Swimming in the Shark Tank, Looking for Loot

I often say that television is better now than it ever was. That's because reality TV is just more fun than anything scripted. Last night was a perfect case in point, I watched a new ABC show called "The Shark Tank" and I loved it.

Six savvy multimillionaires sit in chairs and young eager entrepreneurs come out and try to impress them into giving them $150K or more investments in their companies. The back and forth about how much of a percent of owner ship they'll give up and how much either one or a combination of the sharks will put in is all negotiable. And that's the fun part.

A guy named Kwame came in with a pretty neat idea: He buys gift cards from people who have them lying around for about 65% of face value, and he sells them on line for 90% of face value. He asked the Sharks for $150,000 and offered a 25% stake. They countered with 150 and 45%. He had a track record and was making money, and the entire business seemed sensible and seamless. They bought in, and expressed confidence that this African entrepreneur would do well.

Then a woman came in who was selling trinkets about happiness. One of her items was a sandal that made a footprint of some sort of slogan about following happiness. The rub? She's only made $35K in two years, and wanted them to put up $150K. No way, they said, practically shooing her out of the room, despite her good intentions.

Another guy had patents on the words "coffee, latte and cappucino" and wanted to sell teddy bears and mugs with those words on them. The sharks asked him how many of the items he'd sold...'None, yet" he answered meekly. He was pummeled by the gang of sharks, who said get lost until you've actually sold anything, Í'm out!' We are not going to invest!

"A Bright Young President, Full of Hope and Laughter"

Peggy Noonan wrote a piece in the WSJ after the death of Senator Kennedy that resonated with me, as her writing often does. It might have been a bit egotistical of her to print the text of a speech she wrote for Ronald Reagan that he gave at a fundraiser for the JFK Presidential library, yet it was so poignant that she earned the right. Below is a passage from what Reagan said about JFK in the speech.

"I have been told that late at night when the clouds are still and the moon is high, you can just about hear the sound of certain memories brushing by. You can almost hear, if you listen close, the whir of a wheelchair rolling by and the sound of a voice calling out, 'And another thing, Eleanor.' Turn down a hall and you hear the brisk strut of a fellow saying, 'Bully! Absolutely ripping!' Walk softly now and you're drawn to the soft notes of a piano and a brilliant gathering in the East Room, where a crowd surrounds a bright young president who is full of hope and laughter.

"I don't know if this is true, but it's a story I've been told, and it's not a bad one because it reminds us that history is a living thing that never dies. . . . History is not only made by people, it is people. And so history is, as young John Kennedy demonstrated, as heroic as you want it to be, as heroic as you are."

Teddy and the Reagans were close friends, says Noonan. And the letter that Teddy sent Ronnie summed up his gratitude and his feeling about his political rival. "The next morning he poured out his gratitude in a handwritten letter. "I only wish Jack could have been there too last night," he wrote. "Your presence was such a magnificent tribute to my brother. . . . The country is well served by your eloquent graceful leadership Mr. President." He signed it, "With my prayers and thanks for you as you lead us through these difficult times."

JT in the Rain, with Yoyo and Sheryl

You all know what the weather was last night. Rain, rain and more rain. A perfect night to go to an open air concert featuring James Taylor and Friends. We had the picnic inside our friend's house in Lenox and headed over to Tanglewood. It was worth getting wet for. Lucky for us had tickets for the sold-out shed, behind us was a sea of umbrellas.

A highlight was the trio of James Taylor, Sheryl Crow and Yoyo Ma doing Sweet Baby James as the final song of the encore. Ma's cello provided a rich backdrop to Taylor's beautiful singing, and Crow added her own sweet serenade. Just before, he gave a tribute to Senator Ted, which was moving and almost as well received as the line "So was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston"
Our friends told us that they've seen this same show for four years in a row. He brings the same big-name musicians, like Steve Gadd on drums and Jimmy Johnson on bass. They said even the solo by the big African-American guy in the suit was the same as last year. It was fun to see Taylor and hear these familiar songs, my only beef was that Sheryl Crow's wonderful hit, "All I Wanna Do," was a muddled mess with too many musicians and none of it's catchy beat.

Early in the show James gave a shout out to 'the little lady' his lovely wife Kim Taylor. I thought it was fine, but women in our crowd said they thought it was tacky and demeaning. That clearly points out the difference between Venus and Mars...hey, to me it was a term of endearment, to them it was a stick in the eye.

Cruising the Coast of Massachusetts...GoNOMAD

My favorite stories are the ones that seem to jump up and write themselves. Some times a travel story is so easy to write because the topic compelled you, it made you want again and again to talk about it. With this kind of subject, writing's a breeze.

