Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Dear Asher,

I'm your dad. I know you don't remember me, because I leave for work before you wake up and get home long after you're asleep. But I promise, my paternity is true. Hopefully, I'll get to see you tomorrow. Until then, sleep well. Dream of strained carrots, your crazy cousins with whom you played yesterday, the big Wilco/Jayhawks poster in your room, and parents who would do anything for you.


Love
your father

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Why I agree with George Bush
(That's right, Scott.)

In a recent CBS interview, McCain said:

When we left Vietnam, there wasn't a fear that the Vietnamese would come after us. If we fail in Iraq, it will be cataclysmic. You'll see factionalization and eventual Muslim extremism and terrorist breeding grounds that would, I believe, pose a direct threat to the security of the United States.

Our beloved leader keeps pushing his "stay the course" rhetoric on us - louder and louder as the "get out of Iraq now" cries notch up. For the reason that McCain stated above, I agree with Mr. Bush. We can't just pull out of this petri dish for terrorism that we've created, because it will most certainly come back to bite us in the ass.

Now, I want to be clear about something: This is where my agreement with Bush (and McCain) ends.

We need to stay the course, but it needs to be a different course than we're on, and a different course than any one the Bush Administration has pursued.

  • We need to stop the war profiteering.
  • We need to focus more efforts on getting electricity, water and sewage systems back up to at least where they were under Saddam.
  • We need to acknowledge the administration's larger role in the torture and murder scandals -- especially where we've admitted that the victims were innocent. We need to punish those responsible. We need to offer restitution. True, we're not as bad as Saddam. But "not as bad as Saddam" is not an appropriate benchmark for the United States.
  • We need to spend the money to properly arm and armor our troops.
  • We need to listen to our military experts when they say our troop strength should be better.
  • We need to remove the Iraqi military and police trainees from their country, train them, and the re-insert them.
  • We need to incent the Sunnis through soft power (diplomatic and economic means) to be an active part of the democratic process, and we need to incent the Shiites and Kurds to allow that to happen.
  • We need to take a more active role in fixing the Palestinian situation.

    Right now, we are doing exactly the opposite of these things, repeatedly and belligerently. And it looks to me (and to a hell of a lot of other people) that the Administration is purposely exacerbating the situation so that they can (a) reap personal gains, and (b) strengthen U.S. hegemony in the region.

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  • Monday, August 29, 2005

    Earlier tonight, I was remarking to Sarah how Asher is all id (as in Freud). He's only recently learned how to express a preference for something, but at six months old, he certainly hasn't yet learned any of the social niceties that go along with such requests. For example, if he wants the bottle, he'll get this determined -- almost vicious look on his face -- and snatch it up. Or, if he's done being held, he'll hit you until you let him go back to his toys.

    It's kind of funny, but it also makes me realize that we're going to have to start to teach this kid some manners, soon. Probably won't have much luck just yet with that - We can't even teach him to wave goodbye.

    It's 11pm. Sarah and Asher are asleep. I'm switching between F'06 budget, an Apple presentation, a Yahoo presentation, and a bottle of Lagavulin, and wondering which one will be finished first.
    For some reason, I've got a biblical theme running through my insults today. In the past two hours, I've called one person a Philistine and another a heretic.

    Friday, August 26, 2005

    Teaching Participatory Democracy

    Sarah said to me last night, "Why can't we teach participatory democracy in public schools just like we teach English, or like we teach religion in private schools?"

    What kind of society would we have if - from a very early age - private school children were taught that they had a responsibility to vote, just like they had a responsibility to go to church on Sunday or to shul on Saturday? If they had to learn the ins and the outs of the candidates and the issues in the same way that they learned scriptures in Yeshivas or Christian schools? If in addition to conjugating sentences, reading about dinosaurs and memorizing the preamble to the Constitution, they were taught every year what local, regional and national elections meant to them, who was running, what the issues were, and how the media was framing the race?

    What if these children grew up learning that being part of a democracy was a honor, and with it came certain responsibilities to inform themselves and to vote?

    What if being 18 and being able to vote were just as cool and just as much of a landmark as being 16 and getting your driver's license?

