Music, Sport, Improv, Business School, and arthritis

[MarkOn10th]

I woke up at around 10:30. My left heel hurts again. Dull throbbing ache that hurts more when I walk around. But again, as the day goes on it feels better and better.

I grab an egg sandwich at the deli and eat while working on my Info Systems homework. Never mind that we have a midterm on Monday, we have homework today. Not terribly hard stuff though. "_____ is a change in signal from positive to negative or vice versa that is used as a measure of transmission speed." "A _______ is a telecommunications computer that collects and temporarily stores messages from terminals for batch transmission to a host computer." "A _______ is a device that enables a single communications channel to carry data transmissions from multiple sources simultaneously."

I love listening to Scott Muni's 12-noon radio show. Today Mike Smith from the Dave Clark 5 joined Muni on the air and Mike talked about his memories of the Beatles. The Beatles and the DC5 debuted on BBC television the same night. At some point the DC5 knocked the Beatles off the number one spot and everyone thought they would eclipse the Beatles in greatness. Even Smith laughed about that.

I call Time Warner Cable to complain about the modem issues, but I get a 20-minute wait. That will have to wait til next week. I jet off to school at around 3pm. In the grad computer lab I check e-mails and boards and there are a few PMs.

I head down to the cafeteria and eat a salad and review the notes for my market research class. We work on things like this: "Of the over 5,000 applications received at the Admissions Office, we randomly select 200. Of these 200 applicants, 110 are female. What is the confidence interval for the proportion of applicants that are female?"

Doesn't that sound like something important to know?

Up to class at 5:50. In class we learn a bit about the SPSS software that helps us with statistical analysis.

At 8 the Info System class kicks in. I hate back-to-back classes. Note to self, don't take 8 - 10pm classes ever again.

Meet up with some classmates to chat after class, then 3 train back to Brooklyn. I've done nothing useful since getting home. I watched one lousy movie and now I'm watching another. I should sleep.

 

[MarkOn10th]

This morning I got up around 11am. After showering and dressing I read a chapter in my info systems book. Then I 2/1/9 trained it to The PIT. I ate lunch with a classmate at the Subway downstairs and won a free cookie in their combo meal scratch and win game. Just what I needed!

Class was very up-tempo today. One of my classmates asked me why I don't write more about improv in my improv journal. For those of you who are long time MarkOn10th readers, you know, I used to have a journal that was ALL about improv. I was very honest and open. What I didn't know was the some of the people I was doing improv with really felt like what goes on in the classroom/practice environment should stay there. I guess I'd never discussed the journal with them and some feelings were hurt. And you know I'd never try to hurt anyone's feelings. I try and be as supportive to teammates and classmates as I can be. So, I figured in this journal, I'd be very fact of the matter and maybe technical, and not pass any judgment at all on my classmates, my shows, or anything like that.

I can say that in The Movie class today someone broke wind on stage.

In class we really focused on finding the genre of our movie and find the protagonist quickly and aggressively. I wish we had another 8 weeks of this class, but we are almost finished. I feel like we are just starting to "get it".

I liked one exercise in particular. When you are endowed with certain characteristics, play that character in a place or a way that somehow reveals an aspect about the character that is unexpected. So if someone says that you are a Kamikaze Pilot (in a WWII genre), why not start the action by playing ping-pong with another pilot. This adds depth to the character.

After class I went straight home, thinking I'd study tonight, but I have yet to crack open a book. Not good. My goal now is just to read one chapter before I sleep. I have to run the dishwasher and clean up a bit too.

I let one of my classmates feel the rheumatic lump on my elbow in class today. That always gets an "Ew." and rightfully so. I wish I could cut it out of my arm, my wrist, my shoulder.

Night all.

 

[MarkOn10th]

I woke up at around 11:00am when the phone rang. My dad calling because "I don't think I have your zip code right, and I need to mail you something." He had it right and what he needed to send me I didn't need. A statement from Citibank stating that I have zero dollars in an IRA account I set up there years ago. I've long since moved that IRA to Solomon Brothers and converted it to a Roth. But Citibank feels the need to keep sending statements. Worse yet, for reasons unknown they send the statement to my parents.

Today I read chapter 9 in the Built To Last book. This chapter was entitled, "Good Enough Never Is." It was about how visionary corporations somehow build mechanisms of discontent into their enterprises. Complacency leads to death. So by engendering discomfort companies evolve, improve, compete, and thrive. Proctor & Gamble encouraged brands to compete amongst themselves, as if they were competing companies. Merck gladly yielded market share on products that became commodities, thus forcing itself to produce new innovations. Boeing directs its managers to use a process called "eyes of the enemy" whereby the manager develops strategies as if they worked for a competitor with the aim of obliterating Boeing.

Is your group too comfortable? Time to breed some discomfort!!!

I did the rest of my management homework and then hit the showers.

I grabbed some breakfast at Grand Canyon and returned to the crib to do laundry and do some cleaning up. I delayed studying for my info systems test until 9pm. From lunch to dinner I watched TV, played guitar, spoke to friends on the telephone, did some calendar planning for March, and went for a walk on the promenade. Very productive.

After dinner I settled in for two and a half hours of studying. I got about half the work done I had hoped. I have the first three chapters pretty well covered now. Hopefully tomorrow I'll find ample time to get through chapters four, five and six.

While I was out walking I got a message from the band I manage. We haven't spoken in a long time now. Over a month. Last week I wrestled some money out of one of our distributors and I sent that check to them. So Adam called and thanked me for the money. It's his money so he should not thank me, but he did. He has found a way to host the band's website for free. For the past few years we've hosted it for like $15 a month at a server farm in bumfuck Indiana. But Adam works for a place now that has a server and they'll hook him up with some free space. So he left a message for me asking me to somehow move the site from Bumfuck Indiana to Portland, OR. I set this website deal up like two years ago and I'm fucked if I can even remember who to call at this point. But it will save money, so I should get on the stick and make this happen.

Cause I have a lot of time to do that.

In the pain area, left heel hurts. I didn't take any painkillers though. Just sort of rode it out.
In the music area, I did an Internet search to find that the Crazy In Love Beyonce track samples the Chi-Lites' "Are You My Woman?" Those cool horns. I have a few Chi-Lites 45's kicking around, but that track is not on any of them. It would be cool to walk that into the Garden and drop it at a Knicks game when Jay Z and Beyonce are there. I should check my soul box sets. hmmm.

I am off to sleep now. Midterm tomorrow!

 

[MarkOn10th]

This morning I woke via alarm clock at 8:15am. Song selection was track three of Joe Jackson's Look Sharp! album.

I rushed through the morning routine, grateful that I'd shaved on Sunday, thus eliminating one step in my Monday morning routine. I brought home an egg sandwich from the good deli and read another chapter in the info systems textbook. I've read all of this already, but I figure another read will be profitable.

At 11:15am I ship out for my therapy session. After the session I drop into the Virgin Union Square and pick up The Chi-Lites 20 Greatest Hits, Art Blakey: The Jazz Messengers, and a DVD of The Sting. I wound up mistakenly buying the full screen version of the movie, which I really do not prefer . . .Maybe I will try to exchange it for a wide screen version. I've already opened it all up though, so I'm not sure they'll accept the trade in. hmmm.

I five train it back home. Back up to the apartment to study. I tackle chapters four and five in two hours. I play guitar for a few minutes, listen to the Chi-Lites album. Are You My Woman is a pretty dope track. I forgot how great Oh Girl is. The Chi-Lites were dope. I'm so happy with this album.

At 4:45 or so I head out for school. I decide to N/R it. I can take the N/R or the 2/3 to the 1/9. I think the N/R is easier because I don't need to transfer to a local, it is local the whole way. But it isn't the N/R anymore, it's just the N I think. Or just the R. No, just the N. Subway has gotten a bit confusing lately. Anyway, coming out of the subway at 57th Street I hear a voice from behind making fun of me. Lo and behold, it is Bruce, cousin of my best friend, David. Bruce is a real nice guy who actually lives right across the street from my school.

Bruce sells Halloween masks for a living. He says this is actually his heaviest season. All the Fall orders are placed now. I guess these masks are not manufactured in Garden City. China is more like it, so to accommodate the whole manufacturing process, and cheap shipping in a container aboard a COSCO ship, they need to get orders placed now. Sell Sell Sell. Is the Saddam mask is a big mover this year? Bruce tells me that he opened up a new account this year: Target stores. They are only the third largest retailer in the country. Nothing to worry about.