I published a story about my time cruising the Isis off the Coast of Martha's Vineyard. It had been one of those long, long dreams deferred. So when I got a call, I jumped and was soon headed out to the harbor to my home on the water for a few days.

Our anchorage was just off the beach owned by the Chappaquiddick Beach Club, where my grandmother Essie was a member, and where the famous cabanas dot the shore like pointy reminders of summers past. Beside the 42' boat where I stayed, multimillion dollar 100-200 foot boats also bobbed. It was a pricey neighborhood!

"Gran Torino" Shows the Power of a Good Man

Clint Eastwood is not only a powerful actor, but a powerful director too. I've enjoyed two Clint films in the past week, first it was Mystic River, and last night, his latest film "Gran Torino."
Torino begins with a premise...this character Walt Kowalski is a grump, and he's carrying the world's heaviest chip on his shoulder.

A comically young priest is dispatched to his house after his wife's funeral, telling him that his wife's last wish was that he give confession in the church.
There is no way this little redheaded twenty-something priest is going to get Walt back into a church, and it's even less likely that he's going to ever confess anything. Yet the idea stays with the priest, and as the movie unfolds it's revisited again and again.

Walt makes friends with the Hmong who live in a communal way just next door. We see the attempt to steal his beloved 1972 Ford Gran Torino that quickly turns into much more. The family asks Walt if Tao can make it up to him, will he put him to work to make up for the insult of trying to steal his car?

The grumpy old guy is energized....and given a true purpose to carry on. All the while he's spitting blood and it's clear he doesn't have a lot of time left, yet he works with Tao and helps him find a job. Eastwood's character is believable, and he's noble in his good intentions. The Hmong community reveres him since he's driven away the gang bangers. He accepts their gifts and their flowers relucantly, after a sniff he can't resist more of this fabulous and strange cooking. The movie's conclusion shows Walt's ultimate wisdom; instead of gunning the bad guys down he sets it up so they'll kill him and go to prison for the deed.

World's Scariest Bridges: Swinging in the Breeze

I love the things I find on my RSS feed. Here is a collection of the world's most dangerous bridges. The winner, says Web Urbanist, is the Hussaini Bridge in Pakistan. It crosses the Borak Lake, which rages beneath its flimsy wooden slats. 

"Moms, dads, grandparents kids all use this hanging bridge daily. Sometimes it breaks, but its unclear who to call for repairs, as if you could get a cellphone signal out in the sticks of Gojal in Northern Pakistan.

Today I spent time in the sun with my son, it was fun and it's great to see how charged up and enthusiastic he is about his chef-training that begins on Sept 8. 

He Invented a Better Iron, Now He Makes Them in the USA

Farouk Shami decided he'd do even better business if he made his products in the US. So two years ago he decided to bring the manufacturing for his ceramic curling irons back from China to Houston, the city where he lives. Now he's hiring 1200 workers to make the high-end curlers, but his biggest enemy are Chinese companies who are making counterfeit copies of his product.

The Palestinian-born Texan told the WSJ he spends $500,000 a month in legal bills to fight the fakers. He started his business, Farouk Systems, after years as a hairdresser, when he realized that metal heating elements could damage hair. Now his products are sold in 104 countries, but 60% of his business is in the US. Even though it will cost $2.50 more each to make the curling irons in his Houston factory, his niche, called the Chi, is priced three times the cost of ordinary curling irons, and has proven very profitable. This is what has encouraged so many Chinese companies to make knock-offs selling for as little as $50 apiece. Sometimes unhappy customers even send the fake ones in for refunds from him.

Shami's lawyers chase down the fakers and then they pop up across the street. When he told his Chinese manufacturer, Fenda, that he was moving production to the US, they told his 16 engineers that they couldn't visit some parts of the factory. But the company says "copies are a serious problem for Farouk Systems, and we've helped them stop some companies."

For the 30 people a day who are being hired on his new assembly line, I'm sure they hope that people will continue to buy the real 'Chi' and not the dozens of fakes still made in China.

Craig Doesn't Care About Money, Or Your Ideas

Everyone I know uses Craig's List. And almost everyone I know who used to rely on newspaper classified ads has made the switch, much to the chagrin of my friends at the paper. Today as the sultry heat waited to pour down buckets, just before I snoozed, I read a piece in the most recent Wired about Craig's List.

