My thoughts

We all need someone we can LEAN on

2011-03-12T07:50:00.000-08:00

This week is my fifth or sixth Lenten season. Forty days of reflection to find out who we are, what are we here for, and who do we want to be.

One of the reasons I love being Catholic is it has given me a rule book for life, and another is it reminds me that some things are tradition, rituals, and we can count on, depend, and look forward to those things.

Lent is one of the coolest traditions, and I love Lent.

Lent is the period that starts with a black cross of ashes being placed on my forehead in church on a Wednesday, a badge I proudly display for the rest of the day. Catholics smile and nod when I see them, and other people tell me I have something on my forehead, haha.

Next comes the fast. Fasting is cool. It's a test of your willpower, something everyone is challenged with I assume, or we wouldn't have an obese and addictive society. I made it again for a whole day with no food this year, but that's just the start of what I need to do to reflect and make changes in my life to get me where I want and need to be.

The main thing most people associate with Lent is the giving up of something. In Rio, New Orleans and throughout the world, everyone parties and eats all the food they will give up for Lent on the day before Lent; Fat Tuesday.

I always give up alcohol, but this year I've made a vow to my kids to lose weight in these forty days and I'm on my way already.

"Well we all need.... Some-One,.. we can lean on"

Not to sound like a bible thumper, but for me, Jesus Christ is the real rock star.

Lent is Jesus last forty days on Earth.

I look forward to taking that journey with him, because I honestly feel as if he is right by my side.

Merry Christmas Everybody!!

2010-12-25T10:22:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas Everybody!!

Keith Richards Life

2010-10-16T08:31:00.000-07:00

Keith Richards new autobiography is starting to get some publicity as it prepares for its release in 10 days.

Keith has never held back when he speaks, and while sometimes he could be a bit more diplomatic or politically correct it would appear, because he is the honest person he is, we get the straight scoop when he opens his mouth.

His wit is very quick, quicker than most I've ever met and spoken with. Anyone with tapes of the interviews these guys have done together in recent years to promote tours and new music can hear how they joke, and specifically, how they banter with each other.

We all have people we've met like this, and sometimes they speak before really thinking. For example, when Jerry Brown debated Meg Whitman for Calif Governor the other day and replied about his police department endorsements "I have the sheriffs in my back (pause), um, I have the endorsement of..." He quickly realized he should have chosen different words.

When Keith comes out this week and says he thinks Mick may have learned something from what Keith wrote, it says to me he just took the process he went through when writing a song about Mick and their struggles and he made a book of it, or at least a book where he has spoken freely on the topic of his relationship with his brother Mick.

Of course, some stories become fish tales as they're told through the years as is the case with just about anyone who tells the same story for decades straight, but I believe he is just telling it like he sees it in most cases, or hears about it from intimate sources as seems to be the case in regard to the size of MJ's unit, which I also agree is one of the topics he could have gracefully avoided.

With that said, these guys have been through so much together, so who are we to question what they say, and if his account of "what really happened" includes some added color, I'm ok with that as its really the first insight into the inner workings of the magic of the glimmer twins.

To place it in biblical terms, Bill's and Ron's books told some interesting things about the dynamics of the glimmer twins, but this is as close to the gospel as we've gotten to date.

This also certainly has risen the advance tenfold for what Mick will get for his story, and knowing how sharp of a businessman that dude has become, it wouldnt surprise me if he's pondered that when large publishers have come calling. Besides being one of the greatest rock stars ever, Mick certainly deserves consideration as the smartest rock and roll businessman we've seen to date, although many on this board would like to see his guidance go in a more fan friendly manner as they begin what likely will be their final huge endeavor.

I see this as an opportunity to hear the inside story, and I personally can't wait to read this, and I hope when he's too old to do world tours and he has the time on his hands to stop and reflect, as Keith obviously has had, we'll hear the other side from Mick.

So forget about the press pulling the juicy parts out about their rivalry and difficulties as friends, business partners and ultimately as brothers from another mother. As an interested fan, I'm more curious about reading tidbits like his thinking Johnny Depp was his sons drug dealer before he realized who he was, or maybe he became the Johnny Depp we now know after he started hanging out at Keith's pad with his son. I also loved the insight into how they took a boat in the early morning to cross the border into Italy to get eggs for breakfast because they tasted better, and for the sense of adventure that came with each of those journeys as they were making Exile. I can close my eyes and imagine that, which is much cooler for me than closing my eyes and imagining the most popular current topic that's being discussed about the book.

The Information Age

2010-09-02T04:59:00.000-07:00

Some people call it Public Records, some call it Data, and in our business we call it a lead.

I call it information.

In the current state of the skip tracing industry, we have a tremendous amount of information at our fingertips.

Since we live in the Information Age, we should always be striving to find better ways to process and use available information to make better decisions.

In the old days, I would get so excited when someone went to Battle Mountain, or any remote location, and they brought me back a local phone book. Suddenly, I had the information I needed, at my fingertips, to crack a tough case. I had a book of leads.

The amount of data available on people these days is amazing. It's the closest thing we've seen to Big Brother.

What's important is to find a way to take that information, streamline the identification of the most relevant data that's available through Public Records, which includes everything about a person that's available on the Internet, and put that into a format that can improve the process of skip tracing.

That's skip tracing in 2010.

Cleveland Rocks

2010-07-09T17:23:00.000-07:00

www.LeBronisaDICK.com

Cleveland is his home, and he treated his home like it was just some other city when he created the whole Labron-a-palooza scenario over the past couple weeks. He showed no remorse, spoke in the third party about "gotta do what's best for LeBron", and its not like he is leaving some company, its his home, where his roots were, and he ripped em' out. If he had first addressed the fans of Cleveland to explain why he was leaving, that would have created less problems, but to me, now he's like Tiger Woods, damaged goods. Sure both may rebound as both are great athletes, but when the people around them can't control the ego and it gets out of control, good things dont usually happen, they make bad decisions. Their image is worth as much as their sporting skills and outside Miami, this guy just torched himself in my mind. But our society forgives and forgets, but he ain't gonna be on a golf course with the PGA officials throwing people out who yell at him, he's gotta go play in Cleveland and that's gonna be interesting.

The owner of Cleveland tried to sign him for two years and for the past month he apparently didnt return his calls, texts, etc. and since he apparently knew he was leaving, he should have told the owner before he fired his GM and Coach, picked a new coach and went through the draft, all decisions I'm sure were done with Queen James possible return in mind.

Aside from that, isn't this a form of collusion when players can get together and decide who and where they want to play. Owners in MLB got in trouble for that kind of behind the scenes collaboration, but its ok for these guys to hook up like this?

I dont know, I liked it better when I knew Ernie Banks was a Cub, and he was a Cub for life. Even Kobe, who I don't like, stayed a Laker out of loyalty. It's one thing when a Superstar leaves at the twilight of their career. Does anyone even remember michael jordan as a Washington Wizard or whatever he was after being a Bull? But when you grow up in a city, that city gave you the key and you gave it your love back, supposedly, and its a city that hasn't won a championship in anything in decades, where's the loyalty? Jordan struggled until he learned to play with his teammates and the owner/GM got his the right surrounding cast, and then he won a bunch of rings. These guys have won more games than anyone in the NBA the past 2 years, it's not like he wasn't close. Why leave now?

I see both sides, but I'm old school and feel bad for Cleveland, but maybe that's cause I'm a Cubs and Vikings fan and don't know what it's like to win a championship.

Happy Fathers Day Dad !

2010-06-20T10:40:00.000-07:00

FATHERS DAY 2010

Kids are amazing.

Especially when they're your own.

You stand by them through thick and thin

and watch until they're grown

The time it flies too fast

too fast for You and I

We watched our boy become a man

We laughed, and now we cry

Our daughter, she's so lovely

So frail, but yet so strong

Her strength, it makes me so proud

To see how she belongs

She was brought up in a world

Where she never learned to cry

Her abuelita always there

standing by her side

But now that day must come

They've grown and now they're gone

They've gone to bigger, better things

They'll find away from home

The world is but a wonder

from near, or from a far

of majestic lands to the South of France

to the nearest corner bar

And once you've gotten all grown up

So big and tall and bold

You'll be ready to conquer anything

Until, like me, you're old

But old is just a state of mind

I'm still a kid at heart

and the thing I miss the most in life

is the sound of my Dad's farts

He left this world a better place

Because of things he did

When Hitler tried to rule the world

My Dad never ran and hid

He looked that bastard straight in the eye

and never once did he flinch

He tracked his cronies through the boot

and caught them in a pinch

He came back to the United States

and then he met my Mom

a single mother down on her luck

To her he was the Bomb

A simple man, with simple rules

live life honest and true

always be yourself, and never boast

finding rainbows when you're blue

Today's the day I really miss my pop

when i think how he used to roll

but the peace I get when i see my kids

makes it somehow acceptable

Happy Easter 2010

2010-04-04T09:55:00.000-07:00

Lent is an interesting period of time in my life. For my first 47 years, it meant absolutely nothing.

When my kids started exposing me to what they were learning in Religion class at school, religion started making sense. When I started watching films like “The Passion”, “Ten Commandments”, “The Robe” and several others, I started to visualize the Bible. As I started paying attention in church, I began to “get it”.

As my children grew older, I started to realize why they call The Bible "The Greatest Story Ever Told". It's a rulebook to your life, with simple rules such as love each other, don't cheat, etc.

Lent is a period of time that starts on Ash Wednesday, but for many it starts a few days before with a big party. In New Orleans they call it Mardi Gras, which ends on Fat Tuesday. In Rio, it’s called Carnival. Once Lent starts, it lasts forty days, ending on Easter Sunday. It’s celebrated by most Christian religions, including the one we practice; Catholicism.

The forty-day period signifies the forty days Jesus spent in the desert by himself as he prepared to begin teaching others about his father; God, and why he created Man. It was a period when he didn’t eat, and when he had to resist the temptations of the devil.

Lent is a time for those who practice religion and want to participate in this period of time to make a sacrifice. A common sacrifice many people make is not eating meat on Friday’s, while some take it a step further and they abstain from meat for all forty days. Many people also make other sacrifices, kind of like making a new years resolution.

For the first few years after I was baptized I gave up alcohol for forty days. I was supposed to do that this year, but between a pre-arranged wine tasting trip, a friends fiftieth BD party, and a few other lapses in discipline, I didn’t do as well as I’ve done in the past. I did fast on Ash Wednesday and on Good Friday, the day Jesus died. Next year I will try and fast for the forty hours between the time Jesus died at 3pm Friday through the time he resurrected himself from the dead on Easter Sunday.

I’m hoping that I can gain strength from the inspiration of Jesus to continue trying to make myself a better person, a better role model for my family, and instead of only doing something for a forty day period, I hope I can continue to change things in my life that need to be changed.

Happy Easter, 2010.

The Jammies

2010-03-06T14:01:00.000-08:00

We saw some local middle and high school bands playing last night at The Crest theater downtown. It's an award showcase of the best youth musicians in Sacramento, as determined by judges, after they go through some kind of a tryout, battle of the bands process.

There was one that was Rap, and they actually were pretty good musicians, but the lead singer, a 15-16 yr old kid I'm guessing, thought it was cool to use the word MF'er like he was Eminem or some big gangbanger rap star, and it was really awkward for most of the audience from what I saw.

After each group some guy who used to be in a band twenty years ago interviewed each band, and when they interviewed these guys and asked "What's a typical practice session for you guys like" the same lead singer with the potty mouth said something like "We''ll we sit around and smoke big Blunts and then we jam all day". No one laughed.

One band really stuck out to us was called- One Eyed Rhyno.

Funny thing was, after they finished they asked the 15 year old lead singer the same question and the kid didn't hesitate as he said, "We'll we don't smoke big blunts, we're not into that. My Dad's a cop and he'd kill me".

Everyone laughed.

I'm not sure who won, but we really liked OER. I think they have a shot at making it...

http://www.myspace.com/oneeyedrhynorocks

Hopefully Keith can compete next year, either solo or if he can get a band together.

My bucket list

2009-11-30T22:39:00.000-08:00

The Fifty Year Bucket List

As I approach my actual birth time, fifty years ago, here is a list of things I would like to accomplish in my lifetime:

FAMILY:

See my daughter graduate college, start a career that makes her happy, and then be happily married to a good guy who treats her with the respect she deserves

See my son jam with Keith Richards, graduate college, start a career that makes him happy, and meet his bride- a chick as cool as his Mom

Celebrate my Mom’s 100th BD- and spend much more time with her and with my family between now and then

See my wife losing those last 3 lbs so I don’t have to keep answering the “Am I fat?” question

Meet and get to know my grand kids

Sell our companies and retire on a beach after our kids graduate

PERSONAL:

Read Last Lecture Book and watch Randy Pausch Last Lecture You Tube video with my family – DONE 11/30/2009

Learn to edit film

Talk less, listen more

Write and produce a feature film

Weigh less than 225 lbs again

Write and publish a book

Open a restaurant

Finish our software to better the auto finance, skip tracing and repossession industries

Run Bay to Breakers

Discover my life’s purpose

Beat my wife in tennis (again)

Reconnect with meaningful people in my life

Take more walks around the neighborhood with my wife

Speak broken Spanish fluently in a foreign country

Hole in one

See as many of the remaining Stones concerts as time and money will allowbuenos rio

CITIES / PLACES TO VISIT:

New Orleans-Mardi Gras

Montreal-skiing

Buenos Aires-Stones concert

Santiago- hang for a week between visiting the Galapagos with my family

Rio- Carnival

Louisville – stay at the Galt house; watch the Kentucky Derby from turf terrace while drinking a mint julep with my wife wearing a great hat

Indianapolis – 500

Munich-Oktoberfest, drinking a beer

Spain/Portugal – rent a house on the beach in The Algarve

Chicago – live downtown for a summer and have Cubs season tickets in the bleachers

Minnesota – Vikings game/Ice fishing

Scotland- Tour of Single Malt Scotch distilleries/ play St. Andrews

Colombia – Cali Carnival and playing Sapo

Amsterdam without kids

Aspen- read some Hunter, ski, and visit Woody Creek Tavern

Martha’s Vineyard- Boston - Fenway

Fifty

2009-11-30T15:53:00.000-08:00

The irony of turning fifty:

I never thought I'd make it this far. Really.

I've had a good life, some regrets, more things I'm proud of, and fortunately i'm learning to do less I regret and more I'm proud of as I get older.

Mentally, I don't feel fifty. Good.

Physically, I look fifty but don't really feel fifty, so I guess I should do something about the looking part before I have no choice.

Work is harder at fifty than it was at thirty, or even forty.

Starting a business is even harder at fifty, so if you're thinking of starting one, don't wait, unless you're fifty, then reconsider.

I am losing vices easier than I lose pounds. Good, but not good.

I can't believe I'm gearing up for another Stones tour next year. I'm now trying to keep pace with Stones concerts attended as many golfers try and shoot their age. I think I've seen around fifty stones shows, and I better get a bunch in this time around so I can build a reserve in case I live a lot longer so I'm not upside down in that calculation. Hi Perla :)

I stopped losing hair when I gave up my convertible, but I'm still predicting at least semi baldness at some point, and I don't really care.

I value my family and close friends more and more every year, and I still enjoy making new friends.

I hope I can find a way to become a writer some day.

Chuck Berry Oct 15 2009

2009-10-17T12:13:00.000-07:00

I was in Saint Louis this past week and I had an opportunity to see Chuck Berry perform his 149th concert at a bar called Blueberry Hill in a cool area of STL called Delmar in the Loop.

Let me say this, I'm not sure what arrangements to your schedule you'll need to make, if you have a business reason nearby, or a long lost relative you can visit, but no matter what the excuse is, you need to do what I did this past Wednesday night- go see Chuck Berry if you've never seen him before.

I bought tickets for my son and I to go and then found out the age limit is 21, not 12, so my boy was out of luck. Nonetheless, I headed to Saint Louis and besides seeing the Father of Rock and Roll, I also got to meet a person some may consider a founding Father of Saint Lewis; Joe Edwards.

Blueberry Hill looks like it could have been the model for the Hard Rock Cafe. It was purchased in 1972 by a soon to be local developer and future St Louis icon named Joe Edwards. I had the pleasure of meeting and spending some time with Joe this past week, and what this guy has done is amazing.

Joe single handedly built Blueberry Hill and his Pageant Theater into national landmarks for small venue's on the national music scene. His creation of the St Louis Walk of Fame has brought excitement and nostalgia to the sidewalk along Delmar, and his newest creation, the Moonrise Boutique hotel is as nice a small hotel as I've ever stayed, anywhere in the world.

From a musical standpoint, Joe started booking Chuck Berry to play Blueberry Hill about 15 years ago, and he has a standing gig in the aptly named "Duck Room" on a Wednesday in the middle of most months. Tickets are a reasonable $30, and the venue is an awesome place to see a legend like Chuck play. The room is downstairs, in an almost cave like setting. There are a few seats they bring in for the first few rows, and then everyone else stands in the back.

We blew off the local STL warm up band in favor of their World Famous Cheeseburgers at the bar upstairs. We ended up being one of the last people to enter the room, and while it was tight, we still managed to find a decent spot to stand and watch as Chuck came on stage at Ten PM sharp.