I stop in at the Starbucks to pick up a Grande No Whip Mocha Frappachino. The Starbucks on 59th street is great because they give students a discount on everything. So the $4.24 GNWMF is only $3.82, which is less. 10% less I'd guess.

Up to class. As was the case on Friday, I have back-to-back classes in the same classroom. It is somewhat interminable. The first class is Market Research in which we discussed how to decide how big a sample size you need in order for your research to give a fair prediction of a larger population. We also covered conjoint analysis. How do consumers evaluate products?

Just as the one class ends, the other begins, and it is midterm time. Sixty questions in sixty minutes, multiple guess. I honestly thought the test was going to be tougher than the test we got. I finished it in about 45 minutes and went down to the computer lab to print out some e-mails. I went back up to class to find students milling about in the hallway chatting about the test. Overwhelming reaction was that the test was tougher than everyone thought.

I think that if people tried to study for two hours today, at work, they found the test hard. But if they did all the reading and spent time this past week studying, they found it manageable. I think I did fine.

The second half of class the teacher spoke about the big "Case Study" that we have to work on and turn in and counts for nearly half our final grade.

Case Report Due Date: 3/29/04
Feedback deadline: 3/22/04

Read the article on the blackboard website regarding COSCO. This article is of recent vintage and was printed up in the Harvard Business Review.

Questions:
1. After studying the recommended readings, identify the activities that are probably in the value chain for the COSCO case. Explain and give specific examples of how information technology can support these activities.

2. Place yourself in the consultant's position. Based on the information provided in the case, analyze the shipping industry and COSCO with regard to the five competitive forces that affect an industry's profitability. Prepare a response describing your analysis with examples to support your discussion. Your response should include recommended courses of action and focus on how information systems and computer technology can support COSCO's operations relative to the five competitive forces. (do not exceed 2 pages for this response.)

3. How can information technology help COSCO identify new business opportunities in the shipping industry, or the related industries outlined in the article? Give several examples of apparent new business opportunities that can be identified with information technology.

4. After reviewing Rockart's 1979 Harvard Business Review article, use the information available in the case to formulate a hypothetical set of critical success factors that are necessary for the firm to meet its objectives. State why the factors you identified are critical.

5. Identify variables for measuring the firm's success in achieving the critical success factors you listed in the previous question.

6. When you identified variables for measuring the firm's success in achieving its critical success factors, you simultaneously identified information system requirements. Develop a list of information systems that can be implemented to achieve the CSFs.

7. Develop a taxonomy of overall specific applications for COSCO. Cite specific examples in context.

8. One of the suggested strategies is to explore the potential of e-commerce. Discuss the information technologies relating to the Internet and web that can be used to reach the local and global market place. Further, identify key issues surrounding the possible electronic commerce initiatives.

9. Any information technology initiative needs to be evaluated and measured for success. You recently heard that the Balanced Scorecard is an approach gaining rapid acceptance. Develop a balanced scorecard model to evaluate and measure COSCO's electronic commerce initiatives real and potential.

10. Identify five non-IT strategies to restructure COSCO to achieve its new goals. Briefly discuss.

For the record, COSCO is an enormous container shipping company in China. One of the biggest freight movers on the seven seas. They employ nearly 100,000 people worldwide.

My "group", code named Monet by our professor, was randomly put together. Names out of a hat type random. It's interesting. The management professor assigned us to teams only after painstakingly and time consumingly attempting to see to it that each team was as diverse as humanly possible. The market research professor let us pick teammates, so I picked the friends sitting around me. This info systems professor picks names out of a hat. These are three vastly different ways of putting a team together. Can you guess which team gets along most harmoniously?

The diverse team gets along the best, by far.

Anyway, after class I three trained it home in time to watch the last half hour of the Straight Plan. I ordered in some Chinese and dusted my teacups.

Cheers!

 

[MarkOn10th]

I woke up at around 8:30am. I just opened my eyes for no particular reason. I could have slept on until 11 or 12 but I just wasn't all that tired. My foot still hurts when I walk on it, but it is doing something different now. It used to hurt when I put weight on it, but now it hurts when I take my weight off it, like when I'm walking, its the up part that hurts. So I think its the tendon and it is arthritis. I'm not sure.

Anyway, today I read a case for my management class tomorrow. I have to answer some questions and do some more homework for the class. This class has a lot of easy homework. I'd rather do just one or two tough assignments, but this teacher is all about assigning a hundred three page cases that aren't really that hard to understand or evaluate. Whatever. On balance the readings aren't that bad.

I grabbed lunch from the good deli. A pastrami sandwich on rye. They had a hot pastrami that they carve with a knife right in front of you, a la Katz's deli. Pretty damn good.

In what I see now as a great irony, I ate my pastrami sandwich and watched Gandhi. What a great movie. I mean, duh, it's great. But I actually found myself caught up in the whole enormity of the struggle and the life and the sacrifice and the emotions.

I firmed up practice times for Undercover Burnout. We have two shows coming in the first two weeks of March, which is awesome. March 6 and March 13 at 10pm, Sage Theater, Times Square.

I also reviewed upcoming classes at UCB. I want to try and get into Billy's Extravaganza show, and I would miss two classes and one show due to schedule conflicts, so I fear that is just too disruptive. I think. And his 3B is out because the shows are both on Monday nights and I have class Monday nights. Maybe I'll take The Movie again at the PIT. Ed is a great teacher and I feel like I'm just beginning to "get" this form.

I headed out at 4:10pm. I 2 trained it to Penn Station, grabbed a cup of coffee from the Dunkin Donuts and went upstairs.

Here is a rough checklist of my next 20 minutes:

* Power up rack units, keyboards, drum machine, digicarts, lights.
* Remove dustcovers from keyboards.
* Remove hardtop from CD players and mixer.
* Unlock the padlocks and open up CD cabinets.
* Dial up keyboard sounds on the midi system. Load sound effects into midi.
* Check all these sounds.
* Load a few CDs into CD players and check to make sure they are working.
* Get script from "In Tray" and review. Make notes for special cues.
* Connect with game director - review script over the clear com system.
* Review all new videos with video board operators. (they had a new Hey Ya! video, so don't play that!)
* Dance team arrives. Load their "Get Low" dance mix into digicart.
* Also loaded that Chi-Lites track into the digicart for next Knicks game. (maybe.)
* Drink Coffee.

SJU played the UConn Huskies. The spread on the game was generous to say the least, 22 points. The Johnnies still have a couple of players with some life in them, some hope of getting into the NIT tournament, or at least playing respectable basketball. But U Conn is a top 10 program. Their coach wanted to CRUSH the Red Storm.

The highlight of the game: Second time out of the second half, the "JVC Half Court Shot". One contestant, who had previously won a shootout at Alumni Hall in queens, got a chance to take one shot at the basket from the half court line. The prize, a $12,000 JVC home theatre system. This schlub waddles out on to the court and bounces the ball a few time. The announcer gets the crowd all standing up and cheering. I bring in a tense drum roll, ready for my CLANK! sound effect. The guy goes through this bizarre ritual; very Eastern oriented stuff, and then launches the ball in a high arc . . .and the damn ball swishes right through the basket!!! The place erupts! I hit absolutely everybody, which we haven't played since the Liberty season. People are jumping up and down, dancing. The schlub is jumping up and down, getting high fived by the players from both teams. The band strikes up Rock and Roll part 2. It just doesn't get any nuttier than this.

Typically, its best when these moments are derived from the actual play of the teams people are supporting, but we'll take it any way we can at St Johns' games. SJU lost the game 53 to 71.

The game wrapped up at about 9pm. Tomorrow Rod Stewart rolls in to the Garden to sing his American standards songbook crap. This has a dramatic effect on me, because our music booth doubles as a spot light bay for concerts. This is one of the biggest pains in the ass of the job. We used to have our own little space, all to ourselves. But then the Rangers wanted to relocate the NHL replay officials to where we were. So we got bumped into a spot light bay.

After the last song plays I pull us out of the house. I power everything down, lock every thing up and then I have to drag all the equipment as far from the spot light as humanly possible. If I do not do this the spot light operator will do things like put his cola on our DJ equipment, use our keyboard as an ashtray, and use our CD collection to fill stockings next December. It takes about 15 minutes to wrap everything up.

