You Can Call Me Al

I don’t like to talk about work too much here, but I’m being elevated to a position at work which requires me to manage people. That said, I’m wondering if anyone has any recommended reading in regards to best practices and/or practical advice about people management OR how to best effectively manage time when you’re working on your own tasks and managing others. Would appreciate any feedback or recommendations.

Bob Lefsetz Is The MAN!

I hang on Lefsetz’s words now. I check Bloglines too much anyway, but whenever I do, I’m hoping beyond hope he’s posted a new diatribe. His post tonight is so righteous and spot on that it makes me insanely jealous that I can’t articulate it like he can. I read his stuff and I think to myself, “Copetas, you are a shit writer.”

His post tonight is about the ITunes Music Store and I couldn’t agree more. Just look at this quote:

“Then stop buying into the hype. Ignore ridiculous pronouncements of well-endowed vaporware and get down in the pit with the proletariat. Eighty million people have iPods, not because they’re tied to the iTunes Music Store, but because they work best. Most people fill their iPods with music they’ve acquired anywhere BUT the iTunes Music Store. It’s a circle jerk to see the iTunes Music Store as the future of acquisition and it’s even more of a circle jerk to believe you can deliver less, for INCOMPATIBLE DEVICES, and people will want these new services more.

A lot of unprotected music for a low price that you own permanently. This is the only solution. To think otherwise is to be ignorant.”

The bolding is my doing. Right on, baby!! Right on the nose!!!!

I Like The Night Life, Baby

I remember an instance back in my 20’s somewhere, when I was at the apex of my club-attending, beer drinking, ravenous music phase, when I said to myself “I don’t think I will ever stop going out, seeing bands and drinking beers. People are really missing out.” I remember another time also thinking that I would never (EVER!) be one of those guys who lived in the suburbs, trapped in a box house driving a Saab or whatever. Nothing whatsoever wrong with that, either – I was just a city guy, man. I couldn’t imagine having to drive more than 10 minutes to see bands! Never!

Today, I live in a box house in the suburbs and I definitely do not feel trapped (though we do miss the city). I get into things like interior design, which blinds will look good on the front porch, what kind of artwork to buy for the walls and what can I do about those goddamn birds who ate that tomato in my garden last night? No Saab, either, but admittedly it’s way more boring than that – I drive a 2002 Toyota Camry. Shit though, things change. Goals change. The idea of what is fun changes. What felt so right back then, so automatic, so much a part of me – is frivilous now. And more-or-less gone.

So it’s very rare to pull off a weekend hat trick like I did this weekend: Friday, Saturday AND Sunday, I was out attending some kind of entertainment event. You can see my write-up below of Friday’s trip to see Little Miss Sunshine. On Saturday night Steph and I went up to the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom in New Hampshire to meet up with my parents and sister to see comedian Lewis Black. If you don’t know him, he’s the guy who occasionally appears on The Daily Show ranting and raving about…..whatever.

He’s become a renowned, national touring comic who is selling out all the places he goes and he’s a pretty funny bastard. I can only assume that before Bush became president, he was just another comic, slugging it out, depressed and high on something – just like the 98% of other unknown comics out there. But Jon Stewart saw something in the guy and when Jon Stewart sees something in you, he’s almost always right. Hello, Steve Carell and Colbert. Lewis Black’s angle is largely venting about what is wrong with America, the government, the president and basically anyone else in position of power, political parties be damned. And he plays it to near perfection. He’s a one-trick pony, but his horse is Secretariat. Government has done for him what whores, cigarette snaps and “ohhhhhh!” did for Andrew Dice Clay. Oh yeah, one more thing: it wouldn’t surprise me one bit to open the newspaper one day to find out that the guy had a massive coronary right there on stage.

So it was quite a good show, but the funniest thing about the night was just outside the club: Hampton Beach itself. You see, Hampton Beach is a place I used to go as a kid and at the time, going there felt like you were trapped in the late 1950s. Skee-ball, cotton candy, fried dough, cheesy babes, lots of iron-on t-shirt stores, run-down condo rentals and plenty of Iroc-Z’s. I’m pretty sure there was even a store that sold nothing but roach clips and bandanas back then. Seriously. And while I didn’t see that particular place on this trip, the best part of Saturday was seeing Hampton Beach, eighteen years after my last visit, had not changed one iota. You can still walk the boardwalk and find stores that sell Judas Priest and Iron Maiden shirts. I shit you not. I couldn’t help but laugh. My dad put the icing on the cake when he said “We used to come up here in high school all the time and NOTHING has changed.” See? That place is truly trapped in another dimension. So interesting.

Sunday night put the icing on the cake, though, when Tim Easton and band played in Cambridge, MA. Easton is, unquestionably, one of this country’s best songwriters, period. If you are looking for something new to listen to, I can (and will) find at least five songs by Easton that I will guarantee you will be humming to yourself within hours of hearing. Typically, he tours acoustic/solo, but when I saw he was toting the band for this one, I wasn’t going to miss it for the world. How good is Easton with a band, you ask? My wife Stephanie, she of the (roughly) 10pm bed time most nights, attended the show with me, which lasted until 12:30 – the night after seeing Lewis Black with me and having to stay up until after midnight! Bless her soul. That’s how good Easton is. And he delivered knock-out blow after knock-out blow last night, about as raucous and good natured as a troubadour can get. We left that show on a high that I personally still haven’t come down from yet. So I dare you to take the Easton challenge: let me know if you’re up to it and I’ll make you a mix of five Tim Easton songs. And then you’ll be a fan. Sound good? Of course it does.

