joygantic

Eight Belles

I’m not a sports fan.

That’s a statement that might seem curious given that I grew up on a consistent weekend diet of ABC's Wild World of Sports, played organized sports (mostly soccer) for years as a youth, and in my teenage years briefly dreamed I would follow in Peter Ueberroth’s footsteps and eventually be in charge of staging the Olympic Games. 

Hindsight tells me that my love of playing sports had far more to do with loving being active and enjoying the social component of being on a team (I love teams) than actually loving the sport, my desire to stage the Olympics was really about my fascination with events that draw people together (c.f. Burning Man), and my love of Wild World of Sports was all about hanging out with my dad and--crucially--being genuinely riveted by "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat."

These days, I tune into sports only for the crux:  I watched the last quarter of a couple Final Four games this year, I watched the last half of the Super Bowl. 

I was in LA on Saturday and on the plane ride down read the New York Times pre-coverage of the Kentucky Derby.  My friend Karen in NYC has gone to the Derby for years and sung its praises.  I was in Kentucky for a lovely wedding a few years ago and got a glimpse of the horse farms and the gorgeous rolling countryside, so I felt some vague social connection with the event.  The race lasts, like, 3 minutes and based on my NYT reading was fraught with drama.  I was in.

I turned on the TV at 3pm, knowing that post-time was 3:04.  Perfect.  My sports victory/defeat button was gonna be pushed in, what?, ten minutes or so of TV watching?

The Derby is interesting to me from a business perspective.  Typically--think Super Bowl--the advertisers and sponsors are out there trying to get TV viewers to buy their products.  Their beer, their pizza, their car.  But the Derby is different.  Thoroughbred racing is not a middle-class sport and the ads reflected this even though it's on broadcast TV.  While I haven't seen this written down anywhere, it was clear that NetJets bought the "jockey pants sponsorship"; every jockey was pimping for fractional private jet ownership. And Yum Brands--Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC--was sponsoring the event not so they could sell more pizza/tacos/chicken but rather "to attract more individual shareholders."

A weird little window into social class, broadcast for all to see.

And then the race.

Starting from the outermost stall, Big Brown just dominated.  It was glorious to watch.  Riveting.   Just amazing.  OMG.  Wow.  "Thrill of Victory"?  Check. 

And then the second place horse, Eight Belles, "broke down" . . . which I've come to understand is apparently horsey talk for "won't live long."  The filly was cooling down and just collapsed with compound fractures (!) in both front legs.  She was euthanized on the track.

WTF?!!

"Agony of defeat" is one thing, but dying for sport?  "Sorry kiddo, you failed to win, we gotta kill ya."  That's basically the plot of a Steven King novel I read when I was a kid, but here it was on TV.  And the TV folks were ill equipped to handle it.  There were faint mentions of Eight Belles--a shot of the equine ambulances on the track, a note that she was injured, a brief statement from the track doc that she'd been put down.  And then . . . nothing.

I don't have any great thoughts about horse racing and what's wrong or what's right. I love the rush brought by the "thrill of victory and the agony of defeat" but remain completely upset that a gorgeous being had to die to complete that story.

I don't have a coherent ideology to draw on here to make sense of this, but I've been feeling dirty ever since.

Eight Belles . . . sorry.

 

Everyday Matters*

I was thinking of putting the blog on hiatus, but then for nearly a month it kind of did that by itself, didn't it?  Things have not exactly been joygantic of late, though I believe I'm in the midst of a necessary period of hunkering down, figuring shit out, dealing with life and at the end of this tunnel I will be standing in a vast green meadow of loveliness, re-energized, passionate, and focused.  Actually, I'm most of those things now--to some degree--but as I'll explain my energy has been going elsewhere.

Recently I've become convinced that Thor is sitting on a cloud in the sky looking down on the world and--perhaps he's drunk and feeling mischievous--periodically says to himself "Ah, that Mark guy, let me toss a lightning bolt at him!"  Again and again.

Lightning Bolt #1: Crazy, intense work.  I'm in the midst of a bunch of stuff that's good, time consuming, and pretty high stakes (at least as far as work is concerned--my perspective has recently been adjusted, see below).