Dressed in a blue sparkling button down shirt and his ever present nautical cap, Chuck seemed at ease as he walked on stage as the crowd greeted him warmly. I believe he opened with Roll over Beethoven, but to be honest, it was such a surreal moment that it's difficult to recall all the songs he played, and in what order. I remember Rock and Roll Music, Nadine, Everyday I have the Blues, Around and Around (I think?) , No particular place to go, and a couple others I'm a bit blurred on.

During My Ding a Ling, which to me is almost a complete joke that this song would be his only #1 US hit. When you consider his entire body of work, something is really wrong with that. Chuck came alive in a way which caught me off guard. Part of it was his enjoyment of the nostalgia of the song and everyone knowing the words and singing along. Part must be the humor involved in the lyrics, and surprisingly, this song was a highlight for me of the night. The 30'ish guy in front of me really enjoyed it, to the point where chuck could hear him singing "My Ding a Ling" over his own voice, so he looked out and welcomed the "Frat boys" to the show.

The highlight of the show for me was "Let it Rock". This came about 3/4 of the way through the show and he cut loose to a new level I hadn't heard yet during the prior songs. He stepped back and really got into a groove with the drummer and they extended the song by a couple minutes while they jammed.

I'll never forget seeing the Stones in 1978 for the second time in my life in Lexington Kentucky at Rupp arena. The tour had just started and we couldn't wait for them to get to Chicago so we drove to Lexington. The Stones came on stage and the first song was Let it Rock and my buddy Ben and I look at each other and we're dumbfounded, having never heard the song before. "Is this a Stones song....no...what is this...man, it's good". Looking back on that, I'm surprised we didn't know the song, or realize it was a Chuck song. They opened the rest of the tour with that song, and by the time we got to the next show in Cleveland, we knew what it was and all the words. What a great song, and what a treat it was seeing the Man himself playing it live at Blueberry Hill the other night.

one of the other highlights of the show for me was seeing chuck having such a good time on stage with his daughter Ingrid and his son Charles, or CBII as you know him. Both are very talented and as a father, I got a kick out of the proud look chuck gave Charles when he did a fine job on a solo. It also was nice seeing how freely and enjoyably they interacted together, the whole family enjoying themselves on stage.

The last song was Johnny B Goode, and just before it started he invited all the girls in the crowd on stage to dance. They took him up on his offer, and soon the stage was full. Chuck headed to the back and jammed again with the drummer for most of the song, and then his kids escorted him off the stage and the band finished the show.

After the show a small line formed on stage and soon the door backstage opened and Chuck sat down at a small chair at the door and he signed autographs for those in line. I asked him a question for my son, "how old were you when you started playing and how many hours a day did you play"?

For the first time all night I felt like I was looking at an 82 year old man as he smiled and said "son, that was a long time ago". He grabbed the next guys thing to sign and I was whisked aside, not knowing the answer to the question, but not really caring either as what I'd just witnessed was a man who obviously started young and played a lot, and at age 83 tomorrow, he's still got the goods to deliver a rock and Roll show like not many people in history have been able to deliver.

The Hangover in Afganastan

2009-10-12T19:50:00.000-07:00

Just saw Henry Kissinger being interviewed and I believe he said we should get out of Afganastan, and if the problems worsen, it should become an International Issue, to be dealt with on an International level.

Makes sense to me, from the little I know.

Fiancee: "I just wish your friends would be a little more serious, like you...."

Voice from outside the house, coming from a Silver Mercedes convertible.

"Paging Dr Faggot..."

The Fiancee isn't pleased as he gets up to leave.

Fiancee: "Have a nice weekend, Doctor Faggot"

Unlike what's going on in Afganastan, The Hangover is one funny movie.

EDH residents migrate to Playa

2009-09-07T16:31:00.000-07:00

El Dorado Hills residents begin migration to Playa

There’s a contingent of gringo’s from El Dorado Hills who recently turned us on to Playa Del Carmen, or “Playa” for short. It’s about a half hour south of Cancun, on the Caribbean, and its one of the trendiest places we’ve been to in all of Mexico.

In twenty years of marriage, we've visited many of the major resort cities south of the border. Ixtapa and Puerto Vallarta have been our favorites to date, Cabo is convenient and always a party, Matzatlan and Acapulco are outdated, Rosarito and Ensanada were fun when I was just out of High School, and we hear San Miguel De Alliende is beautiful, but for us, we like the beach, or “Playa”, for those who are still challenged with our second most common language.

When we visited Cancun almost twenty years ago it was no big deal. Interestingly, during that Cancun trip we stopped for a few hours in Playa while waiting for the Ferryboat to take us to Cozumel. Back then it was an old, small fishing village with a beautiful beach.

Our 2009 Summer vacation had us staying at a friends condo in Playa. Our friend lives in El Dorado Hills and he bought his place a few years back from a developer from New York named Jack Perlman. As fate sometimes has it, Jack coincidentally visited Playa the same year we were there, 1981. We both saw a sleepy old fishing village, but he also saw the potential to turn this sleepy town into a hot spot.

Unlike our stop over, Jack missed the Ferryboat and was forced to find a local hotel for the night. He told me “I got married three times that night”, falling in love with the beautiful women of Playa, and also with the town. He stayed in a small bungalow on the beach, which coincidentally now sits next to his newest and most fabulous development yet, El Taj Beachfront. During this stay, Jack had a vision, and over the next few years, he never forgot that dream.

During the 1980s, Jack Perlman, a marketing guru by trade, was working for a storied franchise in the midst of a series of championship runs; the New York Yankees. A combination of the bonus money that goes along with the rings and the access the players and staff had to some quality financial advisors helped Jack realize that Real Estate was a solid investment. He started with brownstones in Manhattan, and when he left the Yankees, Jack made his way back to Playa, where he became a full time resident.

He started by purchasing some land in the central part of town, on and just off the beach. His first development, Porto Playa, is a boutique, three story project that rivals some of the nicest boutique developments we’ve seen anywhere in the world. Part of Jack’s plan was to build and sell Condo’s to American’s, Europeans and Canadians, while at the same time setting up a state-of-the-art on-line software program so the owners could view the status and income generation from rental program for their units. This allowed them to easily track and manage their rental income for the weeks or months they weren’t in Playa.

A savvy real estate investor by this time, Jack soon broke down the typical barriers that make foreigners hesitant to invest in property in Mexico. He brought his development plan to First American Title, the largest title insurance company in the US. Not only did they share in Jack’s vision, they put their first office in all of Mexico in Porto Playa. This gave American Investors the confidence that not only would he deliver a quality product, but they’d also have a title to go with it, and that title wasn’t going to disappear in ninety-nine years. His second coup was to seek out an old friend and the owner of one of the trendiest gyms in Manhattan. He soon had a new partner, and one of the nicest boutique 10,000 square foot gyms we’ve seen in or out of the US, and again, it is inside his Porto Playa development for all the owners to enjoy. Next, he partnered with world-class chef Rafael Nunez and they opened Negrosal, a Five Star Restaurant on the ground level of Porto Playa.

At the same time Jack was developing property near the beach, Playa was developing one of its main streets into a Mexican version of Paris’ Latin Quarter, or for those from Southern California it could be compared to the revitalization downtown Pasadena saw as it morphed through the years into “Old Pasadena”. It’s the model that the politicians keep saying they should do to the old rail yard in Sacramento, except they apparently don’t have guys like Jack Perlman around to help get the project off the ground. It’s the same concept Tony Mansour is creating with “Town Center” in EDH, and knowing the two of these guys, they’re both visionaries who see and create the future for the benefit of their customers.

So my buddy from EDH tells us and another couple from EDH about the redevelopment of Playa. The other couple decides they want to see it for themselves, so last August they made the trip there. Jack was pre-selling his fifth project; El Taj Beachfront, a forty-one-unit development built right on the beach. It’s two blocks off Fifth Avenue, and all the action you could ever want in a vacation spot.

The beach is white sand and the water is bathtub temperature and the most beautiful turquoise blue Caribbean water you’ve ever seen. My buddy comes back and says he knows it sounds crazy, but they bought a place in the new development and now we have two friends from EDH hanging out when they can in Playa.

He was right, we did think he was crazy, especially in light of the current economic climate, but knowing him for thirty years made me curious enough to book a trip down there as soon as we could go, which turned out to be a few weeks ago.

We took the kids and between family and business we knew we were in no position to buy a place, but sure enough, we were bitten by the same bug my buddies from EDH were bitten by. It took every ounce of strength we had to not sign on the dotted line when we were there. Balancing family and business is the toughest challenge my wife and I have faced in our careers, and for us, the time was just not right. With that said, Jack saw the glimmer in our eyes and he said he’d place a “hold” on the unit, no money down, and an opportunity to not rush into a decision that most developers and people in Jack’s position love to force people like us in to.

Playa is almost like a secret that people are now starting to find out about. It gives you an urban city feel with a beautiful beach to boast. When you stay in one of Jack’s developments, pretty soon you get to know Mario and his wife who moved there from Italy to open a killer neighborhood restaurant. You meet Alberto from the dive shop and if you like snorkeling, fishing or diving, you’re in one of the top places in the world to do it. Pretty soon you’ll also meet the guy Jack recruits to sell his Deli in NYC to move to one of his other developments to open a “real New York Deli”. All his places are within two blocks of each other, two blocks of the beach, and two blocks of Fifth Avenue.

Last night, two weeks after returning from Playa, we made the “final” decision to not buy a condo in Playa, at least right now. We did the responsible thing, and we know it was the right decision for us, but it sure feels like we made the wrong decision. I guess the only solace we have is we believe we’ve seen Playa in its early stages, and we have friends there we can go visit, and we now know that we’re closer to finding our place to retire to when the time is right. In the meantime, we’ll keep going back to visit our EDH friends there, and who knows, next time we may sign that dotted line.

So Long Grasshopper...

2009-06-04T08:22:00.000-07:00

Actor David Carradine died today. It reminded me of a funny story about when we met him.

We walked into the small bar at the Four Seasons Chicago a few years back for a late night cocktail and sitting at the bar by himself is David Carradine. This is a small horseshoe bar that holds 12 people max.

My friends dont believe me when I tell them its him, and one of my buddies is totally shit faced and he starts making fun of him, "whats he done sine Karate Kid" blah blah blah. "He's gotta be doing porn."

I walk over to the other end of the bar and introduce myself before my friend gets too loud and embarrasses all of us, and before we get our asses kicked by the grasshopper. I buy the guy a drink and explain we spent the day at Wrigley and its been a long day and night and I apologize for my drunk friend. Carradine was by himself so I figured no harm, and I could see him laughing at how wasted my friend was, so I thought he may be cool to my saying hey, which he was.

We talk for a few minutes and when my friends realize it's really him, they come over.

My buddy who's ripped starts babbling to him, asking what he's done since Kung Fu, or whatever. We're all laughing at my friend, including David, who catches on to how stupid he sounds and he's making sport of him by now as well. My drunk friend asks him specifically what he's doing in Chicago, like he didnt have anything going on his his washed up career.

David said he was in town either promoting or filming a movie, and my buddy looks at the other guys with a knowing smile, thinking, "I got him on the run now and I'm gonna prove to you he's doing B movie porn to make a buck".

The exchange from that point on was priceless.

"So, what movie are you involved in?" (snicker, wink to buddies like he's got him now)

"Kill Bill"

"KILL BILL, you're involved with Kill Bill?

"Yeah, I'm in it actually".

At this point I think none of us had actually ever seen Kill Bill Volume 1, nor did we have any idea David was in the movie. We really thought our drunk friend had him on the ropes, figuring he had a bit part ourselves.

"So, what part are you playing in Kill Bill?"

Pause for effect, like any good actor being fed a line...

"I'm Bill"

At this second, we knew David totally knew my buddy was shit faced and was making fun of him, and David played it perfectly, giving us the knowing smile and nod after he said that, rendering my drunk friend speechless.

We exchanged some additional small talk and some hot chick came in the bar, he excused himself and left with her, and we called it a night, always bringing up this story when we get together.

So long grasshopper, you were cool on screen, and cooler in person.....

Chelskeith

Disregard the last post

2008-10-04T22:35:00.001-07:00

The Cubs suck

Someday we'll go all the way

2008-10-04T13:52:00.000-07:00

“All the Way”
by Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, 2008.
with the last few paragraphs by me, a prophecy I hope comes true...

Yeah, don’t let them say that it’s just a game. 
Well, I’ve seen other teams and it is never the same. 
When you go to Chicago, you’re blessed and you’re healed, 
The first time you walk in Wrigley Field.
Heroes with pinstripes and heroes in blue, Give us the chance to feel like heroes do. 
Whether we’ll win and if we should lose, we know Someday we’ll go all the way. 
Yeah, someday we’ll go all the way.

We are one with the Cubs, with the Cubs we’re in love. 
Hold our heads tall as the underdogs. * 
We are not fairweather, but farweather fans. 
Like brothers in arms, in the suites and the stands. 
There’s magic in the Ivy and the old score board. 
The same one I stared at as a kid keeping score. 
In a world full of greed, we could never want more. 
Someday we’ll go all the way. 
Yeah, someday we’ll go all the way.

Here’s to the men and the legends we’ve known. 
Giving us faith and giving us hope. 
United we stand and united we’ll fall 
Down to our knees the day we win it all. 
Yeah Ernie Banks said, “oh, let’s play two”. 
I think he meant two hundred years. 
Playing at Wrigley, our diamond, our jewel. 
The home of our joy and our fears. 
Keeping traditions, and wishes anew, 
The place where our grandfathers’ fathers they grew. 
The spiritual feeling if I ever knew. 
And when the day comes for that last winning run, and I’m crying and covered with beer. 
I look to the sky and know I was right today. 
Someday we’ll go all the way. 
Yeah, someday we’ll go all the way

------------------------------

My part:

Growing up in Chicago with the great XRT
We learned how life meant “we” , not just “me”
Trough winters we struggled, but when spring came ‘round
Our hope would return when the Mighty Mighty Brickhouse came back to town

Some seasons for the better, but most for the worse
We wondered if that Billy Goat really gave us the curse
We’ll its year one hundred, and the Dodgers just left town
Our beloved Cubbies in a hole, the whole city in a frown

But the strangest thing happened when they hit Tinsel Town
Where life does mean “me” and their ego’s wear them down
Lou benched Fukadome, and inserted Fontenot,
and suddenly the whole thing started to flow.

They took out those Bums,
And did it two straight
Bringing the draw back to Wrigley
Where we await our fate

There’s an old story that’s been told to many a folk
“bout an old Billy Goat, and what was meant as a joke
But when John Belushi shouted Pepsi…Pepsi, no coke
It assured that Billy Goat wouldn’t ever go broke

So in his own way, Cubs fan John brokered the deal
That’s should have lifted the curse, and made the people squeal
But along came Steve Bartman, a guy who drinks Blatz
and the whole team fell apart, and that was that.

So now its our time, the end of the hundred-year curse
Please put away the Goats, Leon Durham and the Hurse
The series is tied, and we’ve got left one for the books
And we’ll give Manny that haircut, but it can’t help his looks

The Cubs are on a mission, a mission from God
That’s John Belushi talking with a wink and a nod
Harry said Holy Cow, and Jack would say Hey Hey,
But I like it best when in 08 when Eddie said Someday
We’ll go all the way, yeah, today we went all the way

Hollywood comes to El Dorado Hills

2008-09-28T22:58:00.000-07:00

Saturday night was one of those "Rite of Passage" nights for El Dorado Hills.

I’m the founder of an El Dorado Hills based Angel Investment group called Strategis Early Ventures, or SEV, for short.
SEV is a group of local business leaders who look at local early stage investment opportunities. We provide investment capital, strategic advice, and mentoring to assist Sacramento area start-up companies. We usually look at high tech companies, green companies, and the standard fare for VC's and Angels.

A few years back my wife and I sold our business, and while spending time with my family and enjoying a sabbatical of sorts, I decided to take up writing. I wrote a novel, which I then turned into a screenplay; www.TheMidnightRambler.com. Although I'm not an accomplished writer by any stretch of the imagination, I did learn quite a bit about the process during the two years I spent writing.

During that stretch, one of my neighbors, Scott Reid, asked me if I'd read a script he'd been given by a friend in Florida who was trying to raise money to get the script made into a film. Scott was in the insurance business I believe, and he said I was the only person he knew who lived in the area who may be able to give him an opinion on a script. I read it and told him I thought the story was good, but I didn't like the way it was written, as a script.

I then introduced him to a buddy of mine in Hollywood. At that time, my buddy was the assistant to the President of New Line Cinema. Scott called him and he got some advice that I think came in very handy; if you can raise enough money for one film, you might as well raise enough for three films. That way, if two are dogs and one does well, you won't lose your entire investment on one film.

Scott then got in touch with a friend of his, Mike Dimanno, and together they raised the capital to make Scott's buddies film, and they formed Redwood Palms Pictures. They went to Hollywood to meet with some film makers, and along the way they got the same advice from others, and they began raising more money to make their first slate of films, which btw, didn't include Scott's buddies script. Once you show up in Hollywood with some dough, you get a lot of attention, and that apparently translated into better opportunities than the script Scott had showed me.

