthing it up on "Sway" or putting the dance beat in "Maracas," every move the band makes seems to work. I was lucky enough to see this band live in LA this year and the power of their material just explodes off the stage... something that this album captures to a great degree.

1) Washed Out - Within and Without
Second Opinion: Pitchfork

A choir director I once sang with used to say that there was nothing more amazing than a big group singing very softly. That's not quite what's happening here, but the feeling you get is the same: intense despite the volume. At times, the album goes almost ambient, rocking you into a state of marvelous contendedness. Other times, it lulls you... into a dark corner. I still don't know what the lyrics to this album are. And I don't care. The voices might as well be instruments. No other album comes close to evoking the kind of response that this one does. And, to top it off, it has the year's hottest album cover (look it up and you tell me).

Sounds of the Season 2011

2011-12-14T16:58:00.000-08:00

Last year, the annual holiday mix was solid, but, if you ask me, it was a bit pedestrian. Quality of song was pretty high, but there was something missing. Neither the mariachi horns from the Killers nor the fast-paced fun of Julian Casablancas really put the oomph into the holiday. And, as usual, finding Hanukkah songs was a freakin' challenge. One iffy Hanukkah song. I was concerned the supply of great modern holiday indie rock was gone.

Friends, I am pleased to say this year's holiday mix is stellar. The dance beat is back in Christmas. You want Hanukkah? We have Hanukkah. Let's dive in!

1) The LeeVees - "How do You Spell Channukkahh?" - The guy with the rich low voice from Guster put this out with some friends a few years ago. And it's a damn fine way to start a holiday mix. An entertaining song (as all good Hanukkah songs should be) about a topic that even the best of Jews has to tackle. Add in driving guitars and clever lyrics and we're off to a good start.

2) Best Coast & Waaves - "Got Something for You" - I honestly just wanted Best Coast on here. Plus this is a fun song and doesn't Zooey Deschanel have all the retro fun (more on her later). Indie bands doing cool things? Like.

3) Weezer - "O Come all Ye Faithful" - Probably the most straightforward song on here this year. It sounds like Weezer singing a Christmas carol. Which, hey, isn't that bad a thing.

4) Guster - "Tiny Tree Christmas" - A nice little ditty in two movements. Good sleigh-riding music.

5) Kanye West - "Christmas in Harlem" - Maybe we did tap out rock. We have barely touched rap! And thankfully, Yeezy comes through with this big-beat track all about how it goes across 110th St. It needs to be noted that any song that rhymes "Hanukkah" with "yarmulke" and also suggestively discusses giving a girlfriend "the hot chocolate" meets pretty much all the criteria for getting onto this mix.

6) The Raveonettes - "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" - Synthed out trancey amazingness from Sweden.

7) Matisyahu - "Miracle" - All the years of not finding an amazing Hanukkah song and here's the low-hanging fruit I must have walked past. Nice beats and lyrics (a cool video if you feel like looking it up online).

8) The Killers - "A Great Big Sled" - This band is the gift that keeps on giving for Christmas songs (though the one they put out this year was kinda meh). This song was nearly on the mix last year but I didn't want to have two Killers songs in one year.

9) Jimmy Eat World - "12/23/95" - Here's where we start to come down from such great heights. Time to slow it down. This song, a bit melancholy, just glistens, though. Let's you down easy.

10) She & Him - "I'll Be Home for Christmas" - The latest salvo in the Zooey Deschanel effort for World Domination is her Christmas album with M. Ward. This is a fine little retro song. Though, given the interesting collab this year Danger Mouse had with Jack White and Norah Jones, I'd like to use this space to propose that She & Him have a musical challenge with Jack White and Norah Jones. That could be something.

11) Coldplay - "Christmas Lights" - Say what you want... it's a pretty song.

12) Mogwai - "Christmas Song" - An instrumental send-off from the Scottish post-punkers.

All in all, I think this is the most listenable mix since the 2008 edition of the mix. Arguably, it's the highest overall song quality of any of the ones I've put together. Want it? All are available (even legally) at your online music purveyor of choice...

The Perils of Being Sure of Trends

2011-10-19T22:57:00.000-07:00

I work in an industry where I am surrounded by new media "experts." I might even consider myself one sometimes. With new Facebook changes, ongoing mobile device/tablet wars and the like, just about anyone with an opinion is telling us what the future is... occasionally charging money for the privilege of hearing about it.

I've been to two social media conferences now. Both have been excellent, but one way they have been excellent has been the "who really knows?" attitude that hangs over most discussions. Someone tried something that worked. It may or may not be easy to duplicate. Or it won't be. Who knows?

Recent observations, though, seem to indicate an upswing in sweeping statements that not only could be way off base, but actually (I think) threaten the collective credibility of all of us "experts."

I think this started around the launch of the iPad. At the time, tablets were not new to market (though kudos to Apple for making it seem like they were) and story after story, from CNET to Mashable, spoke of the revolution that was literally at hand. The concept of the "Post PC Era" entered parlance (where it remains).

Yet, here we are... tablets have certainly gained market share, but I'm guessing the bulk of people reading this blog aren't doing so on a tablet. I'll wager that the vast bulk of tablet users don't even write at length on their iPads. If anything, tablets are filling a very comfortable niche in extending the reach of content that was once "chained" to wherever a computer was. I just took an iPad to a trade show and it was incredible.It changed the way we worked at this show from previous years. All the materials I couldn't pack were neatly visible on a small LCD screen. But I still went back to my hotel to work on my laptop every night.

My favorite claim at the launch was that the iPad would mark the end of the Amazon Kindle, possibly the first time anyone with credibility ever posited that a device that cost three times as much to buy would supplant the unbelievably functional market leader. I haven't done a study, but it seems Amazon is doing just fine with the Kindle since the launch of the iPad. In my travels, after an initial burst of people reading books on iPads, I'm back to seeing more Kindles on my flights when it comes to book reading. Maybe it's because people can hold a Kindle in one hand while sipping their beverage with the other. Who knows? The point is this: lots of new media leaders went full bore with the "game changer" language. Today, their statements have to be viewed not only as hyperbole, but in many cases, flat out wrong.

I cannot abide this. People trust folks in our field to offer good counsel on trends. But if the perception of all of us is simply that we hype up the shiny new toys we get to play with instead of stepping back and thinking about price points, function and good ol' human behaviors, we risk cheapening our advice to the point of being viewed as hucksters.

I wish I could say the lessons have been learned. They have not.

The launch of Google+ was roughly treated roughly like the discovery of a new vaccine by many. Expert after expert heralded the launch in big "it's a new world" terms. People did things I don't want to speculate on to get an invite to Google+ and you couldn't turn anywhere without reading that this could be "the beginning of the end" for Facebook.

This drama has yet to enter its final act, but a few months into Google's foray into social media, the only reason people aren't calling it a failure is because it simply has Google's backing.

Let's recap: the most robust social network, Facebook, a free service boasting the better part of a billion users... the service that change after change still has people logging in like crazy... with a name that is a verb (you've "Facebooked" someone), is going to meet its end because Google (also a verb) introduced a social network?

As I blogged three months ago, I wasn't buying it.

Today, I still don't think Google+ will be anything more than an also-ran. At least if it's trying to be Facebook. As Mark Zuckerberg (or Jesse Eisenberg) said, if they had invented Facebook, they would have invented Facebook.

The missing pieces in discussions were users. The reason I don't think people are going to adopt Google+ en masse is because the people that make their online experiences fun are on Facebook. Users will go where the other users are. And, at least for most individuals, that place remains Facebook.

We talk and talk and talk about how we're in an era of individualization in media. How each person makes his or her own choices about how to consume media. Yet, how many "experts" treat us all like a single body when making their sweeping statements about social media trends or the new tech toy?

There has also been shortsightedness on the part of many in how the Google+/Facebook discussion is framed. A key factor many cite for an eventual migration from Facebook to Google+ is privacy, primarily that perception that Facebook shares personal data.

A couple things: 1) Free services absolutely share some personal information... incidentally, only the info that we provided to them in the first place. But these are businesses and need money. In good news, I think most people know that and would have the same apprehensions about Google. Yet, this was missing in the discussion, for the most part.

More notable to me is 2) security on Google appears to have gaping vulnerabilities that no one is talking about.

I have asked it plainly - to people who should know - and no one has answered me with anything other than "gee... maybe?"

If I accidentally click on a link in a Google+ post that deploys malware - as happens every day to someone on Facebook and Twitter and results in spam posts - just how much access has the malware given the hacker? What I mean is, I try my darndest not to click on links that could be spam/malware. But, on Facebook or Twitter, the worst case is spam posts that annoy me and my friends and can easily be fixed.

But my Google+ account? Yeah, that site is linked to my Gmail. And Google docs. THIS BLOG. And any other Google product. So, does the right hack suddenly have access to my Gmail? You know, the one where I have a lot of personal stuff? Can that person fire off an email to whoever they want from my Gmail?

It's bad that I don't have a clear answer, but it's worse that the people who should be asking this sort of question aren't.

Just today, Mashable had an article about how new apps were coming to Google+. You cannot convince me that not a one of them won't be used for ill means. Where was the concern?

In the meantime, it will keep on happening. Few have even touched a Kindle Fire and already, speculation is rampant about what it does to the market. Maybe what it does is allow folks who don't use a tablet every day to feel good about paying for a tablet. But no one is asking about the new touch screen Kindle readers. Now I have to use two hands to turn a page? I don't know... it sounds like it might not go as expected, but until I see users reaction, I cannot make the judgment.

The next few years will certainly bring more changes in the landscape. But we need to stop being cheerleaders for the tech brand of our choice. If we're in an age of citizen journalism, we need to ask the tough questions or risk losing our credibility as counselors. And we need to get comfortable with not knowing what device or service will "win."

We need to keep the focus on audiences and reaching them the ways they want to be reached. New media, sure... but old-school PR thinking.

Occupy Smarter Methods

2011-10-13T21:07:00.000-07:00

The thing about the "Occupy" demonstrations - and really all of the Tea Party demonstrations as well - is that they make a lot of noise... but what do they do?

To some extent, I salute participants on both sides. I may agree and disagree with portions of their views (or entirely... just depends), but I can hardly argue that both groups' efforts have done much to raise my awareness of their issues. I've done some of the background reading on their topics as a result.

The thing is... well, a number of things.

Let's hit the obvious: lots of ignorant people in each group. For every well-read, thoughtful person, it seems, at least as the news shows via interviews, there's someone who has a lot of hyperbole and no grasp of how the world actually works. A stack of good intentions doesn't change the government, nor does it make a dent in our economy. This is at its worst when people oversimplify.

Prime example: the obsession of some Tea Party members (at least that's how they identify) with illegal immigration. I have yet to hear one person discuss how their wishes to deport everyone would affect produce prices at Safeway. Truth is, if you're not ready to discuss that outcome as part of your view, then I'm not going to give you the time of day.

That, however, is an easy problem to spot and I think (hope?) many Americans can see right through the ignorant opinions and say "Now, now... it's not that simple."

The bigger issue for me, and it is on grand display with the Occupy rallies, is that other than getting some attention, I see no tangible outcome.

A few years ago, a friend was considering becoming a vegetarian based on some moral beliefs. I have some pretty strong opinions on this topic. Personally, as a closeted hippie, I'm content to bow to the will of nature. And nature gave me stomach acids that are only used to digest meat. But I digress...

This friend wanted to be a vegetarian to make a point. She felt that factory farms and other practices were destroying a healthy food chain. That the way we treat food animals is cruel.

She is right. But she wasn't going to change a thing by not eating meat.

The thing is, I am one of about 7 billion people on the planet. If you want a boycott to work, you need some serious numbers.

What I mean is, if I'm an industrial provider of chicken and I have 35% of the chicken eating market share, I want to maintain - or increase - that share. And I will cut whatever corners I legally can to do so. If you stop eating chicken, that's fine and dandy, but in the universe of chicken eaters, I still have 35% market share and am making money. If anything, you stopping to eat my product helps me lower overhead costs, because I need to produce ever-so-slightly less chicken.

If, instead of becoming a vegetarian, you start eating only locally grown, organic chicken - free range birds that got to "live like a chicken" as Michael Pollan would say - well... now you're giving market share to a competitor.

And if my market starts to demand I do business a different way in order to stay competitive, I'm going to have to start raising chickens differently.

In a capitalist system, which despite what some say we most definitely still have, that is how you forge change.

So, as we head back to our Occupy demonstrators, my question is: why are they talking about a new way of life instead of living it? If you think a corporation acts unethically, then take the time to figure out how not to support that company with your dollars. If you don't like the way the banks conduct themselves... get a new bank. If you don't agree with the hedge fund folks, don't hand your money to them to invest.

It seems people love to talk but get hung up on the action part of things. Big surprise, I know, but this is why the protests ring hollow for me, well-intentioned as they may be.

It's become cliche, but Gandhi was right: you must be the change you want to see in the world.

Nearly two years ago, my wife and I made some simple changes to the way we eat and have been heartened to hear we're not the only ones. It hasn't changed the world... yet. Change takes time. But I can take heart knowing that the local farmers, brewers and ranchers are getting our help in maintaining their businesses as we give them our dollars.

I can assure you even though I am just one person, those folks appreciate my dollars more than if I were to march for change while scarfing down a big-industry burger.

Simply put: we have a right to freely assemble and demonstrate. But if we want to see change in our world, we cannot simply ask companies to change or for governments to intervene.

We need to make the changes we want on our own and let the world deal with the outcomes.

Old School Thinking

2011-10-09T20:05:00.000-07:00

Did you know me back in high school or college? If so... yeah, sorry about that.

In all seriousness, I'm sure we all have moments from the past we cherish and some we wish had panned out differently. What I think is more interesting is how things evolve. Or, in some cases, fail to.

Just figure: I graduated high school in 1997 and college four years later. Some of the folks I shared a walk to "Pomp & Circumstance" with haven't been in touch with me for at least 10 years. I don't even know these people, at least.

How much have you changed in 10 years? Judging by how much I have changed, probably more than a little.

Yet, when I see a Facebook update from a friend from high school or spot a once-familiar face on a trip back to where I grew up, I seem to not give the person that credit.

And it's not fair.

What I mean is, I might hear something from my mom about such-and-such who I went to high school with who's now doing this-or-that-with-so-and-so. It can be things that are good or bad, but I process the information with whatever impression I had of the person in question when I last saw him or her regularly. I might think something like "Oh yeah, he was always that kind of guy..." or "She always does that..."

Truth is... if I haven't had a substantial conversation with the person in 10-15 years, how should I know?

I love Facebook for oh-so-many reasons, not the least of which is that it helps me keep up with the busy lives of some of my closest friends like never before. But for the more acquaintance-type people I see on there, it has made me realize the fallacy of the way I think about people.

An example... a friend from back in the day posted a major relationship change several months back involving another person from that same era of life. I immediately reacted to the situation as though it was more than a decade ago.

I had to step back. Looking at myself, I am so much different now than I was then (hopefully better for it, too). Why couldn't I give this other person that benefit of the doubt? I was reacting like the person in question had been frozen in time and never changed. Not cool, on my part.

It's things like this that keep me wary of ever going to a high school or college reunion. I have kept in very close touch with a group of people, and others to a lesser extent. But I don't fancy enjoying spending time with people where we all assume we're pretty much the same people we knew at graduation.

I hope this makes sense... or that this has happened to you (has it? I'm nuts? OK.)

I do think it's fascinating how our lives and interests evolve... friends converge and diverge, often for no other reasons than people start living lives that head in different directions. Yet, I think there is something in us that wants us to feel like we "know" all those who were close to us at a certain time.

If so, I'm resolving to stop it.

Reclaim the Day

2011-09-11T20:00:00.001-07:00

On September 11, 2001, I had a bad day. I was in my New York City office at 8:20 a.m. Little did I know, I would go home early that day for all the worst reasons. You don't need a recap, but from that day and through the 10 years since, the events of the day have been a focus.

We talk about living in a post-9/11 world... at least the commentators do. It is the latest generation's "day." They used to ask my age group where we were for the Challenger disaster. Now, we all remember where we were on 9/11.

I am all for honoring the brave who ran to the scene. And for mourning the losses, so heavy. We say "never forget." Honestly, I don't think we ever could.

Which brings me to the point at hand: when we spend the entire day of 9/11 every year in solemnity, it does what the terrorists want: it leaves us sad and frozen. The terrorists view 9/11 as their day... the day America was shaken.

I say we take it back for ourselves. We can memorialize all we lost without, at the same time, dwelling on the darkness of the day. The way I see it, those who died never got to do the things they loved again... and we owe it to them to live.

I say we reclaim the day. Remember what happened but force ourselves out of the TV news memorials and celebrate what really makes this a great country. Because when we spend 9/11 living in the land we call home, not worrying about "credible threats" and doing what we love, we have truly defeated the terrorists' goals.

Maybe that's spending time with family. Maybe you decide it's the day you do your fall shopping every year. This year, for me, it meant spending the day in Mt. Rainier National Park, which, if you ask me... if you really want to celebrate America, your nearest national park is a fine place to start.

For me, with today's trip, I had another 9/11 words cannot describe. But for all the right reasons.

Take the day back. Live and love. Remember... but do not despair.

At least it won't be named on your bill in a bad way...

2011-08-09T20:05:00.000-07:00

We could sit here and discuss The Wall Street Journal, but any conversation will likely devolve into some nonsense about the merits (or lack thereof) of its editorial page.

The paper's business reporting is top-notch. In our complicated economy, you would do well to read it. I really love how they cover every sector in great detail. I never went to business school, or really took business classes, so I made following the airline industry news in the WSJ my own business program. I tell PR students they should pick an industry they can geek out over and follow in the WSJ and the New York Times. You think I'm kidding? Let's just say the whole argument in congress over the Essential Air Service Program has a completely different feel to it if you understand the basic ways the airline industry works.

Regardless of industry, story after story shows the complexity of nearly every industry. Which brings us to the topic at hand: believe it or not, you have a porn problem.

Yesterday, the paper filed one of its reasonably frequent stories about the adult entertainment industry, this time specifically looking at how that relates to cable/satellite revenues.

You should really read the whole thing, but since you're busy... let's dive in.

Cable and satellite television companies have a pornography problem: Their customers aren't watching enough of it.

Companies' revenue from highly profitable adult video-on-demand and pay-per-view services has been slipping, as the genre's consumers spend more time browsing porn on the Web.

I hear you. You're wondering why you should care. After all, you don't watch porn. (Sure you don't.)

Here's why you should care:

Satellite provider DirecTV cited "lower adult buys" as a cause for weaker pay-per-view revenue in its second quarter earnings. That followed Time Warner Cable Inc.'s admission last week that shrinkage (ed note: Hee!) in the adult category was responsible for more than a third of a $14 million drop in video-on-demand revenue. While only a sliver of the cable company's $4.9 billion in revenue for the quarter, porn is one of TV providers' most profitable segments.

That's right. The company you likely pay monthly so you can watch live sports, news and Game of Thrones is missing out on revenue because you, er, some people won't pay for adult content.

The thing is, shareholders like when companies they invest in make lots of money. They really really really really don't like it when a company misses out on revenue, as that's profit that just doesn't end up back in shareholders' pockets.

Say what you will about capitalism, but them's the brakes. Companies will seek to get that revenue back.

The article notes that cable and satellite providers are going to find some new ways to compete in this sector, citing "exclusive content," competitive pricing (better than free?) and more. And the article addresses the idea that content, prurient or otherwise, has been devalued due to widespread - often free - availability online.

As covered in this blog, some people are taking this to the extreme by cutting the cable cord entirely.

This trend will have consequences. While the article doesn't get there (it's not really the immediate issue), it doesn't take much to connect the dots.

Time Warner, Comcast and the like all offer high speed Internet. It's not too hard to see them saying "Well, if they're not going to buy our TV content and just watch it online, jack the Internet rates." Even DirecTV, which contracts with local Internet providers could likely work this out. My ISP comes to me because DirecTV refers them. That would seem to indicate some sort of binding agreement that could no doubt be adjusted when DirecTV says "You have to pay us more or we stop sending subscribers to you."

We're already seeing mobile phone companies begin to phase out unlimited data. It's only a matter of time before the Internet providers start this. And I'm willing to bet most people will quietly accept the higher rates if it means a la carte programming.

Anyhow, all joking aside, you probably don't watch a lot of porn. But, stories like this from the WSJ show that your cable and internet bills might just be affected by the people who do.

Waiting for that "plus" part...

2011-07-12T19:09:00.000-07:00

I take it for granted that everyone has heard of Google+ by now. Such is life when you work in PR and many of your friends are involved in some capacity with social media from a business standpoint. But if, not... Google just reinvented Facebook.

There. You are up to speed.

All week, my Twitter stream has been filled with Google+ tutorials. Analysis. Predictions.

I'm trying to discern what is helpful and what is someone trying to land a new contract for freelance social media counseling.

The truth is, no one knows if Google+ is the next Facebook or the next Google flame-out. And anyone who tells you it's going to replace Facebook? Ask them why.

The thing about social media is that we users still control it. If Google+ makes it, we, the users, get the lion's share of credit. Sure, Google could entice us all with amazing features, but a social media channel is only as good as the users it carries. You probably stopped using MySpace for a number of reasons, but chief among them was probably the fact that, while you may have enjoyed Facebook more, your friends were using Facebook more.

So, I will make no predictions. I will say that, despite the fanfare and countless "social media experts" touting this and that... I'm not buying it all just yet. In terms of functionality, Google+ makes sense, sure. The "circles" idea is a good one, but I'll be stunned if by September Facebook hasn't adopted that style wholesale and likely improved it. You like Google+ video chat? Have you not been using Skype?

Many people are saying they like building a new social network from scratch, finally feeling they are free from FarmVille updates and annoying narcissism from Facebook acquaintances. To those folks... do you know about the "Hide" option? If so, are you afraid to use it?

I'm likely going to post this blog entry on Facebook because I post links there. But not on Google+ because I do not want to update multiple pages at once.

Maybe it will change when more of my friends are on Google+, but so far... I think it's kinda bland. You want a Google+ invite? You let me know. I've got them. And I am not feeling any odd tug to quickly get all my friends on board. I think that's because, for now at least, they're all on Facebook and plenty active there.

After some tinkering today, though, I had a thought. And the people at Google are smarter than me, so maybe they've already thought of this.

On my Blackberry (I know, but really it works. Really well.), I use an app called SocialScope. It's pretty brilliant. It aggregates my Twitter and Facebook feeds into one, but it has full functionality on top of that. I can look at your Facebook profile on SocialScope. I can view photo albums. I can comment, like, retweet and whatever my little heart out. Hell, I can add you as a Facebook friend on SocialScope. The whole thing. I'm sure SocialScope will add Google+ in an upcoming update.

But... what if Google+ decided it didn't need to be its own social network, but an aggregator of all of them? I know, I know... FriendFeed tried that. And it stunk. You know what FriendFeed wasn't? A Google product.

The truth is, I like my Facebook profile. And I have carefully built it and broken up my friends just-so... I can control who sees what. I have my photos and everything. It's great. I don't want to do it again.

I like my Twitter profile, people I follow, etc. I don't want to have another stream to check.

My LinkedIn (your new #2 social network) profile? Also lovely. And also built just-so.

What I don't have is a web site that aggregates it all with full functionality. Where I can, in one view, see everything in all my networks. Comment, like, +1, retweet, recommend... the works. The funny thing? If Google+ did that, it's all I'd use most days. And, yes, then it would be convenient having my Gmail account right there. And Google Maps. And all those nifty things.

But until then - or until all my friends flee Facebook - Google+ is just going to be a site I don't have time for, I fear.

Google cannot give me more minutes in my day. Like you, I have precious few to give to a social network that does everything that my other social network - the one I've put three years of photos and privacy settings into - does not only well, but pretty brilliantly.

If someone wants to lose half a billion...

2011-06-29T20:20:00.000-07:00

In case you didn't hear, News Corporation - the same people who bring you Fox News - today sold MySpace for the sum of $35 million.

That is not a small amount of money. Though it is much smaller than the $580 million News Corp. paid for MySpace in 2005.

Let's put this in perspective. Say you bought a house in 2005 for $200K. Now, in our recessioned world, you might get $165K for it (so I hope for you, anyway). Your house would have lost more than 17% of its value. Under News Corp., MySpace lost almost 94% of its value.

Some people thought this was a good deal at the time, by the way.
This will be broken down in business and communications textbooks for generations. Mistakes were made. Facebook, seemingly, didn't make them.
Whatever. That isn't what this post is about. As of the moment I am writing this, News Corp.'s stock price is $17.83/share. What was it on June 30, 2005? A hair below $17 per, according to News Corp.'s investor site.

What I' saying here is News Corp., no matter what you think of the MySpace acquisition, how it ran that business, how it runs any of it's other businesses... it can weather quite a storm.

So, I want to propose to News Corp. that instead of buying a social networking site and losing half a billion dollars (not including the dollars spent on funding MySpace while owning it), instead, if you're going to take the writedown... give the money to me.

Here's my plan:

1) Give everyone - everyone - in America a dollar. Because I'm a nice guy, I'm giving 307,006,550 people a dollar. Doesn't sound like much, but tell me you'd turn down a guy giving you a buck, just because.

That leaves about $196 million.

2) Buy a house.

No, no... a house.

OK, so let's just figure... conservatively, I'd have about $100 million left. With that...

Man, I don't know.

I wouldn't have enough to buy a National League baseball team and relocate it to Boston, just to mess with Red Sox fans, unfortunately.

