Celebrities. We talk about them. We see pictures of them. The personal details of their lives headline the news. We don’t know them. We might know about them, or know something they were a part of, but we don’t know them, and they certainly don’t know us. If this is the case, why are we so consumed by them? Perfect example…
Thursday was a travel day for me. Nothing too strenuous. I was up early to get a number of hours of work in before heading to the airport at 10am. Two flights. One long lay over. A 2 1/2 hour drive from to where we were staying. I didn’t sleep on either flight, or while I was driving. Meaning, I missed my nap. By 11:30 I was ready for bed, but I couldn’t do it. It had nothing to do with opportunity. Everyone in the house I was staying with off to bed. I could have easily put myself to bed.
Instead I stayed up and watch Letterman. I like Letterman. Have for years, but I normally don’t watch it. The reason I watched was because Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon were guests. If you don’t know the two of them, they host Pardon the Interruption(PTI) on ESPN and both write for The Washington Post. I don’t see PTI often, and I think it is an okay television show. I don’t read either of them regularly in The Post because 1) Tony doesn’t write regularly and 2) I no longer live in Washington.
But, I had see it. Partially because I thought it was going be funny, but the main reason I wanted to watch because I felt I owed it to Tony.
Over the past ten years or so, Tony (I use his first name as if I know him) has had a radio program in one form or another. It started as a local show in DC, then ESPNRadio carried it for a number of year. It is now back on local radio (as well as being carried by XMRadio). I have listened to if for many years. It is a soft core sports show, which means it is maybe 60% sports (and only talking to newspaper guys about sports) and the rest of the time it is about Tony’s dog (or what ever else is going on in his life). It is a very funny show. I always laugh out loud while listening. The six months it was off the air were six of the most productive of my life because when I listen to the show my life grinds to a halt.
The two weeks leading up to the show, Tony whined incessantly about the appearance. He whined about how Dave didn’t know who his was, about how much of a hardship it was to go up to New York, and about how horrible he was going to be on the show. That is what Tony does, he whines. I would like to say it is endearing. It is not, but it is generally funny. I wanted to watch to see how Tony was going to do. I wanted to watch out of moral support.
There is one flaw in this scenario, I don’t know Tony. I have never met him. I have never been in the same room as him. To be honest, he has shown on more than one occasion that he isn’t really a very nice person. He yells at subordinates (“the littles”). He yells when he doesn’t get his way. He breaks things when they don’t work.
With all of this, I still felt I had to watch him. To support my friend Tony.
“He is not my friend…He is not my friend…He is not my friend…”

Malcolm Gladwell is my favorite non-fiction writer. He is most know for his book The Tipping Point, which has become must read for anyone in business. But he is much more than just that one work. He writes wonderfully thoughtful articles for The New Yorker. Most of which can be found on his personal web site. My personal favorite is his article on physical genius.
Malcolm’s critics (and there are only a few) point out the fact that many times he is pointing out information that isn’t new. This is a fair assessment, but they miss one point. What Malcolm does as well as anyone (and better than most) is to synthesize many different pieces of research in to one thought and then explain it in an easy to understand framework.
His most recent work, Blink [info | buy], is no different. It is a wonderful book which explores the decisions we make in a slip second, in a blink. If for no other reason, it is a must read for the fourth chapter. In it he discusses the biases we have built in. What I found most fascinating was the way a bias towards a race or gender could be slowly turned by consistently holding up positive role models.

If you (like us @ APeX) have ever wondered if you can use the word “plungitude” in Scrabble, then check this out. Theresa, Dena, and Julie Ellsworth provided the answer. They used every letter in the game to create this board. (According to Theresa, “the ‘Q’ and ‘V’ are Brad and Gene in their spare time.”)

Click here to see larger.

[Note: Yes I am a libertarian, free market advocate, but this hits a little to close to home]
So I have done a little more research into the selling off of my childhood. (All I can think of is the old SNL skit with Victoria Jackson and John Lovitz. There are advertising a CD serise call “Sold Out Platinum.” The tag line was something like “Now all generations can enjoy the same music.” In the background was some Beach Boy’s song that was used in a Sunkist ad. Father and daughter dance together.)
See the commercial here.
Also of note…here is a picture form 1969 when the character named Mah Na Mah Na first appeared on Sesame Street. [via www.madsenblog.tk]

I knew it was only a question of time, but pieces of my childhood are now being sold to corporate America.
I almost cried when I saw “Mah Na Mah Na” used to sell Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper. What is next, Loley Worm selling beer?

