Dawn Patrol

The Cannibal

$3? I paid $4 yesterday...

Sydney Pollack, 1934-2008, R.i.P

Sydney Pollack was an Academy Award-winning director, producer, actor, writer and public figure, who directed and produced over 40 films.

He was born on July 1, 1934, in Lafayette, Indiana, USA, to a family of Russian-Jewish immigrants. His mother, Rebecca Miller, was a homemaker. His father, David Pollack, was a professional boxer turned pharmacist. His parents divorced when he was young. His mother, an alcoholic, died at age 37, when Sydney Pollack was 16. He spent his formative years in Indiana, graduating from his HS in 1952, then moved to the New York City.

From 1952-1954 young Pollack studied acting with Sanford Meisner at The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York. He served two years in the army, and then returned to the Neighbourghood Playhouse and taught acting. In 1958, Pollack married his former student Claire Griswold. They had three children. Their son, Steven Pollack, died in a plane crash on November 26, 1993, in Santa Monica, California. Their daughter, Rebecca Pollack, served as vice president of film production at United Artists during the 1990s. Their youngest daughter, Rachel Pollack, was born in 1969.

Pollack began his acting career on stage, then made his name as television director in the early 1960s. He made his big screen acting debut in War Hunt (1962), where he met fellow actor Robert Redford, and the two co-stars established a life-long friendship. Pollack called on his good friend Redford to play opposite Natalie Wood in This Property Is Condemned (1966). Pollack and Redford worked together on six more films over the years. His biggest success came with Out of Africa (1985), starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep. For this film he won two Oscars: one for Best Direction and one for Best Picture.

Pollack showed his best as a comedy director and actor in Tootsie (1982), where he brought feminist issues to public awareness using his remarkable wit and wisdom, and created a highly entertaining film, which was nominated for ten Academy Awards. Pollack's directing revealed Dustin Hoffman's range and nuanced acting in gender switching from a dominant boyfriend to a nurse in drag, a brilliant collaboration of director and actor that broadened public perception about sex roles. Pollack also made success in producing such films as The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), The Quiet American (2002) and Cold Mountain (2003). Pollack returned to the director's chair in 2004, when he directed The Interpreter (2005), the first film ever shot on location at the United Nations Headquarters and within the General Assembley in New York City.

Alternate 30 Mile Dover Route

Someday I'll Have a Custom Bike

Private Willard Jennings

Army, 45th Division, "Thunderbirds."

Killed in Action, Anzio, Italy, 1944.

R.i.P

Welcome to Dreamland

I wish it could be as easy as climbing up a mountain of people and staring through a hole...to see what its all about.

30 Miles

"Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so." -Shakespeare

Oliver Gillham, R.i.P

I met Oliver about a year ago. At the time his wife was in remission from cancer.

I found out this morning that Oliver took his own life on May 12. He relapsed just after his wife passed away about 6 months ago.

He was found dead in a room at the Newton Marriott of an apparent drug overdose.

I didn't know him well, but I knew him well enough.

He was an architect. He was articulate. He didn't have any children. He was a kind man.

I'm torn between seeing his suicide as an act of love or the result of his disease.

Maybe its both.

Some people try so hard to not feel emotion. Others can't live with their emotions.

New York

This video, directed by Sam Bayer, was one of the first projects I was involved with at H.S.I back in 2002. I remember sitting at this restaurant, I can't remember the name of, in Battery Park with my boss Billy Sandwick waiting for the Grucci's to kick off the fireworks. We had a table outside facing Liberty Park. The other people in the restaurant had no idea there was going to be this massive fireworks display at the Golden Hour.

Billy was on the phone with Sam who called 'Action!' Billy then spoke into his walkie to roll cameras and light the fireworks. The timing was perfect.

Sam was shooting aerials 'combat' style tied to the copter hand held from the door.

New York didn't win the bid but the video itself is such a love letter to the city. I love the shot of the Brooklyn Bridge and the flame being carried through Grand Central Station and Yoko Ono gave us permission to use 'Imagine.'

Happy Birthday Brooklyn Bridge!

The Commonwealth Cycling Club

The CCC

I'll be able to make a nice logo using the C's as wheels. I'm very excited to get this business plan developed.

Hopefully it will work.