I breeze out of the Garden and walk down to 26th Street. I slip into the UCBT at 9:25pm, in time to catch the Filth/Monkeydick Harolds. After the show I three trained it back to Brooklyn, sitting next to a schizophrenic who accused me of stealing his cookies.

The Knicks City Dancers were on Letterman tonight. Top 10 pet peeves of Knicks City Dancers.

 

[MarkOn10th]

The pain was much less intense when I woke up this morning. What is happening over night to change things so?

Breakfast from the good deli place.

I have no idea where the day went from there. I spoke to my team coach on the phone for a while. I spoke to Ray on the phone for a while. Did I do school work? I don't think so. Christ sakes. I think I watched Cool Runnings on HBO. I did. I watched Cool Runnings. Fuck. What a waste of a day.

I did have class at 5:50 and actually got there at around 4:50 and did the homework in the classroom before the class. We reviewed the case study for the whole class. The professor handed out our midterms and I'm not at all happy with my performance. He has not said what grade we'll be getting. But I fell right in the middle of the distribution. Which is terrible. I should be getting A's. I expect A's for myself, from myself. I presume he'll give me a B and that is substandard.

That test ruined my Rasta Rocket day. Thanks a lot.

After class I went down to 8th Street and grabbed both a bowl of soup and a cheeseburger at Cosy's Soup and Burger. One of my favorite haunts. After dinner I walked up to the Barnes and Noble on 22nd and 6th Ave and browsed around for an hour. I wound up buying Positively Fifth Street by James McManus:

In the spring of 2000, Harper's sent James McManus to Las Vegas to cover the World Series of Poker, in particular the progress of women in the $23 Million event, and the death of Ted Binion, the event's prodigal host, purportedly done in by a stripper and her boyfriend. But when McManus arrives, the lure of the tables compels him to risk his entire advance in a long-shot attempt to play in the competition. This is his deliciously suspenseful account of the tournament - the players, the hand-to-hand combat, his own unlikely progress in it - and the delightfully seedy carnival atmosphere that surrounds it.

B&N closed at 10, so I strolled around the corner to the Malibu diner and met up with some friends to play cards. I played very lucky and pretty well. James McManus might have been proud of me.

I cabbed it home. I earned it. Playing well did not make up for the lousy feeling of that test result. Which is probably a B, but still. Grrrrrr.

I'm taking 3mg of steroids and 200 mg of hydroxychloroquine.

On the phone Ray said that the show tonight, the Rod Stewart show, was actually a sell out. I'm just wondering what percentage of the crowd get pissed off when they realize that it's just Rod singing old standards like The Way You Look Tonight, and Misty. No Maggie Mae, no Hot Leggs, no Do Ya Think I'm Sexy, no Young Turks. There could be a riot.

 

[MarkOn10th]

I slept late today, cause, you know, I did so much work yesterday. My heel still hurts a bit, but it is very manageable. Today was another low productivity day. I read for a few hours from Positively Fifth Street.

My favorite line so far: "And I certainly can't sit here with strategy manuals open in my lap, thumbing an index or two for advice about playing A-J. (No rule prohibits it, other than the desire not to look like a shlub.)"

I had a show for my Movie class at the PIT. After the show I grabbed a slice with a classmate and swapped family histories with him. We walked over to UCBT where he was in a show, Chastity Cove. Tracers was also great.

Then OI and Swarm in the cage. Two great shows.

I didn't think about sports, outside of the cagematch hosts spot on impressions of hero quarterbacks of 12 years ago, Marino, Cunningham and Rypien. I didn't really listen to music today but the music at the UCBT was great, and I listened to Muni's noon broadcast, which today focused on the year 1969.

Tomorrow I have to be more on the ball. I need to focus up and get shit done. I need to work on my schoolwork, an hour for each of my three classes. I need to clean this joint up. I need to pay bills. I need to call the band I manage. I cannot put that off forever. I need to take care of business.

 

[MarkOn10th]

Today I woke up at around 9:30am. The pain has returned to the left foot. After sorting through e-mails and posting a few missives and birthday wishes on these boards I limped back to bed for another two hours sleep.

My second awakening had much more momentum. Up and at'em. I successfully cleaned the hell out of my apartment. I mopped, I vacuumed, I threw shit out, I washed dishes, I changed sheets, I dusted, I straightened and ordered the whole place, from top to bottom. I ran some errands.

I finally spoke to the band I manage. That was a tough phone call, but I'm so happy now that it's over. Officially, I'm not their manager anymore. I am still their manager of record, so for contacts, "the industry" and whatnot, I'm still the guy. But I'm now their "advisor" and I no longer have any of the heavy accountability that goes along with being a manager. I have been feeling so crappy about this relationship; I honestly thought we'd just be done, through, divorced and kaput. I was dreading that. But this new thing, this advisory role, keeps me in their world just enough for me to feel like I'm still doing some good in their lives, but removes that awful feeling of guilt for having so many other priorities in my life. So that was a long call.

If you want to check out the band check out www.consolidatedmusic.org .

Late in the afternoon my neighbor stopped by and helped me install some new software on this computer. I have a Mac, titanium g4 powerbook, which is hopelessly out of date. He is dragging me into the present. I run OS 9.1 and I am perfectly content. Today we loaded some digital photograph management software by cannon, which I'm not sure I need, but it's pretty cool software. Free. So I can't complain. But he is pounding the table on updating my OS to X. I dunno.

At around 7:15 I headed out to see The Mosaic. I had only a vague idea where the theater was, so I just started wandering down St. Marks Place from the six train at Astor Place. Luckily, crossing 3rd Avenue I saw Armando Diaz, so my game plan was to follow him. He nearly lost me when he "went for it" dangerously crossing 1st Avenue after the light had changed, but I saw where he ducked into the row of store fronts and staircases. Armando is a fast walker, nearly in the Sean Taylor category of speedy strolling.

I arrived at the theater just in time for the doorkeeper to say, "If you don't have a reservation you won't get in. I'm afraid there is no more room." This made me sad. I had no reservation. I walked up to the top of the stairs and was just sort of thinking, "well, now what?" when a classmate from my Movie class strolled up and said she had reservations for two, let's go in. So we made it in and were the last two seated.

After the show my Movie class friend and me, and another Movie classmate went to Coyote Ugly, which is right around the corner from the theater on St. Marks Place. For those of you not in NYC, or those in NYC who don't know it, Coyote Ugly is the Coyote Ugly the movie Coyote Ugly was written about. Narrow hipped blondes two step on the bar to the tunes of Joan Jett, Ricky Skaggs and AC/DC. So we tipped a drink or two, watched the bartenders dance and shared life stories.

Then we headed out to grab a slice back on St. Marks Place where Pat Baer joined us. Then Pat and I went down the block a ways and joined a solid crew for more drinks at the Holiday Good Time Bar, or something like that. While there I bought 4 selections on the jukebox. Well All Right by Blind Faith, Delta Lady by Leon Russell, Let It Bleed by the Rolling Stones, and Dirty Boulevard by Lou Reed. The last song triggered thumbs up from Erik Tanouye.

At one the bar closed down and after a brief but spirited rendezvous with James Eason I split a cab ride back to Brooklyn with friends.

It was a somewhat productive day overall. I'm glad I was able to clean again. I need to be constantly cleaning. Chaos theory. I wish I'd gotten more study time in. I need to study so badly. Yikes.

 

[MarkOn10th]

Today was my last Movie class. I'm going to miss this class. You readers should check out our show this Thursday night. It is at 7pm at the PIT.

I didn't do much else today. I didn't study. I didn't pay bills. These things need to get done.

I took three Aleves today to help deal with pain in foot. It's hard to do the simplest warm up without some pain killers.

Last night someone asked me if I've ever screwed up at work, at the Garden. Yes, I have. Not very often, but it happens.

This one is legendary. St. John's vs UConn January of 2002. MSG is sold out for this match up. This was during that super patriotic window of time after the attack on the Twin Towers, and ESPN decided that they wanted to carry the National Anthem on the television broadcast of the game. This is something that they do not normally do. Typically broadcasts pick up about 2 minutes after the Anthem, after the team introductions, right before the tip. So, fine, TV wants to carry the National Anthem. The pre-game clock counts down to 00:00 and the players line up on their respective base lines for the Anthem. I fade out the "shoot around/warm up" music that I had been playing, a mix of pretty heavy contemporary R&B and hip-hop tunes.

