Living In DC: A Customer Service Spectrum
There's a perfectly-situated mom&pop non-chain no-place-better-to-sit-in-the-city establishment on my block called Java House. I use it as my office daily from 2-5pm and sometimes later. The food's marvelous. Usually all you have to do is take a seat in the patio and one of the employees will take your order. Sooner or later.

There's enormous variation in the customer service I experience here, though. I'm talking light-years of difference. It all depends on who's working.

The weekend daily guy is absolutely awesome. After inquiring how your are (with genuine interest), he asks what kind of sugar you want with your ice tea (sweet-n-low, splenda, equal, sugar in the raw, or just plain old white), and wants to know many packets. Which he then he immediately delivers.

The weekday woman is middle-aged and has been here for awhile. She's attentive and efficient, wastes no words, and appears often on the patio, so you're assured you won't have to wait. I've become such a regular that she'll just bring me my ice tea less than five minutes after I've sat down.

The weekday afternoon guy is quiet but professional. He doesn't work every day, so you're not sure when you'll see him. More of an assistant manager, which means if he's the only one on, it may be a few minutes before you see him outside. In these cases, you can see him working inside, often tending to the big coffee bean roaster. He'll also bring me my drink before I order it.

The weekday afternoon young lady will often make you wait. She's always smiling, but sometimes you won't see that smile for 20 minutes. Sometimes it looks as if she's ignoring customers when she passes among the patio tables. While I wrote this post, I had to go inside to order.

Quirky, yes. Maddeningly annoying? Not really. No one who works here makes all that much money. But with the infestation of all those chain shops (Dupont Circle has three Starbucks - and you can see all three at once!) it makes me wonder if sometimes, the mom and pops count on quirky to save the day.

***

The accompanying picture to this post is from a Washington Post article on this very cafe. The author gets the atmosphere right, and I can see some of the patrons she describes. But there has been a huge increase in laptop use, which includes me!

Nobody Ever Asked Me To:

#1: Get my first raise.

I'm reading Timothy Ferriss's The 4-Hour Work Week and I was particularly impressed with the risks and chances he's taken throughout his life. It made me look at my background in a different light. I've always thought of myself as a low-risk/no-risk taker, a guy who'd rather be miserable with the status quo than chance getting called on the carpet for his actions.

But I've been able to identify times in my life when I actually did take risks. Tim's examples have helped me see that what I've previously thought were errors and faux pas actions can be taken as assertive and positive. In each case, I noticed that my success in the risk taking was due to my having started along the path, and nobody asked me to begin that journey.

Take my first job out of college, with the federal government. I noticed I should have been hired at a higher grade level since I had a college degree. I asked the personnel office about getting a raise. They said "we'll see what we can do." I went back to work.

A few days later, I get called into the Director's office. She's holding a form. She says: "I just received this from Personnel. They're asking me to sign it in order to raise your grade level. What do you have to do with this?"

"Well, I said, "I saw that people with a college degree should be hired at that grade level, and I just went to Personnel to talk to them about it."

The director continued. "We don't do things that way here. Employees should not be requesting pay raises. They must be approved by either myself or, to start with, your supervisor before official paperwork is started."

"Sorry," I said. "I didn't know, since I've just been here a month."

The director sits down, takes out a pen and signs the form. "However, I'm going to put this through and approve your new pay level."

I was a bit shocked. "Did I do something right or wrong here?" I wondered. "She's telling me I did something wrong, yet acting as if I did something right."

"Thank you," I said. "I won't do it again."

And that's how I got my first raise.

I need to remember that more often, and concentrate more on other times when I asserted myself, especially now since I'm trying to get myself to take more chances.

Broadway Tony Loses to Tony Soprano
and what the American Theatre Wing can do about it...

The Washington Post is reporting that this year's Tony Awards show (aired Sunday night, June 10) could be the least-watched Tony Awards ever. The American Theatre Wing (which co-produces the Tonys) blames The Sopranos finale over on HBO. I think it's because, for the majority of Americans, live theater (much less Broadway itself) is not relevant to their lives.

I propose that the awards be broadcast in an entirely different way, with grassroots support from those people across the world who are genuinely interested in the proceedings. The Tonys could take a lesson from Timothy Ferriss, who tells us on page 34 of his book The 4-Hour Work Week that we should "Emphasize Strengths, Don't Fix Weaknesses."

Broadway has a rabidly committed audience out there. The Tonys should stop playing to the general public.

Exactly how could they do this?

1. Broadcast the show in high definition not only nationwide, but to movie theaters in medium-large cities with active theater communities and to schools with good drama programs (as the Metropolitan Opera does now.)

2. Create "Throw Your Own Tony Awards" materials containing ideas (such as "gather people together and find a large-screen television to watch the show on") that will not only market the awards but show the fans that Broadway cares about their opinion (more on that below.) Include tips for everything - party theme, getting the best high definition signal, etc. Send it to anyone who wants it.

3. Hand out most of the awards before the curtain goes up on the actual ceremony itself.

4. Now for the big change: instead of mind-numbing presenter after presenter reading lists from cue cards, broadcast extended sections of the shows up for "Best Musical," as well as those with top actor/actress nominations. Give the audience background info in the toolkits. Let them know What The Story Is. The two musical excerpts I saw - from "Grey Gardens" and "Spring Awakening" - were energetic, but I can't tell you the most basic plot line for either of them.

5. Develop a new award category: America Votes for Tonys.

6. Allow the fans to vote, either by phone or online during the show, for their favorite musical (in each category) based on the scenes they've just seen (like on American Idol.)

7. Ignore the plays, at least for the telecast. In past shows, I've never seen an excerpt from a play work in generating my interest when shown on TV.

I'm sure the American Theatre Wing, home of the Tony Awards, struggles every year with making their awards telecast relevant to a national audience of non-theatergoers. But they're selling a product that most of us cannot purchase without committing a major amount of time and money to do so. In order to actually see a Broadway show, you have to reserve a hotel room (in advance, at least $250/night), travel to New York city (another outlay of at least $250), and purchase tickets (again, in advance, at around $100 per seat.) I've just spent over $500 and the orchestra hasn't even tuned up.

