Music, Sport, Improv, Business School, and arthritis

[MarkOn10th]

Some of the assignments that need to be turned in for my Wednesday evening management class are "team deliverables". That is to say, all six of us on my team needs to participate in finishing the assignment. One of these assignments is actually creating a review quiz covering all the readings for the week. Two questions from the "case study" this week, two questions from chapter. 1 of "Good To Great", and two questions from chapter 2 of "Good To Great". Each week a different team member is in charge of collecting the group's work and typing it up and sending it in, via e-mail, to the professor's teaching assistant. This needs to be done by Tuesday at noon.

So this week was my week to organize the questions. But naturally, my home Internet connection was not functioning. So I was up at 7:30 am and out the door by 9. I arrived at the school computer lab at 10. Here are my team's questions for the week:

Does Not Count Practice Exam - Section 1 - Class Session #10 March 10,2004

COURTESY OF TEAM 1-4:

1. All of the following are examples of what was seen when stepping "Inside the Black Box" to reveal the inner workings of the good to great process EXCEPT:
A) There was no systematic pattern linking the structure of executive compensation to the process of going from good to great.
B) The good-to-great companies had no tag line, launch event or program to signify their transformation.
C) Mergers and acquisitions played a major role in igniting the transformation from good to great.
D) Larger-than-life leaders who ride in from the outside are negatively correlated with taking a company from good to great.
E) Good-to-great companies focused equally between what not to do/what to stop doing and what to do to become great.

2. In the Petersen Electronics case, what was the reason why "more bright young engineers and MBAs" were being hired in 1985:
A) Sales and profits began to skyrocket
B) All the people who started the company were approaching retirement
C) The universities were teaching new management principles that the "old guard" did not know
D) All of the above
E) None of the above

3. The two sides of Level 5 Leadership are:
A) Selflessness and Modesty
B) Humility and Will
C) Ego and Ambition
D) Luck and Diligence
E) Resolve and Persistence

4. All of the following concepts are part of a framework encompassed by the "flywheel," EXCEPT:
A) First Who...Then What (People are not the most important asset. The right people are)
B) Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith)
C) A Culture of Discipline
D) The Fox Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles)
E) Level 5 Leadership

5. According to Petersen, Briggs felt Evans was:
A) The best and brightest of the young MBA's.
B) In over his head, as Sales Manager.
C) Problematic due to a personality clash.
D) Would be more valuable in the personnel department.
E) None of the above.

6. On January 25, 1991, Colman Mockler appeared on the cover of Forbes Magazine as a cartoon corporate Conan the Triumphant. When confronted by this publicity the Gillette CEO:
A) Sent a copy to David Reeves, CEO of Atra.
B) Sued Forbes for defamation of character.
C) Crumpled to the floor, struck dead by a massive heart attack.
D) Asked Steve Forbes to appear in a television commercial for the Sensor razorblade.
E) Initiated a bond sale plan to capitalize on the good press.

Can you guess which question I wrote? I had these e-mailed by 11:20am. And a few minutes later I was rolling back home. The rest of the day was sort of just wasted time. I did spend about an hour doing the homework for class on Wednesday. But I honestly spent the day just watching the tube, shopping at B&N, napping. True, I napped.

My trip to Barnes and Noble on Court Street was so useless. I will be doing a lot of reading over the next few days. So I wanted to buy a few books, load up, so to speak. I picked up the new Grisham, which I'd been holding off on buying that until midterms were over. I also wanted to buy "Bringing Down The House", a book about MIT students using some sort of advanced equation to break the bank in Las Vegas. Despite the fact that this is a new book, a hot seller right now, and the B&N computer indicated they had six in the store, no one, including the store's manager, could locate a copy of this book. I had six people tearing the store apart looking around for it with no luck. So I just wound up buying the Grisham book.

I had pork chops for dinner. With applesauce. The tv I watched was an HBO documentary about the 1980 Olympic hockey team. I cried at the end, when the goalie, Craig, is looking into the stands to find his father. I do believe in miracles.

The pain yesterday was really minimal. Although, after I showered yesterday morning I was rubbing in a little bit of skin cream into my elbows which were looking a bit dry, and that lump on my left elbow has gotten a bit more pronounced. I should go back to the rheumatologist. I should pay my health insurance first I suppose.

 

[MarkOn10th]

I woke up this morning at 7:15 am. I showered, shaved and dressed and picked up some breakfast. At 9:45 I grabbed my book-bag and headed to the 2/3 train. I arrived at Penn Station at 10:25am. I stopped at the news stand to pick up the post, the wall street journal and a fantasy baseball magazine. I stopped at the coffee shop and got a large cup of coffee. I went upstairs and arrived at the music room at 10:40am. Ray had left most of the equipment set up from last night's Knicks collapse, so I was all set up by 10:50am.

As I was plugging in my headphones I accidently knocked over the bag containing my coffee. I quickly picked it up but the disaster was complete, the bag was filled with coffee. I ran down the "eyebrow" and dumped the whole bag into a trashcan. A little bit of coffee had leaked out, but none on any of the equipment. whew.

As doors were delay til 11:15am I flew back down to the station and got another cup of coffee.

I made it up by 11:10am. I opened the house for the 25th Anniversary Big East Tournament with "My Old School" by Steeley Dan. The 1/2 hour walk in set included "I Like The Way You Move" by Outkast, "It's My Life" by No Doubt, "This Love" by Maroon 5, "Where Is The Love" by the Black Eyed Peas, and "Shake A Tailfeather" by Nelly and co. At halftime I played "Why Don't You And I" by Santana, "I Believe In A Thing Called Love" by the Darkness, and part of "Stacy's Mom" by Fountains Of Wayne.

That's about all I did during the day session today. The first game #8 Virginia Tech beat #9 Rutgers. The Hokies won 61 - 58 in a pretty exciting game. The Virginia Tech Hokies opened the game strong but then collapsed right before the half. Rutgers lead by double digits. But the Virginia Tech came back strong in the second frame, closing out the game with less than a minute to go. One of the Virginia Tech players is from Hahokie, Florida. I thought that was pretty funny, a Hokie from Hahokie. There's never a Merle Haggard CD around when you need one.

The second game of the doubleheader found #5 Boston College Eagles playing the #12 Georgetown Hoyas. The BC Eagles won easily, 68 - 57.

All four schools travel with their bands. The bands play all the time-outs. The bands play the national anthem. The bands play most of the half time. I pretty much played my opening "walk-in" set of music and relaxed until the end of the session when I wrapped it up with Sinatra or whatever. So, as exciting as this gig seems, it's pretty boring when compared to a Knicks game, or even a regular season St. John's game. And whereas all I saw were pretty lame teams play . . .it was a long, boring day.

I worked on my management class project writing out two pages of notes, which I also photocopied and collated and stapled, all during the first game. Then I settled in and read the Post and Journal cover to cover. Finally, I began preparing for my upcoming baseball draft by reviewing the fantasy baseball guide. I did some yoga. I called a few friends. I went downstairs and bought a few hotdogs. I read some more of the Grisham novel.

Finally at around 4:15 the second game ended. Ray arrived to check in with me. He worked the evening session. I gave him his script and gave him the heads up on a promotion in the evening games. He'll actually have to work a little bit. Ray returned a few items I'd loaned him, a Flaming Lips EP and the Standing In The Shadows Of Motown DVD, which he and April really loved. We talked about some ideas I had about how we can do our jobs better, all of us. Ray is always open to these ideas. We'll see if the teams/building is up for them.

Idea #1 is to apply some of my market research learning to our fans at MSG. Let's find out more about their music tastes/preferences/purchase habits, etc. Maybe a mail survey, or a phone survey or an e-mail survey, who knows. But we know precious little about the people sitting down there. And my second idea was to bring music industry people up to see what we do. Jason Flom is the president of Lava and is probably going to become president of Atlantic next week. Let's invite him over, take him on a tour, get him a bite to eat at the Play by Play restaurant and let him sit with us during a Knicks or Ranger game. Really, bring him inside our world for one night. It costs us very little to spend the night with him, but the benefits could be long lasting and very impactful. Ray really dug this idea. We've done this on a limited basis for press in the past, why not the music industry? Or technology partners, or the manager at Sam Ash, or whatever.

At 5:15 I left Ray. I grabbed my book-bag and made it down to the 1/9 in a few minutes. I trained up to 59th street and slipped into Fordham's big building on 60th Street by 5:35pm. I hit the computer room and printed out some stuff for class. I finally settled into my seat for management class with four minutes to spare.

In class tonight we spent the entire session working on a case study, one the teacher finds especially illuminating. It basically deals with an old school VP of Marketing (who had come up through the sales ranks) and a new National Sales Manager (a 34 year old MBA who came in from the product management side of the business). They work for an electronics company. The VP of Marketing believes that the NSM needs to be position where the guy sitting there is decisive, quick thinking, independent, like the captain on a ship. If the captain shows uncertainty, the sailors panic.

The 34 year old NSM does things like meet with field reps to get their take on the market, their input into big decisions. He tries to get all his colleagues and subordinates to participate in planning and in execution of sales goals. He believes in meetings and creating concensus. The VP is sure this is a technique that will fail and wants the president of the company to remove the NSM. "He's not a bad kid, but he's in over his head."

Anyway, this type of philosophical difference happens all the time in some way or another, so it becomes interesting to study this case and role play the different parts and see what happens. So we did that. After class I came home and zoned out watching the boob tube and eating matzoh ball soup. I need to get to bed.

My arthritis today was pretty bad. My knees especially hurt. At least I made it through the day without a pain killer. That's good.

 

[MarkOn10th]

Big East, day two

I was alarmed up at 7:15am this morning. The CD/alarm clock selection of the morning: Orchestra Baobab's Pirates Choice track 3, "ledi ndieme m'bodj."

I dressed and showered and headed back up to 33rd and 7th Avenue for another day of hoops action. Last night, in my absence, Villanova upset Seton Hall and I think Notre Dame beat West Virginia. The first match-up of the day today was Pittsburgh v. Virginia Tech. The Hokie from Hahokie back in the house.

