THE MORNING SWIMS ARE BACK!

My favorite daily ritual is the my morning swim.  I like the routine I'm in now and would like to see if I can keep it consistent this summer.  I'm up at 6AM, make coffee in my new Nespresso maker, and read email and the news online.  Then I put on my swimsuit, grab my keys and towel, and head downstairs to the lobby of my building, walk down Alton Road, past the beautiful South Pointe Park and Continuum 2 to the southern most beach of South Beach.  I say a little prayer and then swim around underwater in the ocean for about 10 minutes.  Then I go to the outdoor shower and shower off with fresh water, walk back to my condo, get my mail, and then upstairs to make my morning protein fruit shake.  I then shower with the IPod on, get dressed, lock up my place, head down to the garage, get in my Mercedes, put the hardtop convertible top down, put on my Dita sunglasses and take the scenic MacArthur Causeway to work.

I only do the morning swims April -mid November (8 months out of the year).  I actually go through a week's depression and withdrawl when I stop in mid-November because both the air and the water are too cold.  I do go in the ocean at other times of the year.  I was in Biscayne Bay this January, and I go in the water at least once when I go to the beach on the weekends.  But what I really miss is the morning swims, seeing all the dogs and other "early birds" are up to.  The morning swims are really my time to reflect, look at the big picture, think, ponder, and strategize.  It's really the most relaxing time I have all day until I watch TV at night and do some reading in bed.

Now if that sounds like a page taken from Bret Easton Ellis' "American Psycho", it's not.  That's what I do almost every morning (weather permitting) Monday - Friday.  To say that I lead a very charmed, very blessed life is an understatement.  I am very thankful for the life that I lead.

FACEBOOK & TWITTER - TO JOIN OR NOT TO JOIN.....

My first introduction to social networking was when I joined a new site called Friendster in 2003.  It was a fun site and social networking was the new, "coolest thing" to do on the internet.  Essentially Friendster was used as an online dating tool, which itself spurred online dating sites such as Match.com.  I personally never used Friendster as a dating tool, but then again, I have never used the internet to hook up, not even from the old AOL Chat Room days in the 90's.  (Not that there's anything wrong with using social networks as a dating tool - no judgements here.  Personally, I prefer the old fashion way of hooking up - you know, going to a bar or club, actually talking to someone face to face....plus I always heard too many horror stories from my friends who did hook up online).

A year or so after Friendster, I joined a mostly gay dating site called Connexion.  Continuing with the rapid evolution of social networking sites, I then opened a MySpace account for my African grey parrot, Wheaton.  And now, inevitibly, I am asked the question everyone has been asked, "Are you on Facebook?" (Side note - my ex boyfriend made me take down my Friendster and Connexion accounts.  Wheaton's My Space still exists, but it sits dormant 99% of the time).

As someone in love with technology, I find the historical evolution of social network compelling.  In Asia, Friendster is the application du jour.  In the U.S. & Europe it was My Space.  In Brazil, as part of the BRIC countries with their own unique culture, it's Google's Okrut.  And now, as Facebook hits 200 million users (nearly 1 million users added daily), it is rapidly becoming the first worldwide social networking site.  Where Friendster was rather rudimentary, My Space was nice evolution, but it was mostly a site where you told the world everything all about you.  Facebook is much more of a social networking site in the sense that you socialize more and it's as much about your "friends" as you.

I'm not on Facebook, and I do not have any intention of joining anytime soon.  Why not?  Well, the fundamental reason is that I put a very high price on my privacy.  Too many people, especially young people, have put WAY TOO MUCH of themselves online and inevitably can pay dearly for too much open disclosure online.  For me, the internet has always been where I put only the a PG version of myself online.  There are no nude photos of me online, pictures of me drinking or throwing up, homemade sex videos, or any other of the range of embarrassements that one inevitable commits in real life that can be forever enshrined digitally.  People use Facebook to judge you and even make decisions about whether they want to be your friend or lover.  Someone told me they use it to see who their potential lovers "friends" are before deciding whether to hook up with them or not.  Regardless, I think my life is interesting, but interesting enough for my friends, or anyone else for that matter, to follow my daily comings and goings?  There's no way I'm that interesting, and I think I lead a great life, but not so compelling that I should star in my own reality show.  

