Fucking Paula Deen. Charming, southern, disarming health-destroying bitch. This woman spent the last however many years getting fat (literally) and rich (obviously) off of us. Off our health. Off of manipulating us into thinking that we didnt have to sacrifice flavor and taste, that eating and cooking were not drudgery, they were occasions to celebrate life, and fun, and excitement and most of all, butter.

Now I've always found Paula's schtick to be completely self-serving and annoying: she was simply yet another of the assholes that Food Network has gotten behind, turning a small brand into a media galaxy complete with her own gravitational pull of books, speaking tours, panels, Food and Wine fest invitations, viral videos (the one where her pants fell down was hysterical). Shit even her asshole sons got a show out of her. Nice mom if you can find one.

But of course now we find out that Paula has been hiding a teeny tiny little secret from us all. Her horrible eating habits and southern routines, her celebration of what we know to be bad for us, has actually sickened her. She has Type 2 Diabetes. You know, the kind you give yourself. 

And she's continued milking her celebrity status to the tune of $10 million/ year for the past 3 years, hiding her sickness from the very people she was making the money off of. Would we have continued to watch her? Would we have continued to cheer on every dollop of cream, every stick of butter knowing that we were witnessing a form of suicide? Absolutely not. We would have had her committed. 

Do any of her viewers feel betrayed? Or have they already shifted into apologia mode for this sweet and soft woman who reminded them of their old bitty grandmas. 

Paula Deen, another perfect example of our national "Extraction Ethos." Take as much as possible for yourself: money, treasure, knowledge, energy, oil, fucking cup holders, space, whatever the fuck!

This is our country. These are the people we idolize, we celebrate, we enable with our dollars and our attention. We are never going to learn. Ever.

#OccupyPaula'sAss

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

On its face, Occupy Wall Street looks and acts like a traditionally left-wing movement. The slogans and placards, the relative youth of the crowd as well as the general "idea" behind the movement, disrupt business as usual for the nation's financial elite, would seem to square the circle and firmly establish OWS as an outgrowth of the left.

But I don't think OWS is that at all. It is not the Left's "Tea Party" as some pundits and columnists have hoped for. In fact, it is decidedly non-partisan, something the Tea Party was not ever interested in. In fact, I expect, and sincerely hope, to see a left-right convergence around the message of OWS. And what is that message?

That the basic social contract between citizens and their government is broken. Ezra Klein, in the Washington Post, captured this truth about the movement more eloquently and concisely than any protestor ever could:

The organizers of Occupy Wall Street are fighting to upend the system. But what gives their movement the potential for power and potency is the masses who just want the system to work the way they were promised it would work. It’s not that 99 percent of Americans are really struggling. It’s not that 99 percent of Americans want a revolution. It’s that 99 percent of Americans sense that the fundamental bargain of our economy -- work hard, play by the rules, get ahead -- has been broken, and they want to see it restored.

"Work hard, play by the rules, get ahead." That is what's broken. 

Does that sound like the ramblings of an anti-globalization masked and anonymous rabblerouser storming the ramparts? Or does that sound like the cry of someone who simply wants to know that their country remains, and will remain, a place where they can flourish?

But because our country is so divided, we've become expert at talking past one another, segregated no longer by color or class, but by our partisan tribes, trapped in our own media environments with mini-universes of biased-reportage and commentary. (Fox vs CNN, Maddow vs. Rush, etc) The effect of this is that any time one "side" starts to get traction on something whether it be a poll, or an upcoming vote, its opponents immediately start discounting it, undermining it. 

This is exactly what has happened with conservatives and OWS. We so feared that OWS had some very real and honest goals about it, we figured that we couldn't participate because it didn't emerge directly from our ranks. This is not true.

I am not calling OWS a conservative movement; that I think would be a bridge too far. But I do believe that if conservatives dig deep, they may be surprised to discover that many of the legitimate issues animating OWS and motivating people who have never given a thought in their life to protesting anything, to finally, strip away their life long apathy (that thing we all used to gripe about in the 90's if you don't remember, now the problem is we care too much apparently), are issues that make sense to us as well.

So, can OWS appeal to conservatives?

I believe it already does. To wit: let me point you towards a poll that FOX NEWS, yes, that Fox News conducted on its website today. They found that 70% of those polled, presumably Fox News viewers, actually SUPPORTED Occupy Wall Street. Shocked? Don't be.

And what did Fox do?

They immediately took it down. Why? Because a real convergence between right and left, between purists on both sides who do realize that if they are ever, EVER, to make the structural changes our society so desperately needs, poses a threat to institutions like Fox and CNN and all the other status quo coagulants that oil the gears of our broken society.

But if we devolve into that same old binary thinking: those knuckle dragging tea partiers, those tree-hugging socialists, than we'll be giving Wall Street, the bloated and inefficent Federal Government and all the other sectors of our country that benefit from keeping us divided and apart another chance to take our country away from US. You and I. Left and Right. People. 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Yesterday evening I was as shocked and saddened as many people were at the news of Steve Jobs' passing. Even though the signs were clear for awhile, I did not believe he would leave us so soon. I suppose I didn’t want to believe it, despite the evidence.

It must be one of life's most unfair aspects that some people never get the chance to enjoy witnessing greatness accrue to their creations. At least Steve got to see his company, their products, values, people and culture rise to the level that it did: the most valuable company on earth. I am grateful that Steve got to see that. And it may be why he left us shortly thereafter. 