My half hour walk-in mix went a little something like this: "Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This" by The Eurythmics, "Spider Webs" by No Doubt, "The Boys Of Summer" by The Ataris, "Don't Let Go" by Weezer, "Harder To Breathe" by Maroon 5, "Hot Hot Hot" by Buster Poindexter, and "Ms. Jackson" by Outkast. I maybe played six other songs the whole day. I did have to work a promotion involving grown men on tricycles racing around the court. Sounds like a job for William Tell and his Overtures. Lame element: the race was sponsored by State Farm Insurance, who insisted we play their minute long commercial jingle, "We live where you live, like a good neighbor, blah blah blah blah." You know the one. TWICE, once before the mishagas on the court, and once again afterwards. ugh.

Pittsburgh played it close in the first half and picked up the pace in the second framed, finally beating the Hokies, 74 - 61.

In the 2pm game we had a barn burner for sure. Boston College v Syracuse, the defending National Champions. Syracuse led by around 10 at the half, but BC began a steady climb back to even and had it tied up with a minute left to play. A combination of speedy defense and determined, tough offense brought BC back from the dead and they wound up winning the game 57 - 54. Syracuse may still get an invite, but I think it's unlikely. We'll see. At 4:25pm I wrapped up the day session with "I Love NY." I went downstairs and picked up a paycheck and slipped out a side door. I called my dad on the cell phone. My dad's office is in One Penn Plaza, right next door to the Garden, so I figured maybe he'd be wrapping things up for the day, we could chat.

Sure enough, he was in. As I entered One Penn I saw both Carey, from my Billy Merritt level 3 class, and Lori, from my Marketing Management class last semester. Worlds collide. It was a bit awkward because I didn't remember Lori's name until five minutes later, so I never introduced the two of them. I just sort of slipped away saying I had to get upstairs. Two good people though.

Anyway, I went up to my dad's office and arrived just in time to help him schlep a bunch of course materials to his apartment, which is just a few blocks away. My reward for helping him schlep was a free meal. So I schlepped for him. And we ate at an Italian place on 9th Avenue between 38th and 39th streets. I had rigatoni a la vodka. At 6:45 we left and parted ways.

I headed over to Champions on 39th and 8th, stopping to pick up a grande no whip mocha frappachino, then up to the 14th floor for Undercover Burnout practice. Our coach was entertaining family from out of town today/this evening, so we had guest coach Jared Robinson. We mostly worked on scene work and really bringing our environment into focus. Just three of us for practice as one member is taking Billy Merritt's level 4p Extravaganza class which meets on Thursdays.

After practice a teammate and I drove down to the UCB and took in Chastity Cove, the cast of Retraced performing another improv form that they are developing, and then at 11, a Cagematch between Trillion and The Swarm. Fun shows all around. After the shows I walked over to the N/R/W train with a buddy (who was heading to Astoria) and I headed back home to Brooklyn, reading my John Grisham book on the train. I am really tired now, but I think the GNWMF has me a bit caffeinated still, so I'm up at 3am instead of sleeping like a rock. Damn you Starbucks!

 

[MarkOn10th]

Big East Semi Finals

No alarm this morning. I slept until I'd slept enough. So at 12:30pm I got out of bed. I threw on some sweats and dragged laundry downstairs. I ran out for an egg sandwich and really just chilled and did laundry for a few hours. At four I showered and shaved and got dressed and by 4:45pm I was out the door on my way to the Garden.

On my way into the Garden I ran into an old co-worker of mine, Randy, who is an editor for one of those architectural magazines now. She worked with me when that indie label, called Sol 3 Records, was first starting to grow. We chatted for a few minutes about who do you talk to, who have you heard from, what's new in your world, etc. It was nice to see her. I will invite her to improv shows, she was very interested in that. I said I was running late and hugged her goodbye.

Tonight was the Semi-finals of the Big East Tournament. The first game, at 7pm was Boston College vs. Pittsburgh. The doors opened at 6:15. My 30 minute walk in set: "Fell In Love With A Boy" by Joss Stone, "I Know" by Dionne Ferris (executive producer, Randy Jackson! How bout that, Dawg?), "Mustang Sally" by the Commitments, "Hard To Handle" by the Black Crowes, "Gimme Some Lovin'" by the Spencer Davis Group, and then the BC came out, so the band played their fight song. But it took Pittsburgh a while longer to run out, so after the band stopped with the fight song I picked back up with "Hey Ya!" by Outkast, "Baby Boy" by Beyonce and Sean Paul and "Yeah" by Usher.

The first game was very exciting. Pittsburgh had some trouble shooting well in the first half and BC grabbed a lot of defensive rebounds, eliminating second chances for Pitt. For those who don't know, Pittsburgh is one of the best schools in the country this year, so for them to be struggling with the Boston College Eagles, that was kind of strange. At half time Boston College were actually winning, 26 - 22. The second half was a completely different story. Pittsburgh came out and dominated the rebounding, smothered the offense, passed with ease and shot high percentage shots and it seemed like they never missed. When time out was called 16 minutes into the second half (with about 4 minutes remaining in the game) Pitt had taken the lead, 50 to 45. After that time out BC fell apart. They looked tired and I think their coach just didn't know how to get his guys going in the right direction again. Pittsburgh outscored them 12 to 8 in that last four minutes. Final score, Pitt over BC 62 to 53.

The second game in the double header was Villanova vs. University of Connecticut. Villanova was writing itself in as the Cinderella story of this tournament. But their glorious run for the Big East title hit a brick wall tonight. UConn are a tough, dirty, street wise team who play with no mercy underneath the basket, but also can hit the three point shot. After 10 minutes of play the game was already busted wide open with UConn taking a commanding 17 point lead. Nova tried to hang in there, but just didn't have the talent to persevere. UConn beat Nova 84 to 67.

One uncomfortable moment came at half time of this game. A CD was sent up to me marked "DTP 2003". The ball kid who carried it up said it was for the Villanova Dance Team. I checked in with the game director, who simply confirmed this CD was for the Villanova Dance Team. I put the CD in my player to check it, and it worked fine. The first track was a minute long and was a sort of Eminem/Missy Elliott/Beyonce mélange. Good times.

At half time the Dance Team are introduced, "Please welcome the Villanova Dance Team!" and folks cheer for the girls as they run out and take their positions on the center of the court. I get my queue to start the music and I do. And they aren't dancing in. "Manny, they aren't dancing. What's going on?" He sits courtside, and one of the girls is yelling something at him. "Mark, It's track Five. Play track five!" So I click forward a few times and play track five.

I hate fucking up like this. It makes these girls look stupid and it makes our building seem amateurish. Strictly speaking, I did nothing wrong. It turns out Manny gave the CD with the verbal instructions to a ball boy, who gave the CD to another ball boy who brought it up to me without any instructions. So Manny assumed I had the verbal instructions, but I did not. sigh. I hate hate hate fucking up. I mean, 18,000 people saw that fuck up. Damn it. I hate it.

The game ended at around 11:30pm I cleaned up and locked things down and took off. I subwayed home without adventure. I'm pretty spent despite my sleeping late today.

 

[MarkOn10th]

Class - Show - Blasts From Past

I woke up this morning at around 10:45am. I tooled around the computer for an hour or so, took a shower, got dressed, and rolled out of the house at around 1pm. I N/Red it to 34th Street and had lunch in the Manhattan Mall, at the Ranch One there. I ate my chicken sandwich and read more from the new Grisham book. At 2:25pm I walked over to the PIT, stopping at Starbucks to buy a Grande No Whip Mocha Frappachino. I got to the PIT at around 2:40 and hung out for 20 minutes before class, chatting with a classmate.

The Movie Strikes Back. Four or so people from the last movie class are taking this class, the rest are new to the Movie, but the whole class seems to have skills. Today was some review for the four of us who are returning, but I think that these fundamentals can't be practiced enough. It was a good class on the whole and I came out of there fired up.

We open on the Acropolis, men in togas mill about on the steps, the Grecian sun shines down.

We pull back to reveal a cup of coffee from a Greek diner sitting on a marble step next to a pool of blood.

We pull back again to reveal a body lying face down at the foot of the steps of City Hall.

After class I N/Red home, picked up some chicken and a cream soda, and ate chicken and watched Jeopardy. What is a depilatory?

I hung out until 8:30, when I got changed and headed back into the city, on the 3 train. I got to the Sage Theater at 9:30 or so. Undercover Burnout led off a triple bill, with the Scallywags following and Firestorm in the anchor position.

Last week, when I asked for a song lyric for a suggestion from the house it was like pulling teeth. So this week I tried the strategy of telling them that I was going to ask for a lyric, then told them why I was asking for a lyric of a song, why the suggestion was important, and then, finally, I asked for a lyric from a song. It was like pulling teeth. So much for my strategy. We finally fished out "It's a story. . ." which I figured was a Brady bunch song lyric. Who knows?

We did our set, about 22 minutes long. Afterwards the team took off, I stayed and watched the Scallywags and Firestorm. When their show wrapped up I said my goodnights and headed back down to the N/R station on 49th Street. I ran into James down there.

That indie label I worked at, Sol 3 Records, we were located down on Orchard Street, just south of Grand Street, in the heart of the Lower East Side. James and his wife were upstairs neighbors in the tenement building in which we had our office. James is a bartender his wife is a dancer. They were super nice people.

So running into him on the train two years after my departure from Orchard Street was pretty weird, but very nice. I think he said he was bartending at the Paramount Hotel tonight. I told him I had an improv show right across the street. Typically I have to explain what improv is to people . . .you know, you go through the same thing I guess. But James totally knew. He said, "Yeah, one of my friends from college is totally into that." "Oh, really? Who's that?" "Maybe you know him, Ali Farahnakian?" pause. "Ali?" "Yeah. Do you know him? He's actually a fraternity brother of mine."

Sweet. So on the N/R train downtown I got some fun stories about Ali Farahnakian as an undergraduate student at UNC. James actually found the red curtains that currently are hanging in the PIT. It's a small-goddamned world. James, my old upstairs neighbor from Orchard Street went to college with Ali. What the? - ah, it's all good. :up:

 

[MarkOn10th]

I just sort of wasted the day away today. I didn't have anything on my "to do" list, and I didn't get much done. I read a lot more of The Last Juror, I'll be done with it tomorrow I'd guess. I spent about an hour on the phone with my best friend, Dave. We haven't talked in a while, not since that dinner at Peter Luger's last month.

