Category: Uncategorized (Page 76 of 96)

First I received an eMail, then a voicemail, then old-fashioned junk mail and finally another eMail. It was unbelievable. My phone company, Vonage, didn’t want me, a loyal customer, to miss out on their great IPO!!! For those of you not hip to the lingo of us movers and shakers on Wall Street, an “IPO” is an initial public offering of stock. That’s when big shots like me get to get into stock on the ground floor and ride it to riches! Yep, this was another opportunity just like that time I was invited to participate in the IPO of MP3.com. Yeah, back then of course, I was a big shot record executive and… well, that’s another story for another time…

As any investor should, I conducted a little “due diligence” on this “too good to be true” offer and quickly surmised it was going to be just that. The financial fundamentals just weren’t there and competition in their VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) market is heating up. Some observers suggested that Vonage was actually having difficulty attracting institutional investors and that the seemingly customer-friendly IPO offer was actually a desperate cash grab from its own customers.

I didn’t invest.

The stock opened Wednesday and the IPO price loyal Vonage customers had to pay was $17/share. It quickly fell and as of yesterday, it sat at $13… I love the service and pay a flat $27.78 a month, but I’m sure glad I didn’t buy their stock. Let’s say I purchased 500 shares. As of this morning I’d be down $2000, or about six years worth of Vonage bills… All because my phone company spammed me into a bad deal.

Yes, I am toast. An overdone piece dipped into hot tea with milk when it just turns to mush before disintegrating to the bottom of the cup. Anyway, toast can’t write so I give you Dave. Um, well, Dave’s hair. It seems, according to Dave, that he’s got some fabulous “do” according to all the groupies on his myspace site. Now don’t get me wrong, Dave’s pomp is legendary. It’s freakin awesome! Here are some comments left from his fans:

“best hair since ’68 era Elvis! keep rockin cat!” “Keep growing those cool lambchops!”

Another dude from a British band wrote ol’ Hut234 to say he thought he had the best hair in the UK until he saw Dave’s picture he said “you win!” Dave got a big kick out of that…

Dave is proud of his hair and I think he spends quite some time whipping it up into that pompador. I tried to touch it once, but Dave went all diva on me…

Visit Dave at www.myspace.com/raveondave

I’ve been very busy lately working on um, work, so I don’t have much time to wax poetic. Hey, at least I haven’t missed any beautiful weather. It has been raining so much the last time the Red Sox had a homestand they played a total of six innings. Anyway, it does give me the opportunity to re-use this graphic from May of last year…

It’s funny, while most people are quite tired of the beverage falling from the sky, my boy Kyle loves it. I recently told him about when I was in college in Tucson, it was just one after another of hot, dry, cloudless days. I’d wish for just one day of weather like this. Enjoy it. Soon enough you’ll be hearing “how ’bout this heat?”

Last night I watched the last episode of “Love Monkey.” Several times during the show, I felt myself beaming with delight. Yeah, there’s the music, the great scenes of NYC and its clubs, but I really think the appeal for me is the bonds of friendship the characters had and their personal integrity. I have friends like that I don’t see nearly enough of. In the final scene, all the friends come together for the birth of a baby. As each friend arrives at the hospital to wait and worry, a song silences dialogue. It spoke to me about “the journey.”

There’s been quite a bit of buzz surrounding whether the box-office take of “The Da Vinci Code” will be follically challenged when it opens this Friday. There are also Catholic groups, including “Opus Dei” asking for a film disclaimer. Opus Dei doesn’t want to be portrayed as secretive monk-freaks… Um, whatever. As for the Catholic bureaucracy, Josh Grossberg wrote in E!-Online, “In a Good Friday sermon at St. Peter’s Basilica, Father Ramiero Cantalamessa, speaking before Pope Benedict XVI, attacked the book and the upcoming film as “pseudo-historic” works aimed at undermining the Church’s authority.” The church’s authority? Is that the same authority some of their priests used to rape little boys? Just wondering.

As for how the movie will do, just do the math. “Da Vinci” sold over 40 million copies of the book. Multiply that times people lending their copy to others, library borrowing, illegal Internet distribution of the text and audio version and that 40 million is probably 400 million. Those that haven’t read the book have certainly heard about it, so I expect the opening weekend to be huge. After that it will be all about word of mouth advertising. With Ron Howard directing, I expect movie-goer opinions to be stellar. I dare say that if “Da Vinci” had a love story and a sinking luxury-liner, it might end up the highest grossing film in history.

“Happy Mother’s Day” I said with a smile as she walked out the door. Dressed in black, the mother of our children floated away, back out into the rain of a bittersweet day. Standing at my feet was our four year old grand-daughter, Mackenzie. I was told she burst into tears at church on this day. To “Kenzie,” Mother’s Day is a painful reminder of her mother, who took herself out of the game over two years ago. Her return is uncertain. “She wanted to see her Auntie Megan,” I was told. Kenzie made herself comfortable on the couch with her Uncle Kyle, so there was no need for Megan to get up just yet. Entering Megan’s room to let her know, I was horrified to see a tornado had touched down and violently swirled the contents of her room into a splintered, random mess. I climbed over the wreckage and dug through debris until I finally found her. She was sleeping soundly, unfazed by the destruction left in the wake of a wicked whirlpool of wind. Relieved my Megan survived the devastation; I kissed her cheek and told her of our visitor. She sprang up like a rookie being asked to pinch hit in a big game… a really big game. Based on Ms. Daley’s past performance in these pressure situations, I have no doubt she’ll hit a homer.