The site defies all rules of commerce, web design and business in general. They snub any chances to increase revenue, publish haikus when people reach impasses while surfing their site, and refuse all offers to improve, monetize, or make the site more Web 2.0. Newmark just doesn't care.

They reap nearly $100 million a year by charging just a fraction of their advertisers to use their site. They get approached every day by web designers and people who want to help them develop their website...and uniformly reject any ideas put forth. They don't want to change, and their 47 million monthly page views assures them they don't have to.

Newmark frustrated Charlie Rose when the host kept asking him who owns the site, and about how much he's making. Newmark simply does not answer. He prefers to talk about his new hummingbird feeder, and the fact that he doesn't care about all the money he could make by adding more features or selling out with an IPO.

It's refreshing, while frustrating, to read about Newmark. I rely on his website for a variety of reasons from finding employees to tag sales. Sometimes when you find someone who isn't willing to sell out it's damn refreshing. And I love their 1999 web design too.

In 1949, A Network Withered and a New One Emerged

Terry Teachout always has something interesting to write about. His column "Sightings," in Saturday's WSJ this week was about a media giant's demise...but this one happened in 1949.
Back then, everyone listened to network radio, but suddenly, everyone was talking about this new thing called television. Teachout points out that in the early days, television was a big money loser, and was kept going by the deep pockets of NBC and CBS.

You can see why it was a hard sell: Televisions sold for $685, half the price of a new car, and compared to the 85 million radios across the US, there were only 1.3 million TV sets. "NBC's fledgling TV network lost $13,000 a day, or $116,000 in today's dollars." But all that was to change.

On January 11, 1949, eight stations on the East Coast and seven in the Midwest became linked via coaxial cable, and soon there was a big American network who could all watch Milton Berle's Texaco Star Theater at the same time. Suddenly, ballgames, theaters and nightclubs were empty at 8 pm Eastern time. Jack Benny and Bob Hope switched to TV in 1950, and twelve years later the last radio dramas were cancelled.

Teachout's point is that when the better experience of seeing and hearing became available, Americans has no hesitation about abandoning network radio--there was no loyalty despite the decades of pleasure it had given them. "Nostalgia, like guilt, is rope that wears thin," he wrote.

Video in Print? They Can Do That Now

The rains accompanying hurricane Bill have swept away the sultry humid air, today's a Saturday morning with glorious temps...and a good time to read last night's WSJ, where I found out about a video that's being printed into a magazine.

CBS is promoting its fall TV shows by inserting a 2 1/4" video screen that plays 40 minutes of clips from their TV shows. It's a flat little panel made by a company called Americhip that will cost...well in the words of a CBS executive, "more than a can of Pepsi."

Only Entertainment Weekly subscribers in New York and LA will get the hand-inserted ad but it will total thousands...what a concept! According to the story by Sam Schechner and Shira Ovide, this isn't the first experiment with video in print. Esquire ran a cover with special screen and an inside ad that showed a Ford car moving down a road.

They Sell Locomotives on the Web

We had a backyard barbeque in the steamy August evening. Old friends of mine came and some new friends of my daughters, but one of them was a man whose name I recognized. David Goff. He and his wife live in Deerfield and in their home office run a fascinating part-time business: They sell locomotives. Not model ones, not little ones that run around basement tracks...no, actual locomotives, dozens of tons heavy, that short-line railroads use to push around freight cars on sidings.

The couple even has their own siding to keep locomotives they are fixing or waiting to sell. Dave said he got into the business after a friend told him about selling cars...and then he saw the profits in these larger items and so it began. Last week they shipped a locomotive all the way from Savannah Georgia to Australia. He said they can ship them around the US on low-boy trucks, or even on rails.

They have created a website to sell their locomotives and they say business is going strong. Some day Dave promised to take me for a ride on one of his trains, it would definitely make a great story!

Harder than Ever to Get

 

Oh joy, oh wonderful joy. This sticker was hard-earned. Like so many residents of Massachusetts, inspection time has become a difficult one, with many of my friends failing due to mysterious dashboard engine lights that they are unable to extinguish in time for the unfair inspection station probe.

I haven't had this car running in six months, but now, after $700 at Richard's Honda, I sport a new sticker and that is wonderful.

I just spoke on the radio with Peter Noone, of Herman's Hermits, and Arthur Von Wiesenberger. Peter is part of our team at Around the World, a traveler and musician. My topic was the New Jersey Shore, and they opened my segment with, alas, The Sopranos Theme. But we all agreed, Jersey and its magnificent shore deserve much better publicity.

Townwide Tag Sale Shouts the Recorder Headline!