And while the American Theatre Wing may have data that shows an upturn in box office receipts for winning shows, have they ever tried to figure out if the awards telecast is responsible for developing interest in people who up until now have no interest in Broadway (or even just a little?)

I know they're trying to develop that interest. Last night's tag line was "There's a little bit of Broadway in everyone." But I didn't understand what they meant by that.

The show itself looked and felt just like any other awards show.

Support the audience that cares. Let them convert the masses.

Living in DC: The Dupont Circle Trash Phenomenon
At the end of a gorgeous spring weekend in Washington, DC, Dupont Circle's trash cans will be overflowing with mountains of coffee cups, newspapers, etc.

I admit to doing what everyone else does - placing my empty drink container somewhere within a pile of trash with the precision of an artist, so I won't cause a trashvalanche. The result - twice the amount of garbage for the container, and cups etc. littering the surrounding area.

You'd think we'd walk a couple more blocks to a much emptier trash receptacle. I finally caught on and started doing that just this year. Certainly DC doesn't want to have to pay a waste management company to double their collection runs each weekend.

This problem isn't endemic to Dupont. Today in Seth Godin's post "It's always like this," Seth speaks of the overflowing garbage cans at the Javits Center in NYC in the same breath with another problem: Not enough chairs and tables (not to mention those trash cans) for thousands of convention participants.

While the Dupont Circle Phenomenon is easily solvable through our own awareness - "maybe I'll just carry this Starbuck's cup home" - convention-goers don't really have that option. I'm surprised (although I shouldn't be) that the Javits Center doesn't police the trash situation round the clock (or at least in the daytime.)

In both cases though you'd think the Powers That Be would take action (the National Park Service and the Javits organization), since garbage strewn about says "We Don't Care!"

***
I can see another reason, not mentioned in Seth's post, why the Javits Center limitis the comfortable seating, however. After years of conference planning myself, I can hear the associations saying "We don't want people to rest because we want them walking by, and into, the exhibitor's booths! If we put out more chairs and tables, everyone will congregate there, and the exhibitors will chew us out for diverting potential customers!"

The Big Eye Blinks
According to USA Today, CBS has ordered up another seven episodes of Jericho!

We'll all be able to see what happened after all the shooting started.

Now the Jericho writers can add a gay character (although that may be too much to ask.)

I see CBS's decision as an excellent customer service action.

Next time, can we order it without nuts?

It May Not Be Your Passion If:

#12 - You're finely crafting in an arena that calls for quickfastandinahurry.

My "career" in writing drama has always frustrated me in one aspect - I'm neither a fast nor a prolific writer. It took me a long, long time to make characters and plot work together, not to mention dialogue and description. Sometimes months would go by while I labored over the same tired scene, and then one day I'd get slammed with a burst of brilliance on how to make it work. This type of crafting works rather well in the theatre world. But in screenwriting? You need to have multiple scripts tossed around at any single time - and even then you'll probably get a "pass" (i.e., not interested) on each one. So you have to go back and churn out more. Trouble is, I'm just not that kind of writer, and I will never be.

Even though I've "technically" given up on screenwriting - or to put it more positively, I'm exploring the zillion other options I'm interested in - I still play with ideas in my head. Like the superhero outfit that takes the wearer's body and transforms it to finely-tuned muscularity - but only in the wearer's eyes. So while this idea fascinates me, I know it would probably be another two years before I get anything down on paper that I would trust showing to anyone. I'm just not the quickfastandinahurry kind of craftsman!

Read the other posts in this series...

TCM's Rare Misstep
While Tom Shales over at The Washington Post reviews Turner Classic Movies' "Screened Out," their month-long investigation of "Gay Images in Film," I'll contribute my thoughts on their summer-long festival of family-friendly flicks, "Funday Night at the Movies."

The series began last night with the #1 family-friendly movie ever made - The Wizard of Oz (flying monkeys nothwithstanding.) Tom Kenny intro'd the movie, hosting a bunch of "tween" kids on a clubhouse-type set. This misstep here is the concept. We were led to believe, in the previews over the past month, that we'd gain some insight into the films by having all these kids around. However, Tom looked stiff as he reacted to the camera lens, giving me the impression he was reading from cue cards. The kids sat around without much to do, other than almost destroy a prop (on purpose). After the film, Tom provided some low-energy tall tales surrounding those monkeys, and then frightened the kids away with an unopened box of them.

It came across as erzatz Nickleodeon. At least "The Wizard" wasn't interrupted for additional shenanigans.

And then there's the whole "repackaging" aspect of this new endeavor. More on that in a bit.

Tom Shales rightly believes TCM is the classiest cable channel. And their original programming, mostly documentaries on stars and genres, is top notch. So I can forgive them this brief respite from brilliance. Hopefully they'll get this format together for future shows.

But I'm still left with a feeling they're just repackaging the same TCM stuff, and not trying anything new. Years ago, when I was a radio announcer and station music director in the wilds of New Hampshire, the general manager came to me with a new idea she and the sales staff were working on. "Jukebox Saturday Night," they called it, and the idea was to sell one hour blocks of ads to a client, who would "sponsor" the hour. "Great," I said. "Do we get to buy some new music, maybe expand our library of 50's and 60's tunes?"

"Oh no," said the GM. "We're going to work with the music we've got."

Jukebox Saturday Night never did get plugged in. I don't think the potential "sponsors" weren't all that thrilled with it, but I'll never know if additional music would have made the difference.

I'll be checking out TCM next Sunday night to see what they do next with this "Funday" idea.

A Few Early Steps
Liz Strauss has posted the first submissions to her "Metaphor Project," which asked for bloggers to tell what metaphors they use when talking about this method of online communication.

I'm excited because I've received very positive feedback from a number of sources on my "Whale Metaphor." Big thanks from me to Liz for including my metaphor in this early round!

Heres' the list - they're a richly varied group, and hopefully one will catch your eye and deepen your understanding!