    The big question is, can you teach participatory democracy without being partisan? My knee-jerk answer is no - because teachers can't be trusted to outline issues and introduce candidates in an unbiased manner, and because there'd be a huge temptation on the part of the government (which ever party is in control at the time) to wield federal funding for education as a subtle tool to push policy in schools.

    But, why can't we find a way to do this in an objective way? Sure, my postmodern undergraduate classes taught me that nothing is objective. But, we can get close. Can't we?

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    Sarah took Asher on the swings yesterday. After some hesitation, he warmed up to the idea.

    Thursday, August 25, 2005

    It's our wedding anniversary today.

    Sarah and I are going out to dinner, then to hear music somewhere in the neighborhood. Her friend Sabrina is going to watch Asher, which should be an extremely low-maintenance task, since he's almost always asleep by 7pm. Unfortunately, he's woken up around 9pm the past two nights with a stuffed nose. Hopefully, Sabrina won't have to deal with that tonight.

    Now Playing: Return of the Grevious Angel - a Gram Parsons tribute featuring Emmylou Harris, Beck, Evan Dando, Wilco, Whiskeytown, Gillian Welch, The Pretenders and others. Some of the best music I've ever heard.

    Wednesday, August 24, 2005

    Higher-level co-worker: Most of your problem is that people think that you act like you're better or smarter than they are, and it turns them off.

    Isaac: Can you give me an example?

    Higher-level co-worker: Okay, like when you said "en route" just a bit ago, it turned people off. Why can't you just say that it's on its way?
    Fat, Happy Baby

    Asher went to the doctor this morning. He's now 15.5lbs and 25.5 inches. The boy has basically doubled in size since his birth. Crazy.

    Monday, August 22, 2005

    Family Business

    Last night I had the WEIRDEST dream:

    I had this indie rock friend who was getting engaged. He happened upon me in a public market (that looked like a cross between Union Square and the zocalo in Oaxaca, Mexico) and was carrying a fistful of tiny, tiny diamonds - less than 1/4 carat each - that someone had given him to choose from. Almost nonchalantly, he asked me which one he should buy, noting that he only had $800.

    Just as I was telling my friend that I had no clue, my brother-in-law David randomly walked by.

    David is a diamond dealer in real-life. He works with my father-in-law on 47th street.

    In my dream, I asked my friend to show David the fistful of tiny diamonds. David started laughing uncontrollably because to him, all of these diamonds were so inconsequential.

    He told my friend to wait there, and took me and the diamonds through this crazy underground maze to his office where a bunch of Hasids were lounging around. David showed them the diamonds, and they all laughed hysterically. One took out cough drops and said they were worth more than the fistful of diamonds.

    Feeling slightly out-of-place, I left David's office, took the diamonds back to my indie rock friend, and recommended one, pretending like the recommendation came from David. My friend thanked me, pulled an "Anthony Weiner For Mayor" t-shirt with a ringed collar out of his bag, and gave it to me.

    Update: Out of curiosity, I just checked BlueNile.com and there are more than 1,000 diamonds between 0.25 and .44 carats, of decent cut, clarity, etc... for less than $800.

    Update 2: My dream reflects my own insecurities - not my brother-in-law's personality. David's a really nice guy who would never laugh derisively at anything, much less something like a guy who can't spend a ton of money on an engagement diamond.

    Update 3: Maybe, I should go into the diamond business. You can't beat the hours, the commute or the pay. It's probably more fulfilling than my current line of work.

    Update 4: Nah. Then, I couldn't write off my monthly Rhapsody subscription. What's more, I'd probably have to start keeping kosher and prey three times a day. I also think I'd have to wear a tie. That's the real goocher.

    Friday, August 19, 2005

    I have this friend who used to be a Democrat, but swallowed the whole "they're coming to kill us and only GWB can save us" rhetoric, and became a Republican.

    He's always contended that it was no one's fault that we didn't ever find weapons of mass desctruction, that we could have never known for sure.