We're ready to go. Anthem singer has the mic, and is ready to go. I'm standing up in my booth, hat off, hand over heart, ready to sing along. But ESPN is still in commercial. So out of nowhere, with no warning my game director says, "Mark, we need music. MUSIC MARK! Fill! Fill! Fill." I look down and all I have queued up is "Party Up" by DMX. I look down, the color guard from West Point Academy has finished marching on the court and the flag is raised, waving majestically. There is utter silence in the room as 19,763 people are looking around asking, "where's the anthem? Why doesn't he sing?"

"Fill! Fill! Fill!"

"Manny, all I have is. . ."

"I don't give a shit, play music! Now!"

So I played Party Up for about 40 seconds. ESPN came out of the commercial, and we got the queue for the anthem. I fade out the DMX. People are booing.

So, yeah, I have definitely screwed up a time or two. Lesson learned though. Lesson learned. I always have some sort of mid tempo film score moody piece of music available at a moments notice to fill those uncomfortable spots if they ever pop up again.

 

[MarkOn10th]

I woke up at 7:30 and vaulted directly into the shower. I was out the door by 9am and arrived at MSG just about 10am. At noon St Johns played Providence College. It was another horror show. Providence is a top 20 program right now and they clearly illustrated why at both ends of the court. Their first half point total of 62 points set a Big East all time record. Oh, and adding to the decimation of the St John's team, Captain Andre Stanley, a graduate student, has been suspended from the team for academic reasons.

The only ray of sunshine was that Curtis Johnson really played well. He scored 14 points and must have logged 25 minutes of playing time. He is starting to become a fine defensive player, and if can learn to contribute 8-10 points a game, he could be very solid next year. (I think he has one more year of eligibility.) The guy is 7-2 and listed at 332 pounds, although I think he is closer to 350.

St. Johns lost the game 78-103. In losing today they were eliminated from the Big East tournament. In winning today Providence are guaranteed a top seed in that tournament.

In a first time event, SJU's women's team played against Seton Hall's women's basketball team following the men's game. On the one hand, I totally support women's athletics. I find ladies hoops action to be compelling and fun. On the other hand, it wasn't much fun working a double, especially when only 400 people stayed for the second game. I'm just not sure what the point was. But sometimes advancements in women's rights, in human rights, don't seem to have a point. Things have to get started somewhere, somehow. So why not at Madison Square Garden today?

The ladies Red Storm beat the Ladies of Seton Hall 61 to 52. The second game wrapped up around 4:40pm or so. I subwayed home and felt good enough to take a nice one hour jog to enjoy the weather. I jogged down into DUMBO, stopping to drop off my office rent check, then doubled back under the Brooklyn Bridge and came home via the Esplanade. I couldn't believe how fine my feet felt. I haven't really exercised in a while, so this was marvelous.

I came home and showered and studied until about midnight.

 

[MarkOn10th]

"Baseball's World Series is contested mostly among North Americans (including, of course, those born in the Caribbean, though no one knows when they were born), just as the World Cup is contested primarily among Europeans and South Americans, chess among Caucasian Jews, cricket among Brits and the formerly colonized, football among male Americans, X sports among middle-class teenagers, jai alai among the Iberians. Americans don't fight bulls, Tanzanians don't Curl, Swedes don't go in much for cricket, too few Hibernians luge, and Charlie don't surf. But everyone these days plays poker, Charlie especially. Scanning the tournament results in Card Player, it seems as though half the winners of hold'em events are named Nguyen."

Positively Fifth Street continues to amuse and inform.

I woke up reasonably pain free at around 8:30 am. I was out the door by 11am. I ate breakfast on the corner of University and 13th Street, enjoying a container of OJ and an egg sandwich. I had my therapy at noon. Afterwards I N/Red up to 57th Street. I ate half a club sandwich at the Cosmic Diner before heading up to the graduate computer lab.

My market research team met on Tuesday night last week, without me. I was working the St. John's game. I told them, I'm working that night, let's set this up for another night. But they stuck to Tuesday. So they met and worked on a case study without me. They didn't even e-mail me the work they did until Sunday. Before I received their e-mail I worked on the case myself. It's a pretty cut and dry case study dealing with price sensitivity. Following a few pages of background noise there is a page of hard data that we can do what we want with in order to answer one key question. "How much should X company charge for their specially packaged containers of delicious orange juice."

Rather than use the mashugana equations that the book suggests, I used game theory, which we'd learned about in Economics. I laid out a graph and illustrated the benefits and consequences of moving from quadrant to quadrant, finally settling on a high price - low advertising tactic as the best long run strategy for company X. I typed all this stuff up and brought it to class with me.

Our group turned in the work my three teammates had produced (although I spell checked it prior to class, as a teammate had mixed up a causal relationship with a casual relationship). This document asserted that low priced OJ with a lot of advertising was the best way to market the product.

I shared my ideas with the team, and they found them not on point. Why would he want us to use game theory? We hadn't even studied game theory in this class. I quickly ceded the point.

It turns out my team had incorrectly deduced the importance of Q to Q declines in the test markets in the low price models, or something like that. So, in the long run, premium priced OJ was a better strategy. I was pretty frustrated. I hadn't argued hard enough for my ideas. I realize that I often think of these things in unorthodox ways, but since when is that bad for business? I suspect that my team thinks I'm all flash and no substance. This makes me sad. Sad for them, because I know better, and sad for me because, how did I get here?

We had a guest speaker in the market research class, a VP of market research from Sony Music. I thought this lady was very eloquent and put nice slides together, but it was a textbook case of someone using the numbers to tell the story that they want to tell. She went on about downloading and how the RIAA lawsuits are working to stop it. She talked about how downloading is responsible for the collapse of the music industry. (fyi, the music industry has collapsed, that's why I'm in business school now and not selling CD's.)

I think the music industry are selling horse and buggies and it's 1901. So they do a little market research about this new fangled automobile. But will this undependable mechanical menace really ever replace the sturdy dependable mare and wagon? Of course not!

From 1987 to 1997 seven out of every ten CDs sold were called "Catalog" items, albums recorded before there was a thing called a CD. You bought these albums. The Doors Greatest Hits, Aerosmith's Greatest Hits, Born To Run, Sgt Peppers, Abbey Road, Damn The Torpedoes, Dark Side Of The Moon, Stevie Miller Band's Greatest Hits, Legend, Decade, the other Decade, The Stranger, etc. etc. We all bought these if we were 17 and older. And we kept buying them as they released them. Sometimes we bought them AGAIN if they remastered them. These were albums that we ALREADY OWNED on vinyl. If we didn't own them, our older brothers and sisters did.

Sure the industry signed and developed new talent, but releasing a Beach Boys or Police collection is a surefire hit every time, whereas, with Hootie and the Blowfish, you never know really. Maybe a smash, maybe a flop. Probably a flop.

By the time the economy started getting stressed out and the Internet bubble was bursting, the record companies had already mined the 22,000 best selling pre1986 albums of all time.

They hit the wall. And while Dark Side Of The Moon continues to sell thousands of units every week on the "someone turns 14 every week" program, the music industry has missed the boat. I will tell you straight up where the $14.00 a month that teenaged boys used to spend on records ends up. They are buying PlayStation and Game Cube programs. The video game market is largely the same crew as the youth market for music. The video game market has grown to become an enormous global market, billions and billions of dollars.

So while Sony cries poverty because it's selling fewer Pearl Jam and Michael Jackson albums, they are raking in the Benjamins via Play Station 2. Warners cry foul regarding people using the internet to download music. . .Who exactly is the countries leading ISP? I'm hooked up with TWCable's Roadrunner, and AOHell is billing me $21.00 for my account. How about they give me that account for free and I buy more albums?

Then the speaker went off about home CD burning. "The music industry has always respected a music buyers right to copy or tape an album for their own personal use. . ." she says. Not so. The music industry HATES taping and burning. They want you to buy their album for the home, and buy it again for the car, and buy it again for your office, and buy it again to give to your brother, and buy it again to bring to the gym. They have tried time and time again, ever since 1975 when home taping first exploded, to make it illegal to copy your own records. So now I'm getting revisionist history from this VP. So typically corporate.

Then she mentions that she's looking for interns for next fall, and to e-mail her secretary or assistant or whatever if we're interested. I've got news for her. She's probably going to be FIRED before next fall. Why am I so venomous?

