My Big Honkin Blog

Betsy Myers - Take The Lead

2012-01-12T19:48:00.000-05:00

Ms. Myers was the COO of the Barack Obama presidential campaign and chaired the Women for Obama campaign organization in the last election cycle. She has served as the executive director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She, like her sister Dee Dee, was a senior official in the Clinton administration, working as the President’s advisor on women’s issues; women’s issues… not the President’s issues with women…I’ll leave it to you to fill in your own punch line.

Suffice it to say that Myers has tackled some high profile, high powered leadership roles. Yet I find her book, Take the Lead, as not so much a leadership book, but rather a set of what she describes as 7 core principles, that she wraps with political antidotes as an example of those principles in practice.
Myers 7 principles include:

• Connection – Making people feel seen and heard

• Collaboration – Being willing to embrace different points of view

• Authenticity – Knowing who you are

• Respect – Treating each person as important

• Clarity – laser focus and uncompromising consistency

• Learning - always listening and staying open to new ideas

• Courage – The courage to take risks; to apologize; to tell the truth; to grow
This could be the most contradictory list I have ever seen. Taking Ms. Myers at her own words, how can you be willing to embrace different points of view and be open to new ideas, yet remain uncompromisingly consistent? Does this say more about my Myers background in the political realm then about leadership?

Politicians by their very nature are some of the least authentic people I have ever encountered. Realistically speaking, if Barack Obama had been genuinely authentic during his Presidential campaign, does anyone really believe that he would have been elected President?

Boiling it down, Ms. Myers “core principles” aren’t a road map to leadership, but a road map to becoming a Democrat politician. It reads like a playbook for talking a good game, but doesn’t really show how to deliver the goods, which is really what Democrat elective politics have become – make it sound like you care about and issue/person, act like you’re going to do something, but never really deliver on a promise.

It’s interesting that the two powerful leaders that Ms. Myers worked for were so uniquely skilled at connection, yet such utter failures at having the courage to tell the truth. Interesting political insights…maybe. Leadership book…not so much.

My Life Deleted, by Scott and Joan Bolzan and Caitlin Rother.

2012-01-12T19:20:00.000-05:00

By Katie Johns – Guest Reviewer

How would you like to go to work one morning, slip and fall, and wake up hours later lying in your own blood, not knowing who you are, how you got there, and where you are?

This very thing happened to Scott Bolzan who owned an airplane business with his wife, Joan. He was the kind of man who woke up in the middle of the night and started working on his very successful business. Scott went into work at about 5 in the morning, worked for several hours, and simply walked into the men’s bathroom where his life was changed forever.

He slipped and fell on something oily, tried in vain after several hours to get back up, but kept slipping only to hit his head against the hard tile floor over and over.

Finally after getting up he hailed a woman walking through the building starting her business day. This was only the beginning of a strange new world of a major traumatic brain injury that irrevocably changed Scott’s life.

You see, after falling, repeatedly hitting his head numerous times, Scott lost all of his memory. He woke up in the hospital not knowing who he was, if he was married, or even what a hospital was. Scott essentially was taken back to being an infant, and could not remember anything.

When his wife of about 24 years walked into his hospital room, he didn’t know who she was, or what a wife was. He did not recognize any of his family members.

Scott had major head trauma, so horrible, he had to teach himself what everything was again. His wife daughter and son had to tell him about his life all over again.

Scott Bolzan’s story is fraught with heart wrenching misery, but you will see a man who was once a determined NHL football player, become a determined, strong man who digs deep to learn about his life, and how he teaches himself what everything is again. You will feel horrible for him in this story that could have turned out to be a feel sorry for yourself kind of book. But it’s not, My Life Deleted will teach everyone, even people who have had brain injuries, how to push past the pain, and get back into the game.

My Life Deleted is a story of a how a man relearns about his life, and how he relearns about all the things we learn as we grow up. It’s a story of character building, everyday problems, struggles, the agony of defeat and the hard won victories Scott and his family build on. It shows how a successful man realizes he was a not so nice a guy, and changes his personality becoming yet again a monetary success. He even becomes more of a nicer, more sensitive kind of guy, the kind of guy he never was before.

My Life Deleted is an interesting read, but it is written very simply. You will not get a complicated, big word kind of book where someone is trying to impress scholars. You will discover a simply written book, because you will realize that Scott is still learning about the world. This is a real life story that just might teach you how to push past all the misery in your life, and that hard work, a great attitude and determination will get you through even the worst of all situations.

Ronn Torossian – For Immediate Release (BenBella Books)

2011-11-16T21:35:00.001-05:00

Entire sections of book stores are dedicated to books on business and an endless array of theories on operations, sales and marketing. Ronn Torossian is the founder, president and CEO of 5W Public Relations, so it’s only natural that his first entry into the business book sweepstakes For Immediate Release would be centered on a public relations approach to building brands.

Torossian sites IBIS World, a media research firm when he rolls out the staggering fact that businesses spent an estimated $9.73 billion on public relations efforts in 2010, with forecasts having that spend increase to a projected $12.82 billion by 2015. While any dollar amount featuring the B-Word is impressive (at least outside the realm of government) those amounts pale in comparison to the estimated $210 billion that is spent on advertising.

Torossian makes a legitimate case that the impact that public relations efforts have on building brands and delivering bottom line results may be greater than that of straight brand advertising. The book is loaded with examples and case studies of how public relations strategies delivered positive measurable results.

In one glaring case, Torossian sites the BP Oil spill as an example of advertising as bad crisis management. The oil giant spent $50 million on an ad campaign to convince the public that the spill was really all that bad. While the spill was nowhere near the doomsday scenario that some in the media had painted, a well managed critical response public relations campaign featuring an expenditure in say the tens of millions in communities and with the people that were directly impacted by the spill would have had a much more positive impact than a bunch of TV commercials.

It’s nearly impossible for a small to mid-size enterprise to compete against the giants in a given business sector. With a concerted, focused, effort in the public relations realm, you can have an impact and improve bottom line results. I can’t imagine a more competitive business than the beverage industry; Torossian rolls out the case study of Hint Water, a bottled water company with $30 million in annual sales. When you think about the Dasani’s (Coca Cola), Aquafina (Pepsi) and the Perrier/Poland Springs’ (Nestle) of the world, who’s annual ad budgets dwarf Hint’s bottom line, how do they possibly compete? Any marketer worth their salt knows that it is impressions that count and Torossian was able to help Hint by garnering media coverage and significant profile features. It’s a whole lot easier to make a lasting impression when someone else, in many cases the media, are doing the heavy lifting for you.

Clearly Torossian makes the case that public relations needs to be a forethought rather than an afterthought. For Immediate Release makes me wonder how Torossian would have handled the Penn State mess; I would have to guess it would have been though a whole lot more proactive route than the one the University chose.

Bill Bennett- The Book of Man- Readings on the Path to Manhood (Thomas Nelson Books)

2011-10-30T14:29:00.000-04:00

The introduction of talk show host/commentator/former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett’s new book The Book of Man is as thought provoking a handful of pages as I have read lately. In it he makes the case that the state of manhood in America has gone through a dramatic and altogether not good transition over the course of the past couple of decades.