What metaphor do you use to explain blogging? at Ian’s Messy Desk
Blogging Metaphor–The Salad Bar Blog at Word Sell
My blog is a smorgasbord, come and eat… at Juggling Frogs
Feeding on Plankton at krooz
My Preferred Metaphor for Business Blogging at Business and Blogging
10 reasons why blogging is like dating” at Romance Tracker
Equestrian Ecstasy - Portal to another Reality at INNside Innkeeping in Montana
Blogging Metaphors: Bridge-Building at Middle Zone Musings
Blogging Metaphor: Blogging is like Exercise at Virtual Impax
My Blogging Metaphor: BNI at Kiss2
Why Conversational Blogging Is Like A LineConga at dawudmiracle
Blog 101 and the New Cocktail Party at What Would Dad Say

It's taken me awhile to get used to comments, memes, and other online conversation builders. I hate to be thought of as a "lurker," someone who reads blogs and doesn't leave his mark through a comment or some other means. There's been times I've drafted a comment, but end up deleting it, thinking it's bogus or uninteresting. So, when I receive great comments like Dawud Miracle's and Maria Palma's on my Passion series, it builds up my confidence and energy to get out there and talk some more!

Then There's The High Cost Of Gas
I've been considering how much time I've spent over the last twenty years on getting ready to go to work and the actual travel to work. The past few years I've been lucky enough to have an office within walking distance of home. But I've also spent countless hours commuting in traffic as well as doing the sardine thing in public transportation. Those hours add up. Hours that I could be doing something else - hours that I could have actually been working.

And I'm not the only one focusing on this issue.

There's an awesome article in today's New York Times all about the amount of time we waste every day at work. (Although Lisa Belkin seems to think that time surfing Amazon is time working.)

The Times article comes on the heels of the CBS Sunday Morning piece* (May 27) on Extreme Commuters - workers who travel two hours or more to get to their jobs. (Although no one mentioned their enormous carbon footprints.)

And both are related to a recently published productivity book: The 4-Hour Work Week.

I'm currently working out of my home - and I love it. I get up early and BAM! I'm at my computer. I do research at all hours. I take advantage of the current gorgeous DC weather to laptop it outside (and give my brain additional stimulation other than four beige walls.) I don't have to make my lunch until I'm ready to eat it.

I could get used to this. I'm exploring how to make it my permanent work situation.

Plus, just think of the massive increase in quality work as well as huge savings in energy consumption if telecommuting were available on a widespread basis.

Now if this weather would just continue...

*No link to CBS because I mad at them for cancelling Jericho.

It May Not Be Your Passion If:

#11 - Your passion’s in a field where there’s a huge gap between amateur and professional – and you won’t be happy until you ascend to the very top.

I’m not talking about neurosurgery here. Or the always-identified “rocket science.”

I’m speaking about Olympic downhill skiing, Broadway musical composing, WWE wrestling, and other endeavors that take a certain type of talent, years of learning, body type and/or physical expertise.

The key here is knowing where you’re going to be happy. If your passion means that you’d be blissful just being associated with these types of areas, then by all means go for it. Flexibility will get you far.

But if you’re betting the farm on scaling the heights, and disregarding anything else until you reach it (or don’t), then maybe it’s the wrong mountain to climb.

Trouble is, we’re bombarded with images and stories every day of the “everyman/everywoman” who labors in a non-glam career, then makes it through The Labyrinth and is acclaimed the “next American Idol.”

Realistically, we have better chances of being struck by lightning.

I’m not dissing anyone’s dreams here. Dreams are important. They’re motivating. Sometimes they can get us through a particularly awful day. They even come true.

I’m saying that there’s bliss in being “amateur,” if you get “professional” right.

For an explanation of what I mean by that, I invite you to read screenwriter John August’s incredible post “Professional Writing and the Rise of the Amateur.” He explains it and is entertaining at the same time!

Previous posts in this series:

#1: You're in love with the idea of your passion, but you can't stand the component parts.

#2 - You and your passion have a long distance relationship (and you aren't willing to move.)

#3 - Pursuing your passion clashes big time with your personality.

#4 - In pursuit of your passion you end up doing things that might be hazardous to your health.

#5 - You say it's your passion, but you spend 100% of your "free," non-work time doing just everything else BUT working on what you say you love.

#6 - In considering your passion, you experience "Klondike Thinking."

#7 - You go into debt because the financial costs of practicing it are way too high.

#8 - You don't believe your passion's barriers to entry pertain to you.

#9 - Pursuing your passion cuts you off from family and/or friends.

#10: It's more about seeing your name connected to an outcome than your deep down enjoyment.

Feeding on Plankton
The always-readable Liz Strauss over at the perpetually helpful Successful and Outstanding Bloggers has asked the blogging world for our metaphors on blogging.

I immediately thought of The Whale Metaphor. (Although the accompanying picture to this post is not a whale but a "basking shark," because I couldn't find a good whale picture to illustrate my point.)

When I first started blogging, I'd read tons of blog entries at a bunch of blogs, each entry just a paragraph or two. And each containing one or two bits of valuable information. I was a whale cruising through the vast Internet ocean, straining seawater for microscopic plankton (thousands of bits of information in my case, and the basis of nutrition in the whale's case.)

I continue to travel through the Internet in the same way - but now I'm one of the plankton in addition to the whale.

Of course, if you take an analogy too far, it falls apart. So I'll leave it at that broad brush stroke, and won't get into comparing the shark's huge open jaws to the huge open mind I find helps me understand what's out there.

So, whenever I explain what blogging is like to someone who is unfamiliar with it, I take them to SeaWorld (figuratively, of course!)

Photo by Chris Gotschalk, obtained at Wikimedia Commons.

No Mo
A nuclear shockwave went through the nation this week. CBS cancelled Jericho. After killing off Gerald McRaney in the season finale, and slamming into a blackout just as Jericho started firing their remaining ammo at New Bern, we now find that we cannot go back to this post-nuclear landscape and Find Out What Happens.