I lead a good deal of my life online.  I have this blog, an online photo site on Picasa, a video site on You Tube, and I'm moving a great deal of my life into Google's Cloud (GMail & Google Calendar).  I come from the generation that believes in harnessing technology for your own personal benefit, not to throw up digital roadblocks by exposing too much of your life in the digital equivalent of the Roman Forum at Circus Maximus.  Technology exists to make my modern life into an easier digital modern life.  My next digital step is moving my work into the cloud utilizing Microsoft's Office Live.

Facebook is a great tool, and very valuable, but I have too many concerns about my privacy to open an account.  I want a Facebook for my professional life (work - G rated), my personal life (my gay life - PG-13 rated), and my family (G-rated).  Facebook does allow for this, but there's too many back doors, technical errors, and workarounds that there exists the very real possibility of too many worlds colliding, with potentially negative benefits.  It's one thing to have a good time on Friday night, it's quite another for your boss to be able to see what you did all weekend long.  And Facebook takes up so much time, that as I get closer to the magical 40, I have too much else I would rather be doing than updating my Facebook status on a daily basis.

And Twitter, well, Twitter is very rapidly becoming a mini-marketing tool.  The microblogging site is interesting, and it's the celebrity Twitters that make for compelling reading.  But really, celebrities have such a short attention span, that Twitter looks like it will burn out after a year or 2.  The last time this happened is when micro-celebrities (Ashlee Simpson, Pete Wentz, Lindsay Lohan) blogged on their MySpace account.  Twitter is the same thing.  It started as a publicists worse nightmare (a celebrity end runaround, where a carefully crafted public image and be wiped away in under 140 character tweets).  Again, I think I lead a fascinating life that I really enjoy, but does anyone really want to follow my every move in under 140 characters.  I think not.

My favorite quote so far on Twittering is from Stephen Colbert.  When asked on national television on the Today Show if he Twitters, Mr Colbert replied, "Yes, I have Twatted."  Hilarious!

UPDATE: Turns out I'm part of what's called an "ambivalet networker"
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090408/ap_on_hi_te/tec_sociability_fatigue

DIGITAL LOCKER PHONE & YOUTUBE REVENUE GENERATION SOLVED

Here are 2 technology products that I'm eagerly anticipating: 1. The digital locker/mobile phone combo. Currently, households around the world have any number of boxes hooked into their televisions. You could have a cable or satellite box, a game console (XBox, Wii), and a home theater system, all hooked into your TV. And now the race is on for the "next box" that every home has to have (Apple, Roku). While everyone agrees it has to be small and easy to use, I don't think people want to hook up yet another box to yet another confusing outlet on your TV system and then play with the remote to figure out how to make it work. (apologies for the run on sentence). What I want is the digital locker phone. First of all, we already carry our phones with us everywhere we go. I want to put my digital life (music, movies) up in the cloud and then pull them down through a 4G connection to my cell phone and then stream them over the internet to my television, or my friend's television, or my laptop or at work. Basically, since I take my phone everywhere with me anyway, I want to turn my phone into the settop box. No more taking DVD's over to your friend's house for movie night and forgetting them.