Dave called offering me a ticket to see Jackson Browne on Tuesday night. For the record, my first concert ever was Jackson Browne, with David and his Dad. 1983, Brendan Byrne Arena, Lawyers In Love. Sadly, I had to turn the ticket down, as I will be working on Tuesday. Anyway, we spoke about school and improv and my work situation, and we talked about his work at Mount Sinai, and his volunteering at the Jewish Home for the Aged. Today he went to the Food Show at the Javitz Center. His wife works for a fine food distributor, so she was there at a booth.

I wound up heading out for a late walk, at 11:15pm or so. I walked down the promenade and past Grimaldi's to my office. I walked up to the office. I had been stonewalled last week trying to transfer that consolidatedmusic.org domain name due to a missing password, so I spent about an hour exploring my computer's hard drive for evidence of a password on that account. The massive search revealed three possible passwords, which I will try tomorrow.

I should close this office down. I am never here. It is a straight up waste of money. I should box Consolidated's stuff up and mail it to Adam, the singer in the band. I should sell the desk and flat file cabinet. I should throw the rest out. I don't want to. But I know I should. It's kind of like losing weight. I know I should, but it's hard.

It's been a boring day. I will try to get shit done tomorrow.

 

[MarkOn10th]

Today I put it in gear. I was up at 9:15am and out the door at 11:15am. On the subway to Union Square I finished The Last Juror. Not great folks. Not Grisham's best work. Not by a mile. I was in therapy at noon. After therapy I cruised the Strand bookstore for a half hour or so and wound up buying Bringing Down The House, which I've been looking for since last week. I sat down at the counter at Cosy Soup and Burger and had soup and a burger.

After lunch I N/Red it up to 57th Street and walked over to Fordham, stopping only to pick up a Grande No Whip Mocha Frappachino. After Starbucks I went up to the graduate computer lab. First I checked e-mail and found a note from a teammate in my Info Systems class who couldn't find an article that we are using as a case study, that Cosco case. So I e-mailed her that I was at school and would be until 6 and she could stop by and I'd give her a copy of mine. Problem solved. Second, I filled in the IRC NCAA brackets. Third I tackled that issue with Consolidated's website.

I wrestled with this crap for half an hour before I finally called Network Solutions on my cell phone and figured out that the "authorization code" is just a code that they will give me if I ask for it. It's not "on the account" or old data that needs to regurgitated at this magic moment. The way you get it is you talk to Brian and he asks you a few questions about why you want to leave Network Solutions, and then he e-mails you the code. It felt like wrestling a bear. Finally I filled in the online forms as per the directions of the new web expert guy in Portland, and things seem to be rolling in the right direction to move the whole deal into his court.

Then I went to the library, made a copy of that Cosco article, and settled down in the study lounge to review the article myself. At 6 my teammate arrived, I gave her the article and we talked about it for a few minutes. We walked out of the building together and I headed home to Brooklyn. Back in Brooklyn Heights I stopped at the drug store to get a prescription refilled. I picked up some chicken and went home. I watched Star Trek and ate dinner.

After dinner I called Time Warner Cable and spent 40 minutes on the phone with them troubleshooting my Road Runner crisis. (this entry is being posted via a dial up connection! yikes!) The call ended with a defeated support rep on the phone setting up an appointment for a field rep to come out and look at the situation.

After that call I cleaned up for a few minutes and now I'm about to settle in for some sleep.

 

[MarkOn10th]

Today was another pretty busy day. I woke up at 9:30 and rolled out the door at 11:30, Garden at 12:15pm. We had another "fantasy game" this afternoon. This time it was for an airline. They decided to have two fantasy games, the first one was for sales guys and lawyers, and management types. The second game was the Houston Baggage Handler Crew #41 vs Newark Airport's Baggage Handler All-Stars. The two games were very different. You might even say the difference was black and white. To highlight the racial differences, the "celebrity coaches" Earl Monroe and Charles Smith only coached the white guys. And let me be absolutely clear about one thing, the white guys couldn't play ball if their company's very existence depended on it. They couldn't shoot, couldn't run, and couldn't pass. They were incompetent. The black and Hispanic teams, which both featured women on them as well as men, played an amazing game of basketball. Genuinely exciting set plays, great teamwork, and good shooting.

After the fantasy games I wandered downstairs and had a bite to eat in the press room. I read some more from Bringing Down The House, which is an interesting book.

"As the dealer rolled the cards into a tall pile, preparing to shuffle, Martinez leaned toward Kevin, lowering his voice. 'You see that last run of cards?' 'We got really lucky! A lot of high cards. Kings, queens, a couple of aces. We both did pretty well -' 'Actually,' Martinez interrupted, 'it was nineteen face cards and three aces set among eight unremarkable lows.' Kevin stared at him. He hadn't noticed Martinez paying such close attention to the cards; he hadn't written anything down or whispered to himself. 'So?' 'So you know that right now, near the top of that stack of unshuffled cards, there's a string of predominantly high cards, about thirty deep . . .'So if you knew that a run like that was about to come out of the deck, couldn't you take advantage of the situation? Raise your basic bets, change your strategy a little, win a lot of hands with a lot of money on the table?' . . .'If you knew that sort of run was coming. But she's shuffling the cards.' Martinez smiled. 'Right in front of us.' Kevin realized that Martinez had been watching the dealer shuffle while they were whispering back and forth. Kevin shook his head. Martinez had to be joking. 'There is no way you can track those cards.' 'There isn't?'

This evening the Knicks played the Washington Wizards. The Wizards are terrible. They haven't won a game in weeks and are pretty much already eliminated from playoff contention. The Knicks are returning from a road trip to Milwaukee which saw them make the second greatest come back in franchise history. They should be feeling pretty good. But the game was strange, very streaky. First Washington went on a run, then the Knicks went on a 20-4 run, then DC again on a run 18-4, all the scoring done in bunches. At half time it was close, 49 to 47. Knick star guard Allan Houston hurt himself 9 minutes into the game, so suddenly we're playing without our best scorer, but we were hanging in there. But in the third and fourth period the Knicks just completely failed to pull away. We wound up playing from behind with a minute left and really only barely tied it up at the end of the regulation with a very questionable basket by Nazr Mohammed. In overtime the Knicks capitalized on poor shooting and sloppy passing by DC to turn things around and win the game 114 - 110. Evidently GM Isaiah Thomas read the riot act to the Knicks after the game, locking up the dressing room for 30 minutes while he lectured the team. While this was a win, it was ugly and the team was just not playing very well.

My walk in set: "Bad" by U2, "Fisherman's Blues" by the Waterboys, "Take A Picture" by Filter, "Steam" by Peter Gabriel, "Bigger Than My Body" By John Mayer, "Everyday" by the Dave Matthews Band. While the house was still milling about I also snuck in "Green and Red of Mayo" by the Saw Doctors, which always leaves nary a dry eye on or around St. Paddy's Day.

The Green and Red of Mayo
I can see it still
It's soft and craggy bog-land
It's tall majestic hills
Where the ocean kisses Ireland
And the waves caress it's shore
The feeling it came over me
To stay forever more
Forever more

From it's rolling coastal waters
I can see Croagh Patrick's peak
Where one Sunday every Summer
The pilgrims climb the reek
Where Saint Patrick in it's solitude
Looked down across Clew Bay
With a ringing of his bell
Called the faithful there to pray
There to pray
Take me to Clare Island
The home of Granuaile
It's waters harbour fishes
From the herring to the whale
And now I must depart it
And reality is plain
May the time not pass so slowly
Before I set sail again
Set sail again

Ray asked me to fill in for Carlos on Friday. Los coaches a high school basketball team and his team got into a tournament upstate, which I assume is a good thing. But it also means I've had to cancel out of a show at the PIT which makes me unhappy, but getting the check will make me happy, so these things sort of balance out in the end.

At home there was a message from my Brother on the machine, just checking in. I have a ton of e-mails to go through. One at a time. One at a time.

 

[MarkOn10th]

chips

Today I woke up at around 11am and didn't feel that well. I showered at 12, grabbed some breakfast from the deli, and watched television for an hour or so. In the afternoon I did a lot of laundry. While I was down in the basement I rooted around in my storage area. I found a box of stuff that came to me from my Grandmother via my dad.

My Grandmother died when I was in college, between my sophomore and junior years. So that would make it the summer of 1990. I remember my dad called me and told me that she had passed away. She was sick with diabetes and had an operation on her feet and then there was an infection and things got complicated; and then she passed away. All of this took like three weeks to happen. I think she was born in 1914 or so, she must have been 76 years old when she died.

My dad said that his brother, from whom he is estranged, was having a funeral service in Chicago. This made some sense. Despite the fact that my Grandmother had lived in San Diego for the last 20 years of her life, my dad and uncle grew up outside Chicago and my grandfather was a businessman in Chicago, so most of the "family friends" and other family members were in Chicago. So my dad was going to fly to Chicago for that service.

My mom did not get along well with my Grandmother, and so she did not go to Chicago to pay her respects. My brother was living in Los Angeles and was teaching at UCLA, my sister was in Africa. I was taking Summer classes at The George Washington University. I just didn't think I could go to her funeral.

I felt a sense of loss, but I didn't really know her all that well, her living in San Diego, and me growing up in New York . . .and she and mom not getting along well limited trips and visits and whatnot. I remember sitting down with the Rabbi on campus, Rabbi Sarrota, and asking him how I should best honor my Grandmother's memory.

We talked for about two hours. We talked about Jewish rituals around death. We talked about death and dying. We talked about my Grandmother. We talked about a lot of stuff. And then we talked about my Dad, about what he must be thinking and going through. And I realized, or was made to realize, that I should be thinking a lot less about how to honor my Grandmother's memory, and thinking a lot more about being a son to my dad.

In the morning I wrote notes to my teachers saying I'd be gone for a week due to a death in the family. I packed a suit and a bag with a few days of clean clothes, and went to Washington National Airport. I booked passage on the next flight to Chicago. This is what credit cards were made for. When I told the agent that I was flying to a funeral they charged me next to nothing for the ticket.

I arrived in Chicago at around 2 in the afternoon. I bought a Chicago Tribune and looked in the obits. I still have this paper. Wednesday, July 25th, 1990.

Lee
Laura Lee, nee Robin; beloved wife of the late Louis; devoted mother of Robert (Mary) and Daniel (Karen) Lee; loving grandmother of David, Andrea, Mark, Sarna and Jessica; dear sister of Anne (Alan) Brill and Victor (Renee) Robin. Memorial service Wednesday, July 25 at 5p.m. at Am Shalom, 840 Vernon Ave, Glenco. Please omit flowers. Contributions to The Juvenile Diabetes Foundation would be appreciated.

