Adam Brucker Online

I’m as guilty as the next guy of dropping the occasional corporate buzzword du jour, but there are a few words that I just won’t use in a business setting without apologizing first.

Robust, paradigm, synergy, etc. - you know the usual suspects.

I’m happy to report that the number one offender in my book, pronouncing the word “niche” as “neesh” with the long “e” sound, is an affectation on the wane.

Now, I know that Webster’s concedes that it’s acceptable to say it this way, but c’mon, no-one ever said “neesh” before the skinny guys in the black shirts and the hipster dot-com glasses started to really run with it in the late 90’s.

Well, ten years later it seems that people are finally coming to their senses. The last 3 mentions of “niche” that I have heard have all been delivered with the more pedestrian, but so much better, pronunciation that had fallen out of favor for so long.

Welcome back, I say.

Now, if the people who spent a semester abroad in London during college would just stop closing their emails with “cheers” we’d have the battle won…

But grilled asparagus might work…

Thought this was a very cool shot of Jennie’s delicious handywork on the grill. Click the thumbnail for a bigger version.

Screenshot from the local paper’s web-site:

From a friend…

So I was browsing your blog this morning and noticed a rave review of No Country for Old Men. I recently bought the dvd and just watched it for the first time this weekend.

Frankly, I just don’t understand why anyone thought this movie was remotely watchable. I mean, I enjoyed the psycotic Javier Bardem character and all but there was just so little else…and the ending? Jesus. I actually said to myself as the credits were rolling…”what happened to Lard Ass?”

I’d really love some commentary on why people found this movie enjoyable…I honestly think people give media way too much credit just because a story leaves something out, leaves something to imagination or just doesn’t finish the story that was set in motion. Yes, it was a different way to tell a story but that’s all I saw…

Overall, I just didn’t find it entertaining at all…perhaps I was angered more b/c it won an oscar, etc.

Thoughts?

Okay, I’ll bite…

This movie seems to inspire the same sense of bewilderment in some of its viewers that Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) felt about the rising tide of violence in West Texas in the early 80’s.

Somewhat ironic that much of the audience (see the incredible amount of one and two star reviews on Amazon.com) is completly missing the main theme of the movie: Life can be relentless and complex, and will at no time bend to neatly fit your expectations. There are forces at work that you simply can’t control and it’s an act of conceit to believe otherwise. The sooner that you realize this, the better off you will be.

The big hangup seems to be that the people who didn’t like this film were generally expecting a big shootout out at the end and were disappointed when the directors chose to resolve most of the big plot points off the screen.

If you look at the details presented in the film, it’s pretty clear that:

• Moss is killed by the Mexicans at the motel at the end of the film
• His wife is killed by Chigurh at her house

The only detail left up in the air is who got the money, Chigurh or the Mexicans, and I believe that this is purposefully left unsolved because it really doesn’t matter - the movie was never about the money.

Now, assuming that a second or third viewing of the movie will make sense of the plot points for someone, is a negative reaction to the movie still justified?

Sort of.

You could say that it’s boring, you could say that it’s too “artsy” or violent, you could say that you didn’t like the characters - I suppose all of those would fall into the “you’re entitled to your own opinion category” and it would be tough to objectively argue against such subjective things.

But, to say that the movie was “unwatchable” or didn’t deserve Oscar consideration doesn’t fly with me. Hyperbolic media reactions aside, this film deserves the accolades that it has received, and if you can’t at least “appreciate it,” even if it’s not your cup of tea, then I say order another Bud Light at The Olive Garden and enjoy your breadsticks because, like Sheriff Bell, you’re in for a long hard ride from here on out.

Now, I’m no elitist (in the past week I’ve watched a NASCAR race from start to finish (who’s going to stop that Kyle Busch!?!), seen “Iron Man” in the theater, and yes, have even put back a couple of Bud Lights), but in this case I’d say that if you go beyond not personally enjoying the movie and question others for thinking it’s great, you’re in the wrong on this one.

To be fair, my friend’s comment above doesn’t go this far, and our subsequent email exchange confirmed his open mindedness about the film, but he’s uncommonly reserved compared to most of the people who didn’t like this film.

I’ll also admit to not really answering his “what’s so great about this movie” question - there are much better commentaries out there to read - and also to having asked similar questions myself in the past:

For example, I don’t “get” the new Radiohead album that made the top of every single best of 2007 list last year. I’m still waiting for someone to explain the genius of it all to me, but knowing enough about Radiohead and their prior work (”The Bends” is coming to any desert island I ever get sent to), I’m willing to concede that there is something happening there above and beyond the huge amount of hipster-fanboy fanboying going on.

I’ll also concede that there are plenty of things out there that really are lousy, “No Country For Old Men,” is just not one of them.

