The newest edition of Britain's Mojo magazine - my favourite and the best music magazine around - pays tribute to the 50th anniversary of Motown Records. There is the requisite bonus fare: the Motown Nuggets CD with 15 great tracks.
The magazine features interviews with founder Berry Gordy as well as Holland, Dozier, Holland and Martha Reeves.
Mojo's 100 Greatest Motown tracks are selected by British musical elites like The Clash and Paul Weller (who would certainly dislike being called "elite"). It is hard to see how any sane person could put Martha Reeves & The Vandellas Dancing in the Street as the top Motown song, over Marvin Gaye's What's Going On (which is second). Dancing in the Street doesn't belong in the Top 10. Ditto, Barrett Strong's Money (That's All I Want); The Supreme's Stop! In The Name of Love; or Gaye's I Heard It Through The Grapevine. The Gladys Knight version is better.
The Temptations gorgeous Just My Imagination (Running Away From Me) should be in the Top 10, if not number one. On second thought though, Gaye's What's Going On should be number one.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
United and Ferguson in the Driver's Seat
Over the last few days, Inter Milan boss Jose Mourinho has tried to bait Manchester United's Sir Alex Ferguson into strategic miscues in the first leg of their Champion League playoff. Mourinho boasted how Inter would send Man U packing out of the tournament on March 16th.
Yet, even with many of their stars either out or playing injured, United were allowed to play their free-flowing game, especially in the first half. Their back four were hardly pressured throughout the game. While Inter did look dangerous in the second half, they were hardly a threat to United with the defence seemingly in total control.
Knowing how Ferguson's mind works, it is clear that drawing at Inter was like a win. United will be able to field a much strengthened team with main stay Nemanja Vidic back from suspension.
Yet, even with many of their stars either out or playing injured, United were allowed to play their free-flowing game, especially in the first half. Their back four were hardly pressured throughout the game. While Inter did look dangerous in the second half, they were hardly a threat to United with the defence seemingly in total control.
Knowing how Ferguson's mind works, it is clear that drawing at Inter was like a win. United will be able to field a much strengthened team with main stay Nemanja Vidic back from suspension.
The Depression Thing
After a week of highs, this one-legged dog is feeling dispirited. I am on the floor, so to speak. This is the thing with depression.
My problem with depression has always been a nagging suspicion it isn't real: how can someone as positive me be depressed? How can someone like me who has dragged himself up at every step and surprised himself, be melancholy? But that's the game for you.
But when the debilitating lows appear, I feel powerless. Weird thing: I feel almost embarrassed by the episodes.
When I lost my job with the federal government in 2006 the therapy suddenly ended and I couldn't afford a private one. So that was that. Of course I couldn't get into the habit of taking Paxil and it has been over two years since I stopped the medication. My drawer is a make-shift casket for pharmaceuticals: unfilled prescriptions and packets of Paxil mixed in with an almost-empty bottle of Valium or something like it.
It is, in a sense, remarkable that this one-legged dog is pretty much free of vices - no smoking, no drugs, no drinking. Just a boring old fart. Scratch that - just a boring, depressed old fart.
My problem with depression has always been a nagging suspicion it isn't real: how can someone as positive me be depressed? How can someone like me who has dragged himself up at every step and surprised himself, be melancholy? But that's the game for you.
But when the debilitating lows appear, I feel powerless. Weird thing: I feel almost embarrassed by the episodes.
When I lost my job with the federal government in 2006 the therapy suddenly ended and I couldn't afford a private one. So that was that. Of course I couldn't get into the habit of taking Paxil and it has been over two years since I stopped the medication. My drawer is a make-shift casket for pharmaceuticals: unfilled prescriptions and packets of Paxil mixed in with an almost-empty bottle of Valium or something like it.
It is, in a sense, remarkable that this one-legged dog is pretty much free of vices - no smoking, no drugs, no drinking. Just a boring old fart. Scratch that - just a boring, depressed old fart.
Monday, February 23, 2009
The One Legged Dog
I have long been a fan of Mickey Rourke through his films Diner, The Pope of Greenwich Village, 9½ Weeks, Angel Heart and The Wrestler. I am taken by The Wrestler’s tale of redemption which is why I would not have been disappointed if Mickey Rourke had won the Best Actor Oscar last night.
