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.