Following Tim Cook's successful first experience as CEO during a major product launch, I think Steve knew that his company was in good hands and he could "let go."

It says a lot about how pivotal our epoch is that the firm with the most valuable company label would not be an oil firm, or a multinational bank, or a defense contractor or an auto manufacturer but rather a revolutionary consumer products company founded by an ex-hippie. A technology company. But a technology company that put humans first, pur out experiences with their products, software, hardware first. Put humanity first, not technology.

Steve Jobs taught me about beauty. Seems silly to say, though I don’t really feel like qualifying my feelings anymore. Not when they are so raw. That was my first thought last night when I heard the news. One of my teachers was gone and it was OK to be upset. 

Although I had never met Steve, and was someone I couldn't even HOPE to meet. Someone I hadn’t worked with, spoken to; someone whose office I didn’t visit. 

And nevertheless, Steve Jobs was one of my most important teachers. He taught me that ugly things could be beautiful. He taught me that beauty was an ideal beyond aesthetics, and that when you endeavour to make beautiful things, you could conjour the magic inherent in the universe and open up a whole new set of opportunities for human kind to explore.

Build it and they will come.

Steve surely must have felt this over the past few years watching independent developers and designers, marketers, filmmakers, entrepreneurs and other creatives use his tools to build things that he could never have thought of. Things that used what he and his incredible team built to make thar original creation even better, more useful, more beautiful. Watching that happen is Beauty squared.

Steve famously said that the grand project of his life was bridging the gap between technology and the arts. Steve was a storyteller. Just look at his investment in Pixar and the stories and creations that came, and continue to emerge, from that wonderful place. Stories that make “grown men cry.”

Indeed.

As a humanities/ liberal arts guy who has placed himself in the thick of the technology revolution, I can’t help but feel solidarity with Steve’s mission in life. Recently, an iPad app came out that exemplified just what is possible in the space between technology and the arts.

T.S. Eliot’s modernist epic The Waste Land is one of those creative accomplishments that defines an era, a touchstone that floors and inspires an entire generation of creatives. It is also responsible for its share of Cliff Note’s and midnight head-shakings, as much of the poem is incomprehensible to a general audience. Replete with all manner of allusions, metaphors, languages both modern and classical, the poem requires a level of erudition that simply isn't there anymore. 

I’ve read The Waste Land dozens of times and though there are sections that I am fond of and that I have even memorized, I have never been able to say that I “understand” the poem. Not in its entirety. Even with reader companions, reference books, footnotes, the poem has always remained partially closed to me. Again, I was OK with that arrangement as sometimes art is so powerful that only comprehending a piece of it is enough. It didn’t effect my appreciation of Eliot’s work that I couldn’t "get it." I was hardly alone in that. There are scholars who spend their lives studying the work and make similar claims. 

And then this app landed. An iPad optimized application for The Waste Land, complete with videos, line by line readings by multiple voices (including two by Eliot himself, the actor Viggo Mortenson, the British poet Ted Hughes), all the footnotes explained and a user-experience that put everything into context.

Finally!

I had been waiting for this without even knowing it. A piece of art that I had been transfixed by for over a decade had suddenly, magically, miraculously, opened up to me. I spent an entire weekend with the iPad in my lap, reading the poem again and again, clicking the footnotes, hearing the poem in Eliot’s own voice.

It was a revelation.

And I suddenly had a vision for what art could be in this still new century. I had a mission of my own. Thank you Steve. With tears in my eyes, I say goodbye.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Watching the debates last night, I was struck by how incapable the Republican candidates were in articulating what is actually a very simple idea. The reason that the United States is not creating jobs, and therefore not growing the economy in the way that we need to is, is that business owners, CEO's, and other decision makers understand, intellectually or subconsciously, that are country is on an unsustainable fiscal path.

This isn't about left or right, or whose "Sacred Cows" need to be sacrificed. Our debt, our deficit, our impregnable tax code: these are the reasons that no one has any confidence in our system.

It is true that our government has become too onerous. It has become too complicated, too invasive, too big, too unwieldy. We take it for granted but it wasn't always this way. As it started to grow and grow over the past 40 years, frankly, we could afford to let it do so. It wasn't really impeding our growth and prosperity. It wasn't impeding our innovation and our entrepreneurialism. 

Now it is. 

The people who make decisions about hiring and firing have a now calcified sense that our nation is not on the right track. That our politics, our goverment, our leaders, our institutions are no longer equipped to deal with the problems that we, as a nation, we face. 

Until those people, the business owners and investors, the entrepreneurs and the chief executives feel that we are dealing with our clearly broken problems, they won't be changing their minds about hiring, about investing, about planning for the future. Washington will need to get serious about the issues that threaten to bankrupt this country, fiscally and morally.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

I turn 31 years old today. Meh. 

But about a week ago, as I started to think about my impending birthday, I realized I was dreading receiving the endless stream of happy birthday's on my Facebook wall. It's become so commonplace.

Why wouldn't they tough right? Takes a few seconds and you can pretend to care about someone. Facebook has made it incredibly simple to know which of our friends are celebrating birthdays with that handy reminder in the top-right corner. And navigating over to their wall and leaving a two second note? I've done it countless times myself. Totally meaningless.  As we all know by know, connectivity and depth are two very different things.