Sean Penn deservedly won for Milk. There is something breathtakingly remarkable about Penn’s ability to transform himself into each character he assumes. He inhabits each and becomes something new. Every time I see Penn in a movie role I wonder if I can’t learn from him in my ordinary humdrum, rundown life: like whether I can believe in a new reconstituted me long enough to make it real.
Mickey Rourke reminds me that no matter how low you get, that like the phoenix you can rise once more. Like Rourke, I felt like Bruce Springsteen’s one-legged dog - down, almost, but not completely out. Of course, there has been much discussion about Springsteen’s One Legged Dog and its meaning. Most don’t seem to understand that it is a metaphor for downtrodden like Rourke and me. And like Rourke, it is my time to dig down deeply and summon up all the drive and determination to reconstitute a life of quality.
Sean Penn deservedly won for Milk. There is something breathtakingly remarkable about Penn’s ability to transform himself into each character he assumes. He inhabits each and becomes something new. Every time I see Penn in a movie role I wonder if I can’t learn from him in my ordinary humdrum, rundown life: like whether I can believe in a new reconstituted me long enough to make it real.
Mickey Rourke reminds me that no matter how low you get, that like the phoenix you can rise once more. Like Rourke, I felt like Bruce Springsteen’s one-legged dog - down, almost, but not completely out. Of course, there has been much discussion about Springsteen’s One Legged Dog and its meaning. Most don’t seem to understand that it is a metaphor for downtrodden like Rourke and me. And like Rourke, it is my time to dig down deeply and summon up all the drive and determination to reconstitute a life of quality.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: The Story of Success
The first time I became aware of the word "outlier" was on the website fivethirtyeight.com. This was during the height of the US Presidential elections. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines an "outlier" as "a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others in the sample." Now, I studied statistics as part of my graduate program in public policy and public administration and I can't recall hearing the term. Okay then, that's to my discredit.
Now Malcolm Gladwell, author of "Blink" and "The Tipping Point" and a regular contributor to The New Yorker has just released "Outliers: The Story of Success." What, Gladwell asks, makes high-achievers different? He suggests that luminaries such as Mozart, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs and the Beatles owe their successes to their culture, family and their generation. Gladwell also discusses why Asians are good at math.
Gladwell posited the theory of the ten-year rule: that the people who have succeeded have spent a minimum of ten years learning/practicing their metier. It could explain performances of Michael Johnson and Usain Bolt. His explanation about the Asians' superiority in math made sense. It is a cultural phenomenon, he suggested. He related this to the long hours spent by many Asians in rice fields: the patience and industry carried over to the training of the young. This is not such a novel idea since Asian schools offering extra lessons in math can be easily found in any major North American city. On the flip-side, there is a paucity of such schools in black communities, for example. Another idea is that 1955 was a good year to be born: Gates, Jobs and others were born that year. Gladwell was on Charlie Rose last week and spent time expounding on these ideas.
As a Jamaican, I became smitten by Gladwell after it turned out his mother is Jamaican and that he is a cousin of former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, whose parents were also Jamaicans.
In a happy coincidence - well, perhaps not - in the second part of the hour-long show, Rose's second guest was Geoff Colvin, Senior Editor at Large at Fortune magazine and author of "Talent is Overrated: What Separates World-Class Performers From Everybody Else". In this new book, Colvin expands on an article he wrote for Fortune, "What it Takes to be Great." Using Tiger Woods, Warren Buffett, Winston Churchill and Jack Welsh as examples, Colvin suggests that greatness does not come from DNA but from practice and perseverance sharpened over decades.
Both the Gladwell and Colvin books make perfect bookends.
Now Malcolm Gladwell, author of "Blink" and "The Tipping Point" and a regular contributor to The New Yorker has just released "Outliers: The Story of Success." What, Gladwell asks, makes high-achievers different? He suggests that luminaries such as Mozart, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs and the Beatles owe their successes to their culture, family and their generation. Gladwell also discusses why Asians are good at math.
Gladwell posited the theory of the ten-year rule: that the people who have succeeded have spent a minimum of ten years learning/practicing their metier. It could explain performances of Michael Johnson and Usain Bolt. His explanation about the Asians' superiority in math made sense. It is a cultural phenomenon, he suggested. He related this to the long hours spent by many Asians in rice fields: the patience and industry carried over to the training of the young. This is not such a novel idea since Asian schools offering extra lessons in math can be easily found in any major North American city. On the flip-side, there is a paucity of such schools in black communities, for example. Another idea is that 1955 was a good year to be born: Gates, Jobs and others were born that year. Gladwell was on Charlie Rose last week and spent time expounding on these ideas.