While it is not Bennett’s premise, I think the case can be made that we can trace the current malaise we find ourselves mired in, to the pussification of the American male. We have steadily erased some of the cornerstones of what made men, men. And Bennett’s book wants to put in place a framework, through the written word, to put manhood back into its rightful place, by changing the way we teach the next generation of males.

Think about it. We have erased from our society some of the most basic tenets of manhood. We whimpify boys by not allowing them to keep score in youth sports; going a step further when we actually allow scoring in scholastic sports, teams who win a lopsided victory are chastised for “running up the score.”

We have raised a generation of men not to seek knowledge and pursue critical thinking skills, but to merely get good grades. I recently took part in a discussion with a college professor who studies generational differences who spoke of the disturbing trend where college students are likely to have a parent call a professor about a bad grade or even go so far as to bring along a parent on job interviews!

We have taught a generation of men that they are inconsequential to the family unit; that women are strong and don’t really need them around. Is it any wonder that we have tragic divorce rates, scores of children being born and raised out of wedlock and where in the 1950s 96 percent of males between the ages of 25-54 worked; today that number stands at around 80 percent. Yes, a full 20 percent, one fifth of men do not get up and go to work each day!

Where once men took care of families, the government now plays the role of provider. No I am not a chauvinist, women are certainly a vital part of the work force and the family, but how can you read these numbers and not see that we have created an unsustainable and growing problem of dependency.

The Book Of Man is not a prescription to fix this problem, but gathers the writings of great thinkers on a variety of topics including; Man at Work, Man at Play, and Man with Women and Children, which can at the very least envision a different sort of path to manhood than we currently find ourselves on.

I can’t help but wonder if instead of government handouts if we might see a greater benefit in handing out copies of Mr. Bennett’s book. I also have to wonder if the maggot-infested flock of Wall Street Occupiers might benefit from a copy of the Book of Man…maybe we could enlist someone to read it to them, or better yet, we could set up a large PA system and blast them with the audio book version 24/7.

Simon Toyne- Sanctus (William Morrow)

2011-10-24T21:48:00.000-04:00

Scott Turow and John Grisham weren’t the first writers to write a legal thriller, but they set the tone and spawned phalanx of legal writers that churned out a library full of court room drama.

Tom Clancy wasn’t the first writer to knock out a military techno thriller, but he did marshal an army of writers who battled the forces of evil on millions of pages.

And Dan Brown wasn’t the first author the juggle ancient conspiracies in a modern setting, but he did guide a legion of wordsmiths who put quill to parchment and conjured up countless religious warriors, who protect a vault full of secrets.

While these authors set the proverbial tone, what separates those who follow from the rest of the pack is the ability to take the genre in a new in a new direction. Simon Toyne has done that with his debut thriller Sanctus.

Set in modern day Turkey, Sanctus details a mysterious religious sect that remains separated from the world in a mountain stronghold, the Citadel; protecting an ancient relic, known as the sacrament and it’s secret. If the secret were revealed it would change the face of religious belief, so the secretive brotherhood does whatever it takes to guard the cipher.

The intrigue starts early and remains at a steady pitch as competing forces battle for control of the secret. Keep in mind, if you need a firm grip on reality, then you’ll find yourself questioning things nearly every step of the way; this one falls firmly in the realm of the suspension of disbelief.

But that’s what a thriller is all about and Toyne it’s the right tone at the intersection of the ancient and modern worlds.

Mitch Daniels – Keeping the Republic: Saving America by Trusting Americans (Sentinel)

2011-10-01T15:25:00.000-04:00

Usually politicians author lofty treatises on their ideas or plans for changing, transforming or fixing America when they aspire to higher office. These books tend to be one part biography, one part historical and one part multi-point road map to fixing a problem.

The fact the Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has already declared his non-candidacy for the President, makes his new book Keeping the Republic: Saving America by Trusting Americans more intriguing.

Daniels’ book is a guide book for American exceptionalism. He not only understands that the only way out of the country’s current financial mess is to get government out of the way of the American people, he advocates that the answer lies with the people. Daniels knows that the more that government tries to fix the problem (that more often than not they created) the worse the problem becomes.

Daniels outlines the sheer immensity of the problem we are facing and ties it directly to the growth of government in our lives. In the chapter entitled “Shrunken Citizens” Daniels addresses the reduction of freedoms tied to government growth. It brings to mind the analogy of the frog dropped into a pot of boiling water that hops back out versus the frog in the pot of warm water that slowly has the heat turned up until it is cooked alive. The government intrusion has come a slow, steady, pace.

Daniels drives home the point while outlining the damage done by the passage of Obamacare. He details how government wage and price controls lead to business offering healthcare coverage. This has created the mindset is that somebody else will pay the bill, which has turned into an “inefficient model that has allowed Americans to grow accustomed to the idea to the idea that when it comes to the most personal and important purchase of all, those affecting their health, they are sheep, bystanders to the process in which they have neither the competence to decide what services to buy nor the intelligence to determine for themselves what price is too high for the value they are likely to obtain.”

Amazingly, Daniels approached his job with the seemingly unique mindset that he shouldn’t spend more of the taxpayers money than he takes in. Daniels is an example, or should be, of the new American mindset when it comes to government overspending.

It’s easy to understand why big government, Democrats misread the American people, thinking Daniels would be an easy political target when he ran for re-election. It was Daniels taking a tough stance on spending that transformed his state deficit to a surplus and positioned Indiana in a way to better absorb the recession of 2008.

Daniels approach to governance would not only see him easily win a second term, but also serve as a guidepost to leaders like Governor Chris Christie in New Jersey, Rick Scott in Florida, John Kasich in Ohio and Scott Walker in Wisconsin.

Jerry Blavat – You Only Rock Once

2011-09-29T16:26:00.001-04:00

Anyone who is an aficionado of music, the early days of rock ‘n’ roll radio or is just a fans of the 1950s will want to check out Jerry Blavat’s You Only Rock Once.

Blavat’s legend was made in the early days of rock radio and TV in the city that launched Dick Clark into the national spotlight with American Bandstand. Blavat’s story reads like a slice of the classic movie Bronx Tale; his Dad was Jewish numbers runner and mobster and his early life found him running the streets of Philadelphia.

An under-aged Blavat danced his way onto Bob Horn’s Bandstand (which would later find fill in host Clark taking the show national as American Bandstand.) Blavat’s tale is laced with his love of music, that remains in place to this day. He became a member of Horn’s music advisory panel, helping to pick the hits that would make it onto the TV show.

One of the early signs of Blavat’s rebellious side came when Horn ran into some legal troubles and Clark was brought into the host Bandstand and he launched an ill-fated protest to return the troubled Horn to host duties. This also was an early example of Blavat’s single-mindedness when it came to business.

Blavat runs down not only his wild-child approach to his teens; including colorful business and precocious sexual exploits. Before he was out of high school, Blavat became the road manager for early rockers Danny and the Juniors, later becoming a promo pitchman for record companies and then landing his first radio gig.

Blavat mingles great stories the book of his brushes with fame and the famous like a young start up comedian Don Rickles, Frank Sinatra, Frankie Avalon and Sammy Davis Jr. among many others. To call Blavat colorful is an understatement.

The most amazing thing about You Only rock Once is the absolute clarity of Blavat’s passion for the music that he promoted, played and lives right to this day. His is a truly fascinating story.

Joseph Finder – Buried Secrets

2011-09-23T09:53:00.004-04:00

How do you mix an over-privileged socialite with a troubled past, Washington power brokers, high flying Wall Street hedge fund traders, Russian mobsters, a sadistic enforcer and a skilled former spy into one storyline? Start with a skilled storyteller like Joseph Finder and mix in a strong focal point character like Nick Heller and you’re off to the races.

Finder’s latest Nick Heller novel, Buried Secrets, is a classic beat the clock thriller. A troubled daughter of a billionaire disappears, an e-mailed link to a web cam lights the fuse and the race is on to get her back.

Finder does a masterful job of describing the claustrophobic terror that the kidnap victim experiences as she discovers that she is literally buried alive and her only connection to the outside world and reality is a web cam mounted in her underground coffin. You may find yourself gasping for air as he describes the waves of fear that overtake the victim.

Buried Secrets is the second, in what I hope will become a series, of Nick Heller novels. Heller is a private investigator with skillset more than a few pay grades above the average fictional PI. Heller is a former spy with a background in private, for hire, intelligence. As finder weaves the story, Heller showcases the ability to pick up threads that the average investigators might miss.

He also excels at dropping himself into dangerous situations and utilizing his training to escape unscathed. Along the way Heller mixes it up with Russian mobster, who’s bent on looking legitimate, a handful of hardcases and a particularly nasty enforcer who comes packaged with a psychotic killing streak and a stylish prison gang tattoo of an owl that gives him “eyes in the back of his head.”

Buried Secrets is terrific follow up to the first Heller adventure, Vanished; he is a character that can join the likes of Lee Child’s, Jack Reacher; Stephen Hunter’s, Bob Lee Swagger; Brad Thor’s, Scot Harvath; and Vince Flynn’s, Mitch Rapp.

George Pelecanos – The Cut

2011-09-08T14:39:00.000-04:00

Some writers have the ability to draw great characters; vivid portraits of the players who drive storylines. Others have the ability to paint great settings; the gritty underbellies of inner cities, the wide open spaces of suburban sprawl or even the tumbledown backwoods homestead.

Then there is the rare writer, who has the ability to capture not only great characters and locations but also the feel and the vibe that is the real heartbeat of the story. Think Elmore Leonard cool.

Or George Pelecanos.

His latest, The Cut, has its own cool vibe; a real, lived in, comfortable style. When Pelecanos writes about Washington, DC and surrounding communities, his economy of words reads as if he is leading you through a familiar, easy-going, but edgy hood.

Pelecanos’ characters, is this case, “investigator” Spero Lucas brings his own rhythm to the pacing of the story. The fact that the former Marine grooves to cool reggae and is even known to mix in a little percussive DC go go music and kick it old school, just seem to work with this complex, multi-layered character.

Lucas does his thing, working more like a modern day tracker, both people and things, more so than a typical fictional PI. The concept is simple; Lucas agrees to track down a clients stolen item in exchange for a 40% piece of the action…The Cut.

In this instance, the client is a drug dealer facing trial, the item are a series of missing FEDEXed drug shipments. Lucas tracks down the cash from the sale of the goods, takes his cuts and passes along the rest. And that’s where the story takes an interesting turn.

Pelecanos attracted a legion of new fans for his writing and producing of the HBO Series, The Wire; those fans and those of his Derek Strange series will want to submerge themselves in this very quick read.

Douglas Edwards – I’m Feeling Lucky- Confessions of Google Employee #59

2011-09-02T12:28:00.000-04:00

Based on the title, it might be easy to have some misperceptions about Douglas Edwards book, I’m Feeling Lucky- Confessions of Google Employee #59.

I can tell you this about the book:

It is not a business book that pontificates about the way things ought to be done if you want to succeed in business.

It is not a biography of a dot com business insider who struck gold, bought a Gulfstream and now spends his days trying to solve the world’s problems.

Despite the word confessions being included in the title, it is not a hatchet job; tell all about Google’s founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, penned by a disgruntled former employee.

What it is, is and interesting and entertaining ride through the flying by the seat of their pants start up of what would become one of the true titans of the tech world.

Edwards background was more of a traditional marketer, focused on product development, market share and how to grow a business. I’m Feeling Lucky focuses a lot on how he had to learn a new approach to marketing that was counter to all he had learned and done previously.

Edwards offers some interesting insights that will be very relatable to anyone who has ever been involved in a start up. The long hours, the wearing of multiple hats, the silliness that can overtake a sleep deprived, caffeine fueled existence of the start up workplace.

Edwards sprinkles enough insider tales throughout the book to keep the pace moving forward at a steady clip. The only quibble is the fact that at times the book gets chronologically challenged; bouncing back and forth between dates and events rather than a steady build forward through the development and growth of the Google behemoth.

Are You Ready for Hurricane Irene?

2011-08-27T12:50:00.002-04:00

HuricaneThe Prepper’s Pocket Guide: 101 Easy Things You Can Do To Ready Your Home For A Disaster

With the 24 hour news channels and the Weather Channel bombarding us with non-stop coverage of the run up the East coast by Hurricane Irene and Mayors and Governors universally calling on residents to abandon ship and get out of their homes, it raises the question for a lot of people following the story, “What would I do in that situation?”

Author Bernie Carr has the answer, or actually 101 answers on how to prepare before disaster strikes in her new book The Prepper’s Pocket Guide: 101 Easy Things You Can Do To Ready Your Home For A Disaster. Carr offers a wide array of tips ranging from the basics; decluttering your home, what to include in a 3 day survival kit and creating a family emergency plan, to addressing fresh water and food needs, financial planning, prepping your home, safety needs and when to get out in an emergency.

Many folks may view Carr as a nutty survivalist-type, but those are the people who would be the first to cry for help, likely from the government, when disaster actually strikes. The Prepper’s Pocket Guide offers common sense advice that anyone can follow and could save lives when professional help may not be available.

No Carr won’t make you the neighborhood MacGyvor, but he will help you to be better prepared for the challenges of weather related issues, acts of God and even some manmade disasters, as the Obama administration as dubbed terrorist acts, that could strike anyone, anywhere.

The Prepper’s Pocket Guide is laid out in an easy to use format that allows you to pick and choose the sections you want to use, you may not need them all, but you’ll be ahead of the game if you use this book to plan.

Brad Thor – Full Black

2011-08-25T12:49:00.001-04:00

When it comes to recommending authors who never disappoint, two names come to mind; Vince Flynn and Brad Thor. I have often, wholeheartedly, endorsed the works of these to guys to friends and co-workers.

I always find it interesting and often entertaining to gauge the reactions of those I pass the recommendations onto, when they make their first foray in the scary world of Flynn and Thor. They tend to range from enthusiastic fist pumping agreement to tight-assed, butt puckering comments like, “well I don’t know about the politics.”

If you are among the mind-numbed who think we need to “try to understand our enemies” or think that “we must have done something wrong for them to hate us” then don’t waste your time or hard earned money buying Flynn and Thor’s books. Oh and do me a favor, keep your opinions to yourself, I really don’t want to engage in the empty debate. If you are like me and think that there are evil people in the world who hate this country simply because we exist, then what are you waiting for?

Thor’s new book, his eleventh, Full Black features the latest installment in the ongoing Scot Harvath series. Full Black picks up the story thread where Foreign Influence left off. Thor once again exercises his ability to quickly grab you by the throat and set you off to the races. Think 24 on steroids without the short guy hero.

Full Black has a ripped from today’s headlines quality with characters that parallel many of today’s newsmakers; most notably the character James Standing, who seems similar to another famous, evil billionaire who seems bent on the destruction of the U.S. economic system and way of life. Sound familiar?

The thing that makes Thor’s wild storylines more believable is the “been there, done that, got the T-shirt” authenticity to his writing. He clearly has spent some time around and learning from the special operators of the U.S. Military. Stack the adventures and actions of Harvath up against the non-fiction accounts of Special Forces types and you’ll see a lot of similarities.

Here’s hoping that Thor continues to crank out engaging thrillers not only for my entertainment, but also for the butt puckering they cause for those folks who live in the land of the shades of gray.

Dr. Tim Groseclose – Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind

2011-08-19T15:10:00.001-04:00

You have to love the Liberals “do as I say, not as I do” approach to life.

When it comes to global warming, the “science is settled”; man made global warming exists and if you don’t believe it, then you are at best a denier, but more likely you are a flat-Earther, or have a room temperature IQ. We are talking science here!

If you don’t buy into Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, then clearly you are a mind-numbed dolt or worse some sort of Bible-thumping moron! We are talking science here!

Clearly you are George W. Bush stupid if you don’t think that stem cell research will help solve all of the world’s medical issues; Michael J. Fox will be cured of Parkinson’s, Christopher Reeve would have walked and heck we might have even been able to thaw out Walt Disney. We are talking science here!

Liberals wrap themselves in the cloak of science; adopting a look down my nose, I’m smarter than you world view, if you are too stupid to grasp the importance of what only they can understand.
That is until now. Dr. Tim Groseclose, an economics and political science guru at UCLA, has developed a methodology for measuring the political quotient (PQ) of news outlets and the impact it has on voters and even politicians. Methodology…yes we’re talking SCIENCE here!

Naturally Professor Groseclose’s book, Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts The American Mind, has liberals sputtering mad. They denigrate Groseclose and his research making the usual claims that Groseclose has been bought and paid for by the right, that clearly he is a conservative wing nut and his research/book is biased and yada yada on the personal attack front. When it comes to Liberal, if you can’t respond with a valid argument, then a personal attack will do.

Groseclose based Left Turn on a journal article the he co-authored, and in the book he offers a snapshot of the reactions he encountered to the article from his colleagues in another liberal bastion, academia. The reaction was predictable, ranging from outrage to calls for him to be fired! Surprisingly, Groseclose actually earned a bump up to a full professorship and received offers for endowment positions along the way.

He also managed to at least convince a few of his academic skeptics that the science he used to develop the results; which show a strong left lean to much of the media and a more even handed fairness on the part of outlets like Fox News which are accused of a conservative bias, was scientifically sound.

While I didn’t find Left Turn to be as entertaining a read as say Freakanomics, fans of that book, and those who thought the media was liberally biased will enjoy this book. Liberals will likely hate it, attack it, and label it pseudo-science!

Review: Ryan Blair - Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain

2011-08-10T09:01:00.004-04:00

There are boat loads of business books, that espouse about an equal number of theories and ideas on how you should go about starting, running or growing your business.

I have read armfuls of these things and had my Linkedin connections suggest that many more. Along the way I have picked up tidbits about breaking all the rules with the right people on the bus, while I explored strategies in the blue ocean.

Don't get me wrong, I have liked alot of these books and have successfully used a number of the ideas/theories that I picked up along the way, but I haven't found one book where I found myself noding in agreement with what these business gurus had put forth.

That is until now. I didn't start out reading Ryan Blair's Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain as a business book as much as in interesting tale of a young guy who moved from the mean streets to the board room. What I ended up with was a book that not only endorsed a number of my business views, but also confirmed a number of suspicions.

One of the things that has always driven me crazy obout business is that it never moves a quickly as I'd like; thing take far too long to get done. Blair's books moves at a quick pace and instead flowery theories from some Harvard professor, you get actionable steps that you can get rolling with today.

Preparation. Planning. Heck yeah! Foot dragging. Panels and commitees...hell no!

Chapter 12 of Nothing To Lose... - Million Dollar Mistakes, shows that Blair has earned a PhD in real world experience. This chapeter should be required reading at Wharton or any other bastion of business thinking...or by anyone who wants to get things done. Anyone who's been subjected to ass kissers not only hang around but get promoted will be able to relate to Blair's thoughts on employees selling you and not firing fast enough.

If your looking for a traditional business book, there are plenty around to choose from. Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain is a solid business book, wrapped in an interesting story.

Please Don't...

2011-07-24T08:29:00.001-04:00

I suppose it's only natural given the circumstances of her death, and for that matter the way she lived her life, but please don't try to make comparisons to the death of Amy Winehouse and other members of the so-called 27 club...those musicians who passed at the all-to-young age of 27 years old.

While she was extremely talented, Winehouse really doesn't have the musical legacy to be compared to the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and even Kurt Cobain, all members of "the club." Winehouse's death is more a sad statement about the current state of celebrity then it is about some great loss for music fans.

A quick scan of the news reports regarding Winehouse's death tells you all you need to know; with numerous reports of "celebrities" taking to Twitter to express their "grief" over her passing. Really?! Someone dies and I sum up my feelings in 140 characters or less? The pack includes among others; Kelly Osbourne (famous for being Ozzy's kid), AutoTune queens Rihanna, Nicki Minaj and Demi Lovato, and TV host Carson Daly (will someone please tell me who this guy has photos of with farm animals? Could there be a less talented waste of space, who continues to get work?)

Yes Winehouse had talent...which she squandered and eventually threw away. Sorry if I'm not one of those bleeding hearts who think drug and alcohol addiction is a disease. Winehouse chose her lifestyle; many others have chosen to save their lives and their talent over their addiction. So her passing, while sad, really ends up being a waste.

Review: Robert B. Parker - Sixkill

2011-07-22T09:15:00.004-04:00

For me, it was bittersweet to read Sixkill by Robert B. Parker. Since his passing in January of 2010, a handful of books that he had in the pipeline have been released, but Sixkill will be the final book in the series of novels featuring hardboiled, but tender, Boston P I, Spenser.

A friend introduced me to Parker/Spenser and I was hooked from the start. I quickly worked my way through the back catalog and continued to voraciously gobble up each new edition to the series. Along the way Parker added a couple of new denizens to the Boston ‘burbs, in the form of Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall, who joined the long list of colorful, quirky characters that filled the pages of his books.

Parker was a master at drawing compelling characters who while often habitually flawed; they almost uniformly do the right thing and make the honorable thing. Sixkill adds the character Zebulon Sixkill, a Cree Indian, who works as a body guard and ends up under Spenser’s sizable wing.

Parker does a masterful job of drawing Sixkill’s background from a child on the res, to the college football field and into the seedier side of Hollywood celebrity body guarding.

Along the way Spenser hones Sixkill’s skills and prepares him for the final showdown and crossing swords, or in this case a Bowie knife and .40 Smith and Wesson, with a sadistic hit man out to kill them.
It makes Parker’s passing all the more sad; Sixkill is a good fit to join the long list of hard men, skilled with hands and weapons, like: Hawk, Vinnie Morris, Chollo, Bobby Horse, Ty Bop, and Junior.

While I see that Michael Brandman, the television producer responsible for the Tom Selleck movie’s featuring Jesse Stone, is set to continue that series with the new book, Killing The Blues set for release this September, I’m not sure Parker’s estate should strike a similar deal to continue the Spenser series. Some things are better left the way they are.

Episode 42: John Rzeznik :: Live From Daryl's House with Daryl Hall :: Current Episode

2011-05-20T20:24:00.000-04:00

Episode 42: John Rzeznik :: Live From Daryl's House with Daryl Hall :: Current Episode

Salt - DVD

2011-01-01T14:20:00.002-05:00

Aside from her much talked about beauty, famous puffed up lips that launched a thousand fantasies, ongoing tabloid romance with Brad Pitt and serial adoptions, I can’t quite figure out why Angelina Jolie is famous. After watching the DVD release of her latest big-screen thriller, Salt, I had to go back through her filmography to see if she actually ever actually starred in a truly memorable or remarkable movie. The conclusion, is no, not really.

Salt does nothing to change that. While I am a big fan of books and movies that start quickly and get to the action quickly, Salt, the story of a CIA agent who turns out to be a Russian sleeper spy, gets off to a fast paced start that turns into a bang-bang shoot ‘em, car chase in search of a plot.

Unfortunately, it’s all downhill from there. Australian director Phillip Noyce (The Bone Collector/Clear and Present Danger) backfills the storyline with a seemingly endless string of flashbacks, filling in the blanks on Jolie’s character Evelyn Salt’s romance, marriage and even her childhood recruitment into a Russian sleeper spy school.

If you’re the type of person who likes to have at least one foot grounded in reality, then forget about Salt; which mixes some suspended reality, high-flying stunts with Jolie turned into a one women wrecking crew that slices through a stack of highly trained tough guys, like a hot knife through butter.

Even novice fiction detectives will be able to spot the obvious double-cross fairly early on in the action. What Noyce tries to pass off as plot twists to throw the viewer off track or to raise doubt about Salt’s conversion from the dark side end up being fairly transparent.

Try as they might with non-stop action, in the end, Evelyn Salt is no Jason Bourne and Angelina Jolie is still more famous for her plumped up kisser than her acting ability.

Bruce Springsteen- The Promise (Columbia Records)

2010-11-15T20:10:00.000-05:00

In 1978, following a hiatus that was brought on by legal wrangling with his former manager, Bruce Springsteen released Darkness on the Edge of Town, after spending a couple of grueling years in the studio grinding out an over-flowing notebook worth of songs.
Not so much a concept album, Darkness is a collection of songs that played out a storytellers thematic thread. The ten tracks that made the final cut, were selected to fit the emotional ride that Springsteen wanted to take listeners on.

What was left in the vault was a collection of songs that became hits for other artists, tracks on later Bruce discs, staples of E Street Band live sets or coveted pieces of audio candy for bootleg collectors.

Twenty-one of those leftovers have been collected and released as a two CD set entitled The Promise and a collectors version The Promise: The Darkness On The Edge Of Town Story which features the two Promise discs; plus the complete Darkness on the Edge of Town CD and three DVDs including the documentary The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town plus a couple of discs worth of mid-to-late seventies live performances culled from a variety of locales.

Gravitating to the familiar is an easy way to wade into The Promise. Even those who aren’t hardcore Springsteen fans will recognize songs like Because the Night, which was a hit for Patti Smith. Springsteen’s original rendition replaces Smith’s plaintive wail with a haunting guitar buried deep in the mix.
While the band’s live version and the Pointer Sister’s cover of Fire tends towards smoldering, this studio version here features a more up tempo, syncopated rhythm. The band’s take on Talk to Me in a note for note recreation of the Southside Johnny and Asbury Jukes version.

Less familiar is the reading of Rendezvous, which was covered by Greg Kihn, one of the multitude of pretenders to the mantle of being the next Springsteen. The version here is pure E Street Band, no mistaking the sonic signature.

Listening through the entire song cycle, I’m struck by the fact that while much of what is collected here is good, if not great, much of it would have been out of place on Darkness.After watching the documentary of what went into the recording process it was clear that Springsteen had evolved as an artist to the point where he had a very clear vision of what he was looking for when building the elements that made up the record as a whole.

While it may have originally been left off for the sake of balance, The Promise would have been the song that made the best fit for the overall theme and feel of Darkness.

Brad Thor- Foreign Influence

2010-11-07T07:21:00.000-05:00

If you’re like me and you care deeply about the security of this country and its people, then you’ll likely join me in the hope that somewhere out there, there is a guy or better yet a group of them just like Scot Harvath fighting on our behalf.

Harvath is the highly skilled, tough guy who is the lead character in Brad Thor’s ongoing series of thrillers. The latest installment, Foreign Influence, finds Harvath once again squaring off with Islamist terrorists, in a clocks-ticking race to prevent a calamitous terrorist attack.

Some may scoff at the good versus evil plot lines, but there is a reason why Thor was selected to serve on the Department of Homeland Security’s analytic Red Cell program, he laces his stories with straightforward facts about the Jihadis and their hated for the west, along with a dose of the difficult reality that we won’t be able to stop every attack. Harvath more often than not gets put into action following a terrorist attack, or for you fans of the current administration, a “man-made disaster.”

Through this series, Harvath has made his way through an alphabet soup of government agencies, but now finds himself moving into the realm of the private contractor, where highly skilled operators move out of government work and turn around and sell those skills back to the government. This process frees them from the squeamish and the second-guessers who run government oversight and decry the tough actions needed to fight our enemies.

Foreign Influence has an “it’s a small world” approach to weaving and connecting the story lines that send the reader careening to a fiery conclusion. Along the way we get introduced to Harvath’s new co-workers, a group of equally-skilled, though much hotter, female operators dubbed the Athena Team. Later this month the ladies will launch what could be Thor’s new series, with the release of the new book, The Athena Project.

The Best Thing I've Heard Lately

2010-11-01T20:07:00.001-04:00

I'm a big fan of the Web show Live From Daryl's House not just because the music of Hall & Oates is one of my guilty pleasures, shoot me...I'm a fan of blue-eyed soul...but I also love people who can actually play their instruments and don't need some lame-ass Autotune computer program to sing.

The other great thing about the show is Daryl Hall's electic tastes when it comes to the artists he invites into his humble, Upstate New York abode. Over the course of the 35 shows he has touched on classics like Smokey Robinson, Todd Rundgren and Toots and the Maytals to up and comers like Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings and Finger Eleven.

The October episode features Fitz and the Tantrums, a high energy blue-eyed soul crew that smokes. While I don't get the bizarre, skunk stripe frontman Fitz sports, but I do get the fact the he and backing vocalist Noelle Scaggs can flat out sing.

Pickin' Up the Pieces the band's first full-length album, features a real throwback feel that comes courtesy, not of a big-time, high tech studio, but right from Fitz's living room. This is not stripped down, DIY affair, but a full-blown production full of horny horns and rip it up stompers.

Need convincing? Check out the band's website and snag a free download of the record's best track MoneyGrabber.

Remind Me Again...Why I Should Care?

2010-06-23T19:27:00.001-04:00

I love these stories...

Seemingly on the heels of actress Anna Paquin, star of HBOs True Blood publicly proclaiming herself to be bisexual, singer/songwriter Vanessa Carlton announced to the crowd of 18,000 at Nashville Pride, "I'm a proud bisexual women."

My only question is...why is it that I should care? Here's a newsflash for all celebrities who are pondering thes kinds of public statements...I DON'T CARE who you sleep with! Seriously! I wonder each and every time I hear one of these announcements if it's nothing more than a desperate cry to be noticed by what amounts to a marginal at best performer. Let's face it, Vanessa isn't well known for tearing up the charts and this public...does this qualify as a coming out?...has gotten her the most attention she's had in a long long time.

So she bats from both sides of the plate...sorry but I just do not care!

Name That Job!

2010-05-22T15:05:00.000-04:00

Name the job where you can consistantly be wrong and still have a job?
Hint: One day a year a famous rodent does your job for you!

Bieber...The Koppel Factor

2010-05-22T08:09:00.000-04:00

I've always prided myself for my ability to pick out hit records, but pop music has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I know what's good, but sometimes the unexplainable happens.

While watching the (thank God) semi-final episode of this season's painful American Idol I was treated to my first taste of pop sensation Justin Bieber. The kid has the number one record in the nation, but for the life of me I fail to see what the fuss is about.

Bieber crooned his way through to forgetable songs, that had the girl's in camera range mouthing along the words, some near tears, and no we aren't talking about a handful of tweens! These were full grown women!

I can't quite put my finger on it, but could the attraction to young Justin really be the Ted Koppel Factor?! You decide.

Welcome To Obama’s Hooterville

2010-05-10T16:41:00.003-04:00

Michael Graham- That’s No Angry Mob, That’s My Mom (Regnery Publishing)

While I realize there will always be the Kool-Aid types that will latch onto Presidents of any stripe like a barnacle and blindly agree with that leader’s policy with a cult-members mindlessness, I have been absolutely amazed by the reactions that Barack Obama has gotten during his first fifteen months in office.

I’ve been at a loss to explain why seemingly intelligent people have bought into the big government, anti-capitalist, class warfare doctrine pushed by the Obama administration and the predictable attacks on talk radio, Tea Party activists and anyone who dares disagree.

In his new book, That’s No Angry Mob, That’s My Mom, talk show host Michael Graham comes up with the most plausible explanation I’ve heard up to this point, when he draws the humorous analogy to the classic television show Green Acres.

For those not familiar with the 60s era classic, the Green Acres storyline has Attorney Oliver Wendell Douglas living behind the rat race of Manhattan for the simple life, down on the farm. Douglas sets up to work the land in Hooterville, a town populated by the goofy, the weird and frankly the downright insane and since the town’s residents are of a like twisted mind, it is Douglas who ends up the weirdo.

Welcome to Obama’s Hooterville! Where perfectly normal, hard-working Americans who are concerned with the growth of government, the growth of the national debt and looming death of American exceptionalism and choose to express that concern in a public way are treated like to a volley of insults ranging from Tea-baggers to being labeled racists by the lazy media and what Graham dubs the O-bots.

Graham does the not-so-heavy lifting that the lazy media won’t do when detailing the ridiculous charge that the Tea Party types are short fuse looking for a light and claims that these ordinary, hard working folks are secretly plotting to overthrow the government or worse. The lazy media claims that Tea Party rallies are a hot bed of violence just doesn’t stand up even the lightest of scrutiny, in fact Graham points out that much of the “violence” has been perpetrated by the loyal O-Bots, most often sporting some form of Union garb.

Graham acknowledges that like any large group there are a few loose cannons in the Tea Party, but unlike liberals who embrace the nutcases, conservatives tend to shun the lunatic fringe and generally denounce their actions and words loudly and clearly.

Graham utilizes a sharp wit and clear-headed point of view to dissect the left’s ridiculous reactions to Tea party dissent.

From The Pioneers to the Mad Men and Guerillas to Tweets

2010-05-04T09:20:00.000-04:00

The Age of Persuasion- How Marketing Ate Our Culture - Terry O’Reilly and Mike Tennant

(Counterpoint Books)

Who would ever believe that a book about the history and inside baseball of the advertising industry could be so interesting? Probably the same people that made a hit out of the Age of Persuasion radio program on Sirius satellite radio.

Authors, ad men and radio hosts Terry O’Reilly and Mike Tennant have tapped into our popular culture fascination with advertising and the people who create it. Television is rife with programs about the ad game from the wildly popular; Mad Men and thirtysomething to Bewitched and the recently failed Trust Me.

I n The Age of Persuasion, O’Reilly and Tennant offer insiders insights into the mechanics of the advertising business. They also offer a unique chronology, working their way through the historic beginnings of the fledgling ad agency, as one man gathers basic ads from business people and sends them via Morse Code to newspapers around the quickly expanding United States.

O’Reilly and Tennant pepper The Age of Persuasion with anecdotes and quotes from the legends of advertising that makes this an indispensible learning tool for those who are in the business or those that aspire to it.

The thing I found most difficult to balance was the author’s contention that people in the advertising business are just as hacked off about the constant marketing onslaught that we face on a daily basis as the average consumer. Their claim that the bombardment makes it easy for ad messages to get lost in a sea of commercials flies in the face of their push for strong creative.

The complaints about the over-saturation of commercials messages and images is a familiar refrain among consumers, but it treads new territory coming from a couple of guys who make their living in the business. At the end of the day O’Reilly and Tenant don’t really offer any solution to the overcrowding.

Given the rapid pace of the evolution of how we as a society communicates it seems unlikely that marketing messages won’t continue to keep pace. It’s equally likely that in order to compete and make their clients products standout, ad men who can deliver the creative goods will continue to prosper. Which based upon the historical content included in The Age of Persuasion is the way it’s always been.

Jerry Weintraub with Rich Cohen- When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead – Useful Stories From a Persuasive Man (Twelve Books)

2010-04-27T13:44:00.000-04:00

When I was still in college in the early 80s, I had the opportunity to work in the promotions department of a local concert promoter and ticket agent in Buffalo, New York. Along the way I had the opportunity to work with a number incredible musical acts and music industry legends.

No one was more legendary than Jerry Weintraub. Around the arenas we worked with, Weintraub's name was uttered alternately with awe or derision depending on the speaker's point of view. Weintraub was a consummate wheeler dealer, out to make big bucks for not only the acts he represented, but also for himself. He is a pioneer, who cut a wide swath of deal-making through the heart of American popular culture.

When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead, is the Brooklyn-born, Bronx-raised tale of Weintraub's meteoric rise and entertaining life in the entertainment biz. It reads like a who's who of show business, spanning Weintraub's careers in music, film, Broadway and sports.

The names include Elvis, Sinatra, Dylan, Led Zeppelin, John Denver, Pitt, Clooney, Belushi, Cary Grant and on and on. The curve balls include; America's sweetheart, Olympic skating champion Dorothy Hamill. Who could forget the Short 'n Sassy campaign with Bristol Myers, a deal Weintraub engineered that made Hamill a millionaire. Weintraub isn't shy about including stories detailing the millions of dollars he “made” for the people he worked with and often had a hand in creating.

The most twisted tale is Weintraub's adventure with chess grand master Bobby Fischer. Weintraub was so taken by what he called Fischer's “rock star” quality, that he hopped a plane to Iceland to meet with the eccentric chess wizard during his legendary battle with Soviet champion Boris Spassky. Weintraub recounts how he worked his magic to win the troubled Fischer's confidence and struck a deal with Warner Brothers to record an album of chess instruction, that would include a chess board and pieces so young players could learn the game from the master. Later Fischer became so un-glued that the deal was sunk.

While the behind the scenes stories are equally fascinating and entertaining, it is the second half of the book's title, Useful Stories From a Persuasive Man, that I found so intriguing. In this day and age of Twitter, Facebook and Web-based marketing, Weintraub shows how he created buzz the old-fashioned way; by begging, borrowing, cajoling and whatever else it took to get the word out on his latest project.

Weintraub pre-dated the guerrilla marketing phenomenon, planting seeds in movers and shaker's minds about up and coming talent; like having Elvis mention John Denver in a TV interview and staging a “concert” by Justin Hayward and John Lodge of the Moody Blues, where he played the debut album of their side project, the Blue Jays, through a full concert sound system, for music industry insiders. Irate reviewers ripped Weintraub for the faux-show, but also wrote positively about the record; for Weintraub it was mission accomplished.

When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead is a portrait of a self-made, hard-working, often shameless promoter, who always looked for the angle that would garner the most impact for his client and himself. It is a classic American tale and one we won't likely see repeated anytime soon.

What Happens on Wall Street...Impacts Main Street

2010-04-20T11:46:00.000-04:00

Michael Lewis- The Big Short- Inside The Doomsday Machine (W. W. Norton - $27.95)

When our current financial meltdown was in it's earliest stages I distinctly remember asking the listeners of my radio show the question “what are these companies, (that have lost a huge portion of their value) doing differently today from what they were doing yesterday?” The products and services they where providing are still the same, so why has the value of their company dropped so dramatically?

The question was based upon the simplistic theory that the value of a company was based on the demand for the products or services they provided. The reality is that often times that value was manipulated by financial institutions who created a series of complex financial instruments for the purpose of having investors place bets, not on those products and services, but the fluctuations in the values of those companies.

Author Michael Lewis takes readers inside the inner workings of how those financial institutions operate in his latest book The Big Short (W W Norton) which focuses on the sub-prime mortgage debacle that is front and center as the root cause of our current financial meltdown.

The Big Short paints a dubious portrait of the “brain” trust of Wall Street investment bankers and bond traders. Literary takes on these modern day tycoons often portray these financial titans as swashbuckling, work-hard, play-hard types, swathed in $5000 suits and expensive silk ties and packing best and brightest, Ivy League credentials.

The reality Lewis describes is loaded guys who don't qualify as the sharpest tool in the shed, who sport a track record of past failures on a grand scale, that move on to the next rung on the ladder and are rewarded with new levels of power and even larger piles of cash to plunder.

The Big Short is an at times confusing road map, think Mapquest on crack, that runs through the multiple layers of investment banks, bond houses, hedge funds and insurance companies, where billions of dollars are gambled and where all-to-often the house gets bailed out by the taxpayer.

Lewis is a master storyteller, with the ability to both entertain and outrage. As he walks you through the story of how the sub-prime house of cards was being constructed and how financial operators developed the so-called investment “derivatives” which boil down to nothing more than the investment equivalent of placing bets, you'll be left scratching your head wondering what it is that government regulators actually do? The sub-prime story combined with the the Bernie Madoff Ponzi Scheme, is a scathing indictment of the mismanagement of financial watchdogs like the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The amazing thing, even to those like me, who are casually literate in these kinds of financial doings, is that each of this dubious investment vehicles received a sign off from a government regulator. You had some of the largest investment houses packaging these doomed-to-fail loans for bond trade and then creating derivatives that boiled down to taking bets that those bonds would fail.

Like Madoff's plan and all Ponzi schemes, these Wall Street geniuses need to have enough new loans in the pipeline for re-packaging, that even after it became obvious that they were building a house of cards on a windy day, they continued to write new loans that should have been stamped “Guaranteed to Fail” rather than “Approved.”

Lewis cites the example: “In Bakersfield, California a Mexican strawberry picker with an income of $14,000 and no English was lent every penny he needed to buy a house for $724,000.” Now some folks would have you feel pity for this poor schmuck when he inevitably lost his house. Really? At what point did we completely toss having any iota of personal responsibility out the window? Even if this guy paid every dime of his earnings each year toward an interest free loan it would take him over 50 years to crack the nut! Sorry, but I feel no sorrow for this guy.

Along the way, The Big Short, makes an interesting statement about the current state of ethics in this country. There are no real heroes here. Some of the players involved in the story discovered the brewing tempest and rather than warning about the impending storm, they looked for ways to capitalize and make billions off the mis-management and down right wrong doing. It also begs the question; if Bernie Madoff belatedly ended up behind bars for his scheme, will we ever see anyone, aside from the taxpayers, pay a price for this outright crime?

The Worst Love Songs of All Time!

2010-04-08T16:54:00.005-04:00

Ah, the love song. When it's done right, it can stir emotions, set the mood and sometimes even move mountains! However when it's done wrong it can cause grinding of teeth, hysterical screams and even vile body functions. It is those teeth grinders that are the focus of today's musical journey into the worst love songs and what makes them bad.

20. Chevy Van- Sammy Johns- (No relation, at least none I'd be willing to admit) How this ever became a staple of AM radio is a mystery to me, as Sammy croons of his conquest of hitch hiker chick in the back of his love den on wheels. Lyrics like, "like a princess I can see her lying there, moonlight playing off her hair," are enough to bring up this morning's breakfast.

19. If- Bread- Tough choice to narrow it down to one song from the Bread discography, but the clincher was the lyric "if the world should stop revolving spinning slowly down to die." Is this supposed to be a love song or a sign of the end times?!

18. Longer- Dan Fogelberg- God rest his soul, but what the heck was old Dan thinking when he came up with the line, "deeper than any forest primeval, I am in love with you." Can you see it now, battling lyricist block, struggling to come up with something really, really deep, he comes up with a forest primeval! Yes! That's the ticket!

17. Babe and Lady- Styx- Not to pile on too many singer songwriters, here proof that even rock bands can crank out really awful love songs, in fact a double dose from Styx. These songs are so lame they actually start to blend together! "Babe I'm leaving I must be on my wayjust touch me and my troubles abade." Huh? Abade? When did Tommy Shaw become a knight of the round table?

16. Muskrat Love- Captain and Tennille- While it seems that the guys have cornered the worst love song market, and The Captain, is likely responsible for this god awful abomination, I can only wonder what the heck Toni Tennille was thinking when she agreed to sing about Muskrat Susie and Muskrat Sam over the Captain's piano tinkling!

15. Honey- Bobby Goldsboro- This song was almost single-handedly brought about the renaissance of the tearjerker. This could have been prime fodder for a Weird Al Yankovic renderingI can hear it now, "and Honey I miss youand I'm looking for the razor blades"

14. Let Her In- John Travolta- Before he hit it big on the Saturday Night Fever dance floor, Travolta was one of Mr. Kotter's Sweathogs who became a double threat with juicy slab of schlock.

13. Don't Give Up On Us- David Soul- Speaking of double threat, the blonde half of TV's Starsky and Hutch cop show, earned a place on the charts with his quavering vocal on this steaming piece of dung. While it would have been wise, he didn't stop here and continued to crank out records, not sure if his fame ever reached Hasselhoff-ian proportions in Europe.

12. Making Love Out Of Nothing At All- Air Supply- There was just something not quite right about this sappy Australian duos string of syrupy ballads. Maybe it was the odd combination of the tall, Nordic-looking blonde guy teamed with the short due with the bad white-guy Afro that seemed more than a little skivey.

11. Close to You- The Carpenters- Speaking of skivey combinations, sorry but there was just something not quite right about the brother/sister combo of Richard and Karen Carpenter. It's tough to get past those longing looks over Karen drum kit, while belting out, "just like me...they long to be close to you."

10. Annie's Song- John Denver- Here's a hint for any aspiring balladeers, if you want to pen an ode to your significant other, go for it, but don't ever release it as a single! I can guarantee that some day a line like "let me drown in your laughterlet me die in your arms," will come back to haunt you. Write I, record it, burn her a copy and keep it to yourself!

9. Just Remember I Love You- Firefall- What the heck was it about the mid-1970s and a string of interchangeable duos and groups that cranked out pabulum puke that found it's way up the charts?

8. I'd Really Love To See You Tonight- England Dan and John Ford Coley- See Firefall at number 8.

7. You're the Inspiration- Chicago- This was a band that cranked out a string of great songs with driving rhythms and great horns, then Peter Cetera moved out front and things went off the rails. Somewhere the late Terry Kath is rolling over.

6. Rosanna- Toto- Studio aces turned hit makers, Toto went off the celebrity deep end with this ode to a day, morning, afternoon and night with actress Rosanna Arquette.

5. I Just Called To Say I Love You- Stevie Wonder- While this one was on the Women In Red movie soundtrack, every time I hear it I think of Jack Black's music snob store clerk character from the movie High Fidelity, berating the Dad who wanted to buy the single for his daughter! What was Stevie thinking?

4. Faithfully- Journey- This dreadful dreck seemed to spawn an entire generation of bad, hair band, power ballads and now there is an entire generation of married couples who have to look back on really bad records that were their wedding songs! It's no wonder the divorce rates are so high!

3. Lovin' You- Minnie Ripperton- Ms. Ripperton pre-dated the five-octave diva Mariah Carey by a generation with this down right painful eardrum buster. Hard to believe she earned high praise for this caterwauling.

2. Afternoon Delight- Starland Vocal Band- What could possibly be worse than this two couple quartet belting out four part harmony on an ode to afternoon nookie? Because this was such a huge radio hit, your Dad adding his vocal prowess to the sing-a-long! Ewww!

1. Lady in Red- Chris DeBurgh- as a former wedding DJ, if I had one more leisure suit wearing, stud wannabe request this blathering piece of crap so he could make moves on the maid of honor, I don't know who I would have shot first, him or me! Absolutely the definition of DREADFUL!

I Waited 7 Years for This?

2010-04-08T16:48:00.002-04:00

I vividly remember when I first became aware of the phenomenon that is The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown’s mega-mega bestseller. I had just stepped off an airplane in Chicago, finishing the first leg of a three-part, 8-hour journey. As we strolled to the next gate we passed countless travelers with their nose tucked into the book and a handful of book and gift shops on the concourse with Everest sized stacks of the hard cover piled precariously near their entrances. Heading up the aisle of our next flight, I passed no fewer than 7 fellow travelers flipping through the pages of the non-stop thriller.

I had dashed through a couple of Brown’s adventures, the techno-thriller Digital Fortress and the ice pack action piece Deception Point, but not yet become aware of his collegial hero Robert Langdon, who debuted in Angels and Demons. With claims of over 80 million copies sold, The Da Vinci Code became a fixture on the bestseller charts and spawned not only a new genre of modern day adventures with ties to the middle ages, but also a cottage industry of books, pro and con, trying to decipher the true meaning of Brown’s epic.

With all that preceded it’s arrival in bookstores, Browns long-anticipated follow up, The Lost Symbol, which once again features symbologist and historian Langdon, faced some pretty tall expectations. As with Brown’s prior work, he wasted no time setting the hook squarely in the reader’s mouth. It looked like we were in for another roller coaster ride through the twists, turns and history that Brown does so well. That is until this high-speed train drove straight of the rails and detoured straight into disappointment.

Brown had the tendency to walk close to the edge of preachy-ness and could easily overwhelm readers with the minutia of history and arcane symbology. The fact that The Lost Symbol centers on a storyline involving Freemasonry, a favorite whipping boy for conspiracy theorists, adds to the level of detail stacked neatly upon detail.

As the story races through a single night, showcasing some of Washington D C’s most interesting and historic buildings it comes to a crashing, predictable climax with about 30 pages remaining. In those 30 or so pages, Brown back fills the story with more than a little ponderous, preaching. While his work should never be confused with great literature, as a fan, that’s not what I expect from Dan Brown. My expectation is one of great escape, but I was left with wondering, “I waited 7 years for this”?

The Hurt Locker...I Should Have Known Better

2010-04-08T16:43:00.002-04:00

With the Oscars behind us, I thought it might be a good time to check out the highly praised Kathryn Bigelow film The Hurt Locker. For no reason in particular I have made it a practice over the past ten years or so of not seeing most of the Oscar nominated movies that make up the Best Picture category.

With some genius at the "Academy" deciding that there was a need to nominate TEN! films in that category, it was pretty hard not to stumble upon at least a couple of these films. On a side note...ten best picture nominees? Really? can anyone name a year when there were ten movies that really deserved this allegedly vaunted title of being the Best Picture of a given year? Kind of dilutes the value don't you think, when a kid with a Flip Video camera could qualify.

With all of the high praise being rained down on The Hurt Locker by film critics at liberal print outlets like the New York Times, Los Angles Times and Time magazine I really should have know better going into watching this movie that it likely wouldn't portray the military in the best light.

It didn't take long for the first red flag to go up. In the opening credits, Bigelow includes a quote from moonbat "journalist" Chris Hedges that concludes with the line "war is a drug." That was all I needed to see to know exactly what would follow.

The gritty film follows a Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team through a series of episodes where they deal not only with improvised explosive devices but also explosive settings and situations. Most of the film is set a a fairly high pace, with the team thrust from one tinderbox to the next. Some of the scenarios will have you sliding up to the edge of your seat.

The problem is the underlying tone of the film which casts the military leadership the EOD team interacts with, as a bunch of bumbling morons. These guys are either certified, tobacco chewing red necks or desk jockeys who drop lines like "this (war) can be fun."

Does anyone really believe that any member of the military would ever describe war as fun? It's no shock when later in the film this Colonel is blown to bit by an IED when he decides to tag-a-long on a disposal mission.

The portrayal of S.F.C. William James as a reckless, cigarette smoking, adrenalin junkie who just can't get enough action is completely out of character, when compared to the highly trained, incredibly skilled and rightfully cautious men and women who do the job of an EOD tech. This living on the edge portrayal makes for great cinema, but departs reality pretty early in the film.

It is this reckless characterization that has spawned a backlash against the film by members of the military who know the truth about the disciplined soldiers who tackle this difficult job.

Bigelow has been cast by the media as a Hollywood outsider, but this film is a pure Hollywood vision of the military. Know that going in, suspend reality and this ends up being a mildly entertaining film at it's best moments, but often loses it's way as it tries to portray the human side of these characters.