So yesterday I started to run an experiment. I shut off my Facebook Wall settings so that no one else could post anything. And then I wrote the folllwing on my wall:

This is totally gonna backfire, but to everyone who might start wishing me happy birthday on Facebook tonight, I've decided to experiment. I feel that Facebook has made connecting with people (especially on bdays) a bit too easy and mundane. So with that in mind, if you really want to say Happy Birthday, send me an email or a FB message with a shared memory of the two of us. That's all I am asking and thanks in advance

What I expected would happen is that lots and lots of people who I am technically FB friends wouldn't even bother. "You mean I have to send him a note? Like actually take time out of my day and connect with this person? And what's more I have to come up with a shared memory? What a DICK!"

Well, I am a dick. Also generous and sweet and kind. And if we don't have memories together that are worth recounting for you, then what good are you? None.

As of this writing I have received dozens of messages and emails, and it seems that people are really digging this. And more importantly, almost all of the memories I had totally forgotten about. Drunken rampages in Brooklyn, concerts in cities I had forgot I ever travelled to, lots of "remember that time we made out once" (yes, i'm a whore), friends from previous careers, decades, Big Lewbowski festivals, a late-night pool game in the hamptons with beautiful male models who smoked more weed in an hour than i've smoked in the last decade. The list goes on.

I can't to see what other memories and stories I get today. And now the only question is how do I chronicle them all?

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

A few weeks ago, a friend inquired whether I would be willing to move to New Orleans in order to start a business. This friend and I both attended school in New Orleans, and though we weren't close at the time, and indeed were in different graduating classes, recognized that New Orleans had effected each of us in similar ways. To this day, he and I feel New Orleans' enchantment, its easiness, the pace of life a welcome pause to each of our current frenetic lifestyles. 

The idea is not all that crazy. Starting from the standpoint that we both loved and missed many things about New Orleans, he and I recognized the potential of using all that we had gleaned over the years and returning to New Orleans for a second act. 

What a romantic notion; returning to a place we both loved, injecting ourselves back into a familiar setting, only with the knowledge and experiences we both now possess. As if we could conquer an entire town.

What struck me about my reaction, which was a decided "not a fucking chance," was not what it said about New Orleans, but more for what it told me was true about my current home, New York City.

It is true that New Orleans is a city made for debauchery, for sin. But it is also a quiet city, verdant and green, beautiful and full of history. The Big Easy. As wonderful as it might sound to return to New Orleans and set up shop there, start a business or get a job, reconnect with the community there, the truth is that New Orleans is not a place to prosper. 

It is a place to forget, a place stuck in time at best, and at worst, one that is literally sinking back into the past. The only reason I would move to New Orleans was if I intended to kill myself with drink. There is no better setting to simply waste away, set-up a rocking chair of the banks of the Mississippi River and watch life go by. 

But back to New York.

Because in my hateful diatribe about New Orleans, what I was simultaneously realizing was how HARD it is getting to leave New York. As a born and bred New Yorker, this city will always be my home. And as a New Yorker, I hold this truth to be self-evident: New York City is the greatest city in the world. "You have to be mad live here, but you'd be crazy to live anywhere else"

But even self-aggrandizing New Yorkers can sometimes miss howgreat their city is. They already know its great, so being in touch with the actual ways that it is, and which are often in flux, seems superfluous. But as this conversation progressed, I heard myself saying things that I immediately knew to be essential to why I find it increasingly difficult to leave the city just now.

For one, New York finally seems to be importing and sharing ideas with cities and municipalities that have historically understood words like "community, civics and connectivity" more completely. It feels as if New York is listening to the wealth of ideas that cities like San Francisco, Boulder, Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis and many others have been providing. These are places that, for various reasons, don't have to contend as heavily with certain issues such as size, population and idiosyncracies that New York must.

A perfect example of this is the Highline. Now, the New York City that I grew up in, the one presided over by Mayor's with names like Koch and Dinkins and even Guiliani, was a city where a project like the Highline wasn't even fathomable. The cities problems with crime, drugs, its economy and its racial tensions simply would permit a Highline-like project to get off the ground. 

But the Highline is the perfect example of an "If you build it, they will come" Field-Of-Dreams mentality. The areas around the Highline are absolutely booming, with new restaurants, hotels, galleries, retailers and other exciting projects sprouting up alongside the spruced up trestles. It's most simple utility is a place for New Yorkers to take a walk together, surely the most civilized thing we can do in the modern age. More bike lanes, better parking, less-congested avenues, more trees: all these things 

And there is more. New York finally has a sizable technology community that is growing stronger by the day. We may never have the strength of an ingrown VC community like Silicon Valley, but we do have plenty of startups and angel investors crowding the streets around the Flatiron and Union Square districts. And more importantly we are shifting the ineffable buzz around tech eastward. No longer does one absolutely positively have to be in San Francisco or environs to be involved in technology startups. This bodes well for New York's immediate future, both economically and culturally. The more of these companies that receive funding, that build their dreams, that fix societies problems and create new avenues for excitement and growth, the more New York becomes a part of their story, an essential part of their product. And that will soon feed a positive feedback loop as more people flock to New York to act on their ideas, in turn bringing more attention and investors, and on and on. This cities ability to create wealth is unmatched, and New York, it seems, finally understands how to use that wealth to improve every residents lot.