I love getting good publicity, getting news printed in the paper. The Recorder's Chase Scheinbaum called my yesterday, asking about our plan to hold a second Town Wide Tag Sale in Deerfield. Of course we are, it's going to be on October 3, just the same as last year. The story merited a huge 48 point headline.

Chase wanted more. He wanted to know more and I told him this: "Several hundred people came to down for last year's event. If you're going to have a tag sale, you're crazy to have it any other week." He also included my wish---for 80 tag sales that day.

I knew that I couldn't make it to tonight's meeting, so instead I stopped over and had a visit with John Paciorek, one of the selectmen. He said he thought it was going to be fine, as did town Manager Bernie Kubiak, I hope that Chase isn't disappointed that he won't see me at the meeting.

A Tale of How To Cut Airline Costs at American

Last night on CNBC, viewers got a chance to get up close to what it’s like for a week in the life of American Airlines. Host Peter Greenberg interviewed Ed Crandall, former CEO of the airline, who told a story about cost cutting. He said they were reviewing the budget for a small island, and after looking at all of the costs, Crandall pointed to a five-day a week post as night watchman. “Can’t we cut that, how about paying him to come in three nights a week instead of five. The bad guys won’t know which nights he has off.”

The following year they once again were facing cuts, and he told the manager at the island outpost he had to cut again. “That night watchman. We’re paying him three nights, why don’t we replace him with a big scary dog. ” So they found a suitable dog who growled enough and let him roam the grounds at night, saving the cost of the 3-nights a week watchman.

The year after that, Crandall once again had to cut costs. “So I suggested we only use the dog three nights a week….hey, the bad guys won’t know which nights he is there. ” Later they decided to simply record the dog growling a lot, and used the tapes to make burglars think that they were still paying for that guard dog.

Police Use Ugly Truck to Solve Nuisance Problems

In Peoria Illinois, police officials have discovered the power of public shame. They park an especially ugly truck with 360 degree cameras in front of the houses of suspected drug dealers and other neighborhood trouble makers. People call the cops, and once they park the truck, people leave. Today's WSJ told the story.

"The ugliness of the Armadillo is what makes it unique," said Jim Pasco, of the National Fraternal Order of Police ."A police car is not a particular stigma, but if people see that thing in front of your house, they know something bad is going on in there."

The chief saw the former Brink's armored truck sitting in a parking lot in the police parking lot. He pressed it into service and later beefed it up, with bulletproof tires, and lettering that said Peoria Police Nuisance Property Surveillance Vehicle. One 'nuisance property dweller' parked cars all up and down their street to keep police from parking the Armadillo.

So they parked across the street.

William Gillette's Seven Sisters

Visiting the Stone Castle that Gilllette Built

William Gillette left a famous home on top of a mountain in Hadlyme, Connecticut. He was an actor, producer, playwright and yachtsman, and the big house he built was full of 15 cats. We joined many motorcyclists on a warm Sunday to tour the big house that he called Seven Sisters, but now, boaters passing by on the Connecticut refer to as Gillette's Castle.

He was also famous for tinkering with trains, and was the architect of this stone castle that's dotted with jagged rocks, and built of smooth river stones that were carted to the top of the mountain by local farmers. It cost $1 million to build in 1919, but the state of Connecticut was able to buy it as a park for a mere $23,000 about 25 years later. Gillette's relatives couldn't afford to keep it up. Today a stream of boaters zip by down on the Connecticut river dodging a ferry that takes cars across.

Gillette had an assistant named Otaki, whose brother was the mayor of Toyko. He was the actor's loyal valet, butler, and constant companion; an aristocrat in Japan yet a manservant for a famous rich guy in Connecticut. Gillette repaid his loyal service by giving him a house at the bottom of the mountain.

We had a visitor from Italy, and wanted a good day trip. This part of Connecticut was a perfect choice, and it began in the riverside village of Chester. A rockin' band made up of four guys in red bowling shirts was banging out a rendition of 'Johnny Be Goode' on the front steps of a real estate office. All around them were farmer's pop-uip tents. They were serving up the ripe produce and fruits of the season. A great August day in a lovely part of the world.

Johnny A at Mountain Park

Johnny A, guitar wizard, rocks the stage with his three-piece power trio at Mountain Park, Holyoke.

Mountain Park: New England's Finest Amphitheatre

Eric Suher's claim is true....this new venue with seating on the hill, a gorgeous sweep of lawn, and all that you need for a great day of ourdoor music is the finest in New England. I spoke with him as he jumped down off a golf cart, welcoming friends and music fans to this, his most ambitious music venue yet.