So I got a taxi and asked him if he knew where Am Shalom was in Glenco. He said he'd find it. So we drove up to Glenco and it took a little while, but we found it, a very beautiful temple, Am Shalom. It was 3pm I was very early. The doors were open and the place was empty. I changed into my suit in the bathroom and hid my bags in a closet. I sat down in the last row of pews and I guess I nodded off. I woke up when someone was shaking me, asking me who I was, why I was there. The room had filled up. I thought I would play it cool and just sit in the last row and meet up with my dad after the service, but the old lady that woke me wouldn't have it. I was thrust forward to the front of the schul and found a seat next to my dad, who looked both surprised and happy to see me.

It was a short service. My Grandmother had been cremated a few days earlier, her ashes scattered above the Pacific Ocean, just like my Grandfather had done. So there wasn't the whole actual funeral service, it was more just a memorial. Some of her old time friends got up and said a few words, her brother, my great uncle Victor, he said a few things, my Uncle finally spoke, reasonably eloquently, and it was over.

After the service I grabbed my bag and we rode back to my Uncle's house, an enormous estate in Glenco. In the car I met my two cousins, whom I had not really ever come across, and haven't seen since. It was strange to meet them there. They were in Jr. High and High School. Just a few years younger than me. I felt like I should know them, but we were world's apart.

Their house was beautiful. I think it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. My uncle had a car collection, all kinds of rock and roll memorabillia, photos of him with the Rolling Stones and Talking Heads. My father pointed out to me that there wasn't actually any fine art in their house, and there were no books. My father and my uncle valued different things in this world, that much was clear.

Anyway, I mostly spent the rest of the night with my dad and with my Grandmother's gigolo, Glen.

I've always felt that going out there was the right decision. Being there for my dad. I've never regretted that for a moment.

A few weeks later, a box arrived in the mail. My dad and uncle had gone out to my Grandmother's apartment in San Diego and divvied her stuff up between them. Most of the stuff was sold either auction style or at a tag sale. But my Dad had sent stuff to my brother, my sister and I. In my box were three enameled craft style pictures that my Grandmother had made at some point. She was pretty good at that crafty type of thing. And there was also my grandmother's coin collection. She collected nickels. She collected subway tokens from different cities. She had coins commemorating notable events of the USA's exploration of space. There were commemorative 1984 Olympic highway-toll tokens. She had some silver dollars. And there were a collection of chips from Las Vegas casinos. It turns out that periodically she and my Grandfather, and later, she and Glen the gigolo, would go to Vegas and play poker. I imagine Glen played the slots, but I don't know. So there were chips from the Hacienda, The Vegas Club, and other notable and probably extinct gambling parlors.

From my box in the basement of my building I grabbed one of these, the Hacienda $5 chip. It would make a handsome good luck charm.

I didn't do much the rest of the afternoon. I wasn't feeling all that well. Finally, at 9:20 I decided to go play cards with friends on 23rd street. I brought my new lucky charm with me. It served it's purpose well.

My bonehead play of the night; I have :4d: :4s: in the hole. Not much betting goes around. The flop comes :2c: :9h: :Qs: . The betting comes around to me and I go all in with my last few chips. One caller. We flip'em and he has :2d: :2s: . No four popped up on the turn or river. I played that like a moron. Ah well. I did better in the side game.

 

[MarkOn10th]

Time Warner Cable guy showed up at noon today. This guy also switched the modem box and the splitter gadget. He tried plugging me into a different "port" in the hallway outside. Initially that had a good reaction, but as I sit here at my computer, hours later, I'm getting blinking offline lights. So I'm still screwed, road-runner-wise. Sigh.

After Rudy, the cable guy, left I went down and got some breakfast and then got a manicure. In the afternoon I finished reading Bringing Down The House, which was a pretty intense read. I took a nap from 5 to 7. I made hamburgers for dinner and watched A Mighty Wind on television. At 9:30 I cleaned up from dinner, ran the dishwasher, and headed out the door.

I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and over to Greenwich Street. I walked uptown past all the nice restaurants and neat tribeca buildings. At around 10:40 I got to the UPS package sorting facility and watched as packages were loaded onto trucks. It's really neat to watch this process as it is mostly robotic now. Packages skim along overhead conveyer belts and then get sorted by robots into other chutes, and then they get shuttled onto trucks. If UPS could figure out how to get robots to drive the trucks I'm sure they'd do that.

I hopped a cab at Christopher Street and rode up to 26th. I watched Gigawatt vs The Swarm in the 11pm cagematch. Afterwards I took the A train home.

 

[MarkOn10th]

We Are New York, And We Love Basketball

Today I woke up at around noon. I got some breakfast and coffee from the good deli around the corner. I ate it at home while surfing the web and watching X-Men 2. I played some online poker for an hour or so. As an experiment I tried playing Omaha Hold-em. I have learned to dislike Omaha Hold-em and shan't play again soon.

At 3 I hopped in the shower, shaved and got dressed. At 4:15 I was out the door and heading to The Garden. I got to MSG just before 5pm. When I climbed up to the music room I found Mike, the Knicks' game director sitting in the organ seat, watching NCAA basketball on our little TV monitor. "I'm just going to hang out up here until I can go downstairs." I looked out and saw that the laborers, carpenters and stagehands were still striking the circus set-up. There was a circus during the day. Now a hundred employees were pulling out the three-ring circus and nets and everything else, and setting up the basketball court.

So we hung out for a while, chatting about the NCAA tournament. On my picks sheet I have Oklahoma State winning the tournament, Mike has Duke. Eventually Ray arrived and we reviewed the script for the evening. We had advanced notice that some celebrities would be in the house this evening, so we debated what songs to play if we should put the celebs up on the Gardenvision screens.

Lorraine Bracco and Edie Falco from the Sopranos: Woke up this morning. Easy as pie. We also agreed to play a Soprano's sound bite I loaded in just a few days ago, Carmella saying "There has to be consequences!" and Tony saying "There will be . . ." which I thought would be great for hockey. But it made sense here too.

Leonardo DiCaprio: Lots of debate on this one. We had three or four different options. I was a supporter of Lovefool from the Romeo and Juliet soundtrack. I think its a cool song and maybe his best movie. Mike was supporting the theme to Growing Pains, which I thought was funny but I didn't think Leonardo would think it was funny. Ray was a big believer in a dance remix of the theme from Titanic. In Ray's words, "He'll never get past that movie. It's bigger than him, us, everyone else here tonight." In the end we agreed the Celine remix would be the best as it had the best tempo, and immediately informed the listener who this guy was.

Micheal Ray Richardson and Willis Reed: The former Knicks get a jingle from the 80s that we call "We Are New York" that Isiah Thomas really likes.

Howard Stern: We have a dance remix of You Shook Me All Night Long that is very Howard. Throw in a Ba-ba-booey sound effect and you have a pretty identifiable ditty.

In the end Leonardo did not make it up on Gardenvision and I guess people mostly missed Micheal Ray Richardson, or didn't recognize him, despite the video clips of him playing for the Knicks, the matrix copy that read "please welcome Micheal Ray Richardson!" and the "We Are New York, And We Love Basketball" ditty playing in the background.

My opening mix was very bluesy. I played "Why Don't You And I" by Santana, "The Breakdown" by Los Lobos, "Birds" by Elton John, "Thing Called Love" by Bonnie Raitt, "I Can't Stand It" by Eric Clapton, "Too Much Saturn" by Francis Dunnery, and "Unwell" by Matchbox 20 (which is not very bluesy, but a good song). After a bunch of videos I played a minute or two of "Universally Speaking" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers before we went into the standard tension music of "Eminence Front" by The Who.

The game wasn't "all that" due to the Nets missing their two big stars, Jason Kidd and Kenyon Martin, and the Knicks missing Allan Houston. Without Kidd and Martin the Nets never really got out of the gate and the Knicks led by at least 10 points throughout the game. When the game is in hand like that it's hard for the DJ to go wrong. Certainly everyone is less critical of what you play. Just keep it fun and upbeat. So I mixed dance tunes like "Move This" by Technotronic and "Ride On Time" by Blackbox with classic tunes like "Doo Wah Diddy" by Manfred Mann and "Shake Your Groove Thing" by Peaches and Herb.

In the end the Knicks won the game 79 to 65. The game ended just before 10pm. I hustled the clean-up process along, bid Ray adieu and jetted out of the building. I walked down to the UCBT just in time to meet up with some friends from my last Movie class and slip into The Swarm show.

In the reflexive mind-fuck moment of the month the Swarm launched into a series of scenes dealing with fans influencing an organ player at a ball game. The height of the mind-fuck was all four members of the Swarm on stage singing or humming "Rock And Roll Fantasy" which I had indeed played at the Knicks game as intro music to the Knicks City Dancers (Here come the dancers, one two three. . .) I'm still recovering from that. It was a fun show on the whole.

 

[MarkOn10th]

I woke up at around 11am, showered, got dressed, and ate breakfast at Grand Canyon. I 3 trained it to Penn station and arrived at the PIT at 2:20pm, Grande No Whip Mocha Frappachino in hand. While waiting for my 3pm class I read the New York Times, chatted with Ali Farahnakian, and administered my Market Research class group's survey to 10 kind people who patiently filled in the form.

Here is the survey:

Please take a few minutes to answer some questions regarding your dining habits in New York City Restaurants…….

1) Currently are you:

____ On a structured diet (eg. Atkins; South Beach; Weight Watchers; etc)
____ Watching your weight by healthy eating habits
____ Not watching your weight at all

2) Which of the following best describes your daily eating habits? Please only check one.

____ I count the # of carbohydrates in my daily diet.
____ I consciously limit my daily carb intake, but do not count them.
____ I do not consciously limit or count the # of carbs in my daily diet.

3) When eating out you, which on of the following are you most likely to do: (Please check one.)

____ Ask the kitchen to change something on the menu to fit your diet
____ Order something you really do not want, like a salad, because it is the only thing on the menu that fits your diet’s parameters
____ Order something you think is a healthy choice from the restaurant’s regular menu
____ Eat what you want because you’re out to dinner

4) If the restaurants you frequently visited offered diet specials (eg. Low-carb specials) would you be inclined to order them?