SEV invested in Redwood Palms last summer, and of the ten companies we’ve invested in during our three year history, the Redwood Palms deal was the most popular in terms of how many of our members invested.

The mission of SEV is to assist in the growth of the economic base of the region through the rapid growth of local companies, while at the same time providing our members exceptional financial gain on the commitment each of our members makes in regard to their time, their talent, and the capital they invest. Being a local company, Redwood Palms seemed like a good fit. We all watch movies, and the idea of investing in something we knew more about that some of our other investments was appealing to many of our members. We also really believed in Scott and Mike, and we believed if they could pitch their deal to us in such an appealing fashion, then they would also be able to pitch Hollywood in a way that could pay off for everyone.

We’re a group of about thirty individuals and we’re very excited about the Redwood Palms investment, and are hopeful that this will be our second successful exit. Last year we had our first successful exit when a Cameron Park company we invested in called Max Preps was sold to CBS sports. The interesting thing about the Redwood Palms deal is that its such a different business model than we are used to, and its pretty far outside the box for us.

Last night, seeing Mike and Scott walking down the red carpet with their families was not only a Rite of Passage for Redwood Palms, but also for our community. Hollywood really came to EDH last night, which you can see for yourself when you see the pictures of heavy hitters like Charlize Theron and exciting new stars like Stuart Townsend coming here for the premier. We'd like to think that if Redwood Palms stays on track and Scott and Mike keep learning the business, this may have been the first of many film premiers to be held in Town Center in EDH.

Between the pre-party at Bistro 33, the short drive up the hill to the Red Carpet celebration in the courtyard below the cinema, and the many people and the media who turned out, the Town Center proved that it can be a fantastic venue for this type of event.

A few friends I hadn't seen in a while asked me last night what happened to the script I was working so hard on. I placed in several writing contests, won a few awards, but I also learned that making a film from a script you write is extremely difficult. It not only takes a great script, but there are also a number of other factors that have to come together at just the right time, and I guess the stars were just not quite lined up for me, yet.

I've since gone back to what I know best, as my wife and I have started our eleventh business, www.FindJohnDoe.com. We've been married twenty years this November, and with two kids in middle and high school, trying to find the time to be a good Dad and Husband, write, and work full time, just isn't in the cards. I'm hoping that our new business does well enough so someday I can find the time to write again, and just maybe you'll see a script I've written being made into a film, with its premier at Town Center.

Klub Kaos vs Sartory Live

2007-11-28T07:06:00.000-08:00

Klub Kaos vs Sartory Live

This past Friday night, my fourteen year old daughter continued her monthly assault on my moral judgment as she pleaded for me to change my mind and let her go to Klub Kaos at the community center in Folsom. The first time I heard about this “club” was this past August. I pretty much told her I didn’t think it was appropriate for a fourteen-year-old, brand new freshman, to go to a semi-unsupervised “dance”. With the upcoming dances she had on her already busy social calendar through her school, and her friend’s schools, it wasn’t like I was depriving her of having fun, I reasoned. Besides that, those dances are all school-sponsored events, where making a profit holds some value, but it’s not a reason to invoke a conflict of interest, I figured at the time.

In hindsight, and as an insight to those of you with seventh and eighth grade kids approaching high school, here is what I’ve learned. From what I can tell from an outsider’s point of view, all the school dances she attended were similar in most aspects. Each one had strict entrance screening geared toward preventing alcohol and drugs, with breathalyzers in place to test in a random and probable cause situations. They also are all very careful to not allow any containers inside which could be used to carry alcohol, and many even pat down the kids going in. Each one also has strict guidelines geared toward discouraging and preventing the “F” word; Freaking.

In a nutshell, Freaking is short for Freak Dancing, and it basically is the 2007 version of Dirty Dancing, with more contact. If you turn on MTV, or watch many newer hip-hop music videos, it’s the type of “dancing” they do. To put it into perspective, in the 50s they banned Elvis from appearing on TV from the waist down as the movements his hips were making were considered to be suggestive. We’ve now come full circle, as the suggestion has been removed. With the two dance partners dancing as one, boy in back and girl in front, pushing and grinding their pelvis’ against each other in the “bad kind” of Freaking, it’s kind of a scary thought when you have an impressionable young kid you’re trying to mold into being a good person. As my daughter explains, not all Freaking is the “bad kind”, and most of what she’s seen at these dances involves less contact.

So when this past Friday afternoon rolled around, my daughter pleaded with me once again “All my friends are going, people we go to church with, parents and kids you know, why can’t I go?”

One word, I told her, and before I could say that word, she blurted out “Do you think I’m going to do drugs?”

“No”, I responded, because while I know that temptation is ever present, “I feel as if you’ve seen enough damage in families we know to prevent you from saying yes to that, but like anything else, the more times your put in a position to have to turn down something, the more likely you are to finally succumb”.

“You need to trust me”, she said. “I do trust you, however, there are certain things I’m not sure I want you exposed to at age fourteen, but since so many of your friends are going, let me check with their parents and I’ll get back with you about Klub Kaos”.

Of course, any of you with teenagers can predict what happened next. The first parents we spoke with were letting their kid go because we were letting our daughter go, they told us. After speaking with several other parents, we caved, and told our daughter she could go as long as we knew the parents driving her, and as long as we picked her up. One parent we spoke with said there was absolutely no way his kid was going.

“Why are you being so strict? Do you think I’m going to drink?” she asked. “No, I think your smarter than that, and I also think if your going to drink your not stupid enough to do it when I’m picking you up. I’m also hoping you can resist peer pressure and put that one off as long as you can”. She smiled, and I wondered how long I’d be able to keep her within close enough reach to hold that one back. Man, it’s tough raising teenagers, I thought.

She got a ride with some friends and we went to a movie while she was at the dance. Half way through the movie, she texted me, telling me she was ready to be picked up. It was only an hour into the dance. “R U OK?” I texted back, and she said she was. I told her she had to wait until the movie was over and she said that was OK, but she’d already went outside and like most dances these days, once you leave, you’re out for the night.

We got there an hour before it was finished and for curiosity sake, I asked the bouncer if I could have a peek inside. I surveyed the scene, and in a glimpse I saw somebody’s daughters on stage dancing and based on the way they were dressed and dancing, I was glad it wasn’t mine. The room was about 1/3 full, much less than I’d anticipated. The dance was loud, like you would expect, but it wasn’t as loud as when The Who came through Chicago and I rocked out at that concert when I was fifteen. The whole crowd was in a pack, and in the back there were cops and plenty of security. My daughter told me the dancing was about the same as she had seen at the Oak Ridge, St. Francis, Jesuit, Christian Brothers and the other dances she’s attended this fall. Some kids got kicked out, but she wasn’t sure why. As for the kid who’s parents told me their kid wouldn’t be there; they were there, without their parents knowledge, she said.

So against our viewpoint just a few months back, we had let our daughter go to Klub Kaos. Surprisingly, I didn’t see anything that would prevent me from letting her go again, and in the end, I can’t tell you how pleased I was when she told me it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. She wanted to meet other kids, she said, but she hadn’t met any that really interested her. “Why do you think that is?” I asked. She thought about my question, but at fourteen, they just haven’t been around like we have. “In life, you don’t meet the type of people you are going to have lasting relationships with in a bar, or a club”. She thought about that and nodded.
The following night, while at dinner at Sky Sushi in the La Borgata shopping center, we heard loud, live rock and roll coming from somewhere nearby as we walked out the door. Sartory Café, a small coffee house that occasionally has live music, had rented the empty storefront space next to theirs and they’d transformed the former clothing store into a live rock and roll venue, featuring a local band named Walking Spanish. The guitar riffs drew us closer, and by the time we found out the cover charge was twelve dollars, we knew it was a bargain to see who was sounding so fresh and vibrant.

Walking Spanish is a trio that features three talented musicians, kids who didn’t look much different than those I’d seen the night before at Klub Kaos. The difference here was these kids were playing live music, and while the room was just as loud as Klub Kaos, it was more alive. The crowd ranged from high school age through baby boomers, and somehow they all got along just fine. How could that be?

Simple, the guitar player, Alex Nelson, younger brother of local national recording artist Jackie Greene, was hot. Smoking hot. This kid could not only play, he also had a stage presence that comes natural to performing artists with a career in music ahead of them. In 1979 I saw a young, mostly unknown guitarist fronting a band in a small bar in Hollywood. When I left the room after he’d finished, I told my buddies that guy’s gonna make it. After watching Alex Nelson, the same thought I had when I first saw Tom Petty went through my mind. These guys are gonna make it.

Nelson and his band mates easily worked their way through upbeat and creative original numbers, and when they covered the Rolling Stones “Paint it Black”, it pretty much blew away every band that covered Stones songs the night before on some national TV show geared to find America’s next great band. The producers of that show needed to look in El Dorado Hills. The closing songs of the night, a cover of The Allman Brothers classic “One Way Out” and Neil Young’s “Rocking in the Free World” put original touches on the classics, with Nelson playing a slide guitar that evoked fond memories of the original version from Duane Allman. Like everyone in the place, we left wanting more. I also came to realize that this was the venue I would want my daughter and her friends to hang out at, so here’s hoping the local’s will support Sartory Live and it’s efforts to help create a local live music scene.

As for Walking Spanish, somehow I have a feeling things will take care of themselves for these talented young musicicans.

WHAT WERE THEY SMOKING?

2007-11-21T10:35:00.000-08:00

“WHAT WERE THEY SMOKING?”

My buddy is a real estate investor. When I asked him the other day “how’s business”, I was very interested in his take on the situation. Like everyone else, I’ve heard all the bad news about the Sub-Prime mortgage industry. Freddie Mac down two billion for the quarter. Moody’s estimates 1.7 million homes will be lost to foreclosure in 07-08, double the prior two year total, and a conservative number to many. Citigroup CEO resigns after a ten billion dollar write down, Merrill Lynch loses eight billion, and it’s CEO.

What I didn’t know was exactly how this happened, or more importantly, when it would hit rock bottom. I figured my buddy could clue me in, and in doing so, I believe he hit the nail on the head. Several times during his analysis he used the term “Reset Rate”. I knew a reset was the point when a loan resets to a different interest rate, usually a higher one. What I didn’t know was that there was a mechanism in place to track this number. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, because I’ve learned during the start-up phase of Find John Doe that almost everything can be tracked.

His business, like mine, is directly tied to the Sub-Prime mortgage fall-out. When he told me the high water mark for resets will happen this March, when One Hundred and Ten Billion Dollars in mortgage paper will reset, he caught my attention. When he told me the high months in 2007 were September and December at fifty eight billion each, and when he further explained that the first six months of 2008 will reset at an amount that’s almost equal to what will have reset in all of 2007, I got my answer. We’re in big trouble, again.

I say again because while we were talking, I started to realize that this was sounding way too familiar. I’ve been in the auto finance industry since 1982, and in 1999, I was a small player in the clean up of the Sub-Prime auto financing carnage. Not many people outside our industry even knew of our woe’s back then, mainly because our troubles happened at the same time Internet 1.0 started to implode, and mostly because we’re talking about car loans, not home loans.

I’ll never forget when a client of mine explained Sub-Prime auto financing to me back in the mid 90s. At first, it didn’t sound much different than what some of the mouse-house finance companies you see in rural strip malls were already doing, charging highway robbery interest rates to try and cover their butts in case a large percentage of the deadbeats they put on the road couldn’t make their payments. My client further explained that due to the popularity of credit scoring and better credit reporting methods, there were more people that needed second-chance financing than all the mouse-houses could handle. Then he mentioned a word I’d never really heard associated with auto financing; Wall Street.

Back in those days, my wife and I owned a medium sized repossession business that paid the bills and kept us busy running a business that really needs a screenplay written about its idiosyncrasies to fully explain what goes on behind the scenes in one of America’s more interesting industries, but I digress.

When my client explained how Wall Street investors were looking to purchase large, securitized pools of auto loans, I asked him a simple question; who is going to find the people who skip, and who is going to repossess their cars? He smiled knowingly, and within a couple years my wife and I grew our business into the largest repossession company in the country. What happened was actually pretty straight forward. I quickly realized that these Wall Street investors needed to hire a servicing company to work all these loans they’d purchased, so I started looking around to see who these servicer’s were. Suprisingly, there weren’t many. When we located the one’s who were getting into this during the infancy of Sub-Prime servicing, we soon realized that the one’s servicing the loans were struggling with a process that many lenders have struggled with for years; skip-tracing and repossession.

I’d been hired by Chrysler Credit back in 1982 as a field rep, which was a corporate way of saying repo man. After five years at Chrysler and a year at Mitsubishi’s start up financial arm, I branched out into the private sector to manage two small Los Angeles repossession companies. My wife and I then started a skip tracing company in 1989, and after a few cocktails we named it after a film we’d just seen; Skipbusters. When the Sub-Prime wave began to hit around 1995, Skipbusters started to get really busy, especially after the delays in collection activity that should have taken place on these loans, but didn’t, because each loan had now changed hands from originator, to Wall Street investor, to servicer, in a relatively short period of time. Within a year we had contracted with a nationwide network of what we considered to be the ‘best of the best’ repossession companies in the country, and we were locating and they were popping hundreds of cars every day.

It was during this time that one of the largest servicers came to us with a problem. They were having trouble finding the best repossession companies to do their work on their “normal” repossession assignments. Anyone who has ever been associated with repossession knows the word “normal” is not in our vocabulary. Anyway, they wanted to know if we would manage their repossession process for them. We did some research and quickly determined that no one in the country was doing this type of work. Manheim Auctions had tried it a few years back, and when I called and discussed their experiences with the person who managed this process for them, they suggested I don’t attempt it as it “blew up in our faces”.

We then polled the repossession companies we were sending work to through Skipbusters, and everyone said they were up for more volume, so we formed a company called American Recovery Service. We started by managing the repossession process for many Wall Street investors, and then we branched into doing work for mainstream companies like VW credit, General Electric Capital, and other more traditional lenders. Within two years, our business doubled and then tripled, and we were handling a then industry record fifty thousand assignments for repossession a year. In March of 1999, after too many eighteen hour days and with two kids who didn’t know their parents well enough, we sold our companies to a large auto transport and towing company that expressed a desire to get into the repossession industry. We were the sixty-sixth and last acquisition this company did, but unfortunately, most of the promises they made were never kept.

In hindsight, the promises weren’t kept for three reasons. First off, our main customers, the Wall Street investors, were starting to really take some huge losses. Many were going out of business, and that started to affect our business right after we sold the company. Secondly, the Internet bubble was starting to burst, and that was carrying over into many industries, including ours. The third reason is one that I now see as the biggest reason back then, and the biggest reason now, given the current trouble the Sub-Prime mortgage industry faces. It’s a reason that is as old as time; Greed. When I started to see the house of cards the company who bought mine was built around, I resigned and left the auto finance industry after a twenty-year career.

As I now look back on those times, I can see how greed played an important role in the creation of the Sub-Prime auto industry mess. When my buddy was explaining the current woe’s of the Sub-Prime mortgage industry, I quickly connected the dots and realized that greed must have played a role in how we got into the current situation we are in. It was then I recalled seeing the cover of this week’s Fortune magazine sitting on my nightstand, an issue I’d yet to read. I remembered the cover saying “WHAT WERE THEY SMOKING?” and it showed the faces of four recent CEO’s who resigned their positions amidst the looming crisis. When I got home after talking to my buddy, I read the accompanying article. It went on to detail the billions in losses and write downs major corporations are now having to record when they try and assess the value of these high risk mortgage loans they still carry on their books, “and no one seems to have any idea what they’re worth”, the article goes on to say.

So, when my buddy told me “We’re waiting for the reset to hit the high water mark, and then we’ll see what the fall-out is”, I now realized exactly what he was on to. The problem is caused when the reset amount is more than the person can afford to pay, and it’s compounded when there is no equity in their home because the bottom has fallen out of the housing market. The equity they thought they would have in place to allow them to refinance their loan is not there, i.e. no one will make a $300K loan on a home now worth only $270K, especially when it appears $270K may be $250K in a few months.

The Sub-Prime mortgage problem was caused by a number of factors. For starters, lenders gave brokers too much flexibility in lending qualifications, making it difficult for the lenders to properly assess the risk of each loan. Not that anyone cared, because they all were riding the wave and making money hand over fist, but it was the first breakdown of the most common of all lending practices; qualification. The next factor was the poor structuring of loan products by investment banks. The popular adjustable rate loans in 2005 and 2006 looked great to the rookie investor jumping on the house flipping bandwagon, or even more sadly, to the first time homeowner who was sold a bill of goods they ultimately never could pay. These loans, which are now the one’s that are resetting at record rates and causing the largest impact in the current blood-bath, did not offer lenders or their customers many options when we saw a 200 basis point rise in mortgage interest rates and the sharp decline of new home sales and dropping sales prices. “If the home goes up just half the amount it’s gone up in the past two years, you’ll have more than enough equity to refinance it at a reasonable rate before your balloon is due”. Those are some famous last words many people heard as they signed up for a loan that would eventually become a foreclosure.