And here's how Google can make money off of the User Generated Content videos on their site. Google needs to create an online software tool directly linking YouTube user content to advertisers. Let me give you an example. The most popular video on my site is a video I took of a cruise ship leaving the Port of Miami. It's a really cool video that has been lumped in with other cruise videos on YouTube. So obviously, the people watching my video are interested in going on a cruise. What I need is to get in touch with Carnvial Cruise Lines (whose ship is featured in my video). As a user, if I want to generate revenue off of my content, I need a tool to communicate to Carnival Cruise lines to post their ad on my video so that anyone who watches the video and then clicks the embedded video ad to go to their site, I should get paid for it. Carnival can tag which videos it wants to put ads on. It can tag videos it thinks are harmful to it's image (such as someone throwing up on one of their cruise ships), and tag million of UGC videos with 1 advertisement covering the whole site. Google needs to come up with an online software tool to connect users with advertisers. Companies need a digital video person to review and make the selections, and the user gets a small amount of ad revenue. Everybody wins. Can you image the advertising Disney would get for it's theme parks if it tagged every Disney UGC video on YouTube? And don't forget, YouTube gives you worldwide coverage.

(Click the Google Image on the right, it's quite funny)

UPDATE - Apparently Disney thinks I have the right idea:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703816204574485650026945222.html

SOUTH POINTE PARK REOPENS

After 20 months and at a cost to the tax payer of $22.4 million, the 17.5 acre South Pointe Park reopened on Sunday afternoon. I must say, the City of Miami Beach did a wonderful job with the renovation on the park. Personally, this is a great use of city tax dollars, and as a homeowner south of 5th Street, this definitely adds to my property's value (once that comes back.....).

The park has been completely relandscaped with water fountains, access to South Beach and the pier. SPP has 20 foot wide palm tree filled walkways lined with Florida limestone and restored natural sand dunes, covered with sea grass. The city added a hill that kids can tumble down and panoramic views. All while blending in nicely with the urban landscape. Kids, dogs, adults, and businesses will love it.

If this is how other cities use the stimulus tax dollars, we'll be OK.

UPDATE: NY Times article of SoFi: http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/travel/31next.html?hp

I'M OUTRAGED WITH ALL THE OUTRAGE

(I stole the title of this blog from a newspaper writer on CNBC who was being interviewed).

And frankly I agree.  What AIG did was obviously poor business practices, but don't attack AIG or their employees.  The House of Representatives totally overreacted this week to the bonuses at AIG.  The tax legislation they passed will never make it into law, and the Congressmen are not governing, they are reacting to populism.

First of all bravo to Wall Street for continuing to be smarter than the politicians running Washington.  We all knew that Wall Street would find a way to take taxpayer money, hell, the government is just handing it out anyway, so loopholes in the rushed legislation will continue to be exploited.  Anytime there's a government project with government money, there's corruption, waste, and fraud.

Second, the government doesn't have enough on it's plate already that now they're going to handle more with AIG, and banks?  Please.  Washington was such a mess already, that there's no way they're going to be able to successfully manage these large private worldwide congolmerates.  The bailouts need to end and the process of selling off and denationalizing these companies needs to begin now.  

Third, the government needs private business.  If the sands keeps shifting and there's an increased possibility of Congress constantly changing the rules and legislating pay and compensation, no private money will flow back into the financial system to clean up the toxic mortgage assests.  And politicians are not good businessmen.  That's why you don't see CEOs running for office.

Everyone needs to calm down and look a bit further down field and keep their eye on the ball (to borrow about 3 sports metaphors).  We're still not out of this mess and AIG is just a distraction.  Populism is turning into another word for stupidity.  

Joe Nocera has a great article in the NY Times:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/21/business/21nocera.html?em

"PLAYIN' WITH THE FIRE 'TIL THE FIRE PLAYED WITH ME"

A few weeks ago U2 released their 21st album "No Line On The Horizon".  Like most U2 albums, the album requires several listenings to really form an opinion.  I like NLOTH.  It's a very accomplished album, but how do you record a follow up "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb"?  HTDAAB was a stunning U2 album for the 21st century.  A bold album full of melody, power, bravado, with each song better than the last one.  The title of the album (How To Dismantle...) refers to Bono watching his father die (Bono's father is the atomic bomb).  Bono's father passed away during the recording of the album.  What is amazing is how as an artist, Bono channeled all that raw feeling and emotion into an incredible album.  Making the follow-up to How To Dismantle must have been the same feeling Madonna had making the follow-up to Confessions on the Dance Floor, as an artist how do you top your seminal work?