______ yes ________ no

5) On average, how many times a month do you eat out? ______

6) Would you dine at a restaurant that did not have a low-carb menu option? Please only check one.

____ Definitely
____ Probably would
____ Might or might not
____ Probably would not
____ Definitely would not


7) Below are five characteristics of a restaurant. Please allocate 100 points among the characteristics so that the allocation represents the importance of each characteristic to you.

Characteristic Number of Points
a. Atmosphere ___
b. Staff Friendliness ___
c. Menu Choices ___
d. Price of Menu Items ___
e. Cleanliness ___
TOTAL: 100


8) Please list two “low carb” menu items you would like to see on the menu at your favorite restaurant:

_____________________________
_____________________________

Now some questions about you…..

9) I am:
______ Male
______ Female

10) In what year were you born? _______

11) Please indicate highest education level attained:

_______ High School
_______ Some College
_______ Bachelor's degree
_______ Some Graduate School
_______ Masters Degree
_______ MD, PhD, JD

12) What is your approximate annual household income?

_____Less than $24,999 _____$100,000-$149,999
_____$25,000-$49,999 _____$150,000-$199,999
_____$50,000-$74,999 _____$200,000-$249,999
_____$75,000-$99,999 ----_____$250,000 and above

13) I am:
________ Single ________ Married


So I got 10 or 11 of these filled out. And each of my teammates should have the same. 40 is a small sample, but not too small for a moderately reliable set of answers to questions like, do low income people aged 22-30 want more low carb meals made available at restaurants? Important stuff. Class at 3pm was good. I am enjoying working with this group. It is a much different energy than the last crew of people, and its a slightly smaller class, so we are up all the time instead of the 1/2 up 1/2 sitting thing that happens when you have 15 people.

After class I went right home via the N/R, which is still screwing me up. I took the N train and it took me over the Manhattan Bridge straight to Pacific Avenue, which is way too far into Brooklyn for me. It was no big deal, I took a 2 train back a few stops and got off at Borough Hall. But I need to straighten this subway situation out. I felt like a tourist.

This evening I didn't really accomplish a whole lot. I need to refocus on school work. Tomorrow, Sunday, is the last day of the Spring Break. Time to get back in the saddle.

1. I need to set up a spreadsheet to enter the data from the surveys.
2. I need to get the data from my classmates.
3. I need to see if I need to do any reading for management class. (I did e-mail the professor about an interesting article in the NYTimes today about Newell/Rubbermaid.)
4. I need to seriously address the Cosco case study for my info systems class. I need to write up my idea about IRID tags for containers and work on a corporate IT taxonomy, as well as review the article the professor handed out about the Balanced Scorecard, as I need to write a page or two about that for our group paper. whew. That's a lot of work.
5. I also have some household chores to do. Shopping, launder towels and sheets, vacuum, and generally put stuff away.
6. I'd like to spend an hour or so preparing for my fantasy baseball draft. I need to check and see if there's room for one more as a friend is interested in joining. My team last year came in seventh out of eleven teams, up from dead last the year before.

Here's my team from last year:
Team report for Village Paint
Owned by Mark Lee
C JPosada NYA C 27
C *BMolina Ana A 4
1B *GColbrunn Sea A 1
3B DBerg Tor A 5
CI RVentura LA A 18
2B ASoriano NYA A 43
SS CGuillen Sea A 8
MI DCruz Bal A 3
OF TLong Oak A 9
OF SSpencer Tex A 3
OF ARowand ChA A 7
OF DJackson Bos A 5
OF CSingleton Oak A 5
DH MLeCroy Min B 2

P SHasegawa Sea B 4
P AOsuna NYA B 7
P CSabathia Cle C 7
P KLohse Min B 6
P MRivera NYA A 29
P JContreras NYA A 12
P DMarte ChA A 4
P JHalama Oak A 5
P DMoss Bal A 30
P MAnderson Det C 7
P *MMulder Oak A 33

If a player has an A or B next to their team name I can keep them on my team this year. This is a "keeper league." C's I have to release. The number after the A,B,C is the price I paid for the player. I actually wound up under-budget in last years auction draft, and as a result I didn't get a very good corner man (Greg Colbrunn?) and also wound up very light in the outfield, although I had some injuries there (Cordova and Michael Tucker). Obviously it's an AL only league. (Ventura started the year as a Yankee, so I got to keep him through the end of the season despite the fact he was traded to the Dodgers, an NL club.)

I'm off to bed now. Good night.

 

[MarkOn10th]

The other night when I was mixing my bluesy walk-in set I was frustrated and surprised to discover that the only Clapton album we have is "The Cream Of Clapton" a 19 track album that spans a great deal of Eric's career. The track listing on that album is:
I Feel Free
Sunshine Of Your Love
White Room
Crossroads
Badge
Presence Of The Lord
Blues Power
After Midnight
Let It Rain
Bell Bottom Blues
Layla
I Shot The Sheriff
Let It Grow
Knocking On Heavens Door
Hello Old Friend
Cocaine
Wonderful Tonight
Promises
I Can't Stand It.

This morning, from 11 to 12 noon I mixed a supplementary disc I titled "The Rest Of Clapton." Here are the songs on this 70-minute album:

Change The World
Pretending
Before You Accuse Me
It's In The Way That You Use It
Foreverman
She's Waiting
Motherless Children
Lay Down Sally
Miss You
Tears In Heaven
Well All Right
Riding With The King
I'm Tore Down
Motherless Child
Help Me Up
No Alibis

This mix has more blues on it and embraces the late 80s and 90s albums that "the Cream Of Clapton" skips. I feel like a great wrong has been made right.

I did get through a lot of my to do list today. I tackled that spreadsheet for the survey and got the wheels spinning to pass that along to the rest of my group. I did a little work on the Cosco case. I'll need to work on the Taxonomy bit more tomorrow. I handled my shopping and laundry and think I came a step closer to getting my friend into my fantasy baseball league. We'll see. It is hard to organize these changes when the players in the league are spread out around the East Coast. We have players in and around DC, in NJ and here in NYC.

I spoke to my Mom for about 30 minutes this afternoon. She is now supporting my going to law school, something she was strongly against a few years ago. What has changed? Not me. I am the same. Her perception of me has changed I think. I'm still not sure if I've decided to try to go or not . . .

I also spoke to my brother, Dave. He lives in Amsterdam. I think it was really just a catch up type of call. Things seem to be going well for his business and life and all that.

That's my day in a nutshell. As I head off to bed I think I accomplished a lot today, but I have a boatload to do tomorrow. I failed to catch up on the management reading, or even checking in to see what I have to do. I still have to do my Info Systems class homework.

Something maybe sad is happening in the Consolidated world. I sent an e-mail to the lady who is the administrator of Consolidated's website. I haven't talked to her in a while, like ten months or so. Last time we spoke she was having some health problems. She's not a well woman. She has a variety of heart and lung issues I guess. I never really got into it with her. I felt the best thing I could do was just be patient with the work I asked her to do and make her feel like she was a part of the team. And of course, pay the bill on time. Well, now we are in essence taking the site away from her, which is just a business decision, so I 'm sure she can live with that. But when I sent her the e-mail asking for the site FTP information that will aid in transferring the site to our new host the e-mail bounced back to me like the address is no good. I double-checked the address and I had sent it to the right place. I called her phone number and there was no answer. I did a web search on her name to see if there was any pertinent news and I found a letter from her on one of the sites she runs saying that she was accepting donations so she could afford to buy the drugs she needs. It was kind of a desperate sounding note:

Hi everybody!

I am still in continuation of my "last ditch" effort for getting
all my meds for this month until mid-May, when hopefully I'll be
approved for a grant...you guys have been great..
really great...

I will be putting up a few more of my (XXX band) things I
found that never got unpacked when I moved a few years ago..
lucky find!..and a few things, with the help of a friend!
Anyway, my new E-bay store is open, thanks to donations
to open it from warehouse people...can you believe that??
(This is more of a long term solution that a very
special XXX fan helped me devise).

I am on the second run of IV meds right now, and thanks to two
very special people, I only have the last run of these to
worry about..so you can see, I still need help, but you all
are making a difference! I still really need help, though,
with the last run of IV's and my everyday meds as well,
but hopefully only until a grant comes through..

After that, please keep your fingers
crossed, pray, chant..do whatever you do..to bring me good results on
all my applications. Most foundations run June to June and they take so
long to process...but I am still very very hopeful. I think that my
illness and situation is unique enough that it will attract attention.
I do realize that the E-bay stuff is just a temporary solution..I
really am also looking at the long term! Hopefully...the VERY long
term..if you get my drift!

I am trusting you guys to help me this, so I can keep
helping you enjoy XXX online and do the things I need to do for him,
and for you...

MEDICAL UPDATE:

For those of you that are unaware, right now I have pneumonia...the exact
same strain that nearly killed me 7 years ago - and that is why the doctors
feel the need to be so aggressive.

The IV meds are starting to have an effect.
While my lungs are both
still completely clouded with this pneumonia, the
density has decreased by about 11%, which is heading
in the right direction anyway. Good news!

I'm still dreading the third run..the most expensive of
all comes up next Monday. But they
really are working. You know what kills me right now?
If they had used these drugs initially, perhaps I
wouldn't have had so much initial damage....anyway
if there's anything you can do to help
with this last run, I would be incredibly grateful. I
realize I am tapping people out, but I have to believe
I am doing everything I can here. Especially now that I
know this might just work.

The meds have been ordered, from the companies by my doctors
as I am hopeful that there is help coming now. I still
have to come up with about $2,000.00 in the next month,
so the more help any of you could give, the better.

I cannot tell you how much I would appreciate it..

there are several ways you can accomplish this..

One way, is to check out the items I am putting
up on E-bay. Some are re-lists, because many people who
won auctions, did not pay for them. In this batch they
are mostly mine, found lingering in totes in the garage!

Another way, is a direct way of helping through Paypal.
You can use your credit cards, or your bank account here..
whatever you like and whatever you can would help greatly!
Just click on the Paypal button below...

Another way is at Amazon, through Amazon Payments. If you
buy things at Amazon, you can do this with whatever method
of payment you are use to there. You can do that by clicking
on the button below....

Finally, you can use regular postal mail, if money online
spooks you like it does many..my address is...


XXXXXX
XXXXXX
XXXX, PA. #####

Believe me, my friends...this has become a life-threatening situation
and that is why I am resorting to whatever methods I know how. I don't
enjoy this...but I don't know what else to do. I hope you all will
understand.