1%

I'm looking for the other 99...

Thursday

One of those days when its grey outside, nothing is as it should be, the bike mechanic wasn't around to fix my rim, the office is very quiet, the songs on my iPod are beginning to feel stale. Sort of like The Shining sold as a family comedy...

Sadie is 2, going on 23

Unkle

Monty Montgomery (cowboy)

"Is this a 5 minute argument or the full half hour?"

whoa...

Le Grand Corniche

WashingtonPost.com Interview:

New York, N.Y.: Why would anyone want to read anything this fraud has to write? I only wish he left our good city and crawled under the rock from where he came.

James Frey: I hope we meet someday so I can shake your hand and give you a big hug.

Scorsese

Nice Promotion: Encyclopedias to Bunnies

Playboy Enlists Digital Marketing Chief

Dan Smith was most recently at Encyclopedia Britannica

NEW YORK Playboy Enterprises has hired Dan Smith as svp, marketing for its digital media group, a new position.

Smith will be responsible for marketing Playboy's premium products as well as stewardship of the overall brand across digital and mobile channels. He will also help guide strategy for Playboy's growing e-commerce business, which includes merchandise that can be purchased through catalogues or online.

"There is a need for our group to be very customer-centric. We want to create great products for people and ensure that we are fulfilling customer needs. Dan's role will be critical in connecting us to the consumer," said Tom Hagopian, evp and general manager of digital media, to whom Smith reports.

Smith, 40, was most recently at Encyclopedia Britannica, serving as svp, marketing for the consumer digital business. Prior to that, Smith was an evp at FTD.com, where he led the company's online direct-to-consumer floral and gift activities.

Playboy's digital group oversees its premium content delivered either a la carte or on a subscription basis. Ad-supported offers include Playboy.com and various mobile services.

"Dan combines the discipline of direct marketing with the creativity of brand development, and has a proven track record of building successful online ventures. I am confident that his experiences and skills will help us to accelerate the growth of Playboy's global and mobile businesses," added Hagopian.

Nike (again)

Little Pieces of Los Angeles, Done His Way

By JANET MASLIN

Published: May 12, 2008

He wrote a book but it was bad, liar bad, faker bad, it got him in trouble. A million little pieces. It was the name of the book. It was also how hard he got hit. He had to sit there on the couch. Everybody saw. The television celebrity book club woman got mad, she let him have it. He had to sit there on the couch. He squirmed, he cringed. Everybody watched, everybody blamed him. Then it was over. Then he was gone.

He waited. They forgot about him. He tried again.

In the 1930s Los Angeles is the film capital of the world. F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of “The Great Gatsby,” comes to live there. He tries to write movies. He fails. He writes a Hollywood novel, “The Last Tycoon.” He says there are no second acts in American lives. He turns out to be wrong.

The million little pieces guy was called James Frey. He got a second act. He got another chance. Look what he did with it. He stepped up to the plate and hit one out of the park. No more lying, no more melodrama, still run-on sentences still funny punctuation but so what. He became a furiously good storyteller this time.

He wrote a big book. He wrote about a city. Los Angeles. He made up a lot of characters, high low rich poor lucky not, every kind, the book threw them together. It was random but smart. Every now and then he would pause the story, switch to the present tense and throw in an urban fact.

Like this: The Los Angeles area has a museum devoted to the banana.

James Frey loved Jack Kerouac and Charles Bukowski and maybe even John Fante but he didn’t sound like them, he didn’t sound beat or cool. He sounded hopeful. He sounded unguarded, tender. He quit posturing. He stopped romanticizing squalor. He found new energy. He sounded more like Carl Sandburg in love hate thrall with great maddening Chicago than like the usual tough gritty moody chronicler of California’s broken dreams.

He wrote about people who were drawn to Los Angeles and who they were, why they came, what they wanted, whether they got it, if they didn’t get that, then what they got instead. He looked into their hearts. But he didn’t get sloppy, not maudlin. He just made up characters and wrote as if he cared about them desperately. Bright Shiny Morning. A new chance, real or illusory, that’s what they all wanted. Bright Shiny Morning. So he made that the name of the book.

His publisher called it a dazzling tour de force. (Look, somebody had to, if only to create a comeback drama.) But that wasn’t so far off the mark. Even if his publisher maybe could have asked more questions about what the banana museum had to do with anything.

