Starry Nights, City Lights

Latest Book - "UltraMarathonMan"

Highly recommend this one - Ultramarathon Runner Dean Karnazes story of how he became an Ultramarathon Runner. This guy started his Ultra career when one night at a nightclub he was hit on by his non-wife and almost cheated. He excused himself to the restroom, kept right on walking through the kitchen, walked home, put his gardening sneakers on, and ran from San Francisco to Half Moon Bay overnight - 33 miles! He hasn't stopped since --- he goes farther and farther. He's even run 226 miles with no sleep (2 days straight). This book is an amazing insight to his journey and you....should....read....it. BTW - he's going to run 50 marathons in 50 days this Fall, finishing with the New York Marathon. www.ultramarathonman.com

Dumbest Movie Watched In the Past 14 hours...

"Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle".....Ellora and I watched it ALL the way through, clicked it off as soon as the credits started, and commented on how BAD it was. But wait, was it?

U2

For the eighth time I had the pleasure of seeing U2 last night! While every U2 show is great, this show ranked in the lower eschelon of my experiences with them. Of course this may be only because they cut off beer sales before the concert even started (us 40 year old U2 fans are real trouble makers ya know). I thought that Bono seemed flat and shy tonight, but he didn't get much back from the crowd either. I could see him trying to get the house going in the first few songs ("City of Blinding Light", "Elevation", & "Vertigo"), and during "Elevation" he succeeded as it was the high point of the concert and absolutley one of the best songs I've ever seen performed live - worth the price of admission alone (or almost at least, as the tix were $175 each face value - yikes). But the crowd never seemed to buy in and from there on out it felt as if the band was going through the motions most of the songs. The setlist was disappointing - U2 reached back for a lot of older material tonight at the expense of some tunes from more recent albums that I would have loved to have heard. The middle of the set was the politically charged heart of the show with "Love and Peace or Else", "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "Bullet the Blue Sky" (the worst version I've ever seem them do - they cut out the "Slappin' 'em down....100!....200!) and were dare I say, gulp, sort of boring. Nonetheless there were several awesome highlights...."Miracle Drug" was an amazing surprise...."Where the Streets Have No Name" as usual rocked the house.....during "One" Bono asked everyone to take out their cell phones, which produced an amazing visual that reminded me of watching fireflies on a summer night in upstate New York when I was a kid....."All Because of You" just plain rocked with Bono playing tamborine.....and "Running to Stand Still" from the Joshua Tree was fresh and it seemed amazing that the whole crowd, with no prompting from Bono, knew all the "La da da da dee day's" from a non-hit song recorded 18 years ago.
Though perhaps not my favorite U2 performace it will go down as one of the most memorable, as my date (yes, that would be the wife) took a muscle relaxant before the show for back tension and was absolutley, positively GONE! She sat through the whole thing as the whole arena stood and one time when I was sitting down with her I could feel her fall asleep on my shoulder....we were laughing about it on the way out and E said "good thing this wasn't our first date - don't think I'd get another."

TV Golf

I know, I know, golf on TV is boring. Hell, most of the time I agree. But when it comes to watching the Majors (The Masters, US Open, British Open, and PGA), it is mind boggling to me how often the final 9 holes turn into drama that would be hard to script beforehand without someone laughing at you and shaking their head. Case and point -- yesterday. The first major of the year held true to the formula, and Tiger Woods won in a playoff that included one of the most dramatic chip-in's ever as far as I am concerned - I don't know what happened but as the ball rolled into the hole (after a 3 second pause at the edge) I found myself 2 feet off the ground with a chicken wing in one hand and a Sam Adams in the other screaming "Ahhhhhhhhh". Can't remember doing THAT at a Broadway show or a movie any time lately.....

Best Pizza in the World...

If anyone wants to know what the best pizza in the world is, let it be known that the answer is ARTURO's in New York City. It's on Houston Street (@ Thompson). Your dining experience is a time machine to the 70s complete with good ol' paneled walls, an old school piano player, paintings for sale by Arturo himself (I've added one to my collection - see attached photo - very entertaining), and a restroom that includes a bathtub and chalkboard for you to write messages or philosophies. Oh yeah, it also includes lots and lots of people.