NLOTH is a very good album, but it lacks a focus and clarity the previous U2 album.  You can tell from the press that Bono's talking more and more esoterically.  And while U2 doesn't seem interested in "topping" themselves, for me it does speak to a very interesting mindset.  One of the highlights of the album is the 2 different cuts of the title track.  I have heard that U2 will record the same song with 3 or 4 different producers and then put the track they like best on the album.  It's quite an interesting way to work with producers. 

When I look at emerging artists (musicians, actors, artists), there is a raw hunger there.  Whether it's a hunger for fame or having their art out in popular culture, there's a hunger to breakout and breakthrough.  And then as an artist, you do it, your work speaks to people and you become famous.  You are heralded as the second coming of the last second coming....then what?  Inevitably comes the sophomore slump.  The next project after a dazzling debut is largely a pitfall for artists.  The connection to the general public, the life you lived before you became famous, is gone now that you're in the bubble of fame.  Some swim, some sink, and some rise to the top of their field.  Madonna, The Rolling Stones, and U2 are at the top of their respective music genres.  They're #1.  And the mentality to get to be #1 is a very different mentality than what it takes to stay #1.

The tennis world has a perfect parallel between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.  Roger Federer has been the world's #1 tennis player for 4 years.  With the younger, more vital Nadal (and every other tennis player) nipping at your heels.  Getting to #1 is the hunger of competition.  Staying #1 requires a grace, and emotional and mental maturity unlike any other.  There are so few people who are #1, better than anyone else in the world in their respective areas.  They must only be able to relate to eachother in that sense.  I have the utmost respect, for their dilemma - how do you top yourself when you're already #1?

UPDATE:  I like the 2nd version of No Line On The Horizon better than the first.  I would love an entire album full of the "rejected" versions of U2 songs.

"TO LOVE ANOTHER PERSON IS TO SEE THE FACE OF GOD...."

Last night I went to see my first regional theater production of Les Miserables at the beautiful Miracle Theater in Coral Gables (itself a converted cinema).  I was excited to see how the company would stage the musical.  In regional theater, for obvious cost reasons, you cannot make the whole stage a turntable, like in the Broadway version.  I wanted to see how the director would reimagine the staging without all the actors looking like homeless people that stepped out of a revolving door to sing.

Les Miserables was the musical that ignited my love of musical theater.  When it opened in 1980, I was 10 years old.  I remember reading about it and hearing about the London and Broadway versions.  Broadway and London were so exotic and so far away from where I lived in tiny Amesbury, Massachusetts.  At that time, the American musical was dead on Broadway and so began the rush of the British musical onto the American theater stage.  The invasion started with Cats, and continued with Les Miz, Phantom of the Opera, Miss Saigon.....I rememeber that because of Les Miz and Phantom, I had to see these shows on Broadway.  That also began my love affair with New York City and my very fond memories of visiting Manhattan and seeing a Broadway show with my beloved Nana Pike.  In my lifetime, Les Miz is the musical I have seen at least 20 times, followed closely by Phantom at 15 times.  I have a real emotion connection to Les Miz.