There's unlimited space up here, I mean, thousands and thousands of people could be up here watching a Springsteen or a Rolling Stones show. Well that might be pushing it, but the physical space and the acoustics are perfect. The stage is easy to see, the parking isn't that far, and the concessions include $6 Magic Hats and $3 burgers. What's not to love?

"I'd love to do free shows up here, every week," Eric said. "Over there, beyond the buildings, we'll have a midway, with rides and stuff for kids. We can do anything up here, it's so wide open." Knowing that he's not one for false promises, my chat with Mountain Park's re-creator was inspiring. I can't wait to see next year's line up, I know it will be very impressive!

Escobar Meets MacGyver and Other Drug Tales

A man called GoNOMAD last night looking for information on renting a villa in Costa Rica. We don’t rent villas, but I promised him I’d see what I can do, and this led me to a website called Costa Rica Travel News. The lead story on about the top ten drug smuggler bloopers in this country of many drug smugglers.

One was headlined ‘Escobar Meets MacGyver.

Last year authorities found four men in a 50’ homemade submarine seven feet below the surface, carrying a big load of cocaine. The men were breathing through tubes and had bailing devices and several tanks of gas when they were caught 100 miles off the country’s coast.

Other smugglers chose to hide their blow inside shark carcasses. When cops found the drugs, that broke open inside the fish, they also stumbled upon a private island with underground tunnels and three-meter deep vaults to store coke.

A final story was told about a cocaine speedboat that was caught and held by police on a beach. Three days later three cops and a detective conspired to steal the boat and the cocaine and got away with it for three months. The four brand-new cars they bought tipped off the police, who found more than $335,000 in various currencies.

Erik Gauger on Travel Writing from the Road

Erik Gauger was interviewed for a GoNOMAD story. His lush, huge photos make his site, Notes from the Road, a fascinating read. Here is an excerpt of the story.

What are some of the biggest challenges to travel writing?

For me, the process of travel writing is dependent on a very simple thing. If all sorts of things happen to me when I'm on the road, and I meet some interesting people who tell me amazing things, I find that writing is easy. The narrative comes to me in my head and I can put it together without effort.

Alternatively, I can travel to a faraway place and find that, in the end, I haven't a single thing to write about because I didn’t get a single good interview or run into any sort of trouble. In those cases, I try to pull in some history or botany or something into my narrative. But in the end, the most enjoyable travel writing comes when unexpected events keep happening.

I’m sure your camera attracts a lot of attention from bystanders, is this true?

My large format camera attracts people. If I'm shooting in a city, for example, sometimes I get a crowd of people watching. When lots of people want to talk to you, it makes for a great travel interview setup. Also, when I travel alone, people find it easier to approach and talk to me.

What sort of advice would you give a travel writer who is just starting?

One of the biggest mistakes we make in travel writing is assuming that people care about our experiences, or how open we are to a different culture, or how great this one café is. Readers want to get something out of the writing for themselves. What attracts me so much to travel writing is that it is the non-fiction medium that has the greatest capacity for the consiliance of all disciplines. Travel writing is geography, history, art, zoology, sociology.

Travel writing is adventure and sports and food. Travel writing is international politics and humor. In travel, the only grounding rule is that you are taking your reader on the road with you. The rest – where you go from there – is up to you.

Breakfast at the GoNOMAD Cafe

Publishing's Tough, But There's Money To Be Made

Our advertising partnerships are doing well, we've become very good at matching up page content and revenue. I read with interest about a young man named Hunter Walker who decides to enroll at Columbia Journalism School, and was committing the biggest sin--talking about the cost. It's gonna be $47K and according to many commenters, won't come close to guaranteeing him a job.

The media aren't hiring.

Many of Columbia J School's students got internships, though, prestigious, unpaid stints at the Wall St. Journal, or the New York Times after making the journalism school grade. But it's just hard to come up with positions when you're in the content business. It's all going down. I still consume news, and pay for it, it's just all so much less than the cost of the newsprint. So we watch the Boston Globe turn into a non-profit, and the Times shrink itself down to a sustainable less bulky size to survive.

Publishing offers some people tremendous rewards on line, to replace what the old media used to take in from ads on the printed page, and the only way to make it work is to accept that it's a whole new world and play by the new rules. Embittered editors often make wistful and powerful testiments to the role of newspapers and their value is not underestimated. But it's just the way it's moving to, an unmoveable inevitable change to the internet.

Living the Life on the Water

I'm charged up from a few days at sea off MV. It was really sweet tonic to just be out there, out in that harbor that I dreamed about as a boy for so many afternoons. It took until I was 50 to achieve such a seemingly simple goal.