Still, even the stray facts had their artistry. They helped turn this book into the captivating urban kaleidoscope that, most recently, Charles Bock’s “Beautiful Children” was supposed to be. Bright Shiny Morning was mobile and alert to layout, tempo, different voices, how words looked on the page. Different visual styles suited different characters. Some got long litanies of brisk, sharp dialogue. Others got dense, descriptive prose.

Even the one-sentence page had its use here.

The language got sleek and arch when the book described two superstars, Amberton and Casey. A man and a woman, married to each other, best friends both gay no secrets. Everything perfect, supposed to look that way. Prop children. Money houses cars personal assistants nannies yoga teacher everything perfect. Wearing vicuña. Eating ahi tuna. Still Amberton wanted more, got a crush on an ex-football player. All this captured with elegance, with wit. Movie stars. Not so original, so what? So what if the book always made poor people humble decent better than rich spoiled profligate ones?

So there were Maddie and Dylan, young and in love, eking out a living and traveling on a moped, he eventually got a job as a caddy she as a clerk. The book loved them. There was Old Man Joe, homeless guy, living in a bathroom in Venice, Calif., somehow stronger more decent more heroic than the star who plays movie heroes.

And Esperanza, Mexican-American, working as a maid for an old white lady so mean she threw her morning cup of coffee if Esperanza didn’t make it right. But the old lady turned out to have a son. He liked Esperanza, liked treating her like a human being. Maybe he liked needling his mother even better.

There were easy ways a cynical, sentimental crybaby like the million little pieces guy could have told Esperanza’s part of the story. Crisis, violence, redemption, whatever: that’s what he knew about. That’s what he wrote about. That’s what he passed off as nonfiction. That’s why he sounded as if he’d seen too many lousy movies.

So the Bright Shiny Morning guy did it differently. He let the little vignette play out against a big, gaudy, dangerous Southern California backdrop, full of drug-dealing gang-bangers, full of schemers, phonies, rich with a history of robber barons, all of it listed here, all of it stacking the deck against any generosity of spirit. The son steals the maid’s virtue? Been there, read that. They plot against the old lady? Been there too. This novelist wanted something else for Esperanza: he wanted to honor her, fall in love with her, do it with startling sincerity. He wanted to save her.

And it worked.

That’s how James Frey saved himself.

House of Cards

Keep it Comin!

Living Inside Myself!

Zoo Bombing!

Songs from This Morning's Ride

"Until the End of the World" - U2
"Time to Pretend" - MGMT
"Supernatural Superserious" - REM
"Shut Up and Let Me Go" - The Ting Tings
"Wonderwall" - Oasis
"Lazy Eye" - Silversun Pickups
"Pardon Me" - Incubus
"Destination Ursa Major" - Superdrag
"I Turn My Camera On" - Spoon
"Beetlebum" - Blur
"Babarabatiri" - Beny More

Mayonnaise

Most people don't know that back in 1912, Hellmann's mayonnaise was manufactured in England. In fact, the Titanic was carrying 12,000 jars of the condiment scheduled for delivery in Vera Cruz, Mexico, which was to be the next port of call for the great ship after its stop in New York.

This would have been the largest single shipment of mayonnaise ever delivered to Mexico. But as we know, the great ship did not make it to New York. The ship hit an iceberg and sank, and the cargo was forever lost.

The people of Mexico, who were crazy about mayonnaise, and were eagerly awaiting its delivery, were disconsolate at the loss. Their anguish was so great, that they declared a National Day of Mourning, which they still observe to this day.

The National Day of Mourning occurs each year on May 5th and is known, of course, as Sinko de Mayo.

The Eternal Andy Gibb

Tucker, Swallow & Rockhard

Unbelievable

The Rules

"As judges of the facts, you alone determine the truthfulness and accuracy of the testimony of each witness. You must decide whether a witness told the truth and was accurate, or instead, testified falsely or was mistaken. You must also decide what importance to give to the testimony you accept as truthful and accurate. It is the quality of the testimony that is controlling, not the number of witnesses who testify. If you find that any witness has intentionally testified falsely as to any material fact, you may disregard that witness's entire testimony."