I find it amazing the places I find myself at home (and where I don’t).
Working from home can make me a little stir crazy. In the evening I like to go to a coffee shop to do some work. For most of the last 2 years I have gone to a very nice coffee shop/bar in a the trendy part of Baltimore. The space is beautiful, the kitchen is great, the staff is always full for cute young ladies, and the client tell is hip and my age. Even after two years and developing rapport with the staff I always felt like an outsider. Like I was not quite cool enough to belong. It was okay for me to be there when there wasn’t lots of people, but the instance the place got close to filling up, I was taking up too much space and felt compelled to leave.
I have found a new place to sip some tea and do a little work in the evening. It is a pinko coffee house. I am not joking. It is called “Erma Red’s”. There is a small book store in the shop. The cash register has a bumper sticker which read “Profit is Theft”. In reading the web site it sounds like the staff isn’t being paid yet, though one day they hope to pay the staff. The hold “collective meetings” every Sunday. The magazines they sell would be the first choice of the kids who protest at the World Bank Meetings. All the conversations I over heard last we very political in nature. (I would call them whack job political conversations, but I am libertarian and don’t have much room to talk). There are only four tables. Never any room. Everyone ends up sitting on top of each other. For some reason it is much more home.
I have known I have always felt more comfortable as the outsider. It is what I do for a living. It is how I spend most of my leisure time (traveling to places I don’t know anyone). I room full of people I know (or at least know I am going to see again) can be horrifying. A pub in Northern Ireland couldn’t be more comfortable. I guess the revelation isn’t new, I am just wondering “why?”

1) Gus Hanson may be a math wiz, but his is also one of the luckiest men alive
2) Feddie Mitchell can now shut up.
3) Primates in TV commercials are always funny
4) The Simpson’s is still one of funniest shows on television

I have find myself reading a lot lately. Odd for the dyslexic to read so much. Most of it has been personal development of one sort or another as I have recommitted myself to living a fuller life. There are some weeks I am in a book store 5 days a week. Many times just reading a chapter or two of a book I have no intention of buy. Other times looking for some good travel reading.
Last week I bough Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now by Gordon Livingston. When I first picked up the book I read through the table of contents figuring I would find the short list of the 30 true things I needed to know. From this list, the book looks good, but that is not why I bought it. I bought the book for an odd reason, the name of the 12th chapter. (Be careful, this is going to be harsh.) The chapter is titled “The problems of the elderly are frequently serious but seldom interesting.”
Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against the elderly or their suffering. Mine is going to come soon enough. The reason the title struck me was because of the way that I had spent two days prior to buying the book, two days filled with (minor) suffering (and lamenting ad nasium).
I was at a meeting in Savannah, GA with 200 other people. The meeting ended on a Saturday night and most of us were scheduled to leave Sunday morning. By mid-day Saturday ice was coming from the sky in Atlanta. The 1/2 inch of ice that accumulated on the ground understandably shut down the airport in Atlanta for about 24 hours. Being one of the busiest airports on the world, this reeked havoc for many travelers, including many of my friends and me.
Many did not get out until Tuesday. I ended up renting a car and driving home. At one point I was even on a plane that was loaded and ready to go, minus on detail. We had no one to fly the plane. They had mistakenly left the airport for a Savannah hotel.
In the end the details are unimportant. What I was struck by was the amount of time we spent in the lobby retelling our plight in detail to each other. Serious (maybe), but very very boring. I find myself trapped in Savannah with the adult equivalent of a snow day with a bunch of very cool people, and we decide to spend our time talking flight times and snow plows. Very boring. At one point I grabbed two friends and we went to a deli to eat and make fun of each other. A better use of time for sure.
It is amazing our need to tell uninteresting stories of our suffering. Not that suffering isn’t to be talked about. There are wonderful opportunities to have catharsis by sharing what is going on in our life, but sometimes we just keep telling the same story over and over again. Adding nothing to the discourse and not help us. We don’t tell the wonderful stories of our life. It is as if the only way we can show our humanity is to show are scars.
Goal of today: Share stories of wonder, not suffering (at least until I get the chance to tell how I was knocked out for a week, unable to eat, sleep, or stand when I had my wisdom teeth out.)