In other news, we got our midterm back from the info systems professor and I did very well. So that's a relief, especially after my par performance in the management class.

 

[MarkOn10th]

I slept in this morning. I got up at around 12:30pm. I zipped out at around 2:30 to go vote for John Edwards and get my prescription refilled at the Rite Aid. On the way back to the crib I picked up a Grande No Whip Mocha Frappachino. My Internet connection decided to work for an hour or so allowing me to deal with e-mails that have been backed up for a while.

A search of the mailbox revealed the arrival of a BMG Jazz Record Club delivery. I had a discounted CD coming to me due to some sort of price fixing scandal. So I ordered a Dexter Gordon Live In Paris CD. Unfortunately the CD I discovered inside the packaging was Chicago XIV. I didn't even recognize any of the songs on the album. It must have been the dark period of Chicago, the post 70s hipster - pre 80s UberBalladeers.

Return to Sender. Let's see if they can sort this out in Terre Haute.

I studied for about an hour and at six I rolled out to Times Square for Undercover Burnout practice at Champions.

After practice I walked up to Times Square to check into the Virgin Megastore for new release activity. I was interested in no new releases. I picked up the Maroon 5 album and carried it around the store for 30 minutes, but eventually put it back on the shelf. That close. I went down to the Soul department looking for "Stranded In The Jungle", a song that I had dredged up from the dark recesses of my memory in a scene in improv practice.

The version of the song that I'm familiar with is by the Jay Hawks, who wrote the song. This track was used in the Dead Poets Society, a movie I only saw about 20 times in the theater. I loved the song and was able to find it, the Jay Hawks version on 45. The song was actually a hit for another band, the Cadets, who heard the Jay Hawks song and recorded a cover of it weeks after it was released. The Cadets version made it to radio on the East Coast earlier than the Jay Hawks, who essentially only got a nice regional West Coast hit out of the song.

The Cadets went on to become the Jacks and then the singer quit and joined the Coasters. The Jay Hawks became the Marathons and then the Vibrations who had a hit called The Watusi. The Vibrations also recorded My Girl Sloopy and the original version of Hang On Sloopy.

For about four years I worked at an Indie label. The guy who owned the label was named Richard Gottehrer. Richard is one of these guys who is like the Forrest Gump of the music business, popping up again and again in some interesting stories. He was a Brill Building songwriter in the Early 60s (penning a #1 hit with a song called My Boyfriend's Back). Then he started a group called the Strangeloves with two other songwriters. The Strangeloves were signed to Bang! Records, a hip New York City label run by Bert Berns.

Berns was an incredible producer/writer and label chief. He wrote Twist and Shout. He wrote that. He wrote Cry To Me. He wrote Piece Of My Heart. He wrote Cry Baby. He wrote Everybody Needs Somebody To Love. And he also wrote Hang On Sloopy. Notice the scary chord similarities between Twist and Shout and Hang On Sloopy, and Piece of My Heart?

Anyway, Bert wrote the song Hang On Sloopy and Richard actually produced it for the McCoys.

Berns died of a heart condition in 1967 and later that year Richard started a record company called SIRE with Seymour Stein. Richard went on to discover Blondie, producing their first two albums, record Marshall Crenshaw's debut album, The Go-Go's first two albums, and is currently riding a wave of success working with the Ravonettes.

So I'm just a few degrees away from "Stranded In The Jungle".

Virgin did not have the song in the store. Doh!

I wound up walking out of the store without buying a thing, a rare and noteworthy event for me.

 

[MarkOn10th]

wed pt 1

I woke up at 9:15 am. My alarm clock was softly crooning You've Got To Hide Your Love Away. I hopped in the shower, shaved and packed some laundry in a bag, and slipped out the door with my school books and dirty laundry by 10:30 am. I dropped off the laundry at the by the pound joint and stopped in for bacon and waffle at Grand Canyon.

I headed down into the subway by 11:10 am. I arrived at the Garden at around noon. Today we had another fantasy basketball game. This is one of these affairs where a big money corporation "rents out" the Knicks' court for the afternoon. Earl Monroe and Charles Smith were the celebrity coaches for the two competing teams. The game is scheduled to start up at 1pm, so I'm nice and early. I power up and warm up and queue up some tunes and at around 12:48 I get a phone call from the electricians that the soundboard in their "electricians room" is not functioning. Their soundboard gets my feed, the feed from all the microphones, Gardenvision, and any other sound source (buzzers, horns, etc) and compresses that feed and sends it to the Garden's sound system. So ultimately, they control the flow of sound, and the volume of sound. But without that mixer up, all of us are useless.

So we're useless.

The game tips off without the benefit of music. The PA announcer, Bob, is using a portable PA that someone brought out. No horns. No buzzers. Just the sounds of 30 somethings grunting and panting from running up and down the court.

With 30 seconds to go in the first half the soundboard kicks in. We're useful again.

I jump in at half time with some strong Knicks flavored songs. Eminence Front, Take Me Home (a hip hop ode to the Knicks set to the tune of John Denver's country roads), and the bulletproof and somewhat ridiculous We Ready. The second half of the game flows pretty well, with the team in blue pulling ahead by 12 points with about 4 minutes left. On their next possession blue pull up and hit a three pointer. I use the hockey-only sound effect of a door slamming shut, which elicits some laughter from Earl Monroe.

I closed the game out with Rock and Roll part two and the Theme From New York, New York. I left everything on and just switched out the lights as Ray is coming in tonight to work the Knicks v Sixers game. What's the use in shutting down at 3 when he's just going to power up at 4:30 anyway?

I head down to the tour guide office and discover a check there waiting for me. My checks get delivered here, to the tour office. My first job at MSG was working as a tour guide. I never told payroll to send the check anywhere else because the tour office is conveniently located near the box office. Never mind the fact that I have not given a tour for about eight years now.

I still remember my interview for the job as tour guide. I was dog sitting for the Browns. Les and Jean Brown lived just a few blocks from my folks' house in Larchmont and they were taking a vacation to Banff, Canada. Their daughter was in Europe for a year with her new husband working on a project and their dog was at Les and Jeans house. So Les and Jean hired me to cover dog duty for them. I did a lot of this after I got out of college. I flyered the train station and posted signs at the local churches, temples and travel agencies, Dog/Cat/house sitter available, reasonable rates, very dependable. At any rate, I was taking care of the Brown's daughter's husband's dog, a sweetheart Doberman named Erin.

 

[MarkOn10th]

The night before my big interview I'm out walking Erin down North Chatsworth Avenue. It's about 11:30pm. Another neighbor was out walking their dog in the opposite direction, coming towards me. I very nearly crossed the street to avoid this other dog, a German Shepherd, but the human at the end of the leash said, "Hello, Erin!" and Erin started wagging her little Doby tail. So I thought everything would be chill. Well the two dogs sniff each other as the guy says hello to me and me to him. And then his German Shepherd bites Erin's ear clean off her head. It was one of the grossest, scariest things I'd ever seen. Damn dog swallowed the ear. Erin starts howling. Blood is spurting out her head.

Thank God, this neighbor was a doctor and in about 10 seconds his shirt was off and he was wrapping it around Erin's head. "Here. Here. Put your hand here and keep the dog still. I'll be right back. I'll get my car." Erin started shivering in my arms as I held my hand down on the spot where her ear was. I think she was going into shock. About a minute and a half later the guy whips up in his Volvo and I pick Erin up and get in the back. "Where are we going?" He said there was a 24-hour emergency vet in White Plains. So off we race, through Larchmont, through Mamaroneck, through Scarsdale, into White Plains and straight for the clinic. Erin's eyes closed as we pulled into the parking lot, but she was still breathing. Shallow racing breaths. The neighbor, who's name I still hadn't gotten, opens the door and I cradle Erin in my arms and carry her into the clinic.

This is the first time I see what's really happened because it was so dark out. The shirt this doctor wrapped around Erin's head is completely soaked in her blood. The blood is also all over me. I'm covered with her blood. Two clinicians rush up and take the dog into the back without even asking any questions. I stumble into a bathroom and throw up for a few minutes. When I re-emerge the shirtless doctor is filling out forms, handing over credit cards, saying do whatever it takes.