And, one last point, depending on your definition of “psychotic,” I’d argue that Chigurh is potentially the least psychotic character in the entire movie.

Other comments?

The Sox are hitting a bit of a rough patch as of late, but my main man Manny Ramirez is keeping things interesting. In yesterday’s 6-3 loss to the O’s:

Manny Ramirez made an over-the-shoulder running catch, then took the time to high-5 a fan in the stands before throwing the ball in to complete a double play.

Love this guy…

Watch the clip here: ESPN Video

Almost 60 dominoes have been mailed out already and the last batch ships first thing Monday morning. Send an email to info@toplers.com if you want in.

All the info is here: http://toplers.com/2

- - -

Current Dominoes: (plus one each in China, Brazil, & Italy) 

Walked back into my office today to the familiar sounds of a bass riff that I had recorded a few years ago. It seems that I had left my iTunes playing all morning and by the time I got back in it had made its way down to the “adam” section.

Figured that I would post a few of these for fun. All were recorded in ‘05 and ‘06, shortly after I got my Mac and started fooling around with GarageBand, the recording program that came with the computer.

All the instruments and effects, both electronic and live, are me with the exception of the guitar on Terror Cafe, which is my buddy Scott playing. I’d hesitate to call any of these “songs” and they’re not terribly good, but it’s a fun look back at what one guy with a few guitars, a computer, and some spare time can do.

Listen at your own risk…

Live Track
(Sounds like it was recorded at Wembley Stadium with Tito Puente sitting in on Bongos)

Terror Cafe
(Named by an insane / paranoid / drunk guitarist who was convinced that many of the cafes along Newbury Street in Boston were hotbeds of terrorist activity. He may have been right…)

07-19-05
(recorded on July 19th, real original…)

Birthday
(recorded on my birthday, real original…)

Pear Gauge
(nonsensical subject line of a spam email I got that day)

Squirrel Jazz Jam
(jennie hit a squirrel with her car on the way to work that am)

Stuck
(no idea…)

Sweaty Betty
(no idea…)

The Vizyy
(no idea…)

Umph
(had been listening to an Umphree’s McGee album earlier that day…)

I’ve been getting a bunch of questions ever since the BanyanIG link in the menu bar above went live so here are a few pictures & videos.

Here’s a link to a very cool panorama of the tree that I saw in Hawaii a few years back:
Banyan Tree Park Panorama

Here’s a video of someone under that same tree (complete with narration):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQMuu1lpIu8

And finally, here’s a picture of my first attempt to grow a bonsai version on my desk. As you can see, I need to try again with some better light:

And what it was supposed to grow into…

I had the opportunity to present to a full house yesterday at a “Practical Innovation” workshop sponsored by a local CPA firm.

A lively crowd (for 7:30 in the morning), representing some very cool local companies made for a fun and well received event.

Here’s a link to the content that I presented: dlj2-innovation-landscape.pdf

I was fortunate enough to be asked to participate as a judge at the undergraduate business plan competition up at CU Boulder last week.

A few thoughts:

1) It was a lot of fun. If “b-plan judge” was a well paid, full time job, I would take it in an instant.

2) The kids, mostly juniors and seniors, were pretty impressive with their suits, power-point presentations, and command of the material. I’m only 11 years out of college and I can tell you that things have changed quite a bit. Plus, the new business school building is really, really nice - also quite a change from the 100+ year old buildings I attended (::cough::) classes in.

3) The two winning teams were the only ones that had brought a physical prototype to look at. Even though the underlying business cases for their products weren’t as strong, having something “real” to present went a long way with the judges. Reminded me of the saying: “nothing speaks louder than working code” that the smart people at Google are so fond of.

4) Every single team was focused on a “real world” product or service of some sort and, without exception, completely ignored the potential online component or application of what they were working on. I’m not sure if this was part of the constraints of the competition, but it seemed odd that a generation of heavy myspace / facebook users wouldn’t include at least one slide addressing these opportunities. It’s a stark contrast from 99% of the business ideas I hear from people who are much older.

This Seth Godin post reminded me of something that happened to me last week:

Long story short, I pull into a downtown parking garage, make a full lap around the 4 stories, find no open spots and end up at the exit in a line of 5 or 6 cars that had all seemed to have met the same fate.

I get up to the booth after a few minutes, hand the guy my ticket, and wait for the gate to go up, assuming that there would be no charge for a 5 minute spin around a full garage.

Well, we all know what happens when you assume, especially in the parking-fee-police-state known as Boulder, CO.

The attendant punches in my ticket and demands a quarter - I begin to give him the “c’mon man, that’s crazy” routine and he immediately says:

You have 30 seconds to give me a quarter or I’m calling the cops.