And finally, New York City has a responsive, stable government. It may be true that Michael Bloomberg is more a benevolent authoritarian than a democratic absolutist, but the man is getting the job done. As a full-fledged believer in the power of technology to better all of our lives, it was thrilling to see Mayor Bloomberg commission a "Digital Roadmap" for New York City's future, hiring a whip-smart young strategist named Rachel Stern to be the cities first digital coordinator. I have high hopes for Miss Stern and for the cities continued commitment to serving its citizens in newer more relevant ways. 

As of now, I don't feel New York could get any safer, but its crime rate continues to go down, there are jobs to be had, and new opportunities avail themselves to the people who know how to look, and know how to be flexible. New York is as insulated from the vagaries of the national economy as one could possibly hope to be, even without as many high-paying Wall Street jobs as there once were. Why? Wealthy foreigners deciding to buy homes here, and newly wealthy investors putting money back into the city. 

As I continue to transform into a more creative being, enabled to do so because of my business and the freedom it entails me, I am attracted by cities such as Paris and London as potential homes. Even the siren song of Asia seems to be tuned to my frequency these days as I envision packing up and moving to Shanghai and reinventing myself as a nightlife impresario or underworld kingpin or real estate developer. But for now, it seems, I can't and won't be leaving New York any time soon. Sorry, you are stuck with me.

90dayreport.pdf Download this file

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Years ago I was a pretty major Phishhead. And being a Phishhead involved several things: going to a ton of concerts (traversing greath swaths of the country in order to do so), listening to the band's music constantly (though not exclusively), trading versions of their live shows and, me being me, reading up on the mythology, history and musicology of the band members to the point where I knew more about the band that even many die-hard fans, of which I was not. 

I've wanted to start writing about Phish for some time but over the years, each time I tried, I was forced to abandon the effort. I clearly had a lot to say, but for years, whatever it was rattling around in my head, was more feeling than thought, and it never seemed to land on the page the right way. 

I wasn't ready.

And then last year-December 30th to be exact-a former client of mine took me to my first Phish show in nearly a decade. And just like that I was back. 

Over the years and like any person in the process of maturing, beginning a career, deciding which of my colleagiate fascinations to park away so that I could properly start my "real life," I started to fall away from Phish. The band went on hiatus for awhile, then got back together too soon. Then parted ways again. And then they came back.

I know, I know: typical music industry shit. Drugs, addiction, attitude, ego, money: All there! And if we ever get a true accounting of what went on within the Phish organization, I am sure we would find all the trappings of a Shakespearean drama. Phish fans love collecting gossip and rumor about the band, and in particular, its' flame-haired frontman, guitarist, head songwriter and lead singer, Trey Anastasio.

II Trey

Very unequal parts Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Jimmi Page, Eric Clapton, Jerry Garcia, Santana, Charlie Parker, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisel, Coltrane, Stevie Ray Vaughn, John Lennon (also Paul!), David Byrne, David Gilmour (Also Roger Waters) and many many other great guitarists and musicians, Trey is the heart and soul of Phish. There are no great Phish shows without Trey. 

This is not a knock on the other members of the band: Page McConnell (keyboards), Mike Gordon (Bass) and Jon Fishman (drums, also occasionally a vaccum). Mike, Fish and Page are incredible musicians, dedicated songwriters and craftsmen in their own right. But Phish is Trey's band.

Trey is ambitious and intense, he is petulant and humorous. He is a genius and a technician, a craftsman and a theologian. A virtuoso who wants nothing more than to forget his training, his theory, his scales and jazz modalities and to exist in the moment, simply, to improvise, to create something new, to be the big bang at the center of a new sonic galaxy, every single night. As Trey recently said in an interview with The Believer:

I see improvisation as a craft and as an art. The craft part is important. There’s a lot of preparation and discipline that goes into it just so that, when you’re in the moment, you’re not supposed to be thinking at all.

In the interview cited above, Anastasio, as he has on many other occasions, discusses the importance of musicians such as John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock and Charlie Parker, showcasing Trey's deep knowledge and appreciation for musical history and theory, fact and myth. His ability to intellectualize advanced musical theory, and at the same time, to abandon it and improvise on the spot, losing himself in the fun, all play into his variegated personality.

It is the many facets of this personality that seem to entrance Phish fans. Onstage, Trey is the most emotive of the band members, smiling and grooving around when things are working, anxious and impatient when things are not. On the band's most recent Summer tour, of which I flew out to Los Angeles in order to see them, Trey aborted many promising "jams," or extended improviations based on their songs. Why?

I don't know. But it happens and it is frustrating to many fans. Yet we keep coming back because the promise of tomorrow night, of that special moment or moments, when everything is working together seamlessly; those moments are worth the frustrations. 

And more often than not, Trey rewards our patience and persistence. When he has a good time, everyone has a good time. He makes sure of it, often locating someone particular in the audience and playing just for that one person. He's said as much over the years. He looks for that one person NOT having a great time and tries to connect with them, so he can sway them, so he can entice them into having as good a time as everyone else, and even occasionally blow their minds. He has that power.