We wait in the clinic's waiting room for about two hours. At some point a nurse brought out the top part of a vet's scrubs for this guy to wear. He finally tells me his name. He is mortified by what his dog has done. Embarrassed. Ashamed. I am too exhausted to care. At around 3am the doctor comes out and says that they have the wound cleaned and sewed up, the dog sedated and resting. He says I can take the dog home but I have to change the bandage on its ear first thing in the morning, and twice more the next day. Then I need to come back so they can make sure the stitches are still . . . I shake my head. No way.

"I'm sorry doc, but I have a job interview tomorrow morning at 9:00. I need to be on a train at 7:50am. No way am I getting up at 5 am to change this dogs bandage, and no way will I be home in time to change it as you say I need to. No way."

The vet says he can keep the dog "under observation" if I can pick it up the following day. That works for me. Everybody nods. It'll cost the neighbor some more money, but he's a doctor living in Larchmont, I doubt money is his greatest concern. He wants to do the right thing. Almost as an afterthought he tells the doctor he'll pay for a complete check up for the dog. Might as well.

When we get back to North Chatsworth I stumble into the Brown's house and I collapse. I sleep late. I wind up on the 8:29 train and barely make it to the Garden by 9:30am. The HR people and the man who would be my boss there give me dirty looks. "I've got a pretty good excuse."

When I got back to the Brown's house at 3 in the afternoon there was a message from the vet asking me to call or stop by. I changed and drove over there. The doctor sat me down in his private office. He put his hand on my shoulder and gave me a preamble I won't forget, "You've got a hell of a dog there Mr. Lee. Everyone here has genuinely fallen in love with Erin. I wish I could tell you that everything is going to be okay. God, I hate this. I hate this part of the job. Mr. Lee, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Erin has cancer."

The dog had cancer. All over. Not a little bit. He showed me four X-rays. Erin had cancer in the head, in the liver, in the lung and in the stomach. She was riddled with cancer. This guy was all teary eyed. I explained that it wasn't my dog. That seemed to make his job a bit easier. He asked me what I wanted to do. The dog had about four months to live at the most, some of those would be in pain.

It wasn't my decision to make. The Browns were coming back the next day. Let them decide. I actually left Erin at the clinic for another day. I wasn't up for any of this.

I picked her up on the Friday the Browns came home from Banff. They walked in the front door and little Erin started bounding up to them to say hello with this MASSIVE bandage around her head. "What the hell happened to Erin?"

It was the classic I've got bad news, and I've got worse news situation. Of course it wasn't their dog either, it was their son-in-law's dog. So together we called Vienna and got their daughter on the phone, who also wasn't that torn up. It really wasn't her dog, it was her husband's dog. He'd been together with Les and Jean's daughter for about a year and a half. He'd been together with Erin for eight years.

Over a somewhat staticky phone line I could hear her tell her husband that his dog was going to die of Cancer. I heard him break down and cry. I closed my eyes and felt it, all the way from Vienna. When I looked up Erin had put her bandaged head in my lap. I sat there stroking the dog's neck while the one man who genuinely loved her wept, half a world away.

So I don't easily forget the day I interviewed for my job at MSG.

After picking up my check I headed up to school. I studied in the library for an hour or so, went up to the computer lab to check e-mail and print out some projects and homework. And drifted into my classroom, about an hour early. I like that the room is empty before this management class. It gives me the chance to settle in.

Class itself isn't noteworthy, except that I finally get the letter grade associated with my mediocre test from last week. He gave me a B+, which is better than I predicted. Still not an A, but it is nothing to be ashamed of.

After class I pick up a sandwich from Stage Deli and N/R it back to Brooklyn. While on the train I bump into my buddy Mike Daly. He has to jump out at Prince Street. "Give me a call tomorrow, we'll get together. . .and call Dave too." Dave is the mutual friend who introduced us. "His Dad died a few weeks ago and I think he's feeling bummed out. Call him." I say I will as the doors close. So tomorrow I'll call Mike and try and arrange a lunch. The guy is insanely busy all the time, so it's a bit tricky. But he's a wonderful guy, and always worth going out of ones way to get together with. And I guess I'll call Dave. I hate bereavement calls. I mean, I have nothing to talk to Dave about. So I'm just calling to be sympathetic. God. I wish I were more graceful when it comes to this stuff. I'll call.

 

[MarkOn10th]

All right, so I didn't call Dave. Or Mike. Did not.

I largely wasted the day away. I woke up at 11:30. I finished reading Positively Fifth Street. I hereby recommend this book to anyone who likes watching poker on TV. It is even more voyeuristic than ESPN's coverage of the World Series Of Poker. It's also filled with the history of the game, the men and women who play it, and all the seedy, sad facts about Teddy Binion, a gambler, an addict, a millionaire, an alcoholic, a dad, a murder victim. It's quite a yarn.

I wrapped that up by around 1:30 and went out to pick up a bite to eat. I also picked up my laundry from the by-the-pound wash and fold. What happened from 2pm to 5pm, I can't say. Those three hours are lost. I might as well have napped. I should have studied. I assure you, I did not.

At 5 I showered and got dressed and cleaned up a bit. By 6 I was out the door. I got to the PIT just before 7pm. My movie class had our last show. I'm going to miss this crew of people. We had a pretty groovy mix of folks who all brought something fun and unique to the class.

XXII

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

(william carlos williams, from Spring And All, 1923.)


This was our movie's suggestion. I love this poem so much! It is so cute and elegant. Look! Look! See how each stanza looks a little bit like a wheel barrow all by itself? Isn't that adorable!

Somehow I got dealt out of the first few scenes, so I decided to walk into a scene as some sort of significant other. I marched up to the fridge, opened it, and with Delaney-like object work I grabbed a pickle jar, opened it, fished out the last pickle spear, and announced to my scene partners, who were deep in conversation, "Darling, I'm eating the last of the pickles that were in the icebox. They were so cool and so delicious."

As an English major I thought this was so damn clever. For those keeping score, I was swiping:

THIS IS JUST TO SAY

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

(William Carlos Williams, from Poems, 1934)

Ha ha! See how learn-ed I am. I even made my "partner" and I a pair of doctors running a health clinic in Paterson, New Jersey. That was precisely where William Carlos Williams ran a health clinic and then a private practice, neigh on 70 years ago.

Anyhow, after the class I went straight home with the intention of studying. But I didn't really study. I played computer poker and watched TV. Now it's midnight and I should head to bed.

I should fill you in on Mike Daly. But first I'm going to fill you in on something unrelated and tangential to everything in my life right now, but maybe it will interest some of you.


In Between Blue were a band based here in New York. Three of the guys in the band actually lived in New Jersey, but they were definitely a New York City band, not a Jersey band. I first met them in 1998. Richard had met them at a music conference in Philadelphia (the PMC) and thought they were pretty cool, sweet, talented, hard working guys. Perfect for an indie label like us. What's more, they had already recorded their own EP. So we just needed to remaster it and release it. Very low overhead. Even better!

I was assigned as their product manager. I was already working with Consolidated, godhead, and also with a NY band called Mozart's Grave. I went to see IBB at the Sun Mountain Cafe, or whatever that place is called now. They were about 8% as good as their EP. So when I met with them the next day I flat out told them that their show had to get a lot better. There is only one way to do that. They had to play. I challenged them to play 100 dates over the next calendar year.

 

[MarkOn10th]

By the end of the year they had played from Boston to Washington, DC to Buffalo. They covered a lot of ground considering they probably never got paid more than $200 for a show. Any of you Rutgers folks see them at the Melody?

At the end of the year I went to see them at CBs and they played a show of all new songs, all songs that they'd written during this year on the road. There were some really fucking great songs in the mix. Some were so-so tunes, but a few songs of substance, I thought.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Richard had really lost interest in the record label. He and his partner had started an online music distribution company and he was focused on developing that. That's where he wanted to spend his time. That's where he wanted to spend his money. In short order I was moved over into that new enterprise as the head of sales and marketing.

IBB took me out for a burger at silver spurs and called me out. We did what you said. 100 dates in 360 days. You wanted us better, we are better. We have new songs and we want to make an album.

I went to Richard and explained the situation. He agreed to record a few tracks at a cheap studio in Brooklyn. They recorded three songs, Richard was happy with two of them. He took these two finished songs and played them for his old buddy Seymour Stein. Seymour is reputed to have the "Best Ears In The Business." Maybe so, maybe so. He didn't like In Between Blue. He didn't like the singer. He didn't like the drums. He didn't like the songs.