As a Jamaican, I became smitten by Gladwell after it turned out his mother is Jamaican and that he is a cousin of former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, whose parents were also Jamaicans.
In a happy coincidence - well, perhaps not - in the second part of the hour-long show, Rose's second guest was Geoff Colvin, Senior Editor at Large at Fortune magazine and author of "Talent is Overrated: What Separates World-Class Performers From Everybody Else". In this new book, Colvin expands on an article he wrote for Fortune, "What it Takes to be Great." Using Tiger Woods, Warren Buffett, Winston Churchill and Jack Welsh as examples, Colvin suggests that greatness does not come from DNA but from practice and perseverance sharpened over decades.
Both the Gladwell and Colvin books make perfect bookends.
Self Publishing on a Shoestring! (June 27, 2008)
One of the perils of self-publishing is that not only do you have to wear many hats but you have to cover all the costs as well. So far I have shelled out a bundle on cover design and twice had to make payouts on editing (one editor didn’t know what she was doing the other scammed me). I will have to pay the graphic designer soon for layout then hire a proofreader. All this before I shell out another three hundred dollars on the actual printing by Booksurge, Amazon’s self-publishing arm. Not to mention the dozens of review copies that will have to be paid for out of pocket. The Audacity of Hope this isn’t, although I am audaciously hoping. When the book is finally published I will have to sell the books out of the boot of my car. What do I get in return for all this? Thirty-five percent on every book purchased on Amazon, Abebbooks, BookSurge or Ex-Libris. And talking about money: I will have to find another three hundred to get my laptop out of the pawnshop. But hell, that’s life…I am not going to let it get me down!
An Outsider's View: Barack and Oprah (June 29, 2008)
I have long been an admirer of both Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama. I have bought and read her O magazines and I have his The Audacity of Hope. But I primarily admire their personal narratives. I am also a fan of the Clintons, Hillary and Bill, and she was my preferred candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Those declarations out of the way then, let me get to the point: Ms Winfrey, a long time close friend of Mr. Obama's, screwed up big time when she publicly endorsed Mr Obama on CNN's Larry King Live. The name Oprah is a brand in the same way Apple, Sony, Coca Cola and BMW are brands. You wouldn't see the CEOs of any of those brands coming out in support of any political candidate and it is surprising that none of Ms Winfrey's advisers cautioned her about the public Obama endorsement.
When Mr. King asked why she was doing it now, she replied:
“Because I know him personally,” Ms. Winfrey said. “I think that what he stands for, what he has proven that he can stand for, what he has shown was worth me going out on a limb for – and I haven’t done it in the past because I haven’t felt that anybody, I didn’t know anybody well enough to be able to say, I believe in this person.”
Of course Ms. Winfrey could have found other ways to show her support: financial contributions, using surrogates like Gayle KIng, or invitations to Obama supporters to be on her show, using interview questions to help flesh out his campaign ideas. The point is there is a blurring of distinction between the personal (Oprah Winfrey) and the brand (Oprah). Then throw in race (both Ms. Winfrey and Mr. Obama being black); and gender: by endorsing Mr. Obama Ms. Winfrey was in a sense rejecting the historical candidacy of a woman. True, by winning his party's nomination, Mr. Obama was making his own history by becoming the first black nominee for President. But 75 per cent of Ms. Winfrey's viewers are women and 60 percent of American women who voted in the Democratic primaries, ended up supporting Hillary Clinton's candidacy.
It was not surprising then, that there has been a decline in her audience. As reported in the May 26, 2008 New York Times, Neilsen Media Research said the average audience for "The Oprah Winfrey Show" had fallen nearly 7 per cent in 2008, the third year in a row of decline. It is likely that following the presidential tussle between Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton, that this will end up being a tumultuous year for "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and Ms. Winfrey. It may turn out that her endorsement was the turning point in Mr. Obama's successful campaign but it may mark the moment her show "jumped the shark". In this context her recent deal with Discovery Communications to launch OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network with a 50-50 cable and web business was brilliant. Did she see the writing on the wall?
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