III Phish and Their Fans

Phish is a very special band, for a number of reasons, none more so than with the respect, love, gratitude and admiration that the band has, and always has had, for their fans. From allowing fans to record their shows, to intentionally keeping ticket prices below market levels and of course, from their incredibly rigorous committment to constantly touring Phish rewards even its casual fans very well. 

The manner in which Phish has treated their fans over the years reminds me of something Lester Bangs, the late rock critic used to say about The Clash; basically that they were egalitarian not only in music and politics, but in their private lives as well. Bangs tells a story about his first night with The Clash in a hotel in England. Some of the underage fans of the band, total outsiders, runaways, etc..had nowhere to stay. The band members took their time to make sure that each of these fans, kids who had travelled from all over the UK just to see this electrifyingly rough and raw band, had places to crash, had some food, had some shelter. 

Bangs was floored by this, coming as he did from an America rotten with ego-maniac rock acts like Pink Floyd, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, E.L.P. and other arena-rock bands that travelled and behaved on tour as if they were royalty, maintaining as little actual contact with their fans as possible. For Bangs, The Clash were an antidote to this paradigm, a band that remained true to rock's democratic roots and promise. Phish, and perhaps their distant relations and predecessors, The Grateful Dead, also hued closely to this ethos.

It is interesting to me that many artists today spend much more time with and among their community of fans and listeners than was once the norm in the music business. Phish has built and fostered, over more than 20 years, a community of fans and supporters, giving them more and more as time went on. The community has rewarded Phish in return. 

IV Phish and Me

Phish was incredibly important to my collegiate years, determining in many ways the makeup of my social circle, how I spent my leisure time (take a guess!) and even the kind of life I wanted to live, one with a great amount of freedom. That last part was strange to write, because as I did so I realized that it is exactly what Phish's music is about, freedom, unbound. 

Because there is so much to say about Phish's music, and how they play their music, how their songs change and evolve over time, how each band member's individuality has room to breathe and challenge itself, while at the same time being a synchronous part of a greater sound, I couldn't possibly try to communicate even a fraction of their sound. But I will tell you that there are moments in Phish's music, different for every fan, but always present, where musically, the band locks together, and produces something outsize, something far greater than the sum of its parts. 

For me, sections of Harry Hood, Fluffhead, You Enjoy Myself, The Curtain attain this level of lucidity, of beauty, of joy and warmth transposed into music. 

There are many more such moments and they come in different styles, a testament to the diversity and flexibility of the band. From arena rock songs akin to Journey to ska and reggae, from the blues to barbershop quartet-style vocal harmonies, to deep dirty funk reminscent of the best of Motown and from ambient space rock in the Pink Floyd genre, to the dancey obscure pop of the Talking Heads, Phish has always, through their commitment to experimentation, changed and evolved. 

And though this is an essential charachteristic of the band and its history, its DNA even, this progression and change doesn't please all its fans. Some want nothing more than a return to a particular sound, for instance, Fall 1997's "Space Funk," when Phish's sound was dark, and deep and Mike Gordon's gelatinous bass effects were pushed to the fore. 

Others want a return to the intensity and speed of the early 90's, when the band members were younger and took more chances. I take a much more holistic view of the band: they are who they are, and they are precisely where they need to be. Sure I would love them to play this or that song more often (Spock's Brain for instance) and I wish they would play more intimate venues with more exclusive crowds, but that's just the elitist in me speaking.

V Fail Early and Often

Phish is also one of the most human bands I know: humble and honest, glad, happy, silly, serious, dark, moody, tense, spritely, comic, cheesy. They are human also because they fail, often. When I say failure I mean that they are a band that used to play 100 shows a year. For 2 decades. In the course of that, you are going to fail a lot: flub lyrics, abort songs, botch entire passages. Happens all the time when listening to a Phish show, but its all part of the experience. 

Do you know what it is to watch someone put it on the line every night? To see that passion and drive to put on a good show, to entertain, to excite, to illuminate, to educate, to comfort the crowd. Phish has shown me that on countless occasions to the point where their failures, their missed notes and off-key harmonies are literally music to my ears. That is when I know I am listening to someone human, warts and all.

Marco Arment, who you may know as the builder behind one of the most ingenious and simple services out there, Instaper, said this about Phish recently: Why It's Awesome To Be Phish Fan.

If this music resonates with you in the right way, you’re likely to get really into it, and all other music will seem simplistic and shallow for a long time. It’s like discovering great black coffee or a fine wine for the first time, after only ever having mass-produced mediocrity: whoah, there’s a lot going on there.

And if you end up loving it, you’re really in luck.

Phish is a romantic band.

They love music and they love their music. It is one reason why on any given tour they may play the same song over and over again, sometimes at back to back concerts, as if they were seduced by the power of the music and wanted to tempt fate again. It's as if by continuing to play and explore the same songs again and again, they are after perfection, chasing it down through endless variations, trying to find the perfect one, and pluck it and hold it for us to see.

From The Believer article, discussing Coltrane, we find this: 

“I’d like to get to the point where I can capture the essence of a precise moment in a given place, compose the work, and perform it immediately in a natural way.”

There is nothing quite like a Phish show, no sense of community or belonging quite like the experience of watching these four incredible musicians perform their incredibly unique and difficult and inspiring compositions, surrounded by positive vibes and thousands of like-minded people having simply, the best time of their lives. I don't proslyetize, except to my closest friends. But I've embedded a video below that I think gives a great entry point into the world of Phish. And if you are interested, just get in touch with me and I'll be happy to recommend a few great shows and links to download their free music.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Today the markets tanked. The Dow was down over 5% and over the past 10 days, investors have erased any gains made year to date. The only question to ask is, why are we all surprised?