Richard felt he'd done his part. He brought it to bat and it struck out. Then Richard commenced on what had to be the longest road trip of any businessman's career. He went from Australia (two weeks) to Singapore (two weeks) to Japan (two weeks) to Vancouver (one week) to Toronto (half a week) to Oslo (one week) to Copenhagen (one week) to the South Of France (two weeks). They guy just went into music conference mode and didn't come out of it for air. While he was gone I privately funded the recording of an entire album for In Between Blue. I spent $30,000 (roughly) of my own money to make the record.

My friend Andrew Baum, Bruce's brother, David's cousin, he had cut an album at a studio in Hoboken that I saw as a diamond in the rough studio. Jolly Roger Studios had a gem of a 24 track mixing board, great mics and equipment. I asked the two guys who produced Andrew's album to work with In Between Blue. The first guy is Michael Mazzarella. Michael I knew pretty well. He plays and sings in an awesome band called the Rooks and he worked at Atlantic Records for a long time. He really worked with In Between Blue for weeks before getting into the studio. He ultimately picked the songs that would be recorded, and then polished those songs with the band, putting many of them into a format that would be more palatable to radio programmers and just applied good song writing skills to rough hewn tunes. My only input at this stage was that the two songs Richard recorded would be included on the album, and that they should also record a cover song. In particular a Beatles cover. The band didn't really want to record any covers, and if they were to record a cover, why not something more interesting and adventurous than a Beatles song? In a private meeting they settled on Sex Dwarf as the song for them to cover. I said no, a Beatles song. We went back and forth, and finally convinced them that Tomorrow Never Knows is actually a pretty cool song. So they agreed to work on that. (This Beatles strategy had paid off with godhead, whose cover of Eleanor Rigby turned quite a few heads.)

The second half of the production team is a guy named Dave Domanich. Dave engineered Lenny Kravitz's first four albums. He was Lenny's guy. Dave had been a New York City studio engineer for thirty years, working with bands such as Gladys Knight and the Pips. He was solid. Although he didn't own the studio we'd be working in, he pretty much worked there exclusively, so he knew all the equipment's eccentricities, the ins and outs, and the good local take out places in Hoboken. Dave is a bit bigger than I am in all dimensions. I'd say 6' 4" 260 with hair down to his ass. I think he looks like he could be a Doobie Brother.

It took roughly five weeks to record seven originals and one cover tune. For fun I gave the band $500 to go up to Boston and record one song at a friend of theirs studio. This song would be a duet with a woman from a band they always played with up in Boston, Lunar Plexus. They brought those tracks back to New York where Dave and Mike mixed them. One final trip out to Jersey for a Mastering session and the album was done.

Dave, the guitar player, worked at DC Comics, in their production department. He got one of the designers there to handle the entire album layout. Chuck, the bass player, lived with a photographer who handled all the photography. In the end we had a beautiful 12-page full color booklet, just like the big boys get.

The final track listing:
1. A Happy Place (2:56)
2. Celbrity (3:11)
3. Orbiting The Planet Of Love (5:00)
4. Sweetness (4:25)
5. Aalok (4:16)
6. Predator Becomes The Prey (4:15)
7. Small Vices (3:57)
8. Stay With Me (2:56)
9. Everything Is Wrong (including you) (5:32)
10. Tomorrow Never Knows (4:08)
11. And It All Comes Down To This (7:00)

Richard Produced tracks 5 and 7, track 6 was recorded up in Boston. Please ask me for a copy of this album. I have about six hundred of them in my office. We never really sold any of them. It's such a shame. I knew Richard didn't want to release it so the game became getting someone else to buy it from us, from me. I set up a series of showcases. The last showcase was at a club called Shine. My friend Mike, who was the drummer in my band in college, he is one of the owners of shine, or investor, or whatever. So he helped me set it up. I put two other bands on as openers, good local groups. I got Sam Adams to sponsor the showcase, 12 free cases of beer. I packed the place. We did a cross promotion with Nerve Magazine, which was still in print at the time, and their whole sexy staff came out. A&R guys two deep at the bar. Lawyers, record company reps, you name it. I flew the band's PR lady, whom I'd just hired, in from LA. I was putting her up at the Soho Grand. (She was also godhead's PR pro.)

At 11pm In Between Blue got up there and played the best set I'd ever heard them play. They just absolutely killed it. Every note, every moment, every song was gorgeous. Technically, everything was also perfect. I'd hired a professional sound guy to help out the club technician. It sounded like U2 at the Garden. Just perfect.

But, in the end, no one bought it. And over the next few weeks the band just got more and more discouraged at the thought of having to get back out on the road for another 100 dates in 300 days, which is what was needed to sell the album. First the bass player quit the band to move to Baltimore and marry his girl. Then the drummer wanted to spend more time on some other side project that was paying more money. He and his girlfriend had a baby on the way. Then the singer went a little bit nuts, and his girlfriend went even nuttier, sleeping with her best friend's boyfriend, wrecking both her relationship with IBB's singer, and her relationship with her best friend. But that breakup forced the singer to live out of the rehearsal space for a while and things just seemed very dead endish.

The guitar player tried to keep things afloat for a while, but realized that without the others, it was hopeless. I think he went and got a better paying job. He was a very talented designer himself and the only thing keeping him back from good money was his need "not to be tied down. My band comes first." but now the band didn't really exist. All of this happened after I had already ordered 2500 CDs which arrived in two stages, the first thousand early, press, industry mailings, invites, press kits, etc. and the second thousand for retail, which would ship and be returned eventually. Finally the last 500, all of which are in my office, with some to spare, which were earmarked for radio promotion. I pulled the plug on the promotion when the band started falling apart.

I'm sure there's an object lesson here. Don't spend your own money on these projects. Pay attention when the veteran you work with waves off a project. Don't get emotionally involved with a band when you have to make money decisions.

It wasn't a total loss. I learned a hell of a lot about making albums. Every facet of making this album I was involved with, and that was awesome. Also, we licensed songs from the album to a few indie movies, including one film that gained some real attention for winning the audience award at the Slam Dance film festival, a film called American Chai. The guys recorded a song for a Police tribute album. That album got pretty good reviews and they were often sited as being a bright spot on the collection. They recorded Invisible Sun.

Perhaps most importantly, I still listen to the album. I really love it.

Really, PM me if you'd like an album. I'd be happy to send it to you with my complements. Maybe you'll listen to it and think I am completely insane for thinking this group had something special going on. Or maybe, like me, it will become an album you return to every few months.

I think when I explain how I met Mike Daly, knowing this stuff will help fill in some gaps.

 

[MarkOn10th]

I had another strange dream last night. I was with my parents. We were walking down a street near the Hayden Planetarium, the Museum of Natural History, that area. At some point I raised my hand to flag down a taxi cab. This taxi pulls over and we get in. It's a yellow taxi, but it has no roof, it has this clear plastic tarp, like a painter might have. But this tarp is stretched out over the frame of the cab, as a roof. But it's freezing outside, and it's freezing inside because this cab sucks. We drive down to my parents apartment and drop them off. Then I tell the cabbie to drive me to Brooklyn Heights. I ask if he knows the way and he says yes. He turns to look at me and his face is made of the same plastic tarpaulin. I sink down in the back seat and sort of close my eyes. I look out the window sometimes and see us barreling down the Avenue. But then he pulls over and says that the fare is $125. I look out the window and we are outside the Battery Tunnel. I say that we're in the wrong place. He says give me my money. I said how could it be $125. That's ridiculous. I give him a $10 and try and get out, but the door won't open. I turn back around and he's in the seat with me. He's enfolding me in his tarpaulin, suffocating me. Then my wallet is out, in his hands. And he takes all my cash. $125. The door springs open and I'm out on the street as he drives away from me.

I woke up at around 11am. I wrestled with my computer for awhile, visited these boards, checked e-mail, and then was booted offline by the faulty modem. I showered and got dressed and ran out to pick up those drugs I'd ordered, mail some bills, deposit a paycheck, pick up some lunch. I got home and ate and read some of my management homework. At around 3 I turned on the tube and vacated for a while. I watched the Martha Stewart conviction come in on CNN. I flipped over to Court TV where the coverage was insane.