So when will it hit rock bottom? My buddy said they’re expecting the fall-out from the first four months of ’08 to hit hard in Q2 and Q3, “because it takes a while after the reset for the foreclosure process to run it’s course”, he said. I agreed, and then I started to wonder how this will carry over into other industries, especially the one I have now jumped back into after a six year absence, auto finance.

When you take a closer look at the number of these loans due to reset in 2008, and the scary similarities to the Sub-Prime Auto Loan problems we witnessed first hand back in 1999, I believe you will agree that the problem looks like it will get worse before it gets better, and statistics are starting to show this problem is starting to carry over into other financial sectors.

An article in the Columbus Dispatch titled “Car sales are the latest Sub Prime casualty” recently stated, ”Payments on 2.73 percent of auto loans made through car dealerships were at least 30 days past due in the first quarter of 2007, a 10-year high, the American Bankers Association said.
Called indirect loans, this type of financing accounted for about 75 percent of all car loans in 2006, said research firm J.D. Power and Associates.”

Tom Krisher wrote, in an article from this past Monday titled “Analysts worry that mortgage troubles could spread to auto loans ”Lehman Brothers analyst Brian Johnson said his analysis of auto loan-backed securities sold by Ford Motor Credit Co. and GMAC Financial Services showed some higher delinquency rates for October and September compared with recent years.”

Experience also tells me that the finance companies that go into 2008 prepared to handle the worst will come out of this much better than those who go in with blinders on, unprepared.
My suggestion to the finance companies is to find a way to recognize a problem before the problem finds you. Identify your high-risk accounts, especially those directly affected by the Sub-Prime mortgage fallout. Update your vendor lists, make sure you have the help in place to handle the storm when it hits, i.e. solid repossession companies and reputable skip tracing companies who have been tested through a champion v challenger program in the larger metropolitan and higher volume areas. Make sure you have a plan in place to see the signs of trouble, and work your early stage accounts harder than ever when those signs show a problem starting to happen. With the tools we now have available at our disposal, this process has never been more efficient, but if you don’t free up and devote your management and IT resources toward looking into the future, you may find yourself wishing you had done that a year from now.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21887610/

http://www.investorsinsight.com/thoughts_va.aspx?EditionID=564

http://jec.senate.gov/Releases/10.04.07SubprimeLeadershipEvent.html

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/11/26/101232838/index.htm?postversion=2007111212

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2007/09/02/carloans.ART_ART_09-02-07_A1_0D7PLPO.html?sid=101

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balloon_payment_mortgage

http://www.businessweek.com/autos/content/may2007/bw20070502_662106.htm?chan=autos_autos+index+page_top+stories

Comet- Asteroid?

2007-08-13T08:45:00.000-07:00

We were camping at Ice House this past weekend and while we were sitting around the camp fire at appx 1130pm PST, we all saw what at first appeared to be a commercial type of firework falling from the sky. We quickly realized that it was going down and not up, we didn't hear any noise from it going off, and since someone had mentioned there being a meteor shower this weekend, maybe what we saw was a comet or something else.

This was way larger than a shooting star. When you gaze upwards at night, if a shooting star is the size of a pin, this was the size of a penny. While a shooting star is always white, this was multi colored, it started red and turnedd blue/green as it appeared to come down into the forest.

We all agreed, it was one of the most beautiful sights any of us had ever seen.

Someone asked me...

2007-03-17T10:07:00.000-07:00

how many times have you seen The Rolling Stones?

I'm 47 years old and I've seen the Stones play 61 times.

I feel lucky to have chosen a favorite band that has stayed together since I was 15 years old, and one that in my opinion is still going strong.

The best show was my first in Chicago in 1975. What a spectacle, what a show. It obviously made a lasting impression on my life. Twenty-Two years later I named my first son Keith Richards Lewis

After Keith got the birth announcement, he invited my wife and I to LA to their studio to meet him. That became an all-night experience, which was, and still is, the most surreal occurrence of my life. Since then, Keith has been very nice to my wife and I, and our kids. Without his generosity towards one of his fans, I would not have seen some of the more intimate shows/rehearsals listed below.

One of the most interesting shows was Pittsburgh in 2005. I am friends with the owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team and we were together for the Pirates/Cubs opener in April of 2005 in Chicago. The Stones tour was a strong rumor at that point and I bet him a beer that I could make a few phone calls and put his people in touch with the Stones people to have a concert at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, one of the nicest stadiums in North America. It happened later that year, and we got to watch the pre show rehearsal, and then the show from right down front, finishing in the owners luxury suite where he gave me that beer.

I've had some unbelievable times listening to my favorite band, first as a fan and more recently as a fan who has been given some inside access to experience the inner workings of the Greatest Rock and Roll band in the world.

One of my favorite moments happened when they were rehearsing at a private school they had taken over in Toronto in 2005. For starters, I was able to ride with Keith in his car to the rehearsal. The look on people's faces when we drove by, or pulled up at a light and he smiled at them from his seat riding shotgun, was really cool. That night, they played a bunch of songs, but the most memorable for me was the one take they did of Moonlight Mile. I looked at the prior weeks rehearsal song listings and I didn't see it on there as having been rehearsed. I had seen them play it in Oakland in 1999, probably one of the only times they've played it live.

Here was this band of musicians playing a song they recorded in 1970 or 1971, which they had rarely played since, and they were playing it as of they had rehearsed it time and time again. After the session, we were in the mixing room with Keith and he asked me what I thought of the rehearsal. I told him we should ask the sound guy Dave to play back Moonlight Mile, and that would speak for itself. He turned to Dave, smiled, and Dave played it back at full concert volume in this room that was maybe 20 x 20. I stood in the doorway and throughout the song, Keith would glance at me and smile knowingly because we both knew I was right, it sounded great. Not wanting to overstay my welcome, I left when the song was still playing, giving Keith a hug gooodbye, and then I rode back to the hotel with Bobby Keys, Coach and a few other guys in their entourage.

In 2003, I was able to introduce my son to the man he is named after, and they were able to meet again in 2006 in Stuttgart. The night before, we rode to and from the show in the Stones private vans, which was another of those ultra cool experiences I never dreamed would happen to me. With the sirens blaring from our police escort, our caravan sped through the streets of Stuttgart after the show. The next day, Keith invited our family to his suite to say hello.

Inside the suite was Keith and his family, sitting around watching TV as any family would. Even though he is this big rock star, and his reputation is no doubt well deserved, in the ten or so times I've met him, he's shown me that he is down to earth and a not much different than many of my friends when we get together after long intervals of being apart. He's polite, witty, and he seems to care when he asks how are you doing?

Here is the list:

1975 Chicago (1)
1978 Lexington, Cleveland, Chicago (3)
1981 San Diego, LA x 4, SF, Phx (7)
1989 LA x 4 (4)
1994 Chicago x 2, San Diego, LA, Oakland x 4 (8)
1997 Chicago Double Door Club Gig, Chicago Opening Night, Phoenix, Oakland x 4,
Detroit (8)
1998 San Diego, The Joint Las Vegas, Portland, Chicago (4)
1999 Oakland Opening night, Sacramento x 2, Chicago, Las Vegas (5)
2002 Chicago, LA Club show Wiltern, San Francisco x 2, Oakland (5)
2003 Chicago, Paris Bercy, Paris club show Olympia (3)
2005 Pittsburgh, LA Hollywood Bowl, San Francisco x 2 (4)
2006 Oakland, Stuttgart (2)

PLUS THESE STONES RELATED SHOWS/SESSIONS

1988 LA Wino's (1)
1979 Chicago New Barbarians (1)
1993 LA Wino's (1)
1997 Mixing Session Ocean Way Studios LA (1)
1999 Rehearsal San Francisco Fillmore (1)
2005 Rehearsal Toronto, Pre show Rehearsal Pittsburgh (2)

John

Oh no, not you again!

2006-11-07T11:15:00.000-08:00

When the Stones announced they were coming back to Oakland for another show, their 3rd this tour, I didn't run out and get tickets. That's the first time since 1975 that I haven't gotten tickets on the day they went on sale for a Stones concert within 100 miles of where I lived. Was I getting old? Complacent?

As the date neared, I figured I'd better go, but then they changed the date, and that changed my plans. In light of the recent cancellations, I deducted that maybe they are getting older and I should see them in a show that could be "my last" Stones live experience, so I decided to go.

On Sunday, the day before the show, I brought a package to Keith at his hotel. I wanted to show my appreciation for some autographs he'd given me that I'd auctioned off at my kids schools for thousands of dollars. Amongst a few other goodies, I gave him a small rock that had a word inscribed in it - "Connection". I put a note with it, asking if he'd play Connection in Oakland. This would be their 110th show of this tour, and he'd only played it one other time, so I wasn't holding my breath.

Last night was one of those nights that keep me coming back for more. Just when you think they may be over the hill, they crank it up and spit it out. I am interested to hear that one on a bootleg. Its a shame they don't make these shows available for the attendees, or for anyone, to purchase/download. What do they have to lose? It could be another revenue stream, and its a way of putting some historical relevance to what they are doing. I would love to hear that version of Rambler again, it was long and slow, and fast and rocking. She was Hot sounded great, with Mick changing the pace a bit to accommodate his voice problem perhaps? Whatever they did, it worked.

Very cool to see Keith insert Connection. I have to hope the "rock" helped influence him.

The coolest part of the show was when we were in the Rattlesnake Inn and they were warming up. it was cool because the CD that was being played backstage started skipping. They turned it off, and then Keith plugged in and started playing. Most of the 100 or so people in there didn't realize the background music was now being provided by KR. Then Charlie and Ron joined in and they did a slow, bluesy version of Little Red Rooster, and 90% of the people backstage in the band lounge had no idea the background music was being provided by the Rolling Stones, from behind a curtain. One chick came up to me and asked if I was going out to see Van Morrison, and I told her "no, I think I'm going to hang here and listen to the Stones warming up." She then realized what I was saying, and sat down and listened, with a smile.

I guess part of the appeal of these shows is to somehow recreate my adolescence. I was 15 the first time I saw them, and when I see 15 year olds at these shows who are getting into the groove, it brings me back home. Its also just fun to be in a place where tens of thousands of people seem to be having a great time, and the Stones sure know how to deliver. From the massive stage to the detailed set list and the show production and planning, they are on top of everything, and it shows.

Great job boys, you sounded great last night. No need to stop now.

President Bush visits Serrano

2006-10-02T22:43:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I had the "opportunity" to purchase tickets to "have lunch" with President Bush. He'll be making his first ever visit to El Dorado County, in fact, it will be the first ever visit by a sitting President to our County. He's coming to Serrano Country Club, a place I belong to, and a place I can walk less than a half a mile to get to. As a member, I was given a first look option.

The cost was two thousand dollars per person, and I passed. That's a lot of dough for lunch, and I'm not that big a fan. In some ways, I respect the guy for the way he's stood against the bad guys, and who knows, maybe in the long run he'll be looked upon as a hero. But for me, from day one, I never really could relate to that cocky smirk.

Tonight at the Monday Night Football gathering in our neighborhood, I started to hear the rumors/dirt on tomorrow's visit.

1. They've not only replaced every phone line into the Country Club, they've been bugging every line into the club for 8 weeks, which is the same amount of time they've had wireless bugs placed in every golf cart at the club. They have like 50 agents here, and the rumor is they'll outnumber the 300 guests by 3 to 1 tomorrow, including staff. They've taken over the club, the locker room is filled with wires and phones, there's tables everywhere, and there's dozens of guys with suits and 9mm's under their coats.

2. They've done background checks on most people in our neighborhood, including every kid at Oak Ridge High School.

3. They've had dozens of agents here for weeks, and they've even been placing hidden microphone's around the golf course.

4. On Saturday, they had several helicopters landing at Rolling Hills Middle School, but everyone tonight thinks that's just a decoy.

5. Marine One will carry Bush here from Stockton, followed by a few gun ships. They will have multiple copters landing in several locations, with a possible decoy caravan coming up from Rolling hills while the Pres actually lands on the golf course.

I gotta go to bed. Tomorrow's a big day.

Hello Big Brother, and welcome to Serrano.

Goodbye Zelda

2006-05-20T02:58:00.000-07:00

I'll never forget my first day in Sacramento. It was 1981, and I was a twenty-one year old kid. Over the prior few months, I'd been given a serious dose of Real Life. Unable to cut the mustard in LA or San Diego, Sacramento was going to be the last stop on my California tour. I'd moved to the West Coast in the fall of 1979, and just over two years later, I was ready to come running back to my family with my tail between my legs.

My older sister had just gotten transfered to Sacramento, and when I told her I was planning on moving back home at Christmas, she suggested I come live with her. Once I compared the Sacramento and Chicago winters, the decision was easy. Besides that, I was in no hurry to move home and face what certainly would be the beginning of my demise. I'd flunked out of college, I had no vocation or career, and there were more than a few barstools in the neighborhood taverns awaiting my return. I was destined to fail in life if I moved back home.

I remember flying into Sac Metro Airport, the most remote airport I'd ever seen. Between the gray overcast sky and the acres and acres of rice patties, I couldn't help wonder why I'd picked this place over Chicago, my home town. Even if I had to eat some crow by moving back, at least I'd be able to also eat some Chicago Style Pizza, my favorite food and something I'd desperately missed since I'd moved to California.

After picking up my luggage, and noticing the airport smelled like a locker room, my sister asked if I wanted to go get some "Real Chicago Style Pizza".

"Oh sure", I sarcastically replied. If there was one thing I'd learned about moving away from Chicago, it was the fact that no one seemed to be able to duplicate, or even come close to, a good Chicago Pizza, especially the "Pan".

When we walked into Zelda's, I instantly knew the place had some possibilities. The first thing that caught my eye were the cheesy colored Christmas lights, which I would soon learn were not just a Christmas decoration. The next sign was the attitude of the people who worked there. It felt like they thought they were doing us a favor by gracing us with their presence, a definite "don't let the door hit you on the way out", in your face, mentality. The place also had the token TV hanging in the corner of the bar, which sat nearly as many people as the restaurant itself, a calculated move done by some of the best restaurant entrepreneurs. Why not have them drink while they wait to eat the food?

The "clincher", no Chicago pun intended, was the way they brought out the pie. As soon as I saw the black, deep dish, cast iron pans, being carried from the kitchen to the tables with pair of vice grips, I knew I was in the right place. When I peeked inside the pan the waitress put on our table, I noticed the sauce, not the cheese, was on top. Yes!

"Wait a minute", I pondered. Even with all these signs, I was still skeptical. I'd had Chicago Brothers in Pacific Beach, and Chicago "this and that" in several places around Los Angeles. I'd tried dozens of "authentic Chicago Pizza's", and the best one I'd found since moving out west was a frozen Tombstone from the local grocery store. As for deep dish or pan pizza, fuggetaboutit.

As soon as I'd finished my first bite, I knew I was going to like Sacramento. By the time I'd worked my way through my first slice, I was up looking for the proprietor of the place to congratulate her. She'd done what so many others throughout California had failed miserably at.

That was the first time I met Zelda. She was a straight shooter, that was evident right off the bat. An authentic Chicago girl, she was blunt, candid, fair, and forthright. Not one to shy away from calling a spade a spade, Zelda was frank, point-blank, and most of all, a hard-working entrepreneur. As I got to know her through the years, I came to respect her as a business person more and more. Her loyal staff was as consistent as her pizza, an unusual sign in an industry where turnover is the norm.

The last time I saw Zelda was about a year ago. We were on a friends boat, six couples cruising up and down the Delta on a beautiful summer night. When the munchies kicked in, I called Zelda's and ordered a couple pizza's to go. We pulled the boat alongside the dock outside the Embassy Suites, and my friend and I got out and convinced the shuttle driver at the hotel to drive us to Zelda's and back. Thinking we were guests of the hotel for some reason, he was kind enough to oblige.

When I walked in the back door I immediately saw Zelda at the bar. Although I'd spoken to her by phone a couple times in the past few years, I hadn't seen her since she'd had her stroke. Even though she was definitely weaker and more fragile than I'd ever seen her, she had this beautiful glow about her. I dont know how to explain it, but she almost looked angelic. When we began speaking, I could see and feel her pain. It was almost as if the Zelda I'd known for twenty years was trapped inside her own body. She held my hand and I promised to come back and see her, but I never did.

Zelda Breslin was a good lady, and for many years, she made the best pizza in Sacramento, hands down. When I saw the article in the Bee that told of her passing, I was deeply saddened. I should've made the time to go back and see her. It's a shame that our lives have gotten so busy that we sometimes neglect to do the important things.

For me, Zelda's Pizza is an institution, a true sign of the things that make Sacramento a great place to live. Like many pioneers before her in other industries, Zelda took the education she'd received while working at Pizzeria Uno in Chicago, and she used it to open up her own pizza joint. Rest well Zelda, you've certainly earned a day off.

Peter Pan

2006-05-08T12:14:00.000-07:00

PETER PAN:
n 1: a boyish or immature man; after the boy in Barrie's play who never grows up [syn: Peter Pan] 2: the main character in a play by J. M. Barrie; a boy who won't grow up [syn: Peter Pan]

After the most recent press release, and after reading all the other stuff, this now is starting to make more sense. Although I feel better than I have in recent days, I'm still extremely concerned as I do not fully trust the spin.