Thanks!
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

So I'm kind of freaked that maybe she's in the hospital, or really sick, or she moved to Arizona, or I don't know what. But I need to follow up on this tomorrow or Tuesday because the band really wants this change to happen sooner rather than later. I hope she is okay because she was really nice and supportive. And god she has a little daughter who is probably 5 years old.

Things like this make my arthritis seem really small and insignificant. When I first got arthritis like 4 years ago I found my way to an online community, not unlike this improv community, called arthritis insight. And there I was able to vent my frustrations and learn about pain drugs and treatment and chat with other people with RA or its related diseases. In one post I guess I said something like "What gets me most depressed is that I can't play guitar anymore. My fingers just don't work. I love playing guitar and it makes me so sad not to be able to play." To which a 9-year-old girl with lupus and hand crippling RA replied, "I'd love to learn to play guitar one day. I really love Jewel. I hope they can cure me so I can learn to play like her." I was so humbled by that. It didn't make my problem less painful, but it put that pain in a new perspective.

 

[MarkOn10th]

Today I was so focused on just putting one foot in front of the other. Mondays are really busy. I had therapy at noon, so I was up at 9, showered and out the door by 10, eating breakfast til about 11 and in Union Square by 11:40am. Impressive.

After my therapy session I did some more therapy at the Virgin Megastore. I bought the new Gipsy Kings album, Roots, Motown by Michael McDonald, Blowin' Session by Johnny Griffin, and the DVD for Pirates of the Caribbean. You'll be shocked to hear that I did not like the Motown album after one listen on the subway today. It actually had two or three good moments, but over all, it was a let down. I actually like Michael McDonald, so it's nothing against him, or old people, or old songs, or anything like that. I just think they picked some of the not so greatest songs in the Motown catalog, and I think his band sounded a bit too much like a Kenny G backing band. Which is to say, bad.

The Johnny Griffin album was a pure recommendation by a floor staff dude at the Megastore. I was browsing in the jazz section, looking for another Coltrane album, and this guy came up and asked if I needed help. We spoke about my cluelessness in Jazz, but my jazz explorations (going on two years now) and he pointed out this Griffin album. The recording line up is as follows: Lee Morgan on trumpet, Johnny Griffin, Hank Mobley and John Coltrane on tenor saxophones, Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Art Blakey on drums. It's an all-star line up and it sounds great.

When I returned home I worked on homework for class tonight. We had a couple assignments due in the info systems class. Afterwards I made some soup. At 4:30 I headed back into Manhattan, walked across 57th Street, turned right and headed into Fordham's 60th Street campus. (stopping to pick up a Grande No Whip Mocha Frappachino, natch.) I stopped in the computer lab to print out my homework. I e-mail stuff to myself from home to school. I don't have a printer at home. Anyway, I printed everything out and went up to class in plenty of time for my 5:50 class.

We got our midterms back in Market Research and I was relieved to see I got a 27 out of 30. He hadn't come up with a grade scale, but I'm sure that's an A, as the class average was 25 out of 30. I spoke to the professor during the class break and asked him if I could take the "quiz" from a few weeks ago over. I got 10 out of 25 points on that, which is terrible. But I explained that I was in an unfair position. I missed one class due to an unavoidable work conflict and the very next class he quizzed us on what he had just taught us! I guess I was persuasive because he agreed to give me a make up test on the day we present our final project. (which is in about two weeks!)

Info systems class was interminable. The professor teaches two hours straight without a break. So its just a lot of time sitting on the tuchus. My Cosco case study group wanted to meet MORE after class, so I didn't get out of that building until 10:30. I got home at 11:10pm. I had some dinner. Did my home work for my Management class on wednesday, which is due by noon tomorrow. . . But my Management class team is meeting at EIGHT O FREAKING CLOCK in the morning, so I have to get to sleep. If I had wanted to get a full eight hours of sleep, I'd have had to hit the sack at 10pm, when I was still in class.

Pain in both wrists today, and in the fingers of my left hand. Not too terrible, but it hurt. I took two aleves.

 

[MarkOn10th]

As you can see by the posting time of yesterday's journal entry, I didn't get to sleep until like 1:30am. This morning I woke up at 6:20am. I went into robot mode: Must get into shower. Must get into clothes. Must get out door. Must get on subway. Must get out at 57th Street. Must get to Fordham. Must get to 2nd Floor. I arrived at 8am promptly, In time for my group meeting. I'll be honest; I was still in robot mode through most of the meeting. I added very little to the proceedings.

I listened as attentively as I could, and at one point I added something like, "I think we need to put these particular circumstances back into the context of what was going on in 1998 - 2000. Remember? Let's keep in mind Monica Lewinsky, Denver Broncos, John Glenn returning to space, Shakespeare In Love, Dow 8,000, and in 1999, remember Jeff Bezos was Time Magazine's Man of the Year. You have to keep this story in context with what was happening around the case. There was a bubble building and of course this consultant got caught up in it, and of course by 2001 everything was a shambles, cause the whole world became a shambles."

Then I went back to robot mode. Our meeting ended at around 10:30. I went over to the law school and inquired about the JD/MBA program and they looked at me like I was crazy. I suppose the whole program really is set up to give another interesting angle to the Law School, and not to serve the Business School students at all. The program is run by the Law School, for Law School students to also get an MBA degree. Anyway, I got the regular old admissions information for the law school and naturally I have completely missed the deadlines for next year's class, not even close in fact. So any move I make would be toward admittance in the Fall of 2005, which is very far away.

I don't know if this puts the kibosh on this whole plan or not. It certainly does not make it attractive. Also, even if I did really really well on the LSAT, my undergrad GPA was completely for shit, like a 2.5 or something, so I suspect it is unlikely I could get into Fordham, which is like a top 25 law school.

After gathering all this information I went home and went back to sleep. I slept from 11:45 until 4:30pm. I woke up feeling much refreshed! I went out and got some lunch, which I brought home and ate while watching Curse Of The Black Pearl, which I thought was a lot of fun.

At 7pm I headed into the city and went to see the shows at UCB Theater, Trillion & Van Buren and then Filth & Monkeydick. After the shows I walked down to Cozy's Soup and Burger and had some chicken soup. I then started a 80 minute subway odyssey. I took the N to Prince Street where I waited like 20 minutes for an R train that wasn't ever going to come. So I walked out of the train station there and hopped into the 6 train at Spring Street. A 4 train stopped, so I got on that, but that ended at Chambers Street. We had to walk over to the uptown track to get a downtown bound 4 train to Brooklyn. And there we stood for 25 minutes, waiting for a train going in the wrong direction. Eventually, at like 1:10am I walked out of the subway and hailed a cab home. Defeated by the MTA.

My hands felt a lot better today, especially after my nap. That's all for now. Good night.

 

[MarkOn10th]

This morning I registered for classes for the Summer semester which begins in May. I had been thinking of taking just one class this semester and then taking an LSAT prep class and at the end of the Summer, the LSAT. . .But based on the info yesterday and a nights sleep I decided not to "g'04" it now. So I actually increased my course load to four classes. I signed up for Financial Environment, which is a required core class, Entertainment Marketing, Ethics In Business, and a class just called The Music Business.

The teacher for the Entertainment Marketing class listed in the course schedule is "Brown". No other info. But I scanned the faculty listings and there seems to be just one Brown at the University. Which, ironically, is Les Brown, the guy for whom I was dog sitting years ago, whose daughter's husband's dog's ear got bit off and then died of the big C. I didn't even know he taught at Fordham. I hope he doesn't hold the whole ear thing against me.

Les is a pretty amazing guy, so I'm really looking forward to his class. I know only a little bit about his background. I understand he owned half of a jazz/folk club in Chicago during the 50s and 60s. A club called the Gate Of Horn. Everybody played there. Dylan, Coltrane, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Miles. It was the crossroads of cool. I'll research the rest of his story. I know he wrote a big hit song too, Abilene, a country and western song:

Abilene Abilene prettiest town that I've ever seen
The women there don't treat you mean in Abilene my Abilene

Old empty boxcars standin' all alone the wheels're all rusted boys so we'd home
But what I have to do till I get back to Abilene
(Abilene) that's my home (Abilene) my home sweet home
(Prettiest town that I've ever seen
The women there won't treat you mean in Abilene my Abilene)

I've been to Chicago San Francisco too old New York City none of them will do
I'm just a waitin' till I get to Abilene (my Abilene)
Abilene Abilene...
No women there won't treat you mean in Abilene (my Abilene)
The women there won't treat you mean in Abilene (my Abilene)

The whole program, the MBA program, is 69 credits long. At the end of this semester I'll have finished 33 credits, so I'm roughly halfway through. Taking 12 credits over the summer will put me at 45 credits, 24 credits shy of graduation, or 8 classes. So if I take four classes in the fall and four the following spring, I'll be done.

After I registered I gave my dad a ring. We spoke for a while. I think he was disappointed that I wouldn't be pursuing the law school thing, but he totally understood.

In the afternoon I read a case study for marketing research class and reviewed the notes from the last management class. Then I wrote a letter to the lady who administers Consolidated's website. I've been agonizing over what to do, what's the right thing. Here's what I finally did. I wrote the following letter to her:

Hello there!

I am writing to update you on a few matters.

- We would like to move the website. Adam works for a company that will give him server space and he will be able to work with a friend there who is up on tech stuff to work on the site.

- Our contact there is xxx. His e-mail is xxx@xxx.com . His phone is 888-555-xxxx.

- Can you please e-mail xxx the FTP information, so he can grab the files for Adam's site? Specifically, he needs the server's username and password for consolidatedmusic.org? Essentially, we are giving the reins over to xxx. If you have questions you can call me at 718-555-xxxx, Adam at 503-555-xxxx, or Rich at the toll free number above.

- If there are open invoices that need to be dealt with please let me know.

- Enclosed is a check for $200 that hopefully will cover the expense for any time that this matter takes.

Adam and I both genuinely appreciate the support you've given us the past few years. Thank you for your help, your tech guidance and your patience.

Best,


So, I'm giving her $200 that she hasn't earned per se, but I feel like giving her money to facilitate the change over will make her feel better than her taking $200 of my money as charity or whatever. And she has been very supportive. And I feel bad that she's ill. So I feel better, hopefully she'll get all the money she needs to get her medication, and Adam still gets his site switched over to his new server. A potential win-win-win situaiton. We'll see how this strategy works out.