At around 4:30 or 5 I headed up for school. I got up there at 5:30. I went to the computer lab. I am trying to transfer the domain name for the band I manage to another company. this is all part of the "give the band back control of their lives" movement. But I can't figure the hell out how to transfer the domain name. It keeps asking for codes that I have no idea what they are. I called a help line and naturally got no help. It's really pissing me off. I gave up at around 6, when I had a meeting with my group from the management class.

We have to settle on a topic for the case study we are going to write. We have about 30 ideas written up on a big piece of oak tag paper. Then one of my teammates says that he's got an idea for a case study that takes the cake. Indeed, as he describes the elements of his proposal, it seems like a cake taker to me too. So we all agree after hearing his pitch that this new topic should be the one we dedicate ourselves to for the entire second half of this course.

Then I take 10 steps to the left and sit down to study for my Market Research midterm with a friend and teammate from that class. We study until about 10pm. We leave together, walk up to 76th street or so where we split a pizza at Patsy's. 2/3 back to Brooklyn.

 

[MarkOn10th]

Today I woke up at 9:30, my CD/alarm playing Bach's Goldberg Variations as performed by Glenn Gould. I took my time getting cleaned up and dressing. At 11 I went out and picked up an egg sandwich and some coffee. I called the Dad and we rapped while I ate. I've been debating taking the LSAT and applying to Fordham's JD MBA program. It would mean extending this school thing (which is already on pace for another year) for an additional year and a half or so.

At 1:15 I headed out the door and 3 trained it to Penn station. I picked up a cup of coffee on the way upstairs and made it to the music room by 2pm. SJU vs Notre Dame, the last game of the season for St Johns, or at least their last appearance at MSG. It was Senior Day, which normally would have been a very emotional event for the fans and players. But as there wasn't but a handful of fans in the stands, and four of the six seniors had either been thrown off the team, suspended, or made academically ineligible, it was a brief affair. It turns out the Curtis Johnson, that 7' 3" center I mentioned a few days ago, is graduating and will be moving on in life. He was honored today, as was Senior Kyle Cuffe, who had an outstanding year.

It is hard to measure how good an opponent really is when they play St Johns because our guys are so bad they make everyone they play look pretty decent. The Fighting Irish trounced the Red Storm, 89 - 62. The whole game took less than two hours. For some unknown reason the game was broadcast coast to coast on CBS, who I suppose are gearing up for coverage of the NCAA tournament in two or three weeks time. You could tell though that they were in a rush to get this game done with so they could head out west and cover Stanford's defense of their unbeaten streak and the UCLA game.

My pregame walk in mix: "Everyday" by the Dave Matthews Band, "In My Place" by Coldplay, "Name" by the Goo Goo Dolls, "This Love" by Maroon 5, "No More, No Less" by Collective Soul, "Hypnotize" by the Notorious B.I.G., "Stunt 101" by G Unit, "Bonnie and Clyde '03" by Jay Z and Beyonce, and "Stand Up" by Ludacris. After the Senior Day presentation and the anthem I squeezed in "Hey Ya!" by Outkast.

After the game I shut everything down and set things up for Ray and Los who are working the Ranger game tomorrow. During the basketball game today word spread of yet another trade coming from the Rangers office. It is a complete reshuffle of the deck for those guys, and they need it. They will finish out of the playoffs for the seventh year in a row. This, with the highest payroll in hockey. So gone already are Brian Leetch, Petr Nedved, Alexi Kovalev and now Chris Simon. That's like 20% of the team right there.

I took the two train home and stopped on the way up to the apartment to pick up some groceries. I got some ground beef. When I got home I took about half of the beef and made a pair of burgers which were delicious. I'll eat the rest of the meat tomorrow when I make spaghetti sauce. mmmm, spaghetti.

So I ate and cleaned that up and changed clothes and at 8:45pm I headed back into Manhattan on the two train. I popped out at Times Square and got to Above Klepto at around 9:35. Undercover Burnout was opening the bill, followed by Erik and Alan and Firestorm. One somewhat uncomfortable note: We ended the show sort of climbing all over each other, which is hilarious. And then we were blacked out, which is good. It was a good blackout moment. But I wasn't sure how, in the dark, I was going to disentangle my bad self from my teammates. I was really worried I was going to trample them. I felt like a bull in a china shop. But all is well that ends well. No tramplings. After the show I kibitzed with friends for a few minutes, but I've been feeling a little stressed out about this market research midterm on Monday, so I figured heading home and getting to sleep would be my best move.

I nearly grabbed the N/R home, for the sake of variety, but wound up three training it back to Brooklyn.

 

[MarkOn10th]

A survey is to be conducted to determine the average income of my neighbors. If we are willing to live with $10,000 margin of error in our estimate, and 75% of my neighbors respond to the survey, how many people do I need to ask?

39 people.

Two random samples of street hot dog vendor prices for hot dogs are measured in Chicago and New York. The Chicago sample consists of 50 vendors with a mean price of $2.25 and a standard deviation of $.50. The NYC sample consists of 40 vendors with a mean price of $2.75 and a standard deviation of $1.00. Can say hot dogs in these two cities are equal?

No we cannot.

I've been working on these types of problems all day. The teacher only gave us a few sample questions, so I am making them up as I go along.

Pretty much all I've done today is study. I guess I played guitar for about a half hour, trying to remember all the Neil Young songs I've ever learned. Cortez, Rocking In The Free World, Like A Hurricane, Hey Hey My My, Long May You Run, Helpless, Heart of Gold and After The Goldrush. Quite a few songs I guess.

Sequence of events today: Woke up at 10am. Cleaned up, showered, dressed, fiddled with computer. Made spaghetti for lunch. After lunch I went out to get coffee and light bulbs, as two of them burned out within minutes of each other last night. Studied for about 3 hours, watched the Ranger game on TV (ugh), studied for another hour. Picked up some dinner from the deli, a chicken cutlet and some egg salad. Came home and ate dinner. Also made soup. Took about an hour walk, down to esplanade, past watchtower, back down court street, to borough hall, and home. I listened to Ryan Adams' Gold album in my discman as I went along. I love that song La Cienega Just Smiled.

"Ah the night...here it comes again"
It's on with the jeans, the jacket and the shirt
How'd I end up feeling so bad
For such a little girl
And I hold you close in the back of my mind
Feels so good but damn it makes me hurt
And I'm too scared to know to how I feel about you now
La Cienega just smiles..."see ya around"
And I hold you close in the back of my mind
And raise my glass 'cause either way I'm dead
Neither of you really help me to sleep anymore
One breaks my body and the other breaks my soul
La Cienega just smiles as it waves goodbye

After my walk I studied more. I am studied up!!!

I'm still having computer problems, that is to say modem/roadrunner problems, it is pissing me off more each day.

Very little pain today. But I think maybe when I sleep late it hurts less. Does that make sense?

 

[MarkOn10th]

Mondays are always hectic and tiring and crazy. Today I was up at 9. I was showered, shaved, dressed, packed up and out the door at 11am. I got to Union Square at 11:40. I stopped for a bagel and was in therapy at noon. My therapist thinks my dream the other night was about me looking for independence and scared shitless of not finding it. Intriguing.

I N/Red it up to 57th and grabbed a bite to eat at Cosmos Coffee Shop. I bought a grande no whip mocha frappachino and was in the computer lab by 2pm. I printed out my Info Systems homework and lecture notes and migrated to the study lounge at 2:30pm where a classmate joined up with me and we wrote market research questions for each other to solve, solved them, then wrote another question, and so on. We did this til 4:30 when we adjourned for dinner. A salad.

At 5:40 we walked into class and were handed our midterm exam. This one was pretty tough as he went for more macro understanding-the-issues type questions rather than more micro usage and implementation type questions. This was unexpected. After three days of grilling myself on the formulae I wound up using just two of them over the course of the two-hour exam. Youch.

I finished at 7:20pm and walked the halls for 30 minutes. Then I dove right into the info systems class. Today we discussed the "Balanced Scorecard". This was the first time I've come across this powerful management tool. Take a peek at www.balancedscorecard.org if you're interested in what makes management consultants worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. At first I wasn't sure what the Balanced Scorecard had to do with information systems, but by the end of class I could see how it all pieced together.

3 trained back home in time for the 11pm Bravo broadcast of the West Wing with special guest star Edward James Olmos.

I listened to no music today. Not true. I woke up to the Shin's album. No sports today, but I'll get more than my fill later this week. No improv today. I wish I could say no arthritis today, but there was a touch of it in the feet. Ah, well.