Songs from This Morning's Birthday Ride:

"Symphony No. 4 in A Major, Op. 90 'Italian,' I. Allegro vivace" - Mendelssohn
"All Around You" - The Brian Jonestown Massacre
"Teenage FBI" - Guided by Voices
"A Quick One While He's Away" - The Who
"Imitation of Life" - R.E.M.
"You, Me and the Bourgeoisie" - The Submarines
"Nessun Dorma," Turandot - Pavarotti, Puccini
"From Brighton Beach to Santa Monica" - The Clientele
"Super Sonic" - The Brian Jonestown Massacre

The Chocolate Room

Crash

Kong

I can go...with the flow...

Boogie

Finally, a decent VW ad

Einstein

Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.
- Albert Einstein

I Love Foam

Why Should I Cry?

Over the Ocean

Director Phil Harder at his finest, circa 1996. My current mood is exhibited precisely in this small film.

Paul Arden, Perfectionist, R.i.P

Towering adman, author and longtime Saatchi, London creative leader succumbs to a heart attack.

Paul Arden, an eccentric, revered creative responsible for some of the U.K.'s most popular advertising during his 14 years as Saatchi & Saatchi's executive creative director, died Wednesday of a heart attack.

Mr. Arden, 67, left Saatchi in 1993 to start a film production company, Arden Sutherland Dodd, but continued to influence younger creatives with his first book, "It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be," a best-seller published in 2003.

At Saatchi, Mr. Arden was known for the long-running Silk Cut cigarette campaign, and work for British Rail, Toyota and The Independent newspaper ("It Is. Are You?") The Silk Cut work, all variations on a piece of slashed, or cut, purple silk, was one of the few campaigns Charles Saatchi continued to work on personally, and Mr. Arden was pleased with the simple way the campaign's daring concept was approved back in 1983—Mr. Saatchi sold the idea directly to the chairman of Gallaher, maker of Silk Cut. For years, readers saw ads with cat's claws rending a piece of silk and synchronized scissors high kicking in front of a silk curtain. Everyone knew what the ads meant, but there was no copy or cigarette imagery, a perfect strategy as restrictions on tobacco advertising grew.

"Paul Arden was one of the most exceptional creative directors I've known, with an individualism and passion for perfection that resulted in some of the best advertising of the 80s and 90s," said Anthony Simonds Gooding, chairman of U.K. awards show D&AD, in a statement. "His idiosyncrasies made him unforgettable and his generosity and encouragement to students and young creatives is an example to all."

Mr. Arden was such a perfectionist that he was often maddeningly over budget, insisting that the smallest details be perfect, such as searching for a certain pair of wildly expensive spectacles to achieve just the right look on a face that would be seen briefly in passing in a TV spot.

His public appearances were talked about for years. In one industry talk, he stood silently next to a woman playing the cello. Another time he gave a speech with a naked man on stage, demonstrating that a person is a blank canvas. And he once hired an actor to babble onstage while Mr. Arden displayed meaningless charts. His point was that although no one in the audience knew what was going on, they would never forget it.

I am with Hirst, Today, Now.

The Detroit Red Wings

Today, I profess my love for the Detroit Red Wings.

Steve Nash, hip New Yorker

The Speech

We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy.

Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least 20 more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution -- a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States.

What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part -- through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk -- to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign -- to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America.

I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together -- unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction -- towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas.

I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners -- an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters.

I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts -- that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity.

Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African-Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough."

We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action, that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap.

On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation -- that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Rev. Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain.

Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely -- just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice.

Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country -- a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America, a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Rev. Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems -- two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Rev. Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church?

And I confess that if all that I knew of Rev. Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and YouTube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than 20 years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor.

He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine, who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth -- by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, "Dreams From My Father," I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters....And in that single note -- hope! -- I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones.

"Those stories -- of survival, and freedom, and hope -- became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world.

"Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about...memories that all people might study and cherish -- and with which we could start to rebuild."

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety -- the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger.

Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear.

The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Rev. Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children.

Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions -- the good and the bad -- of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother -- a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork.

We can dismiss Rev. Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Rev. Wright made in his offending sermons about America -- to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through -- a part of our union that we have yet to perfect.

And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country.

But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.

Legalized discrimination -- where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments -- meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations.