Now imagine my utter disappointment when director's "reimagining" was staging the exact same version as the Broadway show, only WITHOUT the turntable.  And that's where the whole  production started to fall apart for me.  The "small furniture and pools of light" scenes work when Les Miz is staged with the turntable.  But the small furniture/pools of light version begin to show the flaws of the musical when it's performed on bare stage.  First of all, the actors were great singers and performed a very difficult musical flawlessly.  But the directing was so flat and unimaginative, that it was distracting.  The director just copied the Broadway show, down to the silly slow motion running to open scenes, Javert's suicide off a bridge, the cart, and even a scaled down version of the barracade.  (The barracade is crucial to the show, so I understand that there's not much dramatic license you can take with that, but the rest of show screams for a more interesting version).  Copying isn't directing.  And the poor set design didn't help either.  Any piece of musical theater can be restaged in a different form and still work for the audience.  Director John Doyle is completely reimaging musicals such as Sweeney Todd and Company with brilliant results and whole new take on an old Broadway musical.  Let's hope that other directors and other companies take some risks with a standard and remake, not redo Les Miserables.

I would love to see what the UMass Musical Theater Guild would do with the show.

LIFTOFF!!!

On Sunday, March 15th, the Space Shuttle Discovery launched from Cape Canaveral at 19:43.  It was a beautiful liftoff, which I saw from my balcony right here in Miami for the very first time.  A lift off is quite a sight to see.  It looks like a missle being fired into space.

I have been fortunately to view 2 Space Shuttle liftoffs from the Kennedy Center in Cape Canaveral.  Shuttle launches are truly awe inspiring.  How many people on Earth actually get to see an object launched into outer space?  The only other countries with space travel capabilities are Brazil (the European Space Agency), Russia, China, and soon India.  The general populice of both Russia and China would never be allowed to view a space launch, since it's a military function.  (I'm not sure if Brazilian citizens are allowed).  But as an American citizen to watch something being blasted into outer space is so cool.  

One of the things everyone must do at some point in their lives is watch a live liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center.  The liftoff itself is very quick.  The shuttle is accelerating so fast, that you barely get to see it go off.  But what is unmistakeable is the sound.  The roar that comes off the launch pad from the rockets is unlike anything you've ever heard before.

NASA has a definitely PR problem.  I am a firm believer that the United States needs to be at the forefront of space exploration.  Exploration is what found and sustained this great nation.  We need to out in front, leading the world in space exploration.  But NASA has done a poor job on 2 fronts:  1.  NASA was supposed to be a way to bring space exploration to the masses, since the U.S. taxpayers foot the bill for the agency (this is unlikely to happen).  Instead, Virgin Galactic and private space exploration has stepped in to fill this gap:  http://www.virgingalactic.com/  I cannot wait to fly on Virgin Galactic into "inner space" and experience weightlessness, if only for a few minutes.  Of course, the price will have to come way down (currently booking for $200,000) but I'm ready to put down my credit card and make a reservation in about 10 years.

Another NASA PR flub is not fully explaining the international space station.  The reason for the space station is twofold:  1.  Space is an easier launching pad than Earth and 2. What are the long term effects on human beings to exposure in space?  Both are crucial details for colonizing the moon and for longer space missions, such as those to Mars.  I know that in my lifetime I will get to see the first Americans land on Mars.  And what an amazing day that will be for the United States of America.

UPDATE:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/science/space/31mars.html?_r=1&hpw

TVOLUTION

From the time television was invented in 1923 until about 2001, TV was a pretty static electronic device.  The average U.S. household had more than 1 TV set, but that TV set was largely in 2 rooms - the living room and the bedroom (or mulitple bedrooms).  If you wanted to see a TV show and you were not going to be home, you had to set your VCR to tape record the show and then you could play it back later.  Television has always been inventive - black & white with sound into color.  Then came better reception with cable, then pay TV with HBO, then more channels, then satellite, then home theaters, then plasmas, then LCD, all with ever expanding picture size....the medium has constantly evolved, but tracking how people consume TV has changed radically within the last 5 years.