“It is so beautiful here; I wonder how many people decided to end things here and jump-off?” I didn’t know the answer to Barb’s question about the Golden Gate, but I would find out.

Research turned up “The Bridge,” a film by Eric Steel documenting the deaths of some 20 people who didn’t come to walk, or jog, or linger to absorb the beauty. They came to “cross over” the ledge to the other side. Since opening in 1937, the bridge has been magnetic to those with a death wish, and its pull has claimed over 1,300 lives.

Walk On By…
In a Q&A; session during the SF Film Festival, Mr. Steel spoke of things that surprised him during his year at the bridge. One incredible observation was that many people walking by would clearly see that a person was preparing to jump, but would just keep on walking without making any effort to intervene or help. While that seems incredible, it’s not really surprising. Many among us are indeed colder than the icy waters of the San Francisco Bay.

I hear Prom Night is big with the chicks. Here are a couple from last night’s prom… No, I don’t have any idea why it was on a Thursday. Anyway, here’s Megan (R) and her pal, Courtney. No words can explain the joy I feel seeing the smile on her face and the sparkle in her eyes. My little girl has become a smart, funny and most beautiful woman.

The Robot Strikes again…
My friend Jeff is a brilliant writer. He’s the reason I’m here, and I mean that on several levels. In the last couple days he’s written another of his exposes’ on the Tar Hut years, and today has a sweet interview with Brian Henneman of the Bottle Rockets. They are in town June 17th… Don’t miss ’em.

Between work, travel and watching Love Monkey, I just haven’t had much time to write lately, but for this I’ll make time. Back in June, I posted this photo of Kyle posing with “Bruce,” the shark from “Jaws.” Yesterday, I received this email:

“On your website, I stumbled across your picture from Jawsfest posing with Bruce. I don’t know if you’ve heard of the documentary, THE SHARK IS STILL WORKING, but I’m one of the producers of it. My name is James Gelet, and I’d like to have your permission to include that photo in the documentary. In fact if you could better yet email me a higher res version of it than what is on your site, that would be wonderful.

If you’d like to learn more about the doc, check out www.sharkisstillworking.com. I’d be happy to hear from you if you have any questions.

-James”

I quickly wrote back to James and let him know what a huge fan Kyle was and of course included a hi-res version. Here’s James’ response:

“Thanks a ton for the speedy response. We’re honored to have you and Kyle in the doc. It’s just going to be a quick musical break where we talk about how Greg Nicotero’s shark was such a hit. We’ll have a little medley of people’s photos, and I think we’ve already made the decision to have Kyle’s photo be the last one so he can stay on screen a little longer. He looks like he was really happy and had a fantastic weekend.

Thanks again, and I’d be happy to hear from you any time if you have
any questions at all.

-James”

Kyle in the movies… How cool is that?

Sometimes it’s the song, sometimes it’s the choreography, and sometimes it’s just because…

5. Sloan, Hampton Beach Casino, NH (2004) – Megan’s first show in a club and she was about 10 people deep from the stage when the band opened with “Gimme That.” She turned to look back at me and her smile said it all. Sure, there was Jeff Tweedy kicking off my first Wilco show with a solo version of “Gun,” and Queen in 1978 at Boston Garden opening with “Tie Your Mother Down,” and the Who, and of course my first Bruce show, but this one makes it just because…

4. Black Sabbath at Live Aid (1985) – No, they didn’t open, but when I stumbled in after an all-nighter driving from Boston and partying in the parking lot, Ozzy and Sabbath were rocking in front of a sea of 100,000 people in Philly’s old JFK stadium. Surviving that show was like going 15 with Ali.

3. Stones, U of Colorado (1981) – College roomies Phil, Marty, Pat and yours truly drove 900 miles from Tucson, AZ to see the boys and there was one song I really wanted to hear. I’d never seen the band, so the first chords Keith ripped to “Start Me Up” was good enough to make the top 5. Oh, and “Under My Thumb” they played 2 songs later…

2. KISS, Providence Civic Center, New Years Day (1976) – Lights, smoke, bombs, action! Gino’s bass line thumps as he and Paul Stanley descent 20’ high stairs opening their “Destroyer” tour show with “Detroit Rock City.”

1. Alice Cooper – I don’t remember when or where, or even what the first song was, but Alice’s theatrical entrance to the stage was the best I’ve ever seen. Ever. (Granted, I never saw Spinal Tap live…) The lights go down and a film is projected on a movie theatre screen made up of long, white vertical strips. The scene is of a wheat field being harvested. We then move to a bottling plant where large vats of clear liquid are seen and then the filling of thousands of vodka bottles… (At that point, we all got it. Alice had famous battles with the bottle, even back then. Bottle after bottle was filled and sent down the line to be capped and boxed. At the end of the line, the bottles were falling toward us and into one of twelve slots in new cardboard boxes. Suddenly one bottle is coming at us and is uncapped. Just as the vodka begins to spill from the bottle, Cooper bursts out from the projected image and onto the stage as guitars wail and drums crash. That was cool.