That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families -- a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened.

And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods -- parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement -- all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Rev. Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted.

What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it -- those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination.

That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations -- those young men and, increasingly, young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways.

For the men and women of Rev. Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years.

That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Rev. Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning.

That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change.

But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race.

Their experience is the immigrant experience -- as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor.

They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense.

So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation.

Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle-class squeeze -- a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many.

And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns -- this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naive as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy -- particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction -- a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people -- that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life.

But it also means binding our particular grievances -- for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs -- to the larger aspirations of all Americans, the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family.

And it means taking full responsibility for own lives -- by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American -- and yes, conservative -- notion of self-help found frequent expression in Rev. Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Rev. Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country -- a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black, Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past.

But what we know -- what we have seen -- is that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope -- the audacity to hope -- for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination -- and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past -- are real and must be addressed.

Not just with words, but with deeds -- by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations.

It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand -- that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle -- as we did in the O.J. trial -- or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina -- or as fodder for the nightly news.

We can play Rev. Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words.

We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children.

This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st Century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the emergency room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care, who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life.

This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag.

We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for president if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected.

And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation -- the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today -- a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, 23-year-old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was 9 years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents, too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time.

And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

March

Prediction:

Obama will be the Democratic nominee, Clinton will be the VP.

February's Music

"The Hardest Button to Button" White Stripes
"Teenage FBI" GBV
"What Ever Happened?" The Strokes
"Jailbreak" Thin Lizzy
"Feathers" Thurston Moore
"Fake" The Frames
"A-Punk" Vampire Weekend
"Genessaret" Anathallo

"Black Mirror" Arcade Fire 

William F. Buckley Jr., 1925-2008, R.i.P.

"Mr. Buckley," one non-fan wrote in 1967, "you are the mouthpiece of that evil rabble that depends on fraud, perjury, dirty tricks, anything at all that suits their purposes. I would trust a snake before I would trust you or anybody you support."

Responded Buckley: "What would you do if I supported the snake?"

Kimmel Wins

Organic

Ted Royer is My New Personal Hero

"No, I want to marry a producer. A producer listens to the most batshit crazy idea and doesn’t say yes or no or ask why, but instantly asks “How?” She could talk me out of dumb things with grace and logic, or conversely show me what it’s possible to do with virtually nothing. A producer realizes that just as business and creativity need each other, responsibility (her) and irresponsibility (me) do too. A producer wouldn’t be afraid of different challenges, no matter what form they took. A producer would be tough, fighting battles I’d neither see nor even know about. A producer would plan for a rainy day and not even tell me she was doing it and then, when it started to rain, she’d say, “It’s covered, go over to the food table.” A producer would stay up all night partying with me, then make sure what needs to get done gets done, while I sleep. Marrying a producer would allow me to be as self-absorbed, self-indulgent, self-congratulatory, naval-gazing and “creative” as I want to be."

Sleep

I need sleep.

Sunday

And it's a battered old suitcase to a hotel someplace
And a wound that will never heal
No prima donna, the perfume is on
An old shirt that is stained with blood and whiskey
And goodnight to the street sweepers
The night watchman flame keepers and goodnight to Matilda too

"MOVE!"

After all these years, I finally find out what Louie is saying.

Happy Belated Birthday Bob

Encore

Songwriter/Composer: POLLARD ROBERT E JR

Current Affiliation: BMI CAE/IPI #: 185817043

There are 1005 Work Titles

January's Music

"Exit Only" Fugazi
"Blood and Roses" the Smithereens
"I Can't Sleep" Sloan
"That's the Way" Led Zeppelin
"Third Stone from the Sun" Jimi Hendrix
"Weird Fishes / Arpeggi" Radiohead
"Don't Kiss Me Goodbye" Ultra Orange and Emmanuelle
"Flashing Lights" Kanye
"Staring Statues" Thurston Moore
"Black Swan" Thom Yorke
"Listen to What the Man Said" Paul McCartney & Wings

The Greatest Band That Never Was

Top Gun!

Fugazi

Baxter's Birthday!

3 is the magic number.

There Will Be Blood

"I'm finished."

Heath Ledger, 1979-2008

http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/

Mastodon.

Wonderwall!

Tragedy!