I guess at that point you start thinking about charity stuff. Giving back.

I could give $10 million to ten charities of my choosing. That's get-a-wing-of-the-hospital-named-for-you money.

Anyhow, it's a modest proposal.

The next big medical dramas...

2011-06-26T16:21:00.000-07:00

ABC has wheeled out a new show called Combat Hospital. I have not watched it. But just as CBS has made CSI spin-off after spin-off, it seems ABC is content to do this with medical dramas.

Let's recap:

Grey's Anatomy - Frightfully attractive hospital staff provide services to Seattle's sick and injured in between bouts of providing "other services" to each other. However, when you have good writing and good acting, this can work out.
Private Practice - Doctor leaves Grey's Anatomy for sunny Santa Monica to be part of a private medical practice that serves, well... the type of people you expect in Los Angeles that are rich enough to not care if their medical insurance pays for their procedures.
Off the Map - Frightfully attractive doctors (in Ecuador?) providing services to the stereotypically Latin American locals while doing some soul searching.

Now, we have Combat Hospital, which, from what I can gather, is doctors on the war front in Afghanistan. This is getting awfully close to M*A*S*H territory, but hey... Grey's Anatomy is awfully close to St. Elsewhere territory and it pulls things off.

So, what's next? What other outrageous places could we set things, preferably with tons of stereotypes to exploit? Maybe:

ED Appalachia - Frightfully attractive doctors work with minimal resources in a fictional West Virginia or Kentucky city to provide care for the region's citizens. The big episode of season one could involve a mining accident (pure ratings grab, but hey...). It would also be interesting to see how TV could handle crying families with no insurance...
USNS Respite - Four words: doctors on a boat. That's right, members of our Navy (with advanced medical degrees and frightfully good looks, of course) care for our wounded warriors. And the best part? They can be anywhere. Ratings down? Ship 'em someplace new. Would also be lots of chances for sunbathing scenes. Because I'm sure that's what happens on our nation's medical ships.
[NAME OF CITY HERE] Children's - This is basically Grey's Anatomy... but the only patients we see are children. Nothing anyone can tell me will convince me this wouldn't be a hit show.

The point - and the sad thing - in all this is that we've clearly come to a point where new ideas are rare. This sort of "people like [thing], so what can we do that's just like [thing]" thought process wins the day. I'd say I wanted any royalties gained from any of the above shows becoming a reality, but I am willing to wager - bad ideas as all of them sound - that they're already being pitched to network execs by someone else.

I'm sure that would be true of any concepts you could come up with in the comments, too (though I would love to hear the premise of a zombie hospital show...).

You see Game of Thrones and you wonder when, exactly, the major TV networks are going to start being a bit riskier with new concepts instead of wrapping the same concepts up in new ways.

The signs are clear

2011-06-12T09:41:00.001-07:00

This past week, I traveled to New York on business. I had been back east since moving west, but this time, in particular, the signs were all there... I've become a west coaster. Let's review:

Tolerance for heat? Gone. Especially the east coast favorite of "HHH" weather - hazy, hit and humid. Last Tuesday, I basically wilted in the NYC heat and it was the coldest day of my brief trip there. On Weds, it hit 95 and, despite having grown up in this sort of weather, I was done with it. I guess it's more of a testament to the miracles of nature and how we're able to acclimate to the areas we live in. For now, though, if it must be hot, let's do dry heat, k?

Apparently, I no longer jaywalk. Or I have to remind myself to do so. I was walking to meet a friend in NYC and the sign said "don't walk." So... I didn't. If you've never been to/lived in NYC, this may mean nothing to you. If you do, you're probably going "You're the pedestrian that, at best, I laugh at and, at worst, want to slap!" But yeah, I have apparently lost my hurry while on two feet.

Also, it felt weird to me that the game was on after work. I walked into the bar and the Yankees-Red Sox game was on... and I had already had dinner. I am so used to the bulk of the sports world being done and over with before dinner it was disorienting (though, jet lag certainly had something to do with that).

This is going to sound snobby, but it must be said: we have to teach NYC about a good cup of coffee. For a long time, I celebrated the "average Joe" coffee in NYC served in diners, donut shops and more. And, yes, I know many New Yorkers who need their morning Starbucks fix. But the third wave hasn't quite hit the shores of the east coast, from what I can tell anyway.

I don't mean to say this in any way to slam New York or the east coast. I can go on at length over the need for more neighborhood diners, better pizza and bagels, real heavy rail transit systems and more in the West. Similarly, if this was a true pro-con on either coast, I could list things I have here (default rental apts are climate-controlled with a dishwashers, significantly easier access to hiking trails, moderate climate) that win in the west.

It's just, for me, those things listed out helped drive home that I've embraced my new left coast city and its lifestyle. I grew up knowing the northeast. I adjusted to the ease of southern life. We're adaptable... and it appears I've adapted to west coast living.

The perils of oversimplifcation

2011-05-21T12:15:00.000-07:00

Twitter gives you 140 characters to make a point. If I don't break this blog up into little tiny paragraphs, you may skim its words, if read it at all.

Study after study shows that Americans have either shorter attention spans or multitask to the point that they need information quickly and concisely.

Not saying any of this is good or bad... or even that these are new problems. Shakespeare said in Richard III: "Tis better to be brief than tedious." That was back in the 16th century.

But our world of soundbytes seems to have led to hyperbole and oversimplification that, perhaps, are not the best ways to examine what is anything but a simple world.

We can see this all over the place. The recent frenzy over Planned Parenthood's federal funding comes to mind. The soundbyte was "They use funding for abortions." That's interesting when only 3% of Planned Parenthood's operations deal with abortion.

Cutting funding would kinda be like if your doctor tells you to cut salt from your diet and you stop eating entirely.

What was missing in this discussion was other services the organizations provides, in what communities, the root cause of someone turning to Planned Parenthood vs. a hospital, potential consequences of taking that away, etc. For a group of people, it was cut and dry... cut funding and we save the government money.

I was discussing this with a friend not long ago and we got into the myriad issues of what "fixing" our economy might take... and why we might not get there. We can use schools as a good example. Lots of people want to pare back funding to public schools.

A quick aside... I love how people want to cut teacher salaries and benefits saying that teachers are making so much more than average Americans. Instead of getting into the vast problems with this general argument, I love that the reaction isn't "Geez, why can't we all have better benefits and salaries" and is, instead, "I don't think people I pay taxes to support should be better off than me." Instead of trying to make everyone's life better, let's all settle on being collectively worse off. Classic.

But I digress...

Anyhow, sure, let's cut funding to public schools. For a lot of people that means efficiency. Makes people do more with less. All that. Cut and dry.

I'm not so sure. Say you're a good teacher. You can work in a public school for a small salary or go to the nearby private school and make a lot more money. It would be nice to say you're very noble and all, but come on... you're going for the money. At this point, the idea of increasing public school teacher salaries based on performance starts to break down. The best teachers potentially flee, meaning improvement doesn't happen.

Worse, your average family has to start to question public schools. I went to a great public school. A school board candidate running there right now wants to do a number of things to cut collective bargaining for the teachers. He went so far to publish the salaries of every teacher in the district.

I left middle school in the summer of 1993. So, 20 years ago, for all intents and purposes. I looked up some of my middle school teachers. The ones that are still there - who were not necessarily "young" back then - are making 98K.

On the surface that sounds like a lot. But... if you got a corporate job at 30 and were told that at 50, after years of service, effort and who know what else, you would still be making under 100K, who would call that company cheap.

I'm sure some of these teachers, who happen to live in an area where home prices are still between 300K-400K, wonder why they didn't go to one of the nearby private schools.

What I'm saying is that this is already something of an odd compensation situation, yet they are under attack. And do I think the local gentry will want to send their kids to lackluster private schools where the best teachers are not? No. Not one bit.

Fine and dandy. Except what do you tell the half of the school district that lives in an area where median incomes and home prices are far below the other half? They might have the best and brightest kid... but no choice on schools. Private schools cost money.

What do those kids do? How do they get into a good college? What do their job prospects end up as?

I don't have answers. But I do think we owe it to the millions of people who are affected by decisions like this to not oversimplify issues when the consequences are far from simple.

Someone is saying "let's cut funding." We need to ask "What will that really mean?"

Ditching the box?

2011-04-17T11:11:00.001-07:00

Lately, several of our friends have started considering disconnecting their cable/satellite services. A couple have actually pulled the plug.

Their reasoning up-front seems sound: they want to save money. They say they can stream all the network TV content they want and, for any shows they cannot catch online, they can get on DVD (or streaming) through a service such as Netflix.

I'm not so sure this plan works out in the long term for them.

I can say for sure my wife and I are considering ways we can cut our bill down. Perhaps cutting the Starz/Encore package? But a moment of truth: I watch way too much sports. A friend of mine admits he's "going to likely be spending more time in bars this fall" to catch his college football.

For what it's worth, I have definitely spent the equivalent of a cable bill in a bar tab for a sporting event. And when you consider my lovely wife seems to have grown quite fond of the Yankees and Sounders - and since sports is best watched live - this is a challenge.

Most of the friends we have considering cutting the cord aren't as big sports fans. So, in theory, this is a brilliant move for them. Grab the laptop, hook it up to the HDTV there and voila... all the TV. Free, what for Netflix prices and the cost of internet service.

And there, friends, is where I see the problem. A quick aside...

Twice while I lived in NYC (9/11 and the 2003 blackout), cell phones were useless. A great article in the NY Times afterward explained that, normally, 20% of NYC cell phone owners were making a call. During those two events, 80% were trying to make calls. The infrastructure of the system couldn't handle the load.

We take for granted that things like cell phones work like clockwork. We forget it's still "new" technology and we're still building the capacity for wireless phones in this country.

Well, high speed internet is the same way. We're already seeing cell phone companies phasing in plans to build in tiered billing plans for data use because 10% of users use 90% of the data pipeline.

While we're all used to streaming content, I'm willing to bet that if too many people who use your ISP (Comcast, Time Warner or whoever) start streaming HD content to their TVs all night long, we're going to see slower connections and, at worst, a need to rapidly build new infrastructure to support that use.

Data lines do not build themselves. There are costs for materials, labor and maintenance. And the needs only increase as technology becomes more advanced.

Bottom line: if we all ditch "traditional" TV delivery for internet-based methods, our internet bills are going to skyrocket. My $39.99/month would likely equal my DirecTV bill in time. So, I'm not sure where the savings is over time. And I still wouldn't be able to watch Sounders road games... unless I pay $49.95 for access online.

I do think we are going to come to a moment where TV is offered a la carte... you pick your channels from a menu of prices and set your own monthly bill. To get there, many cable network execs are going to have to lose their jobs, though. I mean, given a choice, do you really want Tru TV? There are countless money-losing cable nets sustained only because they are included in basic packages.

But from a capitalist standpoint, the folks who provide the service aren't going to install better internet infrastructure as a favor to us. They want to make money. They have to recoup their investment.

So before you pull the plug for short term benefit, consider the longer term economics of the industry and how it affects end users.

Germ Panic

2011-03-28T20:18:00.000-07:00

In the late 18th Century, English physician Edward Jenner took an untested (at least in modern research terms) theory and ended up finding a way that led to the eradication of smallpox.

A big part of his hunch toward a vaccine was that milkmaids tended to not get smallpox. The theory was that cowpox, a similar, less lethal virus, did something that, in the end, made the body immune to smallpox. In fact, modern science can tell you exactly why this is the case. As an oversimplification, the body "learns" to fight smallpox by killing the similar cowpox virus.

So today, as you live your life free of smallpox, you should be happy that milkmaids of yore weren't using Purell every time they got done touching an udder.

Would you do the same? I doubt it. My lovely wife wrote a rather humorous blog post on the subject of bathroom habits and it got me thinking... We are flipping nuts. Flushing the toilet with your foot? Washing up like you just left a salmonella factory every time you leave the bathroom?

Humans evolved for tens of thousands of years due to a variety of factors, not the least of which was the fact that they got sick now and then. And got better.

I get a cold or two a year. It bites. I hate them and I go to war against them when they hit. But it's all the colds I contract and don't get that are awesome. Thank you white blood cells. You are a finely-tuned army that knocks out diseases I probably don't even want to know about days before I ever feel a symptom.

And it's true. I sit my cell phone on my desk. It rings. I pick it up... and put it near my mouth! How outrageous. Good thing I have a health insurance plan.

You don't have to look far to find plenty of pieces in peer-reviewed scholarly journals to see there is much debate over the real-world benefits of using antibacterial products around the home. I lack the time to get into finding out the specific research methods used by each of these researchers to even begin to get into the validity of findings.

But I can tell you I started my career riding the NYC subway every day - grasping onto a stainless steel pole with any number of random New Yorkers - and today I fly almost weekly. I wash my hands when they are dirty. I do not use antibacterial much of anything. And I get sick almost never. Maybe I've built up some immunity.

I'm not saying if you wash your hands every time you hit the head you're nuts. And I'm sure there's a person out there who can counter my argument here by saying they used to get sick until they started trying to eliminate any germ they come upon.

But I do think we should be able to stand back and realize that here, in an age of antibiotic resistant bacteria, avian flu panics and the rush to medicate, most of the time, we're breathing in things we'd probably rather not consider.

And we not only get through... but possibly get some benefit from it all.

Fountain of Excess

2011-03-19T21:43:00.001-07:00

I fly through Phoenix a lot. Comes with the territory of being a US Airways flyer. I always go for window seats because I am a six-year-old and love looking out the window at stuff. As much as I fly into PHX, I had never noticed something until a few weeks ago.

At first, I didn't know what I was seeing. I kept looking...

Yes. It's a flipping fountain. But, thanks to The Googles and The Internets, I know it is not just any fountain. Apparently, it is the key feature of the Fountain Hills community and was built in 1970. Our friends at Wikipedia say it blasts 7,000 gallons of water every minute through three 600 horsepower pumps and that "ideally" it shoots water 560 feet into the air.

The Washington Monument, by the way, is 555 feet and 5 1/8 inches tall.

Yes, friends, in the middle of the flipping desert, we have built a fountain that can top out higher than a major national landmark.

I barely know where to start here. I should note that it doesn't constantly run at that power. But, really, in a world where the population is going to hit 9 billion by 2050, while our water supply stays the same, perhaps we might not fire 7,000 gallons/minute of it into hot, dry air for a good chunk of it to simply evaporate.

I'm not against evaporation. It makes rain. However, I am also in favor of irrigating local food supplies. And drinking water. Oh... and not paying out the wazoo to do so.

Anyhow, I'm glad we achieved the miracle of water in the middle of the desert. I'm sure, though, that when the settlers first saw the Salt River in Phoenix, their thoughts were "oh thank the lord it's water... it's 115 degrees out here and we need a drink."

It probably wasn't "I know what let's do... fountain!"

The Numbers on Soccer

2011-03-13T21:18:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday night, I'm attending the opening of Major League Soccer's 2011 season. In fact, I'll be at all of the Seattle Sounders FC games this season as a season ticket holder.

I have to admit, if you had told me 10 years ago I'd be an MLS season ticket holder, I probably wouldn't have believed it. But, 15 years in, MLS is starting to gain some respect as a soccer league. Players in offseason training with Barclay's Premiership teams in England come back reporting that the gap is closer than ever. And, to be honest, the way Seattle cheers its team on makes the games worth it out of the box... 36,000 rowdy, chanting, singing fans.

When I first went to a Sounders game, I was stunned by the crowd. I've attended a lot of sporting events in my life, been in some jacked up crowds... but never have I seen a crowd quite like the Sounders fans that fill Qwest Field.

It makes some sense. More Americans grew up playing soccer in the last generation than any other sport. I imagine folks my age follow the sport worldwide more than our parents did. It makes sense that the sport would grow.

Major international competitions have become sought-after programming on TV - last year's World Cup got great ratings. The final - which did not include the USA or any Spanish-speaking country - got 24.3 million viewers (15.5 on ABC, 8.8 on Univision). You may find it interesting that Game 7 (game 7!) of last year's NBA finals scored 28.2 million.

That got me thinking... the Sounders set the pace for MLS attendance for a variety of reasons. Seattle is a soccer town. But take a look at the per-game averages for some cities' MLS and NBA teams:

Los Angeles

MLS Galaxy 21,473, NBA Lakers 18,997
MLS Chivas USA, 14,574, NBA Clippers 17,423

Toronto

MLS Toronto FC 20,453, NBA Raptors 16,358

Philadelphia

MLS Union 19,252, NBA 76ers 14,315

New York/New Jersey

MLS Red Bull 18,441, NBA Knicks 19,717, NBA Nets 13,715

Houston

MLS Dynamo 17,310, NBA Rockets 16,151

Now, this isn't really apples to apples. The NBA offers fans 42 home games. MLS give home fans 17. At the same time, In Philadelphia, the NHL Flyers draw 400 more per game than does the Union, so, you can say there's something bringing fans to seats for the hockey and soccer sides that's missing on the NBA side.

And ticket prices make this an unfair comparison in many ways. One can only imagine how many people might shell out for NBA seats if they could sit down low for $500/season like you can in many MLS stadiums.

TV ratings for MLS still lag, though, who knows? If you ask me, the discerning sports fan watches Sounders FC host David Beckham, Landon Donovan and the LA Galaxy Tuesday night instead of two iffy NCAA college basketball "play-in" games. ESPN is certainly hoping so.

More than anything, though, the attendance figures - which will likely only be bolstered by big crowds in expansion Portland and Vancouver, plus a likely bump in Kansas City with a new soccer-only stadium opening in June - show that if we base our "major sport" lexicon based on fans-in-seats, pro soccer has arrived in the USA. It's up to MLS to sustain and grow the interest.

But if you are one of those who says "no one in America cares about soccer," the numbers say you're not just using hyperbole.

You're flat out wrong.

Still Fresh

2011-02-27T22:04:00.000-08:00

In early 2003, I worked at a PR firm that promoted BBC Video. Not a bad gig for a somewhat-recent college grad. Especially if you like British humor (oh how I still think it's a tragedy what the USA did to Coupling. And don't even start me on my thoughts on the original British version of The Office...).

There was one DVD release, though, that took me by surprise. I had never heard of The Singing Detective. Our product managers on the client side spoke well of it... very well. And, when a member of the PR firm spoke to then-TV critic at the New York Daily News David Bianculli (he's now a guest host and TV critic on NPR's Fresh Air and founded TVWorthWatching.com), the well-respected critic referred to the 1986 BBC production as one of the best bits of dramatic TV ever. He ended up writing the DVD liner notes.

Most of you have likely encountered Michael Gambon in the Harry Potter films. A younger Imelda Staunton (who also made her way to Harry Potter) has a role. There were plenty of reasons to watch.

It took me until this weekend. For years, I had kept it on the back burner. Countless weekends of time to myself passed with other diversions taking its place. Maybe there was a game on. Maybe I went out with friends. Whatever the case, I couldn't find the six hours needed to burn through the series.

Side note: thank you to our British and Canadian friends at the BBC and CBC, respectively, who don't use the season-based method of shows. By opting to air series of episodes -a format HBO, Showtime and AMC use masterfully today - the concept of good TV writing can be preserved.

Good writing positively abounds out of The Singing Detective.

One of the most challenging and rewarding bits of TV I've ever watched, The Singing Detective holds up masterfully as it approaches its 25th anniversary. The story mixes three somewhat complex threads effectively, even though they are permitted to intermingle throughout and, at first, confusingly. The viewer is left to sort out what the "reality" of the situations are and, as the story develops, the payoff is wonderful. A complex work that challenges us all psychologically, The Singing Detective forces us to live with some severe gray area. As the main character notes:

"All solutions and no clues. That's what the dumbheads want. I'd rather it was the other way around: all clues, no solutions. That's the way things are. Plenty of clues. No solutions."

Things get tied up in the final episode. But the ending, like all good pieces of art, begs questions in its resolution. Something that will keep many a modern viewer uncomfortable, to be sure.

So, as much as I think you should check the series out (not the more recent Robert Downey Jr. movie of the same name), one thing sticks out from the whole experience that I can say whether or not you think a six-hour psych-thriller is you bag of donuts: what are you putting off that you should check out?

It took me nearly eight years to fire up these DVDs. The entire series of Lost started and ended in that time. It pains me to say it, but the Red Sox won the World Series (twice) in that time. The whole time, it was right there, asking for slightly more of me than the time it takes to fly across the country.

If there's something you've been hearing is worth it, break your routine for once and see what awaits. Perhaps, even do so with The Singing Detective.

Vegas

2011-02-21T22:11:00.000-08:00

Last week, for the second time in my life, I found myself in Las Vegas.

A side note: both times, my trips to Vegas have been for Ragan/PRSA social media conferences and they have both been amazing. These haven't been two days of listening to presenters pat themselves on their backs about what a great job they're doing. These have been real-time forums and discussions of using social channels as communications tools. I cannot recommend them enough.

Anyhow, back to the story...

I kind of hate Las Vegas.

I am all for societies having their places of ill-repute. I just always thought Los Angeles fit that bill nicely. I challenge any group of frat boys to have a bachelor party in Los Angeles that doesn't go as well as one in Las Vegas. Hell, minus the gambling, it might go better in LA.

And therein lies my first issue with Vegas: the assumption that you are up to no good. Usually, I go to conferences and it's easy to network and meet people. In Vegas, if I start talking to a woman, chances are, she wonders what my agenda is. Vegas makes people assume the worst. So, as a very social person, Vegas puts me at unease. I want to be myself, but any time the social norm is to put anyone through a lens of "this guy wants to hook up," it's tough to talk to people.

Fortunately on this latest trip I 1) met a few people who were honest enough to avoid the trouble of assumed innuendo so we could simply hang out worry-free and 2) ran into my old boss and spent time hanging out with her.

But even hanging out is an ordeal in Vegas.

Whoever designs casinos... those people are smarter than you and me. They are designed to separate you from your money one way or another. And it's brilliant. You don't want to gamble? Fine, head over to the bar over there. Or that other bar. Or the other other bar. Or get some food. Or, hey, why not go shopping?

This weekend, I will be alone in Seattle and I will likely choose to do something outdoors. I'm not counting skiing. I mean, I might go take a walk on the water or sit in a coffee shop and read or any number of "I just want to be low-key and cheap" activities.

Such things do not exist in Vegas. If you are not out and about, you are in your hotel room, thinking you really should be out and about. The irony is there is some beautiful stuff around Vegas. Mt. Charleston. The Grand Canyon. Hoover Dam. These are stone's-throw places that are worth seeing. But despite the proximity, you don't see ads for those. You see ads for Cher's nightly show.

I realize not everyone has world-class restaurants at their fingertips. I get the allure to some of gambling (though it amazes me how people flock to the games the casino has a huge advantage on you. Try craps, people.). And yes, if you are some sort of repressed person, Vegas offers the perfect excuse to act out in discarding your inhibitions, I suppose. So yes... I get why people go there.

But for me, I see nothing that would get me on a plane there except for another conference. Or as a cheap place to fly to go to the Grand Canyon.

Kindling support for your local library...

2011-01-21T15:40:00.000-08:00

Was speaking to my lovely wife today. As you likely know, we each love our Kindles. Sarah has been a bit flummoxed as to why Kindle seems to be the holdout when it comes to library books being available on the #1 e-reader device. After all, the Nook handles formats that most public libraries have adopted.

The answer, to be sure, is why should Amazon encourage you to get loaner books for free when it's making enough money off e-book sales to offset the loss it takes on Kindles themselves (though, I read that the margin on Kindles may be improving)? From a business standpoint, that doesn't make much sense. Especially when market share is in your favor without offering support for the file formats libraries prefer.

That said, I have a solution that I hope people smarter than me are already considering.

It would look like this:

Amazon and your local public library enter a contract where Amazon delivers content, likely segments of books at a time, for free to library members. The library would have to do zero "shelf stocking" here... library members get instant access to any book Amazon sells for Kindle.
Halfway through your free book, you hit an optional pay wall that would basically say "If you're enjoying this, why not buy it and have it forever. We normally sell this book for $9.99. We'll let you have it now for $7.99."
If you choose to buy, though, the library in your hometown gets $2 of the purchase price.

Think about this... in 2009, the Seattle Public Library checked out nearly 4 million adult books (not that kind of "adult book," you gutter-mind...). Let's imagine five percent of those hit the hypothetical pay wall above and purchased. That's $400,000 to the library, or nearly all of its budget for "materials" in 2009.

With local and national government spending cuts all but guaranteed in coming months, public libraries are going to be facing shortfalls. I suggest a model like this be tested.

Because as much as I like to read, it's tough for me to turn down a cheap good book that, if I purchase, helps give a little bit of funding to my local library to help as they plan community programs.

Win

2011-01-09T17:04:00.000-08:00

I've been holding off on this blog for several months in order to distance myself from when the events happened. This is mainly to keep the confidentiality of all involved... the conversation that inspired this post was over drinks in friendly conversation. But, especially after reading the reactions to yesterday's shooting of a congresswoman in Arizona, I think it's time.

During my travels in 2010, I found myself in a chat with some friends, one of whom is something of a big shot on the staff of a high-profile politician (you've likely heard of this politician). Names, locations, party affiliation... even the level of government isn't important, because I'm pretty sure what this person told me applies to everyone running for office above your local town council.

This person is interesting... has worked on various national/local campaigns and has, somehow, been in the middle of some very interesting political events. In all posts, this person has been successful.