I'm sure as soon as the corporate doctors got wind of what happened, I'll bet they made the potential problems a guy like Keith faced crystal clear, and I would presume that led to his being checked into the hospital. The fact he autographed a photo that was brought to his room a few days after he was checked in helps discount the rumor mill that started to flow on the internet.

As for his whereabouts, I'm guessing someone decided to "check him out" of the hospital to try and gain some well needed breathing room, knowing full well that the road ahead could be a dangerous one. I doubt he ever left the hospital, but may have changed rooms, names, or whatever when he "checked back in".

I'm thinking when the reality of the situation began to take hold, i.e. the possible end of The Stones or his ability to play guitar again, he may have actually started to consider giving up drinking, as most people would do in that situation. When the story about Patti sneaking mini's into his room hit, I'm thinking there could be some truth to that as well. If he wants to quit drinking, I think that's a noble gesture, but maybe this exact moment isn't the best time. I'm not a doctor by any stretch of the imagination, so maybe it is a good time for cold turkey, but if trying to deal with a Subdural Hematoma and quitting drinking simultaneously isn't a recipe for success, then bring in the mini's.

For the past several days we've heard a bunch of rumors about the "Brain Drain" he'd had, or was going to have. After reading about Subdural Hematoma's, I guess it wasn't a big stretch to predict this may happen.

The first bit of news from the band's publicist said some things that now appear to have been a cover to allow Keith's condition time to develop, and hopefully to improve. I can understand the sensitivity of the issue, and I don't fault them for handling it the way they did, however, I think the "Speedy Recovery" may have been a stretch, in hindsight anyway.

"Keith Richards was hospitalized for a mild concussion he suffered while vacationing in Fiji. Keith was injured earlier this week and flown to a hospital in Auckland, New Zealand for treatment. "Following treatment locally and as a precautionary measure, he flew to a hospital accompanied by his wife, Patti, for observation," said Stones' publicist Fran Curtis. Doctors say Keith is making a speedy recovery."

From there, things got muddled, i.e. on May 3rd, a supposed email from the family said he was OK, and he would be home within a week, which made us breath easier, then the Brain Drain story hit, and then on May 3rd the publicist said to a Chicago Tribune reporter:

"He’s out of the hospital," she said. "His manager spoke to him last night. He’s doing well. Everything's on schedule."

Unfortunately, the rumors persisted, and everything seemed to be anything but "on schedule". With today's statement, there seems to be some clarity, and more hope than we've had since this happened.

"Keith Richards underwent surgery this morning at The Ascot Hospital in Auckland, New Zealand. The operation was a complete success and Keith is already up and talking with his family today. He will need a few weeks recuperation. Last week Keith was under observation in Auckland following a fall in Fiji and was feeling well after being examined by doctors last week, however after complaining of headaches yesterday doctors thought it prudent to move ahead with a small operation to remove the pressure. The Rolling Stones A Bigger Bang European tour goes ahead and will now start in June 2006., Full details of the re-scheduling of the tour will be announced shortly."

When they say small, do they mean literally? To me, there is nothing small about surgery on a persons brain. I know some people who have had this procedure, and while the holes may have been small, the impact of the surgery certainly wasnt small. Maybe this type of spin, on this story anyway, is status quo when so much money is at stake, and when they just don't really know how things will turn out. Obviously, Keith and his family, and the band, and his fans, have had quite a scare, and they probably are still scared shitless, I know I am. I just hope everyone's concerns are for the right reasons, and not monetary or selfish ones. I mean, anyone at this point who really gives a shit about Barcelona or the Europe Tour or any future Stones plans, is not thinking the way they should. Were talking about a mans life, a man who has given many people many hours of enjoyment, and a man who most of the people who know him have always thought would go out kicking and fighting, with his boots still strapped on. I'll bet he climbed that tree barefoot, and I hope he has the chance to put those boots back on and do what he does best, giving all of us all, and most importantly giving Keith Richards, a chance to continue being not only Rock and Roll's greatest survivor, but also the Peter Pan of Rock and Roll.

How Can I Stop?

2006-04-29T08:30:00.000-07:00

When the Stones first started as a band, they lived together in a small flat in London, sharing one bathroom with the other tenants of the building. Keith's roommate, Jim Pheldge, wrote in his book about the time Keith wired the bog, saying:

"He had hidden the small crystal microphone behind the cistern and ran the wires along the pipes then out of the toilet window. From there they came through the bedroom window and back to Brian's tape machine.

"I reckon we can do some recording now then", Keith Richards said mischievously.

After that we spent the rest of the day ligging around and laying in wait for various victims to use the toilet. Eventually we had quite a collection of recordings of the other tenants in the house grunting and groaning away on the toilet, all unknowingly being taped in the process.

Later ... "One afternoon we finally caught Judy coming out of the toilet and invited her in to listen to what she probably thought was going to be some music. Keith turned on the machine and played back for her the sounds of her sitting. She ran out of the room screaming...We then started the whole tape running from the beginning and played it full blast into the hallway for them all to listen to each other."

Now, forty something years later, Keith falls out of a palm tree while on holiday.

It must be pretty serious for him to remain hospitalized, which is the last place that cat wants to be. The sooner he's released, the sooner we can breath a sigh of relief.

This story reminds me of Pheldge's book and the shenanigans the boys used to pull in the beginning of the Stones days. Here they are, Ronnie and Keith, like two grown up kids, climbing Palm Trees, I presume, for kicks. Its one of the things I've always liked about these guys, they refuse to grow up.

Being a forty something husband/father who has to function in a fairly normal society and setting to exist, I've always found many of their boys will be boys, full of piss and vinegar attitude, to be inspiring. I recall their US group press conference on the radio last September, where for two hours they joked, laughed and made clever comments non-stop throughout the PC.

Every time I've had the pleasure to spend some time with Keith, it's always been that way. He's always got his verbal game face on, and he's the wittiest person I've ever been around. I'm looking forward to seeing him in Amsterdam this summer.

The lyrics to their songs, from the sixties to their most recent release, to me, are some of the most quick-witted lyrics by any band.

IT WONT TAKE LONG-2006 A BIGGER BANG
Life is short, one look and it's over
Comes as quite a shock
All I got is some memories
Stuck in an old shoebox

Godspeed my friend, may you never grow old.

John Lewis
April 29,2006

Steps

2006-03-27T22:30:00.000-08:00

For the past several weeks, I've been counting the number of steps I've taken every day. I got a pedometer and beginning on the first week of Lent, I've started trying to lead a more active lifestyle. I've found out that it's pretty easy to just get a couple thousand steps a day, especially on those days when I just go to work and sit behind a desk. On those days, my count is usually between three and six thousand steps. On a more active day, say a day when I go shopping, run a bunch of errands, coach my sons baseball team, etc. my count is usually around eight to nine thousand.

The goal for me is a minimum of 10,000 steps a day. I have been trying to get on the treadmill every day, and if i get an hour of walking on the treadmill, I always get over 10,000 for the day. I've been improving my total each week, with this past week being my highest week at 84,000 steps. I even tied my sister-in-laws one day record of 27,000 from when she was in NYC a few weeks back. I did that on Saturday, a day that included 90 minutes on the treadmill at a fast pace, and not sitting down all day, except for when I drove between places where i was running errands.

The problem with the treadmill is I need a better set up. I've been researching treadmill workstations, which basically is a workstation built around a treadmill, and I've yet to find anyone who sells them, and I've only found a few home made ones on people's Blogs. I'm building my own over the next week or so. If it looks good, and is functional, I think I'll start a company to sell them. I think there could be a market for them. They can become a way people can afford to spend more time being active, as they read the paper, magazines and books, check email, listen to music, watch TV and movies, etc. I'll post a photo after I get it built.

Chicago Fire Pizza

2006-02-23T23:11:00.000-08:00

My diet was blown, as soon as my guest insisted WE bring home the extra slices of the Stuffed pizza we had at Chicago Fire on Monday Night.

Yes, at 3AM, I snuck out to the fridge and gobbled down one of the two slices of the Chicago Fire Stuffed Combo (w/spinach) pizza we SOMEHOW (and it was a small we ordered, being that we were all on DIETS??..)

Eric, it was like I couldn't sleep. I knew it was in there, and it was calling me ...

John... johnny ... its only a piece,.... you dont' have to eat both ... 11pm .. 1am.. 230am.. ...

Fortunately, I'm on a mission. The delicious pizza I ate only made me work harder the next day on my treadmill, so when I weigh in on Sunday, I'm hoping I've lost a few pounds this week. If not, I'll hold you accountable for a pound, as I only ate one at your restaurant, and one at 3am later that night.

As for my review, I think that's the first time I've ever had stuffed pizza. My friend asked me if we were ordering a Calzone when I said stuffed, and after eating it, and inspecting it, and then referring back to the menu for the description of STUFFED PIZZA, I thought we'd gotten DEEP DISH by accident. Your mgr. Todd, great guy btw, showed me the thin top layer of crust just below the sauce, and then I knew I was eating stuffed pizza for the first time. WOW.

So now you've nailed THIN CRUST, DEEP DISH, ( and your original cookie dessert) and since this is only my first CHICAGO stuffed pizza experience, its hard for me to use the word nailed, but I would guess it holds up pretty good.

I did order the fries for my kids, just to see what your waitress would do after the story you told me, and she didn't blink. My kids dusted the fries, and then they dusted the large pepperoni thin crust and 95% of the dessert (2 split between 4 kids), with my wife and I mopping up, and OMG, that dessert is as good as the pie!

Congratulations. I've lived in California since 1979, and while Zelda rocks, you rule! You have finally created a great Chicago Pizza experience in California.

Revelation

2005-10-31T13:18:00.000-08:00

rev·e·la·tion P Pronunciation Key (rv-lshn)
n.
The act of revealing or disclosing.
Something revealed, especially a dramatic disclosure of something not previously known or realized.
Theology. A manifestation of divine will or truth.
Revelation Abbr. Rev. or Rv. Bible. See table at Bible.

Yesterday at church, the message was quite clear, to me anyway. Immediately afterwards, I became quite ill. I've been in bed since, but I'm finally feeling better. I slept for sixteen of the twenty-four hours, and after only consuming a little water, I lost eight pounds.

Was it food poising? The twenty-four hour flu?

Was it a revelation?

Naming your child after someone famous, Part 1

2005-10-30T07:47:00.000-08:00

I saw these two cats play last night in a little bar called Constable Jacks in Newcastle, CA. One of them is named after someone famous, so it peaked my interest, especially after doing a similar deed to my son, Keith Richards Lewis.

Roy Rogers said his Dad and older brother watched "the original" Roy Rogers on Television, and it made such an impact, when their second child came out a boy, the obvious choice for Mister and Mrs Rogers to name their son was Roy. His situation is a bit different as everyone just calls my son Keith Lewis. There's no escaping the obvious when you're named Roy Rogers.

This Roy was an old school virtuiso with the guitar, or guitars, as I should say, as he pulled out some dandies. He could flat play. He was with a good harmonica player and frontman named Norton Buffalo. They told a hilarious story about getting pulled over in a small town in Alaska by the local sheriff, who thought he had a great bust on his hands when he saw the two California drivers licenses, the unexplicable switching of drivers they'd just performed, and a few other reasons. When he saw their names on those California drivers licenses, he was sure he had scored; Norton Buffalo and Roy Rogers.

Norton said he was looking in the rear view mirror when he saw the cop look back behind his car. Norton said at that point he and Roy noticed the marquee across the street. That was what the cop was staring at. He apologized, and escorted them to the bar they were playing at that night, across the street where the marquee was.

When I told him my eight year old is named after Keith, he said he'd been fortunate enough to produce a version of Crawlin' Kingsnake where Keith played on it. He had spent a lot of time with John Lee Hooker, and he produced several albums with John Lee. Now he's working on a CD project about Ramblin' Jack Elliott.

Roy said he'd met the original Roy Rogers several times, including the night they were both nominated for a grammy and coincidentially stayed at the same hotel.

The cool thing about this Roy Rogers is his talent. I never knew the original one, but maybe somehow this one got some of the old one rubbed off on him at some point. He creates a sound that, wait a minute, this is the internet,

http://www.roy-rogers.com/splash.php

Go here, the music should start, and then you can hear his style for yourself.

Roy and Norton should be backing up the Stones on a gig out west. They boogie.

Month One - Waldorf

2005-10-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

Waldorf education, in an almost secretive way, is a choice we've found to be rewarding. The philosophy of its creator, Rudolph Steiner, is something that on one hand seems magical, but on the other, its just what it should be when your dealing with something as innocent and beautiful as a child.

In todays fast-paced society, we're just learning the effects of outside influences on our children. As a new Waldorf parent, I'm just scratching the surface. I'm hoping someone lays a quick reference guide on me one of these days. There are many traditions which have stood the test of time. We just had the annual celebration of the courage of Saint Michaelmas, a non-denominational non-religious celebration of courage, where a 50' scary dragon created by the 6th graders comes to town, scaring the lower grade children. The town (lower grades) rallies, and they form a bond and defeat the dragon. The kids are all in costume and they play competitive games afterwards. Other celebrations during the year that we witnessed in our first few months at Waldorf last spring were Grand's day, where your childrens grandparents and significant other relatives spend the day at Waldorf, and the May Faire celebration, which included my first live vision of a maypole dance, done beautifully by the 8th grade students in celebration of the independence they'll gain as they move into the high school.

In my sons first month of 3rd grade, he's learned to cook rice balls, bake bread and make (and eat, his first green eating experience, btw) pesto pasta. They also have a garden for fruits, vegetables and spices, and a kitchen in the classroom. Next to the garden is a farm with pigs and other regular farm animals. Next year I hear we get farm duty at the crack of dawn.

It's definitely different than Merryhill, Phoenix Folsom, Phoenix El Dorado Hills, EDH Montessori, Golden Hills and Holy Trinity Catholic School, the one's we've been in to date wth our kids. All of those schools were excellent in their own way, and my daughter is thriving at HTS. All the schools we've attended have their own strengths and I believe they all produce excellent students, from what we've witnessed first hand. I will say though, that what I've seen at Waldorf reminds me a great deal more of what it was like when I went to school in the middle sixties.

The media is a huge influence on all our lives, and Steiner's approach, from the little I know, is to not encourage a great deal of outside influences in early childhood. While they don't say no TVs in your house, don't go to the movies and no computers, they do ask each parent to be involved in making sure the exposure to these options is carefully chosen, and they definitely discourage anything above occasional use of any of these choices. We have found this philosophy to be a reinforcement of our beliefs in no TV during the week during school, no movies with inappropriate content and the computer is a word processor and a tool for homework, no surfing the net, IM, chat, etc. Game boys and video games are something they can do, but choose not to very often.

Somewhere I've read where Steiner's approach believes the more we can allow the child to imagine and create, the more the brain has the opportunity to form in a way were the child will grow into an adult who can make their own decisions, be creative when necessary, and succeed in life.

I just noticed on the calendar our teacher is hosting a class Halloween party at her house on the night before Halloween. These are the same teachers who are with our kids as their homeroom teacher every year from 1-8 grades. The same one's who publish their home phone numbers in the school directory, encourage the parents to call them at home, and once a month have parent meetings where the parents sit in their kids desks and view all the work their child did during the prior month.

On Halloween, there is no school. Hello, how smart is this? One of the biggest days for kids and they give them the day off, and throw a party for them at the teachers house the night before?! Wow. That's one other thing about Waldorf, they have a great schedule. They start after Labor Day and only have 2 half days all year. Christmas and Spring Break are both two week vacations, and Thanksgiving is a full week off, as is Presidents day week in February. We get out by the 10th of June, just like most others.

More next month...

Sacramento Waldorf School - Opening Day 2005

2005-09-07T00:28:00.000-07:00

Today was the opening day ceremonies at Sacramento Waldorf School, possibly the best kept secret in Sacramento.

We switched Keith from our church's school, Holy Trinity Catholic School, mid way through last year. Holy Trinity is a good school, and our daughter loves it there. For Keith however, he has a very busy mind and he needs to be challenged. Several people suggested Waldorf and when we checked it out, it seemed perfect for him.

Keith is very artistic, and he loves to draw. At Waldorf, in the early grades, they don't use text books. They start the kids off in the morning with a jog around the campus. When they're a bit tired, they come in the classroom and begin to be taught their main lesson for the day. The teacher instructs them by using the black board to draw pictures, to write words and she talks to the kids about the lesson she wants them to learn that day. The children all have several large sketch pads, one for each subject. They take out those pads during main lesson and they draw and take notes, allowing them to creatively document what they're learning.

Every month, the teacher holds a meeting one week night with the parents, which most parents attend. During this meeting the teacher reviews what has been taught. The parents have the opportunity to see these beautiful sketch pads their children work on every day, documenting what they're learning. The teacher also reviews what will be taught during the next thirty days, and she goes over any issues she feels should be discussed amongst the parents, from behavior issues to movies coming out that may not be appropriate for the kids, even thought they're rated G or PG.