We all know the reckoning is coming. Government intervention in the free market doesn't work. They had stimulus and TARP. What they forgot to have was bankruptcies.

Capitalism without bankruptcy is like christianity without hell. It just doesn't work. But we don't like pain very much. We just like to keep the spending party going, maxing out our credit cards, levering up on our mortgages, pissing away our future. 

Lot of talk about American decline. Well, we're complicit in this decline. Doesn't have to be this way. But it just seems like we are courting disaster. And so on a day like today, when disaster strikes I sit here happy as a pig in shit. Not in a cyncial way. I don't like seeing other people suffer. (Personally my money's been out of the market since 2008). OK maybe I like seeing other people suffer a LITTLE bit. But not too much.

But what I DO like to see is people confused about what is going on. I LOVE seeing pundits on TV running around like little chickens with their head cut off. Now that is some funny shit. And they all try to make sense of it.

"Global economy is struggling." 

"Douple Dip in the US"

"Bank of Japan market intervention"

"Eurozone on the edge of meltdown like Fukushima"

Man, it's all laughable. Nothing you can do in the face of chaos, the kind chaos we've been courting for nearly a generation now except laugh in its face.

That's what I am doing anyway. 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

The establishment cares for nothing but its own survival. Their power lies in maintaing things just as they are: ineffectual, divisive, rancorous. These are the diversions used to keep the public's eye off the broader more structural issues. The absolute corruption of the establishment is clear enough on a day to day basis for those who seek it out. But for those who have chosen to ignore such things, or simply never knew they there there to be investigated, it takes a crisis of immense proportions for that corruption to be revealed.

It is not a pretty sight when it is; when the citizenry realizes how bad things have gotten, and furthermore, recognizes their own complicity in that devolution. It is shaming.

The debt ceiling crisis that we have just nearly averted is a perfect example of this. I think what is shocking this time is that it was only a few short years ago when we were similarly shocked at the state of our experiment. The financial crisis of 2007-8 woke people up, insisted that they pay attention. Then, as now, the politicians, the power class, the elite, told us that we were on the verge of financial meltdown. 

Previously, these systemic shocks were more rare. The stalemate in Vietnam, Watergate, Iran-Contra, Lewinsky. All of these instances caused American's to look up from their busy lives, caused them to consider what their non-chalance about their own government gets them.

And it causes them to consider their own complicity in these events. The moral seems to be that if you don't care about your government, then your government won't care about you right back. Won't care about your morals, your precepts, your disciplines, your rights, your financial well-being.

Tonight, the establishment did nothing except ensure its own survival. Expect the next shortly. With my head hanging, I'll be waiting for it. No longer surprised by it.

But I can tell you one thing; I am NOT complicit in this continued madness. I will not participate in it. I consider the whole thing a long, nasty and painful joke.

It wounds me deeply.

Tonight, the establishment saved its own ass. But for how long this time? A few months? Another year? Another term?

They've simply kicked the can down the road again, unable to even have the honest discourse that we need to have.

Where are the democrats standing up to their power base and telling that base that the entitlement programs will need to be severely restricted?

Where are the republicans acknowledging that taxes will have to go up?

Where are the leaders asking the American people to contribute solutions?

No one has ever asked me. Have you been asked? More importantly, how would you answer?

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

For many in my generation, the millenial's tip of the spear as it were, we seemed to have been born at just the wrong moment. Just five or six years earlier and we would have gotten ours before the shit hit the fan. It kind of kills us that our immediate elders are in many instances so well off, seemingly secure in their cushy senior executive positions, firmly ensconced in the bureacracy and establishment. 

I remember fondly my own foray into corporate America. The political maneavuring, the machinations, the jockeying for position. And that was just to see who went to lunch first.

But seriously, I am not quite sure we have come to terms with just has happened to our country, to our expectations as Americans, who are, by far, the most optimistic people on the face of the planet. It is that optimism, even in the face of the most dour of scenarios (WWI, The Cold War), that is our most precious resource. Just a few years ago, you could look out at public opinion and see that the most trusted and respected people in our society were corporate honchos. CEOs, Hedge Fund billionaires. Shit, even attorney's were getting some love. They seemed the quintessential example of American "can-do" respectability. 

Sure there was pushback on golden parachutes and the amount of wealth being created (maybe not?) on Wall Street and in corporate board rooms everywhere. But the corporation, that hallowed institution of Post-Cold War America, was sacrosanct. Corporations were the warehouses of our wealth, our security, our intelligence. They spoke to our mission to always be moving, always be innovating, always growing. Growth at all costs.

And during that time, roughly the mid 90's to the mid 00's, we all but ignored the real engines of imagination, of security, of true wealth and job creation; the small business. 

Which is why it is so nice to see that we are finally getting our wits about us and realizing that the true genius of America lies not in our ability to amass hundreds of thousands of worker bees flitting around our corporate culture, flatulating the corporate ethos and toeing the line just so they can preserve their proverbial jobs and mortgages. 

