When I was living in Los Angeles back in the 90’s, a band burst onto the scene with a different sound. Haunting at times. Melodic. Great lyrics. They soared to the top of the charts with hits like “Mr. Jones” and “Round Here”. Their lead singer dated TV and movie stars. But whereas some bands let fame go to their heads and disappear, never to be heard from again…24 years later, the Counting Crows have persevered and prospered. They’ve done so by staying true to what made them popular in the first place, while at the same time, not being afraid to step out of their comfort zone. Some bands are known for one or two songs, and you spend an entire show waiting for them, barely listening to the songs before them. If they don’t play them, you leave disappointed. But the Counting Crows are one of those rare bands that play a different set for virtually every show. You could see them ten times on the same tour and see a different show every night. And it doesn’t really matter what they play, because if you like their music, you like them all.
Remembering Tony Micros
Who is Tony Micros you ask? He didn’t find a cure for Cancer or run for President. He wasn’t a neurosurgeon who saved hundreds of lives. He wasn’t a billionaire. He was just a smart, honest, decent, family man in a world in desperate need of more of them.
Tim McGraw Got it Right
Move over baseball. America, it seems, has a new pastime: Ripping to shreds any person who has an opinion different than your own. From the moment Tim McGraw announced that 100% of the proceeds from his July 17th concert in Hartford, Connecticut were going to benefit Sandy Hook Promise; a group whose purpose is to try and find ways to prevent tragedies like Sandy Hook from ever happening again, the internet exploded.
Gun rights advocates criticized McGraw for supporting a group that allegedly supports gun control (Interestingly, the Sandy Hook Promise mission statement seemingly says nothing of the kind). Gun control advocates criticized him for being a gun owner himself. It appeared as though no good deed could go unpunished.
When Did Losing Become Ok?
It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game. That’s an adage as old as sports. But what if you played the game to lose? Sound crazy? Unfortunately, in the world of professional sports of all places, that’s become more the norm than the exception. Tank Mode. The technical definition is–“a team that loses on purpose after determining they have nothing to play for in the current season, in order to help their chances of drafting the next savior of the franchise”. There are a couple of problems associated with that way of thinking. The first is that for every Lebron James, there is Andrea Bargnani, Kwame Brown, Greg Oden, or Anthony Bennett. Who you say? Exactly. And those were all #1 picks! The list of failed draft choices grows with each spot down the draft board. The NBA, for its part, has attempted to mute “tanking” games by instituting the ping pong ball lottery. Based on how you finish, you have a higher percentage chance of obtaining the #1 pick, but certainly no guarantee. In fact, this year was the first time in a while that the team with the worst record actually won the #1 pick. But this system hasn’t really been the deterrent that the league perhaps thought it would be. Teams played the percentages.
All Good Things to Those Who Wait…
How often does something you are looking forward to arrive EARLY? Well, that’s exactly what has happened with the sequel to The Chameleon. The Greatest Mann in the World–originally set to launch Memorial Day Weekend, will take its inaugural bow this Friday, May 1st instead. Yes, Christmas has indeed come early!
Hindsight Really is 20/20
Kurt Vonnegut said, “Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, it might have been…”. But what if it could be again? What if you had the opportunity to go back and re-live any five days of your life? Would you choose days that were so precious to you that you would give anything to be able to experience them again? Or would you choose days in which you had regrets, and with the benefit of hindsight, change the course of your life? Or maybe you would go back to a day that you did nothing and said nothing and because of that, lived with a lifetime worth of regret and wonder? The conversation had sprung from an evening over several pitchers of beer, when someone posed the question, “If you had to rank the best days of your life, which one would you choose?” From there it morphed into something far greater.
Thinking of Robin Williams
I think what I will remember most about Robin Williams, was his ability to make other people laugh whose “job” was to make people laugh. Whenever he would go on Letterman or one of the other late night shows, he had the innate ability to make the normally controlled and stoic host laugh in spite of themselves.
Why write?
Everyone has a purpose for writing. Some use it as a release. Others to push a political agenda. Others still want to make people laugh. I want to make people smile.
To me, there is something cathartic about creating characters that are human and yet, so heroic you wish you could be just like them. Something interesting about taking ordinary people and dropping them into extraordinary circumstances or situations. The reverse of that is also true. Something interesting about taking extraordinary people and dropping them into ordinary situations.