But what this person said reinforced something I had been concerned about, but was perhaps too idealistic to believe: the simple goal for politicians, I was told, is to win. Not to save the whales, lower your taxes. Win.

Winning brings prestige to an individual. Dollars to municipalities (and, indirectly via book deals and speaking engagements, to the politician). This all makes sense and would be fine if coupled with a genuine effort to help the people.

What is troubling is that this person told me the entire platform of the candidate's recent campaign wasn't based on what was best for the people... it was based on what the people would pull a lever for in the short term. Long-term, holistic goals don't get votes, this person told me. An example was this year's anti-Washington, anti-tax sentiment among a major group of voters. While a larger discussion of our economy might be needed, this person instead helped craft a platform that matched those flash-point messages... and found ways to paint the opponent as the polar opposite.

I admitted this was good campaign strategy, but I expressed that I felt that sort of platform was counterproductive to a sustainable economy in the long term. I mean, someone has to pay for roads and schools, right?

The person conceded the point that the current rhetoric is absolutely counterproductive to long-term economic health, but that I was missing the point. The goal isn't to fix the big problems... the goal is for the candidate to win. Voters wanted to hear the popular messaging rather than get into any sort of real discussion about the long term.

Bottom line, this person's candidate won in the election. Goal achieved.

So here we are, mired in debate about the right way forward in our country. Perhaps, the "vitriol" of that debate has led to a congresswoman shot in the head.

But if the goal isn't to move the country one way or the other, but instead to win elections, the joke is on us. We get worked up... for what?

To me, this just underscores the idea of needing a well-educated electorate. An accountable electorate. One that thinks to the long term in the balance with the short term and takes the time to really see through the consequences of pieces of legislation.

As long as politicians are able to win based on the moods of the population at a given moment in time instead of thought-out policy, there will be no change, on either side of the aisle.

My Year in Travel

2010-12-12T12:41:00.000-08:00

For all I talk about travel, let's look back at the year that was. Also, everything below is for calendar year 2010, but doesn't include flights to/from Portland this coming week and jetting off to Ireland on Dec. 30.

Total flights: 73 of which 52 were on Star Alliance carriers
Total miles: About 82,600
Places I went for the first time (a sampling): Paris, Warsaw, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Nashville, Eureka, Redmond, Ore., Salt Lake City, Kayenta, Ariz.

Favorite airport: Seattle-Tacoma (SEA)
I love any airport with a central terminal where all concourses are easy to get to. My new home airport qualifies, but it also has some local eating options and is mass-transit accessible. Takeoffs and landings are great because you either buzz the Seattle skyline or Mt. Rainier. And, of course, there's nothing like landing at home.

Least Favorite Airport: Paris-Charles DeGaulle (CDG)
What a god-awful mess. The interior architecture is pretty in parts of terminal 2F, which is where the good parts of this airport end. Hugely, sprawling, heaven help you if you need to make a connection on a short turn. The fact that they bus you from your gate to your plane for most intra-EU flights means you need to be at your gate much farther ahead than normal. In fairness, the in-airport helpers are extremely friendly and have a great grasp of English. But, flying through here twice was enough.

Pet Peeve of the Year: Southwest Fanboys
They are the Apple enthusiasts of the air. They speak with a superior air about them, but few truly understand the economics of the airline industry. They love telling everyone how they only fly Southwest. This despite the fact that, often, Southwest isn't the cheapest option. If they were, they'd list their fares on Orbitz, Expedia and the like. They love to talk about how Southwest "has no extra fees," but fail to mention Southwest's "early-bird check in" fee, which is nearly mandatory if you are carrying on bags. They also fail to mention Southwest's terrible record compared to other airlines when it comes to losing baggage. Southwest's marketing program has been brilliant in that they've convinced a nation of occasional flyers that it's better on Southwest. They do an OK job, but they are not that much better than "legacy" carriers. But the "fanboys" won't hear it...

In-Air Trend of the Year: E-Readers
It started after Christmas last year and I can only imagine how it's going to be after this holiday season. Everyone has a e-reader. I would say mainly the Kindle from my unscientific observations. After that, the iPad, though I do find it amusing to watch someone with a bulky iPad try to do anything on the tablet and take a sip of their drink in the cramped quarters of the fuselage. Regardless, they're the item of choice. Smaller than a traditional book, means it's much easier to carry in already-packed carry-on bags. I can say for sure having one changed the way I enjoy my flights.

Surprised-That-Works-So-Well of the Year: Smartphone Boarding Passes
It doesn't seem like it should work, having a boarding pass on a cell phone. But yet, it does. I always try to check in prior to getting to the airport, but sometimes, it's not possible. Now... I can check in from the rental car shuttle bus if I'm on certain airlines. And despite the troubles people have with security lines, somehow, mobile boarding passes have seemed to work pretty well.

Overhype of the Year: Body Scanners
See all those flights up there? You know how many times I was body-scanned? Once. Whoop. Dee. Doo. The one time I was (at the Oakland, CA airport) it was really not a big deal. The person who gets to the see the scan isn't even visible to the person being scanned. And, despite the whole "they're going to see me naked" talk, unless the person looking at the screen gets off on grainy, black and white, low res, not-at-all-sexy-and-detailed images, it's pretty innocuous. Beats a pat-down, for sure. I still think this is overkill... airport security has done nothing to provide a marked difference in the security of our airlines since 9/11... banning knives and things may have. Cockpit doors locking from inside certainly have. I think we should go back to the old system, but, in the meantime, you people want to feel safe. And now the terrorists make underwear bombs. You get what you want, then... body scanners. But really? No big deal.

Best Food on the Road: The Malt Shop, Pagosa Springs, Colo.
This is it:Just sitting there on the north side of US 160 in a town the better part of an hour east of Durango. Was told to stop here by a friend in Santa Fe. And it was absolutely worth it. The hamburger was tremendous. The cross-cut fries, a la Chik-Fil-A, were great. And the milkshake... oh, the milkshake. This was not the healthiest lunch I had during my travels. But it was my favorite.

Favorite Things I Saw

The Petroglyphs in Mesa Verde National Park - A mile down from the Spruce Tree House cliff dwelling, native peoples has etched a story into a sandstone wall. Crazy to see a handprint, knowing hundreds of years ago, someone who lived in one of those cliff dwellings had placed that hand there. It honestly felt like it must to stand on the moon and see one of the astronauts' footprints: a perfectly preserved part of the past in it's natural place.

Paris - If you've been there, you know what I mean. There is no city that looks like it. There are sounds that are unique to the city. Just a cool place.

The High Desert - Driving on the Mt. Hood Highway in Oregon, you pass Mt. Hood and begin descending a bit... and suddenly you go from dense pine forest... to high desert canyon country. It's almost an instantaneous switch. Lush to barren. But still beautiful. For an eastern boy like me, I wasn't aware you could go from one sort of climate and flora in the blink of an eye. But you can.

Here's to what 2011 brings!

My 2010 Pop Culture Moments

2010-12-08T21:17:00.000-08:00

Now that I've done mt top 10 albums, some other year-end retrospectives on the way. The last one will be an indulgent bit of self-reflection. This, however, isn't the last one.

This is the year in pop culture! So... let's get to it!

Favorite movie
There are still plenty of Oscar-worthy films to see but, my movie-going 2010 is just about over. And my pick is for Inception. It may not win the big awards, though it should win some, but here was a movie that I didn't need to wear silly 3-D glasses to enjoy. A great concept, well-executed, buy a fantastic cast. Had no idea where it was going to end up. It felt fresh and didn't make me think as hard as Mission Impossible did all those years ago despite a much more complicated concept.

Disturbing trend of the year
Glee glorification. Seriously, this needs to stop. Rarely did anyone ever think a cover of an original song was superior to the original. Now, every week, someone in my Twitter feed has to tell me that some song from Glee is so much better than the original. I actually heard someone say they couldn't wait for a song to hit Glee so they could buy it. Think about that. That's like saying "Man, I cannot WAIT for someone to photocopy that Monet so I can frame it in my home." Also, someone seems to think the writing on the show is amazing. A lot of someones. Many of them writers. This is even worse because I would expect anyone who saw a single episode of Mad Men could gather that good TV writing isn't ridiculous dialogue to fill time between songs. If you love Glee, that's great, but be aware you are watching a show that is basically a scripted American Idol that gives guaranteed revenue. That is why this show exists.

Best ad of the year
To me, it takes a lot to unseat "The Most Interesting Man Alive" by Dos Equis. But... it has been done. Thank you, Geico:

Greatest sports moment of the year
You might think my high point would be getting to see the Yankees four times, including once in the new Stadium, would be the easy choice. Or perhaps watching Sidney Crosby win it for Canada in the Olympic on home ice. Maybe the schadenfreude of watching NC Tar Heels fans realize that - gasp - they might not win every game every year (the horror!). You would be wrong.

It's the Sounders. And I have never seen anything like it anywhere. The crowd is simply... astonishing. And Qwest Field is loud. Louder than they make it sound on TV. I went to three games. At each one, the lower level of the stadium didn't sit. They chant. They sing. And - this is the best part - Vancouver and Portland enter MLS next year. Each city already has fans for its teams that are equally rowdy. MLS actually has to change rules about ticket allocations for visiting fans because the "Cascadia" teams have fan bases that will travel to each of the other cities in the Pacific Northwest to cheer. I hear you... you're going on an on about how it's nothing like an SEC football game or whatever. These clips do not do it justice, but this is what it's like... but for every moment of every game:

Favorite gadget
If you know me, you can just guess: My Kindle. Simply put, it is one of my favorite things ever. It is light. It travels easy. Books are cheap. I can read it for hours. I can hold it in one hand and a drink in another. I hear a lot of folks complaining it's not in color. The funny thing is most books I read are black text on white pages, so it hasn't been an issue. I guess these people read different things than I do. But I guess the best way to put it is this... I use it as much, if not more, than when I first got it. Rare is the fun electronic gadget that you use more as time goes on.

Ridiculousness of the year
This whole controversy over the TSA, pat-down searches and the like. There are so many angles of ridiculous to take on this, but let's talk about the one that really shows how out of hand this is: the core issue for airport security. No one is talking about this. They talk about violations of privacy, long lines and annoyance. No one has raised a hand to ask just what 10 years of TSA security has done to protect us. I'd like to know. Specifically, I'd like to know why it's safer the way we have it now than it was prior to 9/11. Before 9/11, you still had to go through security at an airport. Granted, anyone could walk in... but, shouldn't going through security, you know, make things secure? From what I can gather, all the new measures we're taking is inspiring innovation among terrorists. Underwear bombs? Look, in 1999, if you had a bomb, you tossed it in your suitcase. And we knew that. So we knew to search suitcases! Now? Who knows where to look?! I'm all for securing our airways, but the simple fact is this: In more than 30 years, no US-based airline has had a domestic flight hijacked... except on one day when there were four. If I told you I could give you a security system that would work every day over the course of 30 years, except for maybe one day, would you think that sounded good? I bet you would. Well.. the old system did that. Bu no one dares ask.

Favorite concert
Moving to Seattle greatly improved my music options (sorry Charlotte. Facts is facts.). I managed to see The Dandy Warhols twice this year. I saw the Avett Brothers. I saw Arcade Fire. The concert that sticks out? Bumbershoot. I blogged all about it in September. Everything I wrote there still applies.

Looking forward to a great 2011!

The 10 Best Albums of 2010

2010-12-04T18:28:00.000-08:00

This blog has been updated less this year than last. Chalk it up to being busy. Truth be told, even when I have more time, I don't always have a topic ready to go. The one topic that I know will come every year, though? The 10 best albums of the year.

The usual disclaimers apply. This is me ranking the music I managed to hear. We're not made of money and time here. The way I see it, if it was worth hearing, I'd have heard about it from someone at some point. So, sure, there may be an amazing album not on here. But an amazing album unheard probably doesn't make it rank among the best.

I do listen to a lot of music. And to prove I'm not nuts, every pick here has a "second opinion" by someone who actually gets paid to listen to and discuss music. Let's begin, no?

2010 was a far better year for tunes than 2009. Many of last year's picks wouldn't have ranked with this year's crop, though looking back, I do still listen to most of last year's top 10. There were several "near misses" of this list, where last year I felt like I was pulling at straws. So, which missed?

Morning Benders - Big Echo

This was a nice album with some real gems (especially "All Day Day Light"), but... a 10-song album shouldn't feel so long, right? Still, a good disc.

Surfer Blood - Astro Coast

I had no idea South Florida had a real indie rock scene to speak of. Shows what I know. And thank the lord that someone out there decided they could just go out and make a guitar rock record. A refreshing disc that came out just as the new year hit.

Guster - Easy Wonderful

I guess we're talking about a band that hasn't put out anything less than amazing since I was heading into college. Songs like "On the Ocean" are just this band at it's absolute best. This one is a completely easy listen, but it seems to lack some of the emotional richness of the past several Guster albums. It is certainly missing even backing vocals by the rich-toned Adam Gardner. I, for one, missed those.

Local Natives - Gorilla Manor

I know so many people in love with this album. And it is very good. Yet, every time I listen to it - and this is not a fair comparison - I just want to hear new Fleet Foxes material (and, while their new disc is coming soon... anyone else amazed at how good that stuff still sounds?). Still, will be watching these guys.

Now, for the ones that did make the list:

10) Sleigh Bells - Treats

Second Opinion: Pitchfork

This one I almost left off. For me, this album was like one of those girlfriends from my early 20s: came out when I wasn't looking, was really intense and we spent every moment together... and then it fizzled out. And then months later when I ran back into her, it was nice to say hello, but everyone knows where the others' flaws are. That's this album. The high points are very high indeed... the opening stomp "Tell 'Em" and the makes-me-want-to-fight "Kids." But man, getting from there to the amazing "Rill Rill" gets old fast. The album closes strong, but there needed to be more variety in the tweaks and zaps. But, as music that is a step-ahead goes, it's in there for the listening.

9) Ra Ra Riot - The Orchard

Second Opinion: Pop Matters

The primary complaint I see on this disc is that it's not as good as the group's debut. That may be true, but 2008's The Rhumb Line was insanely good. Not hitting that bar of flat-out-incredible and still making a fantastic album doesn't mean you've failed (looking at you Pitchfork...). "Boy" and "Shadowcasting" are the clear standouts, but all tracks click well. "Too Dramatic" isn't, "You and I Know" makes me wish I was in the conversation and fine if the last two tracks don't deliver the same knockout punch of the first album. Whatever. What sealed this opinion up was Ra Ra Riot's tremendous Bumbershoot set where they managed to upstage the Space Needle looming just behind them. A broken drum early in the going would've ended many bands' sets. Instead, the band took to the drum-less title track of this album - which they admitted they hadn't rehearsed - and nailed it.

8) Vampire Weekend - Contra

Second opinion: The Guardian

This band, which, incidentally, sounds nothing like Ra Ra Riot, seemed to take a few cues from the combination of both bands - last year's Discovery. VW may not sound exactly like their self-described upper-west-side-Soweto anymore, but the energy remains. One of the easiest-to-listen to discs of the year, every song feels pretty effortless and occasionally remarkable. I'm not entirely sure what Exra Koenig is getting at in "Cousins" but whatever time he's planning on having, it's probably best if my teenage cousins don't attend. Despite the pearls-n-polo crap this band must put up with, here's hoping we see a third disc on this list in 2012.

7) Cee Lo Green - The Lady Killer

Second opinion: Entertainment Weekly

There is no one like Cee Lo in music. The Goodie Mob singer. The dark side of Gnarls Barkley. And now this. Everyone knows "Fuck You" - and thank heavens for that. Hope every person who ever balked at buying every last dinner for a girl he was dating feels somewhat vindicated for penny-pinching. Still, for an album with a marquee song, you could leave off Cee Lo's kiss-off to the golddiggers and still have a strong album. "Bright Lights Bigger City" just pounds its way into your skull, "Wildflower" is the man at his falsetto-y best and incase the mood gets too light, "Bodies" is there to remind us the "Cee" in the name might as well be for "cerebral." Great disc from a singer that is hopefully reaping rewards for nearly a decade of not-missing.

6) Broken Bells - Broken Bells

Second opinion: Rolling Stone

While Cee Lo was on his own, his Gnarls Barkley sidekick Danger Mouse paired up with Shins singer James Mercer and did what seemingly any Danger Mouse vehicle does: kick ass. Although, this kicks ass in a bit more calm manner than much of Gnarls' work. For instance, where in the world did "Your Head is on Fire" come from? And can I take it on as a second wife? Orchestration like this gets so many acts in trouble one way or another... and here we are, months after release, and it gives me chills. By the time I've recovered, "Trap Doors" is on and I'm a mess again. Honestly, the fact that this is #6 shows what a great year this was. Last year, it would've been top 3.

5) The National - High Violet

Second opinion: Pitchfork

I don't know what happened to Matt Berninger, the lead singer of this Brooklyn-by-way-of-Cincinnati outfit. But when he sings "I never thought about love when I thought about home" on "Bloodbuzz Ohio," I'm guessing his trips back to the Queen City aren't always filled with laughs. This disc shimmers through the pain, though. "Sorrow" might be one of the best songs of the year on any album, anywhere. This band does simple extremely well and hardly is it showcased better than on that sparse track. As the tension builds and Berninger sings "I don't want to get over you" - who hasn't been there? - a simple, but oh-so-amazing choral chord comes in. How such a seemingly-minor addition can make the song so relatable, I don't know. But The National knows how to do it.

4) Belle & Sebastian - Write About Love

Second Opinion: BBC

"I Didn't See it Coming" is the name of the first track. And I didn't. But it's brilliant and wonderful and so many superlatives that we could do an entire blog about it. And the album takes off. It's an album where you can point out greta moments throughout: the tremendous melodic bridge on "Calculating Bimbo," the raucous "I'm Not Living in the Real World" and the Norah Jones duet of "Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John." All amazing. And we get to find out that Caery Mulligan is just as adorable in audio as she is on screen in the listen-over-and-over title track. B&S have plenty of struggles with faith and love on here... I hope they resolve them one day. But not at the expense of their music.

3) Gorillaz - Plastic Beach

Second opinion: Slant

There's a moment, maybe just shy of a minute into "Rhinestone Eyes" - the first track on the disc sung by mad-genius Damon Albarn - where you realize it: Gorillaz is for real. Yeah, the first album and catchy singles was creative, but in that cute kind of way. The second disc, more earnest in presentation, still had that side-project feel to things. It was good stuff, but nothing Handsome Boy Modeling School hadn't pushed a bit further (albeit on the hip-hop side). No more. Gorillaz is legit and killing it. A complete album end-to-end, Plastic Beach rounds up the right talent (and when you say that and mean Snoop Dogg is the lower end of the depth chart, it's saying something) and the right sounds to make a deft album that pokes a little at our current world (more on that in a sec). "Melancholy Hill" seems to sum it up best, but few should even think about skipping any of the nine tracks leading up to it.

2) Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

Second Opinion: Spin

My. Dear. Lord. How wonderful is it to have high expectations for a band and not only have them met, but exceeded? The best rock record of the year is also the best Arcade Fire album. I just looked at the track list to pick some standouts... and failed miserably. How does one track stand out when they ALL stand out? So let's dig in: this is your world. How do you handle it? If you listen to Win Butler's take, you lament it. It's a cold world, where everyone gets teir news their own ways and needs it rightflippingnoworelse. Those that aim to step out into the open may be celebrated, but people immediately take swipes. On the incredible "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)" Regine Chassagne opens with the telling line, "They heard me singing and told me to stop... quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock." That pretty much sums it up, adding the the view from on high is one where "shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains and there's no end in sight." A bland, corporate existence that has swept away the unique flavors... when differences weren't always accepted but still celebrated by the natives. The musicianship throughout is exceptional, up to the task of tackling the tough themes throughout. On "We Used to Wait," Butler looks at a society where the only time is now. Regine takes the reins again on "Empty Room" shouting out "When I'm by myself I can be myself!" In a time where everything looks the same, yet people break each other down into solely right and wrong, right and left and any number of dichotomies, The Suburbs could turn into a time capsule. And if it doesn't, it will always be amazing music.

1) Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Second opinion: Pitchfork

Kanye West's response to that sort of world? Live it the hell up, and cling to what you can count on. "No more drugs for me, pussy and religion is all I need," he chants on "Hell of a Life" to the tune of "Iron Man." And that song is likely the most simple on here. Say what you want about Kanye. Love him. Hate him. You cannot judge his music as anything but far beyond what anyone in any genre is doing. He takes insane risks. And pulls every one of them off. The end of "Blame Game" tells us in the most profane possible manner that "Yeezy taught me." So what has Yeezy taught us on his fifth album? That Nicki Minaj might actually be the "Monster" the song gets its title from. That he can take a Trent Reznor-style set of samples and tweaks and make the darkest piece of beautiful hip-hop that may have ever graced an iPod on "So Appalled." That he lacks no dance floor power on "All Of the Lights." That he knows what you think of him on "Runaway." And that he just doesn't give a damn that you do most of the time. The sampling, the lyrics, the orchestration... it's not only more creative than any other hip-hop artists, it's better than anyone else. Insecurity often manifests itself into tremendously creative art. Kanye said himself all those albums ago "we all insecure, I'm just the first to admit it." I'm not going to say Kanye is insane, but the man could probably use therapy. But I will say he treads a fine line... and damn if he doesn't make it work for him. This album is something that should make us stand back and stop. A gifted artist with plenty of personality quirks, but who is turning out music that no one else can pull off. Or even come close to. These songs challenge us. To get into his head and understand. To get past the televised foibles. To go beyond labeling Kanye as a rapper. And like Rolling Stone asked a few years ago in reviewing a different Kanye album, are you being arrogant if you're simply stating how good you really are?

2010's Sounds of the Season

2010-11-26T15:28:00.000-08:00

Every year, as detailed last year, I put together a mix of holiday songs by rock bands. Let's face it, most holiday music lacks. If I'm going to have some holiday music in my home, I want it to be music I would invite in and offer a drink. But any scan of the usual holiday selections doesn't fit the bill.

As a household that heartily celebrates Chrismukkah, I always try to mix it up. Christmas songs are easy to find. I try to supplement that with some general winter songs (not hard) and some Hanukkah songs. That is becoming a challenge.

First of all, the idea here is to find bands people have heard of for the mix. There are plenty of Hanukkah rock songs, but many are by bands who no one knows. Also, and I'm allowed to say this because I'm Jewish... one would think with all the Levines and Schwartzs running around record label offices, we might have a decent new Hanukkah song every now and then. One would be wrong.

But I digress...

Anyhow, after trolling iTunes and other venues, here are this year's selections:

1) Weezer - We Wish You a Merry Christmas
2) Jet - Back Door Santa
3) The Killers - Happy Birthday Guadalupe
4) Huffamoose - Hanukkah and Christmas Hand in Hand
5) U2 - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
6) Sarah McLachlan - Happy Xmas (War is Over)
7) Pete Yorn - Do They Know It's Christmas
8) Collective Soul - Blue Christmas
9) Julian Casablancas - I Wish It Was Christmas Today
10) Band of Horses - The First Song
11) Jack Johnson - Someday at Christmas
12) R.E.M. - Merry Xmas Everybody
13) Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Christmas All Over Again
14) Belle and Sebastian - O Come, O Come Emmanuel
15) Tori Amos - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
16) Billy Mack (aka Bill Nighy) - Christmas is All Around

The country leans right. No, I mean geographically.

2010-11-03T18:50:00.000-07:00

Ever have something you don't believe in until you see it? I mean something you absolutely deny exists until it's handed to you on a platter?

I always thought the "East Coast Bias" was a myth.

It's not.

By the time I had dinner last night, the news stories I was seeing linked to on Twitter (I didn't watch any TV coverage of the election as I don't want to support the blowhard pundits on either side) were speaking in broad strokes about the election results and what great changes were upon us and blah blah blah and...

...polls were still open here. And in Oregon. And in California. And in Colorado. And in Nevada...

It warrants pointing out that democrats won Senate seats (or appear to have) in all of those states. Some of them heavily contested. But the news was all over the results on the East Coast first and painting trends in broad brushstrokes. I imagine someone on TV, at some point, had some throwaway line about "Well, we'll see what's going to happen out west," before launching into another 22-minute yelling-fest that didn't even take the west into account.

I wonder what the narrative would've been if the night had opened with western polls closing first and the string of democrat wins? I'd like to say things would have been more reserved, but I doubt it. Years of watching TV has me convinced it would have been written off as "those left coast liberals," likely uttered by someone who maybe once traveled to LA or something.

Sports, too. In July, I attended a San Francisco Giants game this year. The Giants were 1) in second place, trying to find their way and 2) playing on a COLD night where vendors walked around with hot chocolate and people were wrapped in blankets. IN JULY. On a Wednesday night.

I tell you I have never been to a rowdier regular season baseball game. It was packed. The fans were into the game all night from the opening pitch to the last.

And yet, as the baseball playoffs dawned, I had to hear reports about how San Fran "isn't all that great of a baseball town."

Perhaps if a few of these sports experts in places like Florida wanted to stay up past their bedtimes, they might know better.

These are just two examples, but I could go on. There are examples in news and sports almost daily.

I'm not saying this is all bad. After all, while TV lines up sports to air to meet that big east coast audience, I get to watch the end of the "late" game and go have dinner. And, to the election, while everyone was all atwitter (fine, pun intended...) about the election, I was able to sit and look at a larger view and be much more calm about things.

It's just funny that after years of denying there was such a thing as a bias toward the east coast, it has taken less than a year out here to see how much it really exists.