It is the small business in America that keeps our towns and cities going. It is the small business that serves our needs as humans. Sure, you may never amass the kind of personal wealth owning and running a small business. But the very act of opening a small business is one of the most communal acts you can do.

Listen here: 

Over the years, the spread of video-purveying giants like Netflix and Redbox has sounded a death knell for smaller brick-and-mortar video stores, even as some of the Goliaths, including Blockbuster, have faltered themselves.

But through it all, a few scrappy Davids have held on. And now, in the face the latest assault on their base — in the form of Netflix’s online streaming service — they are struggling to stay afloat by rethinking their business models. They are tapping into new revenue streams in ways that may seem quaint and old-fashioned, but that are proving to be culturally astute and financially viable.

 

Giant corporations can't rethink their fundamental business models in the matter of a few years. Instead, they obfuscate, delay, lobby and double-deal. They mislead shareholders. They trim the fat. Small businesses are our most precious resource, and we should be so lucky that our economy swung back in their direction, so that they would be the last man standing.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

We've been scared to death by our own elected officials. They tell us that financial armageddeon is upon us. They tell us we need to act. They tell us that our perfect, cloistered safe world will come to a horrific, grinding halt if we don't give them more power and more money. They scare us half to death, and then wonder why we don't trust them.

The truth is, this country needs to default...because  no matter what gimmicks or compromises or hard choices they tell us they will make, this country is bankrupt. We spend more than we take in and it really is that simple. Our interest payments alone make our debt unsustainable. Not for tomorrow or for twenty years from now. Not even for today.

They tell us that the banks will collapse. Well good, because they should. They gamble with all of our money in a casino they've rigged in their own favor. 

They tell us that the markets will go haywire. Well good, because they should. The markets have been tampered with for too long and we need to exorcise ourselves of this belief that corporate profits are the only thing that matters. Equity prices are a matter of prediciting future profitability. But profitablity does not ensure our societies success. Down with that dogma.

They tell us that interest rates will rise. Well good, because they should. They've been articially suppressed for years and it hasn't helped. Time to let the market do its thing and correct. Interest rates will go up because they should. The cost of borrowing will go up because it should. Buying a house should be harder, not easier. Remember what happens when we make it too easy to own a home? Right...

They tell us that on the other side of default lies the unknown, lies catastrophe, lies a society in ruins. They have deliberately scared the shit out of us to make us want to keep what we have.

But at some point don't you just want to say, I am not sure it is worth preserving anymore. They fear what happens the day after. When the pain is spread so far and so wide that their own power becomes a liability. So be it. It is what needs to happen. The illusion needs to end, we need the pain as instruction. They've lied to us for years, the government, the establishment. They've lied to us, telling us that we could have everything we wanted and more. We could live the American Dream and we never needed to ask if it was the right dream to be living. They just assumed.

You know what Washington needs? 

This Town Needs An Enema

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

I was once a banker. A mediocre one. Not bad, not great. I knew it was never going to be a long-career for me. But when I got out of school, they were handing out good solid jobs like they were candy. There was that much money to be made I guess. One of the most frustrating things about living and breathing over the past three years is that as the rest of the world has suffered tremendously, Wall Street has barely missed a breath, this after being rescued by the government. 

The leadership of the financial institutions, constituting people like Jamie Dimon and JP Morgan Chase and Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, have at times come across as contrite, for instance when they testified before congress or submitted to their PR inferiors and lent quotes to some puff pieces here and there. But that time is over...the crisis has passed, or so it would seem, and therefore Wall Street is back to doing what it does worst, making oodles of money, much of it with very little overall societal benefit.

But new leadership might be emerging to counter the status-quo defenders like Dimon and Blankfein. They are small and not as influential players, but there is an older generation starting to speak up. Too little? Maybe...But perhaps not too late.

To wit, Mike Hirst, Managing Director of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank (never heard of it either!) recently pined:

Mr Hirst has become the latest bank executive to caution that the days of banks generating returns in excess of 20 per cent were over, saying the sector should be viewed like a utility, given the critical role banks play in the economy

In particular, Mr. Hirst singles out the preposterousness of late 20's analysts and traders earning in the high hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. He also points the finger at the pursuit of short-term profits within investment banks. Banks do play a central role in our economy and I don't know any sane person, or non-socialist or anarcho-syndicalist, that is proposing we simply do away with banks. But it seems that to go back, as soon as possible, to the banking trends of the late 90's and 2000's is societal madness. 

And yet that is just what we have done, and continue to do. Unless more people like Mr. Hirst can step forward, and hopefully from bigger more influential global banks, I am afraid that the banks are destined to the trash heap. History repeats itself after all.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Google + has introduced an entirely new framework into the social networking paradigm. Circles. One of the networks strongest and most talked about features is winning the hearts and minds of the digital set. First we had friends, then followers. Then we got tagged, and DM'd, and spammed, and listed and grouped and invited. 

Now we've been encircled. 

Actually, circles are pretty genius. Here's why

They very clearly seem like the next step in social networking organization

No doubt "Circles" will eventually be replaced by something else. Probably pentagramming, or something like that. Or nets. Like the ones you used to grab fish out of the water or catch butterflies on warm summer evenings.  I don't know. But for now, Circles are cool. They're hip man. It's hip to be...