Lightning Bolt #2: Dia and I are splitting up.  We've been together for almost 15 years, married for 12.5, but this relationship that we've both cherished is no longer working in its current configuration.  The reasons are simple and complex and I've no desire to broadcast them.  We love each other and are about to figure out what that means when we're no longer living together; she's moving to San Diego sometime in the next several weeks.

I don't know about you, but dealing with either #1 or #2 would be more than enough to have on my plate at one time.  To be honest, I've been a bit of a mess.  But that crazy Thor, with his Nordic sense of humor decided he'd see what happened if he fucked with me further, thus:

Lightning Bolt #3: Three Mondays ago I flew to NYC for "important" business meetings.  Less than 48 hours after arriving I had an excrutiatingly painful medical emergency due to an "incarcerated abdominal hernia." Good fortune and good connections land me the best possible care, culminating in surgery. Two nights in the hospital on a morphine drip were followed five nights staying with Dia at a friend's apartment zonked on percoset and a flight back to Seattle last Friday. I've been resting, am no longer on meds (that much), and am back at work thanking my lucky stars that things worked out so well.

So it's been a very, uh, eventful 2008 in general and an utterly insane April.  Figured I'd let y'all know what's up.

_____________

* I love a double entendre and in this case it might be a triple, because Everyday Matters is the name of an absolutely wonderful graphic novel that lifted my spirits in New York.  Sally added it to an incredibly thoughtful care package my company sent me while I was recovering which included The Way Back Home (thanks Lori!), flowers, and a crucial set of sweatpants (I still can not fit into most pants owing to swelling and bloating).  Thanks Jaimee.  Oh, and by the way, note that a graphic novel and a children's book are perfect diversions for someone on pain meds.  I read both immediately but was otherwise unable to concentrate enough to read an actual, text-centric book.  I did, however, watch the finale to Rock of Love II.  Twice.  Do you need any further evidence that narcotics should be regulated?

Rock Chalk Jayhawk Dance Montage (and More!)

My brother, who's awesomeness I've touted previously just received tenure at the University of Kansas as I mentioned below.  While some folks might have sent a calmly composed email to notify the people in their life, that's not how Brian rolls.  He busted out this jubilant video announcement complete with career highlights, rollerblading, and dance montages from his favorite movies.  It rocks, even if you've never met him.

Oh, and if you're (a) not a sports fan, (b) are from the West Coast, or like me (c) both then "Rock Chalk Jayhawk" sounds like pure nonsense.  Which actually makes its origins (with a university science club in the late 1800s!) all the more interesting.

Tenure!

My brother received tenure at the University of Kansas yesterday.

If you're not familiar with academia you may not understand why tenure is such a big deal.  It's a designation that generally is equated with "a job for life" or, more specifically, an imprimatur that the professor in question has met the high standards of their profession and has the "academic freedom" to research whatever the hell it is they think is important.

Tenure is a key vehicle for ensuring that our society has people who think about, research, and teach things that are unpopular.  And getting there requires an academic track record of research that's accepted and vetted as important and high quality by an academic's colleagues at their own university, in their field outside their university, ad ultimately a series of gatekeepers at the department/college/university level have to sign off.  It's the biggest possible deal for for an academic.

It's been a long road for Brian.  This achievement marks a key juncture in a career that he's  been building for--what?--fifteen years?

Wow.

I'm happy as hell for him and proud as can be.

Spring Sprung Sprang

Today's the first day of Spring which I know 'cause Google's logo was filled with tulips.  But it was reinforced when I was standing in the pouring rain wishing I had sunglasses on because the sky was so bright.  Ah, Spring in Seattle.

This year I gave up the entire contents of my intestines for Lent.  And to show my religious devotion I had a fever for 36 hours.  In honor of the baby Jesus who would be sacrificed for our sins, I curled up in a fetal position and prayed for hours on end.  Though there shall be no false idols, I worshiped at a porcelain god and was duly punished. 