Time of the Season

2010-10-30T18:35:00.001-07:00

Fall has long been my favorite time of year. I love all seasons, but there's something about fall... maybe the invigorating crisp air. Maybe the sound of the band playing in the background during college football games. Maybe it's just the leaves turning.

I'm extra excited this year because, for the first time since departing New York City in 2005, I have a real fall to enjoy. After five years of wondering if I need to put shorts on for Thanksgiving dinner in North Carolina, the weather in Seattle is gloriously stereotypical fall. The leaves are turning, I can see my breath the moment the sun goes away. Fall isn't a group of decorations here. I've already worn several sweaters this fall. Amazing.

I think one reason I love the season, though, is the smells. This happens outside with the cool air, the wet fallen leaves and the like. But inside, especially in our home, is where things go to another level.

My wife is a fantastic cook and this time of year means soups and stews that just don't seem to be in place in the summer. But I'll let her blog about that if she chooses.

Me? I bake. For all the football watching and carrying on, I spend a good chunk of every weekend with a Kitchen-Aid mixer and my hands covered in some manner of flour. This started when I was about two years old and mom would bake cookies. Tell me there's something more exciting for a child of that age than cookies.

After years of watching her bake, I started doing my own. You'd be surprised how baking something in a college dorm can get you a crowd. Or the reaction making a girlfriend in New York her own birthday cake can get you. Mothers, teach your sons to bake... but I digress...

Anyhow, fall is probably my favorite time of year to bake. Because you really have the full battery of ingredients at your service. Plus, the smells of spices in things just, you know, work well for this season.

The fun started here a few weeks ago when Sarah whipped up the first batch of pumpkin bread. I followed suit with "Harvest Pumpkin Bars" from King Arthur Flour's compendium. Google them now if you aren't familiar. King Arthur cookbooks are great not only for recipes, but also for the chemistry of baking. Read up and you find their recipes very easy to tweak to your own tastes. One of those tweaks, swapping a fraction of regular white flour with whole wheat flour, is something I do all year, but fall recipes are extremely well-suited to the swap. The usual effect of using some whole wheat is a darker color. Fall baking products are already dark.

This month has featured spice sugar cookies and, just now, I whipped up a batch of molasses cookies. Gingerbread, possibly my seasonal favorite, will be coming along soon enough.

I may one day, years from now, choose to open a bakery somewhere. Wherever it is, it will be in a place with a real fall season. I could say this is because people want these recipes in the fall, but I have to admit, it's totally selfish. I love this time of year and the foods that come with it.

Making Things Whole

2010-10-24T19:01:00.000-07:00

Several months ago, I wrote about the kinds of food we eat. Here we are in the waning days of October and I am proud to say six months later that Sarah and I made some changes... and observed some things along the way.

Essentially, we decided that when cooking at home, we'd try to use whole foods as much as possible. The lower case whole foods, meaning foods that haven't been refined/processed as much as possible. We said we'd start one meal at a time. So breakfast is where things start.

This turned out to be easy. It mainly involved ditching the store-bought cereals with all manner of additives, preservatives and other stuff that I cannot pronounce and, once a week, making our own oat-based granola cereal using unrefined ingredients. I was already baking my own bread, so shifting to whole wheat bread was a snap. For two people who enjoy baking and cooking, none of this seemed like a chore. And mt breakfast didn't really change. I always have cereal and toast. On weekends, we were also easily able to make the transition. Oatmeal? Already a whole food. Pancakes? Easy to whip up with unprocessed ingredients.

We've since extended this into dinner, which, truth be told, we were already pretty close to going unprocessed anyway. The full switch required tweaking a few ingredients. Lunch became easy, too. Leftovers from dinner passed the bill and when I come home, sandwiches made with our homemade bread, fresh cheese, farmers market-purchased produce... this was a snap!

I should note that I'm not being a total Nazi about this... unbleached white flour still gets used here and there. Many of my baking recipes won't work with an equal substitution of whole wheat flour, for instance. Yet, I've found a way to incorporate some of the "good" flour without hurting the quality of the crumb and the taste of my wares. But, I am using butter and not margarine. I'm making sure my ingredients are the real stuff.

As for eating out... seriously, how sad would life be if I completely wrote off every processed item? Too many good meals to have. If I'm eating well at home, I'm several steps ahead of the game. It's like switching your outside lights to CFLs... it's a nice percentage of use you're affecting with your choice.

So, a funny thing happened in doing this: I'm full. I used to struggle to get to lunch every day in the office. I would feel hungry and restless. I kept snacks in a drawer. Now, I'm easily making it to lunch. After dinner, we're having something we've baked or homemade ice cream. We might have popcorn some nights, but eating is way down. Yet I am satisfied.

Also, it's finally forced me to eat more fruits and veggies. I can barely cope without my grapes at lunch now. And getting my fructose there instead of from... pretty much every supermarket processed food seems to work.

Sure, this makes our cupboards more boring. The Trader Joe's dunkers I couldn't stop eating? Gone in favor of homemade cookies that I can identify what went into them. Crackers? You'd be surprised the crap that's in "organic" mass marketed boxes of crackers. I found a brand that takes the chance that I might actually eat the crackers quickly so they don't add tons of weird preservatives. They have five ingredients: flour, salt, oil, water, spices. And I'm starting to experiment with making my own.

When we first talked about doing this, we thought it might be tough. I've been amazed at just how easy it has been. And, before you ask... I'm spending no more at the store than I used to.

The theory behind all this is that maybe it will lead to a healthier me down the line. And who knows... maybe I could be chowing down on Cheetos right now, gulping corn-syrup-loaded sodas and live to be 90. It could all go boom tomorrow and my diet won't matter.

But, I can take some solace in that I'm not turning a blind eye to what's in my food. I know what I eat. I generally know what my food has been through before coming to my plate. I can be accountable for it all.

The Pains of Enduring an NFL Broadcast

2010-09-22T20:53:00.001-07:00

Confession: I love the NFL. It's a perfect sport... a short season where every game is meaningful, where macho players sooner or later are felled by injury or failure, where nearly every game can turn on one great play.

The funny thing, though, is that football has become much better to watch at home than in the stadium. Seeing a game in person is always fun, but you're often surrounded by strange drunken louts. At home, you can be around drunken louts you know, which is always a better option. Plus, at home the food/beer is much cheaper and there's no traffic to fight.

Also: TV has football covered fantastically. Every camera angle in HD makes you feel like you've got a seat in every part of the stadium. And, with DVR, you can decide when you want a reply.

The problem, friends, is a great deal of the announcers just plain stink. I'm not talking about the loudmouth studio shows. It goes without saying those are a waste of your time. I mean what we have to endure during the games. Because, too often, it sounds like this:

That was a game from last year. In the first week. Now, granted, it was a cool play to end the game. But Gus Johnson makes it sound like he just conjured gold from thin air. His level of excitement in no way matches the context of the game. Nothing was at stake. In fact, the loser of this game (the Bengals) made the playoffs last year, despite the "amazing" play. The Broncos did not.

Now, let's see how it should be done. Bear in mind, what you have here is a radio call so more words are required by default:

That play happened in the SUPER BOWL. Where the Giants had a broken play (their QB was nearly sacked) on a long third down where, if they failed, with little time remaining, they would've likely lost the Super Bowl to the undefeated New England Patriots. Instead, David Tyree made a ridiculous catch that he barely held on to. Anyone watching the game who knew all the context was aware they may had just seen a play that could turn the entire game (it did. The Giants scored to win shortly after that catch) and possibly a play people would remember for years because it ended New England's "perfect season" (and that has come to be).

Marv Albert gets excited in that call, but only within the bounds of the moment's context. And he doesn't sound like a yelling idiot like Gus Johnson.

Anymore, announcers try to make themselves part of the game. It slays me. And good announcers (like Fox's Sam Rosen) get buried on lower tier games. It makes no sense.

In my mind, Pat Summerall, for all his alcoholic foibles, was the ideal football announcer. Low voice, reasonably monotone. His calls went like this: "Montana. Rice. Touchdown." That was the whole play. He let the game take center stage, the sound of the crowd booming into your living room. If Fox's Joe Buck were calling games in the 1980s the way he doe snow, the same play would be filled with whatever drama Buck wants to add on his own. He'd preface it with some hyperbole "And it looks like this is going to be it right here... one play." Then he'd get overly excited "Montana LOOKING DEEP... AND HE HAS RICE!!!!"

Yes, thanks, Joe. I can SEE that.

My dream? I want HBO to bid for Monday Night Football... take it away from ESPN. This won't happen, because HBO is too smart to spend a billion dollars to broadcast one football game each week. But in my mind's fantasy land, they do. The move game time to 8 p.m. Eastern. They go commercial-free to eliminate TV time outs. And they hire Marv Albert and pair him with Dan Dierdorf and they just call a nice and easy game.

But, alas. I'm stuck with loudmouths. There are beacons of hope... Mr. Rosen, Greg Gumbel and Dick Enberg still call a good game. Dick Stockton and Marv's son Kenny are pretty good.

Otherwise, it's a sea of loudmouths. Please make it stop.

About 9/11

2010-09-10T15:57:00.000-07:00

On Sept. 11, 2001, my train from Trenton, NJ to New York City was running early. I could barely believe it. I was in Penn Station around 8 a.m. and I walked into my office at 5th Ave. and 26th St. at about 8:20 a.m. When I crossed 6th Ave. on my walk, I did my usual look down the street, my only view of the Twin Towers from Manhattan every day. It was a beautiful day.

Sometime around 4 p.m., when my very-delayed train got back to Trenton, the board with the train schedule was flashing with an advisory that PATH service was suspended “due to fire at World Trade Center.” Oh, if it had only been a fire…

I can remember a lot of things about that day. I remember standing on 6th Ave. at about 9 a.m. with hundreds of others just staring in disbelief. I remember making a decision with my coworkers to leave the apartment we were in watching events unfold and walk to the Hudson River as there was nothing to blow up at the River. I remember someone announcing to a boat-full of passengers in Hoboken that anyone who was on board from below Canal St. had to go and be “decontaminated,” a term that meant get hit with hoses and handed a large towel to wrap around you for your train ride home.

In retrospect, what I remember more than anything was just being sad. And I mean everyone. I was sad. My friends and coworkers were sad. The Muslim woman standing in front of me on the train was sad. Because nothing like that had ever happened. Even watching the burning towers at 9 a.m., no one thought it would be the last time they saw the Twin Towers.

The funny thing… I don’t remember being angry. I certainly didn’t think we deserved to be attacked. But, apparently, lots of people were angry. Many of them from places far from New York. The same people who complain that New York thinks it’s the center of the world. As we hit the 9th anniversary of the attacks, the only thing I’m angry about is that the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation decided to pick the most drab plan to rebuilt as possible (I’m still partial to the THINK Design proposal…).

But apparently, “Ground Zero” has become hallowed land to people who probably would hate just about anything in New York a block away from the site. And, boy… people are angry. It’s to the point that people who have never had any interest in the City are trying to dictate a local zoning issue from afar.

In protesting the proposed Islamic community center, we have people getting involved in a local issue that they rail against when the federal government tries to do lesser things in their local communities. Hell, one guy wanted to burn Qur’ans unless he got a private phone call from the imam who is pushing the project.

I know that some New Yorkers are anti-mosque. But I cannot help but wonder where these people were on 9/11. Were they shut inside their Upper West Side condos, far from the bustle of the city on even a normal day? They certainly weren’t on my train where seemingly one of just about everyone was there. Where were these New Yorkers in the days after the attacks when the city’s transit hubs were papered with somber “missing” posters with pictures of people from every ethnic group possible who never made the trip home from their World Trade Center jobs that Tuesday.

Where were these people when the Sikhs, one of the most peaceful sects in the world, had to hand out glossy printed brochures at the entrance to Penn Station informing people they were NOT terrorists simply because they had brown skin and wore turbans (attacks or harassment against Sikhs had been popping up).

Imagine having to print a brochure to tell other Americans you’re really a nice guy and don’t want to kill them.

I guess these angry folks didn’t see any of that. But this 9/11, as I reflect, I also find myself sad yet again. Because 9/11 has been hijacked by people who, despite not being anywhere near a collapsed building or people covered in eerie white dust waiting in line for a boat, believe it is a tool to fuel American extremism. They believe this to the point that they want to exclude a group of Americans from doing something a few blocks away.

To me, if that aim is met, there will have been another act of extremist terrorism upon New York. Because Muslims died in those attacks. As did Jews. And Christians. So if we’re going to exclude any of those groups, then shouldn’t they all have to go?

A day outside... Bumbershoot 2010

2010-09-05T23:31:00.000-07:00

I had been pretty psyched all week for Bumbershoot. And, for once, it was something that lived up to the hype.

Now, I've been to my share of outdoor concert festivals. But this one was different. First, most don't take place around a well-known landmark. Bumbershoot is set up in the Seattle Center, which, to all of you from outside the Puget Sound area, means the Space Needle. From many of the event's stages, you have a full view of the Space Needle. Which is cool.

A few other things that make this unique:

Re-entry privileges. I watched two bands this afternoon (more on that in a bit), got my ticket and hand stamped, and went home. Where I ate my food and drank my beer. Granted, if I didn't live a stone's throw from the Seattle Center, I couldn't have done this, but it made a gigantic difference. Instead of spending a day on my feet eating overpriced greasy food, I was able to go home and sit on a real couch in between bands I wanted to see.

You can bring stuff in. Mainly water. Which, again, standing in a crowded field all day watching a band gets you thirsty. And I could bring in my water.

The "economy" ticket. For $50, you get a one-day ticket (it's a three-day festival) that grants you access to the Mainstage. Tonight, the mainstage was Rise Against, Hole and Weezer. I didn't want to see any of those bands. I wanted to see smaller bands on smaller stages. Bumbershoot allows this via an "economy" ticket. Brilliant.

So what did my economy ticket get me today? Here's the rundown:

Horse Feathers - Portland, OR-based four-piece. Violin, Cello, Guitar and Banjo. And they were outstanding. They have the "Fleet Foxes harmonies" going on. Elegant songs, though, I felt more suited to a cool evening than standing in the warm sun.

Hey Marseilles - Seattle-based I-don't-know-how-many-piece. They were a flipping army on stage. Strings, guitars, all kinds of drums. Horns. They were incredible. All kinds of layers to their songs. I'm definitely going to check out their album To Travels & Trunks.

Ra Ra Riot - I have had this Syracuse outfit on my "must-see" list since their first album and their latest, The Orchard, did nothing but enhance my desire to see them. Just amazing. So well rehearsed and so energetic. It was hard to pick a high point of their set, but there were several. A song from their first disc "Ghost Under Rocks" was intense as you might expect a song at least partially about the drowning death of a former band member to be. Songs like "Shadowcaster" from the new album were also excellent. Go see this band.

The Dandy Warhols - My fourth time seeing the Portland, OR masters. They never disappoint. They have such a deep catalog and they can put together a set for whatever crowd they need. With the larger festival crowd, they stuck to material that most people would know instead of some of their deeper tracks that you might get at a show they headline on their own. They were in great form, as always... just wish the rules of the show had let them play another hour!

A grand day... all for $22. Already looking forward to Bumbershoot 2011!

Complex

2010-09-03T15:38:00.000-07:00

No surprise here but in the six months I've had my Kindle, I hear the occasional argument of "Oh, well, I read real books," as though there is an intellectual preference to do so. You and I might both read Anna Karenina, in other words, but since you read a "real" book and I read it on my Kindle, somehow, your experience is superior to mine.

This sort of thing has to stop. Unless Tolstoy intended for you to be taken by the sheer weight of the volume (dear lord, it is a bit long, no?), who cares how you read it? And fine, you read a "real" book. Let me go find someone who read a "real" copy of the book. In Cyrillic. Then, where are you, huh?

The point is nowadays we all have different ways of consuming media. Is one so far superior to another?

This is hardly a new issue. I spent many a day in high school in ridiculous conversations that went like this:

Some guy: What are you listening to?

Me: Smashing Pumpkins.

Some guy: What album?

Me: Siamese Dream.

Some guy: Oh. I won't even listen to anything they did after Gish. That was when they were for real.

Dude, whatever. At least that's what I should have said at the time. Or "Gee, thanks for wowing me with your clearly superior taste in music and well-reasoned fandom of The Smashing Pumpkins."

I remember conversations where people were basically told they were some sort of lesser fan because they hadn't been there from some ambiguous point back-in-the-day.

Sports is the same way. The first question I get about half the time when I tell people I'm a Yankees fan is "since when?" They assume I'm just on the bandwagon. When I respond with "Long enough to have seen Mike Pagliarulo play in person," they seem to get the picture. But again, why the attempt to lessen my fandom?

Why do some people have a desire to be superior for some nebulous reason? I chalk it up to good old-fashioned American insecurity. Maybe it's some sort of carryover from the long trend of the "New World" trying to prove itself as culturally equal to Old World standbys. One would think years of literature, cultural influence and a few major wars would've taken care of that.

Yet here we are. Each of us trying to one-up someone else for some imaginary crown.

Insomnia everywhere

2010-07-31T14:26:00.000-07:00

Almost without fail, when I check Twitter at night, I see one of my friends noting that they cannot sleep. I've noticed it even more since moving to the west coast since when I'm lounging on the couch, my east coast friends are already in bed.

Or should be.

And it's not me seeing them make updates and then interpreting it as insomnia. These folks actually discuss how they have insomnia.

And I can't help but wonder... why?

You have to understand that my average night involves me fading quickly into sleep once the 11 o'clock hour hits. I sleep like crazy. I sleep through just about anything. My wife stays up far later than me, but I would stay up later, too, if I had her schedule. I'm up at 6:15 every morning. She gets at least two more hours of sleep. Bottom line, though... neither of us are struggling to get our 40 winks.

Many of our friends are, though.

I am neither a doctor, nor a psychologist. But I don't think you need to be one to know that the inability to fall asleep cannot be healthy. From a standpoint of pure disease prevention, I know that when I've had a series of early mornings for a week, I can start to feel my throat get sore. And then I sleep. And away it goes. I almost never get sick. And while I think a healthy lifestyle has something to do with this, it can't hurt that I sleep well.

And in my non-professional capacity, I cannot say for sure why my friends are unable to sleep. But, of course, I have two theories.

The first is simple... anxiety. The time in my life I couldn't sleep was years ago and related to a specific stressful situation. I tossed and turned. I would wake up with a sore jaw from grinding my teeth. And the remarkable thing was that as soon as the situation was resolved, I went back to sleeping normally.

Certainly there is a significant amount of societal anxiety right now. The economy is odd and it seems to be dawning on people that there may not be a simple solution to that issue. Many are under pressure at jobs. Many are likely seeing plans on hold due to their financial situations. I can understand that. But for these folks, I would hope they could find a way to find a contentedness with their lots for the time being. As one of my favorite fictional characters once said... "Get some rest. If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything."

The second theory I have is much more complicated and speaks more to our Gen Y culture's outlook than anything else. These people do too much. I could make a list of friends that spend their days at work, then the gym, then a class, then meeting friends, then doing 10 other things - performing, writing, teaching, speaking, you name it...

And I think when these folks start trying to do 10,000 different things, their minds never really relax. I have a ton on my mind about work every day. And a ton on my mind about life at home every day. And those are both two things I enjoy greatly. But I cannot imagine having something else on top of it.

Actually, I can... and when there is something else, I'm almost a mess. When we were preparing to move across the country I was extremely stressed out. And, certainly, I didn't sleep well. Why would I choose to get involved any any other pursuits that could do the same to me - something I would only be able to care too much about - voluntarily?

Yet, I see a ton of my friends doing this. There are folks I know who love their jobs, love their spouses... but spend hours of anxiety about something they took on themselves.

I'm not saying go to work, then go home. Each of us needs hobbies. But shouldn't the point of those be to de-stress? I love hiking. I bake. Now and then I sing. And I work hard at all of them, but not a one of those activities causes me an iota of anxiety about life.

I have friends who have taken on hobbies and pursuits that they claim to enjoy... but it's clear that they are giving themselves a whole new source of stress.

And I fear it could start to catch up with them.

Taking the stress out of air travel

2010-07-26T17:20:00.001-07:00

I spend a lot of time on the road. And this leads to any number moments where I complain about clueless travelers, crowded airports and other hilarity.

I realized I haven't relayed a lot of the things that can make your day of travel better... and maybe even help make those around you get where they're going more smoothly. I am hardly the be-all-end-all of travel advice, but I've found a few practical things to be very helpful.

Packing - I have no major packing tips. I stuff socks in my shoes. I fold, but I know that anywhere I go will have an iron. And when my trip involves multiple cities, I totally recycle a shirt. I'm not some slob that gets every shirt dirty every day. Big ground rule... if I think I might need something, I usually don't pack it. For example, I might need my swim trunks. I can think of exactly one business trip in my life where they've been used. Leave 'em. Hanging at the pool with coworkers can be done in any attire.

Check in the night before. This should go without saying. If you cannot, please don't look confounded by the check-in kiosks. You're gonna need to swipe a credit card. It won't charge you... I promise. You might need to know your confirmation number. Generally, if you have a smart phone of any description it's not so hard to simply put this next to the calendar entry for your flight.

Phone numbers - primarily your airline's number. Landed late and you know you missed your connection? Don't scramble around the airport like the world is ending. Call your airline as soon as you land. Which brings us to...

Be nice. I imagine every customer service rep has a bad day every day. But airline customer service reps have to deal with tears, rage, stupidity and more... every 10 minutes or so. Even the ones not getting yelled at are dealing with some guy who walks up to the gate counter every five minutes to ask if his upgrade came through. Smile. Tell the person helping you that you know it's not their personal fault your plans are screwed. I've had people bend over backwards to help me, just by being nice.

If you really want to get good customer service, know a little bit about the airline industry. You stuck in an airport loses the airline money whether they compensate with cash or not. They have to give you a seat they could otherwise sell. Provide them with solutions. A friend was sitting at JFK trying to fly south to Charlotte. Her flight kept getting delayed (mechanical reasons) and cancellation was looming. The airline, faced with having to rebook nearly 200 angry passengers was more than happy to switch her to a flight out of LaGuardia the same night when they were asked.

Store your smaller bag under the seat in front of you. Yeah, I know. Wouldn't it be great to have more legroom? If so, drive. You're on a plane. Do not put your purse up in the overhead when people have actual bags that can go there. When people put laptop bags and the like up top, other people stand around looking confounded... and that holds up the plane leaving on time. Also, once you're airborne, you can slide the bag out and place it under your knees... and discover all the legroom you wanted.

If at all possible, don't roll your suitcase down the aisle. Carry it the 40 feet to the jetway. Trust me.

Security - The TSA has a lot of rules. One of them is not wait until you're at the metal detector to take out your toiletries/take off your shoes. Have your things in accessible places and have them ready.

Book smart. What I mean is, if you have a choice of connection cities, it's almost always a smoother connection the farther west your connection is (note: does not apply to O'Hare). Up north, congested airports can mean any number of issues with making your connection... congestion of air traffic and weather are conspiring against you making the switch at Logan, Philly and any NYC airport. Airports like Charlotte, Denver, Houston, Phoenix, Salt Lake, Cleveland, Memphis, Minneapolis... these are massive, multi-runway airports that can handle incoming and outgoing planes in ways that antiquated airports in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast cannot.

Beyond these, I would advise any traveler to simply be patient. Millions of people fly every day. Moving millions of people around up in the sky is no easy task... especially if we want everyone to survive the trip.

Topless

2010-07-12T21:09:00.001-07:00

I drive a Camry. Probably will for a lot longer, too. You don't buy a Toyota because you want a four-year car. You buy a Toyota Camry because you want a reliable car. And you know, not only that, but my Camry is quiet. It has 6-cylinder giddyup in a 4-cylinder engine. It gets 600 miles to the damn tank at highway speed. The worst problem it ever had was needing a new battery.

You could say I am not one to go overboard about a car. And then I got to LAX last night.

I take whatever car Avis gives me on business trips unless it is an atrocity (looking at you PT Cruiser...). If asked, I prefer a car with satellite radio, sun roof and, if in the Northeast, EZPass.

Last night, at LAX, I had a convertible Sebring waiting for me. Tonight, I decided to see what that was really like.

After a looooong day of work throughout Southern California (picture filming, in the desert, in searing heat, in dress clothes and then still having to drive to LA), I met a friend for dinner downtown. A significant side effect of this dinner: rush hour traffic went away.

So, as I got my car from the parking deck, I knew the following and carefully took each into account:

I had a convertible
It was still light out
I had, in all likelihood, no traffic in front of me
I had 55 miles to drive

Folks. FOLKS. I hit the 60 freeway with the roof down and a damned smile. Let's face it. California wasn't built to be taken in by train or bus. It was built to be taken in at high speed, the silhouette of the San Gabriel Mountains framing the horizon as you zoom down the freeway.

It's funny. I love my quiet car. Driving a convertible at highway speed is not quiet. In fact, on a 10-lane freeway, it's loud. Cars passing are even louder.

But with XM satellite radio booming, who cares? They were even playing the songs I wanted to hear. It was the single planetary alignment of perfect driving conditions in the one place in the USA where, when driving conditions are perfect (read: the mess of Southern California freeways), it's flipping brilliant.

I basically had my own personal roller coaster for the better part of an hour.

And what's interesting: blind spots in a convertible suck. Until the top is down. Then you can see everything.