Denny and Laraine love to share their lives on the boat, that lasts four months and takes them all up and down the East Coast. The liveaboard boat looks a little like a fishing boat, it has the same lines, so inside it is roomy and comfortable.

I learned a lot about living on the ocean from this couple. We spent a long time on Tuesday filling up the 300-gallon tanks in Isis lower hull that would last them about three weeks. Denny said that desalination plants are common on vessels of all sizes.

They even make a little pail that squeezes seawater through membranes and creates fresh water. If you don't use the system for a while, it gets all gummed up with the salt and won't work right. Everything on the coffee table was secured with green gum. Thing bounce around and waves over 5' can be very wet.

Denny said that at this time in his life it's about time, not money. And since his passion is the ocean, he's living the perfectly aligned life, on the water as he likes it. As we said goodbye, they were headed to the other side of the Elizabeth islands, to spend the night in a quiet cove called Hadley. Next port of call Provincetown. We love being on the boat, they both said, and you can tell that each project they undertake for the Isis is a labor of love.

Rocking with the Gentle Waves in Edgartown's Outer Harbor

I'm lying in a bunk in the wheelhouse of the Isis, 42' trawler yacht anchored off of Chappy on a balmy night. The lights atop several large sailboats look like Venus and laughter can be heard from a distant boat.

Today we biked the length of Chappy and toured the harbor in the skiff, getting up close to the elegant summer homes that make Edgartown famous. I had seen them for so many years from land and now got to see them and the beautiful yachts as well from the water.

We also saw the massive house built on the site that for nearly 50 years was Essies house. Sigh.
Spending these few days here was tonic, so relaxing and fun to be here right now, makes me feel grateful for my life and the people I love who give true meaning to it all. I went outside last night and gazed at the stars and the cloudy moon and all was right for a brief moment with the world...

Cruising the Coast of Martha's Vineyard--A Childhood Dream

I'm a little bit nervous as I wait for my friend Jack to arrive. We head down the Pike to Quonset Point Rhode Island and at 1 pm, we set sail on the Vineyard Fast Ferry bound for the honky tonk town of Oak Bluffs Mass. Nervous? Well, maybe a little, since I'm spending the next three days at sea.

The Vineyard is abuzz because Obama and family are planning a vacation there the last week of August, staying in a rented $20 million home in Chilmark. We will meet Denny and his wife Laraine in the harbor around 3, and board their boat for a few days of coastal cruising.

I've never been coastal cruising, despite spending more than 40 years on both Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. But all I've ever done is wistfully gaze out at the nautical merry makers, and dream that it could be me hoisting the sail and leaning back in the sun while the waves lap the sides of the boat. The slow putt putt of a boy piloting a Boston Whaler from the Chappaquiddick Beach Club is a perment etching in my mind. I wanted that bad.

I was going to bring this laptop---but then realized that there probably no plugs on the boat and it will make me a power hog if I'm always trying to plug this baby in. So it will be old school...just my composition book, my camera and the iphone (which I'm sure will be flashing red with low power very soon after we set sail.

In Queens, a Nautical Battle in the Roman Tradition

Duke Riley dreams big. Really big. Next Thursday he'll be directing a mock naval battle, Coliseum style, at the Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens. People will don gladiator gear, spectators will be required to wear togas, and in a vacant pool, 30-foot-long Spanish galleons, Egyptian river boats and Polynesian war canoes will fight to the finish.

The WSJ story by Kelly Crow detailed this intriguing event, explaining how an artist with a big money following (his tatoo-style drawings are collected by art patrons for major bucks) was able to convince Queens officials to allow him to build the big replica boats using recycled materials and invasive grasses using volunteers.

The event is called "Those About to Die Salute You," and is modeled on the ancient Roman's tendency to hold big events like mock naval battles in the coliseum during times of economic strife, to take the public's minds off of the bad news. Perfect timing, eh?

Riley is described as an artist who thinks more like a dockworker. He swims late at night in the Gowanus Bay. He sells assorted maps, uniforms, scrimshaw and nautical ink drawings for large sums to avid collectors. He got arrested when he floated his homemade Revolutionary War style submarine close to the Queen Mary 2 when it was docked in NY harbor.

Many artists have flocked to be a part of this extravaganza, volunteering to help build the boats using the former World's Fair Ice Rink as a makeshift drydock. I wish I could be there next Thursday to see the battle unfold but my toga is at the dry cleaners.