Can't wait to see them on the 18th:

Oscar Pistorius Denied the Right to Compete

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) — "The IAAF ruled Monday that double-amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius is ineligible to compete in the Beijing Olympics because his prosthetic racing legs give him a clear competitive advantage."

This is a 'technical' ruling, but the message it sends to thousands of young athletes in similar situations is horrible. You'd think the IAAF would issue a press release, or even better, hold a news conference to congratulate Mr. Pistorius and honor his bravery, ambition and persistence.

Sunday, January 13

There is a snow storm on the way. We are expected to receive eight to twelve inches. I enjoy the first day or two of a New England snow: Fresh, white, and crystalline, it naturally accentuates the rugged wooded areas of the Western Suburbs where we live. The pine trees outside our kitchen window are my favorite.

Then, the plows turn the sides of the street black; the sidewalks are iced over; I can't ride; yellow snow at the intersections; the general glum that descends amongst the town folk; and the mess. 

I need to take the kids sledding...

Another weekend is coming to an end. I rode 46 miles between Saturday an Sunday. Larry loaned me his trainer, so now that winter seems to be coming - again - I can continue toward my goal of riding a century by March 29th. 

Another 3 day jaunt to Detroit (Birmingham) this week. 

Listening to: The Meligrove Ban "Everyone's a Winner"

I'm a Southerner

Two business men in NY are sitting down for a break in their
soon-to-be new store. As yet, the store isn't ready - only a few
shelves are set up.

One says to the other, "I bet any minute now some tourist is
going to walk by, put his face to the window and ask what we're selling."

No sooner are the words out of his mouth when, sure enough, a
curious hillbilly from the South walks to the window, has a peek, and in a Southern drawl asks, "What're y'all sellin' here?"

One of the men replies, "Oh! We're selling assholes here."

Without skipping a beat, the southerner says, "Well, I see
y'all're doing really good, you only got two left!"

My Favorite Things - 2007

Having two children under the age of 3 keeps you out of the movie theater, but I did get to see "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." Absolutely beautiful with a refresihng sense of humor, all things considered for Jean-Dominique Bauby: "Despite his condition, he authored the book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by blinking when the correct letter was reached by a person slowly reciting the alphabet over and over again. Bauby had to compose and edit the book entirely in his head, and convey it one letter at a time. He had his interlocutor read from a special alphabet which consisted of the letters ordered in accordance with their frequency in the French language. This made dictation more efficient. The book was published in France in March, 1997. Bauby died just two days later of heart failure. He is buried in a family grave at the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris, France."

I liked the short film, "Hotel Chevailer," but have yet to see "The Darjeeling Limited." I'm hesitant out of fear it will be too 'precious.'

"Superbad" jogged my memory to high-school, in many ways, but my favorite moment had to be the scene where Michael Cera sings "These Eyes" to a roomful of guys doing blow.

"The Bourne Ultimatum" is the best action film I've seen in years. I didn't see "Casino Royale" until 2007 and think it is also an exceptional action film. Bond finally returned to proper form with Daniel Craig replacing Remington Steele as 007.

"Once" is a great film / musical. Simple and sweet. "Falling Slowly" should be nominated for and win an Oscar for Best Original Song, (if the WGA will put an end to their ridiculous strike).

My most played song was "I Saw the Light," by Todd Rundgren, followed by Air's "Space Maker."

Radiohead's new album; "Spring Hall Convert," by Deerhunter (fantastic live show); a renewed interest in Wings, Led Zeppelin and Queens of the Stone Age, also contributed. Safe to say the theme of 2007 with regard to music is the 70's.

I read the book "Ten Points" by Bill Strickland in late summer early fall, and apart from the several other books I read over the year, this is the only one that affected me personally.

Buying our first home; Watching Bax and Sadie grow; Sarah's effortless and natural maternal instincts; Barritt's Ginger Beer; The Mercian "Paul Smith" track bike; my indestructible brown Blundstone's; winning three awards at Hatch (1 Silver Bowl, 2 Bronze); my Belstaff oil coat; my Pake commuter bike; cycling; progress not perfection in many areas of my life...

I'm sure I missed many things, but this is what I am recollecting at this moment.

2007 was a very special year for me. Many firsts, accomplishments, victories and successes.

Amen