This will be our first full year, and today they started with a beautiful ceremony. Between our two children, we've experienced opening day many times. Before today, I never knew an opening day could be so special.

Through the years, we've had Keith in the following schools:

Phoenix School Folsom
Phoenix School El Dorado Hills
Golden Hills School
El Dorado Hills Montessori School
Holy Trinity School

In addition, Chelsea attended all of these and she spent a year at Merryhill in Folsom. We don't think of ourselves as "school switchers", but I guess we'd fall into that category. I like to think of it as having two bright kids who have special needs and in todays society, not every school automatically fits a childs needs.

First of all, it seemed as if nearly every parent was there this morning, including most Dads. They also had many alumni and former faculty members on hand, displaying the sense of family one feels when they get involved in this school.

The Waldorf principal, Liz Bevin, started the ceremony by explaining in a few sentences how special this year would be for each grade, mentioning each one specifically and providing a brief statement about some of the things each grade could expect to learn this year. I remember the focus being a steady theme, especially in the older grades. She spoke of how these children would learn to build foundations, not only in the form of buildings and architecture, but also in character as the school prepared them for their life's journey. Everything she said seemed to make such perfect sense. When she introduced the High School Architecture Teacher, it fit right into the theme, and it made me wonder why I never had an architecture teacher at my school, nor have I ever heard of ine in any High School.

The school is small, with enrollment being I believe somewhere in the 300's, and that's the total through High School. The Ninth Grade class was a record in size she mentioned; they have forty-four. My High School had something like two hundred fourty-four in our ninth grade class.

She introduced the first graders, and then the second graders stood and gave each first grader a rose to welcome them to the "big school", with most having just graduated from Waldorf Kindergarden.

Each senior was introduced, with their time in the Waldorf education system being noted. Many had never seen any other type of school. They were also given roses, and throughout the program they were recognized as the leaders of the school. The format of having the high school on the same campus as the elementary and middle school I'm sure has it's drawbacks, but today, I witnessed it as a very big positive.

The teachers all gathered together and they sang a beautiful song for the children, many with a tear in their eye as they did so.

In all, the ceremony lasted a little more than an hour. The first day of school is a special day for every child, especially those in First grade, Ninth Grade and Twelvth Grade. We didn't have a ceremony like this in my High School, nor have I witnessed anything like this in any of the other schools our kids have attended, at least not to this degree.

It was a beautiful start to the new school year, on the day after Labor Day I might add, which is when I always started school when I grew up. This was the first time for either of our children taht they didn't have to start in the begining or middle of August, another good idea from the Sacramento Waldorf School, maybe the best kept education secret in our area.

The Hand of Fate

2005-09-06T21:56:00.000-07:00

Since 1975, when I was fifteen years old and I got turned on to them, I've been a big Rolling Stones fan. "Your other love affair" is how my wife describes it. I guess that's not too far off. Their recorded music, be it original tunes or cover songs, have always provided an inspiration to my life.

Today their new album came out; A Bigger Bang. As tradition holds true, I went out of my way to buy it on the day it became available. Over the next few weeks, I'll play it over and over. It usually takes me a while to determine how the new music stands up in their catalog. After the first couple listens, I'll tell you this, they definitely have improved over their last several efforts. For the first time in over thirty years, they went back to creating new music the same way they created many of their classics in the sixties and early seventies. Mick and Keith locked themselves away in Mick's chateau in France and together, they composed dozens of new songs. It was just the two of them for quite a while as Charlie was fighting the effects of a bout with Cancer, and then he was recovering from a serious auto accident. Once he joined them, the old magic came to life. Together, the three remaining original Stones created some new music that many early reviews claim rivals some of their best stuff.

The songs of The Rolling Stones are the sound track to my life. Their live performances, of which I've seen dozens since the mid 70s, are some of the fondest memories I have. Even though I've been fortunate to have spent some time with Keith Richards over the years, as well as with several other people in and around their band, the one thing that's always stood out as the most important thing about the Stones to me is their music.

Their lyrics are clever, with the use of catch phrases and common sayings being a hook they've used successfully through the years. Their new CD is laced with these, and once again, they work well to create quick-witted songs. Through the years, their music has helped me get through life and death. They've been there during some of the best times of my life, and some of the worst.

The way Keith makes his guitar recreate the best of Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters and a handful of other soulful guitar players is a lost art. The steady and always perfectly timed beat coming from the drumset of Charlie Watts, one of the few true gentlemen in the history of rock, is swinging. And Mick Jagger, the consumate lead singer, performer and rock businessman, is nothing short of brilliant, even at age sixty-two.

These three guys form a combination I've never found in another band, and it's not like I haven't tried. In my forty-four years, I've seen nearly every major rock act, from Elvis to Led Zeppelin; The Who, The Dead, McCartney, Dylan, The Eagles, you name it and I've probably seen them play live. To me, nothing matches seeing or hearing the Rolling Stones when they're in a groove, which fortunately happens more often than not. Even as they grow old, they still somehow manage to raise the bar.

In 1978, my best friend Ben and I jumped in my Dad's car and we set off to see the Stones in a couple of midwestern cities over a one week period. We saw them in Lexington, Cleveland, and then back in Chicago. The bonding we did during that trip cemented our life long friendship. We've seen at least one show together on nearly every tour they've done since. We blew off our 20th High School reunion to see a series of Stones concerts in Oakland in 1997. We'll see them together in Dallas the day before my 45th birthday this November. Like me, Ben's been married for nearly twenty years. We share a common bond in how we love our wives, our children and our families, and in how we love the Stones.

My wife is wonderful. Many women wouldn't tolerate their husbands having an old girlfriend around, someone they have to share their husbands with every few years. Somehow, and I know at times it's difficult, she finds a way to tolerate my other passion. She and the kids are always first, but when the Stones release a new CD or when they go on one of their tours, she knows I'll be rekindling my thirty year love affair.

Last month, I had the chance to fly to Toronto to see the band rehearse as they prepared for their tour. Most people would think I was nuts. For starters, I burned fifty-five thousand frequent flier miles and stayed up for two days straight before I even got there. The first night I was working and trying to catch up on all the business I would miss by being gone for three days. The second night I was on a red eye to Toronto and I was so excited I couldnt sleep. All this for an opportunity to hear a band rehearse. I wasnt getting to see a polished show, it was a practice session. But, for those of us who are die-hard Stones fans, this was the opportunity of a lifetime and I wasn't going to miss it for the world.

I left Sacramento at 9pm, headed for Vegas. From Vegas I caught the red eye, and a buzz, as I drank my way to Toronto. I got to the Four Seasons at 8am Thursday, just in time for the quick nap I'd planned. One problem quickly became obvious as I laid down in bed, how could I possibly sleep?

The Stones had set up camp at a three story private school called Greenwood. It was in a suburban part of Toronto. For their past few tours, they've rehearsed for a month or two in Toronto. I arrived at the school early in the day, seeing a few familiar faces from tours gone by. The first floor was a kitchen and dining area. The Stones travel with a crew, not counting stage hands, of somewhere around seventy-five or a hundred people. They all need to eat, so having their own chefs makes sense. The second floor was classrooms being used as dressing rooms, exercise areas, a pool hall, business offices and places to relax. The third floor was a gymnasium which had been turned into their private stage.

I saw Keith during the day and like he recently said in an article I read somewhere, he does turn the phone off and relax. He asked about my son and we exchanged some small talk, but I didn't want to bother him with questions, or ideas I had. I was dying to suggest he sit down at the piano and play "Somewhere over the Rainbow" during the Stadium shows, because "everyone will sing along and love it". Since I'd first heard a bootleg of Keith doing this from the late 70s, I've always hoped he'd someday play that song live. Hell, Clapton even did it the last time I'd seen him, but his version didn't touch what Keith could do with that song at the piano. Keith Richards, Rock and Roll pirate, has shown us in his later years, he can croon with the best of them. Who'd of ever thought? I was dying to ask so many things, but it just wasn't the cool thing to do, and believe me, when you're with Keith, you really feel the need to try your best to keep it cool.

At about Five PM, I rode to the rehearsal in the back seat of Keith's Town Car. Keith's bodyguard Bill was on my right, Keith's good friend Alan (from the band The Dirty Strangers) was on my left. Both nice guys. I've always wondered what all that stuff in Keith's hair looked like close up. It's not fishing tackle, it's tightly braided hair and some silver medallions. This was one of the coolest parts of my day. Keith had his window down, arm out, and the look on people's faces as they noticed who was sitting in the car was extremely cool as we pulled up to the stop lights on the way to Greenwood. A couple people really lost it, as many of us probably would do if all of a sudden, out of nowhere, Keith Richards pulled up next to us at a stoplight, looked our way and smiled.

The stage set up was exactly how they do it at the concerts, with the whole back line in place. I stayed in back, watched from the balcony, or sat on the couch in the mixing room and watched the monitor. The last thing I wanted to do was be anything but a fly on the wall. The professionalism of the crew is amazing. Dave, the guy running the mixing board, and Johnny Starbuck, "I handle the guitars" are both great guys. Johnny has been there since 75, when he was with Billy Preston "when they hired Billy to do what Chuck Leavell does now". Johnny had a computer that listed every song played at the rehearsals to date, and he was in charge of playing the studio versions of the songs, as they were requested. He had a hand written set list for the night, but I'm not sure who wrote it out. Dave is a new addition to the team. His job, from what I heard, was to turn up the guitars in the mix. He was doing his job quite well that night.

The first song they worked on that night, minus Keith for the first few takes, was "Sway" from Sticky Fingers. To my knowledge, they've never played it live. They rehearsed it for what seemed like two hours, over and over again until they nailed it, which happened after Keith plugged in. Mick was the first to play the opening lick on guitar, then Ronnie took a stab at it, and finally Keith. I have to say, I'm really impressed with Mick's guitar playing that night and from what little I've heard on the new album so far. That thing always used to look like a stage prop around his neck, but now, he's playing pretty damn good,

When Keith plugged in, the band and the whole room came together. First off, it was much louder. Secondly, he is definitely the guts behind the band. Mick and Chuck had worked work hard on the arrangement of the song for over an hour, trying to recreate the sound off the album. Keith walked in and he just seemed to feel it.

For most casual fans, a rehearsal would seem repetitious. For me, it was one of the most fascinating things I've ever seen the Stones do. I witnessed a similar process at the Fillmore when they worked hard on "I Got the Blues", another Sticky Fingers gem that's rarely seen the stage. Unfortunately, I had to leave after that song and I didn't get to see any other songs rehearsed that night. That was 1999. Fortunately, that wasn't the case in Toronto in 2005.

After "Sway", they took a break for dinner. I can't recall the exact menu, but one of the chefs I recognized from the last tour was running a sushi bar at one end. They also had a Shepard's Pie that was untouched, until Keith came in and busted the crust, and then others finished it up quickly. Keith sat down at our table, but after a few minutes Patti came up and asked him to sit with her, so he left the guys table and went to sit with his wife. There were about fifty people working that night, half are the support people for the band and the other half are people working the tour.

After dinner, they got back to playing by taking one more crack at "Sway". Then they did three versions of "Moonlight Mile", another Sticky Fingers song they've rarely played live. The final take was one of the most awesome versions of a Stones song I'd ever heard. Mick's girlfriend L'wren and two of Mick's kids watched from out front, but they were the only one's. I recall how beautiful one of his daughters was. She reminded me of my daughter Chelsea in how she acted and was dressed. Everyone else who was visiting seemed to be doing the same thing I was doing, respecting the moment for what it was, and staying out of the way.

The band sounded very tight. I cant even describe how great "Moonlight Mile" sounded on the playback, which I'll get to in a minute. Even "The Worst", a good song but one I've heard so many times live I've become somewhat bored with it, sounded great. They could have played "Row Row Row your Boat" and I probably would have loved it in that type of an environment. I walked outside and felt so bad for all the fans standing at the gates, waiting for an autograph or hoping to hear a few notes of any song they were playing. It was almost midnight and they'd been there for hours. I wished I could have somehow switched places with them for a song so someone else with my love for the band could be exposed to something so cool. I read a few nights later on the internet that someone walked out and did just that. They let some people watch a song or two from the balcony. That's cool.

Once they got in a groove, there was no stopping them. They flat nailed "She's So Cold", in one take. They also did a great blues version of "19th Nervous Breakdown", again in one take. It took me a minute to figure out what song it was. Someone mentioned it would be cool if they reworked some songs. I was hoping for "Country Honk" in place of "Honky Tonk Woman", but I didnt see it on the poster boards of songs they'd rehearsed to date. "Get Up/Stand Up", a Bob Marley classic, will be a good add-in to the stadium shows as I'm sure the crowd will be excited and singing along. They played that one a couple times, and it sounded great. "Waiting on a Friend" had back-up singer Lisa Fischer singing the high parts. She was trying to coax Mick to duet with her, but he seemed to be saving his voice. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out, or if they play it at all. "Paint it Black" was done in one take, but "Hang Fire" took a few before they nailed it. "Sweet Lil Sixteen" jammed and sounded fabulous. I missed "One Hit to the Body" as I was outside. "Starfucker" was one take and they nailed it. Keith finished strong with "The Worst", with Ronnie nailing the steel guitar solos. I was a little disappointed I didnt hear any new music, but believe me, I had no complaints.

As a fan, it is so interesting to watch the creative process flow. They play the song over the speakers, then they play along to it, then they play it without the studio recording. Some songs they did like this, some they didn't, probably because they knew them, or had done them before. The charts listing all the songs were on the wall, but I didn't want to be a geek and try and write down all the songs. I was pleasantly surprised by some covers they're doing, especially "Rainy Day Women" by Bob Dylan, which several people said sounds very cool. There were two Otis Redding songs, including "Mr. Pitiful". Some rare Stones songs they'd rehearsed that stuck out from the lists were:

Silver Train
2000 Light Years from home
Around and Around
Aint too proud too beg
Loving Cup
Let it Loose
Respectable
Sister Morphine
Undercover

They seemed to be playing about a dozen songs a night. One of the guys I spoke with said he's been with them like thirty years and he's always liked their music, but the albums they did before he joined them were his favorites. He said he has liked a few songs from each album since Mick Taylor left, but he never really liked a whole album the way he likes Exile, Let it Bleed, and a few others. He said the new album changed all that, saying he loves it. He said some reminds him of Exile, some of Some Girls. He said its a great album, the whole thing.

When they finished the last song, I was in the mixing room talking to Dave. Keith and Ronnie came in to hear some songs played back. This is a room with about 400 square feet and there's the big mixing board in the middle, with stacks of speakers recreating the sound at near concert levels. There are two couches in the corner. Keith asked to hear "The Worst" and it sounded excellent. When it was over he asked what I thought. I smiled and asked if we could hear "Moonlight Mile", telling him they really nailed the last take. Dave que'd up "Moonlight Mile" and I cant even tell you how cool it was standing next to Keith and Ronnie, listening to a version of this song that sounded flawless. When it was over I shook Keith's hand and said good bye. He gave me a hug and I floated out of the room. The smile on his face and mine as we listened to that song will be forever etched in my brain.

After the rehearsals, I rode back to the hotel in the crew's van. We walked across the street and closed down a local English pub. I was with their tour manager, their tour accountant, and Bobby Keys. They were all quite nice to me. I'd met Bobby a few times, but I'd never spoken to the others much. Bobby has so many stories, I told him it's his story I should be working on for a screenplay. It was interesting hearing some of their takes on the business side. They work and live with the band, and that's what they know. I doubt these guys really get involved much in the cost of tickets, etc.

The day before I left to Toronto I got a letter saying my script, THE MIDNIGHT RAMBLER, had placed 310 of 6000 in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Nicholl Fellowship Screenwriting contest. I missed the quarterfinals by one point. The judge I spoke with said he liked my story, but "I probably got done in by a Beatles fan." Hopefully someday I'll get the rewrite dialed in and someone will want to make my movie. When that happens, I hope I've got a shot at getting Keith to help me with the soundtrack. You never know, stranger things have happened. Hell, I never imagined I'd get to know Keith Richards and be allowed to watch him rehearse, then get a hug from him as I was leaving. One never knows what "The Hand of Fate" has in store for them.

Stones vs Kings - nobody wins

2005-06-11T11:11:00.000-07:00

Seeing the $1500+ NYC Beacon Theater price sticker for a Stones concert reminds me of the situation we have here in Sacramento where the beloved Kings are pricing themselves out of their own market, or at least the market that used to give them a competitive advantage.

When the Kings started getting better, everyone around the league talked about Sacramento's rabid fans, how loyal they were, how loud they were, how we had the longest string of sellouts in the NBA, etc.

Then the ticket prices started escalating. I have four seats in a mid price range, and this year my seats are almost $100 per seat, or $420 for four with parking and gas, or $500 with seats, parking, gas and some cheap arena food for my family and maybe a beer or two, if I'm lucky. That's over twenty grand to see 40 home games, plus another $15K for the playoffs. That's a lot of money to watch basketball, especially when I can just watch it on HDTV in the comfort of my own home. It's really a lot when we're not winning championships.