In management class today we did some roll playing from the case we started two weeks ago. He asked for a volunteer from the class to perform the roll playing with him. Naturally I volunteered. I used my vast array of improv skills to dazzle the business school crowd. I yes anded, I heightened and I justified, I employed amazing object work, and I listened really keenly to what he was offering me. I used some mad specifics to get what I wanted, and in the end, achieved all my goals without him blowing a gasket or feeling bad about our mock meeting.

I did the job so well that I sort of screwed up his objectives. So we did it a second time, this time he asked me to really be firm with my goals. So I was super firm and the professor wound up having a heart attack and mock dying on the floor in front of the classroom. (at which point I picked up the "telephone" on my desk and called Human Resources saying we had a vacancy to fill.

After class let out at 7:50 I hightailed it home for dinner and West Wing at 9pm. After West Wing I hopped back on the train and rode up to 23rd Street to play cards. I got there at 10:37 and found no room for another player. So me and two other freeze outs went down and got a drink for an hour, when we returned a side game had begun, so we made ourselves welcome there.

I left the game at 2am and taxied back to Brooklyn. That's a pretty full day right there. Sleep come free me!

 

[MarkOn10th]

I really wonder what the building staff must think of me. This building has a staff. It's a small staff, but they are a hardy and hard working crew. Today they painted doors. This involved opening the doors, propping them open for a few hours, sanding them a bit, painting them, letting them dry, and then closing the door. Well, when they opened my door at 11am, after buzzing I guess, I didn't really hear the buzzing, they found me sleeping in my bed. So great, now I'm up and walking around in underwear and T-Shirt.

I'm making a few phone calls, right in front of them. I'm networking with my fantasy baseball buddies, I'm talking with Adam from Consolidated's partner, Tris, updating her on my activities yesterday (the letter to the web admin). I'm taking a shower, getting dressed, sorting some laundry, running out for a sandwich, eating it right in front of them while watching The West Wing on Bravo. It's just my normal day, but they, they are working those guys. And me, I'm . . .What the hell am I doing?

Eventually I left, at around 4pm. I needed to drop a check off at my stockbroker's office on 53rd and Park Avenue. So I took the 4 train to Grand Central and walked up Park a few blocks. I arrived there at 5:10pm. They have a fortress like atmosphere in this building. "Who are you here to see?" I tell them my broker's name. They call up. No answer. Well, call his assistant, please. No answer. Well, call someone in the cashier's area. I'm dropping off a check. Cashier actually says to door security personnel, "We're not depositing any more checks today. Have him come back tomorrow." So the security lady, who is definitely not going to let me blow this building up with my check, says I need to come back tomorrow. I get a bit huffy and say, there is no way I'm coming back tomorrow. There must be some human being who works for Smith Barney who can take my money, right now, here, today. So she gets huffy right back, "Well, if you know someone else to call, I'll call 'em. But if you don't you can turn around and walk right out those doors."

I ask her if there is a President of Smith Barney in this building. She says yes there is. I ask her to call that person on the phone, now. A secretary or assistant answers the phone and is brought up to date. She asks to speak to me. Security lady hands the phone over. Hello? "Yes, Mr. Lee. What's the problem?" The problem is I have money for you to take and you won't take it from me. "Well, your broker has probably gone home." Yes, but you see, I am here now. "Yes. I can hear that." Yes. Here I am with my check. Down here. "Well what do you want me to do about it?" This is the easiest decision you'll make today Cathy. Either you come down and get this check from me and give it to the cashier or my broker in the morning, or, alternately, me and my entire family will be closing our accounts with Smith Barney first thing in the morning. If I was you, it would be a no brainer. But I'll let you decide. "I'm sorry Mr. Lee, I'll be right down."

Less than 60 seconds later Cathy appears and takes my check and I thank her like I never threatened her or her company.

Why would a company like Smith Barney not have appropriate trained and skilled customer service people available at ten minutes after five on a business day? Why would they depend on building security personnel for customer service? Why wouldn't they have a system in place to take my money? Why can't I, a customer of theirs for years, walk into their freaking office? In general I find office building security the most ludicrous concept on earth. All this nonsense got beefed up after 9-11. As if someone hi-jacked two office buildings and flew them into a plane. Hello!!! If these companies cared, the millions of dollars they are spending on lousy building security could be pooled and sent to improve airport security, which is still FOR SHIT!!

I walked across town to the 1 train and took that to 34th street. On the train I saw Tony Rodriguez. Tony was a tour guide with me. He wasn't one of the original guides, but he joined us not long after we got started. I hadn't seen him in years. He is teaching at FIT now, editorial design. Which is awesome. He is very talented at design. He's also a great musician and not a bad actor. I encouraged him to study improv! anyway, I got off at 34th Street and slipped up stairs and got myself a Grande No Whip Mocha Frappachino from starbucks on 7th and 31st street. Then I went back inside to the tour guide office. Lane, the director of the guides and a buddy of mine, was in the office and we talked for a few minutes about the West Side stadium project, and then he left me alone. I found a pay check for me and I surfed the web for like a half hour.

At 6:30 I went outside and met up with my friend Josh outside Cosby's, the sporting goods store directly outside the Garden. I've known Josh for quite some time. We went to elementary school together and became good friends in high school. He works in the music business, so we share a lot of common interests. Josh is a guy who's also open to adventure, and we've taken some pretty spontaneous trips together. Once we both left work at lunch time, without telling anyone, met up at Newark Airport, and flew to Chicago. A friend of ours, Joe D'Urso, his band was opening up for a guy named Joe Grushecky. Which sounds like bubkis to you until you know that Joe Grushecky's lead guitar player is a guy named Bruce Springsteen. No shit. So D'Urso got us on the guest list for this show at the Metro in Chicago. It was packed for the show. D'Urso did a really solid set of six or seven songs. Grushecky came out with Springsteen in tow, and launched into a set of songs that I wasn't familiar with. I guess the songs were pretty good. Sort of unremarkable. Then, at the end of the show Springsteen plays Sherry Darling and Have You Ever Seen The Rain? And we're standing right there, at the front of the house, and it was just awesome. Afterwards, we hung out backstage and met radio people and Joe D'Urso and his band and thanked them for putting us on the guest list and I'll be honest I could say I met and hung out with Bruce, cause it certainly could have happened, but it did not. But I was far from disappointed. We went back to some hotel with D'Urso's band and ordered pizza with them and crashed on the floor of two of his band-mates. We were all on the same flight back to New York first thing in the morning. I walked back into my job at like 10am as if nothing had happened. I got a few raised eyebrows, but nobody said a thing.

So me and Josh, we have got some history between us. Anyway, we went up to the Play by Play restaurant for burgers and then up to the Rangers game. I haven't worked a Ranger game in a little while. I hardly knew a single player on our team. I mean, outside of the goalie, who started the year with us, I don't think a single player was on our opening day roster. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seemed that way. So it was difficult to tell whom we were rooting for. The Rangers lost to Nashville 2-4.

The game let out at around 10pm. Josh and I walked out, he cut uptown on the 3 train, I walked over to Citibank to deposit my paycheck. Then I walked over to the UCBT. On the way over I bumped into a couple of improvisors, guys I like to watch and respect. We did the what are you up to bit and I said "I was at the Rangers game, a paying customer this evening. I guess it was a Pullman's holiday. heh heh heh." And they looked at me like I was crazy. So I explained that a Pullman's holiday is defined as doing something to get away from your job, that is your job. So when the Pullman, who worked on the railroads, took a holiday, on the railroad, well that was a Pullman's holiday. Special for anyone else in the world, but not so special for them. So for me, who works at MSG, going to a Ranger game isn't all that special, but for anyone else, it would be a load of fun. So they got it, they understood the reference, in context, but they'd never heard it before. I asked like 10 other people if they knew what a Pullman's holiday was and not a soul knew what it was. So maybe I'm just making this crap up, or maybe I just know this one esoteric useless reference that really does me no good. I don't know.

Anyway, after 20 minutes of waiting around I bought my ticket to the Cagematch. Van Buren Vs. The Swarm. I liked both shows a lot. The Swarm once again referenced sports anthems, dum dum dum dum da dum, charge. Hmmm.

After the shows we danced on the stage for a couple of songs. Dancing with Birthday girl Jen McNeil made me want to take swing lessons. I can Hora, I must be able to swing.

McManus afterwards with Angela and Gavin and Angela's friend from High School. I was shocked that not only did they not know what a Pullman's holiday was, but they'd never read The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd, one of the great Agatha Christie mysteries of all time. Anyway, we palled around and make all time best lists and drank Harp beer and had a good time. At two the ladies wanted to pull up stakes and make for the 2:30 ferry back to Staten Island. I joined them on the downtown train as far as Chambers Street. Once there I decided to walk home over the Brooklyn Bridge. For some reason the bridge was brilliantly lit up, maybe for a movie shoot or something. It was completely bathed in bright white lights. With the low cloud cover it was really an awesome effect. The bridge looked like Castle Elsinore.

 

[MarkOn10th]

A Pullman's Holiday

I really wonder what the building staff must think of me. This building has a staff. It's a small staff, but they are a hardy and hard working crew. Today they painted doors. This involved opening the doors, propping them open for a few hours, sanding them a bit, painting them, letting them dry, and then closing the door. Well, when they opened my door at 11am, after buzzing I guess, I didn't really hear the buzzing, they found me sleeping in my bed. So great, now I'm up and walking around in underwear and T-Shirt.

I'm making a few phone calls, right in front of them. I'm networking with my fantasy baseball buddies, I'm talking with Adam from Consolidated's partner, Tris, updating her on my activities yesterday (the letter to the web admin). I'm taking a shower, getting dressed, sorting some laundry, running out for a sandwich, eating it right in front of them while watching The West Wing on Bravo. It's just my normal day, but they, they are working those guys. And me, I'm . . .What the hell am I doing?