    He STILL contends this, even in the face of facts like the Downing Street Memo and this CNN report that shows that Powell was forced/tricked into giving that UN speech about mobile biological weapons labs, and so on.

    Why can't these people (my friend and oh, the other 50% of the nation that goes along with this crap) face facts: The Administration lied. They lied their asses off to commit us to going into Iraq. They did it so that American companies could glean short-term profits from it.

    I'm serious when I ask this. Why? And why does this Administration still enjoy my friend's trust in the face of these facts? I really, really don't get it. And don't give me the, "aw, all politicians lie" line. This is very bad stuff. This lie has committed $300 billion of our tax dollars. This lie has been responsible for the deaths of nearly 2,000 American servicemen and countless American security contractors. And most importantly, this lie has EXACERBATED the terrorist threat, not dampened it.

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    Thursday, August 18, 2005

    I'm taking tomorrow off to hang out with this guy while Sarah works an extra day:




    Asher is six months old this Saturday. He's become a big fan this exersaucer thing in the picture. He's also a big fan of Dr. Seuss (not in the picture), but only because the books we have are edible - or at least chewable. He's not a big fan of green beans. In his opinion, they are decidedly less edible (or even chewable) than the Dr. Suess books.

    ps: tie-dye in photo, courtesy of the aforementioned Sara the New York Post entertainment editor who got it for Asher because she knew me back when practically all I wore were tie-dyes. That phase was sandwiched in between the Morrissey and Joy Division t-shirt collection and the dot-com wear.

    Should Sarah and I go to Israel for a couple weeks in October? Her cousin is getting married, and we have some friends that live in Tel Aviv. Problem is, we'd have to leave Asher behind with Sarah's parents, and I don't think I want to do that.

    Wednesday, August 17, 2005

    WFUV in New York is my favorite radio station on the planet. Mornings, they have an alt.country/folk show that plays artists like Michelle Shocked, Uncle Tupelo, John Prine and Joni Mitchell. Evenings is a grab bag of blues, roots and the best adult alternative out there. On the way home from work tonight, I heard the following tunes in the following order:

    “Strict Time” – Elvis Costello from Trust
    “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing” – Stevie Wonder from Innervision
    “Little Miss S” – Edie Brickell from Shooting Rubberbands…
    “Jack Straw” – Grateful Dead from some studio recording
    “Wang Dang Doodle" – Koko Taylor from some live recording

    You can’t beat that playlist. You really can’t.

    Of course, re-reading all of those artist names, I realize how old I'm getting. Sheesh.

    Tuesday, August 16, 2005

    That's Entertainment

    My longtime, dear friend Sara is the entertainment editor for the New York Post. Despite her employer, she really is a nice, intelligent and liberal individual. However, she occasionally sends me notes in the name of research for Post stories, which makes me re-think that view. Today's was a classic. She's doing a story on guys who had been left at the altar because the girl really loved someone else, and wanted to know if I had anyone she could talk to.

    Come on! That's pretty low journalism.

    Monday, August 15, 2005

    Breakfast Rock

    Picture this: 10 o'clock in the morning on Saturday. An enormous hotel ballroom with tables full of hundreds of people drinking coffee and eating breakfast quiches. The lights dim. Someone gets on stage in a suit and makes a speech about new product initiatives driving incremental sales. Bar charts are shown up on the big screen. Polite clapping from the audience. The curtains behind the podium open, and Fefe Dobson starts stalking the stage in full regalia -- clown makeup plastered on her face, torn clothing and defiant snarl. Her band leaps around behind her in their black skull-and-crossbones shirts. After the first number, she screams, "How y'all doing tonight?!" No response from the audience. Fefe does another couple of tunes, then exits the stage in a cavalcade of feedback and crashing cymbals. Polite clapping from the audience. Another short speech with some bar charts showing genre sales for the past six quarters.

    Next up - the All American Rejects who repeat the same incongruous performance, though their lead singer at least gets the time of day right - "How y'all doing this morning?!"

    This past weekend's conference was the World Series for music retailers, rackjobbers and distributors. And these bands were playing their guts out at ten in the fucking morning for a shot at eighteen inches of end-cap at your local Tower Records.