Jericho was the first ongoing-plot drama I've religiously watched in a long long time. But I've got a thing for post-apocalyptic storylines. I'm going to miss it.

But maybe not. At petitiononline.com you can add your voice to the 88,263 others calling for CBS to bring Jericho back.

Remember Star Trek back in the sixties? (I'm showing my age here.) How it was cancelled after three seasons, to the dismay of die-hard fans? And look at today - I believe you can find a rerun playing somewhere in the world at any hour of any day.

I'm not surprised Jericho was cancelled. Without going into its ratingzzzz (which I haven't been following), or how much money it has or hasn't made for CBS, I'll give a couple of my opinions on Why The Show Is No More.

1. I felt the writers didn't know where they were going. I liked the fact that the town faced a tough winter (in spite of the fact that somehow, many of their trees stayed green.) But there's only so much a writer can do with "we don't have enough food to last until spring, what are we gonna do?"

2. The "mystery" aspects of Robert Hawkins' character became less and less mysterious. The whole FBI-CIA-whoever-they-are skullduggery seemed like it was happening in a different show entirely.

But I still liked the show! Come on, CBS - show me some customer service! If you really valued me as a customer, you'd search out my opinion on Jericho. You'd put out a call across the country and around the world for ideas. Run a contest to develop a new character! Or the plotline for an episode!

Here's one from me - develop a story that deals with how gays are treated in the "[new]SA." Would gay and lesbian citizens be seen as detrimental, due to the lower population? Would the heterosexuals see LBGTQs as people who aren't pulling their weight? people? Bring a gay character in, and let the townsfolk deal with him or her.

After major conflict, I think they'd run him or her out of town on a rail.

We might just have to face reality, though, since Hollywood only cares about money (and not even your money, but the money from advertisers). We may never find out what happens. So here's a thought: for anyone still mourning the passing of Jericho, a suggestion: pick up a copy of Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road. Pretend that the father and son are characters you haven't met in the Jericho series. And take it from there...

Things You Can't Buy In DC
At the start of my previous cruise (late January), I stopped in a Miami drugstore to pick up a couple of items. I bought Purell Hand Sanitizer/Ocean Mist, as well as a bag of Cinnamon Fire Jolly Ranchers.

The Jolly Ranchers were intense! And I really liked the Purell scent. After the cruise, just the small amount I had left over put me back on the boat.

I looked for these items here in DC. But while I found Purell in unscented as well as aloe vera versions, and bag after bag of Jolly Rancher original flavors, I could not find Ocean Mist and Cinnamon Fire.

No matter where I looked.

Fast forward to last weekend. I'm in Fort Lauderdale visiting a friend. I stop in a Walgreen's to pick up some toothpaste, and followed up on a hunch. I'm in Florida - would Fire and Mist be readily available?

There they were. Both of them. Exactly what I've been looking for. So I bought up a bunch of each and packed them in my suitcase.

What I want to know is - why can't I get these in DC?

It May Not Be Your Passion If:

#10: It's more about seeing your name connected to an outcome than your deep down enjoyment.

Also known as "Name in Lights" syndrome. A few years back, I was walking through Broadway (NY) with a friend. I pointed to the marquees of the famous theaters we passed. "One day," I said, in almost mock seriousness, "my name's gonna be up there!" My friend still speaks with me to this day, after I subjected him to this obvious behavior, considering where we were. It wasn't until years later, when I actually had "my name in lights" (although not in NYC), that I realized it wasn't all that it seems in the movies. Nothing magically changed. I still had all my old fears and insecurities. I just had a few more people telling me my writing was fantastic. There was a quick learning curve after that, as I understood exactly how awards and recognition (even just a little) can't take the place of just getting out there and living life.

#1: You're in love with the idea of your passion, but you can't stand the component parts.

#2 - You and your passion have a long distance relationship (and you aren't willing to move.)

#3 - Pursuing your passion clashes big time with your personality.

#4 - In pursuit of your passion you end up doing things that might be hazardous to your health.

#5 - You say it's your passion, but you spend 100% of your "free," non-work time doing just everything else BUT working on what you say you love.

#6 - In considering your passion, you experience "Klondike Thinking."

#7 - You go into debt because the financial costs of practicing it are way too high.

#8 - You don't believe your passion's barriers to entry pertain to you.

#9 - Pursuing your passion cuts you off from family and/or friends.

Where's the customer service for screenwriters?

Although I have "officially" given up the screenwriting game, I continue drifting off to sleep at night running scenes and dialogue from Ed Maxx: Zombie Destroyer* in my head. You might think it would give me nightmares, but no. I prefer my nightmares to come from other sources. Cormac McCarthy's stunning and awesome novel "The Road" is currently furnishing them with images quite well.

Who knows - maybe I'll find the fun in going back and giving Ed Maxx another try at setting his life straight.

If I do, I'll of course maintain the opinion that Hollywood doesn't give a damn about us, the customers for its peculiar sort of merchandise. Hollywood has never asked me what kinds of movies I want to see. And the town is particularly hostile to screenwriters, especially those of us who prefer to live somewhere other than Los Angeles.

And so I find it harder and harder to care at all about what is being offered on screens here in DC. This is unfortunate, since the "hinterland screenwriter" could be one of the film industry's most ardent supporters. After all, we're the ones who:

• pay $8 to see a movie - two or three times;
• watch the DVD a second time, with the director's commentary running;
• sometimes watch it with the commentary running the first time;
• watch all the deleted scenes, once with commentary, once without;
• look up all the bit part actors' names on IMDB;
• can tell you who Natalie Kalmus was;
• sit on our festering scripts because we're too scared they may be totally worthless (as most script readers claim they are);
• would benefit from a system where we could be matched up with writing partners who could complement us;
• believe that every dozen years or so, we'll come out of a movie theatre transformed.

*Ed's a DC-based lawyer who wakes up one morning to find that the world has degenerated into two camps - zombies and a very few humans. He rapidly finds that he's destined to flip back and forth between this alternate universe, and his real life, where he's got to deliver enough billable hours to become partner, get married, survive encounters with the walking dead and find a way to make the flipping stop.

It May Not Be Your Passion If:

#9 - Pursuing your passion cuts you off from family and/or friends.

It's not that the people close to me have to be an active and equal partner in my passion(s). They're probably thankful I don't bore them with every minute detail. Still, there should be some link, even if it's acknowledgement, among my family and friends. However, if I hear "This drive to become the best [insert passion] in the world is making you cancel all your outings, and you're becoming a stranger to your family," that might be something for me to look into. No one's told me that yet. But I always have to watch for that possibility.

#1: You're in love with the idea of your passion, but you can't stand the component parts.

#2 - You and your passion have a long distance relationship (and you aren't willing to move.)

#3 - Pursuing your passion clashes big time with your personality.

#4 - In pursuit of your passion you end up doing things that might be hazardous to your health.

#5 - You say it's your passion, but you spend 100% of your "free," non-work time doing just everything else BUT working on what you say you love.

#6 - In considering your passion, you experience "Klondike Thinking."

#7 - You go into debt because the financial costs of practicing it are way too high.

#8 - You don't believe your passion's barriers to entry pertain to you.

Cheesy Promotion Language
I'm watching a tv show on various snack food factories, and I'm hearing a number of terms that gunk up my brain like a pipe full of sludge. I'm talking about those terms that we hear all the time in advertising, the words and phrases that marketers believe will endear us to their products. Me, I just find them cheesy, and annoying in a number of different ways. And these words are:

Best Kept Secret
Used to describe regional products or products that have a small and rabid fan base, I just heard this phrase in a program segment on Dippin's Dots, an ultra-frozen mini-sphere ice cream foodstuff. I also used to hear it when I worked for a very large youth education organization. I always wondered, and still do, why anyone would admit to having a business that's a "best kept secret."

Authentic
Today I heard this adjective linked to "brick ovens," implying that the baking method for a brand of pretzels was somehow linked to a historic cooking method. The trouble is, nobody bothered to linked the word "authentic" to a specific culture, time period, or cuisine. It was implied, and while most viewers would believe there was truth spoken here, I was left wondering exactly what this "authenticity" was really referring to.

Sneak Peek
It seems we're always being offered a "sneak peek," of an upcoming show episode, or a movie, sometimes a concert. Trouble is, I don't like anything "sneaky," because to me it means "somewhat illegal." And the word "peek" is just a little too fey and cutesy to my ears. Put them together and I get this ridiculous vision of an executive producer, on tiptoes, hunched over, lifting the canvas a bit so we can see what's going on inside the circus tent. Note that this vision has nothing to do with the episode, movie, or concert in question.

Your Favorite
Always, always, always used on infomercials for highly specialized cooking or mixing machines. The excitable hosts are working much too hard to link this product to my needs, and by saying "add your favorite pasta, ice cream, spice mix, or fruit and vegetable" they've just gone over the edge. Especially since I never think of the foods in my kitchen as indicative of "my favorite" anything. The "best tasting" or "best deal in the store" perhaps, but "my favorites" can change from day to day. The effect on me - I feel like these uber-bubbly infomercial people are standing just a little too close, like someone on Seinfeld.

Just and Simply
Open up SkyMall and read all about how you "just attach the special vacuum pump to the giant inflatable bounce-castle" and you can "simply" inflate this expensive monstrosity to a size that can destroy most of the grass on your front lawn. Or "simply plug in" the magic fingers massage chair and ease your flight-related stress away for a mere $1250. One or two uses of "just" and "simply" are fine. But read these words over and over in SkyMall before you take off, and the product blurbs become a little too insistent, approaching shrill.

It May Not Be Your Passion If:

#8 - You don't believe your passion's barriers to entry pertain to you.

Everything has a barrier to entry. Some barriers are more labyrinthine than others. You might be a roller-coaster enthusiast, and think the perfect vacation involves travel to a dozen theme parks experiencing the thrills of hurtling upside down at 60 MPH while spinning along a steel metal track. The barrier to entry? Financial. You can't get into a theme park if you don't have the money.

You might think there are places that have no barrier to entry, but they do.

In the movie "Rudy," the title character dreams of playing football at Notre Dame. But there are HUGE barriers to his entry. His grades suck. He's physically smaller than other players. Very few take him seriously. Even his father tries to talk him out of it. Although Rudy hurtles some barriers (like walking into the coach's office unannounced to meet him), he respects that the main barrier to getting into Notre Dame is his academic ability. So he works on that. And works. And works. And works. And works. And works. Clearly, he respects the university's high wall he has to jump over. But he doesn't just go up and say "Here I am, take me in." He does, however, ask people for their help, which is an entirely different thing altogether.

It's only natural to downplay the barriers you'll have to climb, knock down, dismantle, take the long way around, on your way to success in what you love to do. But if you think, "It'll be a breeze, I'll just walk in and everyone will love me and what I do," then you're probably up for a major disappointment.

#1: You're in love with the idea of your passion, but you can't stand the component parts.

#2 - You and your passion have a long distance relationship (and you aren't willing to move.)

#3 - Pursuing your passion clashes big time with your personality.

#4 - In pursuit of your passion you end up doing things that might be hazardous to your health.

#5 - You say it's your passion, but you spend 100% of your "free," non-work time doing just everything else BUT working on what you say you love.

#6 - In considering your passion, you experience "Klondike Thinking."

#7 - You go into debt because the financial costs of practicing it are way too high.

Tales of Great Customer Service
I ordered two computer related items recently via the Internet, and both experiences have been excellent and practically effortless!

BeachCamera.com - The printer I ordered from BeachCamera on Tuesday, May 8 arrived on Wednesday, May 9. And the shipping was free - incredible!

Espow.com - I purchased a laptop battery from Espow a couple of weeks ago. A few days after the purchase, I received an email from them stating the battery was not in stock, but would be by May 17 - and would I like to wait for it? I emailed back "sure, why not?" Yesterday, a week early, it showed up in my mailbox. Awesome!!

Can I forsee a time in the future when I do all of my purchasing online? When I no longer have to run all over the place to pick up items? As I turn into a slug sitting at my computer?

It's a good thing I'm still working out at the gym!

It May Not Be Your Passion If:

#7 - You go into debt because the financial costs of practicing it are way too high.

I've spent quite a bit of money pursuing my playwriting/screenwriting career. I haven't kept exact track on how much (I knew it would hamper my creativity at the time), but I can estimate the costs as follows:

$1000 on writing seminars
$600 on airfare to Los Angeles for opening and closing weekends of Dearboy's War.
$200 on rental car fees in Los Angeles.
$250 for screenwriting software.
$150 on copying scripts.

That's $2200 - and it's a rough estimate. Granted, that's also over a number of years. Let's look at how much money I've directly made on this passion:

$500 award from the Arch & Bruce Brown Foundation.

Now it's not like I was in danger of going into debt. But as I've gotten less and less satisfaction out of writing scripts, I've certainly felt it in my wallet. Especially since those writing seminars here in DC have doubled their fees!

#1: You're in love with the idea of your passion, but you can't stand the component parts.

#2 - You and your passion have a long distance relationship (and you aren't willing to move.)

#3 - Pursuing your passion clashes big time with your personality.

#4 - In pursuit of your passion you end up doing things that might be hazardous to your health.

#5 - You say it's your passion, but you spend 100% of your "free," non-work time doing just everything else BUT working on what you say you love.

#6 - In considering your passion, you experience "Klondike Thinking."

It May Not Be Your Passion If:

#6 - In considering your passion, you experience "Klondike Thinking."

Klondike Thinking is all about "get rich quick." Like a prospector during the gold rush of the 1890's, you're preparing for the extreme discomfort of working by telling yourself "I can take the hardships for a short period of time, since the payoff will hopefully be enormous." The Klondike Thinker might:

stay in a boring, dull and dead end job and put off his dreams until retirement;
fear some initial discomfort in pursuing her passion, which keeps her from pursuing what she loves;
maintain a low level of involvement in his passion while everyone else is going full force;
throw away a perfectly satisfying life to chase a billion-to-one long shot.

The problem with this scenario? Putting too much emphasis on a specific, narrow outcome (make a ton of money, get famous, win an Oscar) and ignore the possibilities inherent in the actual pursuit. I wanted to win an Oscar for screenwriting - but I can't find much fun in writing screenplays. And I don't really want to move to Losa Angeles.

Once I realized this, I could see how I was using Klondike Thinking in pursuing my passion, and identify either what I needed to do to get where I wanted to go, or quit and pursue other interests.

Interests in which I like the panning for gold as much as, if not more than, the gold itself.


#1: You're in love with the idea of your passion, but you can't stand the component parts.

#2 - You and your passion have a long distance relationship (and you aren't willing to move.)

#3 - Pursuing your passion clashes big time with your personality.

#4 - In pursuit of your passion you end up doing things that might be hazardous to your health.

#5 - You say it's your passion, but you spend 100% of your "free," non-work time doing just everything else BUT working on what you say you love.

Living in DC
I got "you need to" at the post office the other afternoon. Curiously, the postal employee was sincerely trying to help me.

I was waiting in line, holding an envelope along with a green "delivery confirmation" sticker.

"You need to send that priority mail," he said.
"OK," I said. "I'll do that."
He then said something else that I didn't understand. Since I didn't understand it, it made me a bit cranky.
"OK, I'll send it priority mail," I said. "What else do I need to do?"
"I can do it. Come over here."

And he walked off. So, I followed, to another, smaller service counter.

The employee took my envelope and the green sticker, placed the envelope in a clear-front priority mail enveloped, processed the sticker, took my money and stapled the receipt to my copy of the sticker.

He wasn't being mean or ornery. Nothing like that. He had come out from behind his counter and was trying to get the line of waiting customers moving. A few minutes before our exchange, he directed some instructions to the customers. "If any of you have to buy stamps," he said, "you can do that at one of the machines."

Nobody moved, probably because we all had some transaction that needed a live person.

But the postal worker was definitely trying to help us out. The trouble is, he was blinded by getting the postal processes right. He approached me with a solution by telling me the problem. But kudos to him for stepping out and offering to help!

Once I recognized this, I become much less cranky and almost pleasant.

It May Not Be Your Passion If:

#5 - You say it's your passion, but you spend 100% of your "free," non-work time doing just everything else BUT working on what you say you love.

Music: you love it. You've got a guitar, you've written songs, you've performed in bars. People say to you "That song you wrote really spoke to me," and "You're awesome, what are you doing staying here?" Things like that. You know you're not a prodigy - you know that to get where you are requires tons of practice. But the weekend rolls around and you're taking the kids everywhere, you've spent three hours at the gym, you fall asleep on the couch afterwards, and when you wake up you try tackling that mountain of paperwork you've brought home from the office. When are you practicing? Writing new stuff? "I'll definitely do it tomorrow," you tell yourself as you watch the Sci-Fi Channel on Saturday night. The next day, you do it all again, and you get so much done. But not your music. Your guitar's locked in its case in the closet.

How do I know all this? I've been there!

#1: You're in love with the idea of your passion, but you can't stand the component parts.

#2 - You and your passion have a long distance relationship (and you aren't willing to move.)

#3 - Pursuing your passion clashes big time with your personality.

#4 - In pursuit of your passion you end up doing things that might be hazardous to your health.

It May Not Be Your Passion If:

#4 - In pursuit of your passion you end up doing things that might be hazardous to your health.

Let's say your dream is to become Mr. Universe. An extreme example of a dream, perhaps, but let's go with it. You're 6'1", you've been working out with weights since high school, you've even placed in some regional bodybuilding competitions. But in order to get to that lofty plateau, you find you're going to have to do steroids.* If you find no problems with it for yourself, then fine, great, go for it. But what if you have this nagging opposition to using? What if you push past that opposition, that voice in your head yelling "wait, don't!," and start anyway? What if doing that cycle gives you all sorts of physical and behavioral changes - insane acne, heightened aggressiveness, massive depression? Suddenly, you're ignoring clear signs that your body's not cut out for what you're putting it through. Sure, there are all those other people who have "done it," and they're fine, right? But they're not you! It definitely pays to weigh the costs of your dream against any personal harm racing after it may cause.

#1: You're in love with the idea of your passion, but you can't stand the component parts.

#2 - You and your passion have a long distance relationship (and you aren't willing to move.)

#3 - Pursuing your passion clashes big time with your personality.

*Disclaimer: I don't purport to be an expert on steroid use or the controversies surrounding them, and this post does not aim to provide advice on them pro or con. This was the first example that came to my mind - so please don't beat me up!

Ship to Shore Communique
Atlantis Events sent me a response to the comments I sent them regarding their new Web site:


Mike,

Thank you for your feedback. Honestly, in our 16 years we've tried to sell cruises with a variety of photo images, and the ones that work are the attractive (and therefore somewhat younger) ones. My commentary in the site is correct -- it is marketing after all.

We've tested multiple images, and the ones that gay men respond to are essentially the ones that we have on the site. I don't think it's a question of responsibility, it's a question of running a successful business.

We're very honest with the content. Absolutely every photo on this site is a photo of real guests on a real vacation with us. And if you look a bit close, you'll find that it fairly matches the average age of our guests, which is around 39.

I also think if you look a little close, you'll find it's not all "buff", it's a variety of people in a variety of settings. But sometimes gay men miss the variety and focus on the physique. It's a common thing that we hear.

Also, I think the video content on the site addresses the variety of experience and clientele better than just the static photos.

We are rewriting some of the comments in the FAQ section. Those were written a while ago and need some updating.

I hope this sheds some light on our work and look forward to seeing you again on a future Atlantis vacation.

Thank you again for your comments.

Regards,
Rich

A Rare Opportunity
Atlantis Events, the gay charter company (which has ferried me on a number of fantastic vacations) is about to debut their new Web site. They've sent a test version of this site to "alumni" and asked for our comments. I'm excited, because it's rare that I have a prepared opinion saved up and ready-to-email! So, I sent them my posting from a number of months ago:

A Marketing Golden Rule.

I was thinking of sending along
Enough About You. What About Me? Some Thoughts on Customer Service Surveys,
but I don't want them to think I'm a crazy person.

It May Not Be Your Passion If:

#3 - Pursuing your passion clashes big time with your personality.


I probably wouldn't make a great Trappist monk. Although the life fascinates me. Simplicity. Quiet. Focus.

I remember seeing a 60 Minutes piece on Thomas Merton, probably the most famous Trappist monk of all (if one can or should label a monk "famous.") He had fascinating things to say, and I read his book The Seven Storey Mountain not long afterwards.

But I know I wouldn't make a good Trappist monk for one reason: I'm a raging extrovert. A huge "E" on the Meyers-Briggs profile. I not only "get" energy from other people, I can feel it coming in. I don't want to be the center of attention, and I don't need to be onstage. But put me in an enclosed office for hours at a time, and I shut down. My brain ceases to function - all creativity goes right out the window.

And isn't that a major portion of a Trappist monk's life? Deep introspection, silence (or should I say lack of conversation)?

Sure, we all want and crave a certain amount of calm and rest in our lives. But if I were to pursue that as my passion, well, then passion would drain out of my life.

But I'm going to read The Seven Storey Mountain again. I've still got my copy. And one of the neat things about getting older? You don't have to buy as many books, since you forget what was in many of them...

#1: You're in love with the idea of your passion, but you can't stand the component parts.

#2 - You and your passion have a long distance relationship (and you aren't willing to move.)

It May Not Be Your Passion If:

#2 - You and your passion have a long distance relationship (and you aren't willing to move).

I thought I wanted to be a screenwriter. I wrote plays for 7 years, and even had one produced in Los Angeles. I met actors I'd seen on television, now playing the roles I wrote. It was all very exciting. So I started writing screenplays. But I live in DC. I briefly considered moving to LA - I even spent some time there, getting my bearings, seeing what it's like..

Trouble was, I REALLY didn't like it. I remember looking at the Hollywood Hills one evening, at the lights coming on in the cliff-dwelling homes, and I thought "I don't want that."

In my DC neighborhood, I walk to work, the gym, grocery stores, restaurants. In LA, I'd have to drive. In DC, I leave my house a few minutes before I have to be just about anywhere. In LA, I'd have to leave my apartment maybe an hour beforehand, and figure out the shortest drive to where I wanted to go. In DC, I have all this extra time, given to me because I don't have to commute. In LA, it would be all about the commute.

For a screenwriter, it's also all about the networking. In Hollywood. Not in DC. And it's really difficult if you're not living in LA.

Not that you have to move to where your passion resides, if it's geographically important. But I've found that distance can be a critical factor in deciding what I want to do with my life.

And I'm still living in DC.

Read Part 1: You're in love with the idea of your passion, but you can't stand the component parts.

It May Not Be Your Passion If:

#1 - You're in love with the idea of your passion, but you can't stand the component parts.

For years I've heard "do what you love," and "follow your bliss," and "find your passion."

But what's my passion? What happens if it changes? How do I know if I should quit and do something else?

I've thought about those questions - over and over. And I've come up with some ways to measure for myself whether or not what I'm doing is REALLY what I want to do. Hence, #1: It may not be your "passion" if: You're in love with the idea of your passion, but you can't stand the component parts.

No matter what you do, no matter how exciting your passion may be, there are going to be portions of it that aren't all that interesting. Still, they shouldn't grind you down. I believe that you don't have to absolutely love everything about your dream, but those "grunt work" parts should still do something for you. Let's say mountain biking is your passion. What are the component parts? Well, you have to know about the bike's technical aspects (how much air in the tires, what type of tire for what terrain, what the bike's made of), along with safety concerns (types of helmets, other protective clothing and accessories), and where to ride (what time of year is the best, how crowded is it, how long does it take to get there.) If you say you love love love mountain biking, but bikes and fitness and terrains just bore you to tears, that may be telling you something.

I'll be posting these from time to time, and when I get to the last one, I'll include the entire list. I've come up with fifteen of these statements... who knows how long this will take!

There Comes One Of Them Now!
Turner Classic Movies is running a Guest Programmer contest. All you need to do is create a short video explaining why you should be chosen as Guest Programmer for an evening of movies on TCM and you might just win. Funny how they don't ask you what movies you'd pick. So I've gone ahead and NOT produced a video, and selected the movies I'd screen if I was chosen:

Because it's the greatest movie ever made.

Because it's out of its mind.

Because it's intensely frightening, hugely influential, and made for about $7.00.

Because it's the most underrated movie musical of the sixties.

It's About Joy
Fascinating article in Sunday's New York Times (titled "Seeking Fans, Ballet Scrambles for a Killer App") about the role of ballet in modern American culture, and the financial/artistic struggles of ballet companies in New York City and across the country. The article lists the usual tactics arts institutions employ to bring in audiences: "Girls Night Out" at the New York City Ballet, offering dessert and "girl talk" with ballerinas; newly-minted ballets featuring tried-and-true stories from other media like "Peter Pan" and "Dracula." I say "usual" because I read about this kind of thing all the time. Instead of trying to understand how to appeal to the customer when the customer says "I don't like or need what you offer," the institutions merely ape popular culture, and nobody wins.

But a quote by Italian choreographer Luca Veggeti really set my head spinning: “You have companies saying, ‘We have to do Peter Pan and Dracula,’ ” he added, laughing. “What is the point? You’re not like a TV program. You’re supposed to raise the cultural level of your audience."

I have never
never
NEVER
gone to any artistic performance to raise my cultural level.

I have always gone because I wanted to see something amazing, hear something incredible, or experience something transforming.

NEVER NEVER NEVER TO RAISE MY CULTURAL LEVEL OR AWARENESS!

I went to school for that.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps
The Washington Post story DC's commuters ignoring virtuoso violinist Joshua Bell as he played his rarified Stradivarius in the DC Metro during morning rush hour has generated much silliness among the online marketing pundits. I say "silliness" because, the way they're carrying on, you'd think this was a rigorous scientific experiment.

But it wasn't. It was merely a guy playing a violin in the subway. Something we've all seen before.

I'd like to see the experiment repeated, this time with P Diddy, Jennifer Lopez, or Clay Aiken doing some platform performing at 7:30 am. I think the results would be quite different. I bet there'd be a dangerous crush of people, and rush hour would slam to a halt.

Favorite TV Guys
I used to include this sort of thing in this blog, but I got away from it as the months went on. Still, I just want to take a moment and identify the guys currently on TV who make me stop zapping the channels. I might not watch the entirety of any show they're on (except SVU), but they do give me pause...

Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs
Cleans up like a dream.





Chris Meloni of SVU
A barely stable(r) character.




Bear Grylls of Man vs. Wild
Who knew misery could be so much fun.





John Cena of WWE/Raw
You feared him in high school, but not anymore.

RE: Do "Straight" Bloggers Read "Gay" Blogs?
Many thanks to Dustin and Steve for not only reading my post on this subject (as they were quoted in it), but for taking the time to respond in the comments section. It seems that we're all pretty much thinking the same way! I could get all philosophical at this point and launch into a major wordfest about how the differences we seem to find in other people really tells each of us more about our own fears (and my fears I know all too well)... but it's finally spring in DC and it's Friday and we all want to go outside and celebrate the weekend. Thanks again, Dustin and Steve, for your thoughtful dialog on the subject!!

It Was Never About The Hills

I came to a major decision over the past weekend.

First, I'll set up the scene.

I was moving pretty quickly through the first act of my zombie movie's fourth draft, ruthlessly cutting line after line of text. And it suddenly hit me: I was bored doing this. Not procrastination-bored as in "I really feel like doing something else." Not dramatically-bored as in "this story is dull and not interesting me at all." But bored as in "I'm sitting here in front of my laptop, actively editing and re-arranging characters, dialogue and action, and I'm bored with the whole thing. Bored with dreams of being a screenwriter. No longer interested in visioning the movie as it might someday play on the screen. Tired of thinking I'll someday be able to look up my name on IMDB."

So I did the only thing I could do at that moment. I stopped writing. And I spent the next hour or so really looking at this "dream" of mine, which I've carried since I was a kid. And I could see that, while I've changed in those forty or so years, the dream itself has not. It's been been years of dreaming about attention (getting it), ego (building it), and rescue (as in "money.") The dream hasn't grown, hasn't morphed, and hasn't done anything but lay there and demand my attention when I'm trying to do just about anything else.

Now the dream has become a whiny, nagging partner, using fear tactics to keep my attention. "You'll die a mediocre person," it intimates. "You'll be totally uninteresting if you stop."

So, I'll be uninteresting, and I'll die mediocre, I told it. I decided that I would no longer write screenplays.

Suddenly, the whiny annoying voice of my "dream" had nowhere to gain traction. It kind of just layed there, powerless. And I felt... calm.

The Paradox of Time
Does this ever happen to you: It's Friday, and you look ahead to Saturday or Sunday and see a large block of time that you haven't designated for anything, and you think "I can fill that with some really quality writing time or research or working out at the gym!"

You look forward to it, you may even arrange your workspace or gather your gym clothes the night before. The weekend comes, and starting at 2pm (if that's the time you designated), you suddenly find something else you need to do. But you feel guilty.

Still, the guilt doesn't move you to your work space or the weights. The spark that was present those nights before just isn't there. Let's say you finally open up the file, look at the words glowing in front of you, or make it to the gym, but your body feels like the gun's gone off in the 100 yard dash, Literally. And you jump up out of your chair and head for the fridge or say "20 minutes on the elliptical machine should do it for today!"

One of my brothers described this very sort of thing when he had his first kid (my first nephew.) "I think of all these great things I can do, I can get done, once he's down for his nap," my brother said. "But when he's finally out, all I want to do is sit in a chair and turn into broccoli."