Last March, I made almost the identical drive from LA to Riverside at the height of rush hour. It was misery. I was in an unruly SUV in stacked up LA traffic the whole way to the Inland Empire (which is neither inland, nor an empire... discuss). Tonight, was the polar opposite.

Don't believe in karma? You clearly weren't in the passenger seat tonight.

Hiking Ira Springs Trail to Bandera Mountain

2010-07-05T18:18:00.000-07:00

Since moving to the Northwest, Sarah and I have been doing all we to explore out new neck of the woods. We're trying to explore all Seattle has to offer (and maybe at least learn whether Spring St. or Seneca St. comes first when traveling through downtown).

And, as you might expect, I've been trying to take advantage of hiking in this area since you can barely drive 10 miles without passing a trailhead. Sarah has been going with me on a few of them as we're both gearing up for an August trip up Mt. Katahdin back east.

Knowing that Katahdin is a 4,000-foot ascent, I decided it would be wise of me to start going uphill on some hikes. Since moving to Seattle I've has some steep climbs up to the Rattlesnake Ledges and at Wallace Falls State Park.

But I hadn't done anything that was a true mountain hike, going out above the timber line into exposed areas and all the trimmings.

That changed today, when I walked up Bandera Mountain, a 5,100-foot mountain near Snoqualmie Pass. The trail is a 3-mile route to a "false summit" (the actual summit is much harder to reach and not much higher), ascending 3,000 feet in the process. Let's remember that fact.

Why this trail? According to my trail guide... "views south the Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams." And, the weather people said that the clouds would burn off this morning and we'd have a beautiful day the rest of the way.

So, I was pretty undaunted by the clouds on my drive out to Snoqualmie in the late morning. In fact, as I was driving, the sun was starting to peek through from time to time. I drove down the USFS road (past an active logging operation, by the way) thinking my timing would be right on... that I would arrive at the summit and be welcomed by sunshine and views. I dug into the Ira Springs Trail.

An old friend used to describe some mountain hikes as "uphill hikes." Granted, when you are climbing a mountain, they're all uphill, right? Honestly, the 2,000-foot walk up Grandfather Mountain in NC felt flat compared to say, Overlook Mountain in the Catskills. And Bandera, it needs to be known, is an uphill hike.

But it starts off pretty easily. Past some lovely views of the Snoqualmie Valley... and where I could see the clouds still stubbornly scraping the tops of surrounding mountains. Let's go sunshine. Get it done.

Now, the trail guide says "ascend steeply." That pretty much captured the way of things from 0.5 miles to a trail junction at 2 miles. There, the trail guide says, "begin climbing a trail that could use steps and ladders."
Understatement.

Bear in mind, I'm well out of trees and into a field of brush and large talus (read: boulders). And, this is going to sound insane, but looking up the trail is basically just looking up. The stairway in your home is less steeply pitched than some of the spots on this trail. No really:
That's looking to the side, so I was hiking up that pitch. Oh! And see that fog? Yeah, at this level, I was actually within the clouds that didn't burn off. When the wind blew, I am willing to guarantee the pitch of the hill was made up of more degrees than the temperature.

I honestly have no idea how people were climbing this without telescoping trekking poles. It was no picnic with them and I am sure I couldn't have done it without them.

So I reach the ridgeline after the toughest climb of my hiking career. No view to speak of, but... there was snow. Oh yes, friends, on July 5, 2010, I touched snow in the northern hemisphere.

I do wish I could have had the nice view. I mean do a Google image search of Bandera Mountain and it gets pretty cool pretty quickly.

But the toughest thing about this hike... and the one I would tell anyone reading who might hike this trail (and judging by the comments from the last time I blogged a tough hike now and then some of those people read this blog): be prepared for descending the trail from the summit. The talus field is not overly difficult, but it's not a forgiving place... miss a step and, from what I could tell in the gloomy fog anyhow, it could be a few hundred feet of rolling before you stop. Again, without my poles, no idea how I would've coped.

Also, the tough climb is one of the most exposed places I've been. If I hadn't had extra layers, hypothermia wasn't out of the question. If the sun had been out, it would've been an easy sunburn. Be prepared for that.

Still, I have to say that as I was climbing, I kept asking myself if it was really worth it. Now, back in Seattle on my couch (where there, it must be noted, isn't a cloud in the sky and the sun is literally in my eyes), I would love to go back and do this hike again. And I likely will.

Just hope I can take the sun with me this time.

Pretty Good Commute

2010-06-25T17:30:00.002-07:00

Yesterday's commute home was really just about the antithesis of my old one. In Charlotte, it involved a lot of sitting on I-485 on a 2-mile stretch of North Carolina highway that somehow turns into Los Angeles for 90 minutes every day at 5:00. Thank heavens for NPR.

Anyhow, yesterday's commute went as follows:

Walk out of office
Walk two blocks to Cascade Farmers Market
Purchase two pints of strawberries and a pint of raspberries, all picked earlier in the day in Mt. Vernon, WA. (Buy local!)
Walk 3-4 more blocks into my apartment.

Can't say I was spent. Still, if I was yearning for a taste of my old commute, I got it. Because almost as soon as I got home we jumped in the car to head to Cougar Mountain... because why go to the gym when you can hike? After a spell of stop-and-go on I-90 through Bellevue, the wilderness awaited.

I'm not trying to brag. I am trying to note the virtues of the urban lifestyle, though. The way I see it, life throws enough at you... why give yourself a stressful commute?

The World Cup and American Attitudes

2010-06-20T13:40:00.003-07:00

The World Cup presents an interesting sociological study of Americans. Granted, I am no sociologist, so anything after that first sentence deserves your criticism, but think about it.

More Americans play soccer than any other sport. It would stand to reason that soccer should be more popular than anything here. But by traditional metrics, it's tough to make anything close to that claim. Our national soccer league barely registers with most people (except here in Seattle, where tens of thousands turn up for Sounders games).

But every two years, when either the Euro or World Cup takes place, soccer is front-and-center. When most major U.S. sports Web sites are leading with soccer, we start to see that people are into this stuff. Interestingly, when the USA is playing in the CONCACAF championships - our version of the Euro with vastly lower overall talent - it doesn't get nearly the same attention. So, observation #1: Americans love good soccer, but don't pay mediocre soccer much attention.

And my oh my... good soccer is in heavy supply right now. This might be the most wide-open opening round of a World Cup I can remember (which, in my case, is 1990). As of this typing, The USA is having a much better showing than England. Or France. New Zealand could advance to the second round.

But, frequent soccer watchers can attest, it doesn't take long to see how some Americans struggle with the game. Soccer is in many ways a cerebral sport. Pace of the game, momentum and quality of play are all frequent game discussions. If you're a soccer fan, the USA-England game was maddening for either side because there were moments where each side dictated the pace of the game, yet missed key chances (or in many cases, got lucky the other team did the same). I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, except when I was up and pacing around. Yet, I know from Twitter, many others found the game to be a snoozer. So, observation #2, or more a query I'd be interested in studying: Some Americans "get" soccer and others don't. I wonder why.

And I don't think it's the same reason for everyone. Some people cannot deal without scoring. Maybe these folks demand closure. I think the reason I can live with a 1-1 draw is that I think life is lived in shades of gray.

But, heaven help us if we're not political... some folks, primarily on the right, see soccer as more than not meeting the sensibilities of Americans. Hell, a few think it's a threat to our way of life.

You can read a good sampling of the blather here, but lest you give me a line that it's just a few wing-nuts, let's look at some examples. For instance, here are some quotes from best-selling author and much-watched pundit Glenn Beck on June 11:

"It doesn't matter how you try to sell it to us, it doesn't matter how many celebrities you get, it doesn't matter how many bars open early, it doesn't matter how many beer commercials they run, we don't want the World Cup, we don't like the World Cup, we don't like soccer, we want nothing to do with it ... I hate it so much, probably because the rest of the world likes it so much, and they riot over it, and they continually try to jam it down our throat."

Nice Glenn. He's hardly alone. I mean there is no shortage of rightist loudmouths, but if you read some of the content out there, it becomes clear that many of these folks are (observation #3) uncomfortable with the idea that the USA, in all its glory, is not "the best" at soccer.

It's alarming. Some of these boneheads go as far as to say soccer doesn't reward excellence, which would be news to any fan of Brazil, Italy or club teams like Barcelona, Manchester United, AC Milan... These folks are drawing parallels between "liberal" love of the World Cup and "liberal" tendencies toward socialism. To me, it reeks of jingoism.

Nutty punditry aside, the thing I like the most about the World Cup is observing that (#4) since I've been watching the World Cup, this is the first time I've noticed Americans paying more than casual attention. Which, as a soccer fan, is the best thing.

Panic! Says... anybody?

2010-05-15T16:16:00.004-07:00

Have you heard? People are quitting Facebook in droves! I was CNN.com's lead story Thursday! Let's see:

Concerns over Facebook's new privacy policy and the online social network's recent efforts to spread its information across the Web have led some of the site's faithful to delete their accounts

Whoa! That's a big development. Tell me... how big is this trend?

It's unclear how many people have chosen to delete their Facebook accounts in recent weeks.

...

Seriously? We can now report on trends with no quantitative backing in reality? Awesome. Looking forward to the following headlines:

Fewer eating at McDonald's. You can just tell.
More people than ever sleeping on their backs, says guy who thinks it's comfy
Everyone agrees my blog is the best blog ever. Because.

It's a great day for journalism.

In Which My Dog Causes Me to Spend Money

2010-05-09T10:11:00.002-07:00

Dogs are great. The upside to owning a dog far exceeds any downsides. From the way the dog so openly shows love for you to the way other people on the street love on your dog randomly... pretty cool.

There are downsides, though. Mainly, that they do not speak English.

If my dog (Ashley) spoke English, I'd have some extra dinero today. Alas, my dog does not speak English.

This started a few weeks ago. I came home from work while Sarah was at the gym. Ashley was sitting under the desk in our den with a full view of the door, awaiting my return. That would be OK, except her crate, which we keep her in for safety reasons when we're out for a bit, is in another room.

At first, we wondered if maybe we just had failed to zipper the crate fully and that Ashley was able to nose through. However, Houdini here had other plans.

We started to use twist-ties to ply the crate's two zippers together. You would think a creature lacking opposable thumbs would be confounded by this. But no... we'd come back in and there was Ashley, hanging out, probably wishing she had the thumbs to order a keg so she and her underage friends could carouse.

Yesterday, we hit a tipping point. I took a luggage lock and put THAT through the holes in the zippers. If the dog had escaped this, it was either going to have to be via chewing through a fabric crate (creepy) or someone physically entering our apartment and letting her out (super-creepy).

Fortunately, in that sense, she opted for option #1. We found her still in the crate, though she had mangled the crate to a point that it was clear we needed a longer term solution.

That solution involved getting the larger metal crate out from storage. However, in a small apartment, friends, the adventure does not end there. See, we had to move a small piece of furniture out of the room to accommodate the new crate. Which also meant eliminating a lamp. So we needed more lighting.

Also, the metal crate makes a racket. Ashley will drop her bone in there and it will make a crashing noise and rattle around and generally not be good for the people sleeping in the bed next to her. A dog bed to cushion such travails was going to be required.

Almost exactly $100 later we had all of that. This dog does nothing to earn her keep. While she can run and get her rope/ball/bone she is woefully unable to deliver my slippers to me. She does no chores. While I toil at work, she sits on the rug and sleeps. And yet... I spend money to make her comfortable. And I wouldn't change that for the world.

Though if she gets creative with the new crate, she may just find her 3-year-old self at obedience school...

The Disgraceful Gospel

2010-05-05T19:30:00.005-07:00

This is a touchy topic, but it's one that needs to be addressed and we, as reasonable people, should be able to discuss respectfully (even though the motivation for this post is someone speaking rather disrespectfully).

First off, something that I need to say that you should keep in mind as you read: I do not care what you believe in. Politics. Religion. Pizza toppings. Don't give a swat. But... I will ask that you be accountable for your views and what they mean on the whole.

So...

Franklin Graham, son of Rev. Billy Graham, is mad. You can read the entire piece, rather objectively written and in context, here. In this story, Graham says some things that I've heard other evangelical Christians say lately. And again, I don't begrudge anyone their beliefs... only ask that they be accountable for them. So, let's have at it with Mr. Graham:

"If President Obama fails to intervene to allow controversial evangelist Franklin Graham to lead a National Day of Prayer event Thursday inside the Pentagon, 'it will be a slap in the face of all Christians,' Graham said Tuesday."

Umm... OK. That's a big generalization. Go on...

"[Graham's] Task Force requires organizers and prayer leaders to sign a statement of beliefs agreeing that salvation is only through Christ and that the Bible is inerrant — views not shared by all Christians, including Catholics and many mainline Protestants."

Oh boy. See, this is where we start to have issues. There is a difference between having your views and making other people conform to those views. And, I'm no seminary student, but I don't think Jesus had people showing up at the Sermon on the Mount turned away because they didn't sign a statement of beliefs.

And honestly, Franklin, why do you care so much? Will your life be so much more sad if there;s anyone out there who doesn't want to sign that? Or prays a little differently?

If so, shame on you. Firstly, requiring people to sign statements of beliefs - religiously, politically, pizza-toppingly - is a form of intimidation. Doesn't matter who does it and their reasoning. And you can ballyhoo all you want about being ready to answer to God in the afterlife, but you know what? Go worry about your salvation and I'll worry about mine, bucko. Way to take a day where we small humans could show remarkable unity and make it divisive, all in the name of making your ministry stronger.

"In an interview Tuesday with USA TODAY, Graham reiterated his belief that 'Muslims do not worship the same 'God the Father' I worship.'"

You would think any Judeo-Christian-Islam scholar would jump to the default inter-relationship these three religions have. Alas. But you know, let's for a moment grant Graham his argument. Which leads to the natural next question: Who cares? Why does that even matter? And don't get me wrong, I would ask the same question to a fundamentalist Muslim. Or to an ultra-orthodox Jew. Or someone who demands pineapple pizza. Who cares about your small, self-focused view when all you do is turn off the millions of other people (reportedly God's creations) and create conflict? God may work in mysterious ways, but I would think that sowing the seeds of conflict and disrespect aren't on the list. Because if they are, it pretty much contradicts every other sermon I've heard.

"[Graham] laughed at Hinduism's many manifestations of God: 'No elephant with 100 arms can do anything for me. None of their 9,000 gods is going to lead me to salvation.'"

Holy. Shittake.

I'm going to give you my interpretation of this comment: Graham believes that God plays tricks on people who lived thousands of miles away from where Jesus preached. Those Hindus weren't exposed to the epiphany that Graham envisions Middle eastern Jews having around the time leading up to 325 AD when the First Council of Nicaea convened. And apparently, despite the fact that God loves all his children, Graham thinks God has apparently hidden the "truth" from them and that they now worship false Gods.

Does that sound extreme? I fail to understand why God would play favorites for (oversimplification metaphor... don't get too wound up) a new product introduction.

Think about it. If the Bible is word-for-word accurate, then God created people, and the people (clearly stated!) were good! ALL of them. And he loved them. Even after the whole eating of the apple (he could have not put it there, by the way...) he loved humans enough to create a covenant with them.

So... Graham's logic negates all that. And if that is negated... well, Franklin, what is true for you?

Again, I don't write here to say I have all the answers. And I know a great many people more religiously observant than me, yet they still find a way to get through their days without belittling those who worship differently. And more than a few of those people are members of the clergy.

But those who do... I'm sorry. I find it appalling. I do not see a shred of divinity in the act of outright disrespect and belittling. And a person with some authority doing it? Disgraceful. I hope they find the salvation they seek (this goes for all religions), but I hope they pay a price for the discord they create by choosing to divide instead of unite.

Recently, I spoke with someone who, while generally respectful, makes no qualms about how the idea that "there are many paths to God" is patently incorrect. I hope this person knows that there are millions of others who feel the same way about him. And that for all the good they think they're doing in the world, they're really just pulling us all apart.

Don't think religious leaders like this want to divide us? Take it away Franklin:

"We are fooling ourselves if we think we can have some big kumbaya service and all hold hands and it's all going to get better in this world. It's not going to get better."

A Roundball Routine

2010-04-27T20:03:00.004-07:00

I am very proud of myself. I seem to have gotten myself back into 7th grade form... in terms of basketball.

Granted, this is only a few notches higher above "terrible" on the basketball skills scale. One big advancement is that I can dribble down the court while looking ahead. If you are not familiar with basketball, this is roughly equivalent to being able to drive and change a CD in the car. I can even hit, I dunno, half my shots from within 15 feet?

All this is due to the fact that the gym at our apartment building has a small basketball court adjacent to the cardio and weight machines. And that's really what I'm blogging about.

I've been going to the gym for just about five solid years now. About 5-6 times a week. 60-90 mins each time. Without that, I would likely be sitting on a couch somewhere right now, alone, balancing a can of Pringles between my thigh and a gut so I could leave other hands free for the remote control and a bottle of beer.

Instead, I'm a pretty fit guy. But I think I've realized a deficiency in my workout. Much like eating a group of nutrients may not add up to full "nutrition" (see previous blog,) I'm wondering if a group of rote exercises gets me as fit as I could be. I'm no trainer. What do I know?

What I know is this... I used to pretty exclusively use an elliptical and then walk. Lately, I've been doing a set of running intervals and the 20-25 mins of shooting on the court. Dashing after rebounds. Playing two bounce with myself. Throwing the ball off the wall to pass it to myself, turning and shooting.

And tonight, I really noticed it: I can run longer than normal. I get less winded. I started doing some different weight exercises, too. But the dramatic change has been my level of stamina and fatigue in the gym. I'm having fewer days where I feel like I'm just not able to give my all in the gym.

But I'm going to blame the basketball. It's the most regular "full-active" activity I've done in some time. I think I sweat more on the court than I do on the treadmill. Plus, the basketball-as-workout is giving me, a competitive guy, some new benchmarks to aim for. I figure I will never hit 100% of my shots. But, that means nearly endless constant improvement. I felt like I hit a wall on the elliptical. I knew how hard I could go and really was only getting a few calories of improvement.

Weights are the same. I do not need to bulk up. Last thing I need is to have to go buy new shirts as a result of bulging muscles (say that with the "c"). So going up a weight level is not my goal.

I think it can also be chalked up to walking to work every day. I get 20 mins of walking in by default. Add in the running and the ball... I dunno. I'm feeling like I'm onto something new in my gym routine.

And I am deadly on the periphery of the key. You know. Without a defender up against me.

More reflections on eating...

2010-04-25T11:34:00.002-07:00

We watched Food Inc. the other night. I read The Omnivore's Dilemma several months back (Sarah is starting it soon) and last night I started In Defense of Food.

All of this is reinforcing some things that I had suspected, showing me some new ways to look at things and... generally making me immune to hearing about what we should be eating.

Among the many points that are at very least worthy of discussion by everyone:

Why do we want to ingest food that wasn't raised like what it's supposed to be? For instance, cows shouldn't be eating corn. In fact, corn makes cows sick. Yet, for reasons of economics (corn makes a bigger cow faster so you can sell more meat at lower prices), that's the way it works. Chances are you wouldn't want to eat mutated fish or some sort of anything that has been brought up in a way that wouldn't occur in nature. Yet, that's what we do for the most part.
I already hear the "that's why I'm a vegetarian!" cries. Well, don't worry, most of your greens aren't brought up the way greens normally are. Most everything is grown in a monoculture that makes plants more and more susceptible to disease, drains them of nutrients in some cases and (not to get all Darwin-y) hinders their ability to survive non-ideal conditions. And this is to even begin to start on...
...seasonal foods. You think apples are ripe in your area all year? Grapes? Lettuce? Ask yourself where these things come from in the months that aren't your area's growing season and you might find some alarming answers.

I by no means am a perfect eater. And I certainly don't have a solution to this on a mass level. But I do think Sarah & I are starting to try to find ways to be more local, to eat more in season. And to worry about calories instead of nutrients. We've been on this planet for 50,000+ years and it's only been since the 1960s that we've had crazy health problems related to eating. Yet we know more about nutrition than ever. Odd, no?

And, more and more, I am becoming sure the solution is not to become a vegetarian. After all, we've got acids in our stomachs and a set of teeth that show we're certainly meant to have some meat now and then. If I am going to profess that we've got the natural order of things out of whack, then I need to respect what nature has done to make me a true omnivore and eat some meat, no?

But the final takeaway, I think, is that there isn't any real reason I shouldn't enjoy the foods I love. As long as I am making the right decisions at the store, and not gorging myself at home, I should be able to eat the things I love with no apprehension whatsoever.

Superlative-mania

2010-04-21T18:53:00.003-07:00

I don't want to blame the iPad. So I'll blame Glee. Blame for what?

My ire. My frustration... I am more than done with hype deeming things the "best things ever."

Ah, before you protest hear me out. I am all for guilty pleasures (I mean, anyone who has ever seen my iPod knows this). But, when something has obvious flaws - or worse, several obvious flaws - how does it suddenly become elevated to "legend" status? Or "revolutionary" status?

Exhibit A - Glee. This could be a good show. Lord knows the acting talent is there. Is it used? Not so sure. What is glaringly awful? First, the show was written by a teenager. Or so it seems. Melodrama is lovely, but doing it the expense of truly becoming attached to any of the characters? That's definition bad TV writing. I do not simply need to be entertained by a show in a world with an Internet. Every time the show seems to do something that might make me care to turn in next week beyond hearing some new performance, they come up with some ridiculousness that renders it moot.

Beyond the writing, the songs have been glorified to some insane level that people are actually telling me they prefer the Glee versions of songs to originals. That's fine and all, and I could argue the contrary point... but regardless. A three-minute song and dance doesn't make a 22-minute half hour of TV great.

Yet, everywhere I turn... "Glee is the best show!" On what measure? I wish I could tell you. I have yet to read a TV review of the show that actually reviews the TV aspect of the program. It's all - "oh how fun!" It's the Pepsi Challenge of TV... try it in a small taste and you love it. And tell people how great it is. Drink a whole bottle and... my doesn't that taste a bit too sweet?

Exhibit B - The iPad. This week, I met someone on a plane with an iPad. I played dumb. I asked what was great about it. "Oh it's just so cool! Look!" I asked "How does it do as an e-reader?" The response was: "Well, it works great as one. I mean I haven;t read a book on it yet, but I tried it for a couple minutes and it's totally great!"

Well, kids... maybe I'm nuts. Or maybe other people are starting to realize a backlit LCD screen that is smudged with touchpad fingerprints yet still turns into a damned mirror in sunlight might not be the best way to read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

And yet... finding a mainstream review - a real I-tried-it-for-a-set-amount-of-time-and-here's-what-I-thought review - is difficult? Yes it looks cool. Yes, it does lots of cool things. How bloody well does it do them?! Instead I get articles about "Are you making the most of iPad media for your business?" Sorry, I don't make business decisions for anything that barely has market share. Apparently other people do.

I could go on... for instance, all year I had to hear how great a quarterback Tim Tebow is though he routinely throws behind receivers and can't read defenses.

Make. It. Stop. I am sure everything mentioned above has its merits. But don't cheapen standards by suddenly making these things into the best things since the wheel. The iPod, for example, actually changed things. This was brand spanking new technology that fit an existing functional need (we all carried around music... now we carry all of it around). American Idol, love it or hate it, showed that TV could be produced cheaply (relatively) and draw the biggest audience short of the Super Bowl.

Glee breaks zero new ground and cheapens writing. It asks nothing of you... which is a reason to enjoy it, but also a reason to see it as what it is. The iPad does many things and possibly none of them well... certainly not so well that I need to lobby my office to switch us off of laptops and go for the iPad. And, sorry... if you think otherwise, you are not living in functional reality.

Like these things all you want. But pretty please lose the hyperbole.

Ruminations on one day with a Kindle

2010-03-16T19:47:00.002-07:00

They say don't judge a book by its cover. Nor should I probably judge a new tech toy after one day. But, when your one day includes time at home and 8 hours of plane rides, you could argue you've done all the needed testing on a portable device of any type.

So... new Kindle verdict: OUT-FLIPPING-STANDING.

Firstly, can I get every electronic device I have to hold a charge like this? Probably not, bc unlike every other device I have, the Kindle isn't backlit. It uses "electronic paper," which (thank you Wikipedia:

"Unlike a conventional flat panel display, which uses a backlight to illuminate its pixels, electronic paper reflects light like ordinary paper and is capable of holding text and images indefinitely without drawing electricity, while allowing the image to be changed later."

This basically means it really reads like a book. As in it gets dark and you need to shine a light on it. But the non-glare screen makes that a non-issue.

The interface is very intuitive. You barely have to think about it it makes so much sense. And, what's more, someone put some good thought into this... it actually handles like a book. I realized on the plane, I was holding it pretty much like a folded-over paperback (without ripping the spine apart) and, even cooler, when I needed to have my hands free for a moment, I could set it down and keep reading. No pages to hold open.

The first book I downloaded was Stirg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Amazon claims the download takes 60 seconds. Mine took about 7. And I had no idea so many "popular classics" that had entered the public domain were now available as Kindle books for free. That will make bridging my two-books-per-month self-imposed budget easy (look, imagine if you just bought every book at will... how much would that run you?).

I was sitting across the aisle from a guy who had the big-screen Kindle DX and, honestly, unless you need ultra-large text capability, I see no true advantages (though I haven't played on one).