    Okay, so that's the biz. But my heart really goes out to these musicians. At the direction of their labels, they packaged up a heavily abbreviated version of their show, performed twelve hours earlier than normal, and did so in front of an audience that gave them less response than they would have gotten from my six-month-old kid. At least he might have pooped or spit up or something rock-and-roll like that. Fefe Dobson was bookended by bar charts for chrissakes. Talk about a tough show.

    Friday, August 12, 2005

    The Left Coast is the Right Coast

    Just had the best Ahi Tuna I've had since... the last time I was in California. Damn, the food out here is good.

    Thursday, August 11, 2005

    I'm off to San Diego today for a music retailing conference. An old Listen.com colleague and I are having dinner tonight. He's in the wireless industry out there. That will likely be the highlight of the trip - either that or the red eye back on Saturday night.

    Sarah's in the other room trying to read to Asher right now. He'd rather eat the book, I think.

    Tuesday, August 09, 2005

    Ten years ago today, Jerry Garcia died of a heart attack while in a rehab center, and Netscape went public at $28/share, shooting up past $70 before the closing bell.

    The combination of these two events produced what's arguably the biggest day in internet history that there ever was.

    Internet community essentially started with a private bulletin board system called the WELL. Founded by a bunch of Deadheads in the mid-Eighties, the WELL was a place where you could go to exchange ideas, tapes, and gossip with people, regardless of their location. A decade later, the hippie ethos was still the core of internet culture, sharing space only with the academics and a very nascent group of entrepreneurs.

    In December of '94, Hotwired became the first website to sell advertising (a Zima banner, I think). For the next nine months, the promise of commercialization hung over the internet, whipping folks like me into a minor frenzy. Then, Netscape finally delivered and we went bonkers.

    I remember August 9, 1995. I was working at Tribune Company as their token young internet guy. We all crowded around the VP of Investor Relations’ Bloomberg terminal and watched the info roll in on Netscape’s IPO. I split for my computer (the only one in Corporate Relations with internet access) and exchanged emails with friends who knew friends who knew people who managed to get their hands on a few shares. All morning, my email buddies and I monitored the few news sites (Nando, anyone?) out there and reported to each other Netscape tidbits we’d heard on the radio. It was the most exciting thing EVER for a young internet professional. The (commercial) realization of the medium was at hand.

    Then, I broke for lunch. When I got back to the office, the VP’s secretary said to me, “I’m sorry about Jerry Garcia” (she knew I was a fan). I was like, “what?!”

    “I thought you knew. I just heard on the radio that he died,” she said.

    And the already teeming internet community went completely berserk. Tribute sites sprung up by the dozen. My friend at Hotwired asked me if I wanted to do some “emergency reporting” in AOL chat rooms, MOOs (text-based communities), and the like. People set up special FTP sites to distribute .WAV files of the band’s last show a month earlier at Chicago’s Soldier Field.

    Between Jerry’s death and the Netscape IPO, you could lay your hands on the keyboard and almost feel the internet come alive.
    Music Makes the Man?

    According to Rhapsody, here is a list of my top artists, based on recent listening activity:


    1. Jacqueline Du Pre
    2. Johnny Cash
    3. Andrew Bird
    4. Mojave 3
    5. The Flaming Lips
    6. The Verve
    7. Greg Osby
    8. John Prine
    9. Bobby Hutcherson
    10. Gang of Four
    11. Donald Byrd
    12. Missy Elliott
    13. The Jam
    14. Merle Haggard
    15. The Damned
    16. Death Cab for Cutie
    17. The Band
    18. The Who
    19. Kris Kristofferson
    20. Bobby "Blue" Bland

    Monday, August 08, 2005

    A Day in the Life

    Woke up. Got out of bed…

    Managed to grab a shower before Asher started his day. When I got into his room around 6, he was involved in a light conversation with his feet, and squealed delightfully at my arrival. I changed him, turned him over to Sarah for his breakfast, and went to the computer to check email and morning news. CNN had the story that Peter Jennings passed away last night, and I broke it to Sarah who works at ABC’s World News Tonight. She’d only worked directly with Peter a few times, but he’d been a commanding presence over the minutiae of every broadcast right up until he left the set four months ago with cancer.