He was clearly having a bad day, was somehow bothered by all the cars driving through “his garage” without finding a spot (yet not bothered enough to get out of his booth and walk the 5 feet to put out the “garage full” placard), and was taking out his frustration on the local tax paying citizens, knowing full well that he didn’t have to charge anything.

As you can imagine, I was pretty pissed and used the full 29 seconds before he hit the panic button to let him know what I thought of his abuse of “power” and how poorly it reflected on a city known for issuing tons of parking, photo red light, and photo radar tickets. Not to mention the over 8% downtown sales tax that is just the beginning of the nickel & diming that goes on around here.

So anyway, I begrudgingly pay the quarter, go find another parking spot, and spend the better part of the next 4 hours ranting to my friends about how such a small thing managed to really get under my skin.

Fast forward 3 days and I’m paying for a couple of hours of parking at the same garage. I ask the (much nicer) woman who is running the booth what the policy is and briefly explained what happened. She said, “you must be talking about John, people complain about him all the time. And no, we’re not supposed to charge people who can’t find a spot and just pull through.”

She then handed me an extra quarter back with my change and said “sorry he did that, I don’t think he’ll be working here much longer.”

That small, simple act on her part turned my attitude completely around and restored a lot of goodwill. As for John, the bitter under-performing parking lot attendant, I can only imagine his next stop.

75 and sunny on Tuesday, 3 or 4 inches of snow on Wednesday, looking good so far today…

Congrats to my buddy Scott’s band, The Sofa Kings, for packing the legendary Boom Boom Room in San Francisco this past Friday night.

Here’s a taste of a little guitar solo about halfway through the set:

Listen to the rest here: http://www.scottygoldmusic.com/

{and yes, I helped him put together his site. and no, I take absolutely zero credit for the color scheme and the amazingly cheesy tag line. browse at your own risk…}

Stuff worth checking out…

There Will Be Blood: Paul Thomas Anderson (2007) -  Just out on DVD and just as good the second time around. Grab a milkshake and enjoy. “A”

The Black Keys: Attack & Release - The best rock record released so far this year. “A”

John Zorn: The Dreamers - Gets weird about 3 songs in but the all star lineup keeps it all together. “A-”

Gnarls Barkley: The Odd Couple - Not as good as their first but still pretty solid. The last 3 songs are the highlight of the record for me. “B”

Marco Benevento: Invisible Baby - Much more diverse record that I was expecting. Good times. “B”

Kathleen Edwards: Asking For Flowers - Good, not great - especially when compared to her live show. Her voice seems a little thin on this album but some great songwriting makes up for it. “B-”

That Pitchfork post from earlier tonight got my blood up a bit and the “tight pants” reference reminded me of a review of a fun weekend of music that I posted a few years back to a friend’s (now defunct) music blog.

I cover a lot of ground, and was probably jacked up on a few cups of Dunkin Donuts coffee when I wrote it that Monday morning, but it’s a pretty good read that deserves to see the online light-of-day again.

Oh, and I retract my negative comments about Band of Horses’ second album and no disrespect was meant to grocery baggers in general - just the one who may have been at this show…

Enjoy:

-=-=-

Friday Night - Band Of Horses @ Paradise Rock Club

Fun night all around with a big crowd of friends whom I hadn’t seen in a while. BofH’s (which is really just one guy with a pro back-up band) was fantastic, at points… Their debut album, Everything All The Time, is a solid 36 minutes of well written and well played material that sounds a lot like a combination of the guitars from Built To Spill and the vocals from My Morning Jacket - yet somehow seems original and fresh. If you don’t own it, you should - it’s definitely a top album of 2006. These songs were the highlight of the night and, even though we had to wait until after 1AM to hear some of them, were well worth the price of admission. Now…, the rest of the night was a great lesson on why INDIE ROCK GENERALLY SUCKS LIVE.

To The Crowd: If you wore looser clothing and maybe ate something every once in a while, you might have more of an inclination to dance and have a good time. I haven’t seen this many poseur hipster jackasses outside of a bike shop since the Radiohead show at Harborlights earlier this summer and I can’t see how acting like this is in anyway fun. When the band sings their hits, they want you to sing along with the chorus, they want you dance, they want you to high five the guy next to you, they want you to yell and pump your fist at them between songs. Sure, a little beer might get spilled on your extra-small, extra-ironic t-shirt but you know what, sh*t happens and I’m sure that your Mom will wash it out for you in time for your next shift bagging groceries at Whole Foods.