I shake my fist at the damned stomach flu that's weakened me, moved work deadlines to my weekend, and necessitated the cancellation of planned manly drunkenness and skiing planned for a weekend bachelor party in Canada. 

Perhaps it's the cosmic forces of the universe telling me that a weekend of drunkenness and skiing would land me in the hospital.  But I'm annoyed I won't be able to trot around in my new, stylish, high tech, orange parka (thank you REI dividend!).

Seriously, the last time I felt close to this horrible was 20 years ago when I found myself alone, with dysentery, on a houseboat in Kashmir, watching my bloody diarrhea go straight into the lake creating a feeding frenzy among the little fish that apparently thrived on the trauma of travelers.  Sorry.  That was gross.  But that was also the only point in my life when I really thought "you know, it wouldn't be so bad if I just DIED right now."

I didn't come close to that threshold this time, but it sucked and I do wanna reach out and hug my mom (an RN) for her medical advice and my dear friends who texted/emailed support and care offered to bring me whatever I needed. Thankfully I had tuna to feed my blind cat and managed the energy to buy Gatorade so dehydration was avoided.

TMI, I know.

<sigh>

But I walk on . . .

Round here, not much to report except:

• My minor sound bite this week on Morning Edition prompted multiple friends to text/email me, reminding me that mass media is, well, mass media. (And reinforcing that when your PR ace puts talking points together, you should stick to them. Doh!)
• Our data on iPhone made splash, which is awesome, though I wish the New York Times hadn't made me out to be such a fanboy 'cause my thoughts on the device are more nuanced.
• My brother sent me an article that made me change my underwear and confirmed again that it was a good decision to give up rockclimbing.  I posted it to MetaFilter.
• I need a haircut (shaggy on the sides, balding in the center--can't we have some equity here?)
• I'm in Seattle all next week.  Unless I go to LA on Monday.  Or NYC on Wednesday.
• Having turned in my expense reports for the year to date I've realized that the expense of keeping me aloft in my gig would be a fine living for more than half of the populous. I'm completely unsure about how I feel about that.
• I'm not sure there is any bigger way to feel like an asshole than to be approached by a homeless person while talking on your iPhone and preemptively (and truthfully) say "sorry man, my wallet's in the restaurant" and have them respond "I just wanted to say God Bless You"

Over and out.

I Dig Our New Neon Logo

We're Three!

Our company turned three today.  OK, that's actually not completely accurate; today is the third anniversary of our public launch, which is something it took many months (bot not too many months) to gear up for.  There was a birthday party at Seattle HQ, but I'm in Toronto, perhaps for the whole weekend depending on how debilitating the current snowstorm turns out to be.  I made this little commemorative video:

Blame Canada

I'm in Toronto where it's cold and there's lots of dirty snow on the ground.  Yum.

I'm here for copious client meetings and a speaking slot at Canadian Music Week.  Make no mistake, I love the Canadians, but for the second year in a row I'm wondering why I'm here in the cold and not at SXSW with the (other, more southernly located) cool kids.

I'll cop to a mild bout of what a friend has dubbed "Traveler Sadness Disease" (TSD).  TSD is often brought on by being alone in atrociously designed and decorated hotel rooms.  It's agitated by timezone displacement and confusion around when one should eat dinner.

One would think, or at least hope, that hotels would be down with the Internet now that it's, uh, 2008.  <sigh>  I'm happy to have broadband in my hotel room (sad there's no WiFi) and jsut spent five minutes disassembling the "security lock" attached to the router in my room so that I could *shock* plug in the long Ethernet cable I always travel with . . . if I'm on the road, the very least I want is the Internet in bed.

Our Cells, Ourselves

The human race is crossing a line. There is now one cellphone for every two humans on Earth.

From essentially zero, we've passed a watershed of more than 3.3 billion active cellphones on a planet of some 6.6 billion humans in about 26 years. This is the fastest global diffusion of any technology in human history -- faster even than the polio vaccine.

The above is from a wonderfully sweeping roundup of the diffusion and impact of mobile phones on our planet--Our Cells, Ourselves: Planet's Fastest Revolution Speaks to the Human Heart--that appeared in the Sunday edition of the Washington Post.