And, now, to step on my soapbox... I have no idea how anyone could prefer an iPad to this for the sake of reading. For instance, it bugs me when the the screen on my little Blackberry gets smudged. Imagine reading a book on a screen you also type on. The Kindle has no issue there. And I highly doubt I could've managed reading for 4-5 hours on planes today if I was dealing with backlit LCD screens. My optometrist would be happy about it, but maybe not me. Oh and the Kindle price tag is pretty fantastic.

Anyhow, I was trying to find a gripe about the Kindle all day. And by gripe, I mean something that was a disadvantage over a real paper book. For instance, lack of full Internet access is not a flaw... I have a laptop, kids. With a wifi card.

So far? Nothing comes to mind, short of I'm going to be upset if I drop it.

If you're on the fence on a Kindle, I say jump. If you're sold on the iPad, I say give the Kindle a fair shot. And if you think you can never use an eReader... well, talk to my wife. That's what she said a few months back...

Urbanized

2010-03-13T18:31:00.002-08:00

When I lived in NYC, I did plenty of drinking, eating and the like and never gained a pound. I has no gym membership.

I did have the City's 13,000 miles of sidewalks at my disposal, however. Getting to work involves a 10-minute walk to the subway and five after getting off. The same after work. I would take the train to Herald Square and walk to SoHo.

Then I moved to Charlotte and bought a car.

I had a good life in Charlotte. I also had a gym membership and heaven help me if I hadn't. Short of walking the dog through the neighborhood, something that sounded good, but rarely really happened, most transportation was via the car.

Now, here I am, back in an urban metropolis. My commute now? A 10-minute walk that starts by climbing a big hill. This morning, I needed to go to the hardware store. four blocks later, there I was. We needed to go to Trader Joe's. Bus ride, then 12 blocks. Hell last week, we walked most of the way to the store. And the dog? No choice but to walk her. I cannot just open the door and let her run. Good lord a TRAIN runs down my street, to say nothing of cars.

Point is, I'm back to walking. A lot. For every day things and often many times a day. For kicks, I weighed myself in my Portland hotel the other evening... sure enough. A few pounds lighter.

We still use the gym regularly in our new home, but we're conscious of the fact that we're more active simply by virtue of living where we do. There are already other benefits of the urban setting that seem to have potential.

For instance, we're somewhat limited at the grocery store to what we can carry. It's then up to us to not go to the store every day to pick up something else up.

And really, apartment living is probably better now than it was 30 years ago, chock full of modern amenities... but city life is what's happening outside. And it doesn't have to cost an arm an a leg. There are kayaks to rent on the lake eight blocks away. There are parks to explore and neighborhoods to peruse.

It's nice to be back to urban life, but I'm determined to make the most of all it can do to my benefit.

Settling in...

2010-03-03T21:51:00.001-08:00

I am officially a Washington resident (more on that in a moment). The past several days involved setting up the apartment, which has been no small task. We’ve had to get creative with storage solutions, look at some items and determine if we really need them and make countless trips to both our in-building storage unit and the trash area.

And the result it… we’ve got a pretty fantastic place. Pictures will come soon enough, but, really? The place is fantastic. It’s the kind of urban living I was always somewhat envious of back in my New York days. And, truth be told, I lived well there. But this is something else both from an aesthetic standpoint and a practical one.

Part of the practicality is access to Seattle’s amenities. Not only can I walk to work, but I can easily walk downtown. Or to the Queen Anne neighborhood. Major bus lines stop on both our cross streets. The streetcar stops in front of the place. And my walk to the light rail to get to the airport is 10-15 mins at the most.

I hear you already… “have fun walking in all the rain!”

I’m not trying to dress this up, but the rain in Seattle is… I dunno… just different. For instance, it has rained about half the time I’ve been here, but I have yet to use an umbrella. But to call it a mist isn’t totally right either… I have yet to see rain that obscures the skyline at all. And there’s only been one day I haven’t seen the sun. I took the dog out in the rain last night and I barely got wet. The rain is almost an accessory most days… it’s something to carry with you and is, usually (at least so far), no more of a burden than that.

And when it’s not raining… my lord, I don’t think I’ve ever lived someplace so gorgeous. I’m getting used to turning a corner and having my breath taken away by a sight of mountains, or some body of water, or clouds pushing past a high ridgeline…

As mentioned, I now call the Evergreen State home officially. This involved the trip to the DMV, or in this case the WA Dept. of Licensing. You know how this is going to go…

I did what I thought was all the necessary research. I knew I needed to bring my NC license, another form of personal ID and “proof or residency.” On Sunday, Sarah signed our lease, the forms of which are a legally-binding contract between Sarah & me and our building. It’s notarized. I am in a significant amount of trouble if I do not live up to my end of the lease.

Point being the lease pretty clearly establishes, if you ask me, that I live in Seattle.

So we take our numbers and sit at the DOL. I always feel like that scene in Beetlejuice… I want to shout out “Hey! There goes Elvis! Yo! King!” and steal the number of the person sitting next to me who is about to get called up.

By the time I do get my turn, I walk up and the woman asks me for my proof of residency. I show my lease.

“We don’t accept lease agreements as proof of residency. You could’ve gone to Office Max and printed up a lease agreement and filled it out.”

Yes. Exactly. I am handing you my passport and surrendering my only other existing form of photo ID (my NC driver license) because I am trying to scam the state of Washington.

She began to get lippy with me and I was in no mood to escalate the situation. Instead, I found my self hustling back home to find what few utility and insurance bills I have that are set up to my new address. And then back to the DOL. To take another number. This time, however, it came through no problem.

I’ve already contacted the DOL to find out the specifics of registering my car, which promises to be a fun Saturday adventure.

In the meantime, I am bound for Phoenix. Part of settling in means getting back down to work. This means Phoenix until Friday night, then to Portland Thurs-Fri next week. Then, look out world… after a trip to Miami the week after, both Sarah and I are off to Paris and Warsaw (where I have a business meeting).

First days in Seattle, first thoughts...

2010-02-24T21:32:00.004-08:00

It's a night of firsts here, folks. It's the first night I feel like I have "living" space and not a repository for IKEA boxes. It's the first night I have been on the interwebs here bc my wifi card has been on the rag or something that prevented it from working as normal.

Incidentally, if you need some IKEA furniture built, I am your guy. Though I'm pretty sure that after the next - and last - piece there is to assemble, I never want to see a wooden dowel again for at least a good 30-day period. But I digress...

The movers arrive at 9 a.m. or so tomorrow. The next two days I am spending the bulk of time getting the place in some kind of basic shape, moving items into our storage unit and getting it ready for the arrival of the fabulous wife and dog (and Spragg!) on Saturday.

That said, I have been working full time this week and a few things that are immediately notable:

I have a 10-minute commute. Walking. You have no idea how fantastic this is unless you've done this in a city before. But even in NYC, I had a walk to the subway, then a 20-minute ride. My walk goes like this: 1) walk out of the building, 2) look up and see the Space Needle, 3) turn left, 4) climb a big, 2-block hill and 5) go a couple more blocks and arrive. Walking home, I get the Olympic Mountains and great views of downtown.
Neighborhoods! Oh, how I have missed this. I can walk a few blocks and feel like I'm in a whole different place. And it's all so easily accessible via mass transit. Which conveniently runs on both streets that make up the intersection where my apartment is.
You may have heard this, but there are one or two places in Seattle where you can get a decent cup of coffee.
I was thinking I should keep track of rainy days, but what fun is that. Instead, let's put it this way: the only day I didn't see sunshine was yesterday. This whole "all it does is rain" thing is hilarious. Seriously, come to Seattle and see. Also, the trees are already blooming here, which is just outstanding.
The time change isn't hitting me - on my end of things. I keep forgetting the east coast is three hours ahead of me. It would be good to remember this...

And the funny story...

So, I didn't think to pack a set of bed sheets. I have no idea why. Because I am a fool.

Anyhow, night one, I slept on our new mattress alone. That... wasn't ideal. But it was less ideal when I woke at 2 a.m. and was freezing cold. I put on socks and another shirt. Woke up an hour later still freezing. I put a hoodie on. Hood UP. Even that got cold. I ended up... putting my coat on and sleeping in my coat. Like a homeless person! I never realized this, but sheets and such insulate. Fortunately, I have coworker friends who live nearby and take pity on foolish people like me (and have extra sets of queen-size bedding).

Anyhow, it's been a smooth transition overall. I only have a handful of scratches from furniture assembly. I have only walked aimlessly around my new building looking for the trash bins once. I mean, that's good!

And what I can say is that things already feel right here. I think I've been smiling every time I have started my walk to work, just looking at the new city that surrounds me.

A shift in time...

2010-02-20T10:06:00.003-08:00

I just changed the settings on my computer and Blackberry so that everything is on Pacific Time. From here on out, I'm three hours behind the east coast I have long called home. In five hours, I hop on a plane and land 3,000 miles away... at home. Kinda cool, no?

Sarah, Ashley and friend Jen are en route, as well, via car. I strongly suggest you follow their travails on Sarah's blog over the next few days.

There will be much to report on a new city, but before that, I think it's only proper to send off Charlotte, a place I have enjoyed greatly. I've made great friends, had good times and learned a bit about what makes the South the South. So... a few things I will miss about Charlotte and some I won't (and people don't count on here. I am talking about material things...)

I will miss:

The trees. Charlotte is still a city of trees. Crepe Myrtles, Magnolias, Mimosas... even some palms here and there. The coniferous Northwest beckons, but there is something about driving in Charlotte from February until September and always having some manner of flowering tree.
The language. Might-could. Fixin' to. Wonderful turns of the tongue that make the South stand out.
CLT airport. Fortunately, Sea-Tac is a pretty fantastic airport as well. But, take it from a traveler, Charlotte-Douglas Int'l makes the process of traveling pretty easy.
Bad food. Look, it'll kill you, but if you want bad food, the South is your place. Bojangles. Waffle House. Just outstanding (and knock you down dead bad) food.
Sitting poolside in March. That says it right there.
Manners. Living in the South has made me more patient and more polite. Things come with a "please" here and it's OK to smile at a stranger. In fact, it's kinda weird not to. That, I will miss.

Won't miss:

Traffic on I-485 at rush hour. It's like Charlotte wanted to build a little Los Angeles from Exit 67 to 59...
The left turn out of my old neighborhood. I'd like to thank the driving deities for not having someone broadside me turning out of there for 2.5 years. Also, I wish I had added up the minutes of my life spent waiting to be able to turn safely.

There are a handful of other things I'm going to be happy to be away from, but sorry... those you'll have to come get a drink with me to hear. :-)

See you soon, Charlotte. I have friends and family (Hi, Maggie!) here and we'll be back soon enough.

A True Dilemma

2010-02-08T19:56:00.003-08:00

You know the saying "you are what you eat?" I have a whole new view on it since I read Michael Pollin's The Omnivore's Dilemma last fall.

Now, don't get me wrong, I still grab myself a Bojangle's Supremes combo every couple months. But the book demands you look not only at what you eat, but also at your place and role in creating the food you consume.

What the book basically gets at is that, if we are what we eat, what we are is corn. Piles of corn. High fructose corn syrup. Corn oil. The chicken you eat at most restaurants? Fed on corn. Beef, too, which is actually really bad for cows.

Pollin gets into the reasons for all this. And I couldn't do it any justice by typing all the reasons here... you should just read the book.

What's interesting is that Pollin isn't some holier-than-thou warrior for vegetarianism. In fact, he's pretty clear on the idea that simply looking at a human shows we're supposed to eat some meat. Our teeth handle meat well. Our bodies have acids and things that break down meat that serve no digestive purpose on plants. He accepts that, perhaps, the philosophical arguments for vegetarianism have merit, but he's by no means saying the world is going to be a better place if we all stop eating meat.

In fact, what he proposes is something much different. Basically, he's looking for all of us to eat 1) seasonally and 2) locally.

Seasonally, you say? He attacks the culture we have where every food is available all the time. Plants and animals. He has a special place of scorn for "organic" produce that is brought to the US out of season on cargo jets. And you also probably don't want to know what "organic" means in FDA speak.

Point being, if it's April, that's not generally the time of year when certain plants and animals are ready for harvest per the natural cycles of things. Only modern efficiency farming methods have made this possible, and often to the detriment of our diets and the soils we require to grow food.

As for locally, it's amazing none of us find it odd that someone in Burlington, VT can peel a ripe Florida orange all year 'round. I'm not sure that, in and of itself, is harmful. But on a macro scale, it makes it has a lot of effects, notably on the price of food and the methods used to mass produce it. Certainly, in the case of meat, it makes a difference.

Pollin spends the course of the book looking for the perfect meal... one that is truly organic that he can feel good about eating. It was not an easy task, and certainly not the cheapest route to take.

The end result for me is a bit of dismay. We should all be wary of just what we're consuming - and I don't mean from a calorie standpoint or chemical standpoint. Simply, humans have never eaten the way we have started to eat the past 20 years. We don't really know what side effects there will be.

But we're going to find out because the only solution is a culture change so drastic as to simply not be realistic. Me choosing to eat differently is lovely and all, but my options are so thoroughly limited because the economics of food make it much easier for everyone else to eat "badly." Honestly, short of a list of holistic reasons, there are few practical reasons to eat in a way that is sustainable for our health and society. We've built a food system that may well be harmful to us all... but there's no exit ramp, unless you have a whole lot of money.

A lot for a 22-hour day...

2010-01-30T12:21:00.002-08:00

This morning, I woke up in the Mountain Time Zone. I have since flown back to Eastern. This means my day is only 22 hours long today. But I feel like I have more than a days worth to cover here... but I assure you, all these observations come from today:

I never want to hear the phrase "Hey, I forgot something in my hotel room. Can we go back?" This was uttered by some numbskull on the shuttle bus from my hotel to Denver International Airport. Actually, the shuttle served four places on the hotel farm where I was staying. And the driver, who was apparently a nice guy, took him back and we waited five minutes for numbskull to go get whatever he forgot. Fortunately, I had plenty of tie to make my flight. But, seriously... why didn't the driver poll the other passengers? I wanted to turn to this guy and say "Yes, it sucks you forgot something... but get off and get the next shuttle because you're not the only one on this bus with a flight to catch buddy."

My dear lord the Denver airport is far away from anything that is actually called Denver. How far? Well, I was told my hotel was 25 minutes outside of downtown and this morning, I saw a sign that said - as we traveled even farther from downtown Denver - "Denver Airport - 9 miles." Just put the airport in Kansas why don't you?

I landed in Charlotte into a winter wonderland. Apparently, despite days and days of hype, NCDOT failed to do anything like prepare for snowfall. I got on I-485, the Charlotte beltway, to come home. I may have done just as well driving through the forest. It was clear nothing had been plowed all day. Shameful.

Even so, I guess the snow was a good reason for a bunch of local yahoos to "git out the truck!" today. Folks... four-wheel drive is great. I know I enjoyed having it crossing the La Plata Mountains outside Durango on Thursday. You know what though? Four-wheel drive won't save your ass when you're going 55-60 MPH on a solid sheet of ice that NCDOT hasn't decided is worth plowing. I wish I owned a towing company bc I would be rich today dragging these fools out of the median.

That is all.

For now.

iPad Fail

2010-01-27T17:58:00.004-08:00

The first time I saw an iPod, I was smitten. I remember being on the NYC subway. What was that? White earbuds? Some odd interface? I took a closer look. I remember it clearly:

"Oh my God it's a digital music player."

It was one of the few tech items I felt like I couldn't wait t have... and on my entry-level PR salary, it was far out of reach. In fact, my first mp3 player was a Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen... but the point was, Apple was onto something. They were first to market and everyone has been playing catch-up since (except me... I finally went iPod in 2007).

Now, I don't have an iPhone but I get it... Being able to have an intuitive phone/data device that allows you to use the Internet the way the Internet wants to be used makes sense. I wish my Blackberry had the iPhone browser for sure.

But this iPad...

I cannot be the only person who thinks this is the most underwhelming "revolutionary" device (to borrow Steve Jobs' word) I've seen in some time.

Was the world clamoring for a larger version of the iPhone that doesn't have the phone part (yet still requires a user to purchase a monthly data plan)?

I know, I know... "but it plays movies!" Yeah... so does my laptop. Which I have to carry around when I travel. And my laptop has a bigger screen. My laptop is also free, a perk of working for my company.

"But it's a great e-reader! It's going to slaughter the Kindle!"

Umm... sure? I have yet to find a case study where a first-to-market product is suddenly overtaken by a new competitor - especially a more expensive one.

The Sony PlayStation2 came out and handily slaughtered Microsoft's XBOX for years in terms of market share... even though XBOX was widely regarded as the superior machine. It wasn't until major technological overhauls came with the next-gen consoles... and Microsoft beat Sony to market with the XBOX 360. That was enough to shift Microsoft significant market share.

But the iPad offers no real jump in e-reader technology. Amazon has been gaining a solid foothold in market share. How many people who bought a Kindle - and the e-books to go along - are going to suddenly throw aside their purchase for... a more expensive product that doesn't offer any upgrade that provides a better user experience?

I don't think too many. And your average Kindle book is priced under $10... and costs nothing to download data-wise. And Amazon (not publishers) set the prices, which is not how the iPad will work.

I know I cannot lift weights while using the iPad (unlike my iPod). I know that typing a five-page document on the iPad will be a torturous process as compared to my laptop. I see no need to pay for another data plan.

So no, I will not be purchasing a new device from Apple that is overloaded on flashy but low on utilitarianism. And I'm certainly not going to pay twice the rate of a Kindle to have the same reading experience just so I can have the hot new gadget.

I will, however, still do just about anything to get a Kindle in my hands.

Hike to Parker Mesa Overlook

2010-01-23T16:41:00.002-08:00

I try to avoid hyperbole. So let's just say that my hike today in Topanga State Park (from the Trippet Ranch parking area to Parker Mesa Overlook) is possibly one of the most beautiful hikes you can do in the lower 48.

And it's really easy.

Following a fire road, the trail traces a high ridegline that, for the most part leaves you exposed to a view at almost any moment. It's chaparral country and the colors are outstanding.

But it's... just so much more.

I've hiked Topanga once before and, like today, there is the take-your-breath-away moment when you come over a rise or around a bend and see the Pacific from high above. But I don't know of any hike I can find where I can see all of the following on the same hike, often at the same time:

The ocean
Snow-capped mountains
Palm trees
A city skyline

You might get two of those a lot of places. Three is possible in a handful of areas. All four... maybe right here in Southern California and maybe the Marin Headlands near San Francisco.

But if we add a fifth qualifier - that the entire hike must take place within the city limits - I'm guessing this is the only one.

Yes, friends, I didn't leave LA for the hike. It's still technically in the city. And that, too me, is what's truly amazing.

Adventures in Homeownership, Vol. Whatever: REALLY?!

2010-01-18T20:32:00.003-08:00

So, I am in the process of selling my home. In fact, it's under contract. Today, we learned that our buyer would like to forego having the house inspected. They, apparently, feel that our sheet of disclosures and recent fixes are good enough for them.

Truthfully, I was anticipating not having many repairs at all. We know the house and really... it's in good shape.

So, there was this brief bit of rejoicing around 6 p.m. tonight, knowing that we would save a few bucks on any small repairs the buyer requested.

At about 11 p.m., the joy subsided.

As I was walking into our laundry room, I noticed a small bit of water on the floor. An investigation yielded that one of the hoses from our hot water heater comes to a triple joint... and at the bottom of that joint, a thin, but steady stream of water slowly misting the side of my water heater. And the floor.

Balls.

By the way... I have a home warranty. I called them. The customer service rep was very helpful. Except for being able to fix us up with a 24-hour repair technician. Then, I hit the phone book. Lots of people listing 24-service. Why, pray tell, did I have to call eight of them? And why would of the ones I actually spoke to, have two of them tell me they couldn't come until tomorrow morning?

I now sit here awaiting the arrival of a 24-hour plumbing who will arrive about midnight. I sense I will be spending about what I budgeted for repairs to the house. Balls balls.

Why the rush? At 3 p.m. tomorrow, my home is being appraised. And let me tell you... I need this house to appraise. Fortunately, it appears this leak was caught early and we've averted a true, damaging crisis.

But still... how long until I am a renter?

May Fox and Time Warner Usher in a New Era

2009-12-30T16:49:00.003-08:00

If you haven't been following the news, you might not be aware that News Corporation, owner of Fox, and Time Warner Cable have been in a rather ugly shouting match that will likely result in Fox pulling its programming and channels from TWC on New Year's Day.

Let me explain: In the beginning, TV broadcasters put their programming out for free to viewers. If you had a TV and an antenna, you could tune in to NBC. Networks paid locally-owned TV stations to become network affiliates. Advertisers paid networks (and local affiliates) to support free delivery of TV. This was great, unless you lived in some remote area or in a deep mountain valley and couldn't pick up a signal. Thus, the invention of community antenna TV (aka "cable").

All was well. This was a pastoral era where man loved his fellow man, the Russians were the predictable-style bad guys. Life made sense.

Then, it all went to hell. Quickly.

See, cable was something you had to pay for. And that meant you could also subscribe to new "pay channels" like HBO. HBO would charge cable companies a few cents per subscriber to make money since they sold no ads.

As you know, there are upsides to this. If you require subscribers, you can show whatever you want: swearing, commercial-free sports, bare breasts (!) and the like. You can even produce your own shows that don't have to fill a traditional broadcast season... your goal isn't ratings to justify ad dollars. Your goal is to gain subscribers who get you more money.

Like anything else, cable channels realized they could charge a few cents more per subscriber as time went on. Thus began a new tradition of pay channels increasing their rates and having cable companies pass it right on to the consumer.

Today, we have almost 1,000 options for programming on a given cable channel. That's 1,000 channels asking your cable or satellite provider for money to carry programming. Add it up and you know why your bill is so high.

So... News Corp wants to charge TWC a fee to carry Fox programming that TWC thinks is exorbitant. It should be noted, News Corporation owns DirecTV, so Fox has a motive of getting people to ditch TWC for DirecTV.

I predict Fox will, at least temporarily, pull its programming. But what I'm interested in is the larger ramifications... and those might actually benefit us, the TV watchers.

Consider that you most likely already pay for your "free" TV channels. If you have cable or satellite, you pay a flat fee for a basic tier of programming, always including your local channels. So... what if networks and local affiliates, already running in the red because of fallen ad revenue, decide they're no longer free? They'd now ask for a fee, too. That sounds bad on the surface, but let's come back to the fee in a second.

Freed from obligation to advertisers, TV networks could still sell sponsorships, but they wouldn't have to build programming to fit it in. I'm talking a bout commercial-free sports, sponsored by Budweiser with on-screen graphics. I'm talking about your favorite Prime Time shows not needing to force out 22 episodes a year, of which only 12 are good. Writers could act like they do on HBO... write a good story, tell it in as many episodes as you need and be done for the year.

Now, about that fee...

Right now, I have DirecTV and I have hundreds of channels I never watch. Yet, I pay for them out of my flat fee.

What if, with every channel a pay channel, I could sit down and choose my own package... I'd only pick the channels I want and I would pay the price for them. Sure, there could still be package deals. But imagine that. And to go another step... with my personalized list of programming, and digital delivery, I can conceivably be targeted with some new form of advertising specifically tailored to my interests. The prospects are tantalizing.

And... done correctly, everyone can make money in the process of sending me my programming.

So, I'm rooting for Fox to stick it to TWC this weekend. Not because I wish ill on TWC (though, as a former customer of theirs, I can't say they don't deserve it a bit). I'm for hastening the shift from one model of TV entertainment delivery to another.

Why Airport Security Fails

2009-12-29T16:59:00.003-08:00

First off, believe it or not, I have a lot to discuss. So, be on the lookout for more entries in coming days. Now, onto the matter at hand...

I think this whole business about the state of airline security in the aftermath of a terrorist trying to blow up Delta/Northwest 253 on Christmas Day over Michigan... is stupid.

I don't understand why there's an uproar because it's simple: airport security sucks. I don't mean the TSA people who perform the job. From what I can tell, they're doing fine. The system they have to operate under is what sucks.

My surprise is that we haven't had this happen more often.

The issue is not a failure of intelligence (I highly recommend you read Malcolm Gladwell's 2003 piece on this topic here). The issue is related to the problem Gladwell points out though.

Essentially, we treat every person going through security like they could be a terrorist. But... we do it in a way that is designed to cause no undue delay for we, the travelers. Heaven help us if we are delayed at security! You might start thinking the TSA is interested in keeping flights safe if that happened.

Instead, think about it: if everyone walking through could be a terrorist, how would you screen the millions of people walking through the metal detectors every day? Would you stop every person every time the x-ray machine showed something puzzling?

If you said yes, let me ask you: how? Where are you going to do these searches? In the crowded areas right around security? Let's remember most airports had to quickly adjust screening areas in the week after 9/11. They didn't build new terminals. Security is happening in areas far too small to do any kind of large-scale, meaningful searching.

And how many people is this going to take? If you really don't want to stand in line for two hours, we're going to have to hire hundreds - if not thousands - of new TSA screeners. But that... I'll let you do the math on salaries. I know how you conservatives feel about spending government money... even though many of your compadres are railing on and on and on all day about how we need better security.

What I'm saying is, if you want to screen everyone thoroughly, then it has to be done thoroughly. Otherwise, TSA agents have to make on-the-spot judgment calls about who is a threat and who is not. I remember dating and trying to pick out in a crowd which girls were nice and which ones weren't. This was a topic I had a lot of schooling on. I did not, alas, have a 100% success rate.