One more chance to GET THINGS RIGHT

Social networks give us the chance, the illusion really, that if we could only organize our lists of friends, family, contacts, acquaintances, people we'd like to bang, effectively, than we'd be set, once and for all. Everything in its right place. Circles gives us that chance one more time. And right now there are ten thousand very smart people doing their darndest to build the most complete, efficient, accurate and representative circle graph.

Venn Diagrams!

I hate math, and all things math. Good thing I went into banking after college eh? Never mind that. What really excites me (yes that way too) about Google +'s Circles is the opportunity to eventually recognize, or better off be shown, where the intersections of my relationships lie:

Out of the 90 or so NYC-based Digital Scenesters I know, how many have I elected to put into my actual "Friends" list? What about my "Clients?" Are there any clients that would also fall into my "Arts" list? In both cases there are...but eventually, once the system gets honed, I am guessing that Google will allow us to create charts or infographics or even VENN FUCKING DIAGRAMS of our Circles. And to me, that is where things get interesting. I want to see the intersecting relationships in my life, many of which I am not even aware of.

Think of the infographics!

Over at the Huge Inc's Notes on Digital blog, the following was written:

Circles are awesome. Google has clearly invested a lot of time and effort into creating a system that supports “real” social networks (a la Paul Adams’ “Real Life Social Network”). Circles (arguably Google’s version of Facebook’s “Groups” function) seems to accurately reflect how users see the world—a place filled with different categories of people that vary in how users relate to them (e.g., “Extended family,” “Co-workers,” “Friends who share my obsession for Justin Bieber,” etc.) And whereas Facebook Groups feels like an afterthought, Circles governs the entirety of Google+’s operations, making social relationships the core of the user experience.

Exactly. Twitter's lists, Facebook's Group's. These were added on later as a response to user demand and internal innovation. Google + starts and ends with the Circle. Just like a circle?

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

I have no illusions. I am in the service business. I service other people's ideas, businesses, dreams even. I do so at the expense of my own ideas, business ideas, plans, projects. This is the choice I have made for the past few years. But if you think I don't want, at some point, to throw my hat in the ring and launch something, try something, put my heart and soul behind a project, work with a great team of partners and investors to build something, you are dead wrong.

Certainly, now may not be the best time to launch a technology-heavy startup. In any given month I hear from dozens of entrepreneurs about their ideas, their projects, their launches. I've had friends and respected peers throw their weight behind their ideas, good ones, solid apps and products, only to find them falling flat. Sometimes for no other reason that there just isn't anyway for them to break through the crust.

The Times' Jenna Wortham reported on how startups are launching in a new way:

These days it can be hard for a new Web site to attract attention. Dozens of start-ups unveil their lovingly built sites each day, but most people already have their fill of social network profiles to update and friend requests to weigh. That has led many companies, from small start-ups to giants like Google, to try creating a sense of exclusivity by putting up a digital velvet rope. Typically companies parcel out the initial sign-up invitations to a select few, asking that they kick the tires and offer feedback on any lingering bugs or flaws in the software. In exchange, the members of that group get the bragging rights associated with being the first ones inside the latest new service. The invitations often go to people who have a sizable following on blogs, Twitter or other social services.

Now of course, Google can do this with + because they've already got an enormous platform and hundreds of millions of users embedded. And I have seen some interesting uses of products like Launch Rock that allow people to set up an app/ business "launch page" really easily, allowing users to invite users, share virally, etc..

But if this is what it takes to effectively launch a startup where success is measured by how many thousands or millions of users you can garner in a certain time period than, yeah I think we are in a bubble. There are smarter more effective theorists working in the scene that can say with greater accuracy whether we are or aren't in a tech bubble. But if we are, then I think I'll personally wait until the bubble bursts to launch anything of my own. Just like real estate, buying after the bubble bursts is how you'll get the best deals. 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

The techworld loves its cliches. And techies reserve special fanfare that anything that could potentially kill another thing. Technologies, tools, networks, platforms. It's like our collective aggresion comes out in these abstract ways, so that they don't manifest in real life and we don't push people who bump into us on the subway in front of the oncoming trains. Well, whatever keeps the piece right?

Right.

With the emergence of Google Plus, we've seen the familiar chorus of "Is this a Facebook killer? Is this the ONE?" 

I don't think so, and of course, the smart money will tell you first and foremost that Google Plus doesn't need to "KILL FACEBOOK" in order to be successful. It's certianly too early to tell what is going to happen, but I'll take a crack anyway.

Google Plus will actually make Facebook MORE essential and important. It will do this by beginning a bifurcation process. Techies, nerds, VC's, entrepreneurs, press, journalists, cutting edge brands, what I call digital creatives (designers, developers, futurists, bloggers) will all continue to flock to Google Plus, as they have. I am sure everyone's Google Plus is different, but mine is a pretty great mix of my followers and friends from Facebook and Twitter.

So who will stay on Facebook? 

EVERYONE ELSE. People who think Facebook is great, who see no problem with it, who play games and use groups and lists heavily. People who "like" brand pages or celebrities. People who use Facebook as their photo album, as their lifestream. 

But here is the thing: Google Plus' members are going to be a helluva lot more valuable. Why? Because they are the early adopters, "the influencers," the tastemakers and all those other crap signifiers that we use to discuss certain subsets of the population that are frankly smarter than the rest. 

So...Facebook will actually get more important. But the value of their network has just taken a serious hit. 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »