The beer choices are set for tonight's "summit" at the White House. The President will have Bud Light (really???), Prof. Gates will have Red Stripe and Sgt. Crowley will have a Blue Moon.
This disappointed me (and not just because Obama has terrible taste in beer). I thought this night is suppose to be about coming together. Surely three grown men can agree on one brand of beer and split a six pack outside the Oval Office. But with three different tastes in beer, what should they choose?
Than answer is really simple: Samuel Adams Boston Lager.
After all, its from Boston so there is the "local" connection for the two guests, its named after a Founding Father, and its the standard "good" beer that everyone brings to a party. Never mind the fact that it is terrible stuff (for the record I prefer Pilsner or whiskey).
I'm so glad that we are all devoting time and energy to the important issue of what the President is drinking and not getting distracted by that silly health care debate.
Last week I heard this report on NPR about a French "checkout girl" named Anna Sam who happened to have a degree in literature and happened to start writing a blog with her daily observations on life in a supermarket that happened to get a lot of press in France which she happened to parlay into a book deal which you can buy in French and English.
As I listened to this segment it struck me that it had a cute and funny balance of human interest, slice of life narrative and navel gazing that is all the rage right now (present company included).
My bet is that it's only a matter of time before this book gets American-ized and turned into a film. And why Zooey Deschanel? Perhaps she is just on my brain what with that little movie that everyone wants to be the next big little movie, but I do think that she has the right mix of aloofness, cynicism and humor to pull this off.
Of course, it would be much more fun to see this film made in France first and then have it imported and adapted for the U.S. That way I can be one of the handful of people who'll say "meh, it was better with subtitles".
Alex Bogusky (he of Crispin Porter + Bogusky) has a very interesting name for an ad biz guy. Why? His name starts with "bogus". Hmmmm, talk about being born for a profession.
I can't be the first person to realize that.
In other CPB news, Alex gave an interview to The Huffington Post where we talks a lot about the shifts in media and the risks we (and our clients) take in social media. Its worth a read if you are interested in those things. And a few weeks back they launched a new beta site that is either brilliant or fatally flawed.
As with all things CPB only time will tell.
Those f**king marvelous bastards at AMC have gone and "re-imagined" the 60s Sci-Fi cult hit "The Prisoner" and will air it as a three part, six hour mini-series this fall.
Now when I first heard about this I was a little freaked out. Could they reinvent this excellent show without sullying the memory of (recently deseased) Patrick McGoohan?
Judging from this nine minutes of goodness, I'd say its looking pretty f**king great:
Be seeing you.
Via Televisionary
Updated: See below for take 2.
Update: After some consultation with my AE I changed the body type. I think this one is better:
I swear that I thought of this 5 years ago.
Some one has created an online tool that lets you calculate the cost of a meeting by entering the average salary of everyone in the room and counting the minutes (via Boing Boing of course).
Being an advertising guy, my idea had to do with billable hours. I thought that every conference room in the agency should have a little box. When you enter the room you swipe your ID (which knows your billable rate). Every five minutes the box is updated with the real time cost of the meeting.
For client projects this makes it easy to quantify the cost for the project. But for "non-billable" meetings it allows you to see how many agency resources you waste.
The goal is the same: shorter meetings for all of us. Once you have the counter you are not just wasting time, you are wasting money.
This is a few days old, but I felt that I had to post it.
Someone finally stuck it to one of the former Bush cronies (specifically John Yoo) by making a statement about torture right to their faces. Too bad it took an Australian comedy show to get us there...maybe those criminals are good for something after all.
This is via Boing Boing (where else).
Alternate titles to this post:
"Maybe the Prof. just needed a time out"
"Obama opens mouth, inserts foot, takes eye off health care...again"
I saw Angry Young Dem in person tonight. Em and I had dinner with him, his wife and another old friend. It is a rare treat to be able to debate him in person on an issue, alas DMTU was in a mood (very typical these days) so the debate was cut short.
The gist of it is this: I disagree with AYD' stand on the "Henry Lewis Gates situation". And I am REALLY pissed at the President for once again using a (self admited) poor word choice and allowing an off-hand remark to become a distraction at a time when he really needs to be ONLY focusing on health care reform.
AYD, Em and most of my firends feel that Obama was correct in saying that the Cambridge police acted "stupidly" when arresting Prof. Gates. AYD backs this up with the law, which he knows, since he is a criminal defense attourney and that is his job.
I on the other hand take the position that if a cop is responding to a call, even if that call was eronious, the best way to placate the cop and the situation (if you are in the right which Gate was) is with respect and recognition of social constructs (even ones that are f-ed up).
I don't know what Prof. Gate's state of mind was that night, but I'd guess (this is an opion blog so I can do this) is that after getting home from a long international trip, and having probelms getting into his home, he was pissed off. Then when a cop shows up at his door he gets even more pissed off. After all, why the hell did someone call the cops? Who is this cop and what the hell is he doing in my house wanting to see my ID?
With this type of situation I would be pissed too. But, (and maybe this is just becuase I am an Eagle Scout raised in white upper middle class America) no matter how right I am and how wrong the cop is, your damn well sure I am calling him "Sir" the entire time. And that is NO way I am yelling at him.
Now, is that right? Should I have to call him "sir" in my own home? No. But the reality of the sitaution dictates that if I call him "sir" as I show him my ID he will leave me alone faster than if I yell at him and call him a racist.
If you believe even one quarter of the arrest report (a PDF that I have read), it seems clear that Prof. Gates was at the very least being somewhat rude. Cops are human beings, they are paid to do a job, they walk into situations not knowing if they are going to get shot at or called a racist or neither. Even if Sgt. Crowley was being rude to Prof. Gates, he is a cop responding to a call, and as such he has the dominant position in this situation.
Now I am not Prof. Gates. I am not a black man who has expireinced passive and active racism my whole life. And I have never had a cop come into my house and ask me if I live there or not. But I do know that some times you have to bite down hard and give a little away to get through a situation. And if that means calling cop "sir" and not yelling at him, then so be it. Keep in mind that my job is basically daily diplomacy, so keeping people happy is what I get paid to do.
As for Obama...STFU already. I am so pissed that you spent four weeks worth of YouTube addresses NOT foucsing health care, only to try and swoop in at the end with a sub-par press conference to save the bill (or bills) when you still will not comit to where you really stand on the issue. And then you f*** it all up by making this MORONIC statement about cops, taking the news cycle away from your key issue for two whole days!!!! F***!
The interesting thing is that both with Gates and with Obama there's the way things should be and the way they are. A man should not have to pander to a Police Officer in his own home, but sometimes he needs to. The nation shoud pay more attention to health care reform than to an off-hand ill-worded remark at the very end of a press conference on a small local issue, but it doesn't.
AYD, we can pick this up tomorrow or Sunday.
Well, I had been expecting this:
NY State Senator Tom Duane has given up (for now) on the Senate passing (or even voting on) the same-sex marriage bill.
Have I mentioned that I hate my state government? Oh, right, I have.
Vice President Biden was in the Capital District yesterday to speak about "recovery in action" (and boost Congressman Scott Murphy).
I happened to by flying out of Albany for a business trip (I'm in not so sunny Orlando right now) and as I drove to the airport there were a ton of police (State and County) along side the roads. I actually thought it was the worlds biggest speed trap. Then I got to the airport and the nice TSA lady mentioned VPOTUS.
Turns out my timing was great, had my flight been an hour or so earlier I may have found the road to the airport road totally shut down.
As my flight taxied towards the runway we passed right by Air Force Two. Yeah, it was kinda cool.