I'm quoted in the article a couple of times as a result of an engaging, sweeping and long conversation with the author, Joel Garreau. Joel is as much a social scientist as a journalist and I fondly recall reading his book Edge Cities: Life on the New Frontier.

If you wonder why a social scientist who fell in love with the Internet ends up years later spending much of his waking hours thinking about and talking about these little gadgets called mobile phones, this article paints the picture.  Or, as I emailed Joel: "Finally something I can send my family to show them why I'm so excited about what I do everyday."  Thanks Joel.

Mojo + Sia = Happy Mark

Hi there.

I'm breaking my blogging drought having just met an imposing and important deadline that loomed immediately after returning from three weeks on the road.

I was working on said project last night when I unexpectedly got a call around 5:30PM from the ever-delightful Mojo, who said something to the effect of: "So, Sia put me on the list for her show tonight and Matt's somewhere on the Sinai Peninsula, you wanna go?"

Oh how I love Sia.  I knew she was in town and have had her penciled in on my calendar for months, but in the intervening period I got super busy and the show sold out.  Dia was busy with a networking event until late and I only had a giant pile of work to do so . . . since nothing clarifys the mind like a deadline and since I was already working under one, why not add another? 

I focused, cranked, and we met up at around 9PM and went to the show.  Not being a music maven, I'm still somewhat in awe of the moments when I'm "on the list" and what could be better than being on the list for an artist you love with someone you love who you haven't seen in months?  Nothing.

Sia was stellar. She was charming as always but more in charge of things on stage than at the previous performances I've seen.  She's gettin' comfortable being a rockstar and that's a great thing to watch unfold.

I've often found (and just as often forgotten) that live music is a tonic for the soul.  When you are in the same room as someone who's inhaling the same air you're breathing but exhaling something glorious and ineffable it makes me, at least, feel grateful for being alive and being human.

Thank you Mojo!

Back Home

Whew!

That was quite the trip, trips actually.  Barcelona was non-stop and fantastic.  I didn't do a thing that wasn't work related, but fortunately this included a couple of mind-blowing three hour dinners.  Much good business was done, but little sleep was had.  Coming off of three weeks of travel I shut down on Thursday and spent the day/night in Amsterdam sleeping more than I had the previous four day/nights.

I'm currently waking up with some gorgeous coffee, curious if my post-brunch mood will leave me energized or crawling back to bed.

Looking forward to being home for the rest of the month.

What Time is It?

In some alternate world I’d be a corporate tycoon with an army of assistants and a private jet.  Or maybe an artist, throwing pots at my workshop in the woods and seldom finding a reason to go into town.

But in my current reality I’m neither, and so right now I’m happily hunkered down in the bar of the airport Sheraton in Amsterdam drinking coffee, delighted to have found a comfortable seat next to a power outlet.  Ah, simple pleasures of a postmodern world.  I’m here, in one of my favorite cities in the world, for five hours until my flight to Barcelona.

I’m in my fourth timezone in five days, not quite halfway through a business trip that’s so far had me, randomly, visiting the coolest art-filled house I could imagine in Atlanta and dodging ice falling from buildings in Chicago.  Getting from Atlanta, where there were tornado warnings, to Chicago, where there was a massive snowstorm, took ten hours on Wednesday--two hours longer than it took to go from Chicago to Amsterdam.  I marvel at the fact that I made it to Chicago at all given that over 1,000 flights were canceled.

Despite my resolution to travel less in ’08, by the time I get home I will have been on the road nearly half of this new year.  Thankfully, I love what I’m doing and am being diligent about scheduling downtime:  A weekend getaway with Dia has been calendared and we’ve started planning a trip to (we think) Brazil next winter.  I return to Seattle for a three-day weekend which will involve napping, exercising, and hopefully cavorting with friends.

Later, I’ll let my mind wander to thoughts of strolling the beach at Ipanema, but now I focused on preparing for one of the busiest weeks of the year that, to my delight, will periodically feature one of my absolute favorite foods. 

I am a simple animal.

Update: Posted from Barca.