For previous generations, TV was room based, passive entertainment.  For today's generation, TV is mobile and ubiquitous.  Consider how the future generations of America's television experiences will be:  A child's first TV exposure is usually to a big screen TV in their parents living room with the TV as babysitter playing an endless loops of Pixar films, Cartoon Network, and Nickelodeon.  Then children will graduate to some type of mobile TV device, an ITouch, their first cell phone with video capability, a PSP, and also baby's first laptop.  Not much of TV consumption will change until college, when the TV experience goes almost completely onto a laptop.  There will still be the big event shows (Super Bowl, Oscars) that college students will watch on a big screen TV en masse, but for college students 99% of their TV viewing will be on a laptop.  Then after college graduation, and your first apartment, in comes the big screen TV again, and the laptop becomes a catch up device or for short form video content.  

It's not just that TV viewing habits such as time spent, and programming choices change, it's that there are some many devices that we use and go through in different stages of our adult lives that will detemine how we watch TV.  But make no mistake about it, research shows that with more ways to watch TV (laptops, TV, IPods), we're watching more of it:  http://en-us.nielsen.com/main/news/news_releases/2009/February/tv_internet_and_mobile

NO SUPERPOWERS? HOW BORING!

Last night I watched THE WATCHMEN movie.  When the comic book was released in 1987 (I was 17 and a junior in high school), I remember there being a big uproar in the comic book community about WATCHMEN (this was before the web or bloggers - we got our information through --gasp! -- magazines).  I bought the complete graphic novel, and only made it half way through - and frankly, I didn't see what all the hype was about.  After watching the movie 22 years removed from the material, now I understand.

WATCHMEN is as close to reality as a "real" comic story could ever get.  WATCHMEN, as a piece of visual literature, both redefines, honors, deconstructs and renews the very universe of comic books.  It is both trapped by it's own structure and yet completely liberated from it.  The entire concept is a paradox that makes perfect sense.  It uses every superhero cliche and is not caught in any cliche.  Simply put, it is brilliant writing and well deserved of all the accolades heaped upon it.  Alan Moore is the Einstein of the comic book world.  Stan Lee, Bob Kane, Jack Kirby, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster may have created the medium, but Alan Moore matured it into adulthood.

The movie was very good.  Long and slavish in detail to the comic book.  Slavish to the point where it was like watching a visual comic book. WATCHMEN never took on a life of it's own as a feature film.  DARK KNIGHT is both a classic Batman story in structure, yet completely inhabits it's own world as a standout feature film.  What I thought while watching, is that this movie, done properly, would have won an Academy Award for Best Picture, but not this version.  It makes me wonder what Chris Nolan would have done with WATCHMEN.

That's not to say that Zac Synder's movie isn't very good, it is.  As a comic book fan, I really enjoyed it.  The story's depth remains with me after watching the film.  Mr. Synder is a brilliant visual filmmaker.  He is the greatest of what I would define as the generation of filmmakers about to come out of the video game industry.  And if Mr. Synder is a preview of what directing from that "school" will be like, the movie going experience will be visually unprecidented in scope and action. As someone who works for the studio, I was mildly disappointed.  It's a fan film that will not attract the broader general audience to see the film in the way that DARK KNIGHT did.  It will open huge and make a lot of money, but it not a billion dollars.  I think Warner Bros. is doing a good job marketing the film into an event, but the marketing is not really preparing the audience for what the film is at heart to the general public - and that's a detective story - the foundation of all comics.  I have not yet seen any studio successfully market a murder mystery, but that hasn't been done since Agatha Christie films.  Studios don't make murder mystery films anymore, just the murder part (horror - which itself has simply declined into repetitive torture genre films).

There are 2 unrelated points I want to make.  1.  As exciting as both DARK KNIGHT & WATCHMEN are, I still like heroes with superpowers.  Smart guys who make suits (Iron Man, Batman) are fine.  I get the appeal, but give me a mutant any day.  In my mind, you're not a superhero if you don't have powers.  And 2.  Everyone should go back and rewatch movies and reread books they read when they were children or teenagers.  When I see a movie that I loved as a kid, it takes on a whole new and deeper meaning for me as an adult.