Health

If you are feeling healthy while you read this, stop, take a minute and a deep breath, close your eyes, feel your health, and appreciate it! The end of March was rough on me as I had about a 9 day fight with one of those tough NYC viruses. It sucks to not feel well....to not be able to enjoy the things you're doing or worse yet not be able to do them. OK, you can go back to your life now.

Hangin'

Business recent took me to Arizona for a few days, and having once called AZ home I made it a point to visit my dear friends Jill, Brad, & Char (and her friend Todd). Anyway, all we did was order pizza and sit around and tell stories all night. I can honestly say it was one of the funnest "nights out" I've had in a while. Usually E and I's social calendar is built around some event, dinner out, or show. I think we should make it a point to have more nights like this... Shouts to the AZ crew!

Honest Thief

Somehow for the first time in 4 years I left my wallet in a taxi on Saturday night. It goes without saying I was slightly thrilled to get a call that night from someone who found it. Everything was intact upon examination when I picked it up.....credit cards, driver's license, etc. Only one little thing had changed - all my cash was gone! Guess it was an honest thief.....

A record?

Holy crap it's only March 12 and I just finished my first book of the year! Might be a record for me!

For the record it was "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell (it's on the NYT Bestseller list). A decent read about how we all have this amazing supercomputer subconscious that sends us intuitive messages in a silly short amount of time. ("gut feelings"). When do you listen to it? When do you not? Can you get better access to it? What can you do to take advantage of it? What can dilute it's purity? All these questions and more are explored through entertertaining anectodal stories. In the end he basically says that you can put yourself in a position to make better snap judgements if you understand what can get in the way and remove it.

In one of the stories Gladwell introduces us to a social scientist who can predict with 95% accuracy if a couple will stay married by watching a 15 minute videotape of them interacting. We learn that the key is that he has learned to spot the red flags from a couple's interaction that to you and I would go unnoticed because they are so fleeting. Of those red flags he says that the number 1 killer of a relationship is CONTEMPT. The key excerpt : "You would think that criticism would be the worst, because criticism is a global condemnation of a person's character. Yet contempt is qualitatively different from criticism. With criticism I might say to my wife 'You never listen, you are really selfish and insensitive.' Well, she's going to respond defensively to that. That not very good for our problem solving and interaction. But if I speak from a superior plane, that's far more damaging, and contempt is any statement made from a higher level. A lot of time it's an insult: 'You are a bitch. You're scum.' It's trying to put a person on a lower plane than you. It's hierarchical."

So there you go, the problems of the world are solved! Oops! Gotta run, my bitch Ellora finally finished making my breakfast. That ho' is so late with it that it's almost lunch.

I (bleep) New York.....15/42

I love alot of things about New York, but it is amazing how impersonal this town can be. Just try holding a door for someone. True, in it purest form you do it as a "gift" and don't expect a thing back. But.....come on, just a tiny little ol' nod, smile, wink, or quick glance is not really too much to expect in return, let alone actually saying "Thanks". Today I had just finished lunch and saw someone making a beeline for the restaurant that I was leaving....obviously coming in but still several steps away. I held the door for only a few seconds, but I definitely waited. The person walked in so fast I never even got a real good look at them! Not a sound, not a nod, not a glance....only the wake of 25 degree air as they cruised by. I laughed out loud as I let the door shut on it's own.

I headed right for the Post Office on Houston St. - I was inpired to try an experiment. I decided that for ten minutes I was going to hold the door for everyone who walked in or out of the Post Office and count how many people acknowleged it. I was genuinely pumped up about my little experiment...I had absolutely no idea what to expect. 42 souls walked into the Post Office in that ten minutes. 15.....only 15!.....displayed any sort of gratitude.

So in this extremely unscientific poll, if you hold the door for someone in New York City, you have about a 35% chance of receiving any recognition for your good deed. My instincts tell me that this would *have* to rank at the bottom of the list in the US....anyone else out there crazy enough to waste ten minutes and see?