It's my belief that TSA screening is extremely impractical and, honestly, does little to keep us safe. The first time I flew commercially was in about 1983. Back then, I still walked through a metal detector. I still had my bags x-rayed (A person at the Pittsburgh airport back then even let me go behind the screen as they fed through a test box that I could see had a gun inside! So cool!). How is that different from now, exactly?

And how about this: From 1980-2001, 34 major flights were hijacked. TWO were on USA-based airlines (and both of those were in the mid-1980s and neither occurred on or over US soil).

On one day in 2001, four American jets were hijacked. We haven't had any since. I am compelled to argue it wasn't airport security measures that have led to zero since then. I think, instead, it was mandating that cockpit doors lock from the inside instead of the outside. Think back and remember watching the flight attendant shut the cockpit door... and lock it. From the outside...

Since 9/11, though, the tightened security has helped build a better terrorist. When you couldn't check bombs in bags anymore, they put a bomb in a guy's shoe. Once everyone had to start having their shoes screened, they planned on having people assemble liquid-based bombs smuggled on in water bottles. Now that we cannot carry through liquids that do not fit in a quart-sized bag, they apparently have guys wearing explosive underwear. I can only assume that if we had to fly naked, they'd surgically insert a bomb into someone's body.

Our security would be effective if the terrorists weren't bat-shit insane. These are people who are willing to die. They have crashed planes into buildings, something no one rational ever thought of until about 9 a.m. on 9/11. Our little security measures? I have a feeling they're not so upset about the new rules. Especially if they're going to board planes in places like Nigeria, where - I know this is hard to believe - the US Government has no jurisdiction. I know. Crazy.

So, I propose we go back to the old way. Let people pack whatever the hell they want. Right now, we've got honest people trying to find ways to smuggle aboard items they simply don't want to check. Many succeed. So, open the floodgates. There is no statistical proof that I can locate showing that "increased security" has done anything other than spend a lot of money and piss a lot of people off. I'm still waiting for the big "TSA arrests five with weapons at O'Hare security checkpoint" headline.

And really, in 2005 nearly 43,000 Americans died in car crashes. None related to terrorism that I can find. In 2005, 1,454 people died in plane crashes worldwide! In 2008, again worldwide, total fatalities in air crashes were... 876 (in 147 incidents).

Maybe we should be asking about freeway security.

My Year in Travel

2009-12-08T18:26:00.002-08:00

As much as I talk about travel on here, I might as well look back at the year that was in that sense...

First, let's look at the raw numbers of miles flown and flights:

US Airways - 58,872 (55 flights)*
Delta - 3,444 (6 flights)
AirTran - About 700 (2 flights)
Continental - 406 (2 flights)
Southwest About 500 (1 flight)

The star goes next to US Air because by the end of this month, I'll have been on 62 flights and well over 60,000 miles. And the crazy thing... more than 30,000 of them will have been since October 1, which means (if my math is right), due to US Air's fourth quarter promotion, I will vault from Gold status on US Air, to Chairman's. Which, frequent fliers will hear me here, is bad-ass.

I should note here this wasn't all for business, though the vast bulk was. That said, a few vacation flights in there for sure.

So, where was Jay? Here were some of my travel destinations:

Atlanta
New York
Seattle
Portland, OR
San Francisco/Oakland
Southern California
Phoenix
Philadelphia
New Haven
Washington, D.C.
Baltimore
Chattanooga
London, UK
Tampa
Orlando
Ft. Lauderdale/Miami
Jacksonville
Portland, ME
Las Vegas
New Jersey
Boston
Austin
Durango, Colorado

And those are just places that I got on airplane to. Belle Glade, FL; Aztec, NM; Sacramento, CA... all kinds of places that I drove to once on the ground.

In fact, I made it to five new states this year, bringing my total state count to 31.

Now, remarkably, I managed to not once get stranded anywhere (that has only happened once and that was in 2008). Plus, I got a lot of flight upgrades. Generally, my travel hasn't been all that bad.

But it hasn't been all rainbows and butterflies either. Aside from things like missing my wife, jet-lag and other stuff, here are some strictly travel-related items that made travel a bit harder than it might have been:

Philadelphia International Airport - It really says something about how bad an airport you've got when I will schedule business trips to end in Delaware or New Jersey so I can use BWI or Newark, respectively instead of this trapped-in-1977 atrocity of an airport. And the crazy thing is that there is such a case of NIMBYism in some Philly suburbs that the chance of turning Willow Grove NAS or Trenton-Mercer Airport into a desperately-needed overflow airport are nil.

People that think overhead compartments are for their purses/laptop bags. Those, see, go under the seat. I had a guy tell me if he put his laptop under the seat in front of him he wouldn't have any legroom. I am usually very cordial, but I must have been having a bad day. Because I handed him his laptop bag and said "If you wanted leg room, you shouldn't have boarded a plane."

Clouds - I'm a little kid on a plane. When I finish work on my laptop, I want to be able to look out the window. Clouds mess this up. Go be cloudy some other day. Or after I land. :-)

And then, there are the things that travel has taught me:

Being nice helps, more often than not - I am only a frequent flier on one airline, but man, even being nice to the check in people at other airlines can get you stuff. The people who work behind a counter at an airport - and flight attendants - are used to people just yelling at them non-stop. I have no idea how they handle it. But being nice to them, or at least letting them know that you understand that it is not their personal fault that it is raining and therefore you will miss your connection, can go a long way. In January, I was flying to Austin to visit a friend and the flight was terribly delayed. Mechanical problem. And people were generally calm, but some were freaking out. I got on the plane and the flight attendant was doing his mandated apology as every passenger got on. I simply said something to the effect of "eh, nothing a free beer can't forgive." A guy sitting across from me gave the guy some lip. We each got a beer on the flight. Guess whose beer was free.

Look at your rental car. Carefully. - Last month, I got a notice from Avis saying I owed them $400 for unspecified damage to a car. I was fortunate to have enough evidence to show that any damage was not incurred under my watch. Still... if the light so much as hits the car funny in a spot, report it.

Be careful of closing doors on the London Tube - If you don't, you might leave your jet-lagged wife behind at Victoria Station and have to hope you can reconnect at the next stop. Not that, uh, this happened to, you know, me and Sarah...

Mix business with pleasure - On a trip to Portland Oregon, I was in my hotel room, post-dinner, caught up on work and ironing... at 7:30 p.m. I could've stayed in my room all night. Or... I could've scalped a ticket to see Modest Mouse. I did the latter. Similarly, after a long trip to Colorado and California, I could've ordered room service in my Oakland hotel room. Instead, I hopped the BART to go into San Fran's Mission District. Seriously, if you are fortunate enough to be traveling to cool places, do something cool. I have a trip to LA in January that involves an 11:45 a.m. flight home. I could hang out in the Westin all morning. Or, I could wake up early, drive up to the Valley to have a very early appointment for work, but then... when it's done at 8:30, drive through Topanga Canyon and down the Pacific Coast Highway to LAX (which, at that hour, will be faster than 405). So, instead of a sterile morning in a hotel room, I can put forth a bit of early morning effort and be rewarded with one of the best drives in the country. Like anything else, travel is what you make of it.

Still, though, the best part of all my travels has been coming home to Sarah, who has been amazingly understanding, tolerant and patient with all my running around. The truth is, I'm at home more than I am away. But some weeks, it doesn't feel that way. She has been an amazing support to me all year. And she's the best travel companion I could ask for when she gets to tag along or we go together. :-)

The Top 10 Albums of 2009

2009-12-06T19:37:00.013-08:00

Well, here we are... another year of music to look at. Truth be told, it was a pretty weak year. I hate saying that, but I think it's true. The standout albums were easy to spot and the ones that came close had some serious flaws. We've been spoiled the last few years and this was the year the karma cycle paid us back. Still, the top 10 I have are excellent. And it was an excellent year for "electronic" music.

As always, my top 10 has a "second opinion" so you know I'm not nuts (or at least someone is as nuts as me). First, a few notable albums that, in my mind were good, but not quite the top 10:

U2 - No Line on the Horizon - This was easily U2's best entry since Pop. I know that a lot of U2 "fans" would dispute this, but these people seem to eschew creativity in favor of pedestrian arena rock. U2, for the first time in more than a decade took risks. And while it's not their best work ever, it's an album that shows that U2 remains relevant, even if their best work still seems to befuddle many of their listeners.

Franz Ferdinand - Tonight: Franz Ferdinand - A solid, if not entirely amazing effort from one of the best Scottish exports of the aughts. Franz plays around with their sound a bit on this disc... it's more hit than miss, but one gets the idea this is the album where the band is stretching its wings, figuring out what will connect on a later effort.

Moby - Wait For Me - Moby confounds a lot of people both with his music and his ultra-left righteousness. But this album shows he's still able to put together a cohesive disc of tracks that bottle up all manner of emotion into, now and then, breathtaking short works.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz! - This was very nearly in the top 10. It's a really solid entry. When you consider that this is a band that made it's name on affected post-punk, to hear what starts as a dance album is something. That they pull it off is something entirely more. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs establish themselves as one of the more versatile bands in rock right now and give us a reason to look forward to more.

And now...

10) Matthew Good - Vancouver
Second opinion: Chart

I don't mind saying this... Matt Good is easily the best artist that has been ignored by the bulk of American listeners over the past 10 years. Some of this is not his fault. Most of his material is not available in the United States. If it weren't for the magic of the iTunes store, I wouldn't even have this. But, once again, Good crafts the kind of rock songs that few bands make any more. Relying on his talent and his knack for writing fine rock songs, Good eschews all derivative and creates a concept album about his Vancouver neighborhood that sounds fresh, yet recalls the anthematic work of his past. Good is proving that years after breaking with Underdogs, any album he makes is noteworthy out of the box.

9) Discovery - LP
Second opinion: NME

I like Ra Ra Riot. I like Vampire Weekend. As a sort of fusion, one would think it's automatic that I would like Discovery. The truth is, though, I really liked this album, especially sitting beachside this past summer. Yes, its 30-minute brevity begs questions of just how far this can go. In this case, let's leave it at the band made as much of an album as they had to make... much like a BBC TV series. Songs like "Carby" and "Slang Tang" make it a fun ride, but even "Can You Discover" - a reworking of sterling Ra Ra Riot track "Can You Tell" - show a whole other side of these "preppy" bands. I hope I can expect a Discovery album between each entry from the original bands.

8) The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Second Opinion: Pitchfork

Brooklyn indie is very trying. These guys make it easy. Flat out indie pop that despite constant references to shoegaze, is as catchy and heartfelt as the band's name implies. Few bands have been this accessible and, while Belle and Sebastian references don't hurt ("Come Saturday"), songs like "Stay Alive" and the evocative campus tryst of "The Tenure Itch" make this album an easy listen.

7) Dan Deacon - Bromst
Second Opinion: AV Club

I very nearly made this album of the year. Nothing sounds like it and nothing offers the same payoff. Why not, then? Accessibility. I bet 50% of the people I could play this for, or more, would hear it and go "huh?" And accessibility has to count for something. That said, if you can get into this, you will be rewarded at a level unthought of for this kind of music. If anything, Deacon is playing with a new form of classical music. Themes play off counterthemes, songs are more arranged than played... it's startling. "Red F" shows Deacon's ability to toss it all together into a frenetic mix that, despite a lack of real lyrics makes me want to stand up and sing. But other songs like "Snookered" show the depth of ability here. Deacon has said he wants to work with orchestras. After hearing Bromst, I hope they line up.

6) Pearl Jam - Backspacer
Second Opinion: Rolling Stone

Another one where, seemingly, just by being released, it is notable. PJ continues to chug along, turning out outstanding rock time after time. Selections like "Got Some" provide quick power rock that, despite imitators, they can only put out. But after Eddie Vedder's solo effort for Into the Wild, a song like "Just Breathe" shows a side of PJ that fans always knew was there but reinforces why we're likely to be hearing form this band for years to come.

5) Lily Allen - It's Not Me, It's You
Second Opinion: Spin

Can we make all pop stars like Lily? Intelligent. Catchy. Brash. Wonderful. You cannot help but fall for this disc. While other poppers find one-and-done pop anthems, Lily Allen is pretty determined, it would appear, to use the format to actually be an artist. This means she occasionally mis-steps, but considering how few throwaways there are on this disc, she's clearly doing well. And it is, in many ways, showing the dark side of pop stardom. The jadedness ("The Fear"), tabloid attention ("22") and parental conflict ("I Could Say") are all here, in frank detail. But brilliantly executed.

4) Dave Matthews Band - Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King
Second Opinion: Rolling Stone

Death was very good to Sublime, but it meant that that band was done with making music. You hate to say this, but the too-early death of LeRoi Moore seems to have, yikes... energized Dave Matthews Band. This is a ridiculously good album. And while songs like "Shake Me Like a Monkey" bring the kind of old-school DMB energy, it's other songs that put Matthews at a level we haven't heard on an album since Before These Crowded Streets. It's a track like "Time Bomb" that sets this album apart from other albums this year and some of DMB's previous work. The death of a bandmember - and friend - brings issues to the forefront that may be painful to deal with, but make startlingly good music in capable hands. And Matthews undoubtedly possesses those.

3) Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
Second Opinion: Pitchfork

Another album that was perfect for summer but astoundingly diverse... and executed masterfully well. Find another album that manages to include a track like "Stillness is the Move" to something as "indie" as "Temecula Sunrise." Possibly the most complete album of the year in terms of continuity, Bitte Orca is about as accessible an indie album as you can find. And the truth is, I normally expound upon an album this high, but this is a case where the music really does speak for itself.

2) Fever Ray - Fever Ray
Second Opinion: Pitchfork

Dear lord this is bleak. And beautiful. The Knife put out a masterpiece with Silent Shout a few years back and one half of that outfit, Karin Dreijer Andersson, puts out a solo album that might even up the ante on The Knife. This is absolutely challenging music and it will not appeal to everyone. And while accessibility may mean something, this is one where I say if you cannot acquire the taste for the music, you are missing out. And big time. It sounds minimal... but that belies a depth both of lyrical content and sound. And there, we have perhaps the biggest brilliance of the album. Dreijer Andersson puts more into less than you might possibly expect. "If I Had a Heart" provides the creepy factor, but it is offset by songs like "Seven" that project a more reflective tone. Give me all the dark Swedish music you can if it's all this good.

1) The Avett Brothers - I and Love and You
Second Opinion: Paste

I hate to say it... in the end, it wasn't even close. I may be the only Charlottean to have yet to see this band live, but maybe that even helps make this album all the more remarkable. I think this band has had trouble with some reviews because they cannot be completely assigned to "folk" or "country" or "rock" or "bluegrass." They do take the Appalachian influence and do the most with it... but the most is far and above the best thing I have heard this year. And, again, it was immediate. After two or three listens, there was no doubt this was something beyond the other music of the year. And while it was a weak year, this album would be near the top in any year I've done a list like this. From the opening title track, the Avetts showcase a virtuosity paired with a keen ear for good songwriting that was missing in just about every other release this year. End to end, there are few weak moments. And the high points are insanely high, most notably, in my mind, a song like "Ten Thousand Words" where the Avetts have nothing to rely on other than their songwriting ability. And, as more and more people in areas have started to ask about that band from near Charlotte, this album captures a band on the cusp... and, excitingly, potentially not at its peak. Still, if this is as good as the Avetts get, we've been given a classic.

2009 in Music, part 1

2009-11-30T17:55:00.003-08:00

Well, folks... it's that time once again. My annual roundup of all things music from my own selfish perspective. You might want to refresh your memory on last year to see if this holds up at all over time.

Anyhow, we'll get to the 10 best albums soon. For now, partially because rankings in and of themselves do not sum up a year in music - and partially because I need more time to write the albums blog - let's just get to some of the musical housekeeping for the year that was:

Creed of the Year
I'm going to take some pain for this one, because Creed is probably not the best parallel, but... Kings of Leon. I say this because I have their most recent album. It has some good songs. They are all overplayed. They are far overrated as a band. They have vague religious righteousness about them. Maybe Creed is a good parallel. That said, if Creed could write a song as good as "Sex on Fire" the world would be a better place.

Band I'm Glad I Got Into This Year
Hands down Modest Mouse. What the hell took me so long to get on this train? And it was the classic see-band-live-and-love-them-forever thing. Seriously, some great musicians. They can thrash, too. But Isaac Brock is a pretty talented songwriter and knows him some melody, too. I'm late to the game, but happy to be in nonetheless.

Concert Moment of the Year
So, I could pick a lot of things from the Coldplay show, where I saw one of the best mainstream bands of the decade look incredibly comfortable and engage the crowd and all that. But the moment was before they come on stage. Bands usually get to pick their pre-show music. So, it wasn't a shock to hear the normal background set-change music segue into Jay-Z, a Coldplay collaborator. What was more of a surprise was how Coldplay elected to have U2's "Magnificent" blare at full concert volume prior just prior to taking the stage. To me, that was the band saying, "Well, since someone's going to compare, you just go ahead and hear it and then we'll show you what we've got." Point taken. Ballsy move that Coldplay backed up with a killer show.

Creepiest Video Ever of the Year
This isn't even a contest. Good luck sleeping after this, kids:

Pop Song That Can Die, Preferably Quickly
"Single Ladies." I don't like it. I will not put a ring on it. I will change the station. And please stop putting it into TV shows. And I don't care about the baby dancing o YouTube either.

Trend of the Year
The continued rise (and toleration) of free. It's occurring to more and more bands/labels/rational people that there is little need to charge for music itself. There's, simply put, too much money to be made on concert tickets, merchandise, fan club fees, deluxe super versions of albums and more to worry about the cost of a 128kbps mp3 out there. Even as iTunes raised its prices, more and more we're seeing bands use simple economics to reap decent returns. Certainly sustainable returns. Think about it... you could sell 500,000 albums and get $4 for each sold. Or, you could sell 20,000 $120 super-deluxe album packages and get just about the same money. Anyone want to dispute it's easier to get 20,000 people to buy something than 500,000? Seriously... give your music away and put out awesome stuff that hardcore fans will pony up for.

Alarming Trend
Taylor Swift. All of it. Make it stop. I swear, every three years there some new country tart-let out there who gets shoved down our throats. And she is this year's winner. Make. It. Stop. Or please stop trying to make me care.

Biggest Disappointments
Ok, really, this year was a big letdown after last year. I suppose we were due for an off year... the past few have been pretty good music years. This year, just... geez. First off, a lot of bands should have put out EPs instead of albums. The Big Pink debut album has a lot of promise, but only up until about song 6.

But still, a few albums just tanked if you ask me:

Our Lady Peace - Burn Burn - Whither OLP? This album just made me sad. You have to consider that this is a band that, by most critical accounts, was easily one of the more creative heavy rock bands of its time as recently as 2001. Then... my lord has this band gone downhill. The worst part? Last song of this disc, "Paper Moon," harkens back to the sound of old and, honestly, I would rather listen to that song (half of it anyway) on a 30-minute loop than this album in its entirety. Fail.
Silversun Pickups - Swoon - We got wound up excited for this? Also, the Smashing Pumpkins comparison is lazy. The Smashing Pumpkins, like them or not, never made this bland an album.
Third Eye Blind - Ursa Major - This one is more about my own wishes and desires. I want 3EB to be good. Years ago Kevin Cadogan, guitarist, left the band. Apparently, he was a big part of the band, too, because their materials since has been meh.

Top 10 Songs of the Year
There were some awesome songs this year. As always. Let's count them down, shall we?

10) Green Day - "21st Century Breakdown"
On an album that didn't quite reach the heights of its classic predecessor, this song is an easy standout and captures the energy of Green Day at its best.

9) The Airborne Toxic Event - "Sometime Around Midnight"
Not sure what to make of this band, but this song was outstanding (especially in a year with no Arcade Fire to compete with since ATE seems to want to emulate that band).

8) Big Pink - "Dominos"
The best song from a new British band that might just turn into something. Plus, I like the swagger of this song, even if it means these guys are a bunch of bar-room louts. You can do that when you're a rock star.

7) Phoenix - "1901"
Some people are going to rave about this album, but this song was really the standout. And it easily wins the award for indie song to reap the most licensing royalties this year.

6) Lady Gaga - "Poker Face"
Don't even try to argue this point. If anything, I have ranked it too low.

5) Metric - "Help I'm Alive"
They were joking on Sirius/XM that this band and Shiny Toy Guns are basically interchangeable I'm not so sure. Metric has a better track record overall album-wise and, hey, we like Canadians. Plus, this song is better than any on the last Shiny Toy Guns disc.

4) Kelly Clarkson - "My Life Would Suck Without You"
Sarah is making obscene gestures at me for this (especially given the song two spots up, which she feels is more deserving). I dunno. I'm just a sucker. This song sounds like flipping fun dip tastes.

3) Radiohead - "These Are My Twisted Words"
I want to broker a deal with Radiohead: every month, they put out a new song. After 12 months, you've got a 12-track album that you burn and write the name of the year on it. Then you start over.

2) U2 - "Fez (Being Born)"
It had been more than 10 years since U2 put out a song like this and it was too damned long. Far too complex for radio and probably too complex for many of its "fans," too. It's a song like this that makes me step back and understand just why this band was so great. Each band member plays his role, they experiment with the sounds in their heads and, instead of another U2 song with "that sound," you get a creative burst of... I dunno what. But holy flipping lord can I pay this band to just make songs/albums like this again? It's everything the promise of Zooropa and Pop showed... finally in a neat package.

1) Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Zero"
I cannot stop listening to this song. From the first moment I heard it this year, to right now this very minute. I listened to it in the gym tonight (and thank god for that or I never would have gotten my workout started). I fantasize about making remixes of this song. This song makes me want to jump on the roof of my car and dance in rush hour traffic. AND... all from a band that I used to put on the jukebox in low-down shady bars in lower Manhattan when I was feeling sinister back in the day. The band is clearly comfortable trying new things and doing crazy crazy stuff in the process. And what's even crazier is I couldn't decide between this song and "Heads Will Roll" from the same album for a couple of weeks. I like options.

Dubunking the SEC

2009-11-28T15:44:00.003-08:00

It's my birthday and I am feeling punchy. And since I can barely look at my Twitter feed, turn on the TV or leave my house without hearing about how good SEC football is, I'm going to have my wits with people.

For those unacquainted with the issue, the Southeast Conference is widely touted to be the best college football conference ever in the history of the universe. At least by ESPN, which slathers the love on the SEC like my dog does to my bare feet.

I guess that shouldn't be too surprising. Much like ESPN overhypes the NBA (a league ESPN paid a lot of money to broadcast), ESPN's talkies love to hype up the SEC. Some of these idiots go as far as to say a team that loses a game in the SEC might still be better than an undefeated team from, say, the Big 12, another major football conference.

You would think ESPN signed a deal to televise SEC games... oh look: they did!

Beyond this, though, annoying fan after annoying fan is happy to remind me about how much better the SEC is. For instance, they talk about how the teams in the SEC are a step above the rest.

Really? This is a conference that had its championship game set weeks ago. In other words, they have two dominant teams... and a slew of also-rans. The Big 10 gets a lot of pain because it is so rare for a team to escape the conference schedule undefeated. The truth is... the Big 10 consistently fields a better overall field of teams. That might kill some national championship hopes for some teams. But this idea that the SEC is just loaded is just that... a load. Of crap. Highly-touted LSU, Ole Miss, Georgia and the like have shown nothing that anyone could refer to as "elite" this year. And storied programs like Tennessee have a lot of tradition but are crap football sides.

Then, the same annoying fans want to let me know how much better the SEC teams are against other conferences. Friends, I give you the SEC's record out of conference since 1990:

Big-12 (20-16)
PAC-10 (10-9)
Big East (15-20)
Big-10 (30-23)
ACC (65-50)
The old Southwest Conference (20-19)

In other words, they've done well, but the conference is not dominant by any measure.

Then they tout the SEC's bowl game record. OK, let's look at last year:

Pac-10 5-0
Big 12 3-1
Conference USA 3-1
Southeastern 3-1
Big East 3-2
Mountain West 2- 2
Atlantic Coast 4-6
Big Ten 1-5

So... a nice 3-1 record, yes. But several conferences on this list sent more teams to bowl games than the SEC and one (last year's PAC-10) didn't lose! The SEC had great year before, too, but, again, its teams were hardly the only ones at the party.

Basically, I write this as a wake up call to SEC fans who love to toot their horns... you're standing on a house of cards. And hey, ESPN can hype y'all up as much as they want. This is the same network that crowned Matt Leinart's USC as the best team in college history a few years ago. That team, by the way, lost to Texas in grand fashion in the title game.

The Sounds of the Season

2009-11-24T19:14:00.002-08:00

For the past three years, I have worked to compile a mix of Christmas/holiday music that celebrates the season, but is performed by current indie bands. It's not because I dislike the old standards of the season... I just choose to not take the holidays quite as seriously as my local all-Christmas-all-the-time radio station might.

In 2007, the mix kicked off with The Dandy Warhols' psychedelic take on "The Little Drummer Boy," segued right into Save Ferris' Judaic send-up of "Christmas Wrapping" and, if I can say so myself, killed for 30+ minutes. It included the modern classic Barenaked Ladies/Sarah McLachlan "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and more.

Last year, I felt I upped the ante with 40 minutes of spirited tunes. Ringing in with The Raveonette's "Christmas Song" and rolling right through to Coldplay's lovely cover of "2,000 Miles."