Most fans now dont attend all the games for the financial reason. Many split their seats three, four or five ways. Instead of having the same loyal fans attending all the games and screaming their brains out, now you have a corporate presence that makes the crowd resemble the crowd at a Dodger game. They come late, cheer at the wrong time, root for the opposition without fear, and they won't think twice about talking on their cell phone through the exciting finish, if they stay that long.

Unfortunately, the Stones are moving themselves in this direction. Although they were one of the first rock bands to reach out to corporate sponsorship, it always seemed to be on their terms. It didn't interfere with the music, the message, or the ability to go see them play a few concerts every tour. I've been doing that since 1975, and each tour has always gotten me excited, until now.

When Jovan sponsored the 81 tour, no one really noticed. Even when Sprint or larger corporations came later, it went mostly unnoticed. Now they have allowed their organization to be ran by the very corporations and The Establishment they used to seem to be against. In the past, if they allowed a corporation to buy the rights to a song for a commercial, the commercial didn't air over and over again to the degree you hear with Led Zepplin and the Cadillac products its the jingle for. Now, It seems as if that may be the next step for the band to pursue.

Their new tour announces record sell outs, saying they'll break their old record and do $400 million in gross receipts. Then, some of the shows announced as sell outs have extra tickets, so they have post sale events. For an extra hundred dollars in fan club membership fees, you get the rights to buy tickets to a previously anounced sell out. Then, after that still doesn't fill the house, they have a fire sale and drop prices to where you're paying a hundred bucks a seat and your sitting in front of a guy who paid maybe twice that amount. The airlines do this, but its based on supply and demand, and when you buy your ticket. The Stones do the same, but they're controlling the supply, and trying to force the demand.

I say the Stones, but I honestly doubt Keith Richards, Charlie Watts or Ron Wood have a clue to the details of all this. I'm sure Mick is involved, but to what degree, I have no idea. I would think even he is concerned to some degree. I think they've allowed the promoter the run of the hen house on this tour, and in the end, they'll end up killing a bunch of us hens who used to be the one's they needed to survive. I've proudly promoted the Stones all my life. Now I sit back, hoping and praying they have some good new material and the killer on stage seats they've promised us. The big question is will the true fans can get their butts into these seats, without having to be clipped thousands of dollars to do so, or will it just be another way to expolit the corporate money and the well to do who can afford to drop these prices on tickets.

I've been lucky, I've seen The Stones in a smelly 500 seat beer bar, and I've seen them rehearse and record. Most true fans would give up a great deal for an experience like this. Most true fans deserve this type of an experience, especially when they've supported the band for twenty, thirty or forty years. When they played theater shows on their last tour and most seats went out at fifty bucks, that was a kind thing to do for the fans. Now, when they have a chance to create additional opportunities for their most loyal fans, they seem to be spitting in their faces, just like they pissed on an old gas station wall so many years ago.

I believe professional sports, in many cities, is pricing itself out of their own market. Unfortunately, I see the Stones going down the same path with what has occured since they've announced their most recent tour.

Chelsea's paper

2005-03-12T16:59:00.000-08:00

My daughter Chelsea has a new writing teacher this semester at Holy Trinity School; Mrs Shelnutt. Suddenly, Chelsea has a keen interest in writing. It's amazing what a good teacher can do. She's teaching her to use simile's, and she does a good job comprehending this concept with this one pager she just did, which I really liked:

A new mother's baby has just been born. She looks into the eyes of her new born baby. Her eyes are like looking into an emerald gem, and her hair's soft as silk, tinted with an amber gold. Her cheeks are the color of salmon, with a background of porcelin skin.

She starts to assume how her life will be with her new child.

Joyfully, thoughts run through her head as fast as a bullet. As she dozes off into her own world, she pictures herself playing in a field outside her house, pushing her daughter back and forth on the swing. They stop to go get themselves a glass of ice cold water, like the ice frosted over the water on a winter morning. As they finish their beverage, they run into the family room, tackling each other onto the couch, and start to giggle.

Suddenly she fast forwards ahead and see's her daughter walking toward her father, giving him a kiss good-bye. She's reaching for her things to go away to college. moments later, she's in a wedding vale walking down the red caroeted aisle.

Quickly, she is zoomed into the future once again, to see her daughter in a hospital bed. Her daughter stares into the eyes of her new born daughter just as she had done moments ago. As the mother opens her eyes, tears drip down her rosy red cheeks.

Chelsea Lewis
6th Grade Music Story

Screenwriting Contests

2005-03-12T00:12:00.000-08:00

In between late 2003 and mid 2004, I entered about a dozen screenwriting contests with the first and second drafts of THE MIDNIGHT RAMBLER.

When I was at Lew Hunters Screenwriting Colony in 2003 ( www.lewhunter.com ), Lew suggested I enter some contests to guage how my script was coming along.

I finished my first draft shortly after returning from The Colony, and I sent it to a half dozen contests.

The Indie Producer IP award contest was the first, and only, contest to contact me.I was notified I was a top ten finalist in January, 2004. Perla and I were invited to an awards show at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills. I brought along my mentors, Pat Mulvihill and Lew Hunter. When we arrived, we were impressed with the red carpet treatment, the photographers taking our picture and I even got interviewed by one of the ET type of shows. I'm confident the footage never saw the light of day.

Although I didn't win, it was a fun evening. John Favreau gave a motivational speech about his recent success with the screenplay he wrote for the film ELF, as did Alec Sokolow, the writer for Toy Story and Cheaper by the Dozen. I walked away pretty pumped up. Within a few weeks, I'd finished the next draft, which I entered in another half dozen contests.

After a few months of not hearing anything, I started to get discouraged. Even though I felt I had an interesting story, I had no formal writing experience or training and without any recognition, I figured it would take me years to get to a level where I could expect to have a script that was worthy of being made into a film. At the same time, the non-compete agreement I'd signed when I sold my company in 1999 had expired. I was offered a position as VP of New Business Development with MSA Solutions; a company owned by a former client and friend of mine. For all practical purposes, at this point I was planning on writing as a hobby while I concentrated on my new career.

A few months after entering the last group of contests, I needed to search the internet for a business document regarding a restaurant Perla and I were going to open in 1999. As I typed my name in a search engine, I found the top listings were contests I'd entered and placed in. I got a couple Honorable Mentions and a Top 5 finish. I was dumbfounded. How come these contests hadn't contacted me as the IP contest had done? I was now in the midst of a full time job and another rewrite was going to be difficult as I was traveling alot, and as any writer will tell you, to write successfully you need to be able to focus and concentrate on your subject. I'd also promised Perla I'd write as a hobby. She didn't like my all night writing sessions. She wanted me to focus on my new job, our family, and our real estate investments.

Tonight, while doing another search on my name, I found another contest I placed in with the last batch of entries I'd sent in. This time, Script Magazine has me listed as a Second Round Finalist. Again, its something they never notified me of.

Now I'm wondering how well my script can do if I start a third draft.

"Third" is a misleading number. It's actually about draft number one hundred, with the number Three representing the two I've sent to the contests, and the third I'm fixing to start right now.

Wish me luck.

http://www.themidnightrambler.com/

Rolling Stones 2005 - 2006 World Tour

2005-03-09T23:12:00.000-08:00

When I received some insider news today that there will be a new Stones tour this year, I found myself reflecting on how lucky I am. Back when music started playing an important role in my life, I could have picked The Beatles or Led Zeppelin or another band as my favorite. While I might have been able to enjoy their music for my entire life, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to continue to see them in concert. Certainly, no other band would have the impact on my life the Rolling Stones have had.

Stones concerts have been significant events in my life. From Paris to Cleveland to Los Angeles, I've seen about fifty of them since 1975. I've seen them play in places that range from one hundred thousand seat stadiums, to a smelly beer bar on Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago, to intimate theaters, to the Fillmore in San Francisco, where I got to watch them rehearse before starting their 1999 tour. I've lost jobs, missed my 20th high school reunion and I've slept overnight for days on a lawn chair in the freezing cold to get tickets to their shows.

In recalling the years as a fan, I pulled this except from my "someday" to be published novel; THE MIDNIGHT RAMBLER.

"So, how do you know Keith Richards. Did you repo his car?”

“You mean his limo?”

“C'mon, I'd like to hear the story.”

She seems genuinely interested in the story, and in me. Once again, we're talking trouble. Either way, it makes talking with her enjoyable.

“I saw the Stones for the first time in the summer of 1975, and it changed my life. I grew up to become a husband, a father, and a successful businessman. Through it all, I've remained a huge Rolling Stones fan. Looking back on that night in '75, I view it as one of the most important events of my life.”

“Really? Like when your kids were born, that kind of importance?” She asks.

“Of course not, but important nonetheless. Have you ever seen the Stones in concert?”

“No, but you interest me, and if you like them so much that you’d name your son after one of them, I guess I should try and see a show while they’re still around. Where are they playing after San Diego?”

“Why don’t you come with me to see them in San Diego?”

Major mistake. The second that came out I realized what I’d said. How could I expect Monica to stay home with the kids while I took someone else to the show, especially Elena? I gotta be nuts.

“We’ll see. First let’s take care of business, but if it would work out and if you’d take me with you, I’d love to go. I’ve always liked their music.”

“Fair enough, we’ll play it by ear”.

She game me a puzzled look.

“It’s a saying that means we’ll wait to hear what happens, kinda like letting the information that passes through our ears be the deciding factor on whether we’ll go to the show together or not.”

“OK, go on,” she says, tossing me another beer. So far, she’s matching me, beer for beer. I continue telling her about the first time I saw the Stones.

“So here I was, all of 15 years old. In that one night, I learned first-hand that there was more danger and excitement in life than I’d been exposed to in the suburbs of Chicago. That night, I listened to music in a way I’d never listened before. I sat mesmerized for two hours, never having seen or heard anything like that. I learned there were things my parents, my schoolteachers and even my friends hadn’t tried to, or couldn’t have, taught me. Things I needed to see, and hear, in person. I learned there was more to explore than I was being shown, and immediately I knew I wanted to see all of it. It’s like a door was opened to the rest of the world, and I was invited to come in.”

“That’s a pretty powerful message you got from just a concert.”

Elena chugged the rest of her Old Style, flicked it in the trash. She popped the top on another without skipping a beat.

“Your right, it was. Everything just clicked. I knew I was gonna be seeing them so I’d been listening to their music non-stop for weeks before the show. That made the it great because I knew most of the words to the songs they played. But it was more than that. Here were these two guys, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and boy, did they capture my attention. Mick was the entertainer, singing and dancing non-stop for two hours. But while Mick was cool, the guy who really caught my interest was Keith. The way he played his guitar and moved his body to the sound he was making was mesmerizing. The confidence he displayed in himself was unlike anyone I’d ever seen. I’m not sure why I was so locked into this guy, but for the two hours they played, I barely took my eyes off him.”

“They call him “Gitano”, or Gypsy, in my country.” Elena says.

“Yeah, I’ve heard him called that ... a Pirate. So anyway, that tells you how I came to know who Keith Richards is.”

“But how’d you get to know him? I would think he isn’t that accessible”

“The hand of fate, that’s the best way I can explain it”.

I went on to explain the first time I met him was in passing at LAX, just a quick ‘Hi, how ya doing?” The circumstances as to why I was even at the airport that night made me believe in fate. My dream had always been to meet him someday.

"One night, when I was about 23, I was home sick with a 103 fever. It was late at night and I suddenly realized I’ve lost a plane ticket I had at my house for a flight I was taking the following week. I called the airline and they said I could wait until my travel agent opened on Monday, or I could come down to the airport anytime and go to the airline counter and fill out a lost ticket form, stopping anyone from cashing it in. I went right to the airport at midnight, walked in the door, and ran right into, of all people, Keith Richards. I passed him, stopped, and said 'Hey Keith". He stopped, turned around, shook my hand, and got in his limo after I'd babbled something about being a big fan. When I got home, I found the plane ticket right away. That’s an example of fate."

"You've got to be kidding?" Elena asks.

"Swear on a bottle of Jack".

"What's that mean"

"If I ain't telling the truth, I've got to drink a whole bottle of Jack Daniels".

"You ever seen anyone do that?"

"Yeah, actually I have ... not a pretty sight."

The Stones have been like a good friend to me over the years. Their music is the soundtrack to my life. Monica and I started thinking about having kids in the early 90’s, after we’d been married a few years. This is when the thought first crossed my mind of naming my son, if we had a boy, after Keith Richards.

We had our first child in March of 1993, and it was a girl. We named her Chelsea. Monica wanted to name her Dixie, after some chick she'd seen on a soap opera. Being from Colombia, she thought that was a cool name. I explained it wasn't.

There’s a Stones song called “You can’t always get what you wan’t, and her name is mentioned in the song. When Monica said Chelsea and Dixie were her choices, it was a no-brainer for me, and Monica never saw it coming.

Rob sings a line from YCAGWYW.

I went down to the Chelsea drugstore
To get your prescription filled
I was standing in line with Mr. Jimmy
And man, did he look, pretty ill
We decided that we would have a soda
My favorite flavor, Cherry red.

“We got pregnant again in 1996.”

“I like how you say we got pregnant,” Elena comments. “You really love your wife a lot, don’t you”.

Good question.

“I proved that to you a few hours ago. I’ll bet that doesn’t happen very often, does it?”

Elena ponders the question, then smiles seductively at Rob.

“No, it doesn’t.”

I’m feeling real comfortable with Elena. I really like her. Once you get past the sexual part with a beautiful woman, you can have quite a nice relationship. It’s really a big ego boost to be with someone like Elena and not be sleeping with her. I’d forgotten about that. It’s been a while since I’ve had any chick friends.

“When it came time to discuss names again, Monica said if were going to do it, let’s do it right. Make it “Keith Richards Sampson”, she announced one day. She said we should let everyone know our intentions, and we needed to make sure we got a birth announcement to Keith himself, she insisted."

We had a son on January 20th, 1997. With God leading the way, Keith Richards Sampson was born.

I went on to explain how we had a “zero” birthday party at the hospital in the birthing room on the day after he was born. It made the front page of the local Folsom Telegraph Newspaper. My wife saw one of these parties on Oprah and she thought it would be a fun way to celebrate, right there in the birthing room.

After my son was born, we spent a few days making a birth announcement CD to give to everyone, especially to Mr. Richards himself. The announcement was cool, and we thought Keith would like it, if we could find a way to actually get it to him. Inside the announcement, I placed a short letter explaining why I’d named my son after him, and I asked if he would send my son an autographed picture. We also included a small necklace for his granddaughter Ella Rose, who was a little older than my son.

I didn’t hear anything back for a few months and then one day my son got the autographed photo in the mail from Keith Richards. It said:

To Keith Richards Sampson

With Love,

Keith Richards

P.S. You have a hell of a father. Ella, I’m sure will want to thank him. Soulful.

Hey Dad, maybe we can hook them if he likes older chicks.

I was very surprised to get the letter. I was floored that Keith Richards told my son he has a helluva Dad. Keith even taped a couple guitar picks to it, giving it a custom touch. The surprises continued a few weeks later when we got invited to come to L.A. to meet him at the studio they were recording at.

We walked in at midnight and before we saw anyone else, Keith came up and introduced himself to my wife and I.

“Rob, Monica, welcome to my home”, Keith said as he greeted us in the hallway. His shirt was open, and he had a drink in one hand, a smoke in the other. I couldn't have scripted it any better.

I was speechless. This was like a dream; definitely one of my better one’s. Keith walked us into the kitchen area and poured us a couple of Stoli’s with a splash of orange/cranberry, on ice. Yeah, that’s right, Keith Richards made us a drink!

We got introduced to several people who were either working on the album or were friends of Keith’s. None of the other Stones were there, just Keith working by himself on mixing their new album; Bridges to Babylon. We got to meet and spend some time with Fred Sessler, one of Keith’s best friends. Until seven the next morning we hung out with the guy I named my son after. He was polite, honest, open, witty and quite talented, that last part became obvious as I got to watch him work. It verified every reason I named my son as I did.

There are certain qualities this man has that I hope my son will grow up with. To those that don’t know him that probably sounds absurd, but to those who do know the man, that probably sounds right on the mark. In one sense, Keith is worldly. In another, he's like your buddy next door, the one who likes to have a good time. He seems like someone you can trust, an impression you immediately get after you spend some time with him. He doesn’t lie to himself, or anyone, about who he is. He seems to have a pretty good handle on that concept. He's like Hunter Thompson in many ways; brutally honest and sincere, a true artist, and a guy with a constitution that most people can't keep up with, and a few have died trying. You see what you get, and you get what you see when it comes to Keith Richards.

That first night I met him, I tried to act like I do with any of our friends. I didn't want to seem too star struck. I think I did make a few trips to the bathroom to look in the mirror and pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, but that wore off pretty fast. Keith makes you feel pretty comfortable around him. At first, I felt a bit out of place. After a while it felt as if it was cool for us to be there. Keith really respected our gesture in naming our son after him. It wasn’t just a passing thought, it was a decision that really mattered to us, and he recognized that. Fred told me he carried the announcement around with him and he said Keith had shown it to quite a few people, always saying something like “Can you believe someone named their kid after me, of all people?!”