To The Band: Yes, we know you only have 36 minutes of “great” songs - after hearing the crap off of your “lucky-if-it-ever-gets-made second album” that was pretty apparent even without you mentioning it. However, there are a lot of other “great” bands out there who have written “great” songs that you might want to cover - you just have to remember the operative word: “great.” A crappy ELO deep-cut from 1976 is still a crappy song 30 years later and smugly announcing “that was an ELO cover” during one of your 6 minute breaks between your 3 minutes songs does nothing to inspire the crowd to increase their vibrations above the steady 0 degrees Kelvin they’ve been holding at thus far.

That said, “that was an ELO cover” would make a great tight t-shirt slogan - you should submit it to threadless.com (probably best on a green background) and use the cash prize to buy a few Led Zeppelin albums to give you a few good ideas of songs to cover. In fact, I propose that any band that has not made the cover of Rolling Stone magazine at least three times should be contractually required to play at least one Zeppelin tune at each show, preferably in the encore slot.

There is not a band out there that wouldn’t benefit from this suggestion, I am certain of it.

Seriously though, I liked these guys and I wish them well, but I’d catch them soon if you’re interested - you might not get another chance.

Saturday Night - Roger Waters plays Dark Side of the Moon @ Greatwoods

You know who doesn’t need to cover a Zeppelin tune? Roger Waters, that’s who. This is a man who understands showmanship and how to entertain an audience (and it doesn’t hurt that he has one of the greatest modern songbooks to cherry-pick tunes from). Not to mention that it seemed like he had about a million dollar production budget for the show. I sat dead center, about 20 rows back from the stage (see the picture from my phone on the right) and was subjected to a relentless barrage of pyrotechnics, confetti, video effects, lasers, strobe lights, bubbles, smoke, confetti, giant blow up pigs, and an auditory, surround-sound assault that was delivered by about 100 extra speakers set up around the venue. This one goes to 11 indeed!

Too much sizzle and not enough steak you may say? Tell that to the 15,000 people standing in jaw-dropping-spine-tingling amazement during “Great Gig in the Sky” or screaming “We Don’t Need No Education!” at top volume.

This tour has been reviewed to death online so I won’t say anything more here except that you still have a month to see this live around the US. Go ahead make your travel plans and be sure to pay for the good seats - sell one of your kids if you have to, it’ll be worth it.

Sunday Night - The Flaming Lips @ Harborlights

Let’s just say that when you waiting in line to get into a show and the random kid in front of you turns around and excitably asks with a huge smile “have you seen these guys yet?” you know that you are in for a good time.

Wayne Coyne and the boys from Oklahoma City truly embody all that is great about live music and their recent popularity and commercial success is well deserved after 20 tough years together as a band. Still reeling from the spectacle of the night before, I once again found myself in the front section (this time with Jennie) dodging blasts of confetti and streamers, bouncing huge balloons around, and trying to avoid having a seizure from staring too long at the hand held strobe lights being flashed into the crowd by a pack of scantily clad aliens and Santa Clauses. Yeah, read that last one again - Wonder Woman and Captain America were there as well…

The Flaming Lips often get criticized for being overly gimmicky to cover up for a lack of musicianship. My theory is that these reviewers are the same people who would cite the aforementioned Band of Horses show as the best night of their lives…. Either way, they are totally missing the point. A FLips show is designed to do one thing: use any an all possible means to give the audience a chance to peek behind the curtain of their day-to-day reality, transcend all of that bullsh*t, and have a few hours to think about what really matters in life. A sort of psychedelic trip without the psychedelics (for at least some of the crowd…). Who cares if all of their songs are in C or G major if you can realize that it doesn’t matter that you got shafted with the small cube at your new job, or that BMW doesn’t make the new 5 series in the shade of black that you really wanted? Wayne, for all his goofiness, is insistent that you forget all that crap and give the person standing next to you a big hug and have a good time for at least the rest of the show. If some of that sentiment carries over to the rest of your life then all the better.

Oh, and to top it all off, they came back out for a second encore and ended the show with a raging Black Sabbath tune - not Zeppelin but you get the point: these guys are professionals. Given the Boston setting, Aerosmith would have also been an acceptable substitution… Anyway, make sure to put these guys on your list as well.

Help Us Set Something Big In Motion

<===Click the thumbnail for the details

Hey Gang, here’s the info for the test-run of the project I’ve been helping out on that I mentioned earlier this week.

The goal is to get 100 people from across the country to anonymously buy a stranger dinner the night of May 16th, record their experience on Toplers.com, and see where things lead from there.

Have a look at the flyer linked above - all the details are there and participating couldn’t be easier.

If you’re interested in helping us test this concept out, and I hope that you will be, send an email to info@toplers.com and we will automatically reply back to you with the next steps.

Feel free to give me a shout directly (303.715.8099 or adambrucker@gmail.com) if you have any additional questions.

PS - We’re relying on word of mouth to get this going so feel free to pass this invitation along to any family, friends, or co-workers who might also be interested in participating.