    I put my iPod on – Mojave 3 this morning – and headed out on my 5 minute walk to the subway. The Q line, 7th avenue stop.

    Surfaced at Union Square, and went to the deli around the corner from my office on Park and 20th for a coffee.

    I unlocked the office at 7am. Mondays and Tuesdays, I’m the first one there. Since Sarah works from 11-7:30pm on those days, I have to leave at 4pm to pick Asher up from her parents’ house and get him home in time for bed.

    Work was relatively calm, given all the crap that’s been going down there lately. F ’06 revenue planning is done – at least this phase. A freelancer is prettying up one of the two presentations we’re giving at a conference in San Diego this week. My boss was tweaking the other one, and we reviewed it at 12:15pm. Prior to that, I took care of miscellaneous stuff and worked on the Apple presentation. Lunch was a $3.25 tekka roll from that same corner deli.

    Spoke with Sarah briefly in the middle of the day. She said it was a really, really sad day at work. Peter worked very closely with a lot of folks there, and had earned a tremendous amount of professional respect over the years.

    I blew out of the office 15 minutes late, after a meeting with my boss’s boss that ran over. Read a chapter of Thomas Friedman’s new book on the subway out to Forest Hills to pick Asher up. God, I hate that guy's style. His topics are damn interesting, and his conclusions insightful, though.

    Sarah’s mom was in the backyard with Asher when I arrived. She was just about to give him a bottle, so I sat down and chatted with her. She talked a bit about a funeral that Sarah’s father had been to today. A second cousin named Annie committed suicide last Friday. She was young – 22 or 23. A musician. Never went to college. Was raised by her grandparents Izzy and Sonia on the upper east side. I never met her.

    A lot of death today.

    Which is perhaps why it felt especially good that Asher broke into a wide smile when he saw me, and erupted into peals of laughter when Sarah’s mom passed him off to me. Sort of a “Cassidy” moment, for you Grateful Dead fans out there.

    Asher and I drove home, alternating between a Donald Byrd CD, Air America, and NPR, which was running a piece on Muslims in TV dramas, followed by something on Illinois’ failing pension plan.

    Bath, bottle and bed were thankfully uneventful.

    Dinner was chicken, couscous and broccoli from last night. Sarah walked in the door at 8:30, emotionally drained. It’s 10:30 now. She’s been asleep for 30 minutes.

    Not a bad day for me. Mondays and Tuesdays are always mercifully mellow because of the easy work hours.

    Saturday, August 06, 2005

    Bitches, Ho's, and Me

    I get quoted in articles a fair amount. Sometimes, they're in the Chicago Tribune or on MTV.com. Sometimes, they're in the Schenectady Business Journal (no foolin'), or something from Podunk Arkansas.

    The other day, Essence magazine published a piece on rap and its influence on the perception of women. Kind of a funny forum for me to be in, but there I am on the first two pages. Of course, I'm not employing any deep, socio-rhetorical analysis - just offering up statistics and throwaway lines to go with them. But, hey...

    Friday, August 05, 2005

    Gatsby is a Middle-Aged Persian Doctor

    I went to a mind-boggling affair last night at a house that was right out of the Great Gatsby.

    Sarah's college friend had a baby boy, and her parents hosted the bris at their home out on the north shore of Long Island. The house was tucked into a labyrinth of tiny roads the size of babbling brooks, and lay right on Long Island Sound. I got a whiff of the affair's caliber very early on, when I saw the small army of deferential Asian men in matching white coats (in 90 degree weather) lined up behind a valet parking sign. They were there, it seemed, to artfully pack the fleet of luxury vehicles (and my Honda) along the sides of the expansive driveway.

    Speaking of driveways, theirs was longer and wider than any street we took to get there, and lined by tall evergreen trees that completely blocked out the landscape. Suffice to say, it fit the 200+ cars, and still left room to feel like our three minute walk up it to the house was a desolate one.