The rest of the night was like a dream. One moment I was talking to Waddy Wachtel and Bernard Fowler, when Waddy got called away to the phone because Warren Zevon was looking for him and "he's hammered", Fred laughed. The TV was on and someone played back a tape from earlier that night of someone playing Wild Horses on Jay Leno. Later in the evening, at about 4am, Keith insisted we all watch live coverage of a womens tennis tournament. He was really impressed with Martina Hingis, and he seemed to know everything about this new star. He also seemed to know alot about many subjects, from current events to our givernments shooting down a passenger airline and then covering it up, some inside information he'd gotten from a friend in the FBI.

Bernard told me Keith has the memory of an elephant. I tested it, asking him about being electrocuted in 1965 on stage in Sacramento. He told us the story in great detail, like it happened on the past tour and not thirty some years earlier. At one point, Monica and I sat in the mixing room with Keith and one of the producers, a very talented man named Don Was. Keith had three rooms he was mixing songs in; one with Don Was, another with another Producer named Rob Fabroni and a third that he worked in by himself.

Sitting at the mixing board with Don, we were listening to a new rocker called “Flip the Switch”. I recall Don saying "here's the part that sounds like Mick Taylor", and he flipped some nobs and isolated the guitar so that was all you could hear. Keith was laying on the floor in front of the board. What a cool song I remember thinking when I first heard it. Don asked my opinion on the ending as they were experimenting with a couple different options. I couldn’t believe he asked for my opinion, and then justified it by adding “You’re a fan, what do you think?”

Keith popped up from where he’d been laying on the ground in front of the mixing table, interested in my reaction. They were experimenting with a fade out at the finish of the song. I said I thought it should end abruptly, kinda like how it starts off.

Don Was is really something else. He’s one of these people you meet briefly in life who is extremely talented and you sense that within about a minute of talking to the dude. I found myself thinking that no matter what this guy chose to do, he would probably be successful at it. The whole night was pretty amazing, a dream come true for any Stones fan, or anyone who named their child after someone they admired and then got to know how that person really appreciated the gesture. What a cool gift to give a person, the gift of allowing an admirer to meet you. I was sure that Keith must really dig having that opportunity when it was with the right people. I could also imagine that like all of us, he gets to meet his share of assholes.

For the rest of the night we hung out. Keith continued to be just as cool as I thought he would be. He took us to the back of the studio, and he played his new reggae cut off the album. It was called “You Don’t Have To Mean It” and the lyrics were real catchy. At one point I was standing next to Keith, smoking Marlboro’s, and I don’t even smoke. I did that night. I was grooving to the music with him and my wife as the song was playing on a little tape player. Kate Hudson, Goldie Hawn's daughter, was there with us. I was figuring I could die in peace right then. Keith then showed us around the studio. His guitar case was something else. Seeing all those familiar guitars that have made such good music was pretty impressive, as were the dozens of sketches Woody had done that were hanging on the walls everywhere.

As the sun rose, I didn't want the night to end, but I knew my wife was fading fast. I hated to ask, but if I didn’t take a picture, no one would ever believe this happened. As we were leaving we asked Keith if he minded if we took a picture with him. He suggested a second picture in case the first one didn’t come out. We said goodbye and he gave us a hug, telling us it meant a lot to him that we named our child after him. As I left the room he was just turning up the volume to a familiar song, “Street Fighting Man.” It was about 7 a.m. and it appeared that Keith was just getting his second wind.

Elena listened to the whole story without saying a word.

“That is so cool. Has your son met him yet?”

“Yeah, Keith invited us backstage before a show in Paris on the last tour."

"How do you get tickets to all these shows?"

"He’s been great about letting us order our tickets through him, so I’ve gotten some good seats I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to get without paying major scalper dollars. He also leaves us backstage passes sometimes, so we get to hang out backstage with the band and their friends, family and guests. He is so nice. A couple times, just before they go on stage, he and Monica have been sitting there in the tuning room discussing child psychology and raising kids."”

“That’s unbelievable, but I believe you. How many times have you seen them in concert?”

“Somewhere around fifty, I don’t really have a count going.”

“You mentioned he helped you with tickets for the San Diego show on Thursday, what’s that about?”

“It’s a surprise, classified info.”

“Your serious?”

“Very”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, I can tell you he arranged to get us 30 seats together on the floor and we did a contest for an internet based fan club called Undercover to see who would win the seats. There’s 29 people flying in from all over the world. We’re having a party in the hotel where the Stones are staying. I’ve got a suite there and at 3pm, day of the show, were meeting there to distribute tickets and get primed for the concert. It's the listmaster and founder Steve's birthday. When Keith heard about the party, he said he wanted to stop by.”

“That’s a great surprise, everyone will be astonished”

“Actually, that’s not the surprise. The surprise is much bigger and better.”

“Really, now you have my interest. What do I have to do to accept your invitation from earlier, assuming it still stands?”

“Just say yes”

“Yes”

“It’s that easy? Can I meet Keith Richards?”

“I cant make any promises, but if your with me, that improves your chances”

“And I get to be involved in the surprise, whatever that is?”

“Yes” This was the only "yes" I was gonna give her. She got up and came towards me. She had a look in her eye that said she wanted to make another run at me.

As tempting as the situation presented itself, my soul took over from the devil and I was protected once again.

She sits on the bed, next to the chair I’m in. I really believe, out of respect for me, and possibly for Monica, she decides not to pursue it any further. She shook my beer can and asked if I was slowing down.

“Slowing down? You ever shotgun a beer?” I ask her.

“Nope, what’s that mean?”

I grabbed the last two Old Styles. There was a can opener next to the mini bar. I used it to put a small hole in the side on the bottom of each can as I held them upside down. I sat next to her on the bed, handing her one of the cans, upside down.

“OK, put your finger over the hole… now start shaking the can…without letting any beer come out the hole… shake it some more… ok, now turn it over and start sucking out the hole…ok, now pull the tab…suck harder, harder, c’mon…go, go… good job.”

“Cool. That was fun. I’ve never drank a beer that fast, not even close. I’ve gotta remember how to do that.”

She watched me do mine as I gave her another lesson.

“I’m still not tired, ‘bout you?” She asked.

"I’m wide awake"

At that point I was totally comfortable waiting until 8am when I could get the money into the hotel security box.

"It’s probably good that were out of beer."

“We can sleep by the pool during the day, and then take it easy tomorrow night. That work for you?”

“Yep, that works.”

“Why don’t you break out those mini’s from the plane and I’ll get us some OJ and we can have a couple screwdrivers. While your at it, tell me a good repo story Rob Sampson, and you know what?”

“What”

“Why are all the good one’s married?”

“They’re not” I tell her.

“How’s that”

“You just gotta keep your eyes open and be ready, it’ll come to you. You also might have to look a little. Either way, it’s called fate, and if you believe in it, it will happen to you. But you gotta really believe. If you don’t believe, it ain’t gonna happen.”

“Thanks Rob, you’re really sweet. I like you a lot and we’re gonna have fun this week. This job is a gas. I’m not sure exactly how you repossessor’s operate, but my guess is this assignment will be right up your alley. You’re a natural, I can see that already. But first, tell me more about how you started repossessing cars and about the business, what kind of scams you guys pull, stuff like that. It’s important I know more about you. We need to come off as a married couple, you know? Think of me like your guardian angel, I’m gonna lead you through this job.”

Rob walks over and puts a CD in the stereo.

“Ever heard this song?” I ask her as the beginning of Midnight Rambler starts.

“Doesn’t sound familiar, is it a good one?”

“It’s my favorite song, it’s called Midnight Rambler. I’ve liked this song since I saw them play it live back at that first show, but it really started to hit home after I started repossessing cars, especially those I’d get after midnight.”

"Hey Big Guy!"

2005-03-05T07:24:00.000-08:00

Why is it so difficult for people to lose weight, especially Americans?

I've been around for forty-five years, and I'd like to be around for forty-five more. My kids are Eight and Eleven, and I love them dearly. The problem I face is one which many Americans face; Poundage. The real problem I see, as I'm staring in the mirror, are the facts facing people who carry enough extra weight where it has a serious effects on their health, and their ability to live not only a long life, but a happy one. I don't know anyone who wants to be fat, and those who say they don't mind it are lying.

For the most part, I'm a positive person who has a great life. I've been married for sixteen years to a wonderful woman, we have a beautiful family, we live in a nice house in a nice neighborhoodand, I have lots of friends, and one would think everything is just peachy. For the most part, it is. Except for one thing.

To those who don't know me, the first impression I make can be summed up in two words; "big guy". I'm 6'1 and as of this morning I weigh almost 270 pounds, or about eighty pounds more than when I got married. For the past five years, I've been as high as 280, and as low as 240. If you graphed it out, it would look like a prototype design for a roller coaster at a new theme park.

I've tried everything from Atkins to South Beach to "The Jesus Diet"; starvation. I tried to start exercising last summer, but ended up tearing the meniscus in my knee. During the rehab, I even tried the Vicodin diet. I lost about thirty pounds in two months. I was on so many pain pills, I lost my appetite. When I realized I was becoming addicted, I quit cold turkey. I went through Heroin like withdrawls, so I'd pass on that one if you are tempted by the thirty pound weight loss result.

I've also tried doing weight bets. At the Super Bowl, 2004, I got ten people to put in $250 for the "Stock Broker Weight Bet". Everyone picked a stock and we put the money into purchasing as many shares of their stock as $250 would buy. The person picking the best stock would get 25% of the pot. The remaining 75% would be divided amongst the people who lost over 10% of their body weight, with 25% going to the person losing the highest percentage of their weight.

Over the following year, two stocks went up in value and the other eight tanked. Fortunately, one guys stock went up enough to cover the rest of our losses, so the pot remained near the original $2500. Of ten people, only two lost over 10% of their body weight, with most refusing to even weigh in on Super Bowl Sunday, 2005, for obvious reasons. The guy who took the bet seriously made a little over $1200. I lost eighty pounds, but I gained seventy during the same time period, so I finished out of the money. After this test, I wouldn't make any wagers on Kirstie Alley succeeding with her "put the pressure on myself by getting on national TV as a weight watcher spokesperson" bet against losing weight.

How did I get to this point? My wife is from Colombia and she's in fabulous shape. How does she do it? I can tell you. I watch her every day, but for some reason, I don't seem to be able to follow her lead. She eats responsibly, she exercises regularily, and she probably has an active metabolism which I would presume is related to her active approach at life.

I, on the other hand, eat irresponsibly, rarely exercise, and I have a lazy approach to life when it comes to physical activity. To examine the differences, I go back to my childhood. As a youngster growing up in suburban Chicago, many times it was easier for my parents to stop at McDonalds, or White Castle, than to cook at home. We picked my Dad up every night from the train station as he came home from work in Chicago. Many nights, it was past dinner time, so stopping on the way to get me a quick burger, fries and a milk shake was an easy choice. What started as a convenience soon became a life-long habit, bordering on an addiction.

We live in an instant gratification society, and fast food gives a person instant gratification. When I graduated high school, I weighed close to 200 pounds. At age 19, I chose to move to California on my own. During that first year, I was broke, but I lived at the beach. I had nothing in my fridge, and I was always on the go as a result of the active lifestyle you live at the beach. When I came back to Chicago to visit the following summer, I was down to 170, tanned and looking good.

As I started working and making more money, I started gaining some of the weight back. By the time I got married in 1988, I was back around 190. From there, my life went uphill at a rate which matched my weight gain; significant. My wife and I started our own business and the stress and long hours made exercise difficult. Poor food choices became more common for me, and soon I started gaining more and more weight. Everyone used to joke that married life was treating me good and I must be eating too much of my wife's cooking, but my wife didn't cook. She grew up in a house with a maid.

Over the next ten years we built and sold seven companies, hitting a home run on the last one. I retired at age 39 and figured the pounds would just fall off as I now had a more relaxed life style, and more time to exercise. I was wrong. Six years later, I find myself in the same situation.

"Willpower, persistance and discipline" is how my wife describes what it will take for me to lose the weight. She says her Mom instilled those traits in her, and that gives her the ability to watch what she eats and to exercise regularily. She also points out my age, adding how it will keep getting more difficult if I don't do it now.

I look at my kids and I wonder if I'm providing them with the proper tools to not face the struggles I face with this challenge. In today's society, everything is more convenient. Someday, they claim they'll invent that little pill that makes weight control easier. I don't think I can wait that long.

During this season of Lent, I've given up alcohol and cheese, two major vices of mine. If I really want to make a sacrifice, if I really want to deny myself some of the pleasures in my life, I need to rethink everything I put in my mouth. I also need to start exercising. Someday, I'll have a different take on it when someone see's me and says "Hey, Big Guy, how's it going?".

I can become "Big" in more than a physical sense if I can develop the willpower, persistance and discipline to get off my ass and start doing something about this problem.

Goodbye Chris Webber

2005-02-26T16:35:00.000-08:00

While away on vacation, the Kings traded Chris Webber ... for basically nobody.

According to the Kings web site, 60% of the fans polled hated the trade, 11% loved it. I'm in the latter category.

While I feel Chris Webber helped Sacramento grow into a good team, I felt we would never win a championship with Chris. Something controversial always seems to follow him. From the timeout that cost the Fab Five a National Championship, to his battles with Don Nelson, to his inability to be a clutch player and a team leader, Chris Webber seems to be more of a cancer than anything else. Sure, his stats look as good as his smile, but something about the dude just never adds up. When he bagged on his teammates after losing in the playoffs last year, it was a typical example of why teams with Chris Webber can't win. With his talent, he should be a leader, on and off the court. In my opinion, he's neither.

Hopefully, Chris will go on to reach his potential and lead Philly to the finals; against the Kings. If the Kings can't regroup in time, I wish Chris the best and hope he can finally grow into the man and the player he desires to be.

I just don't think it would have ever happened in Sacramento.

Indio and The Cannon

2005-02-23T00:57:00.000-08:00

We're on vacation with the family and one of Chelsea's friends; Emily Arenchild. We're in our RV at a place called Outdoor Resorts in Indio, Ca. It's the Beverly Hills of RV Parks, but were feeling like trailer trash surrounded by million and a half dollar Prevost RV's. It hasn't stopped raining since we arrived, but the dogs are having fun.

I still can't believe the news about Hunter Thompson. In reading all the articles posted about him today, I've heard several people mention how he would copy Hemmingway and Faulkner, literally re writing their words to try and feel how they felt when they wrote. I think I'll try that with FEAR AND LOATHING, maybe going through the first chapter or two, and then I'll either try taking another stab at re writing my book; THE MIDNIGHT RAMBLER, or I'll start a new one. I haven't been writing enough lately, and this news makes me realize how important writing is to me.

Between the rain and the bad news, the last two days have been a real bummer. Luckily, I got a case of wine from Darrell Corti before I left. Tommer and I had lunch with him last Thursday, and afterwards I asked him to set me up with a case. I told him we usually bought $15-$20 wine at Costco, and he filled a box for us. We're halfway through the box, and Perla and I are amazed at the quality. The best one so far was a $6.99 bottle of red from Portugal. I met a guy who said Darrell used to supply wine to the Reagans in the White House, and I saw an article on the wall of his store from the WSJ, calling Darrell "America's foremost authority on wine", or something like that. I'd like to do business with Darrell someday, he's a nice enough fellow, and he sure knows his wine and his food.

I'm hoping they build that cannon at Hunter's compound so they can blast his ashes all over the property; his last wish as stated to his closest friends. When a person dies, they should get their last wishes fulfilled. I say, the crazier the wish, the better the closure for your friends and family. My Living Trust calls for my family and closest friends to fly to Wrigley Field, wait in line for the front row Left Field bleacher seats, and then to dump my ashes over the wall on the Ivy at the start of the next Cubs season. One time, while researching the idea, I was drinking Old Style's with a bunch of my new best friends, the kind you always meet while on a beer buzz at Wrigley Field in the bleachers during a day game. One guy tells me he saw that happen once, but the wind was blowing out and the guy with the Urn got the ashes all over him and everyone he was with. I've made sure Perla knows the proper procedure, as I'm sure she'll be there to execute the deed.

Goodbye Hunter

2005-02-21T22:01:00.000-08:00

When I read FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, it was a similar experience to the first time I saw Keith Richards. The impact of both have been significant to me. When Keith hit the opening chords to Honky Tonk Woman at Chicago Stadium on a hot summer night in 1975, I was mesmerized. Thirty years and fifty Stones concerts later, I now know the man I named my son after.

I've always answered the "who is your favorite writer?" question without hesitation ... Hunter Thompson. After spending twenty years in the auto repossession industry, I had many stories to tell when I retired in 1999. Although I am still an aspiring, unpublished writer, I have written almost non-stop for the past five years. THANKS HUNTER! You've passed it on to many people, and I'm blessed to be one of your disciples. I sent my script, THE MIDNIGHT RAMBLER, to Hunter last year. I didn't get, or expect, a response. It didn't get returned, so I figured he got it. I hope he got past the "you are my hero" intro letter. Either way, now it doesn't really matter. I've lost a mentor and a true inspiration.

Rest well Hunter, I hope you've found peace.

CHELSKEITH