Now, though, I’m paying the price. I’m exhausted after 3 straight nights, whereas before, in another life, that would have been “ho-hum big deal let’s do it again next weekend.” Not anymore…….not anymore. Yet here I am, at 11:59, typing a blog post. I do it for you, reader(s). For you.

I’ve Been To The Edge….I Stood & Looked Down


Little Miss Sunshine
Originally uploaded by rustedrobot.

There’s SO much to love about Little Miss Sunshine that I don’t even know where to begin. It is simply one of the best movies I’ve seen in years.

Part goofy sitcom and part painful irony, the film explores a family teetering on the brink, a barely middle-class group of six whose characters are played so brilliantly that you can’t help but root for each and every one of them, despite their individual idiosyncrasies, which, in real life, would border on the annoying and/or officially disturbing.

I can’t really point to one particular actor who shines here, because all six do it so convincingly – Greg Kinnear’s portrayal as the self-appointed patriarch makes you want to kick him hard in the shins, yet I couldn’t help but feel just a little sparkle of sympathy for his character. Steve Carell’s turn as a suicidal, gay academic is not what you’d expect – nearly every word that comes out of his mouth is dull and almost pathetic, yet he actually appears to be the most stable, until you really meet Paul Dano’s “Dwayne” about halfway through the film. Dwayne, at 15 years old, is on a self-imposed vow of silence until he gets to fighter pilot training in three years. Enough said, right? No pun intended.

I found myself begging for way more of Alan Arkin, who plays the hilarious Grandpa, the potty-mouthed, drug abusing, been-there-done-that cantankerous fool – he’s really a bit player here, but all of the greatest moments in this film center around his influence or his presence, whether he’s physically there or not. There’s one moment in this movie between he and Greg Kinnear that almost makes you cry, because it’s so heartfelt – and so unexpected – and there’s two other moments in the film that involve him when he’s NOT there that are the two funniest lines in the whole movie.

Although there is no one central character here, the title of the film is actually the name of a 10-and-under beauty contest in California held for little girls. The gang of six are on their way to the pageant in their Volkswagen van because Olive, the forever optimistic, slightly rotund and hugely spectacled 7-year old girl of the family, has won the chance to compete for the national crown.

Often times she steals the show just with her oft-bewildered facial expressions, but the envrionment surrounding her, particularly at the pageant itself, is where the movie turns to pure comedy. Underlying those guffaws, though, is a serious and biting cannon shot to the gut of a particular arm of our society today. I’m not going to go into detail there as you simply must see the movie. Suffice it to say that Olive wins the regional pageant because the real winner was disqualified due to her taking diet pills and during one scene, an eight year old is being sprayed with bronzer by her preppy mother in preperation for the pageant.

It’s not just a shot at the bombastic and ridiculous pageant life, though, it’s just a microcosm of how America is starting to feel to me. That’s just my perception, by the way, but I do believe the filmmakers aren’t just taking shots at pageantry – that would be way too easy.

I’ve said enough – you really should see this movie. Trust me.

Take A Bite Out Of Vague

A funny, but not funny brief NYT article (no password needed) on how the world of venture capital is looking at “enviromentally friendly companies” and how the term “cleantech” is largely being abused by companies who are seeking funding. The idea here is that since cleantech is hot, these companies who are looking for investment basically dream up ways to qualify themselves. This is certainly not unexpected. Much like all business, it’s always about the money. No surprise there. It’s no different, really, then Whole Grain Fig Newtons being positioned as healthy or food companies slapping “organic” tags on food when it’s actually not USDA organic. Caveat emptor, friends.

I used to walk into the bathrooms at offices I worked in to see people flossing their teeth after lunch. In general, the first thought that entered my head was “okay, that’s just a little obsessive.” But time does strange things to people (people = me). I don’t floss after every meal, but I’ve lost the gut feeling of thinking that task may be obsessive in nature. Teeth are just bizarre. I am no stranger to the dentist’s chair, myself – spent nearly five years in braces and various mouth contraptions from sixth grade until junior year in high school, did everything they told me to do and just a few years later, my teeth aren’t crooked or anything, but I definitely don’t feel like the orthodontist did their job.

Since then, I’ve been in the dentist’s chair for many procedures and these days I go for cleanings every 3-6 months because I’m the one who’s obsessed with keeping these things as long as I can. Flossing? That was a foreign concept to me when I was young and virtually indestructible. For the last five years, though, I floss every night and then follow it up with Listerine, no matter what. Each time I go to the dentist now, I’m rewarded with “your maintenance is terrific” or something similar. I’ll take it.

The other wierd thing about teeth is that no matter how hard you try to keep them clean, heredity plays a major role. You could be that guy (obsessively?) brushing and flossing after each meal, but if your parents have bad teeth, there’s a damn good chance you will as well. That’s not terribly fair, but I guess it’s better for that to be hereditary than, say, being a dick.

What’s your policy on flossing?