    The house. First, let me get the big ticket items out of the way - an indoor lap pool and accompanying hot tub, an outdoor lap pool, tennis courts in the front, and an acre or two of land in the back that sloped gently down to the water. A tiered cobblestone-and-brick patio that ran the entire length of the grounds, a boathouse and a modified gazebo with an almost unnoticeable little fish pond nestled up against it.

    The decor. Sarah's friend is Persian, which meant the decor was considerably less... subtle than I was used to - gold-encrusted wood paneling, tons of pre-Raphaelite paintings ensconced in lavish gold frames, an antique French piano, oversized antique tables adorned with painted vines and roses, and statues of cherubs, some of whom appeared to have been captured en flagrante delecto.

    The crowd. Out of the 500+ people there, Sarah and I were two of maybe 5 white folks - and all of us were underdressed. Everyone else was Persian, suave, and in decked out in tailored suits or skimpy, sexy, summer dresses.

    Instead of applauding or huzzahing, Persians do this sort of sharp vocal trill that sounds like, "Lee lee lee lee lee lee lee!" So, when the bris began, and the family walked in with the baby, the crowd erupted in a chorus of these trills that nearly knocked me out of my shoes.

    The food and drink. Well-stocked bars in every corner, seared, pepper-crusted ahi tuna, roving waiters with obscenely good hors d'oeurves, a large table in the center with every fruit under the sun, and tons of middle-eastern cuisine I'd never heard of. Off to the sides, were even larger tables with silver trays that presumably contained the main course(s). The trays still had not been opened three hours into the event, and Sarah and I had to leave. So, I can only imagine what delectables lay inside of them.

    It was definitely an experience.

    Thursday, August 04, 2005

    I have this really terrible ability to crush people with a few terse sentences or even a simple stare.

    It's not calculated. It's almost always spontaneous and utterly reflexive -- the result of being so furious at someone on who I've got a good enough read to instinctively nail in just the right way, at just the right time.

    Earlier this week, I did that to someone at work. And now, I'm sorry for it. That was not fair of me. It sent this person over the edge, like I guess I knew it would.

    And now, this person is gone. Checked out. Incommunicado. But not before leaving a lot of weird emotional vitriol about me in his/her wake.

    The funny thing is, I've been this person's biggest supporter for the past 8 months. I've patiently helped this person when things were confusing to him/her. I've been this person's biggest (and only) supporter in my business unit. I've flat out done some of this person's work for him/her. And I've declined to skewer this person in a public meeting with senior management, even though my direct boss more or less encouraged it.

    Wednesday, August 03, 2005

    Asher pissed straight in my eye this morning while I was changing his diaper. Dude was grinning wickedly when he did it, too.

    In the next week, I need to start and complete the following for work:
    - F'06 budgeting
    - Four 30+ page presentations for clients
    - Sales plan
    - Hire two people

    I've been listening to the Verve a lot lately.

    I'm trying to book a house in the Catskills for a week in September.

    I'm trying to plan for a business trip to San Diego on Aug 11.

    I'm eating a lot of cookies.

    I'm having trouble focusing.

    Tuesday, August 02, 2005

    My son is driving me crazy, in a relatively cute sort of way.

    He's very recently discovered that through a combination of reaching and worming his way in various directions, he can access things that were previously unavailable to him. Right now, this newfound knowledge is overcoming a desperate need to sleep as he rolls and commandoes his way around the crib, grabbing onto various parts. And that's only after I took his pacifier away from him when I found him using it as some sort of rudimentary object of desire in a game of self-fetch.

    And so, it's 7pm and he's beyond tired, screaming in his crib, stopping only to roll to the other side and reach for the bumper.

    Monday, August 01, 2005

    Yes, I'm a little down on New York City these days. Gee, it shows?

    A job where everyone was as dedicated as me OR that allowed me to work 40-45 hour weeks would help.

    A gym where I could work out at lunch would help.

    Weekend bike rides or hikes would help, but that's definitely too much to ask.

    Did I mention that I put Asher to sleep with American Music Club's "Firefly?" He digs it more than Nick Drake or Red House Painters.