This year, it was a harder task. The simple fact of the matter is that there is a finite number of indie/alternative Christmas songs. There are fewer yet Hanukkah songs, which is a damn shame. Still, with about six weeks of searching and playing with a mix (and an assist from a Zooey Deschanel song located last night), I think I've got it.

So, dear readers, here's the playlist of the season for me (and with two previous collections, I've got about 90 minute sof totally tolerable holiday fare):

1) Pearl Jam - "Someday at Christmas"
2) Zooey Deschanel (with Leon Redbone) - "Baby, It's Cold Outside"
3) Jack Johnson - "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"
4) The Bird and the Bee - "Carol of the Bells"
5) My Morning Jacket - "Santa Claus is Back in Town"
6) The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "All I Want for Christmas"
7) Bright Eyes - "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"
8) Oscar the Grouch - "I Hate Christmas"
9) Phantom Planet - "Winter Wonderland"
10) The Raveonettes - "Come On Santa"
11) Jimmy Eat World - "Last Christmas"
12) Coldplay - "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christas"
13) Jack White - "Christmastime Will Soon Be Over"

How I Fight a Cold

2009-11-22T20:33:00.002-08:00

Last week, when I flew home from a conference in Phoenix, I was a mess. I had known I was due for a cold and, sure enough, it hit with a vengeance.

This was unacceptable. I had to fly to Seattle on Tuesday night and Sarah was going to meet me in Portland for the following weekend. I had to take action. When I fight disease, I fight to win. And while, the cold lingered well past its sell-by date, here's how I went from on my ass last Friday night to a cross-country flight Tuesday night and managed to feel OK:

I stop drinking - I know. Rare is the night I don't have at least one drink. It's OK. My doctor says it's fine. Anyhow... From when I got on my flight in Phoenix until this past Thursday night, no alcohol. Zip. Don't need my body processing anything but a virus.
I drink all kinds of other stuff. I have a rule with a cold... if I stand up, it's time for a glass of water. I must have had 6 cups of tea a day, too. Lunch? Soup. I basically challenge the virus' ability to make a real dent in me if all I'm doing is, essentially, asking my kidneys to move things along, per se.
Drugs. I do not hold back on the drugs. Homeopathic remedies and zinc lozenges are great, but I need some serious stuff. Since they made pseudo-ephedrine a controlled substance, I switched from NyQuil/DayQuil to the new Tylenol Cold suite of drugs. The daytime stuff makes me feel dopey... no idea how addicts can function. The nighttime stuff not only puts me straight out, but it gives we whacked out dreams. Way out there.

That's pretty much the plan. But you do that for 72 hours and things start to turn for you. I'm leaving out the part about hacking up whatever ickiness there is to be had, but no one wants to hear the details of that.

Anyhow, I wasn't feeling grand when I walked into the Sheraton Seattle Downtown on Tuesday evening, but I was miles better than a few days earlier. Fight to win, folks. Fight to win.

A quick clarification

2009-11-03T19:46:00.003-08:00

CNN analysts are going on and on about the New Jersey governor's race, extrapolating what it means in the national scheme of things. One analyst talked about how big an indicator Chris Christie's election is... the fact that a Republican could win the governorship in a liberal state like New Jersey! One analyst even called it "shocking."

Friends, here are the governors of New Jersey since 1982:

1982-1990 - Tom Kean (Republican)
1990-1994 - Jim Florio (Democrat, lost in 1994 in a landslide)
1994-2001 - Christie Whitman (Republican)
2001-2002 - Don DiFrancesco (Republican)
2002-2004 - Jim McGreevey (Democrat, resigned)
2004-2006 - Richard Codey (Democrat)
2006-2010 - Jon Corzine (Democrat)

So, since 1982, in New Jersey, the "unlikely" party managed to hold the governor's office for only 16 years, with no democrat serving two terms.

If Christie winning tonight is "shocking," I can only assume the person - or anyone - saying it has never been to New Jersey.

A Sad Day For TV Journalism

2009-10-15T17:59:00.003-07:00

Today, folks, we learned that an afraid 6 year old can control the national media by hiding in an attic.

A quick note... A few weeks ago, someone asked me which reality TV star I'd like to wish ill on. I chose a certain cable news pundit. The point being: the news shouldn't be called "the news"anymore. News is boring.

But people don't tune in to see boring. And, today shows me we've reached the point where broadcasting the drama of the day - in many cases endlessly debating the drama of the day, if the issue at hand is political - is the key interest vs. informing the public.

Seriously, think about it. A prototype balloon is released accidentally from a home near Ft. Collins, Colo. Would that normally interest you? Granted, the thought of a child in the balloon, helpless up in the Rocky Mountain air... sure, that's scary. But to broadcast the entire incident live - and psyching up viewers with statements along the lines of "what's going to happen to this poor kid?" - is simply irresponsible.

There was no reporting. No asking "gee, did you check the garage? The attic?"

Instead, the news made this into an event. Much like they do with hurricanes, airplanes with faulty landing gears and other "dramas" that make for riveting television.

And that is all well and good... except that these channels claim to be giving you the news.

If today's balloon incident was a movie a la speed, you'd feel cheated to find out the kid was in the attic. You'd think "They got my heart racing for that? No one thought to search the damned house?!" Why tolerate "reporting" that does the same?

And, if anything, the heightened attention puts the pressure on first responders who, suddenly, with the glare of national spotlights and cameras following their every move, become conscious that their efforts are being scrutinized by average American couch potatoes. That doesn't help them. Imagine if the kid had been on board and died. You don't think some talking head would be trying to analyze what the first responders should have done?

Honestly, this is a disgraceful chapter in the history of broadcast news media. Dan Rather, a journalist who 99% got his facts straight, lost his job at CBS for one rushed-out-the-door story. But for the "reporters" who inflated today's balloon fiasco into "news," manipulating viewers in a way that must make James Cameron proud... they're probably getting pats on the back.

This story should have been an end-of-show "kicker" segment... a light and lively "And authorities followed a stray hot air balloon in Colorado thinking a 6-year-old child was aboard. Fortunately, he was found safe and sound in his home's attic."

Instead, the interests of ratings and money took precedence over journalism.

Time and the Quarter Collection

2009-10-07T17:17:00.002-07:00

In 1999, I decided to take on a 10-year project. Toward the end of my sophomore year in college, the U.S. Mint started the 50 State Quarters Program and, despite not really being a coin collector, I thought this would be cool.

It was a conscious decision. I decided it wouldn't go seeking out quarters or anything of the sort. I wanted to simply come upon them. With five quarters released each year, I knew I had at least a 10-year project on hand.

And so it began. First, as a small stack of quarters in my dorm room. That summer, after I told my mom I was doing this, she picked me up a $5 folder with slots for each state's quarter. Last week, after 10 years of looking carefully at virtually every quarter that came my way, I found a Montana quarter from the office vending machine... and my collection was complete.

One of the reasons I started the collection was so I could sit back and see just what transpired in my life between acquiring that Delaware quarter and the completion of the collection. And, it's really quite a catalog:

I got my first job. And my second. And third. And fourth.
I moved South.
I got married.
I traveled to Europe for the first time... and then went back again.
I traveled all over this country, making many of those quarters bring back some memory of being in one of those states. (This is notable since, in 1999, I had been to 13 states. On Sunday, that number hits 28 unless my count is off.)

I could go on. And that's to say nothing of world events, pop culture happenings, technological advances and so forth. Think about it... there was no iPod in 1999.

The good news, though? We often discuss how time flies... going faster and faster all the time. The truth is, it feels like the quarter collection took a long time. Slow, deliberate... it made me realize just how much time has passed. And how I really have made the most of it. I've done a lot, experienced a lot and learned a lot since the collection started. And the next 10 years... I may not be collecting quarters (no way, Jose), but I can take solace in knowing that life isn't a sprint.

It can slowed down and it can offer a world of perspective.

Cat Update and more...

2009-10-04T08:51:00.004-07:00

OK, first off... the cat. The cat was spotted on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Animal Control adoption Web site and was only up there for about a day. Plenty of other cats have remained on there, so we can safely assume this cat has found a new home that is not under my out-front shrubbery. You can all rest that much more soundly, dear readers. :-)

In the meantime, it hit my house last night... by "it," I mean fall. Came home with some friends, got out the fall candles and the like. Even changed the Facebook profile photo to my October avatar.

What's the best about this time of year, though... the smells. I mean it. Beyond the Yankee Candle Harvest scent... this is the time of year to get the spices out.

Last night, that meant a fresh batch of molasses cookies. I use the King Arthur flour recipe for these and, year after year, I am convinced they are the perfect cookie.

They smell outstanding. That house-filling smell of spice.
They look like a cookie. I mean, these come out of the oven and cool and end up looking like something you would buy in a store... minus the preservatives and all that jazz of packaged cookies.
They are the perfect consistency. Soft, chewy... they're damn perfect cookies, I'm telling you.

My wife has decreed that she "needs to make pumpkin bread today." I have two killer gingerbread recipes. I've got a rack-full of spices.

My house... gonna be smelling good through about Jan. 1.

Cat

2009-09-28T16:30:00.003-07:00

Dear readers, I eat lunch at home some days when I don't get the dog sitter. This is mainly to allow my dog to relieve herself. I mean, I know the feeling of being trapped in a car when nature calls. A cage must be worse.

Anyhow, on Friday, when I came home for lunch, I had a postcard to mail and as I was walking out to the mailbox I saw the mailman driving up. Perfect timing.

In more ways than one. Had I not been out there right then, I doubt I would have discovered (at least for another few days) the Siamese cat that was under one of my bushes. I wondered what was making all the rustling noise and I walk over to see this poor thing camping out under a shrub.

Important side note: I am allergic to cats. I don't mean the dander makes me sneeze. I mean cats make my head explode into a drippy, teary mess. Some years ago, a friend's cat fell out of her arms and the cat, desperately trying to arrest its fall, grabbed onto the closest thing it could... my thigh. Where claws punctured my skin, I immediately developed painful, itchy blotches, much like you would get in an allergy test (which, incidentally is exactly what happened when I was allergy tested).

So, with all that in mind:

I see this cat and I want to help it
I absolutely do not want to touch it

At first, I figured I'd be rational. We have a "cat lady" down the street. My next door neighbors once told me "she owns, like, 50 cats." This may well be true. Her cats litter (no pun intended) the cul de sac. Some says, turning your car around is like running one of those courses in car ads where the car has to swerve to avoid stuff...

Anyhow, I walk over yesterday morning to say hello and "Oh, by the way, do you happen to have a Siamese?"

She said, sadly, no. But... and maybe this means I should be nice to cat ladies... she goes "I've seen that cat around the neighborhood, but it sure doesn't seem to have a home."

Essentially, the cat lady has a catalog of neighborhood cats. This is a good resource.

OK, so... a few casual conversations with neighbors later, no one knows whose cat this is. Least of all the cat lady who would most assuredly know all of her neighbors' cats.

So, I email the humane society. This, after a call to some of the no-kill shelters reveals that no one, apparently, is accepting cats at the moment. Awe. Some.

The humane society emails me back first thing this morning and it was encouraging. Basically, they cannot take any cats either unless I have proof the thing has all its shots. This cat, right here in my front yard, has no form of ID on hand (or collar). So that's out.

So she recommends I call kill-em-all-if-not-picked-up-in-72-hours Animal Control... BUT then she says that as soon as Animal Control picks up my cat, to give her the reference number because "she has a soft spot for Siamese cats."

Hooray! Guaranteed rescue!

See, I don't like cats in particular. But I do like animals and I would much prefer not to send any cat to kitty Auschwitz. This, seemed to be a winning plan.

I call Animal Control, feeling good about things. I do not reveal that someone is going to swoop in and take this cat. I just want it picked up. No prob. They'll be by tonight. And then I hear the words "Please confine the cat."

"Umm... I'm allergic to cats."

"Well, figure out a way to get it in your bathroom because our guys will not chase a cat."

Fantabulous.

I must have looked like a fine fool grabbing my work gloves from the garage, scooping up this cat, carrying it at arms length into my house and into the guest bathroom. I put a little dish of milk in there to be nice.

You would think - hope even - that this animal that was using my shrubs as a poor shelter to weather a couple inches of Friday and Saturday night rain would be grateful to be indoors with some minor form of sustenance. You, my friend, would be wrong.

Cat tried to make a bee-line for the living room. Umm... NO. Do not push the limits of my generosity, cat. I have gone far-and-away to make sure your little life goes on past Thursday. You can sit in bathroom. Thankyouverymuch.

Anyhow, I now sit and wait for Animal Control. Updates to come...

On Dunbar's Number

2009-09-25T18:53:00.003-07:00

I read a fair amount of pop-econ and pop-psych. For instance, Malcolm Gladwell's excellent books, such The Tipping Point, and recently, Outliers. I recently read Chris Anderson's Free, breaking down the potential of companies (or bands) to make money by giving stuff away.

It's interesting to see some topics arise in several of these books and one I've seen in the above - and in some other articles lately - is Dunbar's Number.

In basic terms, Dunbar's Number is 150 - being the maximum size of a given person's true social network. The number was established through research... of course there is some dispute that 150 is the number, but, Dunbar did notice some interesting things. You can find plenty of examples through history of societies that broke apart into two groups when their total populations exceeded 150. Roman army units were made up of 150 soldiers.

The idea is that, once you exceed 150 people in a group, cohesiveness - or common mutual interest - begins to erode. (Warning: that is also an oversimplification).

Most of us, these days, have much larger social networks. I have, somehow, 346 friends on Facebook.

But in reality, do I correspond with all 346? No. It is much easier to keep up to speed on folks. I am happy to know how some people are doing that I don't often talk to. It saves long "catch up" chat that existed before the advent of online social networks. All that is grand.

But functional social groups, I have decided, cannot be so big. Think of a wedding party. Small weddings tend to result in one common experience. You ask my friends about my wedding, they probably tell the same story. Now think of a 350-person wedding. The room divides itself up, partially because, well, there are so many people you don't need to hang out with those other people. Your experience at the wedding is likely different from those of the folks on the other side of the ballroom.

None of this means you should have a certain kind of wedding. The point is, we have limits in our abilities to relate to one another. There is point where you stop caring about the needs of some others because your own self-interests can be supported by an entirely different group.

And once again... this isn't bad. Life would be tiresome if we were always forced to act strictly in the interests of a group. We're not stranded on a desert island. But it's valuable to think that due to the number of people we interact with, we tune out some and put extra emphasis on others. That doesn't lead to a complete view of anything.

All Broken Up

2009-09-17T16:55:00.002-07:00

Way back in the day, when I was in college, I took a media criticism class. You encounter some crazy stuff in media criticism. There are some folks who think every ad you see contains veiled sexual allusions. Another set of crazies think that all media is designed to protect the bourgeoisie from the workers of the world (Yes, there are Marxist media critics).

But one book we read in that class wasn't nuts. It was by Joseph Turow and titled Breaking Up America.

Bear in mind that, in 2000, there was no YouTube. Streaming video was something you watched on a clunky player called RealPlayer. There were no iPods. You still - GASP - had to use CDs, unless you were using Napster or the more covert Scour Media Agent to download one 128 kbps mp3 at a time which you only - ONLY - played through Winamp. There wasn't a Blogger yet. The Internet, as wonderful as it was, was barely showing its true power.

With that context in mind, understand how Breaking Up America worked. The premise was pretty simple: American media had reached a point where it was simply more profitable to narrow-target audiences and charge advertisers a premium to reach a smaller, but more focused audience.

What I mean is... say you are Tampax. You want to advertise tampons. In the old media world, before wide acceptance of cable/satellite TV, you bought ads during time slots you know women were watching, but you probably bought ads when a lot of people you didn't care about reaching (read: men) were watching. So, you might reach 2 million viewers... but if 40% of them are men, that's not a great value for your ad dollar.

Media proliferation changed that. Suddenly, there were TV networks only for women. This complemented magazines only for women. The audience for those media outlets might be smaller (no men watching/reading) but nearly 100% of consumers of those outlets fell into the target audience. This was a better ad buy. And for the media outlet, it was a great boon. They could jack ad rates to know they had the right audience.

But this led media outlets to realize that it wasn't just in their interests to attract the right audience. It was also advantageous for all of them to repel people who weren't the target audience.

Breaking Up America noted that if you looked at a magazine rack, or the commercials on a cable channel, you would likely either be drawn in or turned off by what you saw. Exactly how the channel wants it to be.

In a business sense, this is perfect. Advertisers will pay more to reach a concentrated audience of viewers/readers.

Now, this is important: with the exception of PBS, NPR and a very small selection of magazines (Consumer Reports for instance), every media outlet you use is dependent on ad dollars. That includes "news" channels. Keep that in mind.

Say what you will about Fox News Channel... they have successfully taken the "fragmentation" model of media success to new heights. They can say "Fair and Balanced" all they want, but be serious for a moment: Fair and Balanced in today's media market is bad business. From a business standpoint, it makes much more sense to be super conservative (or liberal) because you can repel all the viewers you don't want. And charge advertisers more.

I see Fox News every day. I'm not going to talk about what they say. I'm going to talk about the ads I see on there. The Weekly Standard sells subscriptions. Some company is selling "emergency radios" that will no doubt work when your area loses power in a terrorist attack. PACs run right-leaning ads seemingly every commercial break. You think left-wingers want to see all that? Hail no.

And, as a result, Fox is able to reap monetary benefits. CNN, MSNBC... they do the same thing to different degrees. MSNBC on the left, CNN trying (I'm being serious) to play the middle.

There is no incentive for any of these networks to do otherwise. As Mark Bowden points out in the most recent issue of The Atlantic, there is no longer a "disinterested" journalistic voice. And while Bowden doesn't say this, it's mainly because there's no money in disinterested, objective news reporting. After all, once someone tells you what happened, you don't need to tune in for anything else. Punditry, where on-air hosts lambaste new policy or people, is much better at retaining an audience.

Again, this is all good business. But, I am becoming more and more convinced that, at least in politics, it's not helping either side of any debate. It's selling pundit books. It's getting news nets ad money. It's letting bloggers "participate in democracy" by nets picking up blogger reports and reporting that as news.

But it isn't doing one important thing: building any manner of true consensus. We're fast approaching the point where the politically aware are more interested in winning than building policy on... anything. Find me a cable news channel that says "Well, this bill spends way too much money and might raise taxes and that is awful. But suchandsuch is a big problem and we need to find a real way to address this" or "This bill doesn't do enough to help people and we think it sucks, but the truth is progress comes in baby steps and the opposition has valid points."

I'll wait.

...

Oh, you couldn't find that? Not surprised.

With more and more technology enabling us to make individual decisions about the media we consume - from the shows we watch to the music we listen to - we run the risk of forgetting that other people's choices may be just as valid. We surround ourselves with messages and entertainment that reinforces our own beliefs rather than truly trying to empathize with someone different. I hate Nickelback, but you know... tons of people love them. Their (awful) music moves people. And I may not ever let them on my iPod but that doesn't mean Nickelback should be banished from the airwaves. And the same goes for political policy.

If we do not find a way to go beyond our individual media "comfort zones" we're doomed., locked inside individual worlds where every other person doesn't see eye-to-eye with you. I don't mean watch something you disagree with to bitch about it. I mean talk to your friends who disagree. Learn why they feel the way they do. read articles they want you to see. And then... consider them. And, if you really want to save the world, have real discussions about your views and figure out how you can live with each other each getting something, each giving something.

Ad Season is Coming!

2009-08-19T17:07:00.002-07:00

Like many of you, dear readers, I am excited for the start of the annual NFL season. Let's be honest, of all of America's professional games, this is the one people really wouldn't want to do without. It's compact 17 weeks of regular season play. The regularity of its schedule. It's easy to plan around and, almost always, filled with the kind of drama that you don't need ESPN to point out... the season is that good.

This means Kissing Suzy Kolber will kick into high gear, fantasy teams will be selected and then bitched about... but it also means (gulp) advertisements. With the economy in a rut, it's likely fewer ads will be made, meaning we're bound to see the same ones over and over again. Heaven. Help. Us. I yearn for the day when games go commercial-free, a la international soccer.

Until that fine day, I am stuck. Now, some ads, I can tolerate. Like Coors Light's ads where they take old coaches press conferences and splice in new questions. These are good only because watching coaches act like buffoons doesn't get old:

Now, while I can enjoy those, the issue is that we will be subjected to terrible ads over and over again. Who's ready for Howie Long telling you that your pansy Toyota truck is no match for his Chevy?

But the all time worst... STILL thanks to Chevy:

WHOSE country is it? Can you tell? I am pleased to see that this ad campaign is so reviled that there are more parodies than legit versions on YouTube. Amen for small miracles.

Anyhow, this is the price we pay for the NFL... i must really like the game to endure it all, huh?

Enough is Enough

2009-08-11T19:03:00.004-07:00

I generally try to keep calm about the rancor of political debates. I've grown accustomed to pundit blather that fuels ratings-focus "news" channels. But this week, we have hit a level of ridiculousness that I didn't quite think possible. And I'm done. I'm letting it all out.

The town hall meetings that are all the buzz right now are an atrocity. While I certainly think that our congresspeople have stopped doing anything to try and build a consensus among their constituents (which they should then take back to Washington), the people disrupting these meetings have pushed us into a theater of the absurd.

The thing is, see, the Constitution that many of these folks say they are defending was not just the product of someone sitting down and drafting it. In fact, the Constitution was the product of an extremely partisan battle among several groups. The only reason we have a Constitution is because this group found several compromises - each giving something for the benefit of the greater whole.

From what I can tell, compromise is gone. Even though the two different bills on healthcare being debated by respective congressional houses can still be edited and more, many people are saying no flat out. It's almost like you drive home one day in a car that has three tires underinflated, a cracked windshield and a dented passenger door. You contend you want a new car and the opposition simply yells "NO! THE CAR WE HAVE IS FINE! IT GOES WHERE WE NEED IT!"

Perhaps, you don't need a new car, but taking no action isn't going to benefit anyone. Yet, the disrupters say you don't need a new car. Period.

But let's say a wave of rational thought dumps over these folks... they still are either willfully ignorant and victims of misinformation. So... let's address the questions:

Healthcare reform could lead us down the road to socialism!

Lordy. This is like saying no one should get married because it could lead to divorce. And, again, we could spend some productive time together drafting legislation with checks and balances that heads off many of the concerns these folks have.

But we have the best healthcare system in the world!

Do we? Let's ask my brother-in-law who was born with a cleft palette and has needed several surgeries to repair his face and mouth. When he had his last, which was to realign his jaw and properly construct his upper lip and nose, the insurance company said, essentially, "no, his face is good enough." More than a few hours were used to change that view. Or, let's ask my sister-in-law who works full-time, but has to buy her own insurance because her employer doesn't provide it. Despite this, and working more hours than most, she has to pay $50 for a prescription I can get for $7. And she makes less money then me. And is younger so she is default healthier. Or let's ask my friend in Ohio who went to her primary care physician today, someone she's been to before, and still had to sit in a waiting room for an hour and fill our pages of paperwork she had filled out on previous visits.

We are the country that put a man on the moon. That won World War II. That invented powered flight. This healthcare system is as good as we can do?

Well, if we pass this bill, isn't the government going to take away my insurance?

Umm, no. Government insurance would be an available option, competing with private insurance firms.

Oh right. Like private firms will be able to compete with the government!

Well, FedEx and UPS seem to be doing just fine after years of competition with the government-run United States Postal Service. They're doing so well that the Postal Service has to buy advertising on TV to compete, in fact.

Well, that's one example. Find me another.

OK, how about three for starters:

Government loans for students and home buyers don't seem to have put the banks' loan divisions out of business. In fact, it's the government-run Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that needed bailouts before the banks.
Amtrak, which receives federal funding, hasn't managed to put state-run transit lines out of business in areas like the Northeast. In fact, NJ Transit, SEPTA, the T and similar systems seem to be extremely crowded despite a government-run competitor.
Even thought our government runs a military (which also has a government-run healthcare plan!), it hasn't impeded private military contractors from raking in profits.

Well, won't the government force me to use some doctor they want me to use?

They might, especially since my private insurance company already does. Or is that big book of doctors I'm allowed to go to I got when I signed up produced for gaiety? If that's not forcing my hand, I don't know what is.

Well, then they'll ration healthcare! Telling me what procedures I'm allowed to have.

Again, just like my private health insurance provider. Anyone who ever got a letter saying that something wasn't covered because his primary care physician didn't refer him is hearing me loud and clear. Medical decisions have long been out of the doctors' hands.

Well, they'll probably start funding abortions with my tax dollars!

Umm, no. Not only is that not something that will be allowed or encouraged, but let's be honest. I don't know of any provider that covers this. I know a handful of people who had an abortion. They paid cash.

What about these "death panels?" They're going to kill off our senior citizens.

No, they won't. That is a scare tactic. One of the bills being debated covers recurring end-of-life planning meaning the creation of a living will. Normally, these are done with lawyers. No reason a doctor cannot offer counsel here. And why do you need one? Remember Terry Schiavo and that whole mess? If she had a living will, it wouldn't have been an issue. She would have stated her preferences and either be dead or still laying there today.

And the truth with all of this folks... if you don't sign up for the government plan, none of this really affects you. And if you don't like the bill, it's better to talk about your concerns in a rational way.

We are a country divided in thirds... democrats, republicans and indys. All of these groups need to find ways to compromise. And not just on healthcare. But the idea that everything is black and white isn't going to allow America to function in this century. If we cannot find solutions we can all walk away from content, we're doomed.

Republicans litter

2009-08-07T16:19:00.000-07:00