It All Started with the Dreaded Ghetto Latte

The blogosphere is abuzz with the actions and the comments (and the reactions) from a man in Virginia who went into a hip coffee cafe and tried to order a triple espresso over ice. He was refused by the barista who claimed that this violated the shop's policy. Then the owner of Murky Coffee made a complete jerk of himself by publicly bitchslapping the customer, ending up saying "Íf you show your face in my shop I'll punch you in your dick."

It all comes down to something that Starbucks employees are very familiar with---the dreaded ghetto latte. According to Wikipedia, this is a clever ruse by broke customers who order the aforementioned triple espresso over ice and ask for a bigger cup. Then they help themselves to the free milk, give it a shake, and voila, they've got a $4 iced latte for just $2.

As a cafe owner, I can weigh in with this...I've never had anyone order this drink, and hey, if they want it I'll give it to them. I've learned after many of my own mistakes that it's better to let them have what they want than to fight...remember last week's post about Shoul's famous watery beer at the Dirty Truth?

What it comes down to is that customers rule, over and over again, and the shopkeep or cafe owner who messes with them will wish he just handed over a new beer....or a triple espresso on ice.

The Decline of the Arabs Starts at the Top

Tonight a column by Fouad Ajami caught my eye in the WSJ. "Autocracy and the Decline of the Arabs" told the sad tale of a society that's been in the ditch out of action since the early 1980s. He speaks of "the Arab Rip Abu Winkle, awakening from a slumber to find the same tyrants still in control: Mubarak in Egypt, Ben Ali in Tunisia, Gadhafi in Libya. Oh, and Assad's son running the show in Syria.

The United Nations Development program ranks countries by government revenues as percentage of GDP, which are about 13% in third world countries. But in Libya, 68%, Saudi Arabia, 45%, and 40% in Algeria , Kuwait and Qatar. That means that most of the money is not made by private business, but by government, and in these cases it was from oil. To create the 51 million jobs these countries need, they'd have to change their approach rapidly, to say the least.

Ajami continues with his critique of a society that looks with envy on neighboring Iran, where people have seriously protested their downtrodden status quo. One Egyption political activist said you could count the number of activists willing to protest there on one hand. The feisty Iranian pushback is gaining them fans among restless Arabs, he said.

Afar Magazine Debuts, and It's a Keeper

In my overflowing office email box, I got a press release for a new travel magazine called Afar. One that's printed, and mailed, old school style. I dashed off a wise-acre reply, saying hey, send me a copy, and I wished them luck in this devilishly tough ad climate for anything printed. But just as I was thinking, boy they're nuts, this morning I got a copy of the premier issue. And it's great! It helps that the founder Greg Sullivan is worth millions after starting several successful gaming and car rental companies.

So many travel magazines are cliches. They either try to be Travel and Leisure, or step down to being a celebrity magazine that happens to mention travel. Take most airline rags, you notice it's always a movie star's Atlanta, or a football hero's Buenos Aires.

C0-founder Sullivan says in the opening note, 'Life is about more than what we consume, instead, we now search for meaning wherever we can find it. We try to connect with people. We embrace what makes each culture distinct, even as we recognize that we have more in common with our world neighbors than we may have thought."

Afar doesn't hit me with celebrity worship crap, instead, they print a nicely laid out array of articles that are really unusual. One was a long piece about a guy who unplugged himself and now lives an itinerant life in Latin America. Another story was about learning to bake baguettes with a Parisien boulanger. The photos are given plenty of room, the writing isn't gimmicky or cliched, and overall, it was a satisfying read.

I'm waiting to see what they do on the web, and whether we might be able to work with them since they feel to me a bit like a big old printed GoNOMAD.com. Stay tuned!

"The Ultimate Gift" Keeps on Giving

I'm a sucker for a heart-wrenching tale, and have been known to tear up during sad movies and at poignant moments. Tonight I watched a movie that brought out these same sappy tears but the message definitely bears repeating. I think this film is part of a new division called Fox Faith, packaging these message-laden movies with their own brand.

"The Ultimate Gift," was cliched yet drove home a bunch of salient points, about virtues and gifts that make life worth living. It's about a billionaire who dies and leaves a bunch of unhappy relatives who squabble for his riches yet know nothing about decency, what's really important, or how to treat other people. They're dispicable rich, with their own servants and stocks and morally bankrupt. One of them, though, is chosen to follow a circituitous route to eventual wealth...grandson Jason. James Garner plays the part of the deceased grandpa, coming to life on a series of videos, instructions on life's various gifts and how to find them.