Eventually I left, at around 4pm. I needed to drop a check off at my stockbroker's office on 53rd and Park Avenue. So I took the 4 train to Grand Central and walked up Park a few blocks. I arrived there at 5:10pm. They have a fortress like atmosphere in this building. "Who are you here to see?" I tell them my broker's name. They call up. No answer. Well, call his assistant, please. No answer. Well, call someone in the cashier's area. I'm dropping off a check. Cashier actually says to door security personnel, "We're not depositing any more checks today. Have him come back tomorrow." So the security lady, who is definitely not going to let me blow this building up with my check, says I need to come back tomorrow. I get a bit huffy and say, there is no way I'm coming back tomorrow. There must be some human being who works for Smith Barney who can take my money, right now, here, today. So she gets huffy right back, "Well, if you know someone else to call, I'll call 'em. But if you don't you can turn around and walk right out those doors."

I ask her if there is a President of Smith Barney in this building. She says yes there is. I ask her to call that person on the phone, now. A secretary or assistant answers the phone and is brought up to date. She asks to speak to me. Security lady hands the phone over. Hello? "Yes, Mr. Lee. What's the problem?" The problem is I have money for you to take and you won't take it from me. "Well, your broker has probably gone home." Yes, but you see, I am here now. "Yes. I can hear that." Yes. Here I am with my check. Down here. "Well what do you want me to do about it?" This is the easiest decision you'll make today Cathy. Either you come down and get this check from me and give it to the cashier or my broker in the morning, or, alternately, me and my entire family will be closing our accounts with Smith Barney first thing in the morning. If I was you, it would be a no brainer. But I'll let you decide. "I'm sorry Mr. Lee, I'll be right down."

Less than 60 seconds later Cathy appears and takes my check and I thank her like I never threatened her or her company.

Why would a company like Smith Barney not have appropriate trained and skilled customer service people available at ten minutes after five on a business day? Why would they depend on building security personnel for customer service? Why wouldn't they have a system in place to take my money? Why can't I, a customer of theirs for years, walk into their freaking office? In general I find office building security the most ludicrous concept on earth. All this nonsense got beefed up after 9-11. As if someone hi-jacked two office buildings and flew them into a plane. Hello!!! If these companies cared, the millions of dollars they are spending on lousy building security could be pooled and sent to improve airport security, which is still FOR SHIT!!

I walked across town to the 1 train and took that to 34th street. On the train I saw Tony Rodriguez. Tony was a tour guide with me. He wasn't one of the original guides, but he joined us not long after we got started. I hadn't seen him in years. He is teaching at FIT now, editorial design. Which is awesome. He is very talented at design. He's also a great musician and not a bad actor. I encouraged him to study improv! anyway, I got off at 34th Street and slipped up stairs and got myself a Grande No Whip Mocha Frappachino from starbucks on 7th and 31st street. Then I went back inside to the tour guide office. Lane, the director of the guides and a buddy of mine, was in the office and we talked for a few minutes about the West Side stadium project, and then he left me alone. I found a pay check for me and I surfed the web for like a half hour.

At 6:30 I went outside and met up with my friend Josh outside Cosby's, the sporting goods store directly outside the Garden. I've known Josh for quite some time. We went to elementary school together and became good friends in high school. He works in the music business, so we share a lot of common interests. Josh is a guy who's also open to adventure, and we've taken some pretty spontaneous trips together. Once we both left work at lunch time, without telling anyone, met up at Newark Airport, and flew to Chicago. A friend of ours, Joe D'Urso, his band was opening up for a guy named Joe Grushecky. Which sounds like bubkis to you until you know that Joe Grushecky's lead guitar player is a guy named Bruce Springsteen. No shit. So D'Urso got us on the guest list for this show at the Metro in Chicago. It was packed for the show. D'Urso did a really solid set of six or seven songs. Grushecky came out with Springsteen in tow, and launched into a set of songs that I wasn't familiar with. I guess the songs were pretty good. Sort of unremarkable. Then, at the end of the show Springsteen plays Sherry Darling and Have You Ever Seen The Rain? And we're standing right there, at the front of the house, and it was just awesome. Afterwards, we hung out backstage and met radio people and Joe D'Urso and his band and thanked them for putting us on the guest list and I'll be honest I could say I met and hung out with Bruce, cause it certainly could have happened, but it did not. But I was far from disappointed. We went back to some hotel with D'Urso's band and ordered pizza with them and crashed on the floor of two of his band-mates. We were all on the same flight back to New York first thing in the morning. I walked back into my job at like 10am as if nothing had happened. I got a few raised eyebrows, but nobody said a thing.

So me and Josh, we have got some history between us. Anyway, we went up to the Play by Play restaurant for burgers and then up to the Rangers game. I haven't worked a Ranger game in a little while. I hardly knew a single player on our team. I mean, outside of the goalie, who started the year with us, I don't think a single player was on our opening day roster. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seemed that way. So it was difficult to tell whom we were rooting for. The Rangers lost to Nashville 2-4.

The game let out at around 10pm. Josh and I walked out, he cut uptown on the 3 train, I walked over to Citibank to deposit my paycheck. Then I walked over to the UCBT. On the way over I bumped into a couple of improvisors, guys I like to watch and respect. We did the what are you up to bit and I said "I was at the Rangers game, a paying customer this evening. I guess it was a Pullman's holiday. heh heh heh." And they looked at me like I was crazy. So I explained that a Pullman's holiday is defined as doing something to get away from your job, that is your job. So when the Pullman, who worked on the railroads, took a holiday, on the railroad, well that was a Pullman's holiday. Special for anyone else in the world, but not so special for them. So for me, who works at MSG, going to a Ranger game isn't all that special, but for anyone else, it would be a load of fun. So they got it, they understood the reference, in context, but they'd never heard it before. I asked like 10 other people if they knew what a Pullman's holiday was and not a soul knew what it was. So maybe I'm just making this crap up, or maybe I just know this one esoteric useless reference that really does me no good. I don't know.

Anyway, after 20 minutes of waiting around I bought my ticket to the Cagematch. Van Buren Vs. The Swarm. I liked both shows a lot. The Swarm once again referenced sports anthems, dum dum dum dum da dum, charge. Hmmm.

After the shows we danced on the stage for a couple of songs. Dancing with Birthday girl Jen McNeil made me want to take swing lessons. I can Hora, I must be able to swing.

McManus afterwards with Angela and Gavin and Angela's friend from High School. I was shocked that not only did they not know what a Pullman's holiday was, but they'd never read The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd, one of the great Agatha Christie mysteries of all time. Anyway, we palled around and make all time best lists and drank Harp beer and had a good time. At two the ladies wanted to pull up stakes and make for the 2:30 ferry back to Staten Island. I joined them on the downtown train as far as Chambers Street. Once there I decided to walk home over the Brooklyn Bridge. For some reason the bridge was brilliantly lit up, maybe for a movie shoot or something. It was completely bathed in bright white lights. With the low cloud cover it was really an awesome effect. The bridge looked like Castle Elsinore.

 

[MarkOn10th]

An example of a day without direction. I've got a lot a lot to do people, and for some reason I did none of it today. I got started on no less than 5 different projects, but I saw none of them through. I have to do some market research homework. I have to write up my bits for the Info systems final project. I have to read a few chapters for my management class, and then do some homework associated with them. I have to clean up the living room. I have a bunch of stuff to do, no question.

Instead I played online poker and watched Lost In Translation. Those I did just fine. But actually seeing the above schoolwork and housework through, I failed at that. So now I have to do this stuff tomorrow and Sunday. Because leaving shit to the last second leads to better results, right?

I can't even give you the hour by hour what I did today replay. I don't freaking remember. I know that at 6:30 I realized I hadn't done a thing and banned myself from going out to party, as I wanted to. So, I buckled down on the work to be done. But after 40 minutes of the first project I wanted to get dinner. Fine. So I pick up some chicken and potatoes from the deli. Great. And I started rolling Lost In Translation and was just fascinated. Next thing I know it's 9:15pm and I still haven't successfully done a thing. So I sit down and start another project . . .and I am focused for all of about 30 minutes before I realize I've been cooped up inside all day. So I go out for a walk along the Promenade for 30 minutes. Then it's 10:30pm. I make the call to bag it all, clean up and go to bed before 1am, and get up early tomorrow and try again.

I checked my e-mail and got an interesting surprise from the People's Improv Theater. They have placed me on one of their new 29th Street Social Club Ensembles. This is certainly an interesting and happy development for me. I will embrace this new team and enjoy it and perform and learn and commit. These opportunities don't come along very often.

 

[MarkOn10th]

I woke up pretty early today and washed my clothes in the basement. I was finished with the laundry and breakfast and showered by 11am. I spent an hour tummelling with my fantasy baseball team. I had to e-mail my roster into the commissioner by noon. At 11:45 I made a trade: I gave up Contreras (at $14) and a first round minor leauge pick and in return I got Joe Randa ($10) Larry Bigbie ($6) and Eric DuBose ($6). I desperately needed some hitting and had quite a few pitchers that were decent value. Losing Contreras is no great loss to me. I led our league in many pitching categories last year and none of them were thanks to Contreras. I think he's a good pitcher and probably will settle in as the Yankees fourth or fifth starter.

Anyway, at one I headed out for some lunch and then on to my PIT class: The Movie. It was a small group today. I don't know where the rest of the class was. I hope they can get refocused next week. I sadly will not be there next week as I'm going down to DC for this baseball draft. Anyway, outside of the absence of 9 classmates, the class was good. The five of us got quite a workout.

After class I went home and made some spaghetti. I finally got that Dexter Gordon "Our Man In Paris" CD from BMG music club. So I ate and listened to Dexter and relaxed. At 8pm I started in on my Info Systems project. My teammates had uploaded their parts of the paper onto an electronic bulletin board system. I downloaded their parts onto my computer.

My job is: 1) answer question 7 "Develop a taxonomy of overall specific applications for COSCO." 2) answer question 9 "Develop a balanced scorecard model to evaluate and measure COSCO's electronic commerce initiatives (real and potential)." and then 3) take everyone else's responses and weave them together into one seamless paper with unified notes, bibliography, appendices, etc.

I tackled parts 1 and 3 tonight and I'll do part 2 tomorrow. I actually wasn't able to carry part 1 to full potential, but I got a lot of work done on it. I should have time tomorrow to finish everything. My concern is that the professor has limited the total page count to 10 pages, and we are already past 12. I haven't even answered question 9 yet and we are too long. So I guess I'll have to do some editing tomorrow too.

I designed a four panel cartoon to explain one of my ideas for this paper. I wonder if my teammates will like my cartoon. I can't draw worth a damn, but I'm hoping that the main idea gets across. I wonder how many other business school students have used stick figure cartoons to convey thoughts and ideas.