Jason is a prima donna who's too rich, too profligate and has never worked a day in his life. He's flown out to a ranch and put to work digging postholes. Then all his credit cards and even his penthouse is taken away, and he must make a friend without any of these. He's flown down to Ecuador where a library was built by his grandpa but named for him. He endures hardships, finds real happiness in serving others, and grows into a real man with values that Garner would appreciate.

In the end vast riches come to him as he learns to give, and give away, a vast fortune, and finds a true friend in a woman with a sweet and sick young daughter (played by the wonderful Abigail Breslin). Even though friends who deserted him come back with the money, he sticks to the ones he made when he had none.

Finding the gifts of work, friendship, laughter, family and finally, of service give him all he needs to live a fullfilled and satisfying life...and the extra billion didn't hurt either.

Alessandra Stanley Goes from Times Star to Goat

Alessandra Stanley was once the ít girl of journalism. So cool and so facile, able to mix in anecdotes about Neapolitan traditions, esoteric literary references, and other word tricks.

But she is on a copy desk now, no longer the top TV writer for the NY Times.
It's all because of one story with seven blunders in it. The correction was a record, and the Times admitted they'd had a special editor read through everything she wrote...yet it still came out wrong. Here's what the Times had to say in the way of explanation:

But a more nuanced answer is that even a newspaper like The Times, with layers of editing to ensure accuracy, can go off the rails when communication is poor, individuals do not bear down hard enough, and they make assumptions about what others have done. Five editors read the article at different times, but none subjected it to rigorous fact-checking, even after catching two other errors in it. And three editors combined to cause one of the errors themselves.

Part of what's making people like a blogger called Still a Newspaperman so mad is that it was error filled and it was about beloved Walter Cronkite. Because he was a news guy, who had to get it right, the preposterous string of bang, 7 mistakes, sears at the skin. Gawker also weighed in on Stanley, taking shots at one of their favorite targets.

Rockin the House at Johnny and Andrea's Party

We went to two parties last night. Boy what a contrast. At the first, most people didn't know who we were and nobody really had any interest in us. It was like we were shopping, wandering anonymously through the aisles.

Then we drove up to John and Andrea's in Florence and this video shows what a rockin' party it was! Thanks so much to our host and hostessses, who just returned from a family Spanish language vacation in Guatemala!

In Germany, They've Spent $7B on Clunkers--So Far

I've got a clunker in my garage that my family would love to see me get rid of. It's got a dead battery, needs a new catalytic converter, and now the hood latch doesn't work so it takes pliers to open it up. You'd think I would be eligible for the much-talked about clunkers rebate program...but no.

You see, my clunker is a 1997 Toyota Avalon, which gets 22 mpg. That's too high to qualify, so I ain't gonna get no $4500 for that beast. In a WSJ article today, I read that in Germany, a country with one-third as many people as the US, they've already doled out $7 billion to get clunkers off the road. For the first time in months, car dealers are happy, people are buying. One dealer said he set up shop in an unused building to process the rebates, gave away hotdogs and sold 100 vehicles. But even with controllers processing orders until 2 in the morning, they couldn't get them all through.

Today was a great relief when lawmakers moved another $2 billion from an energy conservation program toward buying more clunkers. I predict that by the end this whole thing could end up costing $10 billion, but removing gas guzzlers that pollute 20 times more than new cars is worth it.

Despite Fountains of Wayne Frontman, the 'Truth Gets Old

I am easily impressed by famous people. I always feel like it is some big deal when I sit near somebody who a bunch of people know, or pass by someone more famous than I am. Chris Collingwood is a founding member of Fountains of Wayne, a band that gets a lot of great press and this month played on Conan. The rock star sat with his mates and another man, who I think is also in the band, held a baby as they drank beers at the Dirty Truth last night.

First the Fountain frontman, then we see Billy Bragg grabbing a cup of joe to go while we sat at Haymarket.

The Dirty Truth is the uber Northampton scene, and their chilliness is starting to grate on me. Plus, the music is impossibly loud, and all my mates and I want to do is talk. Again and again when we come here I wonder why.

They brought out a Victory lager for Shoul, he took a sip and said it was flat. The tousle-haired waiter disagreed, but did us the minor courtesy of asking the bartender his opinion. Another twenty-something dude came out and declared that the beer was fine, while all of us sipped it with disgust. It was a showdown that the customer should have won, but somehow lost. (Here is his account of last night

You won't see us in the Dirty Truth any more, we'll be somewhere else on a Friday night where we can hear each other talk and though no rock stars may be present, the staff will be a little nicer.